HEO co-founder and CTO Dr Hiranya Jayakody (HJ) started out trying to mine asteroids. Instead, he and co-founder Will Crowe built a way to photograph satellites in space using other people's cameras, pointed one at the International Space Station during COVID lockdown, and got a call from US regulators asking what they'd done. Today HEO runs 7 cameras in orbit and sells space intelligence to governments across the US, Europe and Japan.
That story opens up the bigger question this episode keeps returning to: do you have to be "damaged" to build something big? Encour founder Jessy Wu makes the case that investors quietly prefer founders who stay triggered and hungry for vindication. Beaten Zone Venture Partners and TEN13 founder Steve Baxter isn't having it, his view is that a lot of what gets called founder intensity is just people being arseholes and dressing it up. HJ, who grew up through war and a tsunami in Sri Lanka, offers a third answer none of them saw coming.
Host Brendan Hill takes the Oversubscribed Season 1 finale through defence tech and why Steve calls it "irrationally unloved," the real difference between US and Australian hiring culture, ESG, AUKUS, and the story of how Steve actually landed his Shark Tank gig. Stay to the end for the asteroid still sitting on HEO's roadmap.
Time Stamps
00:00 Intro
03:52 How HEO Began: Two PhDs Who Wanted to Mine Asteroids
05:00 What Non-Earth Imaging Actually Is
08:15 Steve's "Uber for Secret Space Cameras" Pitch
09:55 Sponsor: Vanta
10:23 Imaging the ISS & the Call From US Regulators
15:35 What You Actually See Up There
17:30 Australia's Sovereign Space Capability & AUKUS
22:29 Space Weapons & Why Orbital War Is Madness
24:50 The Department of War & the US Defence Market
29:55 Sponsor: TEN13
30:46 The Branding Problem of Defence Tech
36:00 Why Steve Hates ESG Investing
39:57 Steelmanning the Case Against Building Weapons
43:00 Arms Balance, Not Arms Control, Keeps the Peace
45:30 Dual-Use Tech: Debris Removal to Blood Delivery
48:37 How the New US Administration Changed Defence Investing
50:47 The "Damaged Founder" Debate Begins
54:28 "Arseholes Can Make Any Excuse to Be Arseholes"
1:00:04 Australia vs the US on Hiring & Firing Culture
1:03:32 HJ on Tunnel Vision & the Self-Checkout Story
1:09:43 Childhood, Trauma & Founders
1:10:30 HJ's Sri Lanka: War, Tsunami & Going Numb
1:14:00 Jessy Wu on Reinvention & Building Encour
1:19:45 Steve's Path: Army, Telecom, Google & Angel Investing
1:26:09 How Steve Landed the Shark Tank Gig
1:35:12 Launching TEN13 & Going Harder Through COVID
1:38:35 Why Join HEO (And the Asteroid Still on the Roadmap)
1:40:13 The Cliff From Canva Timer & Sign-Offs
Oversubscribed is proudly supported by our sponsor Vanta 🦙
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The Day One Network
Oversubscribed is part of Day One, the podcast network dedicated to founders, operators & investors.
Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6rZ9SajGVXkO8oxuvEHAsk?si=I2yR92GgRZa-Fdqbp8T4bw
Listen to the Oversubscribed Podcast on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oversubscribed/id1848789610
Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or financial product. Brendan Hill and Steve Baxter are investors in HEO.
About the Host:
Brendan Hill is a Venture Partner at TEN13 and an angel investor in Australia’s fastest-growing startups, including Everlab, Heidi Health, Relevance AI and Instant. If you are interested in finding out more about angel investing, connect with Brendan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/itsbrendanhill/
