#37 - Uldis Tēraudkalns, Creator of The Pursuit of Scrappiness: What 200+ Conversations Reveal About Baltic Founders, Unicorn Traits and the Leap to Founder With OkoRide

After hosting 200+ (scrappy and not so scrappy) startup and business founders and operators on The Pursuit of Scrappiness Podcast, Uldis developed the ultimate Baltic business-building knowledge base.On this episode of Runway, we unpack it together with him, and get to know his latest venture, OkoRide.Uldis Tēraudkalns co-created The Pursuit of Scrappiness, the most popular English-language business podcast in the Baltics. Over four years, he interviewed personalities from the Baltics and abroad, from the co-founder of Wise to the CFO of Intel, building one of the deepest perspectives on the Baltic startup ecosystem. He's also a finance and technology executive, former CEO of regulated fintech Nexpay, and has now co-founded OkoRide, a mobility startup running an electric car fleet on the Bolt platform in Riga.In this episode, Mauro sits down with Uldis to dig into the lessons from 200+ episodes, the traits that separate founders who make it from those who don't, and the full story behind his leap from podcast host to startup founder.We discuss:Part 1: Lessons from The Pursuit of Scrappiness💡 Why "scrappiness" in the Baltics is a structural advantage, not just a word.🌍 The small-market advantage: why being forced to think globally from day one outperforms having a comfortable domestic market🇱🇹 Lithuania's rise: how it went from Estonia's shadow to a serious challenger in Baltic tech🇪🇪 How Estonian founders support each other and boost the ecosystem in doing so🎯 What unicorn founders actually have in common across 200+ conversations: insanity, vision, and storytelling📉 The VC-only myth: why the unicorn path isn't the only valid model, and the wild story of ss.com in Latvia🎙️ Why The Pursuit of Scrappiness pausedPart 2: The OkoRide Journey as a Co-founder🛞 The OkoRide story: pivoting from fintech CEO to running a Tesla ride-hailing fleet in Riga🤖 Vibe coding internal ops systems🔧 Acquiring a Tesla workshop (OxWorks) and why uptime is the real competitive advantage in fleet management🇬🇧 UK expansion plans🔮 Where autonomous vehicles fit in EuropeFollow Uldis on LinkedIn and check out OkoRide!=================================================================Thanks for listening! For more, follow us on LinkedIn.Runway is a podcast started by Black Unicorn PR co-founders Julija Jegorova and Mauro Battellini to help startup founders, company builders and business leaders with insights, tools and advice from specialists in sales, marketing, PR and more.Black Unicorn PR is a London-based tech PR agency focused on startups, scaleups and VC.For more information visit: https://www.blackunicornpr.com/For even more advice, especially on PR, visit the Black Unicorn PR blog