Best Startup Texas
Paul S Mamakos of Ocean Camera Space Corp..
Tell us about yourself?
I’m working on a long-term mission to video off-planet oceans and to store the water. It’s good to have goals. Both short-term and long-term.
What lessons has being an entrepreneur taught you?
You gotta make mistakes to grow. The world isn’t always a nice place. It’s good to have a vision or passion that drives you. The meaning in what you do comes from you because meaning is always personal.
If you could go back in time to when you first started your business, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
There’s something called the Dragon portfolio. When it comes to investing or doing things in life it’s said to diversify your risk into many opportunities in different sectors. Don’t put 100% into one thing. It’s not an easy philosophy to do.
There are currently 11 sectors in the market. If you were to invest 10 to 15% of your assets into a variety of sectors and not put more than 20% in any one sector and in each of those sectors no more than 5% in any one investment, that wold be a wise move.
A lot of entrepreneurs find it difficult to balance their work and personal lives. How have you found that?
You have to be unbalanced to take strides forward. Find out what you want to accomplish and then see what you need to do.
Give us a bit of an insight into the influences behind the company?
I’d like to push the story of humanity that we tell ourselves. People need something to focus and to strive for, and the mission that I’ve created here at Ocean Cam is something good, hard, and worthy of focus, collaboration, and importance.
Currently if you look at a science textbook they’ll show pictures from orbit of the surface below of many of the different moons and planets in the solar system.
But so far we haven’t seen any surface old video imagery or subsurface level video imagery of the oceans underneath the ice on the over 200 moons in our solar system.
Huge quantities of water have been confirmed from orbit on Enceladus, Ganymede, Triton, Europa. In an interview I did in 2021 with Dr. Caitlin Ahrens, she said most of the moons in the solar system have confirmed water.
There’s more confirmed water off the earth than on earth. Pure science doesn’t usually get funded unless it is involved with war religion or royalty.
So, although my goal is to take video footage of off planet oceans, the pay back to investors is to extract, store it in containers, and sell that water to reward investors, to fund future missions while changing the story of humanity.
Water in low earth orbit costs $1,000 to $10,000 per pound. You can sell a swimming pool of water in low earth orbit for three to $4 billion.
That same amount of water around a planet or moon would be much more expensive, and sourcing it in on moons and planets will be much cheaper than flying it out of the gravity well of earth. That’s a business plan.
What do you think is your magic sauce? What sets you apart from the competitors?
My vision, passion, business skills, meditation experiences, and determination are most of the sauce. Knowing that it’s for all people and letting go to how it happens are important.
How have you found sales so far? Do you have any lessons you could pass on to other founders in the same market as you just starting out?
Sell whatever you can sell. Branch out. Fund your growth. Keep at it. Everything is connected. Keep improving however you can. Get in front of a camera and share your vision, you’ll get instant feedback.
What is the biggest challenge you have faced so far in your business, and how did you overcome it?
Depending on the type of business you’re doing you may be in front of more people or less people.
What I’m doing involves speaking to many people collaboration the type of mission that I’m looking forward to is huge so I’m gonna need the guidance collaboration feedback honest skill of lots of people. So the biggest challenge I have is personal growth.
Issues will come up we’re a reflection for each other and how you deal with the people you interact with is important. I’ve categorized the types of people that I get feedback from into four groups.
Clear, fuzzy, blurry, and blind. If I say something, clear and fuzzy people will pretty much understand what I’m saying. The blurry and the  blind people will not understand what I’m saying for a variety of reasons.
Therefore I spend my time replying to the clear and the fuzzy people; and I don’t spend any time on the blurry or the blind people. The message just doesn’t get across. Early on I replied to everybody.
What do you consider are the main strengths of operating your business in Texas over other states in the US?
Texas streamlines state taxes. There are also a lot of space companies here in Texas.
Are there any disadvantages of operating our business in Texas?
The flat fees in Texas are much higher than in other states because the state taxes are lower so it’s a trade-off.
Texas has a pretty diverse population. How have you found the quickly changing demographics have impacted your business? Have you got new opportunities? Managed to expand your business into new areas?
Business here in South Texas is a work in progress. The shifting of the bond rate, 10yr yield, is having a lot of effects on the economy.
It looks like we’re gonna be transitioning into a digital asset/ currency. This transition is having a massive affect on valuations.
We’re seeing inflation by the central banks hitting every sector of the economy. The transition to a digital token has been taking many years and it may take many more years before it comes into a effect. Time will tell if it happens this year or another year.
do whatever you can to keep afloat, make money and take action on your passions. Maybe it’s worth picking up one or two boring businesses like a laundromat or a pool cleaning business to cash flow and live a good life while you do whatever it is that you care about.
I’m looking for boring businesses to add to the bottom line here. Here in Brownsville there are a lot of natural flashy companies which are profitable. And a lot of people with many talents in the area. I’m excited about the future.
It is often reported that, in Texas, politics and business are intertwined. Have you noticed this? Has it impacted your business?
There’s a saying that if you can control the money you can control the government or the people so yes, business and politics are intertwined.
Also just straight out personal interest and excitement is somewhat infectious so in that way they would be intertwined. Enthusiasm. Excitement about what you’re doing is important. Why else would you want to do it?
With rising prices across Texas (and the US as a whole) have you been impacted? Do you have a plan for dealing with inflation going forward?
My plan for dealing with inflation is to own commodities and keep putting one foot in front of the other. Grregory Mannarino would say “become your own central bank.”
What do you want to accomplish in the next 5 years with your business?
I’d like to move the Ocean Camera Space mission forward and get a ocean camera water harvesting mission under way. Some of the steps for that may be to issue shares in a private placement memorandum or to do an IPO.
If we do the mission ourselves, we’re going to need to raise about $5 billion. If we partner up with John Hopkins University, SpaceX, Bigelow Aerospace, Blue Origin, NASA, Intuitive Machines, the ESA, ISRO, and others on a modified decadal space mission to Enceladus, it could happen much faster and less costly.
And finally, if people want to get involved and learn more about your business, how should they do that?
You can reach us in many ways whether it’s by email phone social media on Twitter YouTube Reddit Facebook. Send us an email: [email protected]
Follow Ocean Camera Space Corp. on Twitter or Linkedin.
