Rockets and Radars: Zero to Millions in Space and Defence

Martin Majercin | VC Platform | Founder | Angel Investor
  • 0.0 (0)
  • ENTREPRENEURSHIP
  • UPDATED WEEKLY

Proven strategies from space & defence founders who went from zero to millions hosted by Martin Majercin. Perfect for early-stage founders and ambitious talent looking to break into space & defence. Space and defence industries are being rebuilt, not in boardrooms, but by founders in startups and laboratories across the world. Each week, Martin brings you their unfiltered stories and tactics for success. New episodes every Friday.

  1. 90% of Naval Warfare Will Be Autonomous

    5H AGO

    90% of Naval Warfare Will Be Autonomous

    Pavel Panasjuk was running cleantech startups when Russian missiles started hitting Ukraine in 2022. He had zero defencetech experience—his only military knowledge came from reading history books as a hobby. Like many Ukrainian entrepreneurs, he and his co-founder Oleksandr started by buying medkits, cars, ammunition, and bulletproof vests to supply friends in the army. But after a few months, they shifted from buying supplies to building something. So they made a crazy bet—instead of fixing today's problems, they'd design autonomous submarines for the war 15 years from now. They asked "what comes AFTER Ukraine's surface drones dominate the Black Sea?" Their answer: AI-powered mini-subs that make tactical decisions independently underwater. In this episode, Pavel shares how thinking ahead of the current war became Angler's strategy: why he believes human navies are finished and 90% of naval warfare will be autonomous by 2035, how Ukrainian startups move at 6-month cycles while watching Western contractors plan decade-long programs for systems that'll be obsolete before they launch, why European VCs frustrated him by acting "more like bankers lending money" instead of betting on breakthrough technology like American investors do—and the two things Ukrainian defence founders understand that Western founders are completely blind to: speed and affordability, because when your relatives live near the front line, you don't have time for 10-year development cycles. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:28 What Angler Actually Does 02:32 From CleanTech to DefenceTech 03:39 February 2022: The Decision to Build for War 04:42 Finding Your Technical Co-Founder 18:25 Customer Discovery: Who Actually Buys This 20:31 The Pivot: Why We Went Hybrid 21:49 First Prototypes: Garage to Water Testing 30:40 How to Actually Raise from European VCs 36:50 Building Fast vs Building Perfect 42:35 Where to Incorporate as Ukrainian Founder 52:27 Getting to Revenue Without 5-Year Timelines 53:41 How Much Tech to Show Investors 55:29 What Ukrainian Founders Know About Speed 55:47 The 6-Month Product Cycle Rule 56:15 The Unsexy Thing That Kill you Company ----------------------------------------------- You will learn: - Why Pavel talked to military customers BEFORE building anything - The "cheap, good enough" rule that Ukrainian founders understand but Western defence companies completely miss - How Pavel found his first investor after cold emails failed - Why most defence tech pitches fail at the secrecy/disclosure balance - Why 90% of naval warfare will be autonomous within 10 years ----------------------------------------------- Follow Martin Majercin on X:https://www.x.com/monsfrost Follow Martin Majercin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsfrost/ Follow Pavel Panasjuk LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/ppanasjuk Follow Angler on their website:https://anglerdrones.com #defence #drone #maritime #defencetechnology #startup #ukraine

    58 min
  2. The Burnout That Built Spain's First Space Rentry Capsule

    FEB 6

    The Burnout That Built Spain's First Space Rentry Capsule

    Francesco Cacciatore, a space engineer who spent 20 years designing missions to Mars, Mercury, and comets at companies like Deimos and Sener, co-founded Orbital Paradigm in 2023. When most thought reentry was a closed market dominated by established players, his team did the unthinkable: they built Spain's first reentry capsule in 11 months—working nights and weekends while still employed—and got it flight-qualified. Today, Orbital Paradigm is the only payload that survived the catastrophic PSLV failure in January 2025, with their capsule enduring 35Gs (more than double design limits) and transmitting data all the way down. In this episode, Francesco shares the unfiltered journey of building Europe's newest reentry company: how a personal health crisis made him stop "watching life from the bench" and finally start something, how they qualified flight hardware faster than anyone expected by over-engineering for the wrong mission profile, and why European founders need to stop chasing manager titles and feeling guilty about wanting to get rich. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: 00:00 Introduction 01:40 What Orbital Paradigm Actually Does 28:05 The Health Crisis That Pushed Me to Quit 35:02 Why MBAs Are Useless for Space Founders 45:39 First Weeks: Building While Working Full-Time 50:50 The Pivot: From In-Space Robotics to Reentry Capsules 01:09:24 Build vs Buy: Being Cleverly Integrated 01:14:16 Finding Your First Customers: Pulling the Thread 01:19:35 Fundraising Mistakes: Stop Leading with Step One 01:28:24 Launch Day: When the Rocket Failed Mid-Flight 01:33:20 How KID Survived 33Gs (When It Should Have Died) 01:44:16 The Biggest Lie Investors Tell Founders 01:48:03 Final Message: Why It's Worth It ----------------------------------------------- You will learn: - What's the biggest mistake engineers make with investors and how to fix it - Why European founders need to stop chasing titles - Why to design for customers, not capabilities - Why "vertical integration" myth is bullsh*t - What kills most of the deep tech companies ----------------------------------------------- Follow Martin Majercin on X:https://www.x.com/monsfrost Follow Martin Majercin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsfrost/ Follow Francesco Cacciatore LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescocacciatore/ Follow Orbital Paradigm on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbital-paradigm

    1h 51m
  3. Our Rockets Run on Paraffin. Yes, Like Candles

    12/12/2025

    Our Rockets Run on Paraffin. Yes, Like Candles

    Christian Schmierer, an aerospace engineer who grew up next to Europe's largest rocket test center, co-founded HyImpulse in 2018. When every expert dismissed hybrid rockets as failed technology from the 1960s, his team did the unthinkable: they built rockets powered by paraffin—essentially candle wax. Today, HyImpulse has raised over €45 million and became Germany's first privately-funded company to successfully launch a rocket—spending just €15 million to get there while competitors burned through ten times that amount. In this episode, Christian shares the unfiltered journey of building Europe's most unconventional launch company: how breaking world records as students made founding a company feel inevitable, why four engineers leaving stable jobs at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) turned out to be the right choice and why they had to ship their rocket halfway around the world to the Australian desert for a mission aptly named "Light This Candle. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:50) From Childhood Curiosity to Student Rocket Team (09:55) Why Hybrid Rockets? The Technology No One Believed In (14:32) Failure at 2 Kilometers: Our First Launch Attempt (22:49) Breaking the World Record: 32.3 Kilometers (24:04) The 16-Month Gap: From Students to Founders (31:23) How We Landed Our First Investor (35:37) Scaling from 4 Founders to 50 People (42:33) Cracking the Code: Winning EU Funding on the Third Try (48:25) Light This Candle: Germany's First Private Rocket Launch (51:21) How One Launch Changed Everything with Investors (53:05) Raising €45M and Planning the Orbital Rocket (58:21) The 10-Year Vision (01:05:03) Advice to Space Founders ----------------------------------------------- Takeaways: 1) Just get started - Europe rewards those who try: "If you have a great idea then there is definitely room in Europe to do this and follow your dream or your idea and you just have to get started because initially there will be people who say it's impossible or no one needs it." 2) Learn to speak different languages to different stakeholders: "The way how I explain it to a potential investor is completely different whether it's a VC or a strategic, but then if I have to explain it to an authority it's again completely different - I have to use a different language that they understand." Your pitch to a VC, a government agency, and a customer should sound completely different. 3) Capital efficiency is a competitive advantage, not a limitation: HyImpulse launched their first rocket for just €15 million total. "We are actually very capital efficient but of course if you want to build amazing things, big things, then it also requires capital." Being scrappy forces you to make smarter decisions. 4) Start where you have the edge, not where VCs tell you to start: While other rocket startups bought hired experienced engineers, HyImpulse started with basic research on hybrid rockets with paraffin. "We had to start with basic research whereas everyone else, if they wanted, they could have bought an engine." 5) Resilience built in student days becomes the foundation for your company: As students, their first rocket failed at just 2 kilometers after years of work. They built two more rockets and broke the world record at 32.3 kilometers on their third attempt. That "fail, learn, try again" DNA carried directly into HyImpulse - where the stakes were exponentially higher but the resilience was already battle-tested. 6) A successful launch changes everything - but only for non-engineers: "For us as rocket engineers, already in the testing phase on ground it was clear okay this will work at some point. But for non-engineers this is a different story. I can explain to people as many times 'yeah with candle wax, with paraffin you can launch into space' and people say 'yeah okay.' But with that launch, that of course changed - people say 'oh it looks like a real rocket!'"

    1h 9m
  4. Why I Had to Go to the North Pole to Build My First Satellite

    11/28/2025

    Why I Had to Go to the North Pole to Build My First Satellite

    Rafel Jorda Siquier, an aerospace engineer from Mallorca, founded Open Cosmos in 2015. When they landed their first satellite contract, every university—including his own—refused to give them clean room access. So they went to the Arctic Circle to assemble their first satellite. Today, Open Cosmos has secured over €120 million in contracts in the last year alone, building satellites faster and cheaper than the industry thought possible—while actually turning a profit. In this episode, Rafael shares the unfiltered reality of building Europe's fastest-growing space company: how launching stratospheric balloons as a student led to an internship that showed him starting a space company was actually possible, why he walked away from a dream job at Airbus—Europe's largest aerospace company—to chase a purpose he couldn't ignore, and why Open Cosmos is now pushing AI capabilities directly into orbit. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:22) From Stratospheric Balloons to Life Purpose (09:55) "Is That Even Possible?" - Leaving Airbus at 25 (17:06) Why I Chose Europe Over the US (21:11) How to Land Your First Contract in 3 Months (25:58) Convincing My CTO to Quit His Dream Job (28:53) Why We Assembled our First Satellite near the North Pole (43:40) Start Where You Have the Edge, Not Where VCs Tell You (46:40) How to Kill a Product That Doesn't Sell (48:28) COVID Hit. Everything Broke at Once. (53:21) How We Became Profitable During a Pandemic (55:04) How to Build Investor Trust (57:01) Companies Exist to Solve Problems, Not Raise Money (01:00:50) Get Traction, Sell, Then Raise (01:10:34) Advice to Young Founders ----------------------------------------------- 1) Naivety is your most powerful weapon as a founder - don't lose it: "Naivety is essential as a founder because few things are so empowering as naivety to take that first step." 2) Companies exist to solve problems and earn money - not to raise it: "Companies are not out there to raise money. Companies should be out there to solve problems and to earn money on the back of solving those problems." Open Cosmos bootstrapped their first satellite and only raised when they needed to scale into a new product line. 3) Find customers before you find investors: "Get traction, prove the market - sell and then raise. Guys, we did it with satellites. So if we've done it, bootstrapping a satellite, maybe there are multiple industries where this approach may also work." 4) Don't start the company the sake of starting - do it for purpose and need: The entrepreneurial drive should come from seeing a real problem that nobody else is solving, not from wanting to be a founder. 5) Start where you have the edge, not where the market tells you to start: "For me, it was very clear that we had to start where we had an edge. Our edge was we were good system engineers with good design capabilities with an understanding of supply chain, unit economics. So we started building probably the hardest bit - the hardware." 6) Take care of yourself - the founder journey is a marathon: "Make sure you take better care of yourself because the journey as a founder, it's a marathon... Probably I could have achieved the same while not necessarily having to grind it so crazily." 7) When everything breaks at once, speed of decision is everything: "In these situations, if you doubt during two weeks or three weeks or a month to take a decision, you've burned a lot of that extra time. So we took extremely prompt decisions." When COVID hit, Open Cosmos furloughed half the team within days and brought everyone back four months later. 8) Pay your suppliers on time - especially when you can barely afford it: "During those COVID months, we didn't miss or delay a single payment to our suppliers because we didn't want that to be done to us. I know for a fact that many of the suppliers went through that period relying on our payment."

    1h 14m
  5. How an Ukrainian Soldier Built AI That Saves Other Soldiers

    11/14/2025

    How an Ukrainian Soldier Built AI That Saves Other Soldiers

    V'yacheslav Shvaydak, an ex-lieutenant with a PhD in economics co-founded DROPLA in 2023. Starting with three co-founders and zero revenue, they pitched military officials: "we're a small startup, our name is nobody, can you please give us some land mines?" They were shown the door. Today, DROPLA has raised millions from international investors and built technology now deployed across Ukraine, expanding from humanitarian de-mining into real-time threat detection systems dictated by battlefield needs. In this episode, Slava shares the unfiltered reality of building defence tech during wartime: how his experience as a former tank commander sitting on ammunition watching turret caps fly shaped his product decisions, why European defence startups must stress-test products before bringing them to Ukrainian warfighters, the single biggest mistake that destroys defencetech companies, and why there's nothing shameful about forging weapons when democracy needs defending. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (01:32) PhD Economist, Engineer & Tank Commander: The Unusual Combo (09:30) How Slava ended with Starting a Defencetech Company (25:52) The Breakthrough: Getting Access to Real Land Mines (27:30) How We Built Europe's Biggest Mine Database (26:27) First Win: How We Got Ukrainian Forces to Say Yes (44:31) The Pivot: From Humanitarian to Battlefield (51:43) How to Actually Raise Money During a War (01:02:40) Why Defencetech Gives You Zero Second Chances (01:05:12) The Agreement That Saved Our Founding Team (01:09:07) What "Battle-Ready" Actually Means ----------------------------------------------- 1) Respect is your currency in defencetech - protect it ruthlessly: "You never badmouth people behind their back. You never badmouth people in the defence industry. The word spreads really quickly about you, your company. This respect is a very bad type of decision that you might choose." 2) Face-to-face confrontation beats silent disrespect every time: "If you think that somebody is wrong, confront him. Openly confront him. It will be a sign of strength. It will be a sign of respect to him. And the truth will be revealed in this battle. And there is nothing bad in having different opinions." 3) Never bring half-baked products to warfighters - it's unforgivable: "If you are a defence tech in Europe, I would strongly advise not to waste Ukrainian warfighters time... You would come with a completely raw, untested, under stress product in your environment, trying to bring something that you know for sure will not work. You know, personally inside. You are just doing that to stamp battle proven on your product and go brag about it." 4) Impossible persistence beats perfect credentials: "Imagine you coming to the military guys and asking them 'hey guys, I'm a small startup with 4 co-founders, we just started, we have zero in revenue, our name is nobody and can you please give us some land mines to play with?' Right now we have the biggest land mine threat signature in Europe I would say without any doubt." 5) There's nothing shameful in building shields and swords - "There is nothing bad in being strong. There is nothing bad in forging a shield. There is nothing bad in forging a sword. There is nothing bad in desire to defend your people. It is a source of strength... Straighten up your backs and work." European defence tech founders: abandon the shame. Defending your people is a source of strength, not embarrassment. 6) Your weird combination is your unfair advantage: "We are all on our personal journeys with a designated set of skills... your pair of eyes have seen stuff that no one else in the world has seen or heard. And your unique connect of the brain is such a unique experience." Don't try to fit into boxes. Your strange path is your edge.#defence #ukraine #entrepreneurship #artificialintelligence

    1h 13m
  6. I Started European NewSpace Company Before Anyone Else

    10/31/2025

    I Started European NewSpace Company Before Anyone Else

    Lars Alminde co-founded GomSpace in 2007, one of Europe's first New Space companies, at a time when ESA openly dismissed their technology as "not something we're ever going to use." Fast forward 18 years, ESA is now a customer of GomSpace, and Lars has lived through nearly every crisis a space founder can face. He stepped down as CEO after seven years, watched the company go public with a 6x stock surge, then saw it nearly die twice - once from cancelled contracts in 2019, then again from a devastating stock crash in 2023 - before reaching profitability in 2025. In this episode, Lars shares the unfiltered reality of building in European space: how university consulting revenue from day one kept them alive, why stepping down as founding CEO was his best strategic move, and what he learned from surviving 2 decades in one of the world's most unforgiving industries. ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (02:27) How a Student Project Became a Career (04:11) Two Satellites Failed & He Still Started a Company (08:16) "We'll Never Use This" - ESA Before Signing Their Contracts Years Later (15:24) First Success: GOMX-1 Changes Everything (18:29) Stepping Down as CEO After 7 Years (23:31) Going Public: The IPO That Changed Everything (28:47) First Near-Death: Major Contracts Cancelled (34:00) Second Near-Death: Stock Crashes 90% (37:02) New CEO, New Strategy: From Growth to Profitability (42:39) 18 Years to Profitability (44:26) The One Lesson From Years of Experience (45:32) Rapid Fire Questions ----------------------------------------------- Takeaways: 1) Plan your CEO exit before burnout forces it - "I couldn't keep working 150% for all of my career. And when you're the CEO, there's a lot of things you have to do because you're the CEO, which distracts you from where you can make your most important contributions." Lars stepped down after 7 years when he became a father, recognizing he needed to shift from CEO duties to his technical core strengths. 2) If you're even thinking about stepping down, take it seriously - "If as an early stage CEO, you're even thinking about it, then you know there's something to take serious. Be curious, explore your feelings and your priorities. Do I need to be in this company for another three years? At some point, you have to make your career plan or you just get overwhelmed by all of the work." 3) During crises, protect your personal life or you'll suffer constantly - "If everything you have is the business and the business suffered, then you suffer all of the time. If you also have a family, take your mountain bike in the forest on the weekend. If you have other interests, then you can distance from it and see the business is suffering, I'm doing what I can to fix it, but I'm okay." 4) Radical transparency with employees helps everyone plan better - "The more people know, the better they are able to add and plan." After nearly dying twice, GomSpace now emphasizes extreme transparency. 5) Stop selling your tech stack, start selling outcomes - "I think for most new technology it's about transitioning from being excited about a technology to have applications and customers who are excited about what that technology can do for them." 6) Find real end users early - "Think beyond the grants and the government subsidies and think about what's the real application this technology can provide and make sure to get in contact with that group of end users as early as possible." 7) Think in multiple scenarios, but don't focus on failure - "When you need to make that big adjustment, you have to think in multiple scenarios because there always are multiple scenarios. One of them is not making it, but it's just one of many scenarios. 8) Success is about staying in the game long enough to catch opportunities. In the early years, Lars didn't know on the 20th of each month how he'd pay salaries by the 30th - but he always found a way to stay alive another month.

    50 min
  7. Ex-Goldman Trader Who Decided to Build Data Centers In Space

    07/18/2025

    Ex-Goldman Trader Who Decided to Build Data Centers In Space

    Philip Johnston is the CEO and Co-founder of Starcloud, a YC-backed startup building data centers in space to solve AI's growing energy crisis. After working at Goldman Sachs and consulting for Middle Eastern space agencies, Philip assembled what he calls "the 10 most kickass engineers in the world" from thousands of candidates. Their mission: create gigabit-scale orbital data centers with 4km solar arrays that could fundamentally transform computing infrastructure.In this episode, Philip reveals his journey from being rejected twice by YC to securing $21M in funding and preparing to launch Starcloud's first satellite this year. He explains why his small, elite team is developing technology to run NVIDIA's H100 chips in space (the first time in human history), their rapid 18-month satellite development cycle, and why conventional terrestrial data centers simply cannot scale to meet future AI energy demands.-----------------------------------------------Chapters:00:00 Introduction02:02 Growing Up with a YC Founder Brother04:28 Why Trading Skills Are Useless for Entrepreneurship12:13 The Starbase "Holy Sh*t" Moment That Started It All16:42 The First Angel Investor Who Changed Everything21:03 Why Redmond (Not LA) Is the Real Space Capital23:47 Y Combinator & The Viral White Paper That Got Them Roasted29:29 Over 200 VCs Reached Out: The $11M Round in Days32:35 Hiring Only 10 People: The World's Most Elite Space Team37:27 First to Fly NVIDIA H100s in Space42:20 Quick Fire Questions: Why Humanity Will Wipe Itself Out47:52 Why Your Crazy Idea Probably Sucks-----------------------------------------------Takeaways:1) Exposure to high achievers eliminates the impossible - "One thing that having an identical twin brother gives you is... it teaches you what is possible. If he can do something, there is no reason I shouldn't be able to do it." 2) Traditional finance experience is worthless for founders - "I would not recommend anybody become a trader if you want to be an entrepreneur... trading is an incredibly niche and non-transferable skill set." 3) Best founder training: startup experience beats everything - "The best path to founding a company is to go work for a startup." Philip's clear hierarchy of valuable pre-founder experience places startups at the top, followed by management consulting, with VC and trading trailing far behind.4) Lead with your most audacious vision, not incremental steps - Philip's biggest fundraising regret was initially pitching short-term vision: satellite edge computing instead of his revolutionary vision for orbital data centers.5) American angels wire money immediately; Europeans wait for others - "American angels are like absolute godsend because they sign and wire on the same day... in Europe they're like, who else is in?" The cultural difference in investor behavior meant Starcloud's first check came from an American who decided independently without needing social proof.6) Move your company to the talent, not where "space companies go" - "Everybody we want to hire lives in Redmond, Washington... for satellites, Redmond's like the global capital." Philip relocated from aerospace hub El Segundo when he discovered 90% of satellites were actually designed and built in Redmond.7) Hire slowly: interview thousands to find your 10 perfect engineers - "We spent an enormous amount of time interviewing and not hiring lots of people... we went through about 10,000 CVs." Starcloud's elite 10-person team resulted from an extraordinarily selective process that rejected thousands of qualified candidates.8) "Build it and see" beats "spend months in CAD" - "We are very much a build it and see culture rather than a spend six months in CAD and see culture." Philip's team prioritizes physical prototyping and testing over extensive theoretical design, accelerating their development cycle dramatically.

    52 min
  8. Why I Left Europe's Top Rocket Lab to Start My Own Startup

    07/11/2025

    Why I Left Europe's Top Rocket Lab to Start My Own Startup

    Lukas Werling is the CEO and co-founder of ISPTech, a German space startup developing green propellants that eliminate the need for hazmat suits and could slash space propulsion costs by 75%. The company has in a short time secured €2 million in funding with three orbital missions lined up for flight later this year. In this episode of Rockets and Radars, Lukas shares his journey from a mechanical engineering student rejected from aerospace programs to spending 14 years at DLR (Europe's premier rocket testing facility) before selling his motorbike to raise startup capital. From supervising thousands of rocket engine hot firings to managing Europe's most unique test facility, from watching technicians in hazmat suits handle toxic propellants to developing fuel safe enough to handle with bare hands, Lukas explains how patient research and perfect timing created a company that had paying customers before it even officially launched. Want to get hired in ISPTech? https://tally.so/r/mOq9b7 Want to invest in ISPTech? https://tally.so/r/nGE4qp ----------------------------------------------- Chapters: (00:00) Introduction (03:09) Getting Rejected (08:00) Breaking into DLR (14:34) Finding the Perfect Co-founder (21:01) The Spin-Out Decision (30:32) Incorporating with €25K: Selling the Motorbike (35:56) Getting First Customers Before Incorporation (44:36) Funding Journey: €2M Pre-Seed (51:17) Future Vision: Space Infrastructure & Mobility (54:34) Quick Fire Round: Biggest Mistakes & Key Decisions (58:52) Advice for Researchers ----------------------------------------------- Takeaways: 1) Persistence beats rejection - keep asking until someone says yes. "I talked to my professor during his lectures. I went to his office several times... he was always saying, yeah, I will reach out." Lukas got into DLR by repeatedly asking his professor for an introduction until he finally made the call. 2) Technology maturity trumps perfect business plans for deep tech - "We had like years and years of testing at the test bench... many companies didn't have those possibilities." Having proven technology from 14 years of research gave them customer confidence that business plans alone couldn't provide. 3) Know your customers' pain points before you spin out - "We knew some spacecraft manufacturers, some people... what their issues are, what their pain points are." Don't guess at market needs - work directly with your future customers to understand their problems first. 4) Hire people you've worked with for years, not strangers - "The first people we hired were from this... student team... We know them for years." Your early team should be people whose work quality and character you've personally witnessed over time. 5) Speed beats bureaucracy when markets are moving fast - "We can decide, we can make progress as a company much, much faster... people from DLR approaching us, ah guys, can you do it so fast?" Startup agility is your biggest advantage over large institutions. 6) Never start work without a written contract, no matter who asks - "The biggest mistake I made is to start some work... without a written contract... it never materialized." Even trusted contacts can disappear - always get agreements in writing before starting any work. 7) Build your network before you need it - "We had our network. Of course, we knew some spacecraft manufacturers... this was an advantage." Relationships built over years become customers and partners when you're ready to commercialize. 8) Focus on customer contracts, not just grant funding - "We need, just frame contracts... As a company you want customers and not additional grant funding." Paying customers validate your business better than government grants ever will. 9) Plan backwards from your vision to find the first step - "You want to build this huge power plant... plan backwards... solve one issue after the other." Break dreams into manageable technical problems you can solve sequentially.

    1 hr
See All (35)

About

Proven strategies from space & defence founders who went from zero to millions hosted by Martin Majercin. Perfect for early-stage founders and ambitious talent looking to break into space & defence. Space and defence industries are being rebuilt, not in boardrooms, but by founders in startups and laboratories across the world. Each week, Martin brings you their unfiltered stories and tactics for success. New episodes every Friday.

Information