Cold Star Project

Bill Conley was a DARPA Program Manager, then the US Department of Defense's expert on electronic warfare for four years, and is now Chief Technology Officer at Mercury Systems. Our topic is a comparison of the 19th Century's Concert of Europe vs Modern Day's communication and methods of deterrence. Cold Star Project host Jason Kanigan asks Bill Conley: What is effective communication, especially in context of diplomacy and deterrence of conflict? Why doesn’t the Behavioralist/Rational Economics approach work in practice when it comes to national conflicts? Do you believe the match-up of 2020s China-US is similar to the 1910s UK-German? Are there historical correlations? The WWI era was about the disintegration of the old order, and paradigm shifts. Are there indicators of a similar instability of the existing order today? As a nation’s capabilities increase, so do its ambitions. Many of these ambitions seem to end up with the idea of autarky. Do you believe we’re close to experiencing another such outbreak of these ideas today? How could a modern day China-US conflict proceed?   USEFUL LINKS:   "Mitchell Hour: State of Electronic Warfare in the DOD" [Dr. Conley lecture]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qR_PPGDnejo  "What Is Eurasia?" [Dr. Stephen Kotkin lecture]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ghn1X7sRFs  Mercury Systems website: https://www.mrcy.com/  OpEx Society: https://www.opexsociety.org  America's Future Series: https://www.americas-fs.org/  Talk to Cold Star: https://coldstartech.com/talktous

President and CEO of Orbital Assembly Rhonda Stevenson is our guest this time on the Cold Star Project. With host Jason Kanigan she discusses the challenges of building a truly commercial space company. We cover the capabilities of Orbital Asembly, as well as Rhonda's personal efforts to build consortiums and attract customers to the space industry.   USEFUL LINKS:   Orbital Assembly website: https://orbitalassembly.com/  OpEx Society: https://www.opexsociety.org  America's Future Series: https://www.americas-fs.org/  Talk to Cold Star: https://coldstartech.com/talktous

Just because you CAN create a product doesn't mean you SHOULD. What Scaling Problems Can You Find In SBIR/STTR Product Commercialization? While small batches may work in the lab, commercializing will require large quantities and unexpected issues from supply chain through chemical reactions may change. The results from these issues may well prove the venture impossible to complete under current conditions. David Driscoll of Storm Castle joins Cold Star Project host Jason Kanigan to discuss a real life example of struggling with scaling for commercialization. While the concept had been proven to work, making it happen at a scale that would make money turned out to be a dead end. Jason asks David: Q: What professional roles have you held? From what context are you speaking to these challenges? A: Glacigen (Founder), Montana State University (Senior Research Scientist), Storm Castle Technical Products (Current; Founder) Q: What was Glacigen all about? A: Commercialization of an advanced manufacturing technique; freeze tape casting. FTC is a hybridization of an industrial processing technique with well-established lab scale technique. It produces large area sheets of materials with highly engineered microstructures. Materials which have been known for a long time can exhibit great performance enhancement with new processing. (Flour, baking soda, eggs, sugar, etc…..could be awful or masterpiece it’s all in the processing. We tend to focus too easily on exotic alloys and entirely new materials (good and valuable), when opportunity is left on the table with respect to using existing ingredients better. Q: What kind of applications were you looking at? A: Started all over the board. FTC arrived as a solution looking for a problem. Composites of high temperature materials (hypersonics), solid oxide fuel cell electrodes, catalyst scaffolds, thermal interface materials, actuators….finally battery electrodes. In my eyes, battery electrodes represented the convergence of good technical fit with strong merit, market of relevant scale, and opportunity to address true customer pain point. Q: Which pain point is that, exactly? A: Specifically for customers of high performance applications: energy density (without destroying power density). Cost is important even for those with performance applications. Q: How did you realize commercializing this as a product, rather than having it remain as a lab invention, was important? A: That was intrinsic, and a primary motivating factor of launching Glacigen. I saw potential for real impact in the FTC process which obviously couldn’t be realized within academia. There was a commitment to commercialization from the outset, but some learning required to understand how that looks. Q: What steps did you take towards commercialization? What did you learn? (eg. would you start the process earlier?) A: Early steps were technically focused: scalability, repeatability, application-based proof of concept. Early strategic steps came after technical work, but work focused on matching applications with strong FTC applicability with customer needs ‘pain points.’ We began working with a company building EV batteries. This led to a great deal of learning that springboarded us towards conversations with larger and more established manufacturers. Engaging with the customer more intentionally, and much earlier would have been critical. The first level is understanding need, which we did reasonably well. We misidenitfied barriers to adoption, which could have - in retrospect been identified much sooner. Same applies to thinking you understand strength of market pull, pain points, value propositions etc. Those things need to be constantly tested and when necessary, iterated. USEFUL NOTES: Storm Castle Technical Products: https://www.stormcastletechnicalproducts.com/ OpEx Society: https://www.opexsociety.org America's Future Series: https://www.americas-fs.org/ Talk to Cold Star: https://coldstartech.com/talk

Sales trainer Wes Schaeffer is back on the Cold Star Project, and our topic is his free 12 Weeks To Peak sales accountability program. Host Jason Kanigan participated in 2022 Q4's version and 12 Weeks To Peak has been re-released for 2023. The two sales trainers share elements and results of this free accountability program for founders and salespeople. Come along with us and find out if it's right for you!   USEFUL LINKS:   12 Weeks To Peak website: https://info.thesaleswhisperer.com/12-weeks-to-peak  Jason Kanigan's Effective Prospecting video series: https://jasonkanigan.com/ytep  Past appearances of Wes Schaeffer on the Cold Star Project:   "What CRM Should I Get?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pv2JAgKPzHY  "Process Before Login" (choosing a CRM) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRE5MYudGQM  OpEx Society: https://www.opexsociety.org  Talk to Cold Star: https://coldstartech.com/talktous

Past Chief Software Officer of the US Space Force and Air Force Nic Chaillan is back on the Cold Star Project. Over the past year, Nic has developed his own learning platform, Learn With Nic. He has also hosted his own show, In The Nic Of Time. Host Jason Kanigan asks Nic: What have you learned in running your own show, In The Nic Of Time? What have you learned about the general state of software security in the US from your guests? Did this confirm what you already were aware of, or did they add any detail? If you could wave a magic wand and have leaders and developers realize some fundamentals of DevSecOps that are practical to implement as well as effective, what would a couple of those be? Are you still convinced we’re lagging and that China is going to overtake and “beat” us? How do you define that: simply economically, or technologically, militarily? What can we do about it, and are you seeing any evidence of leadership attempting to take action? I hear more and more Americans becoming concerned about TikTok, even leaders in fields I thought would be far away from the edges of national security. I believe we should be more explicit about what can be done with TikTok, beyond “they’re collecting all our data!”. Have your thoughts about TikTok evolved over the past year?  What’s your opinion about the Infr