When people talk about Split’s tech scene, they usually think of software. That’s why a LinkedIn post by Đani Vrsalović, director of Alpha Sagittarius, about manufacturing in Split caught our eye. Founded in 2018, this Split-based company develops and manufactures drones for light shows – from electronics and mechanics to programming and testing – and does it all right here, in Split.

We asked Đani why they decided to keep the entire process local, what reactions the sentence “we make drones in Split” gets, how experience in the field shapes the design of their LightX drones, how a smaller company competes with big global players and – something we’re especially happy to share – what kind of people they’re looking for right now.

Alpha Sagittarius develops and manufactures drones for light shows in Split – everything from electronics and mechanics to programming and testing. For many, it’s easier and cheaper to outsource production, or at least parts of development. What made you keep the entire process local, and have you ever regretted that decision?

We started developing drones, or unmanned aerial vehicles, back at university. When we decided to commercialise them, we did a lot of things ourselves simply because we didn’t have the money for most serious equipment and external services. We even built our own CNC machine.

Today, the reasons we develop more and more of our own components are somewhat different. The first is the problem of stable supply. When you finally find a component that suits you, problems with availability, delivery times or prices that rise significantly often follow. The geopolitical situation in recent years has complicated this further – China no longer exports certain things, some components can’t be exported to China, the Americans have their own restrictions, and so on. In an environment like that, it’s hard to plan production long term if you depend too much on a single supplier or market.

The second reason is that some things simply don’t work well enough, no matter how expensive or cheap they are. That’s usually when we arrive at our motto: “We can make it better.”

The third reason is long-term and perhaps the most important. We believe the future belongs to companies that control their own key resources, technology and knowledge – in other words, that have as much of their own know-how as possible. Today, relatively many companies can build the drone platform itself, but far fewer can develop and manufacture the entire system.

We haven’t regretted that decision. It’s a harder and more expensive path, especially at the beginning, but in the long run it gives us much greater control over the product, quality and further development.

We believe the future belongs to companies that control their own key resources, technology and knowledge – in other words, that have as much of their own know-how as possible.

When you tell someone abroad “we make drones in Split”, how do they react? Split is rarely mentioned in the context of the drone or aerospace industry – what challenges have you faced so far in building a hardware company in a city the world mostly knows for Diocletian’s Palace?

Generally, people are pleasantly surprised, maybe even more so here than abroad. Unfortunately, many have forgotten that Split has a serious industrial and technical heritage. Over the last twenty years or so, we have been drifting further away from that heritage and turning towards mass tourism.

That base of technical knowledge and creativity still exists, thanks to the universities and a smaller number of quality technology and industrial companies, but it’s increasingly difficult to find quality people in technical professions, especially in Split. The salaries the market demands are also relatively high compared to some other parts of Croatia.

On the other hand, in recent years we’ve noticed an interesting trend – more and more foreign experts are reaching out to us wanting to come live in Split and work with us. So far we haven’t gone down that path in any significant way, but I believe we’ll definitely have to in the future.

Split has one big advantage: if we manage to reconnect the quality of life the city offers with serious technology and industrial jobs, we can become a very attractive location for attracting experts from all over Europe.

Split has one big advantage: if we manage to reconnect the quality of life the city offers with serious technology and industrial jobs, we can become a very attractive location for attracting experts from all over Europe.

You mention that you feed experience from the field directly back into developing the next generation. We’re curious what that looks like in practice – do you have a concrete example of something that went wrong at a show (or surprised you) and directly changed the way you design LightX drones?

We make improvements continuously. Practically every new series gets something new, and where possible, we retrofit those improvements to older series of drones as well.

Fortunately, we haven’t had any major problems, but we have had a number of smaller situations and imperfections we learned a lot from. One simple example that ended up making a big difference is the bottom part of the drone’s housing, which also serves as the LED light diffuser.

The original version was solid, with an opening for the light on the underside. However, during shows we noticed that in stronger wind the drones tilt to compensate for its effect. Because of that, the light was no longer visible enough to the audience from certain angles. We redesigned the entire bottom part of the housing so that it’s transparent and works as one large light diffuser. After testing, we implemented that change across the entire fleet.

That’s exactly how development works for us – what we see in the field goes straight back into the product. We’re currently also planning a new generation of the LightX drone that will bring more significant changes, but we’ll talk more about that when the time comes.

Perhaps the even bigger changes that came from field experience were organisational. As we grew in the number of drones, projects and people, we had to completely change the way we work. Today, much more organisation and structured processes are needed at every step – from managing technical documentation and databases, through procurement and design, all the way to production, testing and field operations.

The drone light show industry is growing globally, and it’s dominated by big players with serious budgets. How does a smaller company from Split cope with that – what is your key competitive advantage, and why would someone choose Alpha Sagittarius?

The market still isn’t saturated. The drone light show is a relatively new form of entertainment that is spreading very quickly and increasingly replacing or complementing traditional fireworks. That’s why there’s still enough room for new companies.

Of course, several large global service providers have already formed, but there are also a large number of small and medium-sized companies. When it comes to the drones themselves, there are also several manufacturers, with Chinese manufacturers certainly the largest by volume and very aggressive on price.

However, in the end it doesn’t really matter to the customer whether you’re a big or a small company. What matters is that they get a quality and reliable product or service, and that they know you’ll be available and able to deliver what they need when they need it.

Our advantage is precisely that we both develop and manufacture drones and use them every day in our own commercial operations. That’s why we don’t develop the product only from an engineer’s perspective, but also from the perspective of the operator and the user.

We know what it means to transport hundreds of drones, prepare them, set them up on location, perform the show, solve a problem in the field and repeat everything the next day at another location. We build that experience into the product. I think our opportunity lies precisely in providing a complete system – from hardware and technology to operational experience, support and the service itself.

And finally, a question for the Split Tech City community – which profiles do you need most right now? Are you planning to grow the team?

Yes, we plan to keep growing the team. We hire quite a range of technical profiles, because developing unmanned systems requires a combination of several disciplines.

Right now we’re interested in CAD and mechanical designers, embedded hardware engineers, aerospace engineers, electronics engineers, RF and wireless communications specialists, and drone operators.

We’re not so much focused on formal education as on concrete knowledge, experience and problem-solving ability. In hardware development we especially value people who aren’t focused only on their own narrow part of the job, but understand the whole product and want to actually build something, test it, see how it works in practice and then keep improving it.