Ep 10 - Charles Blanchet - Finding focus, Building a scalable product & Dedicating time to thinking

Charles Blanchet is the VP of Solutions at Iceye. Charles has over 20 years of experience building start ups, more recently in companies focused around data. Iceye owns a constellation of Synthetic Aperture Radar satellites, and is also working on providing flood monitoring insights derived from the images these satellites take.We talk SAR, how Charles joined Iceye, the importance of finding focus as a company, and how thinking is an important task in itself. Charles Blanchet:LinkedInShow notes:Iceye SolutionsCharles blog post on hiringNew Philosopher magazineTime Stamps:04:00 - Episode begins: Charles presents himself8:45 - Finding product-market fit in Earth Observation13:10 - The importance and need for focus17:00 - Is the space industry different than any other field?21:30 - Is SaaS a good model for companies like Iceye?26:30 - "Deriving value out of imagery and turning it into information is a tough business"36:20 - Can there be too much focus?39:00 - Charles thoughts on Iceye’s current focus on flood monitoring41:46 - Building startups over and over again48:30 - Assembling a team58:10 - The life story interview question1:08:40 - How Charles joined Iceye1:12:20 - Charles’ next 5 years1:14:10 - Taking dedicated time to think1:25:25 - Media recommendationPlease feel free to reach out!My TwitterFor news about the podcastReach out by email: minds.behind.maps@gmail.com