Ep 188: Ragnar Sass
Unicorn Founder Who Turned His Attention to Helping Ukraine – Lessons Learned on the Ground, Military and Terrorist Drone Threats, and Why Defense Tech Needs Non-Technical Founders
Ragnar Sass is a serial entrepreneur, co-founder of the unicorn Pipedrive, and an active investor in the Baltic and Ukrainian tech scenes. Beyond his entrepreneurial success, Ragnar has emerged as a leading advocate for Ukraine during its time of crisis, founding the Help99 Convoy initiative, which has delivered over €10 million in aid and critical supplies. With deep ties to Ukraine through business and personal connections, Ragnar is leveraging his expertise to support defense tech innovation and foster resilience in the face of geopolitical challenges.
On this episode we talk about:
The Role of drone technology in modern warfare
Stories of Ukrainian founders balancing entrepreneurship and national defense efforts amidst war.
Opportunities in DefenseTech and how also non-technical founders can contribute
Insights into navigating compliance, fundraising, and long sales cycles in the defense sector.
Lessons from Israel’s defense model and how Europe must adapt to new security realities.
To continue supporting Ukraine financially, go to: https://www.help99.co/
We are on YouTube and Linkedin as well
Watch select full-length episodes on our YouTube channel > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP6ueaLnjS-CQfrMCm2EoTA
Connect with us on Linkedin > https://www.linkedin.com/company/pursuit-of-scrappiness/
Read the full episode transcript below
Janis Zeps (00:02.622)
Hello friends, we're back with another episode of Pursuit of Scrappiness podcast. Whether building a business, running a team, just starting out in your career, we're here to bring you scrappy and actionable insights to help you become more productive. My name is Janis Zeps, as always with me, Mr. Uldis Teraudkalns. Hey!
Uldis (00:17.171)
Hi buddy.
Janis Zeps (00:18.738)
Before we start, quick reminder, follow us on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, helps more than you know. You'll find over 180 episodes there already covering all sorts of topics that you need to just become a more productive and more scrappy and more, well, resilient version of yourself. We come out every Tuesday, so follow us and then you will not miss an episode. About today's topic, we're kinda approaching the end of year 2024.
Now this year we've been digging deep into topics such as AI, we've been talking about sales a lot, about fundraising as always, also lot more about bootstrapping than previous years. We talk about productivity, product market fit, all sorts of things you need to know, as we say, become scrappier and better version of yourself. However, however, building a business is just one part of our life, as we all know, right? And we wanted to use this episode to maybe look a bit outside of our direct focus area. We don't live in isolation from bigger...
geopolitical events, even though I think we have been very sheltered so far from those events happening not so far. if you just think for a moment about, you know, this Christmas we'll all be sitting down in our apartments, we'll have reliable electricity and water and safety. And a few hundred kilometers to the east, there's still very active war going on in Ukraine. Obviously, we all know about that, but very often in daily lives, we kind of, I guess, start to even forget. And this is affecting millions of people.
One thing we also learned in some of the episodes is how just people in Ukraine just keep going. They just keep working. They just keep building their lives, building their business, and under this new stress, new reality, which is quite truly inspiring example of resilience and perseverance. Today, we have a guest that we believe is a perfect match for conversation, talking a bit about the business, but also a lot about what's happening on the ground in Ukraine. Most of you know him.
And you know, I'm his co-founder of Pipedrive or Salto X or Lyft 99, very active investor and texting here in Baltics and very happy to welcome Ragnar Sass with us. Hey.
Ragnar (02:20.34)
Super happy to be here. I really like your, you know, the name, you know, because in the startup life, you need to be humble and the things that you really nailed, you know, the first sentence of the podcast. Happy to be here.
Janis Zeps (02:32.776)
Awesome. Since war started, actually, Orangna has been one of the most active and visible faces in not only Estonia, but I think also Baltics and tech community. He's organizing all sorts of support for Ukraine, started an initiative called Help 99 Convoy, and they have delivered almost 10 million euros worth of help so far to Ukraine. And he's spending a lot of time on the ground there, so has a lot of firsthand insights. And that was the topic that we wanted to maybe cover bit more today. At first, I actually wanted to ask...
You've been known in the tech scene, you've been very busy, very successful as well. There must be million things you could be doing, building new companies, building new investment opportunities. But in the last few years, following your new LinkedIn, see you're spending a lot of time just on Ukraine. You're posting about it, you're helping them. What made you make this choice and dedicate so much of your time and effort to that?
Ragnar (03:26.882)
Wow, that's a good question. think it's truly like 24 February was in many ways the darkest day of my life. Because my connection with Ukraine is extremely personal as well. I have been on the ground from 2011. I have many close friends. I have been investing to Ukraine. opened Lift99 startup center in Kiev. And you know, all, I think that this war...
is the most black and white thing I have seen in my life, which is against of every single value that I have ever had and every single thing which I believed. Because this war is against of, you know, who we are, how our systems are existing in the world. And in the sense indeed, I was kind of ready to, there's so many, you know, blinking lights.
that war will start on the scale we have never seen in modern history. Because also we need to be frank here war has been in 2014. But the 2022 was just like absolutely intensifying that. So I was ready for that, but mentally I wasn't ready. I remember first day I just, you know, went to the forest walked because at 24 February, just a reminder for the listeners is it's a Stoneman Independence Day. So you cannot have like
Janis Zeps (04:31.283)
Mm-hmm.
Janis Zeps (04:51.891)
Mm-hmm.
Ragnar (04:52.801)
two opposite things in the one day. And I remember that first day is shock. You try to look the news. And since the second day came anger. I remember that, you know, it just, there is no way, no way, you know, that Russia could win because it would mean existence of our own countries in Estonia, Latvia and so on. And that was like, you know, everything that I have done before 24th February would not matter.
If Ukraine would lose this war, that's it. Because we probably end up, you know, like in second world war, for example, Estonia as a country lost the biggest percentage of the population because of the Russians came, sent some to Siberia. Germans came, took the army. Russians came, took the army and people escaped. So we had actually a real threat after the second world war, Estonia's nation would not exist anymore.
And that's why I think that it's kind of like, no better. And what I have lately more more thinking really is how was, how me as an individual would have highest impact to the, to the life in the planet. Before that, believed, you know, climate is a reset. It's still big set by the way, but it's almost like you're battling with two different things same time. And yeah, I started to do that. You know, one thing lead to Asev and yes, you're right. We have now.
I have built now NGO, which is every month delivering aid to Ukraine. We have delivered more than 500 pickup trucks. We have reached more than 10 million and we have really focused more and more how we can help Ukraine most effective way. And I think that also there was a change in my mindset 12 months ago, because first you just help, you just do no matter what it takes. So then you're asking, hey,
I don't want to do NG all of my life, you You're asking what is most effective solutions in Ukraine side, which helped them actually. And then exactly games that I started to look into defense tech. Because what I saw is that we have never, I have never seen any tech growing so fast, developed so fast. Doesn't know defense in Ukraine war. Because you have literally.
Janis Zeps (07:01.403)
Mm-hmm.
Ragnar (07:17.889)
things changing extremely fast you have teams which are working 24-7 not like two months, three months, two and a half years and sadly it's two sides by the way so we cannot say that hey Raisha is stupid and slow no way I think that's why I am and that's why I'm now basically more and more basically put my efforts to the
Janis Zeps (07:32.531)
Mm-hmm.
Ragnar (07:45.931)
two hashtags, I would say Ukraine at the fence.
Janis Zeps (07:50.524)
On the defense tech topic, one of the impressions I've had in the war so far is obviously Russia is going for mass amount of people and our artillery and just going for volume. Ukraine doesn't have the same resources. So they've been very clever in using drones, which also then Russia now learns how to use and things like that. It seems like tech actually has an impact on this war, like drones, for example.
What are your observations and maybe some other technologies that you have seen? Starlink, for example, as well, probably is quite first big war where we see this. What are your impressions? Like what tech is actually making an impact? Because some people might think it's OK, maybe in 10 years we'll develop something. But no, it seems like it's actually something that can make an impact this year, next year, in two years.
Ragnar (08:40.905)
I think you are right. I think that this war will be won by the tech, black and white. And also we need to be frank here, actually drone have been used in Ukraine war from 2014-15. But what people then realized that who put more effort to drone development before the war was not Ukraine. It was Russia actually. And Russia has...
Janis Zeps (08:54.535)
Mm-hmm.
Ragnar (09:07.393)
freedom to move very fast to put money and scale up because they have wartime economy with not anymore unlimited resources but huge resources. And what I have seen exactly is that there many layers of technological things. As of today, like the only reason why Ukraine stands against this zombie attacks of the meat waves is the drones. Like without that,
that would be absolutely horror already. And we have seen like many elements of the thing. First of all, as people know about the drones. If you think about overall, what has been Ukraine's biggest wins is first win is that Black Sea is dominated by Ukraine Marine drones, which is crazy. Ukraine don't have Navy, but it dominates the Black Sea with drones which didn't exist before the war. One thing, second thing, as we have seen,
Janis Zeps (09:55.891)
Mm-hmm.
Ragnar (10:05.857)
Ukraine has more more success building long, basically deep strike drones. Like probably a few months ago, remember, say basically, had most successful coordinated attack inside of the Russia and took out some ammunition depots, which was meant to survive a nuclear strike. This is again, wow. So I believe that the key of this conflict is on the tech people.
like black and white. But here goes to the very, very bad news for Europe. And you guys are in Latvia. You remember in September, when Shaheed fell down in Latvia. What is the challenge of that? Europe is not ready for the drone war. Like in Ukraine, what I see is that the drone units are growing like with intensive speed. The best soldier already now.
Janis Zeps (10:36.851)
Mm-hmm.
Janis Zeps (10:49.629)
Yeah, yeah.
Ragnar (11:06.049)
2024 is a drone operator because he can make like basically huge amount of damage to the enemy. This war is literally changed about these modern warfare. You know, if you think about the word military grade, that was the word before the war. This means that you will develop the products into five years. You will test it in minus 14, ArtarTics and so on. And you have selling cycle to four years as well. Boom, this changed.
This war is clearly like the best way how I've seen is that this is like Ryanair type of war. You are doing super fast, super scalable, super cheap solutions which has heavy damage. But back to the Europe where we are living, the challenge what we are facing in here is that we need to help our governments and armies to rebuild for the new reality. Because one APV drone
which cost like 500 euros, everybody can order those things at the explosion, can have absolutely crazy amount of damage in free world because we are not ready for that. So this is the biggest threat. Indeed, we see other things as well. We see land-based drones, like this is maybe not so visible, but know, latest thing in Ukraine is that you have units which only focus in land-based drones.
which are delivering, you know, the ammunition, the food, but also being used on the attack. There are so many elements of like, you know, how software can help making drones more autonomous and so on, the swarm and so on. frankly, I have looked in last five, six months, 200 defense tech companies. Half of them had call, you know, looked into the solutions. And honestly, there are so many elements.
which is built like, you know, how you connect, how you jam. Like, for example, what we do is that if we send now the car to the Ukraine, we long time don't send in more car. We asking what do you actually need? So we offer them capability, which means that we are rebuilding cars, we are adding them jammers, we are adding night vision. So we are building full solution now. I don't know, I have been also looking more and more
Ragnar (13:28.502)
What is actually like jamming? What it means, you So this is also examples that in the beginning of the war, there was just DJI drones, you know, so now we move to the FPV drones and FPV drones are using usually radio electronics to basically connect and so on. So you can jam them. The latest trend, which will be dominant after three to four months is the drones which are flying in optical cable. And you cannot jam them. So which means you need to wait a minute how we can avoid them.
The only way to avoid them is to shut them down. As of today, in November 2024, are no solutions yet against that. But I know all the teams who are building it. So probably in January there are countermeasures. So it's basically all the time who is leading and how much time you have. So basically before you have a countermeasure.
Uldis (14:19.08)
Yeah, one thing you've seen all those companies and many of them are building defense solutions and one thing that has been puzzling for me. How come it's so hard to defend against drones? How can they be so efficient? do you have an answer? Why are they continuously succeeding in striking?
Ragnar (14:37.505)
you
Ragnar (14:42.968)
you ever flying a drone yourself? Okay, please, please try that because if you don't let me remind you is a rally drone. It has huge speed. So you just like you can literally move left and right up and down. So the FV drone before the war you do competitions, who is you know, moving through the very complicated things and so on.
Uldis (14:46.054)
No, no.
Janis Zeps (14:56.786)
Mm-hmm.
Uldis (14:56.915)
Hmm.
Ragnar (15:11.068)
FVV drone operator is actually racer. The best guys are really racers. So FVV was a hobby project before the war, which you do like competitions and the speed is intensive. So why it's so difficult to shut them down exactly is that if you are in the field and you are hunted by the robot, which is FVV drone, you understand how freaky is that. This is not Hollywood movie, this is reality.
Janis Zeps (15:21.021)
Mm-hmm.
Janis Zeps (15:36.925)
Hmm.
Ragnar (15:40.995)
It's the speed, how much it can maneuver and fly left and right, up and down. And how much then this small piece can carry explosion and just after milliseconds, there is no more human. It's just pieces of meat.
Janis Zeps (15:57.096)
This makes me think of this thing that I really hope doesn't happen, but we hear lot about also Russia doing special operations in Europe and also in Baltics, which basically a few guys here recruited or came in, do some damage, burn something down, things like that. But then from what we discuss now, you can get a small explosive, put it on top of a drone and fly it in busy crowd as well, right? In theory, it's actually also for civilians.
becoming dangerous.
Ragnar (16:30.098)
Yeah, you're touching an extremely important topic. So if we talk about terrorism as it is, the extremely sad prediction for me is that in 2025, we will see terrorists globally using FV drones to attacking civilians. Like it is, there is already first news that how somewhere in globally police found the plan and avoided it. But you understand how difficult it to do that because
In the past, you just drive car to the, you know, to the, to the civilians. You use some huge knife. No, no, you just fly drone and also technical capabilities is going way more. So I know drones now, which can fly 25 kilometers. So you're just sitting, I don't know, 20 kilometers away from the city and you just fly that in and you just, our societies need to adapt to that. Like I know.
Janis Zeps (17:03.409)
Mm-hmm.
Janis Zeps (17:21.555)
Hmm.
Ragnar (17:29.791)
Luckily, many, many companies who are building intensely so many countermeasures against that. But same time, challenge what we are facing is exactly that to adapt those things takes more time. But I believe our armies and our police are facing unbelievable challenge. And exactly what we are facing is that all of those like things which is behind of national security.
have to turn into the set you need to have in every, let's say in police, in army, like more and more tech people. Like for example, biggest thing which I have seen in Ukraine is that the best military units like brigades are acting as a separate business entity. They have a head of HR, they have a of marketing. Most importantly, they have CTO, like really head of tech, which is continuously looking to the most important solutions.
adapt them in ultrafast and training the people. That's mentality which should be built into different things because tech side with all of the bad and good things will start to affect us because you're touching right point. Our enemy want to do everything to destroy our normal life and stabilize this. One example is indeed, you know, like cutting the cables between the countries, which just happened a few days ago. But the other thing is just using drones.
There is very low risks that we would have threats that enemy would send just like some soldiers to our land. But the risk of having drones is 100%. Specifically when we had already, Shahed basically was jammed, get into our territory and just was landed somewhere. And Shahed, for example, if you don't know, it's actually a very big thing. It's almost two meters wingspan.
So if we will fly into somewhere building, it makes huge explosion. So I think that the one thing which I have been now exactly focusing is how I can help to build strong defense tech ecosystem, which basically looks the most effective things, which is already working in Ukraine, help them to come to to the Estonia. So, and that that helped them to
Ragnar (19:55.962)
you introduce to the people in the NATO and allies so we can use those things very fast, you know, just, know, into the armies and probably also into the police force.
Janis Zeps (20:08.979)
Well, it kind of leads to the next question I wanted to ask. mean, a lot of people listening, are building companies, thinking about building companies. They have this urge to build something. And defense tech in the last few years has just emerged from a... We spoke to a few investors also who said that... Not sorry, entrepreneurs who said like... Also from Estonia, actually, they said like, know, defense tech used to be on the fringes, like small, small thing that nobody wanted to touch. And now now in our three years, it's become massive.
Founders in Baltics, how can they make impact? maybe are we positioned well now? Maybe we have good talent, we have good experience in tech. We also have motivation because we know what's going on. know somebody in US or France maybe doesn't feel the urgency as much as we do. Are we in a good position to be on the forefront of innovation in defense tech?
Ragnar (21:00.264)
believe Baltics are in extremely good position on that and here's why. First of all, if you build something very valuable, we can very easily go to Ukraine, test this in combat. Because the key element of our solution is would they actually work in reality? What Ukraine war was having continuously proving that you can build something in US, it doesn't work. It just simply doesn't work. Like there was a switchblade drones.
which was working a little bit then was jammed and it took them like quite a long time to remove the challenge and come back. But you can do in politics that you build some solution, you find the partners in Ukraine, you drive it like I have done it 20 times driving from Thailand to Kiev. I know exactly how this works. You will arrive to Ukraine, you meet some partners, you get these hands of the soldiers and you have basically feedback in the next few days.
and you come back and build the next iteration, next iteration and so on. So this is the first, you can build amazing product and test it out. More importantly, we are small countries and our governments are very open to tech innovation. Like in Estonia, we have like, for example, Estonian Defense League, Latvia has similar, just different name, which is basically a volunteer military organization, which is exactly professionals who are working daily in the day job.
but they are ready to do weekends or even weekdays when the government decides to go to the military exercises and do the things. Those institutions are very vastly looking for any kind of solution which could help them. And then if you will get hands of the already military units, you can have actual roadmaps that you can sell your solution. Because one thing which is definitely extremely difficult for the user founders to understand, if you build product in SaaS, in software,
You just can sell next day. Like in Pipe Drive, it was easy. If someone likes us, he put credit card in, done. The fence is highly regulated area, highly regulated. You have like basic rules, have licenses, other things. And the sales cycle can be years. Luckily, I see head changes in Estonia. I heard also Latvia doing that, that government are more and more open and trying to be good partner because I know personally,
Ragnar (23:23.764)
startups who was not in defense before 24 February and today have already contracted with the Estonian army, which is super fast. That's why I believe that that's one of the unique things we have. So what we have done in Estonia, we had five defense tech meetups, which by the way is literally one of the biggest in Europe. Like we had in the last event again, 300 people from
10 different countries flying in for the event and we in New Year, we will rename this because Meetup is not anymore a correct name because it's like a mini conference and people who are building not only in Ukraine, but in Romania, in Spain, in UK coming to event pitching and you see also investors. So if anyone today is really like hardcore hacker and you are really like very much in the visa hardware because hardware is extremely difficult, then
you can really next 5 to 10 years being in the area which will be the fastest growing vertical installed ecosystem.
Uldis (24:32.196)
Yeah, I think Israel historical experience shows how it really works. To be under constant threat makes you develop the military industry, the tech industry, and then it brings up the whole tech ecosystem with it. I think it's realistic that we will follow that experience.
Ragnar (24:56.948)
Absolutely, I do not have one thing, know, as I am basically my, my boss is not only doing building Piper, but I genuinely, the best things I have ever done is hackathlons and one of the best hardware hackathlons we ever had was in Latvia, by the way. One of the mentors of this hardware hackathlons is building today Rocket. Super cool. Rocket basically, we should basically go and shut down the heads. So what we have done as well, we haven't talked about it much publicly, but I can share now is that.
So when more and more I looked in the spring, what is the biggest challenge in defense? I realized that indeed one of the things is funding. So now I have been basically talking with many of my good friends. So we are basically moving fast and we have a dude named Darkstar, which is coalition of the different founders. We have already basically, we are finalizing already a third investment, but more importantly, we have had two boot camps in Ukraine.
So what we have done is that we looked through like hundreds of applications. picked 12 companies, built secure environment in Ukraine, which obviously I cannot talk much. And the event is all about connecting very promising solutions with first of all, the best combat units from Ukraine, but also people who basically have been in defense for many.
reasons for the five, ten years. People who were colonels from different armies, people who worked exactly, for example, Milrem, Milrem is a defence company which made an exit, which is quite rare. So we have done this twice and it has been absolutely amazing results because for Ukraine, by the way, if you have a solution, you can sell it literally like that. Like Ukraine, if in
NATO usually, every country has one procurement agency, which basically is buying things for the army. In Ukraine, we can say they have 200 procurement offices. How? Because every brigade also can buy stuff. They see, they test, and here is the money. The same thing, there is NGOs like our Help99. There are many NGOs which are basically focusing to finding drones and everything around to the military.
Ragnar (27:24.944)
And yes, indeed, is central army, know, there is a national court and so on. So we have done this basically twice. are doing next basically somewhere in the spring. And the key element is really helping to speed it up because the people with me is people who build unicorns. And what we are looking is to find the most promising component, help them to scale. And there are two elements. First, this product will make impact in Ukraine.
But second, it helps our own countries. It will help Estonia, Latvia, Baltics, Finland, Nordics and so on. So this is what we have done. We will do next in spring, but also just very refreshing, which is you will literally heard it first time because I just had meetings yesterday. We will also run one defense tech high-end hackathon in Thailand, Estonia.
and we will work hard to get all of the people from Latvia, Lithuania and from Europe to this event. Because back in the days when we had Garage 48 events, the best events we had, people really traveled from other countries to do that. And after doing bootcamps in Ukraine, we definitely know how to build secure environments, how to build this specific thing when you have the best professionals, you have militaries, you have also government officials and so on.
which basically helping each other to basically tackle exactly specific challenges and come up with prototypes in just 48 hours. So we will have this in basically in January. We will announce this probably after two, after week or two publicly. But yeah, if you are following, if anyone want to know more, you can just find me LinkedIn. And if you will go through security check, we will share more.
Janis Zeps (29:13.299)
Mm-hmm.
Uldis (29:17.684)
Yeah, what you mentioned in a couple of ways made me think about personal security. You are so much out there, right? I'm imagining that you're a favorite of ex trolls, one of the favorites, and personal security must be something that is also top of your mind. How do you think about it, and maybe how should founders think about it when they start building here?
If they're not like, you know, ex military or somewhat military, who knows this stuff for themselves, but if they're just civilians putting themselves kind of on the radar. So how do you think about like personal security and these things?
Janis Zeps (30:01.613)
both online and offline actually because right it's...
Uldis (30:04.116)
Mmm.
Ragnar (30:06.334)
As you can see me, important point because again the first thing which everyone who will go to the fence have to realize that you need to immediately understand the threats. And yes, threats are two levels. You need to be really building very right systems, how you basically run your company regarding everything in internet, all of those things regarding cyber attacks and so on. You need to think through all of that world.
And yes, are also smart things about like physical threats. need to be also be frank here that luckily smaller countries tend to be way more secure as we know. But you need to be smart. Yeah. You need to think through that, you know, where is your office, how do things happening? This is some basic things that you need to accept. But same time, you know, important is that
In the beginning, if you're just building software, some radio turns and so on, it's not exactly which is the first thing that enemy has capability to follow and go. If you, someone want to build new tanks and that's absolutely also logic here. But we are not working on that field indeed. But you're right. I think that all of the threats regarding security have intensified in the last years. So.
I believe also that any company which helped to basically live on that securely has huge client base. But yeah, I think that this is what I have learned and this is what we also teach all of the founders and people who are involved. Like how to be smart on that, which is the ways how enemy is thinking about you, how you can do countermeasures, how you can be smart. You're right. Like if someone is really, really
Uldis (31:57.906)
you
Ragnar (32:04.58)
careful, all things could be great, but just, know, even smallest mistake, the weakest team member of your team can blow up your system. That's something, you know, like you need to be smart who you are working, how we are working. Some people really don't like that, you know, remote office and so on is way more difficult to run in the defense. Defense, face to face meetings is dominant, you know, and so on. But again,
I really believe that we will basically face quite challenging times till next few years. But at end of the day, many things that we built is not only for the army. It's just clear dual use things and so on. So I'm sure that you can be in defense without any challenges, but you need to be smart.
Janis Zeps (33:03.249)
One thing about the...
Uldis (33:03.666)
Yeah, like this Latvian drone producer, I think in 2022, their factory accidentally burned down. So yeah, it's something to really, really have top of mind, different level of security.
Janis Zeps (33:18.035)
of accidents happening. About the hackathons you mentioned, like actually, I was just thinking, if someone is good at hardware building, clear application motivation, that person can be useful. A lot of founders obviously are like non-technical founders. They have business skills, they have maybe product skills, they have other skills, organizational skills, they can run things, they can raise money. How can people who are not technical be of use in these hackathons and in these, you know,
Ragnar (33:46.725)
Mm-hmm.
Janis Zeps (33:47.003)
overall defense tech.
Ragnar (33:49.116)
You know, one thing that usual hacker or founder don't realize if you're entering the fence that legal side operations compliance is so much more important in defense. Because they can basically very helpful to understanding first of all, how to build relations, how to find where in the world are those events, where you need to go, where you need to basically look the grant system and so on.
In defense, you need to be way more creative how to get money because first is investors, but there are not too many of them. And if you want to survive, you need to basically use grants, you need to build systems. it's non-technical co-founders are very much needed and even more needed in defense and maybe in usual things, because it's not enough that you build a good product. There are so many things around it.
And you know, even in those like small, in the hackathlons also, it's not only showing the product, but building up, where is your plan, how you get this up and flying. That's a huge part of that. have seen that if you build up, because basically in defense, you need to build your sales system from day zero. You can, like frankly, people don't realize and believe me.
In Pytrub, we didn't have sales department for six, seven years. That's it. We just was building product, was focusing, making clients happy. But here it's different. You need to learn where is your key persons in different countries, who you talk, how you basically go to the event to event, talk with them, you know, go to the different defense meetups and so on. And it takes a huge amount of time.
traveling and doing it and so on. think the key element is really for the non-technical founders, how fast you can learn, understand and adapt to the government sale. And come on guys, this is definitely difficult. And also that, you know, the legal part is so important that if you don't comply with those rules, which is for the obvious reason here, you might not get like your contracts at all. Because governmental contracts are
Ragnar (36:10.799)
are different. You need to understand legal side. If you have some legal understanding, it's already good to talk with lawyers and stuff. Even opening bank account is different for the defense. I literally had yesterday meeting with one of the biggest bank because we partnered and we helped to understand. They're very, very interested, but they are struggling. that's why absolutely super high. know, politics is open for that.
Uldis (36:34.292)
High-risk business
Ragnar (36:40.351)
But think about those banks in Germany or Austria, who is just like, what is that? know, for the things which I didn't know before, every our car, if they arrive to Kiev, they receive two jammers against the fili drones. Jammers are regulated by the way. I was surprised because it's not basically attack weapon, but no.
Janis Zeps (36:58.336)
Hmm.
Ragnar (37:06.332)
Most of the countries regulated, which means you cannot even make a transfer for that if you don't have license.
Janis Zeps (37:13.375)
Well, yeah, we discussed a lot what to build, right? And another part of building is also, you know, the personal skills that will, you know, make you successful or not. And one thing we've spoken to quite a few companies from Ukraine in last two years, three years, and just the resilience and these just challenges these guys overcome and keep going is truly inspiring and just comparing to, you know, challenges and struggles and quotation marks that...
that sometimes we worry about in daily life. mean, we had one company where a founder was literally signing investment papers from a trench. It's truly inspiring. Maybe from your perspective, you've been on the ground a lot. What are some of the stories you have seen from Ukrainian companies in defense tech or other tech that they just keep going. They don't stop. They just keep doing their stuff.
Ragnar (38:07.952)
One of the founders I know, he basically built a beautiful P2P startup and ended up in the army. Super inspiring guy. He ended up in the army. He's focused for us like deputy commander on morale. And you know, he has been through with many, many stories and we're just sitting on them.
the Kiev and drinking coffee, know, and he just said, you know, this is just drinking coffee, but I know the price of that. What it means is just having sitting down and drinking the coffee. Maybe there are so many stories I have seen is how Ukraine founders starting to understand that what they built is not any more important for themselves, but they are fighting for Ukraine.
as entrepreneurs as well. Because they need to prove many founders exactly said you have your day. It's literally like in two parts. You build your product and you help Ukraine to win. That's it. And inspiring thing is that exactly said it's not only startups like somebody who builds even textile companies. Hey, sorry, it's not rocket attack. Give me a half hour. I will call you back.
And after half hour, rocket tech is over. Okay, now I'm here. So what do you want me to say? Okay, good. And, and this level of like at ability is really giving us the best type of entrepreneurs. Because if you survive that kind of environment, you probably survive also those ups and downs in the, in the, in the business life. Like for example, in, in, lift 99 Kiev.
2022 autumn we had 100 % basically our co-working was full. But what was the most crazy we didn't realize what services people wanted. It wasn't first stable electricity because we had generators, stable internet, we had starlings. But now goes to the most surprising part, shower.
Ragnar (40:31.774)
Because that moment Russia already started to attack basically infrastructure. And we had, you know, in Lyft, Kiev and Tift Island, we have showers. Because the point was you might whatever, just go to do some training or arrive from some, you know, travel and so on. And you just need to go and people use that. I was like, wow. But really, these people I have seen who really is still in Ukraine and building.
is truly the best people to work with. And that's why I am putting more more effort to that. Because you see that they work for something bigger. Say motivation is way stronger. And I believe that that's why I put my time only to Ukraine now because I believe that they deserve our help.
But from other side, in these last three years, the level of gratitude, which I have seen, I have never felt in my life. This is not only entrepreneurs, but you know, the soldiers, which all of the soldiers is by the way, humans like us, know, this war now has turned into the moments and the frontline people are not anymore like, like warriors, you know, because so many of them sadly has been
killed now. So the new, the brigades of today has more and more usual people who was like salespeople, programmers and so on. I keep coming back, I'm meeting them personally. And the level of gratitude I have seen is something which I would remember all my life. So because every of this human has some story and you listen and you're taking it with you. And this is
something which is changing, know, like yourself and also on the understanding about what is important in your life. Because you start to credit to the simple things. So that you have peaceful life, that you have this, that you can see your family and your family is healthy and so on. the one Ukraine founder I know, he's building basically a bionic hand and you know, unbelievable talented guy.
Ragnar (42:49.138)
And they see how much his product really save people lives. Like saving life has got real meaning. And you know, that's the thing I see. you know, every time I go, I just taking so many stories and you know, so many people just as from the soldier perspective, there was one, one soldier learned his first English, just to say thank you for us. His first?
words in English sentences was just how much he sank will what we have helped. And even more crazy one soldier learned Estonian.
I was like, my god. I was like, what? You know, like... I was like...
Uldis (43:33.492)
Okay. That's one of the easiest languages to learn, of course.
Janis Zeps (43:35.071)
Hmm.
Ragnar (43:40.356)
Yes, Tolkien used this as an inspiration for his book.
Janis Zeps (43:40.777)
you
Janis Zeps (43:47.573)
Wow.
Uldis (43:47.934)
Well, I guess that makes it full circle that you, after 40 minutes of talking, you actually answered the first question of why you're doing this. So I can imagine with such stories of gratitude, mean, like, how wouldn't you, right?
Ragnar (44:07.827)
Absolutely.
Janis Zeps (44:08.211)
Yeah, about the, to just conclude, what's your quick take on seeing things, talking to people on the ground? What will 2025 bring to us and the war? What Ukrainians themselves maybe feel or what you see is going to happen? A prediction of sorts, but you know, that's what all we can do, guess.
Ragnar (44:27.35)
I think first of all, it's extremely important that we are in the frontline. We need to change our society. think that politics need to think about the Israel model. need to think about... Because Israel, the biggest thing they have is that almost every person is in some way involved in army, as we know. So we need to think about how we have more and more... We are teaching people to drone operators and so on, how all of this...
volunteer military things can grow. The challenge that we are facing is that there so many unknowns, but I think that last week elections definitely is huge drinking pill for Europe. I see changes that, know, Nordics, Baltics, Poland, know, UK coming together to do. If we talk about things in Ukraine, every war as crazy as it is, it's mathematics. Mathematics start with finances, with humans and armor.
So the thing that we are really facing is that both sides will start to run out of assets in 2025. So my prediction is that there will be one moment less intense, like there will be some kind of like half piece by half because there is clearly not solution at first of all, Ukraine. There's no way that they can lose. first of all,
Russia still cannot also not to win indeed. What I see, what is the positive trends first of all is that Russia economy is showing very big problems. basically inflation is super high, the interest rate is now like you know more than 20. The things are getting worse, they're running out of money finally because Russia is trying to do selling the bonds, they can't.
So which means that all of this will intensify. We don't know how fast, but that's the first thing. Second of all, indeed, is that they do have still people, but they're running out of armor. Most importantly, Ukraine technological units are growing faster than Russians, which means that we definitely would see, I don't believe there will be any breakthrough from any side.
Ragnar (46:53.592)
There's always risks that Russia goes and finds some weak spot, will push it in. But I don't believe that overall the frontline will not collapse. But we will basically see that there will be some sort of like freezing conflict with less intensity, which means for the Baltics and Europe only one thing, that we have a little bit time to rebuild our armies. So which goes back to the topic of the founders is that
next five to 10 years will be the prime time to build the defense and have finally the possibility to do that because there will be more money, there will be more opportunities and governments open. But really, I believe that probably in the spring and autumn, there will be some sort of peace. The challenge of that, as we know, that there is some dependency on the US and the US is totally
No one knows what they do. But definitely I see many things lining up so that at least we will see less, less basically human lives will be lost in 2025 than this year. Because it's just the same intensity cannot go anymore. It just can't. Even Russia, know, just, but people don't realize in October, Russia saw the highest loss of human lives in this conflict.
Janis Zeps (48:20.426)
Ragnar (48:20.484)
So they are pushing heavily because they are pushing until Trump will be in office. And after that, there cannot be any easy peace, but there are openness to fleece the conflict probably from the both sides. But there is no way, like I have met people, there is no way Ukraine would never be ready to lose all of the territories which has been given. Where is the line? No one knows. But the fact is Ukraine society is ready.
to peace at longer, but at same time they're ready to do some sort of peace treaty. But it will not solve the older conflict, which again leads to that we need to help our governments to build. So it's time for the building.
Janis Zeps (49:07.059)
Yeah, well, time, exactly.
Uldis (49:08.446)
Sounds like good words to conclude with.
Janis Zeps (49:12.533)
I wish people in the positions would listen, but that's the thing. The time we have, we have squandered a lot as Europe, so let's hopefully use the rest.
We have. Thanks, Ragnar. Awesome conversation. think the insights and the depth of it and also the human side of it. Very many practical things as well. Actually, we discussed more than I even intentionally intended. But if you're thinking what to do next or you're thinking how to apply the knowledge, very encouraging words also for non-technical founders. It's not that you need to be a drone engineer. You can do a lot of things as well, as we heard, as a sales business founder. So that's also super encouraging. Yeah. Awesome conversation and thanks a lot for finding that.
today.
Ragnar (49:54.841)
Amazing. I'm really, you know, I have always had very great network in Latvia and really hoping to get more connection even in that field because we can be successful only if we cooperate more. And that's why I think that we are, it can be more inspiring, motivating solution as we have now to be stronger together.
Janis Zeps (50:12.841)
Wow. Exactly. Alright. See you. See you guys. Bye.
Uldis (50:17.192)
Alright guys, thank you very much.
Ragnar (50:20.845)
Thank you.
Uldis (50:20.978)
Bye.
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