When starting SpaceX Elon Musk tried to buy a missile from Russia to use as a rocket…
When the Russians wouldn’t take him seriously. Musk stormed out of the meeting, drove straight back to the airport exasperated & disappointed.
At the time the Russians were the only ones with rocket making missiles fitting within his budget.
But instead of being defeated. Elon Musk took out his laptop, worked up a spreadsheet & proved they could build a rocket themselves & still undercut the competition. With no reliance on 3rd parties.
The rocket they would build catered for a specialised part of the market, which carried smaller satellites & research payloads to space.
Elon Musk wasn’t deterred by his Russian experience & has since gone through many turbulent times with SpaceX & Tesla. But each time he’s persevered and found a solution.
Today SpaceX manufacture (in house) over 80% of all the equipment required for their space missions, including the rocket. Which is allowing them to vastly undercut their competitors. Securing over $12 billion in contract revenue.
Keeping the main bulk of your operations in house doesn’t just provide costs savings. It can also let you change things quickly, as the market changes or your customers needs & requirements change.
We treat our print technology solutions in a similar way. Each one is designed in house for a specific market, which allows us to tweak them quickly & price them competitively.
The SpaceX model of keeping ownership to provide competitive pricing with fast to market capability has certainly helped us.
Maybe it could help you too?
