Francesco Cacciatore, a space engineer who spent 20 years designing missions to Mars, Mercury, and comets at companies like Deimos and Sener, co-founded Orbital Paradigm in 2023. When most thought reentry was a closed market dominated by established players, his team did the unthinkable: they built Spain's first reentry capsule in 11 months—working nights and weekends while still employed—and got it flight-qualified. Today, Orbital Paradigm is the only payload that survived the catastrophic PSLV failure in January 2025, with their capsule enduring 35Gs (more than double design limits) and transmitting data all the way down.

In this episode, Francesco shares the unfiltered journey of building Europe's newest reentry company: how a personal health crisis made him stop "watching life from the bench" and finally start something, how they qualified flight hardware faster than anyone expected by over-engineering for the wrong mission profile, and why European founders need to stop chasing manager titles and feeling guilty about wanting to get rich.

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Chapters:

00:00 Introduction

01:40 What Orbital Paradigm Actually Does

28:05 The Health Crisis That Pushed Me to Quit

35:02 Why MBAs Are Useless for Space Founders

45:39 First Weeks: Building While Working Full-Time

50:50 The Pivot: From In-Space Robotics to Reentry Capsules

01:09:24 Build vs Buy: Being Cleverly Integrated

01:14:16 Finding Your First Customers: Pulling the Thread

01:19:35 Fundraising Mistakes: Stop Leading with Step One

01:28:24 Launch Day: When the Rocket Failed Mid-Flight

01:33:20 How KID Survived 33Gs (When It Should Have Died)

01:44:16 The Biggest Lie Investors Tell Founders

01:48:03 Final Message: Why It's Worth It

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You will learn:

- What's the biggest mistake engineers make with investors and how to fix it

- Why European founders need to stop chasing titles

- Why to design for customers, not capabilities

- Why "vertical integration" myth is bullsh*t

- What kills most of the deep tech companies

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Follow Martin Majercin on X:https://www.x.com/monsfrost

Follow Martin Majercin on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/monsfrost/

Follow Francesco Cacciatore LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/francescocacciatore/

Follow Orbital Paradigm on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/company/orbital-paradigm