NASA Tried This in the 70s. Jasper Deprez's Startup Is Doing It Now.

Jasper Deprez is building TerraSpark, a company focused on space-based solar power - with the goal of delivering commercial energy from space to Earth by 2030.

Before this, he spent a decade bootstrapping a startup in employee engagement.

In this conversation, we explore:
- The future of space-based solar power
- Building deep tech startups with startup speed
- How to break impossible visions into executable steps
- The role of communication and trust inside founder teams
- Why most startups accidentally become “science projects”
- The framework TerraSpark uses to operate

A fascinating conversation about ambition, execution, and building things that sound impossible.

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Connect with James on LinkedIn or at peer-effect.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, I'm James Johnson, founder and CEO coach. Welcome to Peer Effect, the podcast where your peers will tell you what's unlocking their 10 million plus business. My guest today is Jasper DePrez, founder and CEO of TerraSpark. They're going to beam clean electricity to Earth from space using radio frequency technology. And they've recently raised a 5.4 million round lent by Daphne. We're going to talk about how to translate a big vision into faster execution. And remember to hit the subscribe button before we get started. So, I mean we're going to talk today about balancing long-term vision and short-term execution. But first of all, how did you get what's your origin story to get to this point?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

So bootstrapping started for the last 10 years. I was in pre-engagement, but really I started looking at energy since 2021. And I don't know if you have children, James, but but when you start becoming a dad, it's like you start seeing the world slightly different. You start caring about things that before you didn't even really think about. So for me, that was there was energy. Because I believe that energy is like one of those things that we finally underestimate. It is the reason why people go to war, it's the reason that we have this climate disaster. It's something that your grandmother is using, but also your children. It's used from Canada all the way to New Zealand. But yet there's like this entire mystery around it, and it's quite frankly not where we need it to be, right? And that's it. And so I started thinking about energy and always quite standard, I'd say, which is like, right, we need more energy. Like great, thanks, Sherlock. Um, but it it it was only because uh the blackout in Spain last year that I realized, like, well, it's not necessarily only about having more energy, it's but being able to bring that energy where and when you need it, right? And so that that led me to a very wild journey of of kind of searching for solutions uh to the problem that could both generate energy and bring it efficiency, and that that brought me then to space-based solar power.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

As it does, I mean I I love how you've gone from sort of like say bootstrapping sort of enterprise productivity software into building a space business.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

It all makes sense, James. It's like it's clearer that I mean it's just some natural, you know, natural movement.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

But what I love about this is like to do this, I mean you've flipped in stuff and doing it because like you've you've raised recently, like you've built a team, like how have you managed to get out and share this vision so effectively? Because it feels like this is this is a very much a vision product.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

So that there's I don't I don't want to take all the credit myself, there's also just things that happen in the world that kind of makes it hard to not engage, whether or not it's a terrorist part, but just not to engage uh with with the topic. Um, but yeah, maybe maybe to to to walk a little bit back, right? So as I was searching on space-based solar, uh, my background is not engineering. That's uh my background is in human behavior, so there's nothing to do with engineering. Uh but what I have in common with my first uh enterprise, oh, with trend to what I'm building it, with Terra Spark is like I got wildly annoyed about a problem. And so in Terrace Park, like my dad is a mailman, or was a mailman, and when he went in retirement, the thing that he got was like a plastic medal to say thank you for your 40 years of service. I thought that was so like sad that that is how we are thanking people, and also this is the first time that he was thanked on the day that he leaves the organization. So it was done. Then I sat out and went, right, I am gonna change this. And there was the same with Terra Spark, you know. When the blackout happened in Spain, what happened was for six and a half days my village went out of energy. Um and with two small toddlers, like that is that that is wildly annoying. I think I the other day I shared some pictures of it, like you can really see we were surviving with extension cords coming into our house from the neighbors just to be able to, I don't know, like even the basic things like have lights. Christmas decoration was the was literally our lights that we had at that moment in our house, right? So and that's kind of fun for the first couple of hours, but quite quite rapidly. The the niceness of it kind of really disappears. But so when you when you want to go and and build something like space-based solar, or or at least for my my opinion, any any kind of business really, it's about getting. I mean, Jim Collins calls this get the right people on the bus, right? So it's about getting a team around you with people that know how to do certain aspects of it, right? And so when you think about space-based solar, it is the system of systems, so it's really it's about highly technical, like wow, right? Like this is hardcore deep tech, space tech, and energy tech, like all in one. Um and it's really the game of mass production. Because you know, we're gonna be building these massive satellites in space that is gonna capture energy and bring it back down to Earth. So okay, these are a lot of like moving variables, and so that the first thing I did when I started looking at space-based solar is okay. I well, if I need a CTO here, but someone that really knows how to go and build this. So, as one does, James, I went to Chat GPT, uh, and I asked Chat GPT who in the world would be the one person that would be able to build this. And like I got a list, and in that list, like really high up was Dr. Sanjay Vigendrin, uh, who was at ChatGPT was saying the leader of Solaris, right? And so Solaris was the program built within the European Space Agency to go and build space-based olive power. And then I did something what also any other normal human being would do, James, which is I reached out to him. And I think that that's where most people get afraid or get stuck. Like, can I go and reach out to this person that's so far? Like, yes, like these people are also normal human beings, right? Like, also I don't know they also have dinner in the evening and talk to their children. So so I reached out to Sanjay, and to to my surprise, he actually just left the European Space Agency like a couple of months before, which is like when the stars aligned, right? Like uh to I mean to stay in the space team, I guess. So so I reached out to Sanjay, and I'm like, do you want to talk about space-based solar power? And I remember in my message, I'm like, I promise I haven't watched you know, I promise it's not because I watched Star Wars or something of Muslim. And so I set up a call with Sanjay, and that call was supposed to be like half an hour, and I think we ended up talking for like three or four hours or something like that. Um and my my first pitch was quite quite quite interesting. Again, I'm not a technical founder, right? Uh I was like, right, Sanjay, so the space-based everything, the way that we're gonna do this uh is we're gonna make it as small as possible, and we're gonna put tennis and people on their roofs. And I see Sanjay's face, and this was the first five minutes, is like, yeah, no, the physics doesn't work in that. Um but what I liked about his his his pivot was are you and it was funny that he was asking this startup question. He's like, is it really important that it's on the roof, or is it important that we find a way to make it work? Like, oh, oh, someone's asking a question about iteration. I like it. So quite honestly, I don't really care if it's on rooftops. Is this a solution that allows us to bring base load energy anywhere, everywhere in the world? Uh if you depends on how bullish you are on how the future is gonna look, you can say, look, that energy is gonna land somewhere between three to five cents per kilowatt hour anywhere in the world. I mean, this is this is the the the holy grail of energy, right? So yes, like however we can make that work. The question is, can we make it work? And say it's not like how I got to Sanji, and and that is the deep technical uh knowledge, and so then I was you know I was searching for someone to take over Tradler, the the company bootstrapped, and we have uh an advisor in Tradler, he's amazing. His name is Eric Bowen. Um Eric, if you're seeing this, thank you. You're a legend, right? But but Eric is uh he's now currently the CTO of King, and so Eric was advisor and mentor in Tradler, but he was also advisor and mentor in Tier Mobility. I don't know if you know Tier, uh the the the micro the micro mobility uh platform, so they had like 350,000 vehicles in 450 cities, and so he introduced me to Matthias Lauch, who was the co-founder and CTO of Tyr. And again, stars aligned, right? So Matthias was just about to move from Berlin to Barcelona. I live in Barcelona, and asked to Eric, yeah, do you know anyone in Barcelona they should speak to? And Eric says, Yes, I have this crazy Belgian that lives there, you should probably chime in. And so Matthias and me we were chatting for like about five minutes, and so I had in the back of my mind, alright, maybe someone I can hand over trendy to. He had in the back of his mind, right? I don't know, someone to talk to me about tapas, I guess. And so after like five minutes talking about tapas, I was like, right. Matthias, we're gonna change this conversation. How do you feel about powering the world? Um and since there we we we went on the run to to talk about space, but it's sort of again a conversation that was really too long. Um, but yeah, so it's the tree of us. So Matthias, just a quick intro on him as well. Um, so he was the co-founder and CTO of the mobility, and he was also the founding CTO of Le Ferrando, and then the CTO of Just E Takeaway. So is it the tree of us that is building space based on the power?

SPEAKER_00 11:08

So it feels like I mean it's it's you can see the strength of the team that you've got sort of on the on each side you're covering the angles you need to charge. So are you are you very much focused on sort of the fundraising business operation side of it?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

So I'm clearly the good-looking one of the three, right? So obviously. Obviously, right? So uh yeah, no, I'm I'm responsible for the commercial side and I'm responsible for the communication side and the capital side. Um actually you're gonna love this. I mean, I know I look a little bit like a pirate today, it's because I had an accident yesterday in the garden. Uh but yeah, we we actually in in Terrace Park we created a framework to go and manage this large thing, right? Because normally what we say at the starting says focus on one thing and do that really well. It doesn't work with space many solar power, right? Because it's so many moving parts. So what we've done is we we split Terrace Park in what we call the seven C's, obviously, because we're a bunch of pirates.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 12:10

The seven C stand for craft, which is engineering, that's it's with the time chain, commercial, capital, and applications, that's it's with me, and then you have compliance, crew, and cajuns, and that's it's with Matias. That over since how we operate.

SPEAKER_00 12:31

That feels like a sort of an unusual, like if you've got some from a CTO background, let's say crew, for example, is not necessarily one you'd associate with CTO. So, what what how did you decide which of the C's to split where?

SPEAKER_01 12:45

Yeah, so so some of that came natural, uh, but also the thing we we have a superpower with Matias being actually an undercover CTO, right? Because in an age where everything becomes an agent or anything can become automated, we can stay really lean. Because Matias, as a COO, is seeing everything almost as a product or a story that we can build. So, how do we optimize our recruitment? How do we build around that so that all these manual things go away? How do we work around things like cadence and operations and the business? How do we optimize that? How do we make sure that our engineers don't spend half days in just creating birch zones? How do we how do we build a system right that allows us to operate as quickly as we can? And so that's really unlocking that that superpower that Sitswit Matthews. He's also very structured. I don't know if it's because he's German or not, but he's very, very structured, so that also helps a lot, right? So yeah, no, and and I think when people see us, for example, like we we are based in Luxembourg, and I think when people see us in a bar in Luxembourg that they're I don't know, that they believe that this is like a Tinder date that went wrong or something, or it's like that. We should not know each other, right? And and somehow we did, um, which is yeah, kind of magical.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

But it feels like this, it is really the vision at the key of this. It's the vision that allows you to connect with both of them. It's the vision that's allowed you to do all of it. I mean, you you've had to take the steps like from chat GPT to actually reaching out onwards, and there has been some serendipity, but it feels like what's brought you as a disparate group together is this is a very clear vision.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Is that fair? So so yeah, I mean it's it's it's a vision, like it's it's also a part that we have the obligation to do this. Like, if you think about just I don't want to become like grandiose now, because I think that this is a a disease that we have in today's society that we all believe that we're more important than we are, but um like really we don't have another choice of doing this, like quite honestly. From the place in the world that we live, we have to go and do this, we need to own our own infrastructure and our own energy. Because we can we can talk about how that then looks like, sure, but that principle remains the same. Then the second thing is when we talk about things like climbing, we need to act, right? And and we can't wait yet another day. And that's I mean, I think that that is also why Sanjay and me we came so well along from the first second. Like we share a medical disease, it's called imbatience, it's wonderful, right? Sanjay left Issa because it was going, it was not planned to go quick, because which made sense within that kind of agency, right? That doesn't it's not optimized like a startup. Let's go and break a bunch of things and figure out how to get that done. And and so, yes, vision, but it's not hard to have a vision, right? Like, I think that a lot of people overestimate also that like it's not hard to say something obnoxiously big. What's hard is to do it and to break it down into pieces that are actually achievable and and that are tangible, right? And I think that that is really what we've done with with Terraspol because the vision of space-based solar exists already since the 40s. That's not a new concept. That concept exists almost for a hundred years, right? If you think about it, and in the 70s, NASA has spent 50 million on really digging around to figure out can this be done? And the the technical result was yes, we can do this, but just not yet. So it's not hard to have a big vision. I think it's the the art in breaking it down into the smallest building blocks that you could possibly imagine.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Okay, let's that's let's let's dig into that because that feels actually you've got a technology that has been around for close 100 years. Major space agencies have had a crack at it, albeit at different times at different paces, and you're coming at this with a from a sort of less well-funded and less sort of technical background, although not with your crowd phone. How are you actually what is it that's making it now for you guys, Mitch Reality, and how practically are you breaking this vision down? But how you break a vision down is something that other founders can use whether going after space or B2B SaaS, like practically, how are you breaking down that that vision?

unknown 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:35

So when you when you when you have a vision, right, you usually have this kind of like long-term, this is the the holy grail, or the thing that we want to go and unlock, whether it's I'm gonna be build an AI that I don't know becomes the best at finance and it's gonna be incredibly well, or we're gonna build this um social media platform that connects everyone in the world, or we're gonna go and create this um food delivery app that you know is gonna be globally used by everyone. And and I think it's it's a boring, simply answer, actually, but I'm not gonna give it. It's one that we have heard indeed all linked in that like has been over and over again, but I think we sometimes fail to put that into practice, which is yes, it is fine that you have this giant market, so it's kind of like what we need to show, but what is the tiniest first thing that you can do? And so, for space-based servers specifically, what we've seen was that a lot of the people start with the question um, who or no, how do we deliver the largest amount of power at the cheapest cost of energy? Which is a very beautiful question, and it also ensures that you know if you are the European space agency, for example, obviously you have a sort of responsibility to you know your member states, so so you can't start with something really small, you kind of have to go and and start with that with that big ambition, and and I agree with that big ambition because if you are doing that, like look, you're delivering energy. I mean, I've seen models that talk about 80% of power in Europe at a cost of three to five cents per kilowatt hour, like of yes, right? Like, when can we have that? But that then becomes the problem because that the first system becomes this humongous thing that we need to go and build that takes billions to build, take years to go and create, and yeah, no one kind of wants to go and do that, which is understandable because look, risk appetite. Then that really, when you want to go and do that, has to become a governmental approach, and it's gonna take years, right? Like that that is kind of an institute that has that kind of capital, can you know, can take that kind of risk and the okay, right? But from a private organization, you can't. I cannot go to an investor and say, right, I just need a cheeky billion, right? And I'm not sure that this works like that. That just simply that doesn't work. So what we did is we asked the question different. Because they start from how to deliver the largest amount of energy and the cheapest cost of energy. What we did is we started with what is the smallest, commercially viable, scalable, and investable space-based solar power company that we can imagine. Now that leads to a very different answer. And sure, the energy initially is more expensive, absolutely, yes. But the cost of energy is irrelevant. The cost of energy is only relevant within the context of a customer. Like, do we need to be competitive from day one in Spain? No. I don't know why why why is that a criterion? The question is, at what cost of energy are we competitive where?

unknown 21:11

Right?

SPEAKER_01 21:11

And so that is how we started building Teraspot with small pieces and then work from there. And then we also had an earnings, right? Like deep tech startups, usually, and I think that's also a bit because I'm a bootstrapper, so I get really nervous when I hear five years down the line is the first thing that we can sell. But so when when uh when when you start looking at Terra Spark, for example, or really a lot of deep tech startups, it is very often kind of like a binary bat. Either it's gonna work or it doesn't. And that, yeah, that doesn't sit well with us. Because look, in our case, for example, if you can be empowered like this from space to Earth, well, then you can also be empowered like that. Herd Steel. So, yeah, okay, we are already working on commercialization of wireless power beaming, which we can do already in the next 18 months. And that in itself is an incredible business. But that allows us again to build building blocks towards that big grand vision.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

So it sounds like two things here. One is changing the question that you're asking. And secondly, it's about coming back as many stages as you possibly can. So sequencing backwards from your endpoint. And rather than stopping at here's the roughest version of this end solution, it's like, how can we break this this down into as many microcomponents as well? And come back to the beginning of those.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Do you think that you will get there? Do you have an idea of how long you would like to the what time scale you would like to get there, having done this sort of working backwards process?

unknown 23:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

So the the good thing is when it becomes standard components, it's very more concrete. And when it's concrete, you can go quicker. And if you think about it, the amount of time that we are uh a company is not that long, right? We're very short, well, very, very young company. And we already, end of this month, have built uh you know space hardware that's going to be shipped to space. So we're going at the speed of a software company with the iterations because we are breaking it down to these tiny tiny tiny pieces. Right? And so it it feels counterintuitive because then wow, yeah, but you break it down so small, isn't it just quicker to do that? But no, actually, because then we do that, you make a mistake or you learn something, then you have to make that jump again, whilst we go really, really, really quick on tiny steps. And so, like, how quick we want to go, we always have this this uh I mean this kind of like idea that within Terrace Park when people join we we should give them sports shoes or running shoes because you know uh Sanji and me are very impatient. We we strongly believe, and strong it's probably not strong enough of a work that this can be done uh by 2030-2032, and that is our roadmap. A roadmap is to have the first systems up in space, 2030, bringing commercial energy from space to Earth.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

And by commercial you mean at a rate where it people will choose to do it rather than the the commercial reason but the environmental ones.

SPEAKER_01 24:58

Yeah, I mean what we also learned is that the environmental reason for it is good than that, we know that reason, but that is not a reason that is why someone buys or invests. And and there's a lot of it's a sad thing to to hear the reality of that, but it's it is commercially viable and it is good for the planet, but it needs to be the end, and so with space based sub it can already be commercially viable, but again, the question is for who I'm hosting answer. That I mean that will change over time, right? So there's now some flavors of demand, but obviously there's hyperscalers that are just not getting energy, so they're the cost of energy is way less important than the cost of not having energy. Alright, cool. That's one mining is a good example, right? They're very off-grid. Uh, there are certain mines in this world that are bringing diesel to a side with a plane, right? So, okay, you can imagine the cost there. Uh, there's disaster relief that I mean there's all these sorts of like different, very specific, nuanced use cases, which sure, like there are not that many, right? Or that market, I mean, that market is still like quite quite large, but if you compare it to the 9 trillion euro energy market, then of course that is as a subset of that. But as we reduce our costs, the part of the market that opens for us increases, and so that is what I'm saying. But yes, the grand vision, that is the right question to start with, and from there, now what is the tiniest version that we can start with today?

SPEAKER_00 26:46

But it feels like that commercial element of what is commercially doable now is still an important question to you. So there must be a segment of the market that today you can address commercially. So it sounds like the commercial element is important to you. So even though it's like it's not about what is commercially viable for say the three three dollars, it's kind of what it so what was the exact numbers that you said that the space agency aiming for like a three dollar cost or a three?

SPEAKER_01 27:20

No, so so when you go into like but this is not what we're aiming at, right? I mean, you can see that in our white people, we're aiming at 30 cents per kilowatt, right? For initial initial assistance, but there are uh analysis out there that shows that if you scale that to geosynchronous orbit, because then also also your utility rate improves and so on. I mean, there's a whole bunch of stuff there, that your cost of energy can drop to three to five cents per kilowatt hour. But what I'm saying is that regardless if this is true or not, we don't need that to be true. Yeah, what we need to be true now is that at 30 cents per kilowatt hour, there are customers that are willing, and where that is already cheaper, and that is true, that exists, that isn't today, right?

SPEAKER_00 28:09

And I say that that's something that does feel important. The fact that you could this even this first version, this micro version you're going after, has a commercial application, and it's not uh a proof of concept, it can be done, it's a proof of concept that can be done commercially for an existing customer.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Exactly. I get allergic reactions with the science project. I don't want to do a science project. We're in the build in the company or we're in the business of building a business, right? And so anything that we can do that adds value to someone is excellent, and if that helps is also to de-risk the technology further, even better.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

And so we we're all talking about sort of the idea between how you sort of combine the idea of like a long-term vision and maintain execution, and it feels like part of this is like breaking down the vision into components that you can then execute on quicker. So actually it's it becomes an and rather than an or.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Jim Collins would be so proud of it, but yes, right.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

So it becomes an and uh and and you know, then then you have the this concept. Now we're going to remote, right? That's called the guide guiding principle, right? And so our guiding principle is will it be more power? That's it, right? Because when you can break down components, it's very simple, oh, very easy to get distracted, then with you know, side missions that don't necessarily help with the long-term goal, right? And so the way that we safeguard that is by asking the question, will it be more power? Obviously, the onset of you know the the ground vision.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

So, and it's the power rather than the commerciality and that in and as as that principle. So it's like how's it bring more power? It's not more power at a price, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

So it depends a little bit who is asking the question and where. Uh but yeah, right. So there's will it be more power as the simple one? The the longer one is will it allow us to the uh to decrease the time to a sustainable market? Which again, I think when you talk about commercialization, I think a lot of and I was actually this week we were talking about that in Lisbon, a lot of organizations approach this. Some organizations approach this as a like start, right? Like this is how we commercialize, we sell energy from space, or we do uh AI subscriptions for finance, like okay, I get that that is where we want to go, but is there a smaller version already today? And that might not be the entire grand vision yet, I get that. But what is that small thing already today that we can go and prove and test?

SPEAKER_00 31:02

How does this affect how you set up your business to actually operate? Because you have a very clear vision, you've got your your seven C's, you've got your three like really well-balanced three co-founders, but for other founders listening and they're they want to focus more on execution. How does this change how you operate as a business?

SPEAKER_01 31:21

Yeah, I think between the three coal farms, we operate with like full transparency and also full trust. Like, if Matias is working on compliance, like I am gonna assume and I'm gonna trust him that he has that under control 100%. The same like when I'm working on commercial, and then we're pulling each other in on certain topics that are like, right, okay, here I really need your view all because I'm gonna make this technical decision that will affect how we commercialize, so send in to this, but that is it, and I think that what when I was, for example, doing wrong, my first business that I'm not doing now, is I kind of felt that I have to be everywhere all the time, right? And then and I think that that is that is true to some extent, like you have to have awareness of everything, but you don't have to be in the decision of everything. I think that that is something that you know that I also learned over time.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

And how does that sort of reflect as an operation cage? Like, how often do you guys catch up as a three? How much does like ad hoc conversations? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 32:35

Yeah, so so um I call Sanji and Matthias Morton. I call my mother, and I didn't call my mother quite often. So uh yeah, no, so we have a daily stand-up, right? So that's the that's the the basic. Uh we have operating dashboards that show us of these OPRs how we're moving things along, uh but then ad hoc a lot, and especially now, right? Like we're now moving our business to we just last week set up our our actual office in Luxembourg before engineers were working in in uh in in uh in in uh Portugal and Sanjay was in the Netherlands, and I'm in Barcelona, and Matisse is in Berlin, it's it was on remote, it was all very hard. Now finally, okay, we're gonna have that spot together. And but yeah, we we overc communicate, and also just because a lot of times, and very especially very early in the journey, there are generally a lot of cool things to celebrate, right? And we're often down, right? And we're like getting into the weeds and we're like building stuff, but but really like also just call each and like wow, I had this incredible call, right? Or right, hey, we just had that first piece of hardware, look at how it looks like. Like these are things that that help you shape the way that you operate and help you shape how you communicate with each other.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

But it feels like that here is a real balance between like there's there's a daily stand-up, there's the ad hoc communication, there's the celebration, there's the moving fast, there's kind of like people joining with their running shoes on. But at the same stage, there has to be quite a bit of planning. Like, if you're breaking this stuff down into micro bits, I'm curious how do you balance those two things to like create the space and time to plan first? It's very much like that's right.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

Yeah, so so I think that there is also a little bit of experience coming in. It's not the first time we've done this. Uh Matthias at a certain moment said, I think we're fine until we have a thousand people, it's still gonna be okay. She's like, Well, okay, hold on, right? And that might not be tomorrow. Um, so we come with quite some experience already on how to do that, right? And so, very simple. We we start with setting the large OKRs for each kind of C, right? Which is like, what is really what is the if this is successful, let's say first five years down the line, like how does that look like?

unknown 35:03

Right?

SPEAKER_01 35:03

If we're successful on commercial, like what what is that? How does that look like? Yeah, what are the what are the subsections of that? Okay, and then within those subsections, what are kind of like the behavioral outcomes that we're after? What do we want people to to to actually start doing? Like, what what would be something tangible that we could see that happens when these things go well? And then from there, you can go and bring that back to like all right, yeah. We know that that is there the next five months, uh five years. Now, how do we move that needle over the next couple of months? And so we've created this yeah, kind of it's a simple OKR structure if you think about it, right? Now I'm I'm trying to make it sound more exciting than it is, but it is a it is an OKR structure that actually has quite some thought put into what are we what are we driving? What is the measurement that that is behind it? And surely it might not be the perfect measurement, but at least what is a proxy that tells us that we're progressing.

SPEAKER_00 36:02

But you've got so you've got this OKR framework, so I re talked about having put around the vision clearness as well. That fills up the vision is both clear and kind of brought to knife through an OKR mechanism, but then you've also talked about sort of this this sprints and sort of breaking it down further. I'm just curious how often you're checking in against that to update that plan. And are you seeing to have together on it on a quarterly basis, on a on a monthly? Like, what what is just this cadence of checking in on the on the short term?

SPEAKER_01 36:37

I think I think what you're pointing at is is is actually funny when when you bring that up because it's like there's there's this, I think that that is kind of like a beautiful kind of like mix of between the founders, and everybody's like, right, these are like these big things that we need to go and hit, and then Matthias is like, right, how do we operationalize this now? So everyone knows at the end of the week, am I being successful? Right, and it's like this beautiful mix of of these brains. Uh, how often we look at this every single morning at nine o'clock because Matthias ultimated it into our Slack. It is the first message that pops up every single morning. That's it, that's a message that everyone sees. Is it's actually, I think, is the only credit that we use for Gemini. Because if the if the metric did not move, Gemini's pretty snarky gone. Yeah, like we look at this every single day. That is the that is the framework also for the standup.

SPEAKER_00 37:34

Okay, so there's you're you're not sort of putting together individual sprint projects off the back of this as a whole, it's kind of like you trust each other to follow in their own city, but they're just like using that movement towards that five-year OKR is the thing that's kind of giving you reinforcing the trust, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 37:54

Yes, exactly. Which is not so funny because a year ago we did not know each other, right? And so it's is it's very hard to find good co-founders, and it's absolutely incredible that we found co-founders that we also trust and enjoy to work with each other, and I think that that is just that is the beauty. Like now, since since February, we had a shared flat in Luxembourg. We're like again, like a bunch of students living together, which is great, right? Like that's kind of like the beautiful things that in a story. I I don't think that we were imagining having that kind of beautiful moment again, right? And so that's that's just beautiful stuff.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

I mean, because I I do like sort of high performance workshops with with companies, and I always say that that's just quite simple. Like you you build trust by saying what you're gonna do and then doing what you said, and you just repeat that, and like the more you repeat that, the more you build trust. And like it's not saying about doing trust exercise, like you trust people because and one did that, like you say what you're gonna do, you do what you're doing, and also you share with each other why things don't work, right?

SPEAKER_01 39:04

Like we have a session with the entire team on a Friday is called the Good, the Bad and the Ugly. Absolutely movie artists, uh but but so yeah, that's just a session where it's like, hey, look a lot of times we believe that we romanticize starting show, oh my god, this is really beautiful, and and and the best advice to anyone that wants to start a startup is don't do it. It's terrible, it's really painful. Things go wrong, things break, there's always something. Like it's not a chill thing to do. You have to be truly mentally broken to some extent to want to go and do this, right? So but but also being able to share that, right? Like, hey, um everything's gonna go well, and that is okay, and it's okay that things don't go well, but it's not okay that something doesn't go well and we didn't learn from because that just happens. But if we have a good learning from it, that's excellent. Wonderful. So, yeah, I think say what you're gonna do, do what you say that you're gonna do, and also just have that humanness around it, or or I don't know whether there's the right word for that vulnerability, but uh that's I don't know if that's the right word in this case, but just be transparent enough to also say, hey that, you tried that, not everything is gonna work, and wow, okay, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 40:36

Yeah, because it feels like you're you're investing a lot of time in communication, like in a really positive way, like these daily stand-ups, the ad hoc calls, the in-person stuff. Like it is clear that as well as having this this huge strategic clarity, you've really invested in time, time and time and quality of communication.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

Yes, and both in formal kind of stuff, but also inform. Because that's really how you start nerving each other, and that's how you can start playing in on each other.

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Well, for founders listening related to this, what is the shake sort of set of balancing vision and execution? What is the one thing that they they're listening right now that you go and do this afternoon that you would suggest something to try? Either. Either with the co-founders or just the business as a whole.

SPEAKER_01 41:28

Yeah, just go and have dinner with each other and talk about something else. Just go and have dinner and talk about movie together. We probably will end up talking about the company anyway, but at least do an attempt. Do something else. Spend some time together, not only on the business.

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Well, Jeff, this has been this has been really fascinating. Thank you, thank you very much for taking time to do this. And uh good good luck being getting into space. That sounds very exciting. Very good. Thank you very much, James, for having us. Subscribe if you want more actual insight from founders scaling right now. See you next week.