Re: Getting Mega Projects Done
From: David Summers (david_at_ualmiles.com)
Date: 11/28/04
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Date: 28 Nov 2004 09:55:37 -0800
There have been lots of excellent responses (finally!), I'm replying
to yours because it seems to be the most complete. Please do not
stress the details I quoted earlier too much, as this discussion is
happening early enough in the project cycle to address pretty much any
of the problems we have been discussing. I wanted to learn more about
this aspect of the industry before going too far on any specific
course of action. (For example, it really sounds like this is not the
propper time for a large scale project. But a smaller project may yet
succeed)
I believe that all of these problems can be addressed, but that the
market risk is by far the most difficult. In the startup companies
that I have been associated with, this is always my first checkpoint -
how are they going to advertise / sell the product. Here are some of
my thoughts on the various risk areas you identified:
1. Technical - by far the easiest to deal with. A technical problem
is normally identified early on (because the first part of a project
is feasibility testing, followed by development). Technical problems
can also normally be solved by using more money or more time. This
doesn't necessarily kill the project as long as the technical problems
are planned for. (The profitability may decrease, but hopefully
doesn't disapear)
2. Organizational - this is normally dealt with by having a good team.
This means people that you can trust to follow through on their own,
and people with experience. Obviously this is important (perhaps the
most important, really), but if you are a successful businessman
(well, at least in startups) you probably already have this figured
out.
3. Legal / Political - I probably underestimated this one, because I
have not really been involved in controlled industries before. My
understanding is that this can be dealt with by controlling the timing
of associations and information flow. First, reveal all to your
investors. Next reveal all to your political allies. Then reveal
some to the public (including your competitors).
4. Marketing - As I have said, to me this is the first question I ask
- who will buy this and how will they find out about it? Any space
operation is going to get a lot of free press, so that kind of throws
a wrench in how I normally answer this. Surveys seem favorable, but
extrapolating a survey out to a market that today is totally
non-existent seems silly. I also agree with the need to grow the
market, and that growth will take time. Probably the best way to deal
with that would be to presell launches, either by discounting the cost
to account for the added risk the customer is facing or by using your
own launcher to send up commercial projects. If you can take a few
orders of magnitude off the price of launch, you may be able to pull
off some projects that so far haven't been feasible.
Does anyone know of times that these approaches have failed /
succeeded? Anyone have other ideas about how the risk can be managed?
- Next message: Christopher M. Jones: "Re: Space station future adrift (Soyuz purchase crisis)"
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