Ep 191: Agris Kipurs
“Hard Problems Remain Hard Whether It’s War or Peacetime”: CEO Who Raised $4M Pre-Seed Shares His Learnings as a 2nd-Time Founder, Securing Government Grants & Thoughts on Recent UFO Sightings
Agris Kipurs is the Co-Founder and CEO of Origin Robotics, a pioneering defense tech startup specializing in autonomous drone systems for precision strikes in challenging environments. The company recently raised a 4mEUR pre-seed round led by Change Ventures and featuring support from the EU and the Latvian Ministry of Defense. Agris was also a co-founder of Airdog, the first commercial application drone to fly without remote control which was exited to Alarm.com.
On this episode we talk about:
The Evolution of Drone Technology
Building a Defense Tech Startup
The Role of Reputation in Defense Tech
Navigating Funding in Defense
Lessons from Ukraine’s Defense Innovations
We are on YouTube and Linkedin as well
Watch select full-length episodes on our YouTube channel > https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCP6ueaLnjS-CQfrMCm2EoTA
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Read the full episode transcript below
Janis Zeps (00:03.224)
Hello friends, we're back with another episode of Pursuit of Scrappiness podcast. First in the year of our Lord 2025. We're building a business, running a team, we're just starting out in your career. We're here to bring you scrappy and actionable insights to you become more productive. My name is Janis Zeps as always and still in this year, Uldis Teraudkalns with me, Lord, in the year of our Lord.
Uldis (00:21.822)
Lord, Uldis Teraudkalns.
Janis Zeps (00:26.636)
All right, before we start, reminder, follow us on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Nothing has changed. It still helps more than you know. And in exchange for that, you get access to our catalog of 190 episodes there covering all sorts of topics you need to become scrappier and better version of yourself in life and business and relationship and wherever you want. Plenty to explore if this is first episode. Scroll back and every Tuesday when we come out, you will be the first one to know when the new episode drops. So open Spotify and Apple Podcasts and click the follow button.
All right, well, New Year seems to be a suitable time for reflection and preparing for this episode, I did a bit of a look back at our catalog. One thing that struck me was that, and I never thought that when we started in 2021 already, that I never thought that the topic of defense tech will be a regular feature in a business and entrepreneurship podcast, but yet here we are and that's the reality of our day. Billions are being invested into funding defense tech companies, latest technologies in the space.
most brilliant minds in this sector. just from a purely business perspective, if you're an ambitious entrepreneur or an entrepreneurially minded professional or looking for how to expand in your career, this makes this sector interesting for almost everyone to just know what's going on and be aware of career opportunities in this space as well.
Also, especially because we learned from one of previous guests, Ragnar Sass, just end of last year, this sector needs not only technical minds, inventors and hardcore engineers, but also business people to drive sales and operations. So anyone who's listening could potentially find something interesting. But yeah, we have experts to talk to this topic and I'll stop there and introduce our today's guest. We're very happy to have today with us Agris Kipurs, CEO and co-founder of Origin Robotics. Hey.
Agris (02:16.397)
Hi guys, yeah, happy to be on.
Janis Zeps (02:19.502)
Awesome. In one sentence, Origin Robotics is a dev tech startup. They just secured 4 million euro funding at the end of 2024. Most of it came from private investors, however, also some part of it came from grants and state funding. We'll also discuss how potential to access these type of funds in the episode. August is a veteran in the space of drone technologies. He previously co-founded and exited one of the most known Latin tech stories, AirDog. I'm sure a lot of you have heard of it as well.
Today, we wanna answer such questions as how different and difficult is it to build a business in Defense Tech? Maybe what entrepreneurs need to know about security online and offline? What practical steps also entrepreneurs must go through to get grant or state funding? How realistic and easy or hard that is? Also, what does building Defense Tech put some kind of different pressures on the entrepreneur just in terms of workload and psychologically and of course a bit of.
also extraordinary development of drones in recent years and the capabilities that might actually surprise you. So if you like DevTech overall, scroll back to some of the episodes. We spoke to Ragnar Sass in episode 188, Swedish investor, Matthias Eklof, who lives in Ukraine in episode 183 about these topics. We talked to former Deputy Defense Minister of Lithuania, who is now VC in Defense Tech, Edvinas Kerza, 158, and actually more more episodes in
just in 2024. So yeah, if you are interested after today's conversation, scroll back our feed. But now let's dive into today's topic. To warm up, actually wanted to ask, drones have developed so, it seems they have developed so much in the last three years. Somebody who's not following the industry actively, what are the most extraordinary applications of drones you have seen in recent six months coming up or recent year or something that people don't even know about that the drones can do?
Agris (04:14.911)
Right, well I think on this one I will take a bit probably an unconventional approach, opinion. I think that you know if we are discussing small unmanned aerial systems, we sometimes call them drones, I prefer to call them unmanned systems, then I think that actually we saw more
Janis Zeps (04:39.288)
Mm-hmm.
Agris (04:42.826)
in terms of innovation or the pace of innovation was even faster back in 2013 to 2017-18. That is when the consumer drone space really took off because up to that point what we saw is that these type of systems were predominantly used for defense tech applications or very niche, very
very application driven industrial applications. With the consumer drone space evolving, we saw capabilities of these rather cheap and available systems just evolve at an unbelievable pace. If you look at the first
camera drones that were shipped to the consumer market in 2013 and then compare it to the capabilities of current technology, it's mind blowing. It's almost hard to believe that you can cover that much ground in 10 years. But that did happen to that industry. And what then that has led to, it has led to these systems actually
finding its way to the battlefield and proving extremely capable on the battlefield and proving that something that was not even originally built and designed for the battlefield can be successfully deployed there and play a very substantial role in the war in Ukraine. And that is, think, what is
what is the surprising part of it. But in terms of innovation as such, I think that there was more in terms of innovation during that period, 2013 to 2017, 18, than we have actually seen during the last three, two years.
Agris (07:00.397)
we have seen obviously on the battlefield is lots of tactics, lots of hacking, lots of very creative minds out of necessity, finding ways how to accomplish astonishing things with very little.
But in terms of innovation, would not say that this has been the most fruitful period for this particular sector, small ornament systems.
Uldis (07:36.457)
But it's interesting this kind of cyclical dual use because we're used to, you know, that military develops something and then we find some kind of application in civil and are happy. And now it's like started with military, then went to civil and now going back to military. so.
Agris (07:39.683)
All right.
Janis Zeps (07:51.05)
military asks again, hey, we need our technology back.
Agris (07:53.764)
Right, right. Yes, this is an interesting one to be a part of actually. I'm kind of following the path, know, because with Airdog we were in the consumer drone space and we were among the companies that truly pushed the boundaries of what's possible in that industry. Airdog was the first consumer drone.
Uldis (07:54.152)
You
Agris (08:15.479)
that no longer required the NRC controller to pilot it. Airdog was flying autonomously. We were autonomously tracking the user itself and the user itself was not really controlling it. The user was wearing a wearable device and that's how we predicted its motion basically. yeah, I was part of that and now I'm part of bringing some of that to the defense tech and
building for military applications.
Uldis (08:49.876)
I guess it has also significantly widened the recruitment possibilities in the as probably a lot of guys that previously would never make it that were mostly doing video games of military can now be sometimes more valuable than, you know, super fit top level, you know, battle combatants, right?
Agris (09:14.711)
Fortunately and unfortunately of course, but it is the case. Drone pilots are of extreme value and unfortunately, I guess on the battlefield probably also a very valuable target for the adversaries. The adversaries absolutely recognize the value of a drone pilot and sometimes unfortunately they are the primary targets.
Janis Zeps (09:44.473)
Yeah, I think it was one of the conversations maybe even we had on the podcast or maybe I spoke to someone else, but it's like, they're so valuable. They can do so much damage. You can justify, I know throwing a lot more expensive missiles at them and so on. If you're just a single guy hiding in the bush, nobody would like fire you an expensive missile at you while a drone team is different. yeah, I think it's a good distinction you made that innovation.
Agris (09:45.185)
Thank
Agris (10:03.651)
Right.
Janis Zeps (10:10.21)
The technology was there, but the war is almost like a real-life hackathon where people are finding out applications from this technology and accelerates this so fast.
Agris (10:19.283)
Exactly. So one more bit on this one. I just wanted to maybe elaborate a bit more on this, because I think something that is maybe missed in the public domain is that hard problems remain to be hard irrespective of the situation.
it being a war or it being a peacetime. The really hard problems still require substantial amount of resources, require substantial amount of very focused and dedicated work and very skilled, knowledgeable people working on the problem. You don't really...
Well, the motivation obviously helps. If you really, really need a solution, it helps. It helps you move faster, it helps you invest more hours than you would probably invest on an average week. But that doesn't necessarily...
reduce the number of total hours that you need to invest in one problem before you have a solution. So the hard problems in the drone space are kind of still out there. I don't think that we can really say that in the drone space, meaning small unmanned systems, that during the past three years we have seen something groundbreaking or a substantial
breakthrough in terms of capabilities. The things that were hard or almost impossible to solve three years ago are still hard and people are still trying to figure those out. So that has not changed. True innovation is a tough one.
Janis Zeps (12:22.806)
On this one, we know there's more funding in Defense Tech. We know there are more companies. There's more demand. There's a real life testing opportunities, obviously, as well on the battlefield. And there are more more people going in there. Let's say somebody, entrepreneurial person,
has built some business or tried to build some business or want to build some business goes in there with experience from a classical like B2B SaaS or B2C sector. What do you think will surprise that person most when you start building his company or her company in defense tech? Any kind of challenges? what, I know maybe not an easy question, but what do you think would be, would stand out for that person?
Agris (13:05.933)
Well, what surprised me is that it's actually not that much different. That surprised me, because I was expecting that this is somehow a very different world, when in fact it's not that different. You still do the same things you do in any other tech business, you you still try to identify the pain points of your users.
still try to figure out you know what's the minimum viable product that you want to go to market with. You still try to make sure that the customer is happy. You still try to identify you know who are the early adopters of your product. You know who are the ones that are willing to kind of make that bet on you ahead of everyone else.
And that is what you do in any other business. So from that point of view, it's not that much different. What is different? It is very reputation dependent. So in most other sectors, you probably don't have that...
to that extent in military, in defense, you kind of have to earn the reputation first. And once you have earned it, you know, only then you really get a chance to actually sell something. So you have to be patient. You have to have the resources to buy time.
And you have to figure out what are the things along the way that you can do to gain that reputation. And therefore, starting in a smaller country, in a small democracy, to some extent is an advantage because it's less competition.
Agris (15:19.787)
you get to be close with the end users and they are certainly willing to see locals succeed. They want their capabilities to be dependent on local suppliers as much as possible because this has very real implications in case of any conflict.
So yeah, that is I guess my answer to your question, if that makes sense.
Janis Zeps (15:55.471)
And also reputation, I guess, and this is, think, one of the previous conversations I'm referring to, but there is also some bit of, not like a background check, but meaning like there are some disqualifying things in your past career that could also probably prevent you to, I guess, accessing certain funding or, I mean, you can build in defense, like if you fund yourself, guess, but like accessing certain contracts or funding, is this also a case?
Agris (16:19.723)
Yes, for sure. Criminal convictions is a no-go. I don't think that you can get past that in this industry. Pretty much any trouble with law, any serious trouble with law if you have had in your past, unfortunately, that might limit your ability to be as successful as you could be otherwise.
Uldis (16:48.211)
I guess goes for many things.
Agris (16:50.755)
for many things, yeah, indeed.
Janis Zeps (16:52.879)
You can start breaking the law after you're successful, after you're in Forbes, then, you know, but not before.
Agris (16:56.042)
Exactly, yeah. Yes. Then you start smoking weed on podcasts and do all sorts of stuff like that.
Uldis (16:56.95)
That's the... that's the...
Janis Zeps (17:02.99)
But not before. exactly. There are accepted ways and not accepted ways. And another thing, I I guess we don't talk about it often, but like just, of course, building a business puts enormous stress on the founder. There's plenty of problems anyway without thinking about...
Uldis (17:04.105)
That's the socially accepted way.
Janis Zeps (17:22.69)
Look, you every day you have to think how to meet the payroll, how to build the product, how to deliver, how to, you know, make sure things work. And then defense tech. And I was thinking, you know, there are, you are making potentially an actual impact on the battlefield. And maybe when you already have the technology, somebody is actually relying on you to, for it to run and actually, you know, bugs are not, you know, it's not like a website crashed for a few seconds. Have you, it's.
Uldis (17:47.219)
matter of life and death, literally.
Janis Zeps (17:50.122)
It's exactly like in the business we use this matter of life and death very figuratively, here it seems like... Do you feel that as well or it's a bit exaggerated?
Agris (17:54.979)
Yeah.
Agris (18:00.227)
I do feel that of course and when you think about it you know there are pluses and minuses to that the minuses are the ones that you are probably thinking of when asking that question you know it's just adds to the overall
level of stress and pressure that you experience. But the pluses are that the team is experiencing that as well. I have to move a bit so my lights come back on. The team is feeling that as well, which means that the team is even more motivated than it is an average startup. So everyone is putting their best foot forward and
doing the best that they can and that is probably the reason why we have been able to grow so fast and gain traction in rather still complicated industry so rapidly.
Uldis (19:07.027)
I guess in these circumstances you don't need to spend too much time thinking about the company's mission and motivating people to follow it. I guess it's kind of self-explanatory.
Agris (19:14.071)
You
Agris (19:18.403)
Yeah, you don't necessarily have to talk about it that much.
Uldis (19:24.041)
But what's traction kind of in your case? We haven't really spoken about in detail, like what you do and what stage you are at. I guess from your comment about local country, you can understand that currently mostly targeting local government or military or what traction are we talking about?
Agris (19:31.139)
that.
Agris (19:46.551)
Yeah, not only we build and...
our products across the NATO more specifically Europe Europe is where we are focused on right now we have substantial sales at this point already we are selling our systems to a few countries Latvia is among them Latvia
played an instrumental role in what we do and why we have been able to grow as fast as we have and yeah Latvia has placed a substantial order for our systems and count on us
you know that helps to have that backbone. It's a great stepping stone for us to be successful in other markets as well where we are starting to deliver first systems and things are things are going really
Uldis (21:03.285)
The kind of model is that you basically get kind of similar to like Boeing or Airbus that you get like some kind of contract for X period of time X amount and then you have to deliver on it. It's not like you're basically selling your systems off the shelf, right?
Agris (21:20.643)
Actually, no, we are selling our systems off the shelf and that is what we do differently. We don't try to lure governments into long-term development contracts and then build the most complex and most sophisticated piece of technology that we can envision. We actually invest our own money, our own capital to build the
Uldis (21:24.672)
that's nice.
Agris (21:49.806)
the systems and then when we are ready we approach the end user and we give them something that they can immediately start procuring and start deploying. So that is what allows us to gain base. That is what allows us also to
keep up with the pace of innovation that is out there.
proof stuff.
Uldis (22:24.689)
and also makes you much more similar to consumer business.
Agris (22:28.811)
Yes, yes, exactly.
Janis Zeps (22:32.834)
There could be some lessons maybe also in the way you sell and position yourselves to other businesses who operate in crowded market. Like my impression, could be wrong, is that there are a lot of now drone type of manufacturers. And obviously people who know and who are buying those, they know the details and everything, but you must have had some kind of thinking of how do we position ourselves and how do we stand out. Can you talk about that a bit?
Agris (22:58.692)
Sure, whenever there is demand there is also supply, right?
And with drones, the thing is that drones come in all sorts of sizes and shapes, right? The capabilities, but really matters. And there are systems where the technology barrier is rather low and that's where, you know, it's very, very crowded. But then there are more capable systems, systems with very specific capabilities.
where it's actually not that crowded. And that's where we operate. We don't go after the low hanging fruits in terms of technological challenges. We leave that to others to do. And that's how we, guess, go about it. We allow opportunities to go by.
try to jump on every one of them. We do what we believe in and that's where we invest and that's where we are successful because the more capable systems are extremely hard to do right and it requires experience and that experience comes with years and we fortunately
have those years of experience building very advanced autonomous systems.
Uldis (24:37.365)
What do you mean by these more advanced capabilities?
Agris (24:42.755)
In our case it's about delivering precision strikes, targets on ground.
So precision strike is basically what we do. And precision strike in very challenging environments, in very challenging conditions. So that's what we really focus on. And those are the type of problems that we solve.
Uldis (25:14.879)
Can it be used for air defense? You mentioned that it's in the air.
Agris (25:18.049)
Yes, we work towards that as well.
Janis Zeps (25:21.39)
Quick quick question. What's precision actually in drones today? you you can if I have a laptop standing on the ground somewhere in a field kilometers away can you bomb that on a laptop size kind of target or or what's the precision overall?
Uldis (25:22.035)
Very important.
Agris (25:23.661)
Very important.
Agris (25:43.171)
Well, with certain type of technology you can do that. Obviously not with the more...
used type of systems. And then again, know, it always what is always of importance is that, you know, what's the type of environment that you are facing. You you probably hear a lot about jamming, you know, what type of jamming. Jamming also comes in all sorts of sizes and shapes, you know, there is no one jammer. It's a lot.
So those specifics are of great importance, the terrain is of great importance. So the devil is always in details with these type of things and there is no one answer to your question.
Janis Zeps (26:37.983)
Okay, I keep digressing, but actually you're in the industry. There's a lot of now in the recent year or so, these flying objects that come up and like, you know, in the media is like, what is this? And in America, they had like some things flying and people sending in.
Agris (26:41.891)
Thank
Uldis (26:55.593)
The Jersey drones, you mean.
Janis Zeps (26:57.071)
Sure is it? There's more even. And I'm just thinking, do you look at it and say, yeah, that's a drone? Or maybe you don't follow it, but any kind of opinions of those?
Agris (27:09.943)
Well, no, obviously, you I look at that as well and I do ask the same questions that I guess many are asking. I have my kind of assumptions, you know, what that is that I'm looking at. yeah, it's all obviously, you know, in general, quite worrying. And I think that we will have to very seriously...
Also here locally, in Baltics, we will have to very seriously look at drone regulations.
Agris (27:49.11)
is outdated. think we have to take measures. I think we are past the days when you would just go out on the street and launch your system near populated areas or near infrastructure that is actually of rather great importance to the country.
I think that you will still be fine to fly it in rural areas and capture the beautiful nature of Latvia. But other than that, I think we have to be very mindful of the capabilities of these rather cheap, broadly available systems and the damage that they can...
Yeah, our regulators, I think, have to step up and be very, very mindful of those risks because I don't think that those risks are...
zero.
Uldis (28:53.962)
Yeah, someone who doesn't really do drones. My opinion is like, for example, this recent airport incident. mean, just shoot them down like always. I mean, what's the worst that can happen? Like 500 euro damage. like.
Janis Zeps (28:54.135)
Yeah.
Agris (29:03.064)
Well.
Agris (29:10.955)
Yes, people have to be punished for that type of reckless, irresponsible behavior. I don't know what's behind it, but the matter of the fact is that I think we have to be very serious about these type of incidents and somebody will have to be severely punished for the rest of the society to learn that this is no joke.
Janis Zeps (29:37.167)
airport especially. mean, like this is like just something bad waiting to happen when I hear about these cases and you can't, you know, not think that like Russia as they do these activities, I mean, like it could be so easy for them to cause trouble, right? But even like in civilian, I just now remember like two years ago where I live in Berlin, I had a like drone flying at my windows, I think seventh or sixth floor we are on.
Agris (29:51.351)
Yeah.
Janis Zeps (30:02.638)
And I know a guy who had the same, like just basically somebody like just, you know, flying, checking out the apartments basically. And there was even a phone, Berlin police, I called them, reported the case and they asked a few questions. Apparently that happens and it's kinda, you kind of, fly it around, check out if you have some kind of dinosaur egg in the apartment and it's maybe worth breaking in all this case. Like it comes into daily life already and yeah.
About the funding, everybody who is listening, maybe you can talk about, you secure some funding from the state and some grants. How does it happen practically? What does an entrepreneur have to do? Was it easier than you thought, harder than you thought? What do you have to comply with? Would you suggest other entrepreneurs to look for this type of funding?
Uldis (30:54.616)
whose brother-in-law you have to be.
Janis Zeps (30:56.728)
Yeah.
Agris (30:56.79)
Right, right. Well, raising funds, irrespective, I think, of the business that you are in, is among the toughest challenges in the startup journey, right? It's always a project. It takes time, it takes effort, it takes very focused effort. In defense tech, there's actually not that much money out there in Europe.
funds, the VC funds, institutional investors that say that they are interested in this space are not necessarily really making investments or making them only in dual use type of systems. And then when it comes to lethal technology, most will not touch it still for many reasons.
We do see that changing. We do see that there are new funds being established and starting their operations. And then existing investors raising new funds to be able to invest in TrueMillTech are also emerging, but that is still very new and that is still to come up.
become a reality. for now you are limited in Europe with not that many institutional investors and then mostly you would have to rely on your network.
the ability to raise from people that actually know you or are willing to speak highly of you and make very, very warm introductions. And that's what we do and we did. And that's why, you know, I think it is still hard to be a first time entrepreneur and do a defense tech startup.
Agris (33:08.737)
I think your chances are way greater if you have been around and if this is not your first rodeo. If that is the case, then I think your chances of successfully raising around are substantially higher than it is with first time founders. And you also need to raise quite a bit to buy yourself time. Probably great if you can invest a bit of your own money.
show that early interaction, you know, just based on what you were able to invest yourself.
Janis Zeps (33:46.787)
Yeah, it sounds like with all this, you know, we talked about reputation, we talked about this. There is some form of entry barrier, obviously, in the fendstack. It sounds like that is a bit higher than probably in consumer space, right?
Agris (33:59.744)
Yes, I would still say that it is the case.
Janis Zeps (34:04.206)
Which again, if you're in, good for the business, but you have to get in. I wanted to ask, one thing also in previous DevTech conversations that came up is just, and we don't have to go into deep conspiracies, but just basic security online and offline for a startup, for a founder. And I'm just thinking that everybody who's building anything is probably...
Uldis (34:21.458)
you
Janis Zeps (34:31.562)
not thinking about security enough, online especially, any steps you as a DevTek founder take to be secure, like I said, online and offline.
Agris (34:45.036)
Yeah, well, I'm not sure it's wise to talk about, you know, specifics here and what exactly we do. We obviously do recognize that, you know, this industry is a bit different and that, you know, scrappiness is great. But then at the same time, there are certain risks involved. And yeah, we take that certainly.
Uldis (35:01.621)
you
Agris (35:11.221)
more seriously than we would if we were in some other industry and that is true.
Janis Zeps (35:22.008)
So the message, guess, like it's maybe you can say like, if somebody is just building a B2C, some kind of online business, would that person need to think about some kind of, is there anything like these people are underestimating from what you know in your position?
Agris (35:31.361)
Yeah.
Agris (35:44.554)
Yeah, don't, to be fair, I don't think that, you know, I have any any deep insights on this one. I think that we are always underestimating these type of risks. I think that goes kind of without without saying it's just so easy to kind of write that problem off and and devote, you know, the effort towards
kind of more important things. think, you know, what you said is very true. You know, we always underestimate that risk. And the reality is that, especially in this part of the world, I think that, you know, we no longer can afford to do that. So you take your online security, you know, rather seriously and you reach out, you and you work out.
folks that know their craft and that know how to keep your household maintained.
Janis Zeps (36:49.903)
All right, and one thing that you think could help us elaborate more as you said, it's not your first rodeo and you've been very many years in the space and building your second company. Obviously it gave you this expertise in drone area, but outside that, just as an entrepreneur, as CEO, what are the lessons that you use now for your second company?
that are super valuable for you, but maybe as a first time founder, you didn't know those things.
Agris (37:24.451)
I think one thing that we certainly do when we design the products that we are working on, we don't try to do too much. In my previous business I feel like at times we were just trying to do too much, innovate on too many kind of front lines simultaneously.
So you have to really know the end user. You really have to know, you know, which are the real pain points worth solving and what's the minimum actually you can do to still make that sale happen. And that's with the first products is all you want. You actually don't want more. want to sell.
as soon as possible. You to have that revenue in, you want to build that relationship, you want that product with the end user and you go from there. And that is I think something that we are very mindful of and that we constantly go back to and kind of reassess and challenge ourselves a bit.
daily basis, know, if we still feel good about, you know, what we do from that perspective, you are we not trying to do just a bit too much? So it's not a clear cut, you know, it's always a debate, you know, it's for every developer, for every builder, you know, you have that debate internally.
But you have to push for, really push for the minimum viable product. And I think that to some extent, and now we are again doing it, we are going back to the Ukraine story, but if you truly want to learn and understand the concept of minimum viable product, just go to Ukraine and see what they are.
Agris (39:39.886)
doing and what they are building and what they are deploying on the battlefield with success. And those are the true minimum viable product type solutions. And I think from that perspective, it would actually be advantageous to every founder to make that trip because that really puts things in perspective in terms of understanding what the minimum viable product is. To the extreme,
But I think it's a valuable thing to investigate.
Janis Zeps (40:15.786)
Yeah, good you touched this because like MVP is a term any company will use and stands for for minimum minimal is easy. Why? Yeah, the question question about V and maybe you have some kind of frameworks exactly to say like what is
Uldis (40:28.42)
Range range 0 to 100 of M
Janis Zeps (40:39.362)
How do you estimate what is the minimum, actually the viable thing that will allow you to test the idea? For example, maybe you're going like super drastic and cutting things and then seeing you cut too much or is there any kind of framework in this area you use?
Agris (40:55.01)
Well, there are concepts and there are products. With concepts you basically just try to prove to yourself that it's even possible and that it's even of interest. But then the product itself is the product that can actually sell.
We, in my mind, is the product that can actually convince the end user to spend the dollars. So that, to me, is we. That's how I think about it. I don't have any other more sophisticated metric than that, so I'm going to keep it simple there.
Janis Zeps (41:39.791)
Good one, good one, so like exactly the way you, you how you think about it. And one more thing on just as a founder to be productive and you know, you have to come up with complex solutions and concepts. Any kind of methods you use in your daily work just to protect your, yeah, your productivity because what happens, and we just discussed you have a busy office, people running around, dragging you into meetings, you answering emails, anything you have found in your journey.
with your second company now, what do do to...
Agris (42:12.003)
Yeah, I'm still... Yeah, thanks. I'm still looking for that, you know. That is something that bugs my mind on a daily basis, you know, the productivity of teams and how we work on the projects that we are involved in. And how do we, you know, move resources, engineering resources from one project to another? How do we not lose focus? How do we, you know...
make sure that we still work on the highest priority topics. It's a hustle. I'm open to all sorts of advice and help here. I don't think that I have figured that part out myself or that we have figured it out. what we do in Origin is we empower, are...
our team in the sense that we would have project owners for every little project that is out there and we would let them...
teams and from the process and talk to other project owners and find ways how they can be productive with their own project but then also satisfy the needs of other project leads and that is what we see.
kind of working for us, not without challenges, but that has certainly worked for us better than having one person or a couple of guys running the entire thing and everyone else just delivering. So we try to put engineers in a position where they actually have a say on how that...
Agris (44:17.155)
moves forward and that seems to motivate and it seems to give them that good feeling of accomplishment when...
things are things are done even even to a larger extent than it is when when they are just contributors in a project so we're trying to put almost everyone at some point during the development journey in a position where where they have a little project to run and manage
Janis Zeps (44:56.491)
Mm-hmm. Well, I mean, a lot of insights, I think, whether you are in defense tech or not. Just in your previous question you mentioned, like when we talked, you said, like, a good lesson was going to Ukraine and seeing things there. Is it even a theoretical possibility for founders to somehow...
in a capacity where they are not like tourists, but where they're like maybe helping something, but where they kind of get, you know, like on a fair basis, not just to go and watch obviously, but is it even theoretically possible to do this?
Agris (45:31.096)
Yeah, it's a bit hard obviously, you know, with the circumstances, but there are initiatives, you know, if you are a startup founder, you know, there are still startup hubs and communities in Kiev and in Ukraine that, you know, are operational, you know, that you can probably get in touch with and see if, you know, they can help you with whatever.
needs are. If you are in defense tech obviously it's quite a bit easier. There are initiatives like know Ragnar probably told you about the defense, now the Darkstar initiative which basically does exactly that you know it gives you that access to that direct feedback from the battlefield for whatever you are building and for defense tech startups it's quite
Janis Zeps (46:13.996)
Hmm.
Agris (46:30.551)
quite straightforward, but for everyone else, yeah, you would have to find a way how to...
Janis Zeps (46:38.22)
Alright, August, awesome insights and thanks for sharing them with us. Thanks for building these technologies and yeah, to the listeners, we will be back and you'll hear from us very soon again.
Agris (46:53.473)
Yeah, thank you guys. Thank you, Janus. this.
Uldis (46:56.287)
Thank you, bye.
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