Dustin Walper
@DustinWalper
Founder of @ValstadShip. On a mission to revive American shipbuilding.
It's official: Valstad closed a $2.6M pre-seed round to revive American shipbuilding! This is the most important mission I've ever worked on, and I'm pumped to have great investors along for the ride. It's really happening, folks.
We closed a $2.6M pre-seed round from N49P, 10VC, Elementum, and Northside Ventures. Hit the link for details👇 valstad.com/article/valsta…
Pro-tip: pre-seed due diligence should take max 2 weeks. Background check, corp docs, shareholders agreement, bank statement, employment agreements, done.
With the Cybercab line, Elon apparently challenged his manufacturing team to explain what physics principle required any step in the process to take more than 5000ms. The end result? By shaving off milliseconds, the team made the line 50% smaller for the same throughput.
Small modular reactors on commercial ships. Let's make it happen.
Great day in DC! The enthusiasm for shipbuilding on The Hill is real.
Key travel tip: Portable squatty potty. @ScottHickle you should give them away as swag.
Conventional wisdom: US shipbuilding can't be competitive because of steel prices and high wages. Reality: Wages are similar in the US and South Korea, but South Korean yards are 4-5x more productive. The solution: Scale & specialization. We need to build a lot more ships.
BWA gets it. The SHIPS act is needed.
We are proud to endorse the SHIPS Act, especially thoughtful language for: - Shipbuilding opportunity zones + tax credits - Supports maritime innovation and tech - Grows the shipbuilding workforce - Encourage @USNavy and @USCG to build ships with commercial best practices
Valstad heads to Washington! Our CEO and COO will be in DC this week to talk shipbuilding. @SECNAV gave a great speech at @reindsummit, and we're excited to be speaking with like-minded folks. It's time to build a *lot* more ships in America.
Manufacturing is no longer economics, it’s National Security.
Truth: "China subsidizes manufacturing so heavily that it’s often cheaper to buy a finished CNC part from China than to buy the raw materials here. That’s wild." The longer version is a good read.
Japan pre-WWII: “We need to make sure nobody knows we’re building the Yamato battleship. Let’s throw a hemp blanket over it.” It was a simpler time.
100%. Need to move & scale fast to meet the moment. Fundraising ability & willingness to get on a plane to build support are also critical.
the biggest manufacturing companies i know started with one machine and a dream no funds, no business plans, just pure hustle one guy told me "i saved up for a CNC then opened up yellow pages and started dialing all the local factories to help with overflow work" but if we…
I’ll admit I only went to one talk (by SecNav, which was excellent). Too many interesting people to meet!
reindustrialize was funny because most of the attendees were not the type to sit through a whole speaker session
It’s insanely fun. It also hardens you. My tolerance for rejection is sky-high. Don’t get it? That’s okay. You will.
The definition of insanity? A founder who’s been through a startup once… and chooses to do it again.
It’s up to the small group of us focused on tackling the problem from different angles to make the case. Success begets success. Let’s show it can be done.
$90B over 7 years in 2006 $$ = China’s shipbuilding splurge = $145B in 2025 $ $43B over 5 years (most up front?) = US shipbuilding surge $145B vs $43B = 3.3 vs 1 That’s before you account for China’s massive purchasing power parity advantage. For example, an hour of metal…
welder shortage largely solved by - making the work environment more enjoyable (a/c and heating) - process improvements / standardization to lower the minimum amt of skill needed to do the job - pathway to increase pay / responsibility - internal training - welding robots