In this interview, Nadir Bagaveyev explains how he assembled a team and secured testing land for his small rocket company, and how he keeps the team motivated over a long‑term, high‑risk venture. He describes a variety of recruiting channels – a personal pitch to Stanford’s aerospace department, meet‑ups, Craigslist, and outreach to university student projects – and recounts the first hires that resulted. For test sites, he used Google Earth to spot suitable farmland, then contacted the county to identify the owner and negotiated a symbolic $100‑per‑month lease. Bagaveyev emphasizes a founder‑first mindset: relentless personal dedication, a “do‑first‑ask‑later” attitude inspired by Adam Draper, and an iron‑fist work ethic modeled after his former boss at XCOR Aerospace and Navy SEAL training. He argues that when a founder shows unwavering commitment, employees are more easily motivated, even if the project may last a lifetime. He also reflects on early employee turnover, the trade‑offs of diverting resources to a simple rocket, and ongoing hiring tactics such as repeat Stanford talks, supporting student rocket projects at UCSD, and leveraging contacts at SpaceX.
Chapters
What is your position in the company and how do you build a team to like do what you're doing? Because obviously you couldn't just pick someone off the street that can build a rocket. So how then do you find the people that can do it and basically like make this successful?
It's a good question because it's also good for the question of how did I find the land where we tested things. And any resource is good. For people, I emailed— no, actually I went to Stanford University and looked at their aerospace department, walked to professor's place, brought my very small rocket engine and say, I would like to give you a speech about these rocket engines. Can you bring me the team of your aerospace engineering students? He's like, oh, okay, that's interesting. So he brought in, I said, told about my company, and they gave me resumes. That's how I got my first employee. Another one, I just went to a meetup of space satellite startups or something like that and met another employee there. Third one was from Craigslist. I just needed a fabricator, welder, somebody like that, and I found somebody on Craigslist. So any tool is good. Just have to find right people. As for finding a land is— I thought, where would be a good place where you can be really loud testing these rocket engines and not bother anybody? and farmlands came to plan. So first I went to Google Earth, looked at the, you know, land there, and I'm like, okay, this land looks good. Then I called San Mateo County and said, who owns this land? They gave me the name of the person, so I called them and said, can I test rocket engines at your place? They said, okay, just give me $100 a month or something like that. So like symbolic thing. So you will always find Somehow to make your little obstacle go away. Just find a way. There are multitudes of ways, and just be innovative. Don't get hung up on, ooh, I need this permission or that permission. In fact, Adam Draper told me, do it first and ask for excuse or permission later. You've probably heard that before. Well, don't do crazy stuff, but— If it's just the brave, bold stuff that breaks the rules but don't break the law kind of thing, just do it.
How do you keep your team motivated having known that this might be a lifelong project?
You know, with iron fists. Hurt my fist a little bit. I show them that for me it's a lifelong project and I'm not even worried if I'm going to die doing it. As in, it's that important. And it's something I've learned from my previous boss at XCOR Aerospace. He just never quits. He could be super tired, super everything, everything can go to hell, but he's just a machine that goes to work and works. And in fact, I would recommend you to watch— there's a documentary on YouTube on Navy SEALs. I don't know if you know Navy SEALs are like special Special Forces for Navy in the United States. And when they go through training, trainers see exactly that. Some people went there just to be cool, to, you know, be cool in front of girls or achieve the best thing in what in Navy you can achieve. But those people all fall out because only people who are really, really like, I'm gonna be Navy SEAL for the rest of my life and I'm gonna die achieving it, that's when you stop ignoring everything that is happening to you. You have no pity for yourself, you have no, like, remorse. You don't say, I deserve to relax now. I mean, you should relax, you shouldn't burn out, but there should never be thought, I deserve to relax. It's an employee thought, it's not a founder's thought. So as soon as you have this, like, complete dedication, I think people just see that you have complete dedication and It's relatively easier to motivate people when they know that you will never stop. Like, I'll probably never stop. Even if this company fails, I will work for a year, cry into a pillow, and then start another rocket company that will be larger and stronger than this one, I hope.
So the guy that you recruited from Stanford and also the other guy from Craigslist, did they ever stop?
The guy from Stanford left when we started to build this rocket because, you know, as a rocket scientist, you know that you need to build this complex thing with a turbopump and an engine. And this one is a very simple rocket. So as soon as I start diverting resources to this, he's like, this is probably not right. Because as a scientist, you should be focused on the final thing. But to investors, other things are important. You want to keep them entertained with— show off how awesome you are. They'll tell you, show me graphs that go up. For us, it's like, show rockets that launched. So that's what we do. We diverted a little bit of resources and time to this, but we've learned a lot. So in the past, I was regretting to launch this because we did divert about 4 months of work and about $100,000. But in the end, I know that we've learned so much that With the next launch, we're going to be so much more amazing. And the final launch, we hopefully will do with no mistakes at all, because we've already went through 2 experiences of launches. So one person quit, others staying with me.
So after progressing into this direction, how have you been hunting for employees with the best match skills set?
I just did another speech in Stanford. Also, on a Kickstarter, the University of California San Diego collected money for 3D-printed rocket engine to launch their rocket. Also not to space, but just kind of a demonstration rocket. I'm like, hmm, that's a good one. I should give them some money. So I gave them some money. Now I'm printed on their rocket engine. They're like, hey, back of EFA. I mean, they're students. So I actually went, talked to them, and 2 of the best ones are now in Purdue. And as soon as I raise money, I'll just attract those other 2 people. So you just listen to everybody. Where is a person? My old college buddy who is now working for SpaceX is doing electronics. I asked him, hey, can you do avionics for this small project? He's like, sure, pay me a reasonable—
$10,000.
contractor money in, you know, aerospace industry. I'm like, sure. So now I recruited him. All the— not all the experience, but a lot of experience of SpaceX is kind of funneling through him to me. Another guy works for another rocket company doing guidance for us. So it's kind of the same. You, you, you always think this person may be helpful, may not be helpful. You keep the connection with a person from the past. And they may end up being good to you or not good to you. It's kind of an acquaintance. You don't have to keep these fake friendships or anything like that. It's kind of, hey, let's connect. You connect, and beyond that, if it ever comes into your picture, good. If not, you know, let them be on the outskirts of your world.
