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The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

joemorrison.substack.com

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Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#161

Post by moralestapia »

bluGill wrote: post #135
moralestapia wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have experienced first-hand is basically that >individual farms might want to look at relative growth rates of corn in their fields, or soil moisture levels, etc. a LOT of people want this, but they would never pay $x,xxx/month for that, ever.

Drones exist, and cost a lot less then thousands to buy. Plus a drone can be used when you want to, the satellite goes overhead every few weeks and if it is a cloudy day too bad. For farms the information from images is only valuable on a few specifc days, too early and you don't learn anything, a few days later and it is too late to do anything about it. I work for John Deere. I can't speak for the company. I'll con…

Some providers could give you daily updates but yes, drones are much cheaper and much more flexible. You need a custom sensor? Drones can do it, on satellites don't even think about it unless your budget is >$100M.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#162

Post by grog454 »

jlarocco wrote: post #158
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #46

Me: 20 years in the defense space business. Stating my own opinion. This is basically right. The problem with space imagery is that almost everyone who wants it has a niche use case, and those few organizations without a niche use case (the US Weather Service, various militaries, etc) generally want imagery that's so specialized to their own problem that they have to spec, buy, and operate their own orbital assets. T…

> Ukraine appears to be using commercial orbital imagery providers to figure out Russian troop movements. Is this really true? I guess I can believe it, but it seems strange that the United States is sending over $800 million in weaponry, but won't send over satellite imagery.

> it seems strange that the United States is sending over $800 million in weaponry, but won't send over satellite imagery.

I'd guess this is because you can't publish satellite imagery without revealing a lot about your intelligence gathering capabilities.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#163

Post by ackbar03 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #107
campchase wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the perspective, Glen. I've often heard this referred to as the "long tail" problem for satellite imagery providers. The area under the curve is enormous, but any one algorithm only serves an extremely niche audience. Another analogy I use a lot: satellite imagery is like salt. The dish can have lots of ingredients (in a military context: HUMINT, OSINT, SIGINT, etc.) And the satellite imagery can make the…

>> but any one algorithm only serves an extremely niche audience. Forget the algorithm. They need to fix their customer service, their sales process. Customers want pixels, but they need basic services: simple and a predictable price. I want to give a location (pix+radius, four corners or whatever) and a delivery schedule (once a week etc). But when I try to buy that stuff I get package deals, "ask for a quote", and…

Regarding small customers such as the real estate agents, attorneys, and cops etc. is it actually economically profitable to serve people like them?

I know satellites are getting cheaper but there are still limits to the cost of targeted image acquisition right? Is the price at which these customers are able and willing to pay enough to cover those costs?

For example it'd be a cool feature to check where my food delivery man is at in real time through satellite imaging but that can't possibly be a profitable use case.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#164

Post by ackbar03 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #117
Frost1x wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's only a good problem when your niche customers have deep pockets to pay for their varied needs and high risk tolerance. Most variations can't be protyped out by some engineer on the weekends where they just spin out a startup with minimal risk to address the gap. The false assumption I deal with that drives me insane with so many individuals is that everyone thinks their specialized use case is a small variation…

>> find the problem sets that have the best match up and focus on those. Or, abandon all of that. A space imagery company is a media company. They generate content. So do what other content creators do. Take everything you have and shovel it in front of people as fast as possible. Deliver it by any and every means available. Ask questions, but do so AFTER they have already made a purchase. Then judge what your custom…

Is this even feasible? I imagine high resolution satellite imagery is a lot larger than your typical blog post or youtube video. Plus the surface of the earth is huge, if you push out everything 95% of it is probably irrelevant crap that doesn't tell you anything about your customers. But I don't run a media or satellite imagery company so this is just what i imagine lol

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#165

Post by PeterisP »

moralestapia wrote: post #106
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #46

Me: 20 years in the defense space business. Stating my own opinion. This is basically right. The problem with space imagery is that almost everyone who wants it has a niche use case, and those few organizations without a niche use case (the US Weather Service, various militaries, etc) generally want imagery that's so specialized to their own problem that they have to spec, buy, and operate their own orbital assets. T…

The problem I have experienced first-hand is basically that >individual farms might want to look at relative growth rates of corn in their fields, or soil moisture levels, etc. a LOT of people want this, but they would never pay $x,xxx/month for that, ever.

There are like 2 million farms in USA, and if that information is worth to them something like $10/month then that's a potential market worth quarter of a billion per year..

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#166

Post by PeterisP »

jlarocco wrote: post #158
GlenTheMachine wrote: post #46

Me: 20 years in the defense space business. Stating my own opinion. This is basically right. The problem with space imagery is that almost everyone who wants it has a niche use case, and those few organizations without a niche use case (the US Weather Service, various militaries, etc) generally want imagery that's so specialized to their own problem that they have to spec, buy, and operate their own orbital assets. T…

> Ukraine appears to be using commercial orbital imagery providers to figure out Russian troop movements. Is this really true? I guess I can believe it, but it seems strange that the United States is sending over $800 million in weaponry, but won't send over satellite imagery.

I believe USA is sending over intelligence reports from that satellite imagery, however, the raw images may easily be considered too sensitive to release to others because they reveal both the exact capabilities and potential countermeasures. I recall the (IMHO justified) uproar back when Trump tweeted a photo of a single recon satellite image of Iran, they definitely would not just send over all the raw data.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#167

Post by achow »

ackbar03 wrote: post #163
sandworm101 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> but any one algorithm only serves an extremely niche audience. Forget the algorithm. They need to fix their customer service, their sales process. Customers want pixels, but they need basic services: simple and a predictable price. I want to give a location (pix+radius, four corners or whatever) and a delivery schedule (once a week etc). But when I try to buy that stuff I get package deals, "ask for a quote", and…

Regarding small customers such as the real estate agents, attorneys, and cops etc. is it actually economically profitable to serve people like them? I know satellites are getting cheaper but there are still limits to the cost of targeted image acquisition right? Is the price at which these customers are able and willing to pay enough to cover those costs? For example it'd be a cool feature to check where my food deli…

Parent commentator's contention..

Pixels are there anyway, and infinitely scalable - you can sell exact same pixels to infinite number of people.

So why not to make a very easy UX to extract the pixels of your choice as per customized timeline.

It almost sounds foolish not to do it.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#168

Post by astrea »

campchase wrote: post #31
countvonbalzac wrote: post #23

I'm confused what the author is trying to argue? 1. People don't want satellite data they want their problem to be solved So a company like Planet shouldn't (just) get satellite data they should solve problems. 2. Companies can't do 2 things at once well So Planet actually has to choose between solving problems or just getting satellite data 3. Companies like Arturo have good focus and solve the problem of climate ri…

That is, indeed, exactly what I am arguing. Either: * Just sell data or; * Just sell applications powered by your proprietary source of data Do not: * Sell derived/refined data as a half-measure * Sell both applications and wholesale data at the same time If you feel like that doesn't make sense, you are not alone. Almost everyone in the industry disagrees with my views on this topic based on how they run their busin…

One thing that comes to mind for me is GasBuddy. They simply show me the raw data feed (price of gas at various stations). It's up to me to decide based on my MPG, distance, price, etc. what is worth fueling up at.

Re: The satellite imagery industry still has no idea what customers want

#170

Post by ZephyrBlu »

PeterisP wrote: post #165
moralestapia wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem I have experienced first-hand is basically that >individual farms might want to look at relative growth rates of corn in their fields, or soil moisture levels, etc. a LOT of people want this, but they would never pay $x,xxx/month for that, ever.

There are like 2 million farms in USA, and if that information is worth to them something like $10/month then that's a potential market worth quarter of a billion per year..

That's a poor assumption to base a business off of.
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