The Space Economy

CHAPTER 5Charting a Trajectory: Co‐founders, Customers, and Capital

The founders we invest in typically aren't ready to scale up just yet. Most still need to find product‐market fit. At the seed stage, entrepreneurs use investment dollars to hone their offerings to zero in on what customers will actually buy.

In the previous chapter, we looked at areas of potential in the Space Economy, as well as some of the ways aspiring entrepreneurs discover promising business ideas. Moving from a general solution to a viable business begins with identifying the right market for that solution. Once you know who your first customers might be, it's your job to learn more about them and their needs.

Forget “nice to haves.” Businesses are built on “need to haves.”

Start with the Customer in Mind

“‘Who is the customer?’ is the first and the crucial question in defining business purpose and business mission,” wrote management expert Peter Drucker.¹ Knowing whom you plan to sell to won't do any good, however, if you've never spoken to those potential customers. To get the answers you will need to proceed—from the features they want to the prices they are willing to pay—the only approach is to go ask.

“Before Arbol, weather risk insurance was stuck in a chicken‐and‐egg scenario,” founder Siddhartha Jha told me. “When a market is small, few want to put capital in. A small market is risky, illiquid, overly concentrated. The weather risk market was basically a few pockets of risk in certain parts ...