Our guest this week is Malory McLemore, the co-founder and CEO of Stell, an LA-based startup that is building workflow software to serve as the future data layer for hardware and industrials. Their platform enables complex, multi-company hardware development efforts to track engineering and compliance documentation, replacing traditional methods like Excel sheets and PDFs.

Malory shares her journey from being an aerospace engineer dealing with subpar software tooling to founding Stell. In addition, we discuss:

Stell’s origin story and fundraising plans
Differentiating engineering tools
Apollo-era systems engineering
The next generation of post-MBA graduates

And much more…

• Chapters •

00:00 - Intro

00:48 - What is Stell?

01:44 - Malory's career arc in the space industry

05:19 - Why are Harvard students becoming more interested in space?

06:37 - Malory's previous jobs that led her to Stell today

07:49 - How could aircraft like Boeing's latest be improved?

10:53 - How have companies operated in the past and why should they work with Stell?

12:38 - Current offerings and roadmap

14:19 - Stell's business model

14:55 - What does the ideal Stell customer look like?

15:50 - Stell's selling point

16:45 - How do you quantify money savings to a client

18:33 - Government clients

20:39 - How did Stella build the team

22:36 - Plans for expanding beyond aerospace

23:28 - How do you differentiate among other engineering management tools?

26:51 - Do you think that this looks from other companies, but we’re headed to start to look similar?

29:45 - Current fundraising plans

30:06 - Grand vision to investors

31:41 - What kicked off the growth of hard tech startups?

33:23 - What would Malory be working on if it weren't for Stell?

33:56 - Apollo-era management

37:26 - What does the startup community look like in Huntsville?

38:32 - Was building in LA the best decision you've made?

Stell's website — https://www.stell-engineering.com/

Stell's socials — https://twitter.com/stell_space

Mo's socials — https://twitter.com/itsmoislam

Payload’s socials — https://twitter.com/payloadspace / https://www.linkedin.com/company/payloadspace

Pathfinder archive — Watch: https://www.youtube.com/@payloadspace Pathfinder archive — Listen: https://pod.payloadspace.com/episodes

• About us •

Pathfinder is brought to you by Payload, a modern space media brand built from the ground up for a new age of space exploration and commercialization. We deliver need-to-know news and insights daily to 15,000+ commercial, civil, and military space leaders. Payload is read by decision-makers at every leading new space company, along with c-suite leaders at all of the aerospace & defense primes. We’re also read on Capitol Hill, in the Pentagon, and at space agencies around the world.

Payload began as a weekly email sent to a few friends and coworkers. Today, we’re a team distributed across four time zones and two continents, publishing three media properties across multiple platforms:

1) Payload, our flagship daily newsletter, sends M-F @ 9am Eastern (https://newsletter.payloadspace.com/)

2) Pathfinder publishes weekly on Tuesday mornings (pod.payloadspace.com)

3) Parallax, our weekly space science briefing, hits inboxes Thursday (https://parallax.payloadspace.com/)

The Future of Engineering, with Malory McLemore (Stell)

Valley of Depth