Ep 60 | Once You Know What You Want to Do, Life Gets Easier (w/ Eris Sako)

In this talk

1. 2:32

   Finding a direction

   After civil unrest led his family to leave Albania for Greece, Sako initially had little interest in school. A friend, Clyde, helped him see engineering as a possibility, connecting with his childhood habit of taking apart toys and experimenting with motors and batteries.

2. 6:35

   Returning to school with a goal

   Sako went back to school at 18 to prepare for Greece’s national university entrance exams, catching up on math and physics over two years. He says knowing he wanted to study engineering kept him focused, and gave him an advantage among university peers who had reached their goal mainly because of parental pressure.

3. 21:32

   From research to a company

   After university, Sako and Clyde explored robotics products, but their business goals diverged during Zurich’s Kickstart Accelerator program. Sako later spent eight years at ETH’s Robotic Systems Lab, developing robotic components, before deciding the technology and his experience were ready to support a company.

4. 40:16

   Building Datic and its first market

   Sako left the lab in 2024 to build Datic, drawing on years of work on lightweight, responsive robotic actuators and arms. The company bootstrapped its hardware, grew to six full-time and two part-time employees, and began shipping products and earning revenue. Its planned wheeled, dual-arm system targets material movement in warehouses and factories.

5. 36:58

   Goals, persistence, and advice

   Sako describes himself as a strategic thinker who sets a destination but adapts decisions along the way. He compares difficult work to climbing a mountain one step at a time, saying that focusing on the next move can make a daunting goal manageable. His advice is to explore until you find work you want to pursue.