They Are Building Refueling Stations… In Space?! Ashi Dissanayake | Spaceium

Shamil Malachiyev: Hello everyone. This week with us we have Ashi Dissanayake, a co-founder and CEO of a YC-backed startup called Spaceium. And they're building a network of refueling and repair stations up in space. Hi Ashi.

Ashi Dissanayake: Hi, nice to meet you, and thanks for having me, Shamil.

Shamil Malachiyev: It's a pleasure to have you. Can you tell me — when did your obsession with space begin?

Ashi Dissanayake: A lot of people ask me this question, and the honest answer is: I don't remember. Because as long as I can remember, I was obsessed with space. I don't really know what the turning point was for me — it wasn't a book, it wasn't a TV show that made me want to go to space. I honestly have no idea. I remember when I was five, six years old, I was just staring at the sky and wondering what's out there, about the universe. Obviously I didn't know a lot at the time. And everything I did since then was to one day be an astronaut. But yeah — now we are building refilling stations in space.

Shamil Malachiyev: Crazy. And when did it hit you that you were going to start a company around this field? I know a lot of people who want to become astronauts — join the NASA programs, the whole preparation — and you decided to take, I would say, a harder route. A more difficult one: actually building a company, and building something that's never been done before.

Ashi Dissanayake: So the idea actually came when me and my co-founder were both working on rockets — high-power rockets — and we were sending scientific payloads to different altitudes. At the time, we knew there was a huge problem in the industry. And even before we started Spaceium, we reached out to customers — other space companies — to actually understand what their biggest pain point is. I always knew I wanted to do something different, something crazy. I wanted to be an astronaut, go to the ISS and do my own research. I wanted to solve a problem that had never been solved before — that was always my thing. And I easily get bored if it's not out of this world. I love when something's really challenging, when something keeps me up at night. I love that feeling, because all I want to do is go solve that problem. And my co-founder is the same — that's why we work so well together.

When we were working together before Spaceium, building rockets and high-power rocket engines, we had talked about maybe potentially building a company together. But it was never the time — we were still university students. And one day we were like: you know what? There's this huge problem. Why are we not doing something about this? Let's go talk to people. At that time we didn't even have a company. It was not incorporated — we had no idea how to incorporate a company. But we just reached out to space companies. Some of those founders and CTOs are still really good friends with us to this day, because they were the very first people to talk to us when it was just an idea. We reached out to them — cold calls, emails: hey, we are thinking of building a space company. We want to build refilling stations. What do you guys think? Would you get fuel from us if you could fill up there in space?

Shamil Malachiyev: And what were the conversations like?

Ashi Dissanayake: Some of them were like: no, we won't — we don't want to refill. But some were like: yes, we would love to refill in space, but right now we develop our spacecraft to not refill in space, because there's really no station up there. And even some of the founders and companies who told us they'd never want fuel in space have reached out to us in the last year asking what our roadmap looks like. So the market has really changed. And some of the other founders were always supportive. I can't really mention names, but one of our really good friends had worked at SpaceX, and they were building a space company whose spacecraft would not be refillable — but he always gave us advice on what to do. It was a crazy journey, and here we are.

Shamil Malachiyev: What kind of spacecraft are going to be your main customers?

Ashi Dissanayake: Our main customers are OTV companies — orbital transfer vehicles. Those are the spacecraft that move satellites in space, move other spacecraft in space, and they have a propulsion system on board. The main advantage for them is actually not saving launch costs — it's having a fuel source in space, so they don't have to wait another year to send a new spacecraft up there. Someone might ask: isn't it expensive to get fuel up there? Yes, it is expensive, but it saves them time. And also, once they refuel, they can keep using the same spacecraft over and over again. So it's actually very cost-effective for our customers. And they can carry more payload.

Shamil Malachiyev: That gets me thinking — because you're building an infrastructural thing. It makes me think about electric vehicles, and the fact that without the charging stations across the country, we couldn't really get any adoption, because the distances were quite large and you needed places in between to refuel, to recharge. And maybe having gas pumps out there in space, with rocket fuel, will actually help other directions evolve — ones we're not even thinking about at the moment.

Ashi Dissanayake: Exactly. It's going to be awesome, because now we have a really strong customer pipeline, and a lot of spacecraft are really counting on having a fuel depot — a fuel station — out there. And again, we don't move around in space, because we can carry up to 10 to 30 metric tons of fuel, and it doesn't really make sense for us to move in space. Just think of us like a real service station in space. In the future we are going to add repair, but our very first development would be refueling. The spacecraft will come to us, they will dock onto the station, and then they can get fuel and go about their way. It sounds easy — it's not — but it's awesome.

Shamil Malachiyev: And against your expectations — when all of this was just a concept in your head, and now you're in the field building, signing the deals, planning for the future — did it turn out to be easier or more complex than you thought?

Ashi Dissanayake: That's a really hard question. Easier in what sense?

Shamil Malachiyev: Let's say how much stress it was going to be — how easy it would be to pull a team together, get financing, and actually have a solid, executable plan that you feel comfortable about, because you start launching things.

Ashi Dissanayake: So, yeah — it's a different type of stress at each level. It was a different type of stress when we just got started, and fundraising was a different stress, and the customers. Every stage of the company is different. The way we work at Spaceium — we move really fast, and we have some really big news coming up very soon. I will let you know — unfortunately I can't talk about it yet, but really big news. If anyone's listening now, they'll know what I'm talking about then. We like to move very fast. We execute super fast. And we iterate — we like to iterate as much as possible, get feedback from our customers, iterate and test.

Shamil Malachiyev: I can imagine that in such a high-speed environment, you can't really allow yourself to just be, I don't know — depressed, sad, tired, lazy — which all of us get at times. It's not an option, right?

Ashi Dissanayake: It's not an option. It's also because every minute counts. But I think your health is very important — your health, your mental health. So we have strategies in place — me, my co-founder, the rest of our team. We obviously take breaks during the day. We just go for a walk or something, and we reset all over again.

Shamil Malachiyev: Do you have any tips or tricks?

Ashi Dissanayake: Do something that you're obsessed about. I think that's the main thing for me, because I'm really obsessed with space — so is my co-founder, and so is our whole team. So we don't really feel like we are working. We wake up in the morning wanting to go and work, and that's all we can think about. That's why we don't really feel tired — it's like your hobby, right? When you are really obsessed with something, you don't feel tired. At least for me and my co-founder and our team. So that's the trick: if you love something, there's no stopping.

Shamil Malachiyev: A lot of people, whenever they try to give advice to people who are just getting started or feeling lost — it's always "find your passion." Which seems simple, yet is extremely difficult for a lot of people. It sounds simple in theory: just do what you like, what you're passionate about. But how? And I guess for you it was quite easy to know what you're passionate about, because it came straight from childhood, right?

Ashi Dissanayake: Yeah — I guess I was just lucky. I just knew this is where I wanted to be. I knew I loved space. And when I met my co-founder — I think he read a book about space when he was six years old, and all he wanted to do was go to space, be an astronaut. So we were just lucky we knew where we wanted to be. I know some founders might not know where their passion is, right? But you'll never know where your passion is if you don't try. And you should not be scared to fail, because the more you fail, the more you learn. At Spaceium, we do tests, and sometimes we don't get the answer we are looking for — but we learn so much just by doing a test, so we can iterate. So just don't be scared to fail. And if you fail, just try again.

Shamil Malachiyev: Why do you think so many people are so afraid to fail?

Ashi Dissanayake: I think it's society, right? People are scared to fail because of what the other person might think, or what your family might think. It's also so important to have a very strong support system — to have people back you.

Shamil Malachiyev: It's part of the reason why I started this podcast in the first place — to make it okay to talk about failures, because they can lay the foundation of your journey.

Ashi Dissanayake: Yeah — failing is okay. If you don't fail, you'll never learn anything.

Shamil Malachiyev: What was your childhood like?

Ashi Dissanayake: In my childhood, I was just a normal kid who was obsessed with space. I used to tell people: hey, I want to be an astronaut. They were like: oh my god, you're crazy. But I was just a normal kid — I liked math, liked physics, and loved reading space books. It was all so normal, and my parents were always very supportive. Another thing about my childhood — and still now — is that I don't ever give up. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing. I don't know when to stop. I don't know when I should say: okay, I give up now. It's not like that with me. If I have a goal in mind, until I achieve it, I just keep going. That was my childhood as well — if I wanted to do something, I wouldn't stop until I did it. And I still carry that to this day.

Shamil Malachiyev: That's amazing. I try to say this to myself whenever I mess something up: it's okay, get back on it, try again. But a part of me is like: well, you're a loser for life now, nothing's going to work, ever. And it's those parts of your mind, all of those voices, that you have to ignore, and just focus on some of the positives. Does it happen automatically in your head whenever something happens?

Ashi Dissanayake: I mean, I'm human too, so I also have ups and downs. If things get really bad, then momentarily I feel it. But I never feel like: oh my god, Spaceium is going to fail. I always try to look for a solution. Okay, something bad happened — so what's the next best thing to do to get out of this trouble, out of this problem? At Spaceium, if something goes wrong, me and my co-founder always talk. We sit together: okay, this is terrible, this test didn't go well. Or, let's say, our customer didn't like our test results — that hasn't actually happened with a customer, but if it does, we'll sit together and ask: what's the issue? How can we solve this? How can we impress them, and give them what they need? Instead of dwelling on your failures — if you take a moment to think about where you went wrong and how you can fix it, then you can move forward.

Shamil Malachiyev: Did you fail a lot in your past — to build that resilience, maybe?

Ashi Dissanayake: Not really. No.

Shamil Malachiyev: Okay — because for a lot of people, it's only after failing like 10, 15 times that you're like: well, it's just part of life, you just have to get used to it.

Ashi Dissanayake: Yeah — before Spaceium, I hadn't failed at anything, to be honest. But when we started Spaceium, until we got into YC — that was really bad. That was really hard. A lot of people told us: this is not going to work. Just go home. There won't be a refueling market. And there were so many investors that turned us down. And I guess that really made us resilient, because there were times we would talk to our customers and they'd say: okay, yeah, we would need 30 metric tons of fuel five years from now. And then someone might tell us: oh, there's not going to be a refilling market. But if you're building something your customers want, there's going to be a market. There's a real need out there. So that really made us strong. When we started Spaceium, it was quite hard. It was one of the hardest times of our lives.

Shamil Malachiyev: How did you and your co-founder support each other? What were your conversations like whenever you got turned down ten times in a week, or a hundred times? How do you help each other make sure you don't lose sight of the right picture?

Ashi Dissanayake: A hundred times, a thousand times. We would always focus on what our customers said. Because it's as simple as that, right? Who's going to buy our product at the end of the day? It's our customers. And the customers always gave us the answer we were looking for: yes — we won't fail. It was hard, obviously. It wasn't an easy conversation where we'd get on a call and the customers would just say: yes, you won't fail. It was not like that. We had to prove to them that we can do this — this is our technology, this is what we're actually building. They were very long, hard conversations. But at the end of the day, we knew we were building something the whole industry needed.

Shamil Malachiyev: Can you talk a bit about your experience with YC? How did you make the decision to apply?

Ashi Dissanayake: We applied to YC four times. We got in the fourth time. Every year they used to have two batches. The year we started, we applied twice. Then we got an interview the third time. And we actually used the feedback they gave us during the third interview — we worked on those things, applied again for the fourth time, and then we got in.

Shamil Malachiyev: And how was that experience for you?

Ashi Dissanayake: YC has been awesome. It's amazing. It was life-changing — a very pivotal moment for Spaceium, as well as for our careers and our lives, because we got to meet so many amazing people. Our group partners were amazing, and the investors we met during and after YC have been nothing but amazing. They support us — I always just text them: how can I do this? Can you help me? Can you give me advice? What should I do? We have such a great network now after YC. It was life-changing.

Shamil Malachiyev: What are some of the warmest, craziest memories at YC? Because you were in the same batch as Brandon, who appeared on the podcast a couple of episodes back.

Ashi Dissanayake: There are many, but one is — I don't know if Brandon told you this. During the fundraising weeks, we were really stressed. It was very stressful, because we would have investor calls from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., back to back, every half an hour. So some days, if we had a half-hour break, we would meet up. And there was this ice cream shop we would go to. We would get an ice cream, and there was this very rusty post near the beach. We would walk to the beach, touch the post for good luck, walk back, and then repeat your day all over again — back to your calls. That was one.

And we built one of our pieces of hardware within two months. We built our robotic arm within two months during YC — while talking to customers, while fundraising. It was crazy. It was so fast. We probably slept three, four hours a night, and me and my co-founder were just building like crazy. He was more focused on actually building the robotic arm and our fuel-transfer technology, because we wanted to have something built before the fundraise began — when we started talking to investors, we wanted to show them the technology. And just the whole experience of hanging out with other founders who are trying to do crazy things. Your group partners and everybody else at YC — they have built a company, they have exited, and they have gone through the same pain points that we are going through now. If you have a problem, the same thing has happened to somebody at YC — one of your group partners, a different partner, or another founder. It was such a crazy environment to be in. I don't even know the word. It was amazing to surround yourself with like-minded people and partners. The whole experience was just crazy.

Shamil Malachiyev: Well, first of all, we're going to make that rusty post popular and famous. For anyone in YC — I'll ask you about the location later, and we can pinpoint the exact spot, maybe even add a small mark somewhere. So anybody who's going through the final presentations or getting ready for fundraising can go find it — and the ice cream, of course. Would you say that environment was very stressful, or does the energy help translate that stress into something like excitement?

Ashi Dissanayake: It was the good type of stress. You want to just keep going, you want to change the world, you want to build your company as fast as possible, move as quickly as possible. It was stressful in the sense that you wanted to meet your milestones, reach your KPIs, and you have a very short period of time to reach all those milestones. In that way it was stressful — but it was the good type of stress, because you know your company is growing. You know you are building something, you are getting sales, you are selling to customers, you are understanding your customers, and you are fundraising, getting closer to talking to investors. It was three months, but it just flew.

Shamil Malachiyev: And what has changed? How has it changed you?

Ashi Dissanayake: As founders, to this day, we put KPIs in front of us on our whiteboard. We had bi-weekly KPIs that we were hitting, and now we've actually started doing weekly KPIs — KPIs we're hitting every week, plus separate monthly KPIs. And we break them down: what we want to get done in the next two weeks, what we want to reach within the next week. That's something we learned during YC, because at YC we had KPIs to reach by the end of the three-month program, and every two weeks we would meet with our group partners and talk to them. Most of the time we didn't meet most of our KPIs, and we would ask for help, get advice, and go and try to fix the problem. That's something we kept going, and we still do it.

Shamil Malachiyev: What kind of KPIs?

Ashi Dissanayake: Some are technical KPIs — a lot of technical nitty-gritty details — plus business development, customers, and maybe your next fundraise. It could be anything.

Shamil Malachiyev: What role does your co-founder play in your story of taking on the challenge of space exploration and refueling?

Ashi Dissanayake: It was our idea — both of us came up with the idea — and he has been an amazing co-founder. I always think that if it weren't for my co-founder, I probably wouldn't be doing this, because he is such an amazing, supportive co-founder. He has the right mindset. We never really fight about "this is your goal, this is my goal" — our goals always align, because our goal is always to make Spaceium successful. There's nothing else, right? We have the same goals in mind, the same technical goals in mind. And if we don't align on something, we just talk about it, and we come to a conclusion. It has never been a disagreement where we fight and go crazy. It also helps that we worked together before Spaceium — I knew how he works, he knew how I work. Even before Spaceium, we would pull all-nighters building rocket engines. I knew he was obsessed with space, he knew I was obsessed with space. So it's such a good co-founder relationship that we have.

Shamil Malachiyev: How big a factor is having a co-founder when building something this complex?

Ashi Dissanayake: I think it's very, very important. There were times when he was my biggest supporter, and there have been times I was his biggest supporter. I don't know what I would do without my co-founder — we always have each other's back. And I know some founders don't have a co-founder — I'm not saying not having a co-founder won't work. If you are a solo founder, it can 100 percent work; you can 100 percent be amazing. But for me, in my experience, it's really important to have a co-founder — because things get really hard, and if there's one person who understands what I'm going through, it's my co-founder.

Shamil Malachiyev: As a founder myself — it's not really a product startup, so it's probably a little different — but whenever I hear that entrepreneurship and the founder journey is one of the loneliest journeys, I'm like: yeah, I feel that. But at the same time, if you have a co-founder, it's so much more fun. And maybe you don't feel as lonely, when you can spread the responsibilities, the stress, the risks.

Ashi Dissanayake: You are lonely together, then.

Shamil Malachiyev: Yeah. And I think it does affect the likelihood and chances of success. It never gets easy, but when you have somebody to cry on a shoulder with, it helps you persevere and move forward. What do you think are the qualities that actually make somebody a good founder?

Ashi Dissanayake: You have to be very strong. You have to have one goal in mind, and you have to like what you're doing. You have to be very strong and not give up easily — because everything fails if you just give up. There are so many qualities I can think of for a founder or a co-founder, and it depends on the business you're doing. But as an overall person, I think you have to be very strong and resilient, because your founder journey is going to throw a lot of stuff at you, and you have to be able to still navigate your journey, find your path, keep going — and not get depressed and just give up.

Shamil Malachiyev: And with some of your qualities — are you the kind of person who wants to be seen as nice by the people around you? Or are you more: hey, this needs to be done tomorrow, we have the KPIs for the week?

Ashi Dissanayake: Both.

Shamil Malachiyev: How do you match those two?

Ashi Dissanayake: I think I'm nice. I hope I'm nice — you'd have to ask my team or my co-founder. But when it comes to deadlines, I want to make sure all the deadlines are met and all the KPIs are met. And if something wasn't met because we had to solve something — obviously, we are a small team, and we talk every day. Our whole team is here right now building stuff, and we're having fun. It's a very fun environment, and I make sure everybody on our team has fun, because I want everybody to enjoy what they're working on as much as I love what I'm doing. I want my team to succeed, because I love my team. I would do anything for my team, because they're the ones making Spaceium. So yeah — I guess I'm nice, and we just have to hit the deadlines.

Shamil Malachiyev: How easy was it for you to find and hire the right people for the company? Is it a huge process, or is it more like: I like you, let's go?

Ashi Dissanayake: No, no. We were very picky. The first team member we hired — he's amazing. He's just like us. He's also really obsessed with space, he loves what he's doing, and right now he's machining hardware for some of the hardware we're building. And it was a very long process, because we wanted to make sure they match our culture at Spaceium — that they're on the same page in terms of how much time they can put into work, and how they see the work balance. After I said work-life balance, I realized maybe I should have said work balance. So we wanted to make sure everybody's on the same page. And we found him — it took us eight months or so. We went through so many resumes. He was the best.

Shamil Malachiyev: How do you check for that obsession? Because I've done quite a lot of interviews myself, and it's just so hard. Somebody might say: I really like this, I've been doing this since I was a kid. But then there are people who, when something needs to be done at eight in the evening, will just get on a call with me and we can work through it — and there are people who say: I have my evening time. And I'm like: is that obsession? I don't think so. How do you check?

Ashi Dissanayake: How do we check? That's why it was very hard. It finally came down to our first team member and another person who had applied, and it was really hard for us to choose, because we wanted to make sure we were getting the right person to join our team. And we just asked: can you send us some projects you have done in your free time? And the person we hired sent us — I don't even know how many pages. He had made stuff in his free time. He has built crazy hardware in his garage. And we were like: okay, so he doesn't really have free time — when he gets bored, he just goes and builds stuff. And we're like: okay, that's what we need, because we want somebody who enjoys building stuff, and in his free time he's actually going to go build stuff. And when we asked him about his work-life balance? As long as he can do his laundry, he's happy. I'm like: yeah, you sound like us. So you're hired.

Shamil Malachiyev: And what do you think, generally, when you look at work ethics — if you look at Europe compared to the US? England, for example, is trying to implement a four-day week, trying to work fewer hours. And inside, I'm always thinking: to do what? When you have free time, you can do so much cool stuff — work-wise, you can bring so much value and create something in this world that didn't exist before. What do you think when you look at Europe taking such a dramatic shift — towards maybe "AI will take care of a lot of stuff and we need to figure out how to enjoy life" — compared to the high-grit, resilient, full-power mode you see in the startup world in the US?

Ashi Dissanayake: You met Brandon — he has the same mindset. He just wants to build crazy stuff, solve crazy problems. For me: if you hire the right team, and they have the right mindset, and as long as everybody's enjoying it, everybody's having fun — it's okay. For example, at Spaceium we are not forcing anybody to stay up until 11 p.m. building stuff. The team wants to stay up until 11 p.m., because that's how obsessed they are with what they're building. As the founders, we want to make sure everybody's happy. And we want to build something that's going to change the world — that's going to have a really big impact on the world. And our team knows that whatever they build is going to help create that impact. It's such an amazing feeling to work on it, right? So I guess that's how it is — but I don't know if I answered your question.

Shamil Malachiyev: I think, in the end, when you're working on something that you love, that you're passionate about, it stops being work. When you think about work-life balance — work is life, when you're doing what you love. I also wanted to ask you: who are your role models? Who do you look up to?

Ashi Dissanayake: Good question. I'm not sure, actually. I don't know. I should have one, right?

Shamil Malachiyev: There's nothing you should. Maybe a founder or an astronaut whose qualities you admire.

Ashi Dissanayake: I always admire people who do crazy stuff. It could be anybody. If I meet somebody and they're so happy with what they're working on, and they want to change the world and create an impact in the world — I'm always intrigued by people like that, people who don't want to give up. So I don't have any specific names — but that's what usually intrigues me.

Shamil Malachiyev: Well, Brandon is cool, right? We can agree on that.

Ashi Dissanayake: Oh yeah, Brandon's amazing.

Shamil Malachiyev: Another one. When I talk to founders, especially in the US, especially those who have been through YC, they all talk about how you have to aim for a billion-plus. There's a lot of emphasis on the scale, but also on the capital — the money aspect of it. What role does money play in your life? Is it attached to one of your goals — like, I want a billion-dollar exit, I want to buy a yacht, a mansion, and a space mansion next to my refueling station?

Ashi Dissanayake: Actually, somebody else recently asked me the same kind of question. I don't know. I have never really thought about what I'm going to do after an exit — what I'm going to use that money for. Because all I care about is Spaceium being successful. I've never really thought: oh, if Spaceium is successful, I'm going to buy a mansion or whatever. It just never really crossed my mind.

Shamil Malachiyev: Is it a scary thought — the exit? Spending so much time and energy working towards something, building it into something successful, and then — not losing it, but when you exit, you're left with an emptiness that you have to fill with something else. There are so many transformations that happen in this space. When you think about an exit, does it excite you? Does it scare you?

Ashi Dissanayake: We are definitely looking to go IPO one day. But if I think about getting acquired — yes, it makes me sad, and scared for the company, because I'm scared that the vision of the company might not stay the same. One day we want to go IPO, but it's a long time from now. Right now we are focused on building what our customers want, building the first demonstrations, and getting the fuel stations out there.

Shamil Malachiyev: Is there a lot of pressure to sell when there's a good acquisition offer on the table — from investors, maybe? Because in the end, it should be up to you whether you want to sell or not. Especially if it's a business that brings profits — you just take dividends, live a good life, work until you're 70, 80, as long as you keep enjoying it. Or is there some sort of pressure that you have to go through an exit within five, ten years, when it hits certain marks?

Ashi Dissanayake: I haven't really thought about it, to be honest. The investors that we have with us right now are amazing, and I hope to have more amazing investors. But I've never really thought about what would happen if we get an offer.

Shamil Malachiyev: And what makes an investor amazing? Because you hear different stories, and sometimes investors can almost break the company — if they try to force a direction that they think is the right one, and move the founder away from the decision-making chair. What would you say makes an investor a good investor?

Ashi Dissanayake: They have to be a partner.

Shamil Malachiyev: What's that like?

Ashi Dissanayake: I'll just give an example — our lead investor from Initialized Capital, Andrew Sather. He's our lead investor, and he's amazing. He's so supportive. He never pressures you into doing anything. It's always advice — giving his opinion, and asking about our opinion on something. And all the other investors as well — I just gave the example of our lead investor, but all the others too. It's about being a partner, and helping through issues — not trying to change the direction in a way that's bad for the company.

Shamil Malachiyev: And what are you currently most excited about in the future of Spaceium?

Ashi Dissanayake: Some news that we have coming up. I'm so excited about it — and so sad I can't talk about it.

Shamil Malachiyev: When is the release date for the news?

Ashi Dissanayake: In the next couple of months we'll have multiple pieces of news coming out. But you'll know — I'll let you know.

Shamil Malachiyev: Okay — maybe we can do a follow-up episode.

Ashi Dissanayake: Okay, amazing. Yeah.

Shamil Malachiyev: With so many people trying to become founders — especially now, with AI, and how much easier it is to start a company, because you can use AI to do a lot of the work that used to be done by two, three, four people, which used to increase the expenses and the barrier to entry — there are a lot of people who read all of those posts on LinkedIn about how everything's easy and successful. You just raise your seed, you raise your Series D, 100 million, 200 million — the life of a superstar. What advice would you give them, coming into the founder world?

Ashi Dissanayake: Like I said earlier: things are going to get really hard. So — finding the right co-founder, having the right mindset, and building something customers want. Like YC says all the time: make something people want. If you have those, I'm not going to say it's going to be easy, but it's going to be easier than not having a good co-founder — or, if you're a solo founder, having that resilience to do whatever it takes to build your company. Listen to your users, listen to your customers. That's one of the most important things. It feels like such common knowledge — you'd think anybody would talk to their customers, right? But it seems like not a lot of people do. A lot of people just go build the product — they spend months, years building a product without talking to customers or users. And when they try to sell it, the customers don't like a certain feature, or they want something totally different, or their pain point is totally different. And then you have to spend another two years iterating. That's why it's so important to talk to your customers through each iteration, so you iterate based on the market feedback. And at the end of the day, when you have a product, your customers are already on board — they know what you've been working on. That's one of the biggest pieces of advice: just talk to your customers.

Shamil Malachiyev: A lot of people are scared to release early. They want their product to be perfect before the customers see it, or even hear about it. I see a lot of people make that mistake, spending too much time. I made the same mistake 12 years ago when I was building my first company — I spent too long building an MVP, and I could have done a lot more iterations back then. And how do people know whether the value they're trying to bring — the problem they're trying to solve — is something that will work? Because I see a lot of people just hitting the same wall over and over again, month after month: I just need to change something to make it work. When is the right time to say: okay, I messed up, this is not going to find product-market fit, I should pivot, try something else?

Ashi Dissanayake: If you don't have users. For example, let's say no one wants fuel — we don't have any customers who want fuel — then we would know: okay, we have to pivot. That doesn't mean your company dies. You just build something the market needs. Whoever your customers are, there's always a pain point, right? For our customers, the pain point is not being able to move around in space for long — they can't carry enough payload. Spacecraft right now are really restricted. That's what we are solving. You have to always try to remove one of their pain points, because everybody has a pain point — and if you remove it, they will buy your product. So if you are spending years working on something and there are no users, I guess that would be a good time to pivot, right? And build something customers want. And my advice is to talk to customers first. That's what we did at Spaceium. Even before we had a product, we cold-emailed a lot of people. Obviously a lot of people didn't reply. The people who replied — some are our good friends now. But it was hard.

Shamil Malachiyev: How easy was it for you to start cold emailing?

Ashi Dissanayake: It was just an idea — both of us just had an idea. So I cold-emailed, my co-founder cold-emailed. We both cold-emailed people. Some people got back, some didn't. But as we progressed, whenever we cold-emailed somebody, they would get back to us — because now you have a product to show. At least they would reply to see what we're talking about. Someone is always going to believe in you. In the beginning, someone will believe in you — so you can get that advice, iterate, and keep trying.

Shamil Malachiyev: And did you ever face a situation where, as a founder, as a CEO — for example with cold emailing — you get a fear of rejection? Like: I'm not sure, I'll postpone it, I'll just hire somebody who's going to be really good at it. But at the same time, as a good CEO, you know you have to just get shit done. Do you ever get one of those moments where you're like: I'm scared, I don't know — wait, I'm just going to do it. You sit down, you power through.

Ashi Dissanayake: I'm not really scared of rejection, because if I get rejected, that means I'm learning something. And I never wanted to hire anybody to do the cold emailing, because I wanted to know what I would learn from it — from the responses. It was a learning curve for me as well: learning about the space industry. That's why I never wanted to hire anybody to do it for me — because then I would not know what the market needs, what the space industry is like.

Shamil Malachiyev: Okay — so, advice for anyone listening: even the negative answers you receive are still important, because that's where you learn. I'm telling it to myself as much as anyone — that's such a good way of looking at it. Are there any tips and tricks to being a good CEO?

Ashi Dissanayake: Have your team's back. I have my team's back — I'll do anything for them, and I make sure they're happy and they have what they want. Because they're your family. Your team becomes your family, and if you don't take care of them, it's really unlikely your team will stay with you for the long term. And sometimes the very early team members that joined you — you want them to stay with you for a long period of time, because they're the very first people that helped you take your company off the ground. It's really important that you take care of your team. Your team is your family.

Shamil Malachiyev: And how does one take care of their team members? Do they go for equity? Do they do a lot of one-on-ones to get to know them, as Gary Vaynerchuk does? Or do they create constant challenge, like Elon Musk, to make sure they perform the best work of their life, even though it squeezes them?

Ashi Dissanayake: It can be different things — there's no right or wrong way to take care of them. It could be one-on-one meetings, or going over technical aspects with them, helping them. Or it could be just buying them food. It could be as simple as that. It doesn't always have to be business when you take care of your team members — it doesn't always have to be equity or business-related. Just buying them a meal — we send them food once a week. It can be just that simple. Just be human. Just have a connection. Because if you are only focusing on business things — only having technical meetings and design reviews — you don't really have a connection with your team. Just go for a walk with your team. It's so easy. We walk every day — yesterday we walked for about 45 minutes; it got cold, so we came back — and we just talked about random stuff. It's such a good mind reset, because the whole day we've been working, right? Then we go for a walk, we take our dogs, and we just get to be human. Sometimes I feel like a lot of people forget to be human and have that human connection. If you want to take care of somebody, you need to know who they are as people.

Just talking to them can be taking care of them too — because then they know: okay, I'm working in a place where I can talk to the founders. The founders are not disconnected from the team. The founders are not scary. The founders are like family — we are all building the same thing, we are all building towards the same goal. And at the same time, those are just the human things. The rest can be one-on-one meetings to better understand what they're working on. We have daily catch-ups — every day at 9 a.m. we do a catch-up with the whole team. We're a small team, so it's easy. And we plan to keep it that way — we want to be engaged, not micromanaging, that's not what I mean, but working with our team. We plan to run Spaceium like a startup for as long as possible, because that means we actually get to engage with the whole team. Every day at 9 a.m. we do a daily catch-up and go over what we worked on, what they worked on. And we have technical reviews. It makes them really happy.

Shamil Malachiyev: It almost seems like a dream job for anyone who wants to make a real difference in the space era — which I'm pretty sure we're moving towards very quickly, with the number of startups aiming for space, with launch costs coming down, with us now being able to make sure that whatever goes up into space lands safely as well.

Ashi Dissanayake: Yeah — because the job is hard. What we are doing at Spaceium is hard. You have to concentrate so well, and you have to build something that's going to work, and it's really hard. So I want to make sure they are well taken care of — mentally, and business-wise — and that it's a very happy place for them to work, one they look forward to working in every day, for long hours. Just doing normal human things.

Shamil Malachiyev: Well, fantastic. I want to thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing your story with me and our listeners. I want to wish you all the best in growing your team, and in releasing the news that we're going to hear in the future. Wishing you all of the strength, energy and success to get through all of the challenges that this journey will bring.

Ashi Dissanayake: Thank you so much. It was really nice talking to you, and thanks for having me.