01:00:09 · Ty Morse
[01:00:09] S1: I remember you mentioned when we did the Gunda shoot, roughly a third of your energy had gone towards or been depleted because you had this like kidney issue. How did that kind of impact you on a day to day basis, and then how things shifted since you got that solved?
01:00:25 · Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:00:25] S0: Yeah. So I had a a issue with my kidney in... I mean, it started a couple years ago, but it was very infrequent that I would feel the pain from it until, like, middle of twenty twenty five. And then I would just get these, like, I I would just get this horrible pain in my side and have to basically stop what I was doing. I would just, like, completely drain my energy. And I would, like, I would get sick very frequently, and, you know, I just like I just didn't feel good. And I was going to the doctor and and explaining the issue and and got a lot of bad answers. So I got a lot of like, well, this is, you know, this one's a really hard one to pinpoint. We don't really know, like, unless you can come in when it's happening, like, was just really frustrating to deal with at the start. And and then got it pinpointed to what the actual issue was, of course, scheduling surgery for it is like two months out. But finally in May of last year, got the surgery, you know, recovery was better than I expected, but you know, took me out for for week, week and a half. After that, I just felt so much better. And and just realized like how big of a burden on my ability to function, on, you know, for the company, like, that issue was. And now, like, I almost never get sick, I have way more energy, I feel like, you know, my... Both my physical and my mental state is just so much better, and it's a good lesson in how important it is to take care of yourself because it's so easy when you're doing something like building a startup to not. It's so easy to just, you know Just put it off. Sort of put it off, stop, like, stop going to the gym, stop eating well, putting the the... You know, because you feel in the moment like you're putting the mission and the company above all else, which feels like the righteous thing to do, it's not. Because if you can't function as as a effective human or, you know, executive, you're just making bad decisions, you're not giving your best work product,
01:02:42 · Ty Morse, Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:02:42] S1: you're like... You're asking yourself to do the sprints, but constantly. [01:02:46] S0: Yeah. And that stuff, like, you can do that for a while, but it will come back to bite you. So, it's made me realize like the the health aspect is a huge part of this, and and just taking care of yourself more generally is is really important. Like, try very, very hard to get eight hours of sleep and do these sort of smaller routine things that keep me feeling good and and sharp. And then, you know, now anytime there's been sort of like a a hint at a possible medical problem, I just like try to fix it as quickly as I can because part of the issue of like why it took so long to get the the kidney thing fixed was was on me. It was like putting it off for the company and then that ended up being, you know, detrimental to the company because it just lasted longer. [01:03:37] S1: So Is there anything else that you're doing or did do in the past where you were trying to run these sprints and then realized, I don't know, even maybe recently, that basically slowing down or changing things shorter term so that you could be more consistent on a day to day basis going forward?
01:03:37 · Ty Morse, Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:03:37] S1: So Is there anything else that you're doing or did do in the past where you were trying to run these sprints and then realized, I don't know, even maybe recently, that basically slowing down or changing things shorter term so that you could be more consistent on a day to day basis going forward? [01:03:56] S0: One of the biggest things for me, which I still, you know, am not doing in the way that I would be ideally is just finding the time to go to the gym consistently, and work out, and and do things that, you know, before I started Neros, I was I I was doing power lifting, triathlon training, rock climbing, you know, was doing all of those things multiple times a week. I I I, you know, I basically work out twice a day, and that that was I think a good... Like, felt so good when I was doing that, that I had a ton of energy when I like went in to start the company, and then all of that sort of got put to the side to then do the company, and the the... It just sort of goes in these cycles where I'm like, I don't do the thing that I need to be doing to keep myself like sane and operating well and healthy. And then I can do it for a few months, and then I'm like, okay, I actually need to go back and like, make myself good again. And then, yeah, so there's just like these points you hit, you're like, alright, I'm not I'm not happy with the way I feel. I need to go put attention towards this. Trying to find just like a steady consistent rhythm instead of doing it in cycles of like, you know, not working out for two months [01:05:17] S1: Boom,
01:05:17 · Ty Morse, Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:05:17] S1: Boom, [01:05:17] S0: bust. Then feeling terrible, then going and fixing it. It should just be like a [01:05:20] S1: steady state thing. You started Neros by basically flying to the Ukraine with a bunch of drones that you'd made in a garage. [01:05:27] S0: A basement. [01:05:28] S1: In a basement. Exactly. And now that you're kind of scaling up, I'd, you know, three or four years later, I know the relationship has probably sort of evolved in the way that you kind of interact and how often you fly over there, what you do when you get there, has changed. How has that shifted over time?
01:05:44 · Soren Monroe-Anderson
[01:05:44] S0: Yeah. I mean, we've been able to formalize a lot of stuff, you know, it's it's no longer bringing drones over in a suitcase, which is a good thing. We have established an office in Kyiv, and in 2025, we sent over 6,000 drones to Ukraine. So that was from that, we've gotten to work with a lot more units, we've gotten to see a lot more results from Battlefield, which has been amazing. And we've also, you know, taken a lot of measures both in the design of the core product, but also in what we do in Ukraine and support with our Ukraine office to make the product as effective as possible. So there's an example of this is, you know, depending on the area on the frontline that the drones are operating on, certain frequencies work way better than others. And, you know, Neros does not build radios for all of these frequencies, you know, eventually we we may or build something that's much more flexible, but in the current state of things, there are frequencies that, like, our radios don't support that the Ukrainians need on... In in areas. So, you know, we we actually help the units with supplying and and swapping out new radios into the drones and and, you know, things of that nature to make the platform as effective as possible for the specific user. We measure our success very heavily off of Battlefield results and like true effectiveness of the product. And, you know, we see this with all of... We try to track this with all of our customers, not just in Ukraine, but it's it's absolutely vital that we are measuring ourselves by, like, the product making a real difference in the world versus, you know, just the sort of like top level size of the contracts or, you know, whatever because there's... There's a lot of metrics you can measure yourself by that are sort of removed from reality and don't actually mean you're being super impactful. Like, you can build a very large company in the defense space without having a seriously measurable impact. So that's something we care a lot about, and our operations in Ukraine are are part of that. And, yeah, we've gotten... As I said, we've gotten to deploy a lot more systems there and establish those relationships a lot better and and build a better system for feedback too.