Space industry’s Minimum Viable Ecosystem from a startup point of view… the upcoming Australian case
Taking a break in the country I learnt design management in, I am reconnecting w Australian friends, getting ready for 2018. Among them, Matthew Pearson, undertaking the commercialization of space from Down Under, shared some time with me.
Here is a take away at how things are heating for the space industry in Australia right now — and how their Minimum Viable Ecosystem is being built by the industry players.
The following blogpost is built on the Minimum Viable Ecosystem approach we are developing at WDS for our Business & Innovation Software “ECOS”, from the joint program w Hello Tomorrow “We Design Tomorrow”and for our co-developped online innovation training with EDF focusing on innovations and their Minimum Viable Ecosystems.
NB: “New Space” topic will be part of 2017 We design tomorrow trends we are following and accelerating this year, keep posted).
So, what is a Minimum Viable Ecosystem?
We have developed this MVE concept as “the optimal ecosystems of stakeholders and value flows — a.k.a value shared among stakeholders — in which to deploy your innovative projects at each stage”. Those MVEs ensure the right set of knowledge, skills and capabilities. MVEs evolve through continuous learning on stakeholders adoption, habit transformation, as knowledge, skills, capabilities are re-assessed for projects deployment.
So, given that framework, let’s take Matthew’s story of fleet.space, aiming at commercializing “LEO” space (Low Earth Orbit) and “connecting everything”…
The right set of Knowledge & skills
Matt is a fast learner and building from previous startup experiences, had given himself 5 years to learn about the space industry which he did in 3. Did you know for example that satellites have an EBITDA of 80%+? And that the space industry has been estimated to reach 1,1 Trillion $ in 2040 by Morgan Stanley this last year?
In the beginning of his quest, Matt had to find a skilled cofounder which he found, a rocket scientist that happened to face a shortage a job opportunities here (space-industry jobs being reserved to defense activities with Australian passports).
A Set of existing capabilities to valorize or to acquire
“All we need first, is a patch of land to launch!!!”
First of all, Matt and his team play in a country that does not have launching capabilities and had to book a ride for their nano sats on Space X sometimes this 2018. The weird thing is, Australia did have that capability once, in Woomera back from the 1940' (defense, then commercial, then defense purposes again). Progresses of Rocket lab in finding a launching site in New Zealand might just change that in the region.
Not only working on their own internal capabilities, the team had to address the external ecosystem capabilities and supply chain issues, fairly non existant in Australia, therefore starting a space accelerator Delta V and forcing them to find suppliers worldwide — NB:Including French ones and the support of CNES who follow space fleet’s initiatives —
Key stakeholders …
(Stakeholders on which in the MVE we prioritize for their role, importance, knowledge maturity regarding a given project and on which we build adoption knowledge — high expecting needs, motivations, painpoints and contexts — to better assess next ecosystem actions)…
Those capabilities would mean nothing locally if not backed by a mid-long term plan locally with the ecosystem, or they would need to relocate in the longer term. That mean they also had to contribute in the conversation on how the regulatory environment could take into account their upcoming Endeavour key development needs.
In the last five years, the startup landscape boomed from roughly 1 to 60 space startups coming together to shape with the Australian Government “the most commercially oriented space government agency possible” building from the goals of the startups. They did so in a fairly collaborative mindset “stronger together” to build the right environment in Adelaide yearly industry gatherings. Though obviously the cultural mindset of space commercialization is a work in progress in a half century old industry.
In addition to the startup goals, Australia also has sovereignty goals in building a sustainable space industry that can meet upcoming national needs and become less reliant on other countries capabilities.
Could Australia be the next leap frogging country in terms of space regulatory environment and Minimum Viable Ecosystem development? The term “leap frogging country” in this case refers to skipping “inferior, less efficient, more expensive or more polluting technologies and industries” and move directly to more advanced ones with a focus on high value use scenarios.
Creating Value…
So far, the Fleet space following their mission of “connecting everything” focused their efforts both on proving short term value on their nanosats and long term capability of their ecosystem. But they want to look at the commercialization of space from every relevant point by building a global nanosatellite network dedicated to low-cost IoT connectivity.
Sure the team had to convince investors, although given how much opportunities space represent in the Australian context, they practically knocked on the door. After raising a 5M$ AUS, their next 2018 trimester goal is 30M AUS$ roughly 22M$ series A. The space industry does require some cash. But such investment in the field currently follow the “New Space” mindset which has a very specific “faster, cheaper, better” approach with highly prioritized commercial goals, which make most of tech development framed in business oriented outcomes, as you will discover in our We Design Tomorrow Deep tech insights soon…
To go further on exploring your Minimum Viable Ecosystem:
You can check how far you have defined key questions for each of your Minimum Viable Ecosystem value cycle:
Download the EDF x WDS online blended training White paper to get acquainted with the concept, the ECOS software White paper on how to manage such ecosystem design or our latest article on how to speed things up through Lean startup in the industrial world with We Design Tomorrow.
To go further on the Space Economy context, some readings on the US & Australian case:
Check out the most advanced Space ecosystem to date, US, with a dazzling infrastructure shared within Emerging Space NASA report and their latest vision on exploring beyond LEO. And make the comparison with a potentiel leap frogging ecosystem, the Australian one, which up to now as OZ startupers quotes, might be “the only OECD country after Iceland not to have a space agency yet, but not for long anymore!!”. Australia’s latest sharing in space economy & use cases can be found here.
