How Space Tech is Revolutionizing Business with Shelli Brunswick

Welcome to the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast, where we talk with entrepreneurs, founders, and leaders at B2B services, tech, and SaaS companies to learn the systems and processes they've used to create success for their business. We'll also learn from marketing and sales experts to provide insights to help you grow your business. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and the podcast is brought to you by Modern Revenue strategies and their 10x ROI B2B growth guarantee. Schedule a free diagnostic call to learn the fastest path to double your B2B revenues in just 90 days. Hello and welcome to another episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Mark Osborne, and today I have a really exciting guest. Now I'm gonna read her bio because she's got a lot going on. If I don't read it, I'll get it wrong. Shelly Brunswick is a former US Air Force officer and Chief Operating Officer of the Space Foundation. She's a motivational speaker and author who uses her background in space. Yeah, like space to spark interest and excitement about space exploration and innovation. And we're gonna talk a lot about that innovation for business. She highlights practical applications of space technologies in everyday life. She shares leadership and success lessons learned from her journey to encourage personal and professional growth. Shelly's contributions to NASA and the European Space Agency Future Studies, along with her advocacy for women in space, have earned her numerous accolades, including Top 100 Women of the Future in Emerging Technology. Her involvement with prestigious organizations and think tanks such as the Hudson Institute, and the Wilson Center underscores her role as a thought leader in space policy and innovation. Through SB Global LLC, Shelley offers strategic guidance on partnership engagement and advocacy, inspiring a boundless future in space exploration. So how about that? We're really going to go out of this world today on the podcast. So Shelley, thanks so much for joining us. Welcome to the show.

Well, thank you so much for having me, and I will pay you later for that amazing introduction you just gave.

Well, it's all true, or at least I've been told it was. So I have plausible deniability. So your work is super interesting and I think will be relevant for our audience of, you know, CEOs, founders of boutique professional services firms or B2B SaaS and tech firms because they might be looking for industries that are fast growing where they want to build their businesses or they want to, you know, extend their existing business to serve Fast-growing sectors. So, tell us more about like what you really do.

Absolutely. Well, let me share with your audience a little bit more about my background to slice it out a bit. When I was in the U.S. Air Force for 29 years, I had a few different roles. You know, my first 12 years in the Air Force, I joined like many other people right out of high school, was an enlisted airman for 12 years, got to be overseas and enjoy serving our nation in Turkey and Germany and learning new cultures and Supporting our allies, it was amazing. And then after being an enlisted airman for 12 years, I became an officer. So as they said, I crossed over to the dark side, and I became a space acquisition officer, a space procurement officer. And that's what started my space journey. So I worked on satellites and launch vehicles and ground stations, and a lot to do with military space. Some discussions and work activities with NASA. I also taught at Defense Acquisition University. I was a professor in project management. And then my last five years, I worked on cap. Capitol Hill as a budget and appropriation liaison. So I secured the budget for the Air Force to execute its mission.

Wow.

So it was an amazing time, and it gave me that experience in what the military needs, what their procurement cycle is like, how they contract and work with commercial entities, as well as how to work with legislative and governing officials to create the laws and policies that allow businesses to succeed. When I left the Air Force, I retired, I went to work at Space Foundation as a Chief Operating Officer. 9 years of amazement with an amazing team. And that really balanced my career from that military side to the civil, commercial, international, as well as really understanding what it means to have a profit and loss division, motivating a team to accomplish goals and objectives, providing feedback to a board of directors, and meeting those objectives of the board. And then just this year, as you said, I launched my own company, SB Global LLC. And now all those years of experience of understanding the procurement process with the government, how to work internationally, how to create strategy, how to talk to lawmakers, I'm now providing that strategic insight to companies and nonprofits so that they can be more successful in accomplishing their goals and objectives and meeting their P&L requirements. And then, as you said, I do also 100 speaking events a year. I write— I'm writing books right now, and my goal is to be that bridge from the space industry to the general public and those organizations and companies that might want to do business with the government or other entities as it relates to space.

Wow, that, that's really interesting. Really interesting journey, uh, that you've had, uh, and, uh, really interesting sort of that intersection of sort of new technology in space and also sort of that grounding in, you know, sort of what's a— can be a very sort of slow-moving, the sort of governmental agencies. So really neat intersection there. One thing that I know that our audience can connect with is, you know, as founders of businesses or working at early-stage companies, creating sort of a position for yourself in the marketplace can— is one of the most important challenges to tackle. I know you do some work as a mentor, and, you know, space can be such a nebulous concept. I'm sure you've, you know, had to build a lot of skills at creating a positioning strategy and the way you sort of positioned your business today. Talk to me a little bit about your experience with kind of creating positioning strategies and how you've seen that play out in business.

Absolutely. I think any entrepreneur whether you're in the space industry or any industry, is you're a problem solver. There are problems out there and you are looking to create solutions and you want your solution to be the best solution. So, you know, one of the great examples I highlight today is there's a lot of orbital debris in space. And so we really need to look at how are we gonna reduce, remove, and recycle that orbital debris? It's a great problem. Well, you know what has sprung up from that problem are amazing companies that want to find ways to recycle and reuse that orbital debris to ensure that we as the United States and other countries still have access to space. So what's critical, like you said, is what is that positioning statement? So what is the problem you have? What is your why? Why are you doing what you're doing? And what makes you unique compared to anybody else? What is your target market? What is your target audience? Now, those could be 2 different things. And I say that because having come out of a nonprofit environment, Sometimes the target audience could be who will receive your programs and benefit from them, but who will pay for them.

Yeah.

And the example I use for that target audience is one of the programs I created at Space Foundation was our Space Commerce Program. The initial program was in partnership with the Minority Business Development Agency out of the Department of Commerce. So they were the target audience on accomplishing goals and objectives and getting the funding. But ultimately, the individuals that benefited from that program were minorities and women around the United States. So it's your why, who's the target audience, could be different ways of looking at that target audience like I highlighted. And then what are your products and services? How do you build those out and provide that uniqueness? The 4th step is who's the competition? 'Cause, you know, if you're just building a commoditized product, it could be a really challenging place to compete because we know when you look at commoditized products, it's always a low-cost bidder. So that's why it's really good to look at who's your competition, Are you in a niche market? What's unique about you? How do you position yourself differently? And then of course, that last step is what's the next step going forward? So those are some of the things I always have people, whether they're nonprofits, because the only difference between a nonprofit and a for-profit is how you file your taxes.

Uh-huh.

So everybody needs a positioning statement. Everybody needs to know their why, who's the target audience, what are your products and services, and know your competition.

Yeah, I mean, that certainly resonates with, you know, a lot of businesses that we've worked with, even sort of that dynamic of, you know, the, the who you're building it for versus who's buying it. Oftentimes we see, you know, even on, you know, sort of simple technology solutions, there's an end user of that technology solution within a company, but they're not actually the person who signs off on it. So you have to be able to get them excited about it enough that they'll advocate for it within the organization so that Maybe their boss or someone else within the organization that has this sort of buying authority is willing to sign off. So interesting sort of juxtaposition of the kind of the same challenges, just in sort of different business environments. You talked a little bit about, you know, how you've worked with some budding entrepreneurs who want to engage in space and sort of helping them kind of ideate, you know, either business plans or, you know, ways to go to, to, to lean in on, on this area. Talk, talk to me a little bit about some of the work you've done there.

Absolutely. Well, as you highlighted, I am a mentor for several amazing programs that are out there. One of them is the Space for Women, uh, Network, uh, through the United Nations, as well as Women Tech Network. And they're open to men and women. And so sometimes when I meet entrepreneurs, they know exactly what they want to do. They are very passionate about it. They know their why. But sometimes entrepreneurs, you know, are serial entrepreneurs. They like new ideas. And so sometimes they're looking for that idea. And so for your audience who are thinking, well, I'm really interested in this space arena, but maybe I don't want to be launch vehicles or an astronaut, that's okay. We need all kinds of entrepreneurs for a myriad of technology. And so a great place to go to look for ideation or even apply for a patent is through the NASA Tech Transfer Office. The United States government has thousands of patents that are waiting for entrepreneurs to apply for that patent and start to commercialize. And the other great thing is many times you can apply for a small business innovative research grant to help to build that business plan, build your positioning statement to commercialize that product. And yes, there are launch vehicles, but it's also in agriculture and healthcare, pharmaceuticals, energy, the Internet of Things. So there's lots of opportunity for your audience who may be in a different economic sector, to find an intersection with space and now bring that to market. And I'll give you a little fact that many times people think when we give NASA money, they're doing all this great research, and they are. But I want to let the American people know that for every $1 you gave NASA during the Apollo era, it paid back $7 return on investment. And in 2014, for every dollar you gave NASA, It was a $40 return, return of investment in this commercialization of technology. Like right now we are using Zoom to talk to you. All telecommunication products are based on NASA technology, telecommunications with astronauts. Many times people don't even realize how space technology is now part of our everyday lives.

That's interesting. And so like I've heard things like And, and you probably know this better than I, but like, aren't there some like everyday things that we use that have come out of the space program? Like, I want to say like microwaves, aluminum foil, or are these right, or am I off on that?

Well, some of the things that I really like to highlight is, you know, my husband was a firefighter for 30 years, so he would run into burning buildings to save people's lives. But thanks to fire retardant clothing from the Apollo era, he got to come home every night. So many times people don't think about fire retardant clothing protecting our firefighters, or that's, you know, helping protect our babies when they're sleeping in their cribs, that fire retardant material. But you can also think about formulated food came from the space program. The other thing I love to highlight is from the Hubble Space Telescope. Now, Hubble was designed to look into space for anomalies.

Yeah.

And a company took that same technology of looking for anomalies and now uses it to look for anomalies in the human body. And that is how mammogram detection was founded. So millions of women and men are saved every year because of space technology and mammogram detection. So those are just some big examples, but there's thousands of others. You know, think about how space is the infrastructure of many of the things we're doing. Like we all use our phones, we have GPS, we're using, You're using Uber, you're using Airbnb. So all of those are based on the infrastructure of space that's already there, allowing those applications and those businesses to flourish. So space is already part of your everyday life. As a matter of fact, on average, you are connecting with a satellite 45 times a day.

Wow. I guess that makes sense. Every time you check your phone, you're probably getting a signal off that satellite that's then bouncing to whatever Internet platform you're getting information from or using Zoom like we are now.

Absolutely. Well, and it's even beyond that because we use precision agriculture, which is using GPS on, you know, such as John Deere tractors to do precision agriculture, increases crop production by 10%. Think about all the shipping that's happening. All of those big tankers are using GPS for their navigation. So, if you had breakfast this morning and your blueberries came from another country like Chile, they were using GPS to get to the supermarket, to get to you. Think about if you're— like we said, we're using Zoom, or you use GPS, your banking. All the banking transactions are running on the backbone of space and cyber technology. So again, you're using satellites and space technology throughout the day, and you're not even realizing it.

And there's an entire program within the US government that has all of this technology ready to be licensed and sort of brought to market. to create the next Zoom or Uber or something else that's using this, you know, sort of infrastructure and technology that's been built for space. And there's even grants to help companies kick off and launch businesses to leverage this technology that already exists.

Absolutely. They call them Small Business Innovative Research grants. And it's not just NASA. It's also the Air Force Research Lab. It's the Department of Energy. And if you have some international watchers, The European Space Agency has a tech transfer office as well as the Japanese Space Agency. So again, there are thousands of patents that are waiting to be commercialized or waiting for entrepreneurs and investors to bring these products to market to better our everyday lives right here on planet Earth.

Wow, that's really interesting. And, and is that what you do primarily as you work with companies is help them to identify, you know, some of those opportunities and to take advantage of them?

Absolutely. Several companies that reach out, I serve as a strategic advisor on their board of directors, or I help them create strategies if they want to commercialize space technology, or they want to understand some of the space technology that maybe the government is looking at to see if there's a business model and a basis for a case for support to pursue that activity. So it's really at that strategic level of, is this a good new market to enter or vertical to start?

Are there any, uh, sort of success stories you can share with us? And obviously you can, you know, keep the, keep the details to yourself if it's, you know, something that's proprietary, but, uh, I, I'd love to hear, you know, some of the stories of some of these, you know, businesses that have kind of taken advantage of some of these programs.

Absolutely. Well, uh, some of them are, uh, former NFL players have taken, uh, quality of life, uh, space technology from NASA, commercialized it, and brought it to market. And so now— and NASA is amazing because they will help partner with many of these companies to help them. Another one that I'm really excited about is called Lambda Vision, and it's run by Dr. Nicole Wagner. Right now, millions of people around the world develop macular degeneration of their eyes, meaning as they age, they lose their vision, and there's currently no cure for that. And what Dr. Wagner is now doing is she is working with NASA and the International Space Station to 3D print lens replacements that could replace the lens in your eye and give you back your sight. And again, right now there is no cure And so partnering with NASA, Space Tango, and the International Space Station, and she has a business model that makes it more cost advantageous to do this lens 3D printing in microgravity environment. There are some great qualities about microgravity environment and 3D printing organic material, and we can get into that on a future show, but it's amazing. So I think what Lambda Vision helping to solve blindness for millions of people is incredible, and that's one of those success stories. Now it's going through the process with NASA, and now they're There's the FDA, but I am super excited about her journey and what she's doing to improve the quality of life for people around the planet.

Wow, that that really is a cool story. So you've got such a diverse background, and you've seen so many you know different kind of operating environments, you know for business and for getting things done. You know for you know our our listeners out there that maybe they're founders and and they're you know in their business and and. Really were in their business, not on their business, but maybe they're struggling today or, you know, kind of trying to get ahead. You've certainly seen a lot of, you know, systems that work and we focus a lot on systems here. If you had a piece of advice to give to, you know, founders, entrepreneurs that are working in their business today, what would be sort of that one piece of advice that you would give them on their journey?

Well, the number one piece of advice I give to any entrepreneur is you have to surround yourself with great people. So it's always about the team, the team you have, and look for people who are not like you, who think different than you, that have different ideas, and bring them to the table because ultimately you're going to come up with better solutions. So I always start with it's about the team, not the technology.

That's great advice. I don't think anyone could Could knock you for that. Shelley, this has been a super interesting discussion, and we could probably talk all day. There's lots of space to fill, but I want to be mindful of your time. So for our listeners that are interested in, you know, engaging to, you know, learn more about how they can move into space technologies or commercialize some of these patents that exist, how can they get in touch with you?

Absolutely. Well, for anyone who knows me, I'm active on social media, especially LinkedIn. So please reach out to me on LinkedIn. I post a lot of great information about what's happening in the space industry, great space leaders. I'm working on a book series. The book series is, I call it What Space Got to Do with It. And it's gonna talk about lessons learned, how to accomplish your goals and objectives, and as well as leadership. And it's general for anyone looking for those types of insight and advice, but I look at it through that lens of space. And so that gives it a little different twist. So you can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube. I'm out there. And I look forward to engaging with your audience and joining you for a future podcast about What's next?

Yeah, absolutely. We'd love to have you come back on and talk about what space got to do with it. That's a really clever title and really interested to see how that comes out. Thank you, Shelley, so much for joining us. This was a super interesting discussion and certainly opened my eyes to a lot of opportunities out there. I guess the sky's not even the limit anymore. You can go beyond the sky. With the opportunities with space. So thanks again for joining us.

Well, thank you so much for having me. And until next time, I look forward to seeing you around the galaxy.

Thanks, Shelley. Thank you for joining this episode of the B2B Growth Blueprint podcast. We hope you've gained insights to grow your business. If you enjoyed this discussion, please rate, comment, like on your favorite platform and share to others who will find it useful. Do you know a CEO, founder, or leader at an early-stage B2B services, tech, or SaaS company who would like to be a guest and share their story? Send us a note. Let's schedule a conversation.