Quit my NASA / aerospace career and moved abroad - then turned to entrepreneurship

[GlobalSovSol]

Hey all.

Mid-30s guy here. Writing from wonderful Colombia.

I come from corporate America but before then I had a checkered past - kicked out of community college twice, countless dead-end jobs working in warehouses and manufacturing centers. I got my life together around age 26.

After four years working in aerospace as a top performer, certain 'mandates' came down the pike that forced me out of a job. I then traveled the southwest US in my camper before flying to Mexico to establish my residency visa. I'm now exploring South America. During this time I started consulting but more related to my business experience - supply chain / operations.

I have a Substack with ~50 articles that I plan to do voice content for, as well as a podcast. It's fairly niche material so I'm not sure how much this can be monetized but it's something I feel a real 'pull' to do. It's about giving back on all the knowledge that I just have rattling around in my brain. And speaking of which, I'm very left-brain so this creative pursuit helps balance me out.

My more recent venture is a expat consulting company helping people internationalize their lives. Helping with lifestyle design. I follow a lot of macroeconomics (macro for short) so I infuse my knowledge of global comings and goings as well.

My goals with the forum
Learn from the best. Read the top threads related to both my ventures. Grow them both. And give back where I can.

Looking forward to learning and growing with you all.

 

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[Parks]

Interesting background. Welcome and hope to see you around forum.

 

[BizyDad]

Welcome to the forum. Looking forward to your contributions.

 

[Matt Lee]

I read the title and thought you were Mark Rober for a sec(the guy that makes squirrel experiment videos on Youtube after quitting NASA)... I'm left disappointed(not really).

Welcome to the best forum on the Internet.

 

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[GlobalSovSol]

I read the title and thought you were Mark Rober for a sec(the guy that makes squirrel experiment videos on Youtube after quitting NASA)... I'm left disappointed(not really).

Welcome to the best forum on the Internet.

I also plan on making squirrel videos. LatAm has some crazy looking ones...I aim to have the best squirrel YouTube channel out there.

OK sorry to disappoint - I hate squirrels and stay the hell away from them. But I hope to contribute in other ways

 

[Funky Monkey]

Hey all.

Mid-30s guy here. Writing from wonderful Colombia.

I come from corporate America but before then I had a checkered past - kicked out of community college twice, countless dead-end jobs working in warehouses and manufacturing centers. I got my life together around age 26.

After four years working in aerospace as a top performer, certain 'mandates' came down the pike that forced me out of a job. I then traveled the southwest US in my camper before flying to Mexico to establish my residency visa. I'm now exploring South America. During this time I started consulting but more related to my business experience - supply chain / operations.

I have a Substack with ~50 articles that I plan to do voice content for, as well as a podcast. It's fairly niche material so I'm not sure how much this can be monetized but it's something I feel a real 'pull' to do. It's about giving back on all the knowledge that I just have rattling around in my brain. And speaking of which, I'm very left-brain so this creative pursuit helps balance me out.

My more recent venture is a expat consulting company helping people internationalize their lives. Helping with lifestyle design. I follow a lot of macroeconomics (macro for short) so I infuse my knowledge of global comings and goings as well.

My goals with the forum
Learn from the best. Read the top threads related to both my ventures. Grow them both. And give back where I can.

Looking forward to learning and growing with you all.

Depending on your goals why don't you think bigger. I'm planning on teaching myself engineering so I can go on to build a massive company like boom or cruise automation [especially since AI is getting better and better]. With ur background you could rally a team (especially since you don't like your old job which means your peers likely feel similar).
Go after some massive problem.
Get some seed funding,
yc,
desert of despair
......
massive aqusition or ipo

If your goals are smaller there gotta be a lot of things wrong with the aerospace industry what can you see that others can't (I say this because I'm seeing a lot others try to start newslettersbut hey if you can do the newsletter thing better,more unique, or you just have the conviction don't let me discourage you.)


Also what were some resources [books,youtube channels,courses,etc] you found useful in engineering/ aerospace?

 

[GlobalSovSol]

Depending on your goals why don't you think bigger. I'm planning on teaching myself engineering so I can go on to build a massive company like boom or cruise automation [especially since AI is getting better and better]. With ur background you could rally a team (especially since you don't like your old job which means your peers likely feel similar).
Go after some massive problem.
Get some seed funding,
yc,
desert of despair
......
massive aqusition or ipo

If your goals are smaller there gotta be a lot of things wrong with the aerospace industry what can you see that others can't (I say this because I'm seeing a lot others try to start newslettersbut hey if you can do the newsletter thing better,more unique, or you just have the conviction don't let me discourage you.)


Also what were some resources [books,youtube channels,courses,etc] you found useful in engineering/ aerospace?

I had ideas about starting a couple different physical product businesses that would essentially tackle a bigger problem but decided against that, at least for the moment. The reason being, I'm nomadic right now as I bounce around the world. Sure, I could outsource the various functions, particularly because my background is in supply chain management, but that just seems like a massive PITA.

For the last question, I wasn't an engineer. I also didn't really engage in any content. I just had the experience and knew a couple of people at the company.

 

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[Funky Monkey]

I had ideas about starting a couple different physical product businesses that would essentially tackle a bigger problem but decided against that, at least for the moment. The reason being, I'm nomadic right now as I bounce around the world. Sure, I could outsource the various functions, particularly because my background is in supply chain management, but that just seems like a massive PITA.

For the last question, I wasn't an engineer. I also didn't really engage in any content. I just had the experience and knew a couple of people at the company.

So then what did you do day to day?

 

[GlobalSovSol]

So then what did you do day to day?

I oversaw manufacturing centers that made various electronic and mechanical products for the satellites. Manufacturing planning mainly to ensure parts with 1+ year lead times arrived in time to start the build, but I worked with a lot of engineers - electrical, design, mechanical, you name it.