Annual Status Report: 2024, Preparation for what is in store.
Annual Status Report: 2024.
- YOY Metrics
- Current State
- Milestones
- SWOT Analysis
- Ask
The following report is a summary of the past years activities in my (the Founder’s) own words. This report compliments other information sources by presenting a less formal review of the year in the same spirit as Jason McCarthy’s Goruck Annual Update.
TLDR: Didn’t post on socials but web traffic doubled(???); I quit my job and started a PhD. Supervisor is a big dog of the space industry and we are filing patents. Stay tuned via LinkedIn for a very exciting year to come!
YOY Metrics:
- Site Traffic: 2022: 908 —’23: 270 – ‘24: 531 Unique Visitors
- Podcast Listens: 2022: 2648– ’23: 4207 — ’24: 516 Listens
- Medium Reads: 2022: 619 — ’23: 33 — ’24: 43 Reads
- Capital Raised: 2022: $3,000 USD — ’23: $0 (Cap structure reworked) — ’24: $0.
Current State
- BACK TO FULL TIME FOUNDING ❤ There is no thrill quite like quitting a job and though I am very sad to be finishing up with Orica after almost 3 years, it is now time to jump into the next step of the journey: Doctoral studies to get a PhD! The business will be seeing significant evolution through this period as I fully immerse myself in studies and growing into the CEO I need to become. The business plan is 90% set but there is a bit more work to be done before bringing technical staff in, that way things can begin with a bang when we secure funding. Planning & Preparation Prevent Piss Poor Performance, it is as true for miners heading underground for a 12 hour shift as it for budding space industry CEO’s and everyone inbetween.
- Cyclic WIP slowed further in 24 but is now rebounding: Posting Podcasts, YouTube videos, Medium stories, LinkedIn (Founder & Business pages) posts & r/startups activity took the back seat in ’23 but practically got out of the car in ’24. Due to the professional workload of a mining engineer who is always travelling doing trial product implementation and training I simply did not have the time or brainspace to post on socials but it did provide a lot of time to draft out ideas while waiting on something underground. This work will now be fleshed out in thought leader pieces on how the space industry could revitalise outback Australian mining towns and other rural areas with heavy rail infrastructure systems in place. Another component will be the launch of a second podcast series in parallel to the business podcasts, the new one will focus on discussion of individual academic papers on a whole variety of topics.
- Deliverable WIP: A fifth journal paper focused on application of the system and a detailed scenario analysis for missions to the Moon, Mars and L1 is ready for peer review submission but is being held until a patent number is secured(!!!).
- Final patent documentation for submission in Australia, Canada, China, Japan, UK & US, all sponsored by UTS and my PhD Supervisors. I cannot state how excited I am to be at this point and once we tick off this dotpoint, there is going to be an explosion of public activity. Stay tuned on LinkedIn for the most up to date news and exciting developments!
- The first PhD assessment is a literature review, it will form the foundation of a sixth journal paper that analyses existing research to highlight the gap in the market that H. Industries is focused on. The lit review paper will be submitted at the same time as the scenario analysis paper to clearly establish my own and H. industries academic presence. We will be revisiting the IEEE and AIAA’s Journal of Electric Propulsion in particular to seek publication of my novel propulsion method.
- Major website upgrade is being planned and an issue was found with the form submission and I have to apologise to everyone who reached out on the website over the past year as I never got your emails until I found them all hidden away when trying to edit some minor website details. I was humbled and inspired by some of the responses to questions and look forward to reaching out to all of you in the coming month.
- Readying business for recruitment and seeking funding concertedly from midyear onwards. Letting the studies settle first while planning out the involvement of other students and research collaborators alongside our staff and advisors.
- Realised Goal: PhD has begun! My first application to a PhD program was in 2020 and now I am so fortunate to begin studying under a big dog of the space industry, Professor Carolyn McGregor AM. She is the Dean of Ontario Tech University, a leading researcher in the health sector (both on Earth and in space), has defended numerous patents and helped build several businesses. I cannot believe in my wildest dreams that this wonderful person could be my supervisor. I was introduced to her by my cofounder Jan Thava last year and this is the stuff mythologies are made of. The next few years are going to be wild.
- Next Goal: Secure $3m, $10m or $15m funding then begin recruitment. Bring in engineering staff, a business analyst, project manager then social media manager. $3m builds the Propulsion Core, $10m builds a fully functional satellite and $15m builds two and lets us validate swarm functionalities.
- Burndown: N/A — Founder incurred $75,000 debt from 2022 full time business operation and the past 2 years of operational costs and improvements.
Phase 0. Milestones
- Goal 1: Business Readiness — 100% Delivered February 2022.
- Goal 2: Find Initial Funding — 0.1% Delivered.
Phase 1. Milestones
- Goal 1: Design Completion.
- Goal 2: Prototype Construction.
- Goal 3: PhD Completed.
Strengths
- First Mover Advantage: Somehow we still have no competitors. Nobody else has proposed a multivehicle propulsion solution and most certainly no one has proposed a dedicated freight launching service using this transformational technology.
- Forward Looking Business Case: This entire business was designed from the ground up with the expectation it would take years to build and that development time would align with the industry trajectory. Earth to orbit was already being solved while the business was founded, now that it is so cheap to reach orbit we have a junkyard problem in space and the market is ready for what comes next: Orbit to orbit servicing for supply logistics. The focus on high mass freight first will help the business bootstrap from singular swarms to several freight shipping lanes at multiple destinations around the Moon, Mars and L1.
- Just Crazy Enough To Work: This strength is paradoxical, it prevents a large number of conversations and opportunities because the business is so nice and forward focused that it does not fit a lot of traditional analysis and planning metrics. This factor helps disuade competition because it all sounds a bit nuts yet the math shows it is entirely viable. But with a PhD behind me the conversation changes from ‘the crazy container guy’ to ‘those whacky scientists shooting shipping containers between satellite swarms, whatever will they come up with next?’ — And I cannot wait to show you what this system is truly capable of.
- Founder Is A Mining Engineer: Working with over a dozen mines was incredible experience, seeing how very different multi-billion dollar projects get run by high performing teams of a few dozen people that regularly implement new technologies. We will leverage learning from a dozen different industries (particularly airlines) to deliver a truly transformational service in the next five years, the railway of the space age.
Weaknesses
- Capital Available: Right now I am quite poor, a student stipend is $37k AUD pa and this severely limits my scope to invest in the business. Both I and my cofounder can invest sweat effort into the business but neither of us is in a position to inject the capital required to hire staff. If there is full scale capital deployment by a competitor, we will not be able maintain our first mover advantage for long. I’d say 1 year max. Not ideal, but on the otherhand I just got proved right and the concept is truly functional so it could unlock the funding we need once there is demonstrated interest by a competitor. Let’s not find out, we are aggressively seeking funding from midyear once my studies settle and the plans are finished to bring in a number of graduate student researchers and technical collaborators alongside any staff that are recruited.
Opportunities
- Full time dedication to founding activities and studies is a life changing opportunity, revitalising the website, socials and reestablishing contact with all the contacts built over two years of stealthy slow operations.
- Market is now primed for investment and the uncertainty of the past years in financial markets is passing and there is a renewed focus on progress in the space industry — particular the commercial side of it.
- Scientific legitimacy is now established with the backing an industry distinguished professor and university. This unlocks access to people and places that would previously be unreachable. doctoral studies gives tremendous scope for collaboration and advancement. We must partner with many companies that specialise in their respective fields to deliver the best system that we can and build the space railroads of the future.
- Branding update to the technology, this will be fleshed out more in time with graphic design and promotional materials. The system holistically will be known from now as The Ssea: Satellite Swarm Emergent Architecture. The world is surrounded by multiple seas and if you wish to build a ship, teach people to dream of the ocean. This is the vision of multiple Sseas surrounding Earth, providing access to the vast ocean of space.
- Growing interest from established space industry and venture capital players. The technical recognition from established players has been crucial to securing successive meetings that will lead to funding in 2025 and the expansion of use cases planned. The potential to service L1 & Luna gateways will unlock funding that can establish a small scale operation then bootstrap towards martian operation.
Threats
- The risk of invalidation will be entirely removed on delivery of the Matlab Simulink model to peer review by leading professors and industry participants. Supporting materials include over 900 academic references (with >195k words of notes taken), a 680 line excel design calculator and a 44,000 word detailed design paper.
- Burndown is no longer a risk, I have a $37k pa stipend that covers living costs for the next 3 years but it is a very very lean budget leaving no capital to invest in the business. We will become dependent on angel donations towards research then securing investment capital. My cofounder Jan is busy working on this problem now.
- Intellectual property risk is very low, patent documents are in progress and this will provide iron clad protection of our first mover advantage.
For any enquiries, please reach out to: contact@h-industries.io
Ask
People who see the long term potential that this idea has can help realise this dream by following us on our socials (particularly LinkedIn) and donating to help fund research activities in my doctoral studies. This project is going to evolve rapidly in the coming months and years so keep up to date and chime in if we can answer any questions at all!
Angel donations (Bitcoin address below) will help me build a high spec computer for model development and analysis then begin accumulating to hire the first engineer. If you are interested in becoming a part of our advisory board and investing to help us reach our Phase 1 goals then please get in touch!
I have worked on this project since 2015 solo, recruited the first staff in 2022 and am now offering shares in the company for the chance to hire engineering staff and build towards the next stage of humanities space faring civilisation. Your investment will help build a team of 12to validate the business case, launch an Australian innovation company and forge the first steps on a very long path to interorbital shipping and eventually asteroid mining! H. Industries aims to be an ambitious orbital innovation business harnessing the potential of its platform and making a real positive difference for good in this world and off of it.
Thanks for reading, checking out any prior content and most importantly seeing the next step of the space industry: freight shipping. It is a privilege to work on a dream that is inconceivable today and inevitable tomorrow.
Morgan.
LinkedIn / https://h-industries.io
Youtube / Podcast / Pitch Deck / White Paper
6 Industries Ready For Interorbital Transport
For any enquiries, please reach out to: contact@h-industries.io
Angel donations help to continue startup activities and research!
BTC: 1MkkavrLCwvqDbohXeGGtTzfab5FVbEiF4
Web Traffic — 270 Unique visitors in ’23 vs 531 in ’24. Keep up to date for ’25 by following us on LinkedIn!