Build software that improves some clunky or inefficient process common in the space industry, then sell it to the space industry. Voila, you now run a bootstrapped space company :)
Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
51–60 of 155 posts
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#52Start an e-commerce company from the scratch, grow it, make it automated, then use revenue to bootstrap your space company.
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#53You could look at developing something that would make being in space more habitable for humans. Better spacesuits, better equipment.
Maybe something in the cryostasis..eh..space?
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#54Start an e-commerce company from the scratch, grow it, make it automated, then use revenue to bootstrap your space company.
How about a logistics company ?
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#55Learn how to use mission planning software, for instance: https://www.nasa.gov/smallsat-institute/space-mission-design... with this you can help people spin tales of space project such as: "to build a sunshade, is it worth mining the moon?" Does it make sense to build the "Lunar Gateway?" Could lunar oxygen be delivered to LEO and HEO in order to retank SpaceX Starships? Pick up the tools to answer questions like tha…
Also learn to use formal specification tools like TLA+. Space companies will probably not use software without correctness guarantees. Especially if your software was verified by only a small number of people, it is likely to have bugs.
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#56I've worked in aerospace and have been reading HN for over a decade. Here's some adult advice, for both the OP and HN in general. Space is a waste of time unless you're a government or a bored billionaire. Objects are too far, and lift is now a commodity. (SpaceX will probably end up shutting down due to lack of lift demand, hence their polluting the sky with micro satellites now.) So if you really want a career in s…
" lift is now a commodity ... SpaceX will probably end up shutting down"
I take this that the price of orbital launch is insignificant compared to the cost of preparing and operating the cargo.
Are there any signs that space born cargo with lower capex and opex (and hence whose operators would have higher price sensitivity) would arrive?
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#57Start an e-commerce company from the scratch, grow it, make it automated, then use revenue to bootstrap your space company.
How about a logistics company ?
Yeah, any scalable profitable company would do. I just have practical experience with exponential growth from automated e-commerce, but see no reason why that couldn't work for logistics or some other type as well.
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#58I've worked in aerospace and have been reading HN for over a decade. Here's some adult advice, for both the OP and HN in general. Space is a waste of time unless you're a government or a bored billionaire. Objects are too far, and lift is now a commodity. (SpaceX will probably end up shutting down due to lack of lift demand, hence their polluting the sky with micro satellites now.) So if you really want a career in s…
" lift is now a commodity ... SpaceX will probably end up shutting down" I take this that the price of orbital launch is insignificant compared to the cost of preparing and operating the cargo. Are there any signs that space born cargo with lower capex and opex (and hence whose operators would have higher price sensitivity) would arrive?
The cost of the payload is huge today because the launch is so expensive that you have to make the most of it. If it's $25/kg to low Earth orbit, you can afford to be a lot more experimental and take a lot more risks with your cargo.
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#59I have this mental model that I borrowed from the space industry. Just like how SSTO (Single-stage to orbit) is extraordinarily hard, although not impossible, I've always held the opinion that bootstrapping a startup in hard tech is similarly hard but not quite impossible.
An less riskier approach IMO, would be the multi-stage approach, by solving a series of less capital intensive problems and progressively solving harder and harder problems while accumulating capital for the ultimate goal.
Re: Ask HN: How would you bootstrap a space company?
#60As someone who works for a space company that was effectively bootstrapped, there are 2 ways I've seen to do it.
1. Government Contracts - this is what my company did. Ground demonstrations to parabola tests to ISS payloads. It's a long hard road and has a lot of NASA bureaucracy, but we just won our first 100MM$ contract and only did one raise 7 years after the company was founded.
2. Build something a big Aerospace company needs - there's a lot of this these days. Company's like Gomspace are building tools for cubesats with minimal startup costs. This is the more independent route, but comes with the challenges of convincing a risk averse industry to use something that hasn't been tested in the correct environment.