Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
>> DEIGAN: We got involved with the Space Certification program almost at the beginning.
We were one of the very first companies that took part. We're probably the smallest by
far. We were two people. At that time our business was only about four-hundred thousand
dollars a year. Since we've joined the Foundation we're about six times that size, and I attribute
much of the growth we've had to the association with the Foundation and to being able to display
our products as being Certified Space Technology.
You need ways to differentiate the product your company sells. To us, one of the things
that helped us stand up to the Chinese onsolot was really simple. We're a Certified Space
Technology. They're not. That's it. End of game.
Our biggest component of business is exporting heat reflective bedding product to the Japanese.
We have lots of competition from China. Our product is probably four times as expensive.
But our product is made in the USA, and it's Certified Space Technology. And the companies
that we work with there recognize the value of that. There's a tremendous value placed
on technologies that come from space. The credibility that comes with that certification
has really pretty much kept the competition at bay.
This is not terribly expensive to do, but it's completely logical. And it's extremely
powerful if you want to sell outside the United States. It really doesn't matter if you're
a small company or a big company, if you're a domestic company, a local market, or a national
market, or a global market. It still has value in all those situations.