7 Go-to-Market Lessons from Building a Space Company Without Venture Capital

7 Go-to-Market Lessons from Building a Space Company Without Venture Capital

Most hardware startups die waiting for their market to materialize. CisLunar Industries, a space tech company developing metal recycling technology for orbit, faced a brutal reality: their primary market wouldn’t exist commercially for a decade. Instead of shutting down, they accidentally discovered a different business while building their core product.

In a recent episode of Category Visionaries, Gary Calnan, CEO and Co-Founder of CisLunar Industries, shared how his team survived years without institutional funding, navigated government contracts, and built two distinct revenue streams with radically different time horizons. For founders building in deep tech or any market with long commercialization timelines, these lessons offer a playbook for survival.

Lesson 1: Build for Flexibility, Not a Single Killer App

When CisLunar started developing metal processing technology for space, they could have optimized for one specific use case. Instead, Gary deliberately kept their approach adaptable. “We always try to approach what we’re building to maintain as much flexibility as how it could be applied as possible,” Gary explains. “We didn’t say, like, what’s our killer app? It’s going to be large antennas in space or whatever. We don’t know because it’s such a new market.”

That flexibility paid off when a collaborator pointed out their power converter looked useful for propulsion systems. The principle: maintain optionality in your business model, customer segments, and technology applications. When creating new categories, you can’t predict which door opens first.

Lesson 2: Government Contracts Aren’t as Scary as They Seem

Many tech founders avoid government contracts, intimidated by bureaucracy. Gary pushes back on this. “It is a little bit daunting at first because it’s unfamiliar,” he admits. “There’s lots of jargon, especially when you get into the military, there’s even more jargon.”

But here’s the insight: “Most intelligent people running businesses…can figure out how to navigate if you want to.” The SBIR process exists across every government department, providing early-stage non-dilutive funding. Gary was particularly impressed by the Space Force: “They’re trying to be adaptable to the industry as it is, and take advantage of the benefits of entrepreneurship. And they’ve moved pretty fast, and they’ve been very helpful and collaborative with us.”

Expect multiple attempts before winning. Each rejection provides feedback that improves your next submission.

Lesson 3: Creative Revenue Solves the Funding Gap

CisLunar closed their first institutional VC investment in Q1 of this year—years after founding. How did they survive? Creative deal structures that brought in cash without diluting equity or abandoning their vision.

“We even took contract engineering deals with some customers who were aligned with us strategically and where we were helping them with things that were complementary but not what we wanted to be working on for ourselves,” Gary shares. “That allowed us to bring cash in the door and even hire people new to the company even though we couldn’t raise money.”

This isn’t the Airbnb cereal box story—it’s more strategic. They took on engineering work that was adjacent to their core technology, served customers who could become partners, and maintained their technical capabilities while generating revenue. The work wasn’t their primary focus, but it kept the lights on and the team intact during funding winters.

Lesson 4: Match Your Time Horizon to Available Capital Sources

One of CisLunar’s biggest challenges was the mismatch between their timeline and VC expectations. “One of the big challenges we’ve had with your typical investor, VC investor, is that our time horizon to get to commercial viability for metal processing is not your typical five to seven years,” Gary notes. “And that just doesn’t fit with the turnaround time that most VCs typically say they need.”

The solution wasn’t to abandon their vision or force an unrealistic timeline. They developed the power converter business with near-term revenue potential while government contracts funded R&D. “The power converter business will drive commercial sales and help us to grow the company on a commercial basis over the next few years,” Gary says.

If you’re in deep tech with long development cycles, identify what components of your technology can generate near-term revenue without distracting from your core mission.

Lesson 5: Don’t Go Stealth—Tell Your Story Early

Despite having limited resources and unproven technology, CisLunar chose to be vocal about their work from the start. “We made a decision early on that we were small and we didn’t have our own pile of wealth to use to build a business. So we had to go out and tell the story and try to find partners that we could work with,” Gary explains.

“We decided not to go stealth from the very beginning,” he continues. “And I encourage any entrepreneur, unless you’re independently wealthy and you want to just fund it, even still making contact with the market is always better to refine your idea.”

This openness helped CisLunar find collaborators, win government contracts, and eventually attract investors. In emerging categories, being visible helps you shape the conversation, attract talent, and discover unexpected opportunities—like the CSU collaborator who recognized their power converter’s broader applications.

Lesson 6: Find the Underserved Segment

When CisLunar explored the power converter market, they discovered it was crowded—for small satellites. “That market is pretty, I wouldn’t say saturated, but there’s plenty of suppliers there,” Gary notes. But in the higher power segment, “there’s only a few manufacturers that develop high power 1 kilowatt and above kind of systems for the industry.”

They positioned themselves where the market was trending. “We see a lot of the satellite market trending towards is these larger, more capable satellites,” Gary explains. Their modular approach—”almost like Lego bricks”—provided differentiation.

The lesson: look for segments where customer needs evolve faster than existing solutions can adapt.

Lesson 7: Structure for Survival First, Scale Second

Gary’s philosophy centers on staying alive long enough for your market to materialize. “Some of it is just about figuring out how to survive those moments in time. Structure your company with optionality so you have more than one way to move forward where you’re not dependent upon continuing to raise so you can keep burning capital.”

This isn’t about thinking small—CisLunar still aims to become “the steel mills of space.” But they’ve structured the journey so they can actually make it there.

For hardware founders and deep tech entrepreneurs, the best GTM strategy might not be the one you planned. Sometimes it’s the one you discover while building something else.