Dual-Use, Double Impact: Privateer on The Pair Program by hatch I.T

Dual-use: It's easier said than done.

Our very own Mollie Martin (Director of GTM Strategy) and Declan Lynch (Chief Revenue Officer & General Manager) recently joined The Pair Program with Tim Winkler at hatch I.T to share insights on scaling a dual-use business at the intersection of government and commercial markets.

“We’re not building for government and building for commercial. We’re building one solution that is flexible enough to serve both of those markets.” - Mollie Martin

From Earth observation and space domain awareness to geospatial analytics and “small batch” pilots, they explore the challenges and opportunities of building a platform that serves both mission-driven and market-driven needs.

When talking about the EO market “unlocking,” Declan explains:

“For us, it’s really been about automating workflows for specific business use cases where you can leverage geospatial data, and then piecing together the right data at the right time. You don’t always need the highest-resolution, lowest-latency data—sometimes you can use more affordable datasets along the way, and then only pull in the expensive data at the critical moment. That’s really the art and science. What we don’t want to be is a data science consultancy coming in and doing projects one by one. That’s a different business. For us, it’s about asking: what are the workflows that repeat across an industry, and how can we automate those to move the needle?”

Throughout the episode, Mollie and Declan also discuss:

Navigating government vs. commercial strategies
Product roadmaps and pricing trade-offs
Lessons from integrating Orbital Insight post-acquisition
Market trends in geospatial analytics
Advice for dual-use founders

And of course, the Fire Round Q&A.

One of our favorite takeaways comes from Mollie:

“Don’t underestimate the power of running small and fast experiments. Some of the greatest insights come from those conversations and customer discoveries. I think that learning philosophy is really important—especially in the Earth Observation market where everyone’s still figuring out the business models, the price points, and the product market fit.”

🎙️ Listen wherever you stream podcasts, or watch below on YouTube.