Start Ups and Scale Ups – What advice would you give to your younger self?

DURATION:  

45 minutes 

TITLE:  

A LIVE edition the space podcast “LIFT OFF” featuring Start Ups and Scale Ups – What advice would you give to your younger self?”

FORMAT: 

Comfy chairs, relaxed space banter and a pot plant.

TECHNIA will discuss with CEO’s Sara Aloa from Stars Edge, Jamie Snape from Aphelion Industries and Orbex’s very own CFO, Charles Platts. The challenges of taking that bright idea on a Friday night, through to TRL 6 and beyond into Space. 

• What have been the biggest challenges?

• Technology - how do you decide what's right for the business?

• Investment - how did you start/what's the current investment landscape like/Where does the investment go?

• Knowing where to get support - Is it easy to find? How would you like to see it improved??

• Biggest pains/lessons learnt from Start Up to Scale Up

• Where do you find people/employees with 'the right stuff'?

• How do manage delegation/'letting go' of some decisions as the business grows?

• What have been the biggest pains/lessons learnt from start up to scale-up?

• What strategies do you use to keep hold of the vision of the idea - personally and at an organisational level?

• What did you THINK would be the hardest bits, compared to what ACTUALLY were the hardest bits (so far). What were the best bits?

• What would you do differently if you had your time again?

Speaker Information

Host - Bruce Poston leads the new business focus for Space and Aerospace related activities at TECHNIA. 

With a background in supporting Start Ups, Scale Ups and Enterprise businesses accelerate product development.  At the Ignite Space 2025 Live Theatre, he will be our host and explore Space topics that are too interesting to leave alone. 

Charles Platts has a wealth of experience in senior finance roles. Most recently he was CFO at PARAGRAF, the first company to mass produce graphene-based electronic devices using standard semiconductor processes, and whilst there he worked successfully on the late-stage deep-tech fundraising. As well as being responsible for all financial aspects, Charles leads Orbex’s business services teams, ensuring the smooth running of Orbex’s business activities. 

Triyan Pal Arora,  CTO and Co-founder of Stars Edge Ltd., he is an innovator in the aerospace industry with experience in the automobile, aerospace, and space sectors. Currently a PNT engineer, his expertise includes long-duration propulsion, timing dissemination, and celestial navigation. At Stars Edge, he leads a team of 10 engineers, developing cutting-edge propulsion solutions for very low Earth orbit (VLEO) applications. 

James Snape is founding director at Aphelion Industries - the Scottish startup building armour for spacecraft. 

 They delivered a UK MOD R&D contract exploring dual-use 'Generation After Next Technologies' in 2022-23, now incubating in the Higgs Centre for Innovation at Royal Observatory of Edinburgh until August 2026. 

 APHLN's near-term product is 'TARGE' - protecting satellites against Lethal Non-Trackable threats like microdebris and fragmentation based anti-satellite weaponry.  Armour products are key milestones on APHLN's Debris Removal R&D roadmap, in future - providing critical disaster-recovery options to catastrophe or conflict in orbit.