Guidance

Track 3: Pilot to Production Checklist

Published 2 December 2025

 FROM SERIES A TO SCALE 

PILOT TO PRODUCTION GUIDANCE 

This Pilot-to-Production Checklist helps you turn pilots into predictable, repeatable revenue, a key factor in making your business more investable. It defines clear success criteria and go/no-go decision points, translates proof-of-value into signed multi-year contracts and captures a repeatable delivery playbook that scales across customers.   

The result is a credible growth narrative with visibility on pipeline quality and cash flow, the kind of de-risked, data-driven story that attracts investors and accelerates fundraising. 

 1. Planning for successful strategic pilots 

When running pilots in the space sector, treat them as structured, investor-visible exercises that demonstrate commercial readiness, not experiments. Strategic pilots should prove both customer value and your ability to deliver operationally within regulated, high-stakes environments. The following principles outline how to design and execute pilots that convert into repeatable, scalable revenue. 

Define measurable success criteria 

Set clear, quantifiable objectives aligned to both the customer’s “jobs-to-be-done” and investor expectations. Focus on metrics that demonstrate tangible business value, cost savings, efficiency gains, risk reduction, or mission impact. Tie success criteria to your internal KPI dashboard so results directly feed into investor reporting and funding milestones. This creates objective go/no-go decisions, shows ROI in credible terms and avoids subjective pilot assessments. 

Align with target segments and procurement cycles 

Design pilots within markets that can convert, government, defence primes, ESA programmes, or commercial operators with known procurement pathways. Map each pilot to budget cycles, tender timelines and framework agreements. Aligning with active procurement processes ensures your pilot doesn’t end as a one-off project but becomes a qualified route to production contracts within your Ideal Customer Profile. 

Engage all key stakeholders early 

Co-develop the pilot plan with technical leads, procurement officers and executive sponsors on the customer side. Identify decision-makers, evaluators and budget holders, and ensure each understands the pilot’s purpose and success criteria. This multi-stakeholder engagement prevents “pilot purgatory”, where projects stall after technical success but fail to convert due to missing commercial or strategic buy-in. 

Ensure compliance and regulatory readiness 

Space-sector pilots often involve sensitive data, dual-use technology, or international partnerships, making compliance essential. Confirm adherence to export controls (ITAR/EAR), security clearances, data sovereignty and spectrum usage rights before launch. Maintain audit-ready documentation for all licences and approvals. Early compliance not only removes last-minute barriers but also demonstrates maturity and reliability to enterprise and government customers. 

Protect IP and commercial pathways through contracts 

Negotiate a formal pilot agreement that clearly defines intellectual property ownership, confidentiality obligations, data rights, liability, termination clauses and the pilot-to-production transition framework. Include predefined commercial terms for scaling (pricing models, support agreements, renewal options). This upfront structure safeguards your core assets, avoids legal disputes and smooths the transition to recurring revenue once the pilot succeeds. 

Plan to capture and communicate results transparently 

Plan from the outset how results will be captured, analysed and communicated throughout the pilot. Define which metrics, data sources and reporting formats will be used to evidence success, such as performance KPIs, cost savings, or mission impact. Build this reporting framework into the pilot plan so progress tracking is systematic rather than reactive. Regularly summarise findings through concise, data-driven updates that include customer feedback and quantified benefits. 

Plan for scale from day one 

Design every pilot as a template for repeatability. Document learnings, resource needs and delivery processes so you can replicate success across new customers and markets. Build internal feedback loops between the right internal teams (engineering, commercial and regulatory) to strengthen scalability. A pilot that produces both a satisfied customer and a reusable delivery playbook accelerates growth and investor confidence. 

 2. Robust execution of a strategic pilot 

A well-executed pilot not only proves technical capability but also demonstrates your company’s ability to deliver reliably within complex, regulated environments, a critical signal for enterprise and government customers. The following principles ensure pilots are run with professionalism, cross-functional coordination and investor-grade accountability. 

Build a cross-functional pilot team 

Assign a dedicated, multidisciplinary team spanning sales, technical delivery, operations, compliance and customer support. Clearly define roles, ownership and escalation paths to ensure smooth execution and handoffs. In the space sector, this coordination is vital given the intersection of engineering, regulatory and commercial functions. Effective cross-functional alignment mirrors enterprise sales operations, demonstrating to customers and investors that your business can operate at institutional scale. 

Apply rigorous project management and reporting 

Use a formal project management framework to track timelines, dependencies and deliverables. Hold regular progress reviews and produce concise status reports for both the customer and internal leadership. Document milestone achievements, risk updates and budget adherence. This level of discipline maintains trust, identifies risks early and provides tangible data for board or investor updates, reinforcing your credibility as a well-managed business. 

Track technical KPIs and business outcomes 

Monitor pilot performance using both technical metrics and commercial success indicators. Employ dashboards that track progress against engineering milestones (e.g., data accuracy, uptime, latency) and connect them to measurable business outcomes such as cost savings, efficiency, or mission performance. This linkage between technology performance and customer value is crucial for investor storytelling and informs go/no-go decisions on scaling to production. 

Establish continuous feedback loops with stakeholders 

Engage regularly with all buyer personas involved in the pilot, technical evaluators, procurement officers and executive sponsors. Capture feedback early and often to adapt deliverables, address emerging requirements and maintain alignment with customer priorities. In long procurement cycles common to the space and defence sectors, these touchpoints build advocacy, strengthen internal champions and reduce friction during contract negotiation. 

Proactively manage risks and regulatory dependencies 

Identify potential risks upfront, including export control delays, data handling restrictions, launch dependencies, or security vetting requirements. Create a live risk register with owners, likelihood and mitigation plans. Proactive risk management not only protects timelines but also demonstrates a governance culture that investors value, one that recognises operational realities and manages them effectively. 

Capture lessons learned to build a scalable playbook 

Document all adjustments, issues and best practices throughout the pilot lifecycle. Conduct a post-pilot review that summarises outcomes, learnings and recommendations for scaling. This internal playbook becomes the foundation for repeatable delivery, reducing cost of customer acquisition, shortening sales cycles and improving conversion rates in future engagements. In the space sector, where each mission or deployment can vary, a codified process is key to achieving predictable, scalable growth. 

 3. Comprehensive validation and customer credibility 

Validation is what turns a successful pilot into a credible investment story. For early-stage space companies, securing customer advocacy and demonstrating repeatability are essential steps in converting technical success into commercial momentum. The following considerations will help you evidence customer value and build investor trust. 

Secure customer endorsements and case studies 

Translate pilot results into publicly usable proof points. Request customer testimonials or letters of endorsement that highlight operational, strategic and financial benefits, for example, reduced mission delays, enhanced data accuracy, or improved cost efficiency. Develop short case studies demonstrating the customer’s problem, your solution and the quantified impact. In the space sector, where credibility with government or defence primes is invaluable, even a short statement of support can significantly de-risk your business in the eyes of future buyers and investors. 

Stress-test outcomes against procurement and compliance standards 

Assess how your pilot outputs align with enterprise procurement, security and compliance requirements. Validate that your processes, documentation and data handling can pass these reviews without modification. Addressing these standards early ensures your pilots don’t fail at the final gate and accelerates transition into long-term contracts. 

Manage customer concentration and diversify pipeline 

Evaluate whether your current pipeline or early pilots over-rely on a small number of anchor customers, such as a single government department or prime contractor. Develop and communicate pipeline diversification plans to demonstrate resilience and growth potential across multiple customer segments, regions, or applications. This reassures investors that your business isn’t exposed to concentrated revenue risk and that expansion opportunities are already in motion. 

Prove repeatability and Series B–ready traction 

Investors (especially at Series B) want evidence that your business model is scalable, repeatable and capable of producing contractable revenue. Document how the learnings from your pilot have been incorporated into a repeatable delivery framework, pricing model or product roadmap. Link these outcomes to investor-grade traction metrics such as annual recurring revenue (ARR) growth, conversion rates and retention levels. Demonstrating repeatability shows that your company can move from bespoke projects to predictable, long-term revenue, a critical inflection point for scale and valuation. 

 4. Scalable production readiness 

To successfully transition from a pilot phase to full-scale production, organisations must focus on establishing scalable processes and frameworks. This ensures that the solution not only delivers value but also operates efficiently and profitably at scale. 

Refine pricing logic based on pilot learnings 

Translate the insights gained from your pilot into a pricing model that suits customer budgets, procurement channels and partner margin expectations. By ensuring pricing aligns with real-world constraints and supports partner profitability, you reduce procurement friction and create sustainable unit economics. This disciplined approach to customer acquisition cost (CAC), lifetime value (LTV) and margin control sends a strong signal of financial rigour to investors. 

Align sales, marketing, support and delivery functions for scaled roll-out 

Successful enterprise conversions require seamless coordination across sales, marketing, support and delivery teams. Establishing a common go-to-market strategy prevents gaps during handoffs, speeds up time-to-value for customers and improves both conversion rates and retention. Cross-functional alignment ensures a smooth and consistent customer journey, essential for scaling. 

Optimise contract terms for production 

Review and refine contract terms to incorporate service level agreements (SLAs), renewal options and multi-year commitments appropriate for production-scale delivery. Thoughtfully structured contracts enhance revenue predictability and customer lifetime value, reduce churn risk and provide performance guarantees. These factors are vital for investor confidence and company valuation. 

Define customer onboarding, support escalation and change management processes for scale 

Create clear, repeatable processes for customer onboarding, support escalation and change management to enable rapid and smooth adoption at scale. An efficient delivery model reduces support overheads, improves customer satisfaction (including ability to reference) and can be consistently replicated across new clients. 

Establish KPIs and dashboards for ongoing performance monitoring post-pilot 

Set up key performance indicators (KPIs) and dashboards to ensure ongoing transparency and control as you move beyond the pilot phase. Using RAG (red-amber-green) status indicators supports effective governance and investor reporting while allowing early identification of issues and upsell opportunities. Continuous monitoring is crucial to maintaining operational discipline and driving sustained growth.

This information is a non-exhaustive summary of some of the factors which may be relevant to seeking investment in the space sector. Persons should take independent legal and professional advice before seeking any such investment.