TakeMe2Space Democratizes Satellite Computing with $2-Per-Minute Access

What do you do when you've successfully built and sold a SaaS company, but still feel like the biggest challenges lie ahead? For Ronak Samantray, the answer was simple: go to space. The TakeMe2Space founder didn't just pivot from enterprise software to space-tech—he's on a mission to completely democratize satellite access for every programmer, researcher, and entrepreneur on Earth.

At just $2 per minute, his satellite-as-a-service platform promises to do for space computing what cloud computing did for traditional IT: make it accessible, affordable, and available to anyone with code to run.

This isn't your typical founder story. Samantray's journey from a bank employee's son in Odisha to building NowFloats (acquired by Reliance) to launching India's first AI lab in space represents a masterclass in identifying untapped opportunities and moving fast before competition arrives.

The Unexpected Entrepreneur from Odisha

Ronak Samantray's entrepreneurial journey began in an unlikely place: Cuttack, Odisha—a state not traditionally known for producing tech entrepreneurs. "Odisha is not a land of entrepreneurship," he reflects, acknowledging the cultural shift required to pursue startup dreams.

Born to a Bank of Baroda employee, Samantray's family moved frequently due to his father's transfers, eventually settling in Bokaro, Jharkhand for his school years. But it was his engineering education at NIT Rourkela that truly shaped his entrepreneurial mindset.

"College is where the reason I'm an entrepreneur came from," Samantray explains. "Until then you're in a house, right? When you go to college, you're away from home, you have to figure stuff yourself."

The Training Ground: College Politics and Placement Committees

NIT Rourkela proved to be an unexpected entrepreneurship bootcamp. Between student strikes, ragging incidents, and placement committee responsibilities, Samantray learned crucial business skills:

Cold Outreach: "We would write emails to companies about why they should come to our college for recruitment. That's where I got my first exposure to cold emails—how do you sell your college to someone you've never met?"

Negotiation: "I wanted to go to IIT Bombay for a techfest, had to skip classes. When my principal said no marks, I had to learn how to convince faculty members without insulting them—how do you get work done from people very senior to you?"

Most importantly, college taught him that technical skills alone weren't enough. "You can build the best product in the world, but you should know how to articulate things and put it forward."

The Microsoft Years: Building Confidence, Planning Exit

After graduation in 2008, Samantray joined Microsoft—a dream company that almost derailed his entrepreneurial plans. "Unfortunately, or fortunately, I got into Microsoft. The plan was to attempt something of my own, but then Microsoft happened and I was a little bit greedy, I guess."

The timing couldn't have been more perfect for an aspiring entrepreneur. 2008-2011 represented a technological inflection point: Facebook was going mainstream, Twitter was exploding, Flipkart was pioneering e-commerce in India, and smartphones were transforming user experiences.

"Those three years were like every year something fundamental shift was happening in terms of user experience and the way we consumed internet," Samantray recalls. "I was like, yeah, this is something happening. We have to do something."

The Leap: No Plan, Just Urgency

In July 2011, Samantray made what many considered a career-destroying decision: he resigned from Microsoft without a concrete startup plan.

"I had just got an award in March, got 200% stock bonus, and my manager was like 'what the hell' when I told him I wanted to do a startup," he laughs. "Everyone thought I was taking the wrong decision. People started counseling me—I was like, dude, leave me alone."

His philosophy was counterintuitive but effective: create urgency first, figure out the idea later.

"I don't like spending time thinking about the idea because that doesn't bring in a sense of urgency," he explains. "If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to have that sense of urgency from day zero. The moment you leave your job, you have a ticking time bomb—limited bank balance, nothing to do when you wake up, no office to go to. That sense of panic is important."

Building NowFloats: The SaaS Success Story

Armed with 13 startup ideas and a Windows Phone, Samantray began the journey that would become NowFloats. His initial pitch strategy was brilliantly simple: leverage his Microsoft credentials to get meetings, then reveal he'd actually left the company.

"Everywhere I used to go, I would give a Microsoft card, get into the meeting, then show 'by the way, I've left Microsoft,'" he recalls. "Microsoft card got me meetings everywhere. Then I'd show my phone—this is my app."

The Power of Showing, Not Telling

From day one, Samantray focused on demonstrating working products rather than pitching concepts. "Never just pitched words. Even today with TakeMe2Space, I always show engineering demos. People trust you more when you're not just an entrepreneur talking words, but an engineer showing a product."

This approach helped him attract three co-founders who had never worked with him before: Jazz from CA Technologies (40 years old, left his VP role), Nihan from Microsoft (prepared an entire business plan after one conversation), and NRJ from Euro RSCG Dubai (joined during a world tour).

Scaling Challenges: The Reality of Indian SMBs

NowFloats grew from zero to 50,000 paid customers, acquiring around 5,000 customers monthly at peak. But scaling in India meant confronting harsh realities about SMB behavior and pricing psychology.

The Free vs. Paid Learning: "When you give something for free, people say yes but don't use it. The moment you take even one rupee, they'll hold your collar," Samantray discovered. This insight led them to charge from day one, eventually settling on ₹20,000 per year pricing.

Geographic Distribution Strategy: NowFloats expanded across 45 cities, giving Samantray deep insights into regional business behaviors. "Kerala merchants have deep understanding of features. In Delhi, they literally ask 'how much profit will this make me?' Different regions, fundamentally different behaviors."

The Dark Days: Startup Sine Waves

Success wasn't linear. NowFloats faced periodic cash crunches requiring difficult decisions:

"There are times when we didn't have salary to give. We had to let people go. When you let somebody go because it's not their fault—they have responsibilities—you get threatening calls in the night," Samantray shares with rare vulnerability.

The psychological toll was immense: "By the 15th of the month, you already know you can't pay salaries. You're the only person on the team who knows this event will happen before it happens. You're meeting people every day with a straight face, pretending everything is fine."

The Reliance Acquisition: Scaling with Giants

After reaching 1,000 employees and significant scale, Reliance approached NowFloats with an acquisition offer that was impossible to refuse—not because of money, but because of scale potential.

Meeting the Ambanis: Business Acumen Up Close

Samantray's firsthand experience with the Ambani family shattered his preconceptions about traditional business houses.

"I don't think I have ever met anybody else other than the Ambani family whose depth of understanding of Indian consumers is incomparable," he reflects. "Their gut feeling is crazily aligned to what India needs. Maybe that gut feeling is driven by years of experience or data, but in meetings you can see their suggestions and ideas—they understand India by their fingertips."

The scale opportunity was transformative: "The number of zeros they look at—50 crores is nothing to them. We got integrated into Jio Fiber with their trusted brand and huge distribution network. Why would we say no?"

Decision Speed: "From the last set of meetings with leadership to the offer on the table—24 hours. Crazy guys work till 2 AM, 3 AM. Mr. Ambani still works late at night. The business acumen across domains—oil and gas, retail, and he understood SaaS—was incredible."

The Space Transition: From SaaS to Satellites

After the successful NowFloats exit, Samantray faced a classic post-acquisition dilemma: what next? His answer came from a fundamental frustration with access barriers in emerging technologies.

"After 2019, I had four domains I was excited about: space, quantum, CRISPR, and humanoids. I started working on all four—space stuck around."

The Access Problem: Why Can't Engineers Code Satellites?

The catalyst for TakeMe2Space was a simple but profound question: "Why can't I write code to a satellite? It's an electronic object."

"I was a coder, an engineer who had cash, but nobody gave me access to a satellite," Samantray explains. "All people used to give me was satellite data. It's like when I was in class 5, my friend wrote the code, and my job was just to press enter. That was my space moment."

The Mission: Space for Everyone

TakeMe2Space's core philosophy centers on two principles:

1. Accessibility: "If humans are to become a space-faring species, you need to give access to everybody. Everything we do will be accessible to all and affordable to all."

2. No Barriers: "It'll never require KYC from a customer. We operate at specifications where no country has any problem—9 meters per pixel resolution versus the industry standard of 30 cm per pixel."

Revolutionary Technology: Satellite-as-a-Service

Traditional satellite access requires million-dollar investments and government clearances. TakeMe2Space flips this model entirely with satellite-as-a-service at $2 per minute.

The Economics of Democratization

"Today I can bet you—go sign up for Maxar, you'll not get access. You have to have KYC, work with Maxar partners, know how to play that game. That's not how the industry should exist," Samantray argues.

His solution: pay for satellite time, not satellite data.

"Let's say you're interested in crop health monitoring for Odisha. You don't need to buy data. When the satellite passes over Odisha, you upload your code, it captures data, does processing, gives you inferences. You save money and get exactly what you need."

Building Affordable Space Infrastructure

To achieve $2-per-minute pricing, TakeMe2Space had to solve fundamental cost problems:

Terrestrial-Grade Components: "I cannot take radiation-hardened space-grade electronics because satellite costs go up and I have to charge more. All my components are terrestrial-grade."

Radiation Shielding Innovation: They developed proprietary radiation shielding materials to protect commercial-grade electronics in space.

Indigenous Manufacturing: "24+ satellite subsystems and sensors built indigenously" to control costs and supply chains.

AI Infrastructure in Space

TakeMe2Space is building what Samantray calls "AI inferencing infrastructure in lower earth orbit"—essentially data centers in space optimized for asynchronous computing workloads.

"AI is asynchronous compute—you're tasking the satellite to do something and getting results after task completion, not calling an API and getting real-time results."

Current capacity: 250 watts → Next: 100-200 kilowatts → Future: 10 megawatts → Ultimate goal: gigawatt-scale computing

The AI Coding Revolution: Impact on Entrepreneurship

As someone who's been coding since age 10, Samantray offers unique insights into how AI is transforming software development and entrepreneurship.

AI as a "Super Sharp Intern"

"AI-assisted coding today is like working with a super sharp intern," he explains. "It does clean execution but doesn't have the ability to innovate. I haven't had that 'oh freak, I didn't know' moment yet."

Real-world impact: "98% of my web applications at TakeMe2Space are written by AI using Claude and other coding tools. What used to take 6 months, I finished in 2 months. Something that would have taken me almost 6 months to build."

The Human Advantage: Architecture and Logic

Despite AI's capabilities, Samantray emphasizes that human cognitive skills remain crucial:

"To be successful with AI coding, you still need an expert coder who can give clear instructions and know where to look for errors. The hallucination AI has is not a joke—cyclic import headers, context window limitations, prioritized context issues."

The evolution: "You don't have to write for loops or basic switch cases anymore. You become an architect very soon. College students who understand AI coding well go from student to architect directly."

The Future of Entrepreneurship: Speed Above All

As AI democratizes execution capabilities, Samantray predicts a fundamental shift in entrepreneurial advantage:

New Reality: "You can't say 'I'll take six months to build my product' anymore. You have to build in a month. Consumer loyalty is disappearing—they want something different all the time."

Rule of Thumb: "When you're planning time to execute your idea, rule of thumb: cut it by 50%. If you think it'll take 3 months, try to finish in 1.5 months. Always undercut your own hypothesis."

The Competitive Landscape

"You never know what two people in a garage outside India are building. A developer built DocuSign in two days—led to massive revenue loss for the original DocuSign. Your idea and product are no longer long-lasting differentiators. Speed of execution is the only long-lasting differentiator in today's world."

Future Vision: Space Computing and Beyond

Samantray believes compute infrastructure will inevitably move beyond terrestrial boundaries—whether underwater, underground, or in space—driven by energy access and cooling requirements.

The Scale Problem

"OpenAI and Facebook signed a $30 billion per year deal with Oracle for 4.5 gigawatts of compute capacity annually. India as a country has total 4 gigawatts. The computational needs for AI will fundamentally skyrocket—terrestrially, the answer isn't there."

Space Advantages

Energy: "Space gives you access to the sun—infinite energy source without atmospheric interference, weather, cloud cover."

Operations: "No maintenance, no dust, no humans needed for operations. Capex investment, but opex is essentially zero."

Revenue-First Philosophy: Learning from Experience

Unlike many Silicon Valley-influenced startups, Samantray maintains an unapologetically revenue-focused approach.

"I get feedback from VCs, especially those from outside India who've been in Silicon Valley: 'You're too focused on revenue.' I say yes, I am. Maybe it's the baggage of experience, but I've seen the sine wave—rainy days when nobody helps you, no money from friends or VCs. Unless you have cash in bank, you're screwed."

Current Strategy: Even while building satellites, TakeMe2Space maintains a "Satellite Shop" selling components to other satellite builders. "However small the value prop, however small the money—keep making money from customers, not from VCs."

Key Takeaways

Ronak Samantray's journey from Microsoft engineer to space entrepreneur offers several crucial insights for the next generation of founders:

Find Low-Competition Frontiers: "I like areas where there's less competition today. By the time competition increases, I'm already there." Early entry into emerging markets provides sustainable advantages.

Demonstrate, Don't Pitch: Consistently showing working products builds trust faster than theoretical presentations. "People trust you more when you're an engineer showing a product, not just an entrepreneur talking words."

Embrace Calculated Stupidity: "I like to be stupid all the time. Most friends say I have very stupid opinions." Sometimes seemingly irrational decisions create breakthrough opportunities.

Speed Trumps Perfection: In an AI-enabled world, execution speed becomes the primary differentiator. "Speed of execution is the only long-lasting differentiator in today's world."

Maintain Revenue Focus: Regardless of investor pressure, customer revenue provides real validation and sustainable growth paths.

Leverage AI Strategically: Use AI to accelerate execution while maintaining human oversight for architecture and innovation. "AI is a great tool for productivity, but human logical thinking remains essential."

Think Beyond Terrestrial Limits: Whether in space-tech, quantum computing, or other emerging fields, the biggest opportunities exist at the edges of current technological boundaries.

Samantray's vision of democratizing space access through affordable satellite computing represents more than a business opportunity—it's a paradigm shift toward making advanced technologies accessible to everyone. As he puts it: "If humans are to become a space-faring species, you need to give access to everybody."

His story proves that with the right combination of technical skills, execution speed, and contrarian thinking, entrepreneurs can build transformative companies that reshape entire industries—whether on Earth or beyond.

About the Guest

Ronak Samantray is the founder of TakeMe2Space, a pioneering space-tech company democratizing satellite access, and the ex-co-founder of NowFloats, a SaaS platform that was acquired by Reliance. With over two decades of coding experience starting from age 10, Samantray has been at the forefront of technological innovation from enterprise software to space computing.

A graduate of NIT Rourkela and former Microsoft engineer, Samantray has built companies that serve diverse markets—from Indian SMBs to space infrastructure. His current venture, TakeMe2Space, has successfully deployed India's first AI lab in space and is building affordable satellite-as-a-service infrastructure at $2 per minute.

Known for his revenue-first approach and speed-focused execution philosophy, Samantray continues to push boundaries in emerging technologies while maintaining a practical approach to sustainable business building. His work spans 24+ indigenous satellite subsystems and represents a new paradigm in making space technology accessible to everyone.