Understanding the market before building anything
True came to us with a clear vision but an open question: who exactly would use this, and how? Drone spraying was already proven technology in Thai agriculture, but adoption was fragmented. Individual pilots operated independently, farmers had no reliable way to find them, and there was no standard for quality or pricing.
We started by mapping both sides of the market. We spoke with farmers in rice and sugarcane regions to understand how they currently hired spraying services and what made them trust an operator. We also interviewed drone pilots to understand how they managed their business, what documentation they carried, and what a typical booking looked like without a platform.
That research shaped every product decision that followed.
Designing for low digital literacy
Thai farmers are not heavy smartphone users. Many use LINE for communication but are unfamiliar with form-heavy apps. This meant the booking flow had to be as close to zero friction as possible.
We settled on a map-first approach. Instead of asking farmers to type addresses or plot sizes, they simply open a map, draw the boundary of their land, and confirm. The app calculates the area and generates a price estimate automatically. A farmer with basic smartphone skills can complete a booking in under three minutes.
The drone pilot app required a different approach. Pilots needed to manage their availability, set their service area, upload compliance documents, and track their bookings. We designed this as a more structured tool, closer to a small business dashboard, while keeping the core actions accessible from the home screen.
Building quality control into the platform
One of the biggest risks for True was reputation. If a poorly trained or uninsured pilot damaged crops, the liability would fall on the platform. Rather than relying on post-incident review, we built the vetting process into onboarding itself.
Pilots cannot accept bookings until they have uploaded their drone license, insurance certificate, and training documentation. True's admin team reviews each submission before approving access. Once approved, pilots carry a verified badge visible to farmers on their profile.
This shifted quality control from a manual process managed by True's operations team into a system the platform enforces automatically.
Three apps, one launch
The farmer app, pilot app, and admin portal were built and launched in parallel within three months. This required tight coordination between design and development, with shared data models and a single backend serving all three surfaces.
The admin portal gave True's team real-time visibility into every booking, every pilot on the network, and every dispute or cancellation. What would have required a dedicated operations team to manage manually was now handled through a single dashboard.
