Interviewee
Trevor Bennett, Co-founder of Starfish Space, a software robotics and autonomous space infrastructure company developing satellite servicing and space debris capture missions. They just introduced the Otter Pup, the first ever commercial satellite docking in low-Earth orbit. Docking in fall 2023.
Transcript
Elisa Muñoz: I know that you're an Aerospace Engineer and that you worked at NASA for a while, so why the interest in founding your own company?
Trevor Bennett: Yeah, absolutely. Because I think small companies and, and startups and actually entrepreneurs in general, the ones that get to change the world, they have a very big lever and they get to take on the risk that maybe others don't get to. And that's an exciting place to be. And I think as many founders might point to their key moments in their life that lead them down this path, and as my co-founder Austin would like to say, maybe there are a few more of those in my past than others, which I, I feel very fortunate about. I remember selling trinkets and things as an elementary school kid to my neighbors as part of this.
And little did I know that that was gonna be a sign of things to come. And then also as an engineer, usually you get paired through undergrad and grad school with, with like-minded individuals. And it was amusing to me that every time I had one of those matching programs with roommates, it was always a business major. Never once did I get masked with an engineer, which I found both interesting and, and strange as an engineer to be kind of put into those groups and then also feel just very fortunate as well to have parents that kind of encouraged that process, encourage that discovery and, and peers and colleagues that were also just enthusiastic with where the world was going. Kind of grew up in an age of robotics in many ways.
Got to watch landings on Mars to go discover what our neighboring planets were like. Got to see the age of the space shuttle in many ways as well. And so got to see big rockets take big things to orbit and the beautiful images of Hubble and others. And so this was really kind of a catalyst for a variety of different things that said, you know what? The future can be there. Hearing the voice of, you know, Gene Roddenberry through others, that space is the final frontier, right? This is the place that we can go and actually make, make some huge waves and do, make, make a big difference.
Elisa Muñoz: How did you and your co-founder meet? Austin, right?
Trevor Bennett: Yeah, so Austin and I actually both came from a company called Blue Origin before this. And so Blue Origin's one of the, one of the rocket companies that's out there trying to make big rockets and get a lot of things spaced. He and I were both attracted to the same vision at different times, this kind of millions of people living and working in space. And that was something that we got excited about and what was amusing to me was actually showing up on my first day of Blue Origin and they have a mentor guide for, for the company that says, joining any new company is gonna be an interesting experience.
There's a lot to learn that's not, not just on the paper or what the job that you've been trained to do, you have to know where the bathrooms are. You have to know who to talk to about the things that you're working on, where are the social events, how do you reach out to certain people, what are the cultural norms? And fortunately Blue Origin set up a thing called a blue guide and turns out Austin was my blue guide. And so he and I, from day one, had started working together. He helped kind of introduce me to Blue Origin. We worked tightly on a bunch of engineering projects over the course of a couple of years. And of course when you're working that closely with anybody, you start thinking about what, what more could we do together?
And maybe it's Thanksgiving at each other's houses, maybe that's actually going in building space hugs. And so it really kind of came together as a friendship and a partnership in a way that allowed us kind of the trust that you really need as co-founders. It allowed us the kind of dreaming that we had and the storytelling that we had together. We got to practice that and think through that and really know how we work together for a couple of years before having to go off in this endeavor. And I think that's actually been a real strength for us.
I think what makes Starfish different is we're really focused on two things, and that is making it affordable and making it available. Those are the two things that really are a game changer for the industry.
Elisa Muñoz: Do you remember what was the first idea that you ever pitched and how did you get your first investors?
Trevor Bennett: Yeah, I'll tell you a couple of stories there. We'll get to the one that you're really curious about, which is what, what Starfish was as a company. But before that, we actually, as engineers do, pulled up a spreadsheet in our respective houses and said, You know what? Let's, let's put down the ideas of what things we could actually do as, as a company in general. And among these were things like YouTube personalities and let's go build space hardware and different components. And, and that being said, it was kind of a creative process for us that we went through. And so we had a couple of ideas that would make sense and notably among that list was satellite manufacturing, satellite recycling assembly.
Basically the things that we take for granted here in the terrestrial environment were missing from space. And we saw maybe now is the right time for that. There are a couple things that are starting to move. There's enthusiasm about space, there's an ability to access space in unprecedented ways. Companies like SpaceX and Blue and others were launching satellites at an unprecedented rate and continue to do so. And then there was also funding in the markets and an optimistic view of the future. And so it seemed like a coalescing of a few things. We're all starting to work together. And so we go and now to your, to your question, we go to some of investors and we say, we think we can go and harvest satellites that are in orbit that are just defunct. We'll be space recyclers. And they say, That's very cool. Who's gonna pay for it? Like, Oh, good question.
So you have to go back to the drawing board. You think through, okay, well this is who's gonna pay for it? And we say, Okay, we actually think that transportation's gonna be the key to all this. And they say, Excellent, how much can you make per year? Like, okay, well sure we got it. Let's do this and we figure out how much we can make per year. And then we go and we do this pitch and we say, We think we can make millions of dollars a year doing this business business. And we were, we were told at the time, that's very exciting, but if I had known that I might not have taken this meeting because what venture capitalists wanna see is trillion dollar markets or or billion dollar markets.
They wanna see so many zeros after that that it's worth the small chance that you're gonna succeed to go on these big futures. And that was really kind of the catalyst moment for us because we were able to say the focal point for venture capital money coming in and the focal point for really making a big change is seeing can we quantify or at least appreciate how large of an effect we can exert on the space industry. And that was I think, kind of what that first pitch experience was really all about, was learning for us what it meant to be a startup company in the eyes of a vc and also what it meant to be a startup company in the eyes of a commercial industry that would have expectations about not just the prices that you were gonna charge and the value that you were gonna add, but your process to close the gap between where you are as a couple of guys hanging out in the library to actually people flying things in space and and providing a real service. It always comes down to those that are willing to say, the next great idea can come from anywhere. Let's engage, let's talk about it. Let's encourage and sometimes just share perspectives and that can be candid perspectives that this is not gonna work, but it might also be a perspective like, you know what? I actually know somebody who's gonna be more interested in this. Let me introduce you to them and, and hand you off. And that those little moments are the ones that become the inflection points of a company that can, can really go realize a dream.
Elisa Muñoz: What would you say makes Starfish different?
Trevor Bennett: Yeah, I think what makes Starfish different is we're really focused on two things and that is making it affordable and making it available. And those are the two things that really are a game changer for the industry in any industry. And I think you'll find this amongst founders, you'll find this amongst companies, even simple products that we use in our household, you have to try something first to prove that it's even possible. And then the phase after that is, okay, once it's possible, let's make it something that everybody can adopt and use. And I think that's where we kind of are as part of the industry.
There have been a couple examples either through government programs like NASA's missions or a couple other commercial companies that have shown that you can actually bring two space credits together and dock, but it's no longer, it's not affordable yet. And it's not at a, like an Uber, like a space Uber. Wouldn't it be great to have, you could text an Otter and an OTTER will come pick you up. That's really what we need to get to. And so that's what really makes Starfish unique is having key technologies and kind of a business model that makes us affordable and available to, to actually make the spacecraft at a price point that people can use and and actually adopt a space Uber or a space tow truck.
Elisa Muñoz: Talking about the challenges that you have been through, what would you say has been the biggest technical challenge that you have ever faced and managed to solve?
Trevor Bennett: Yeah, so worth caveating that any, you know, all of our technical challenges are relative, right? When you're two people and you're thinking about building a whole satellite, right? There's so many technical challenges to lay out and something that could be easily solved by a team of 10 is gonna be harder solved with a team of two. What has been interesting for us to date is how do we iterate quickly? And I think that's something that the space industry is warming up to. And a technical challenge for us has always been how fast can we go? Right? And, and it really kind of takes a change in mindset and, and what's amusing is the technical challenge was not solved by a better test.
It was to set up a process that allows us to go and work through technical challenges. And so I think a slight twist on your question there, what really has been beneficial for us is a mentality around testing early and testing often. And so some of the things that we've been taking little bets on is we think the way we do our software is something unique. The way we do our hardware is something unique, but it's really, the technical challenge for us has always been how can we frame the current tests that we're doing to be the most informative with the least amount of effort. It was October of 2019 and we thought that was a great time as we've described, right? And amusingly enough. Austin and I were at a conference out in dc, Washington, DC in March of 2020 and while we were at that conference, the US decided that we should lock down and so we actually got earlier flights out.
Elisa Muñoz: And last but not least, do you have an estimated time for launching?
Trevor Bennett: I do have an estimated time for launch and I'll ask you to tune in tomorrow if you're viewing this today. Perfect. One of the things I can share that we have done, Starfish has already found its way to space, even in early late 2020 as part of the pandemic and early 2021, we actually found another company that was already going to space and their satellite and we actually put some of our software onboard their spacecraft. And so one of the cool things is that, as we were talking about a couple threads here, the maturity of the industry was the right timing for us. One of those technical challenges that we were able to overcome was, we don't really have a lot of money and a lot of resources as a small company to go get space, but partnering with another company that's also another startup, thinking about this, we were able to share like a, you know, much more affordable way to space. And actually Starfish has operated software in orbit already.
Elisa Muñoz: Excited to share this with our community! Thank you so much Trevor for taking the time.
Trevor Bennett: Thank you so much. I appreciate being here.
