Matt Austin (Brigade Group) – Get Close to the Operator: Dual-Use Lessons from Kandahar to Ukraine

Matt Austin spent two tours in Kandahar as a combat engineer, searching for roadside bombs and clearing ground. He now runs Brigade Group, where he places Canadian technology directly with frontline units in Ukraine. Canadian defence procurement runs in years whereas Matt's route runs in weeks: find a product that already works, get it in front of a unit that needs it, and let the operators tell you how they need it improved. Their feedback arrives at 6 AM and your fix ships by sundown so the unit can deploy it immediately. Cam Waite, founder and CEO of Real Life Robotics, hosts. They get into what a founder needs to understand before repositioning a product for defence, what the Arctic demands of hardware, and why the race towards lowest cost keeps winning. Matt tells the story of the RG-31 that passed every specification and still slowed the advance, and the rucksack soldiers tore apart. It closes with an audience Q&A on autonomy, technology spillover, and how you iterate hardware sitting thousands of kilometres away. Recorded at the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo, Ontario on August 27, 2026. Startup Grind Kitchener-Waterloo puts problem-havers on stage and problem-solvers in the room. CHAPTERS 0:00 Why this chapter exists: problem-havers on stage 5:55 Meet Matt Austin 8:07 Pausing a Waterloo degree to deploy to Kandahar 14:06 Soldier and founder: deciding under uncertainty 16:57 The RG-31: passed every spec, still failed 20:25 The rucksack soldiers tore apart 23:03 Canadian procurement and how to reach the operator 25:49 Arctic defence, swarm tech and distributed manufacturing 30:51 The Ukraine connection 32:53 What the front line needs right now 34:47 Cost asymmetry: a $3M missile for a $20K drone 36:04 How Ukraine procures differently 38:55 Taking Canadian technology to the front 42:34 War Angels and the GTAN dual-use consortium 44:00 What makes an investor lean in 45:44 Audience Q&A 53:45 The prop-wash story: how fast tactics spread 1:00:44 What a dual-use founder should do tomorrow 1:03:06 The inverted pyramid of procurement 1:07:25 Why you can't have a hot tub in the barracks Startup Grind Local features incredible talks with entrepreneurs from Startup Grind's world wide network. Startup Grind is a global startup community designed to educate, inspire, and connect entrepreneurs. Subscribe to Startup Grind Local: https://www.youtube.com/user/StartupGrindLocal Startup Grind on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/StartupGrind Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/StartupGrind Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/StartupGrind Find a Startup Grind event in your area: www.startupgrind.com