First outing as rocket entrepreneur: dealing with audiences

Well, it is official. I am a now a space entrepreneur.

To make it official, I had to do something that comes very unnatural to me: speaking in public on a big stage about something dear to me. Whether or not you consider it a big stage, is up to you, but to me, speaking in front of a room of 300 people, experts in the field of astronomy, about building a rocket, was not an easy thing to do.

This was the hardest crowd possible: they have their two feet firmly on the ground, they prefer solid data even over seeing things with their own eyes, and they applauded the speaker right before you when he mentioned sci fi is for children. Basically, you are talking to a branch of space enthusiasts who spit on (child like) imagination and have no idea that there are more than 350 companies active in newspace, all with funding. They believe the only thing that can fly is a rocket built by 100.000 people, just as in the Apollo days. They have no clue that SpaceX started with no more than a dozen employees and realized their first flights with not many more.

I was there to present my project, to find enthusiasts and invite young engineers to help give it momentum. I defended my cause and approach with passion and asked for criticism.

So, after 20 minutes of sharing details about the project I will see realised in the next couple of years, or better part of a decade, I was both exhilarated by the experience and emotionally drained.

It is out there now. And what others think about the project, or me as the one pushing it, is no longer within my control.
A week later, I am still trying to figure out if I made a fool of myself, or not, to the better part of the audience. I guess the only thing I can do to make that feeling going away; is doing it again, and again and again.

But one thing that I expected to happen, did indeed happen:
I have now grown an even stronger desire and resolve to see my project through.

And in the end, I can only advise every one else in the same position to act the same way:

If you have a project that resonates with your core being and for which you need help, then no level of adversity or public derision can lead you astray from it. Your ego might end up being bruised a bit when dealing with audiences, but that is a small price to pay for the fact that you now know that you can, and that you will, no matter what.

Good luck, to me and to everyone else out there who wants to turn his dream into reality.