00:10:38 · Olaf Hichwa, Ty Morse
Archer AI gets around that because once you, you know, once you know... You find your target from up high, you could tell the drone to go strike even if it doesn't have communications back to the user, so you can dip below that radio horizon. But these kinds of kind of decisions on what we build are always really informed by what the user really needs and really works. They're not often informed by like what, you know, certain folks in the government that maybe don't understand the users really well want in a demo, or what Congress wants in in something. We're we're much more focused on just like build something that works for the users, and then let the users be your salespeople. [00:11:18] S0: Okay. This was actually something that you talked about earlier. You don't necessarily want to listen to government because the government doesn't know what to build. Yeah. How do you how do you build something you sell to government when the government doesn't know what it wants [00:11:30] S1: to buy? We want to build something that the users really, really, really want. And of course, like, it is a massive generalization to say the government doesn't know anything about what they want. There are exceptions to this rule, but generally... [00:11:46] S0: They're like directionally correct?
00:11:48 · Olaf Hichwa
[00:11:48] S1: They're well intentioned. They're well intentioned. I'll say that. Yeah. Very well intentioned. And there are smart people in the government that are directionally and actually correct. We find it most useful to do the digging ourselves. We we go to Ukraine. We meet with users. We reach out to users. We respond to every customer support ticket very publicly. We have feedback sessions every month with that team. And then we tell the government what they want whenever they'll listen to us. And we'll say like, hey, this worked in Ukraine. This is going to be deployed in Ukraine. This is already working in Ukraine. Here is our library of videos of the system working in Ukraine. You know, we have hundreds and hundreds of successful missions flown on Archer today. There's very few companies that can say that. I'm not aware of another defense tech startup that can say that period, at least at this this magnitude. So our people in the government listen to that. They go, oh, well, they did the user study. You know, don't trust don't trust, you know, any one company. Go talk to the Ukrainian users. We'll make an introduction. And the Ukrainian users will be like, yeah, check it out. I'll show you my video of of this thing working. And the government, the smart people in the government will like, maybe that holds some weight. Maybe we should set the requirements around what they're talking about and allow for some open competition from there. So I I'd say folks are really well intentioned. They just might not have the resources to run like the user studies that we run and the the trials that we run.
00:13:08 · Ty Morse, Olaf Hichwa
[00:13:08] S0: When you first started the company, you and Soren built like 30 drones then just literally put them in your backpack and went to Ukraine? Samsonite. [00:13:14] S1: Yes. The American Tourister. [00:13:16] S0: Okay. Samsonite. The cream of the crop. With this sort of like with launching a new product after you've already built a brand and built a reputation, and you also have the credibility to say like this thing will work, is there a different decision process for launching the product if you're gonna do something completely new? [00:13:31] S1: Totally. I think we've built a brand of products working and that brand can come down just as fast as it comes up. Right? Like we only have to have like one bullshit demo product for users to no longer trust us. People's lives are at stake with this thing and and with with products like this. So we have to be a little more careful maybe than just like, hey, let's try it. We also have to be a little more intentional in what we're doing with a product. You know, we'll we'll have user groups that we're really close with and we really trust, and we'll be like, you know, don't we know if this thing's gonna work. We don't know if this is a good idea yet, but let's give it a shot. Let me get your input. We we take that input very seriously before we, you know, go public with something like Archer AI.
00:13:31 · Olaf Hichwa, Ty Morse
[00:13:31] S1: Totally. I think we've built a brand of products working and that brand can come down just as fast as it comes up. Right? Like we only have to have like one bullshit demo product for users to no longer trust us. People's lives are at stake with this thing and and with with products like this. So we have to be a little more careful maybe than just like, hey, let's try it. We also have to be a little more intentional in what we're doing with a product. You know, we'll we'll have user groups that we're really close with and we really trust, and we'll be like, you know, don't we know if this thing's gonna work. We don't know if this is a good idea yet, but let's give it a shot. Let me get your input. We we take that input very seriously before we, you know, go public with something like Archer AI. [00:14:14] S0: So there's this idea of like focus. Yeah. Right? And it's very easy to get distracted and work on like multiple things before you're ready. How'd you decide now is the time to start building multiple products in parallel? That's a good question.
00:14:27 · Olaf Hichwa
[00:14:27] S1: I think you need to kind of earn your right to to take the distraction. I feel like Archer is finally on a path to a million drones where it seems plausible. You know, we're, like I said, building thousand plus per week right now. By the end of the year, we'll be doing a 130,000 a year run rate. And we've got great plans for next year and the year after. We have some preliminary designs on that million drone line. It feels like we're ready for our... Archer is is set up to really hit its stride where we can actually start spending a little bit of our our company bandwidth, our our brain power on some other innovative products like Archer AI. I think that it's it's kind of a necessity to offer multiple products because not every Battlefield solution can be solved by one product. You know, it has to go back to what are we doing so America can credibly maintain its position at the top of the world, you know, stage in in deterring conflict. In saying, you know, don't fuck with us because we have the largest, most powerful military in the world and we're going to maintain peace. If you don't want to maintain that peace, if you don't want to maintain PAX America, we have something to say about it and something to do about it. We want to be able to maintain that position, and I don't think America will be able to maintain that position as well if if Neros just builds one product, if we just build the Archer, regular variant. I think America needs small low cost attract... Attack drones. It needs AI powered small low cost attract drones. It also needs interceptors. Base defense is a huge problem. Right? It is like... I'm sure you've seen the news in The Middle East. We need to be able to blow up incoming drones, and that's why we're building Bandit. We're kind of expanding to products because America needs it, not because it's a cool, you know, demo or, it's going to kind of make an investor happy. We build it because America needs it. On shooting drones down,
00:16:27 · Ty Morse, Olaf Hichwa
[00:16:27] S0: why did you guys decide to go with just like an interceptor instead of like lasers or some other form of, you know, interceptor? [00:16:33] S1: It's a good question. I think from the first trip in Ukraine, it was just so clear, like, the entire country had transformed to a drone country. You know, FPV has always been this, like, niche kind of thing that, like, weird people on the Internet do, and there's, like, random YouTube channels and that kind of thing. Walking around in Kyiv on that first trip, like, there were there were, you know, shirts and signs of these weird niche YouTubers. Like, the entire country had kind of rallied around this, like... And and seeing that, it was clear that these drones were more than just kind of a fad or a a toy. Right? These drones were the country's survival. It it was kind of the manifestation, the early manifestation of this, you know, once in a lifetime, once in a generation, shift in how military activity works towards towards drones. I think from that point on, was really clear that the only weapon that can stop a drone is another drone. The only thing that can stop a, you know, a a group of drones is another larger group of drones, and that's really the logic behind drone interceptors. So are you [00:17:41] S0: gonna have to have like way more autonomy in the system for intercepting drones in there?