Dual-Use, Double Impact: Privateer’s Path in Geospatial Intelligence | The Pair Program Ep70

Speaker A: Welcome to the PEAR program from Hatchpad, the podcast that gives you a front row seat to candid conversations with tech leaders from the startup world. I'm your host, Tim Winkler, the creator of Hatchpad.

Speaker B: And I'm your other host, Mike Gruen.

Speaker A: Join us each episode as we bring together two guests to dissect topics at the intersection of technology, startups, and career growth. Welcome back to the pair program. I'm your host Tim Winkler, joined, uh, by my co host, Mike Gruen. Mike, um, we've got, uh, an exciting episode, uh, teed up for our listeners today, which we're gonna be talking with a space tech startup, uh, Fun Fact, co founded by Steve Wozniak, Privateer. Uh, space. Uh, and so I was inspired to go down a little bit of a rabbit hole of research on some, some random space facts. Uh, you know, just went, went straight to the, the chat GPT. Uh, and so I'm spitball three that I stumbled upon that I had no idea about. I'm curious if you've heard them before or, or not. Uh, so one, uh, you have to learn how to burp differently in space, uh, because no, gravity was not aware. Was not aware. Yeah, so burping, you know, oftentimes would just come up a little bit more liquidy than you'd prefer. Uh, two, the moon smells like gunpowder. Um, so that's, that's how it's been described by astronauts after, like a lunar walk. So it smells like fireworks. Um, aware.

Speaker B: No, no, not aware. Not sure how you would smell, uh, the moon, uh, while on, um, a walk. I assume you're. Anyway, go on, track it back, you

Speaker A: know, and then, uh, three astronauts heights can increase by up to 2 inches in space, uh, because microgravity gives your spine a little stretch when you're up there.

Speaker B: Yep, that I was aware of.

Speaker A: Oh, you were?

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that one I know about, um, mostly because of reading, uh, about, um, one of the astronauts who had been up there for a long, long time.

Speaker A: Okay.

Speaker B: Some of the effects of coming Earth and having to re. Acclimate and stuff like that.

Speaker A: Yeah. Really makes you feel like, crunched over when you're working, uh, down here with gravity. Uh, Molly, Declan, have you guys heard any of those, any, any of those ring a bell?

Speaker C: I was aware of the, uh, the 2 inches of additional height. And uh, as a guy who's like 5, 9, maybe, like those 2 inches are life changing. So that's why I kind of resonated with that.

Speaker A: That's so true.

Speaker B: Same page, same page.

Speaker D: I'd heard of the moon. Um, smell one. I was once like, with a moon rock and I sniffed it because somebody told me, in fact didn't smell any gunpowder, unfortunately.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, the burp one was, uh, a shock to me. I was like, oof. That seems like some intense training exercises. You gotta, you gotta get through just to make sure you keep those burps solid. Cool. All right, let's give the listeners a quick preview, uh, of today's episode. So today's theme, uh, is actually all about navigating the, the dual use challeng, something we talk about pretty frequently on the podcast. Uh, you know, how to build a business and a product strategy that works across both government and commercial markets. Uh, and so to explore this, we're going to be highlighting the story of Privateer, a, uh, startup that's making big moves in earth observation and geospatial intelligence space. Uh, so Privateer is tackling the complexities of dual use by building a roadmap that supports both mission driven government needs and, and the speed, flexibility and the scale, uh, that's demanded by commercial customers. Uh, so joining us to tackle the topic, we've got Declan lynch, uh, the chief revenue officer at Privateer, uh, who's going to bring like a nice go to market and revenue leadership perspective. Uh, and then we've got Molly Martin, the director of go to market strategy at Privateer, uh, helping align positioning, pricing, uh, and customer success across other, uh, different verticals. So, uh, Declan, Molly, thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker C: Thanks for having us.

Speaker D: Yeah, really great to be here.

Speaker A: All right, now before we dive in, it's time for, uh, our opening segment, Pair Me Up. Uh, here's what we'll, we'll go around the room, uh, spitball. A pairing. Two things that just kind of work together for you. Mike, you usually lead us off. What do you got?

Speaker B: Uh, yeah, so given that we're ah, starting this, uh, we're actually recording, uh, early, earlier than we usually do in the morning. Uh, I went with coffee and Wordle, uh, which is how I start most of my days. Um, today I had to skip the Wordle. But, uh, um, but yeah, coffee and wordle.

Speaker D: I love that.

Speaker B: It's a great way to start the day.

Speaker A: Yeah, Wordle used, uh, to be my go to and then connections stole my heart. Um, big, big connections fan. My wife and I, it's kind of like a little morning bonding, uh, moment that we have. We, we do connections together and then I'll send it to my team on slack and just claim that I did it myself.

Speaker B: Nice. That's funny because I went the opposite direction. I started with connections and then I was like. And then I just uh, started working through the Wordle archive and have just been like, just crushing it through, going back through. But anyway, yeah, I do love it

Speaker A: in the morning though. It's. It's a good one to get the, the brain operating.

Speaker B: Yep.

Speaker A: Cool. All right, I'm gonna go with, um, bedtime and books. Uh, so this is a. More of a classic pairing that's dedicated to my daughter Alice. Uh, she's two and my wife and I have been reading a bedtime story to her just about every single night since she was born. So um, yeah, I think, you know, we, she. My wife's been doing more of the actual like recording of how many books she's read. We, we missed some of them in the early days, but I think she's up upwards of like 600 at this point of, of different books, uh, that, that we've read to her. So, um, I'm going with bedtime and books, uh, shout out to Alice and our bedtime stories.

Speaker C: Um, yeah, let me jump in because that's ah, I got a 10 year old and a 7 year old and so we've been doing that for quite some time now. And I did the math recently, like on average about an hour a night, you know, sequence between my oldest and now to my youngest of bedtime reading.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Because I think that's a conservative estimate too. And you do the math. You know, that's over 150 days of my life in the last 10 years that I've been reading books with her. Um, it's an amazing amount of time that accumulates really quickly. And it's just a special opportunity as a parent. Right. It is.

Speaker A: It's a time for us too, of like, you know, everything's so fast, uh, every day in the business world. And it's a time to just be present and you know, just focus on reading the words with her, you know, and that's it. And uh, it's one that we look forward to. Um, but uh, dang, man. You said you've got two.

Speaker C: Two, yeah, uh, two daughters.

Speaker A: Awesome. Yeah, it's uh, highly recommended if uh, if you're not reading to your kids at night, do it. It's a fun, fun activity to wind down the day.

Speaker B: I still remember my oldest, uh, because I'm, I'm a slow reader. Uh, uh, so he would read ahead like he was like, all right, that like he was already done with the page before I.

Speaker A: Hurry up that's funny.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, cool. Let's pass it around to our guest. Uh, Declan. Uh, quick intro. And your pairing, certainly.

Speaker C: Uh, Declan lynch, um, as mentioned, chief revenue officer and general manager, privateer. Uh, brief background. After undergrad, joined, uh, the Marine Corps. Spent about six and a half years on active duty. Um, and really that just kind of was, uh, as I came out of college, that was like, my idea of service. Right. Just the time that I, you know, join the workforce. Service was always going to be something that was a, um, part of my Life. And in 2003, that meant, you know, the best way to do that, the most impactful way, for me, the most logical way, was join the Marine Corps. Uh, and then that kind of put me onto a national security path for the next few decades, which is a little startling. Um, uh, so I did, you know, got out of the Marine Corps, uh, stayed in the area, worked at Booz Allen and Deloitte and some of those places, um, and then had the great opportunity of joining Anduril Industries, uh, back just in the start of 2020, um, and had all the opportunities, got the T shirt and all the experiences that come with being in that type of company, uh, moving the needle in defense tech the way we were. So, um, the opportunity then came, um, about a year ago to join Alex, through some similar investors, um, and the privateer team and have been really enjoying the opportunity to take some of that skill and expertise into, uh, the space domain.

Speaker A: Awesome.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Andrew. Never heard of them before. Yeah, they're absolutely everywhere.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: It's funny, everyone's like, oh, that's. That was such a great idea. Well, you know, in 2019, when I was coming up, when I was deciding to make the move, people, uh, didn't think I was so smart. Um, yeah. But, um, so my pairing is. And kind of on the theme of being a parent, uh, the last days of the elementary school calendar year, uh, and field day. Yeah, there's just something about. It's like a global thing. I grew up in Ireland, and we still had field day in elementary school. My wife did in New Jersey. Like, my. See my girls now, there's just something about, you know, elementary school kids running at breakneck speeds on a field, um, getting all that energy out. And they always run like they. Like they just stole something.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker C: Like they're not athletic yet, um, but they just go well together in my mind.

Speaker B: Nice.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah, it's such a special. Like, it's. It's crazy, the nostalgia of Field Day. Like, I can take myself Back to Field Day. Tug of war was a big one. The water balloon fights, um, you gotta, you have a go to, uh, activity at Field Day. That's, that's your favorite.

Speaker C: Well, you, um, know, I can only live in this current, uh, instantiation. So when my kids were playing like water balloon fights, like, I just jumped right in. So I was supposed, ah, to be a volunteer and a chaperone. But man, I pinged some kids, water

Speaker A: bones, take them out.

Speaker C: There were some lessons learned.

Speaker A: That's awesome. Yeah, great pairing. Uh, I can get into that. Uh, well, again, thanks for joining us, uh, Declan and Molly. Uh, quick intro and your pairing.

Speaker D: Yeah, thanks so much. So, yeah, Molly Martin, director of go to market strategy at Privateer, being in the team now for just over 90 days. Joined at the start of March. Um, came from Deloitte while I was in the Deloitte Ventures team. Focused on building out our space tech capability at the time, which was actually where I met the team at Privateer first couple of years back, maybe like 18 months ago. And I left that meeting with them being like, one day I would love to work for that company. So very grateful to be here 90 days later. Um, so my perfect pairing. I was thinking about this a lot, and I think it comes down to your morning dog walk and sending voice notes on WhatsApp. I think, like, for me it's a really, uh, important way of how I have that. Like always on conversation with friends who live in different cities. But also I think it is kind of like the modern day water cooler chat maybe, or like somebody's desk and sharing an idea. Um, so, yeah, I think it is a perfect pair. Best way to start your day. Um, even convinced Declan recently that it's a good thing to do. Somebody who was like a WhatsApp rookie is now when sending voice notes.

Speaker A: Yeah, the voice notes is a pro tip. Right. Like, you don't want to be the dog walker that's trying to hold the leash and, you know, text and it doesn't work that well. So the, the voice, the voice text is, is where it's at.

Speaker D: Uh, like the never ending conversation as well.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: You just go back.

Speaker C: Yeah, I was in fact a, a voice, uh, note rookie. And I was walking through the airport doing exactly as you described. Right. Like, I was just that guy. And, uh, Molly had sent me a voice note and she was like, just do it, man. Just do it. I was like, okay, I'll try and never stop since.

Speaker A: That's great. What kind of dog do you have, Molly?

Speaker D: I've got A Cavapoo. He's like nearly two, so still full of a lot of energy. Um, he's actually asleep by my feet right now, so let's hope he stays.

Speaker A: Oh, uh, very nice. So, yeah, definitely need those walks, uh, in the morning to set, set the pace for the day. I've got a 100 pound Swiss mountain dog, so she, uh, yeah, she's just a handful if she doesn't get her walk. So, uh, good stuff. All right. Love it. Great, uh, pairings all around. Uh, excited to, uh, yeah, uh, jump into the main discussion. So, uh, as I mentioned earlier, you know, we are going to be diving into, uh, what it really takes to build a successful dual use business, uh, especially in a category as critical as Earth observation, you know, geospatial intelligence. Um, we'll hear a little bit about Privateer's origin story as well. Explore how they're balancing, you know, speed compliance and customer needs, uh, and how they adapt those to different audiences, uh, the government and the commercial sector. Um, and I'm intrigued to hear more around, you know, like, sales cycles to, you know, product strategy and even go as deep as, like, you know, the team culture, like, uh, how that is, uh, adapting to, you know, just being a dual use kind of company. Uh, so let's, let's jump into it. Uh, I'd like to start with you, Declan. Uh, maybe start by giving our listeners a little bit of the. A backstory on how Privateer came to be and, and that original kind of problem set that you guys were solving in the early days.

Speaker C: Yeah, no thanks. Uh, and yeah, appreciate the tee up. So, um, Steve Wozniak and Alex Fielding, um, you know, our two of our three co founders, Dr. Morbid as well, you know, they worked together in the early days of Apple and, um, have since kind of, you know, moved on from that into other aspects. Alex in particular went and did some time, uh, with working with NASA and some other early stage startups. Uh, and so they reconvened about four years ago, really thinking about, um, how do we be good stewards of space with the increased volume of assets going into orbit, you know, our orbital highways become ever more congested, and what can we do about that? And so they included, you know, partnered up with Dr. Moribaja, who's, you know, leading, uh, astrophysicist, uh, to think about how do we understand the domain much better. And so that became the birth of Privateer, uh, and our first product called Wayfinder, um, really for space domain awareness. And so that tool is a graphical representation of all man made objects on orbit, um, you know, pulled together from a handful of data sources, some open, some proprietary, but visually depicting what's on orbit. Then m also able to do some of the modeling to predict where those orbits will, will go in the Future. You know, 24, 48 hours in advance. Um and this has a lot of applications, um, both defense and intelligence as well as commercial everything from um, space traffic management, uh, to debris cleanup, uh, to insurance customers as well as you know some standard um, anomaly detection for assets in orbit. So that was kind of our founding and the, and the principles um, that got Alex and uh, Steve and morbid

Speaker A: um together was it um, you know kind of built with a commercial mindset first or defense first or you know what were some of those early customers that you would say were you know kind of what led, led the charge for you all?

Speaker C: Now it's a great question. I think it was, it was really purpose built right? Like how do we be good stewards of space? Um, with the idea that like it's an extension of, of where we are on Earth, that we need to be good stewards of space and then figuring out you know, backing into where those customers would be. And so um, we had some early adopters or early interests from insurance companies and you know, folks that were kind of insuring assets on orbit. We had some early discussions with satellite operators as they looked how to manage their uh, operations for their um, constellations, um, and then as well on kind of the federal side from a space traffic management perspective. And so this was something, we worked closely with the International Space Station um to depict their location in space. And if you go to wayfinder, privateer.com, you'll be able to see exactly the wire diagram of where the ISS is at this current moment and what tests are being done on it at this moment. And so being able to do that and, and you know this is public, public facing so you can go onto our website at this current moment and any and all people can look and see uh, what's overhead and the metadata associated with all those assets. Um so it was really like build a product and, and they will come.

Speaker B: That's cool. Uh, when I was a kid I wrote a short story, terrible short story, uh, about uh, us uh, basically a planet Earth getting like locked into be not being able to leave or like not being able to put anything into space because of chain reaction of like all the stuff quieting and then you're just sort of trapped, can't put anything up because there's Just a big debris cloud around the planet. So.

Speaker A: Were you okay as a kid, Mike?

Speaker B: I mean, I was. Sorry, I didn't worry about it. It was just a good short story, man.

Speaker C: Probably because you were a slow reader, but pressy and then maybe it's time to go back into that now.

Speaker A: Honestly, I think if I were to look what's going on up there, it would give me a bit of anxiety with the amount of satellites that are being shot up these days.

Speaker C: Right.

Speaker A: It's uh, it's very different from back in the day, um, so no doubt, uh, a need from a company like Privateer and times like this and uh, in the future. So, um, Molly, you joined not too long ago. What was it about the company that kind of drew you in?

Speaker D: For me it was really when I first met Declan and Diana, our Chief marketing officer. So in my role at Deloitte, met hundreds of kind of Earth observation and Earth uh, intelligence companies. And when I met the team at Privateer, I was like, damn, they're really like looking at this differently. They're really thinking about user centricity. How do we get these insights into the hands of like that mass commercial market, um, and trying to build with that user ah in mind like first and foremost and not be so like led from a technical perspective, which really resonated as I saw it as like the biggest gap in the market at the time.

Speaker A: I want to talk, you know, dual use product strategy, but uh, maybe just to kind of set the stage for um, you know, how you all call, break down your customers. Is there like a, uh, a percentage of you know, government to commercial, uh, that you can maybe just rattle off as like a benchmark so we can kind of get a feel for uh, that as we dive into the product strategy side of things.

Speaker C: It's a great question and I'm not going to answer it but. Well, I think there's, there's a little bit more to kind of the story that I think becomes, is important before we get to kind of the breakdown. So about a year ago, um, a little over a year ago In April of 20, uh, four, we acquired Orbital Insight. Um, and so you know, this was an expansion of the same, same way of thinking about the domain. And so we kind of increased from being a space domain awareness company into what we're now kind of building a platform around being an all domain awareness company. So uh, Orbital Insight been around for about a decade and during that time was leading the state of the art in computer vision, um, model generation, um, for object detection, land use, Change, um, from space based data sources. And so they've got a platform, Terrascope, that's able to run analytics across massive amounts of data sets. And so this was kind of the pivot, not the pivot, but kind of the expansion from being space domain into a true geospatial analytics company. Um, and so that has been really important to us. Now we believe that kind of the combination of these two domains or these two products actually allows us to bring different customers um, to market, uh, which is kind of the long way of answering. Currently, you know we're probably 75% of our, of our customers are uh, defense and intelligence, um, customers us um, government and other and, and other national company countries as well as the fact that we're now seeding that market on the commercial side.

Speaker A: That's fascinating. You know, any time ah, an acquisition like that is made, you know, it, it can oftentimes be disruptive to culture and a lot of other things. Um, but it seemed like, I don't know, it seems like there was a really like some common vision there, uh, with that, you know, a very strategic type of acquisition. The, the um, uh, how's the merger been between you know, the workforce, uh, over at Orbital with Privateer? I'm always just curious. A little bit of a sidebar because yeah, those are things that you know it's a, it's part of startup world, right. You're, you're likely going to get acquired at some uh, it's rare like companies are going public. So you know, we're very big on how that impacts, you know, you know, the steady state that was.

Speaker C: Yeah, it's a great question. And you know it is um, it's kind of the thing that I think about probably every day. Um, what's really cool is that we were bringing together two like really cool technologies and we didn't necessarily know how they were going to fit together. And we were kind of honest about that. Right. We're like, okay. You know, there was a period where you know, we kind of went silent on here's talking to the market about who we are and what we do because we had to kind of go internal and figure out how does this connect. And because that was a, um, because that was uh, like a genuine real opportunity, everyone on the team kind of rallied around and was like, let's go figure this out. And so there was a lot of energy that was created there. Um, and that allowed us to you know, make sure to the time necessary to make sure that we had the right people doing the Right things. Um, and that we as a company were doing the right things. And so over the course of the last of that eight month period, um, we really all got on the same page. We were honest about that. We didn't know what that was yet. We were charting it together. And so you come out the other end and like, everybody feels like they're part of the same team. Um, and we all kind of have a similar aligned vision, which has been kind of, kind of exciting. But, you know, I do, I do get to say that, um, Molly probably knows it to be true or false more than I would, so I'd be curious to get her thoughts.

Speaker D: No, um, coming into the company post acquisition, like, so when I joined it was coming up to a year since the acquisition and for me it felt like one company from, like, from the day I joined, it didn't feel like it was Camp Orbital Insight and Camp Privateer. It was very unified in vision, as Declan said. And whilst the team was still figuring things out, like, how do we bring some of this capability together, Everybody was united on the vision of what the value of that would be like. If we could do the one plus one, it would equal a lot more than two.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's cool. It's good to hear. I mean, um, what we'll do is have a follow up episode in the year and see if your answers have changed at all. Um, um, who knows what the company looks like.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker A: Um, well, let's talk, uh, let's talk dual use product strategy for a bit. So Declan, I'll start with you as a Chief Revenue officer. What's the core challenge, um, in designing a product roadmap that's kind of satisfying both. Yeah. Government and commercial customers.

Speaker C: Yeah. So, um, it kind of builds upon, you know, your previous question. So because so much of our current work and our platform build is originally pointed towards defense, uh, and intelligence customers, we really need to be super mindful about a couple of things. So like, you know, how do, how is what we build and how we build it, you know, going to have implications for like, Itar and some of those. Knowing that our ambition is dual use and to be a commercial and a global company, we have to build with those things in mind now or else kind of the cost to change later will be exorbitant. Um, and the same is true from a pricing perspective. So like, we're setting anchors and markers with, um, government customers when we price things that may box us out of specific customers in the commercial side. So all of that has nothing to do with the actual product. How do we build a thing that works, that customers find value from? Um, but it's thinking a little bit farther knowing that we believe that our business is going to be um. I think we're one of the few kind of true dual use capabilities. There's a lot of talk about there. How is dual use really possible? We do believe that we're in one of the spaces where you can actually build a capability, that the technology solution is the same for both application in a defense and intelligence set, um, as well as a variety of commercial sets. Maybe the workflows will be different, you got to automate different parts of it, but the core technology is the same. So knowing that we're building with uh, kind of 18, 24 months in mind, knowing that uh, some decisions we make now might box us into corners prematurely for, uh, addressing the commercial market.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's uh, you know, it's a, it's a conversation that's had uh, pretty frequently here and I, I agree with you. I think it's, it's very much, you know, um, kind of, you know, domain specific or vertical specific on how, how, how quickly does the solution carry over without needing too many modifications. Uh, you know, um, you know you're, you're already in a pretty compliant, like heavy, heavy compliance, like environment. Right. So um, it's, it's certainly going to, you know, be building uh, in a similar fashion maybe. What about speed wise do you find, you know, timelines are different or quicker when going into like insurance versus, you know, the intelligence, uh, space?

Speaker C: Yeah, I mean the timelines are much quicker on the, on the commercial side, um, and the dollars are much lower. Right. So you can, you know, uh, you've got to kind of weigh those things together. Um, Molly has kind of come into the team and really developed a framework for how we're thinking about um, moving from the defense and intelligence world into the commercial market. And the direction of movement here is important. Um, when we acquired Orbital Insight a year ago, there were some really useful things that came with that acquisition. Not only the technology, but they also had a facility clearance, um, and the ability and contracts in place to do work with some key uh, government customers. That kind of compelled us to really lean in heavily and prioritize working with the US Government and the defense intelligence customers early because kind of the speed to market, there was something to take it that we had open to us that other early stage startups don't have. Like Privateer would not have been able to do that as quickly without kind of the orbital acquisition. Um, so that has allowed us to really focus there and now it's about porting those capabilities over into, uh, into the commercial, into the commercial markets. And so we know that the technology is useful. There's a lot of early adopters that are interested in thinking about how to apply, you know, space based commercial data from, in a true geospatial analytics model. And so, you know, we spend a lot of time thinking about what are the verticals that are going to move quickest here, what are the ones that, you know, the price sensitivity aligns with what our costs could be, um, and then testing the market in a lot of those areas.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a good queue up for, for Molly. I'd love to hear, you know, a little bit of your perspective of this from the go to market side. When you're thinking about the user Personas and, and you know, how those differ, um, pricing. Talk to me a little bit about what, you know, what you're trying to consume. It's a good time to, to ask you this because you're just coming in right, and so you're just a sponge, ah, soaking everything up. But what are you trying to like prioritize when you're thinking about go to market to accommodate this side or that side?

Speaker D: Yeah, there's really a couple of things, um, Declan touched on a few of them there. Pricing is really important. Like how we anchor our pricing with government customers really impacts like the market or the commercial market and how we can go to market there, um, and then down to product as well. So uh, our core, and our core kind of thesis here is that we're not building two separate products. We're not building for government and building for commercial. We're building one solution that is just flexible enough to serve both of those markets. So what we do is we don't treat government and commercial as separate tracks. Instead we look for those overlapping needs between both of them. So both, for example, both markets, they really care about trusted insights and easy integration into their workflows. And then we start by looking for the shared needs across those market segments. Um, so what government's really useful for is they often tend to lead in ah, funding early innovation. Um, but our commercial users, they really help us pressure test the usability and scalability of that solution. So what we're finding from a product point of view here is that our roadmap, it's really a reflection of both of those needs coming together. So it's what is where, where is their highest kind of mission. Urgency from a government point of view, but equally where is there the biggest pool from the commercial market. Um, and yeah, that's kind of core to where we're trying to stay focused on. Like let's build one product that will serve both of these markets and build it in a way that is modular and can be deployed in different environments.

Speaker B: I'm curious if you're seeing, uh, because this is just my assumption as an outsider, uh, with the commercial space, like some of those integrations being able to work with things, I would imagine they're going to be maybe a little more fresher, cutting edge, whatever, as opposed to some of the systems in the government might be a little bit more laggy and legacy. Um, are you finding, like trying to figure, figure out like when you're like, are you seeing that, I guess is my question like that there's a big divide between what you're trying to do in terms of integrating those systems with commercial versus with government. Are you seeing that the government is actually keeping pace with, with commercial in that regard?

Speaker D: I think from a commercial point of view you're definitely right. There's more demand on integrations and integrating into their existing kind of workflows, their tooling, whether that's an ERP system, whether that's putting data from their CRM system. Um, from the. I think one of the biggest differences that we see with commercial and with government is kind of the government typically comes to us with a list of requirements versus when you're in those commercial conversations, they come to you with like a list of objectives that I hey, we need to answer this question or solve for this. And it's really our job to like tease out there for like what those requirements are, uh, and map them into our product. So I think that's one of the bigger differences and requires a bit of a mindset shift and culture shift from our team's perspective who for the Last kind of 18 months have been focused on selling to government and having these list of requirements to now being told, hey guys, actually we've got to go and listen for the objectives and kind of what this commercial customer wants to solve for and we have to go and present to them what we think those requirements look like.

Speaker B: Yeah, definitely experience that. I, uh, the, the that mindset of like with the government trying to get them to tell them what's the problem I'm trying to solve. Don't tell me all the requirements because maybe we actually have a solution that you could use.

Speaker C: But yeah, I think in both scenarios, yeah, I think in both scenarios, what, what is consistent is both customer types have their own data, right? They have a ton of data and they have systems that they're already working on. So for us it becomes we need to be really focused and in an open architecture, um, kind of philosophy and willing and able to integrate, um, and that becomes clear on the government side where they have a lot of existing programs that we often have to work within. Um, but then the other part, and Molly mentioned, and this is something that we're really excited about is there's a lot of corporate data out there. There's a lot of data analytics companies that are doing really cool things, um, with corporate data. Our point of view is that um, there's not a ton of um, geospatial information applied to that corporate data. And that's where we think we can uh, play a cool role. We can enric, you know, the troves of corporate data with you know, geospatial temporal information sets, um, and get to really much better like business decisions. Um, and so the same architecture applies to one and the other. Um, so we think about that a lot as we select kind of where we're going to go first in terms of market verticals.

Speaker A: Yeah, you kind of um, teed me up for my next question and you know, answered a part of it already with you know, the access or the ability of um, getting much more data into your hands to provide some of this geospatial analytics, uh, feedback. What other trends are you all seeing in terms of uh, what's shaping geospatial solutions, uh, that are being procured today and how is privateer leaning into those or actually maybe staying away from them?

Speaker C: Go ahead, Molly.

Speaker D: Yeah, I mean to jump in here, I think there's two trends that I would say like I'm thinking about most in the market, especially where it's like where funding's going or um, so you kind of have the, oh like the satellite operators, the people collecting data. What they, they've been realizing is actually we need to sell analytics. Selling raw pixels to the commercial market doesn't work like they want insights, not imagery. So we're seeing kind of the satellite operators moving into that space which arguably is where we play. We play in the analytics layer, um, of the value chain there. And then you've got the other extre market which is highly vertically specific Earth, uh, observation insight solutions. So it might be one platform to tell you about climate risk across your investment portfolio or a different platform which tells you about your TNFD exposure, um, ET Cetera. And we sit kind of firmly in the middle when we're not so vertically specific that you're creating that fragmentation of a tech landscape. If you're a commercial buyer, you're not having to go out and buy 10 different geospatial solutions. But equally, we go essentially a step, or even two steps further than the satellite operators who have moved into the analytics space. Because, yes, those analytics can tell you car counts or how much deforestation has happened kind of in an area of interest. What they're not doing is going that step further. And as Declan mentioned, integrating with your company data to give you the full story or the full answer, they could kind of tell you the what's happening, but not the so what of that question. And I think that's where we say is like, between those two extremes. We're going further than the what, and we're telling you the so what, but we're not forcing you to have to buy 10 different solutions to answer all of your geospatial use cases across your organization.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's fascinating. Um, we talked to a few startups in the, in the space tech arena here, and, um, I don't know, I just, I'm just a sponge with it. I'm. I'm just so generally curious on what's happening because it's moving so quickly. M. To think about where we were, you know, 10 plus years ago, and, uh, the amount of opportunities that are being created in this rapid time is really fascinating. Um, go ahead, Jacqueline. If you.

Speaker C: Yeah, to that point. Right. Um, it seems like everybody has been waiting for the Earth Observation Market to be unlocked. Right. And that geospatial analytics is just like, right on the cusp of happening. And the cost of launch has dropped significantly. The quality of, like, optics and sensors going into orbit has improved dramatically. We still haven't seen that. And that's because, you know, the cost of the data is still the biggest driver. Um, and so, you know, as we looked and said, hey, we want to get into this kind of into this market space, uh, like, one of the options was, do we need to, like, go and put. Put, like, build our own constellation or acquire a constellation and like, break the pricing model. And that seemed hard, um, and expensive. Um, and like, other people have been trying to do that. Right. So then it came down to, well, how do we play and how do we create value? And so for us, it's really been about, um, automating the workflows, uh, for the specific kind of, like, you know, business use case where you can leverage geospatial data, um, and then piecing together the right data at the right time. So like you don't always need the highest resolution, lowest low latency data for your business need. Right. Like sometimes you can use cheaper data sets along the way and then only pull that data in the expensive data in at the critical time. So that's the, that's kind of the art and science and for us it's about thinking about that problem set um, and understanding what, what we don't want to be is like a data science consultancy and come in and do this project by project because that, and that's a different business and we don't want to be in that. Um, so it's saying, hey, what are those workflows that exist in a repeatable manner across, you know, an industry? Uh, let's automate that and then let's see how we can, you know, move the needle.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's really uh, it's a fascinating model.

Speaker D: Smart.

Speaker A: Um, uh, otherwise I feel like you'd be just chasing the next thing, you know. And uh, can you know, part, part of uh, you know, Molly, you can probably speak to the consulting stuff.

Speaker D: It's.

Speaker A: You get pretty exhausted quickly, uh, in that type of manner.

Speaker C: Yeah, we do not like it is we talk about it a lot. You know, Molly and myself and some other members of team. Like we don't want to be chasing shiny objects. Like we want to have some conviction about what we think is going to happen and go put ourselves in that space. Ah, you know, put ourselves in, in position so that when things unlock like we're ready to move quickly. Um, you know, that's uh, that's something we gotta have you know, high conviction on and it's something that Molly does a lot of detailed work and planning to make it as risk as, as risk adjusted a bet as possible for us.

Speaker A: I wanted to touch uh, on you know, scaling, you know, a dual use business. Um, you know, because it's no secret that you know, sales cycles can be extremely drawn out. This is one of the, a big talking point that we always cover when talking to dual use companies is you know, having diverse uh, revenue stream to be able to sustain if it's going to be a 2, 3, 4, 5 year drawn out sales cycle working with the government, you know, what, what is uh, you know, how I guess Declan for you maybe how do you align like your internal resources and expectations with the reality that this is you know, going to be a little bit more of a slower, maybe a more Complex kind of sales cycle.

Speaker C: Yeah. Um, so, you know, the shift in our business last year, prioritizing defense customers was an important one. There were a couple things that we had, like I said, um, clearance, but we also had some contract vehicles from idiqs in place that really allow you to, um, allow you to kind of grow your business in the near term. Right. Like these aren't program dollars that are going to completely, you know, move the needle and, um, and have you have like five year, you know, recurring revenue. But you can do a lot of good work with some of these IDIQs in place and a product that works. Uh, so we kind of said, you know what, we're going to go and have a good ground game. We're going to go to customers that we know like this capability. We're going to go participate in exercises, we're going to show them how it can add a ton of value. And we're not going to go after like the 50, $100 million contracts. We're going to piece together some onesie 2z million dollar contracts, keep the lights on, and underwrite the future growth of the business, which has been our plan and our philosophy. And so we've been doing that while we're seeding the business. And so Molly and the rest of our commercial team have identified almost a dozen customers there where we're having those discovery calls because as she mentioned, they come with a bunch of business objectives. Um, and those things don't move as fast as if we had a product with a bow that fit into a nice box with a bow on it. And we're just not there yet. Because while the product exists, it's the workflows that we want to automate. Um, so really we find ourselves kind of in an interesting spot. We anticipated that the United States government would have spent more money in, uh, the calendar year or the fiscal year of 25, um, than they currently have. I think we were very conservative in our revenue projections, understanding it was a presidential election, a change in administration. Those things always add delays. This is not totally uncommon. Um, I think I definitely asked for forgiveness when I talked to my boss about not anticipating it to delay this much. Um, so it has kind of forced us to realize that, um, we can invest more heavily in our commercial side than I think we had planned. Um, so where we thought that would hit growth stage January of next year, we're actually pulling that in a little bit because, uh, the opportunities are there for us.

Speaker A: Yeah, we're seeing that across the board. I don't think anybody was expecting, uh, the kind of year that it's, um. But I think everybody's hopeful that this is only a temporary kind of, um, blip in what should be a big turnaround in the future.

Speaker C: Yeah, and we're absolutely, I mean, have been in the space for long enough to know that these things happen cyclically. This is no different than that. Maybe just, um, uh, at a slightly different scale. But fortunately, it will change. And fortunately, we've been in a position to shift some of our focus and we've been flexible enough because I think some other folks might not have had the legs to withstand this period.

Speaker A: But on the flip side, and the positive side of this is like, there's no doubt that there's a push for, uh, more commercial industry partners to innovate on the government side. And that's kind of where we're at this intersection that we need to get to that point fully. But we're still kind of like bridging the gap to get there. But it's knowledge and it's known. And I think, you know, the sad reality is like, it's seen in, in modern warfare, right, that we're not, they're not going to wait around for your technology to play catch up. Um, and we see that a lot with a lot of, like, defense tech companies that are, you know, if it's, you know, building drone technologies to, to. To. To be deployed, um, you have to kind of move at the speed of hell, you know, wars being, being fought. And that's happening in real time, sadly, and it's acknowledged.

Speaker C: What's interesting there is, on the defense side, um, I think my hope, or what I think is happening for us is we have a fairly high TRL product. Um, and so it actually fits nicely into just as you described, Tim, where it's like a little bit more capital and this thing could really move the needle quite quickly in terms of enhanced capabilities. And so innovation theater, getting more folks into the start of the funnel and cool ideas. Yeah, there's a time and place for that. However, now the time perhaps is, hey, there's some stuff that works. If we just invest a little bit more focused here, we could actually bring it to a maximum number of customers and bring a new capability to the warfighter. And we are doing everything we can to fall into that category because our technology is real and it works. Um, and it's just about getting more customers, more warfighters using the capability and more integration so that it fits into whatever those defense and intelligence operational constructs and TTPs that exist.

Speaker A: Yeah, Molly, I want to talk about, like, breaking into new sectors because I think, you know, to the point that Declan made of, you know, folks are having to be more creative, uh, a little scrappier in terms of, you know, getting business in the commercial sector while, you know, government, you know, kind of plays a little catch up or, you know, is still going to be a little bit longer. Sales cycle. Sales cycle. What are some of the tactics, I guess, that you've tried or that maybe surprised you and how well they worked or didn't work when trying to break into new sectors?

Speaker D: Yeah, I think, as Declan mentioned, kind of this year is our first real year with a lot of energy behind, like, going into the commercial market and to expand our footprint there. Um, and what we're. The way we're doing that is, Declan, you actually said this, like, let's minimize kind of the risk. Let's have conviction around what markets, what use cases, and what the product needs to look like for those markets. So what we've been spending kind of the last couple of months on is what we call our small bet approach. Essentially a, uh, series of, like, very targeted pilots and proof of concepts with commercial customers. So we have about 12 at the moment, commercial customers we're working with to essentially test what solution they need, what does that solution need to look like. And across those, what we're looking for is, like, the common denominators across them all. Because we kind of touched on earlier, we're not chasing one win. We're saying, is there downstream, uh, value? Like, if we develop or solve this for one customer, could we go and sell that same product with a nice bow on it to 20, 50, 100 more to really, like, up that percentage of our business that's coming from the commercial market? And as much as that's 25% today, the ambition is like, next year that's 50%. The year after that it becomes 75% and the scales have tilted entirely. Um, so what this small bet approach is, it's really about how do we across industries. We're doing this across finance, across insurance, across energy, even local government. So civil government versus the defense and intelligence world we're looking for. Where are those really strong signals of market traction? And answering three questions with each of these. What is the urgency? Um, so is there a real pain point this customer is looking to solve? What is their willingness to pay? Are they just curious about what this tech can do for them, or do they actually have budget behind this problem? They might not have budget for our specific solution, but they've ring fenced budget to go and solve this in their business. And then yeah, the third one as I mentioned, does this have scalability across the market and also looking for horizontal scalability. So what we find is there's quite often cross segment applicability of some of these solutions. So use cases that show up in different forms but across different industries or different end user segments. So for example that might be one customer in financial services looking at how do they monitor construction, uh, progress at a site that they've invested in, a property development site all the way through to a government user for example, who could be interested in monitoring urban ah, growth and urban change to inform policy decisions. So what's interesting is that there has the very same underlining capabilities, the same data, the same algorithms, but just being presented in a different way and having a different like ROI metric attached to it and way of like testing that value.

Speaker A: That's really neat. Um, so I got that right? You said it's the small bet approach.

Speaker D: Yeah, the small bats. It's like.

Speaker A: I thought you said small bear. I thought you said small bear. I was like, oh, like a little cub, uh, approach. Yeah, that's cool. So, so a number of these little small targeted pilots, um, that's, that's really interesting. Um, and then you know, so have you seen ah, success from you know, some of those pilots that have evolved and scaled and you know, is it something uh, that you found to kind of be like a repeatable process?

Speaker D: Yeah, what we've found, and it's interesting because we're like three months into this process and the goal is by the end of this calendar year, like we have real conviction to say to our product team, here are the four products that the commercial market really wants. So really focus on developing those out. But what we've already seen is kind of the coalition um, around specific use cases. So we've already been able to group a lot of those small bets together to find those kind of shared requirements from a product point of view, shared user stories so that we can build that kind of cross market product and not just be chasing those custom builds. Um, I think one of the biggest mindset shifts internally for this process has been guys, we need to carve out time and effort for something that might be a 200k opportunity versus a multimillion opportunity. But the team is so on board with it. They really recognize that the power of the commercial market, if we win hundreds of contracts, really stacks up and becomes a very compelling market to be in,

Speaker A: um, yeah, that's, that's, that's really interesting to hear firsthand. Uh, appreciate you sharing that. Uh, I think I'm sure that'll be helpful for a lot, a lot of listeners that are in a similar seat to yourself. Um, all right, so I, I do want to do one more kind of quick question to put a bow on this conversation before we segue, uh, into the final segment, which is the, the five second scramble, which should be some rapid fire Q and A. Um, so, you know, for, for the founders that are listening, we get a lot of early stage founders that are building dual use companies. Uh, um. You know, what's a takeaway piece of advice that you would give for these folks that are kind of navigating the dual use maze, if you will, without getting too lost? Maybe I'll start with you, Declan.

Speaker C: Geez, where do you start? Yeah, I think, um, for us, um, we are trying to become a product LED company, um, right. Where we build a product. We have strong conviction about, um, about what it is that we're going to do, where the value is going to be, build it and then, and then like, you know, and then take that to the market. Um, and, and just based on a little bit of, kind of the nature of, of kind of how we got to where we are through Privateer, the acquisition, um, and then some of the expectations that come with raising capital. Uh, we are currently kind of like a program slash contract LED company because we still have revenue requirements and we got to keep the lights on. And so right now we're trying to be agile enough so that we can still meet our contractual obligations, build a thing, because on our defense customer side, we have a solid product market fit. There's a product that works customers like that, but it's not actually our full ambition and uh, vision as a company. And so we're trying to take this strategic, deliberate transition from being kind of product revenue contract led, towards being program contract led to being more of a product led business. Um, and that requires us to be, um, at the same time, like, super dogged and disciplined about where we want to go, but also flexible in how we get there.

Speaker A: M. Very cool. Molly, any closing remarks?

Speaker D: M. I think for me it's, um, probably because it's like my main focus at the moment here at Privateer. But don't underestimate the power of running those kind of small, fast experiments. I think some of the biggest insights come from those, like having those conversations and taking the time to do customer discoveries. And I think that learning like Velocity is really important, especially in the Earth, uh, observation market, where for commercial customers, like, everyone's still figuring it out. Understanding the business models, the price points, the product market fit. So taking the time to run those experiments shouldn't be underestimated.

Speaker A: Cool. Awesome. Uh, well, yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's a ton more we could talk about at length on the topic, but, uh, we're gonna. We're gonna wrap the. The conversation at this point and, and segue into the. The final segment, which is, uh, the five second scramble. So a lot of pressure, uh, builds up at this point in the. In the podcast. It's. Try to keep your answers under five seconds. You know, quick hit Q and A, some business, some personal. Um, Mike, why don't you lead with Molly, and then I'll, uh, close with Declan.

Speaker B: Sounds good. Uh, you ready, Molly?

Speaker D: I am. I'm quite nice.

Speaker B: All right, if Privateer Space were an animal, what animal would it be?

Speaker D: Oh, an antelope.

Speaker B: That was fast. What's. What's the geospatial use case that you. That sort of surprised you or might you think other people might be surprised by?

Speaker D: Oh, um, one that I worked on back in my days at Deloitte was being able to count whales from space. Um, we're working with, like, a whale conservation charity, and they were like, we don't know how many whales there are in the world. Help us.

Speaker B: That's pretty cool.

Speaker D: Connect to a super interesting research team out in Germany. Cool.

Speaker B: Uh, I know you're new, but what's your favorite, uh, part of the culture there at Profiteer?

Speaker D: Ooh, m. I think Slack channel culture. I didn't have slack before.

Speaker C: So fun.

Speaker D: There's all these, like, fun channels I keep discovering.

Speaker A: Cool. I love it.

Speaker B: Uh, what was your favorite toy growing up?

Speaker D: Um, I loved. It was called, like, Betty Spaghetti. It had all these, like, attachable limbs and fun hair. It's definitely full of, like, BPA plastic.

Speaker B: What's a charity, uh, or cause that's near and dear to you?

Speaker D: I recently ran for, like, the London Half Marathon last year, and I ran that for charity called Make a Wish foundation, which I think is really important.

Speaker B: And last one, um, what's a surprising hobby of yours?

Speaker D: Surprising hobby. Um, super lame. I love to play the board game Catan. I, like, started it in lockdown with my friends and got, like, hooked ever since.

Speaker B: Yep, that's. That's a common family game night game in my house. I have older kids, so that's something to look forward to.

Speaker A: Good stuff. Awesome. Um, definitely.

Speaker C: Well, I have so many follow on questions for Molly now.

Speaker B: Do it in Slack. You can start a whole Slack channel around it.

Speaker C: She knows I hate Slack, so uh,

Speaker D: voice knit me about it.

Speaker A: She's also created a, um, uh, the, the Privateer, uh, mascot it seems with the animal.

Speaker C: Yeah, we'll have to run that by our team, but it's a start.

Speaker A: Something she's been thinking about that rattled off so quickly. It was great.

Speaker C: Speed of that was very concerning. Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah. All right, Declan, let's, let's do it. You ready?

Speaker C: No, but let's do it.

Speaker A: Uh, pitch Privateer to me as if I was a five year old.

Speaker C: Uh, there are a lot of things that we're putting into space more and more so and it's just like a highway. And the more we know about the traffic lights on the highway, uh, the better we can keep things from bumping into one another so those cars can do what they're supposed to do.

Speaker A: It's like one of those bedtime stories, man. You got it down.

Speaker C: Yeah. I mean, and it's anything that's an intellectual level of five years old. I'm.

Speaker A: Do you have a favorite kind of company core value that you lean into at Privateer?

Speaker C: Um, yeah, I, I really like. We have kind of this way of thinking about like no more, um, no better. And I, and I really do think that that's kind of like, like a good philosophy. Um, kind of like the more there's a lot of data that's out, there's a lot of information that's out there being like well informed about what it is that you're trying to do and, and taking some risks and finding new information is, is really useful. I did get it wrong because I thought it was no more be better. Um, which I've been told actually is a good reflection of who I am. So,

Speaker A: uh, what kind of technologist thrives, uh, in your environment?

Speaker C: Um, ones that can uh, put order on the chaos. Right.

Speaker A: Who?

Speaker C: You know, we do our best as a business to kind of avoid whiplash. Um, but ultimately, like I said, we're transitioning from um, a contract revenue led organization to a product led organization. So keeping those two things in mind, um, ah, holding those two parts of your brain at the same time is something that we, we, we value.

Speaker A: What's a, a charity or, or corporate philanthropy that's near and dear to you?

Speaker C: Yeah, good question. There's an organization called the Phoenix, which is a sober, active community that provides a ton of services to uh, from like mental health and activities, reading groups, yoga, fitness, um, to folks in early recovery. Um, and I think it's, you know, just. It brings so many cool options to. To people who are struggling with, uh, addiction in their lives.

Speaker D: Cool.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll actually, uh, put both of those, uh, charities as a plug in the show notes when the episode goes live. Uh, favorite skill set that you learned, uh, in the Marine Corps that you find most useful today.

Speaker C: Um, it's called the knife hand. And so every Marine kind of knows what it is. But it's like, when you're kind of joking around, but, like, this means I'm serious, right? Like, I'm cutting through whatever it was before. It's slightly aggressive, but not, like, really threatening of physical violence. And so it's a joke in the Marine Corps, um, of your knife hand. Um, but I would say it's probably, like, something, um, that I keep with me, which is, um, like, we. We take our work seriously, but we don't take ourselves too seriously. Um, and so that being able to toggle between, like, hey, I'm serious. This is an important thing, but we can still joke around about difficult things. I think it allows you to push through some of the challenges that come, whether it's. Whether it's, you know, you know, in the m. In the military or just in families or in a corporate setting.

Speaker A: Nice. Uh, what's the worst fashion trend that you ever followed?

Speaker C: Um, there's a fault in the question, which presumes that I know fashion enough to follow the trends. Um, but I will flip it and say, ah, since I'm happily married, I now just wear whatever I get for Christmas and holidays. Um, and I seem to be pretty safe.

Speaker A: And, uh, last question. This is just a true or false, um, Alex. Alex Ovechkin is the greatest hockey player that's ever lived.

Speaker C: True. True. As a D.C. area native, uh, you know that, Mike.

Speaker B: No, I mean, just goal scorer, I'll go with, but.

Speaker C: Well, if you. If you put into, like, the. The things that happened after they won the Stanley cup, um, you know, have to, you know, put you into a new echelon of human beings. So that. For me.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: Yeah, we'll have to do another episode where we just talk hockey and, uh, talk about Alex Ovechkin for about an hour.

Speaker B: Uh, kill me.

Speaker A: Cool. That's a. That's a wrap. Declan, Molly, thank you both for joining us. Uh, again, a great conversation. Kind of looking behind the curtain of how, you know, a dual use tech company, uh, is operating and, uh, you know, servicing two different. Very different markets. So. So appreciate you all sharing the playbook with us. And thanks for joining us on the podcast.

Speaker C: Thanks so much for having us.

Speaker B: Thanks so much.

Speaker D: It's been great.