Who are you, and what are you doing here at Flasheye?

My name is Ida Rehnström, and I am the COO at Flasheye. I work with sales, with a focus on our security product Acuity, financing, human resources, and marketing. As the first employee in the company, it has been very exciting to witness the rapid development we have achieved in a relatively short period of time. I like to be in a start-up environment and work with all parts of a company.

You do many things! I suppose that comes with your experience of being the first employee; you're trusted a lot to make the best decisions for the company. It's rare for somebody so young to be a COO! Have you encountered any stereotypes or unique challenges in your career journey because of these things? If so, how did you overcome them?

Every day brings fresh challenges, and there are no predetermined paths to follow. We embrace uncertainty and fuel innovation. We have encouraged being market-responsive, which means that we need to work fast and everyone has responsibility to make decisions and is trusted upon. Amidst the chaos, we cultivate creativity and grow together, since most of us in the team are young. In our relatively unexplored field, finding senior expertise was not easy and we needed to build the knowledge internally and that has now become part of the Flasheye DNA.  

Of course this isn’t a hard and fast rule, we have found connections to other related areas like robotics and autonomous vehicles when looking for the right competencies. Outside this, we are good at seeking help from experts, consultants, and more senior individuals where needed. Not being too proud and being open to collaboration and dialogue in this way has not just helped us progress as a company, but has also helped me a lot in my journey to where I am today.

If you were to describe Flasheye’s LiDAR software using only emojis, which ones would you choose and why?

🔮 is our emoji. I like that it speaks a lot to what we do and would like to do in the future. A crystal ball is always looking ahead as we try to do; usually in the fantasy movies you see these used to warn the world about coming danger, which is exactly what our software does. The magical, cosmic quality of them aesthetically matches with our beautiful point clouds also!

A culture of creativity and growth is a great foundation for a start-up; I’ve noticed in my time here how diverse our staff are in terms of expertise, interests and backgrounds. We have drone nerds, jiu jitsu practitioners and 3D-artists from Poland, India, England and Sweden. Is there anything about your background or any interests that nobody at Flasheye knows about?

I don't know how to answer to that to be honest!. I think I'm so open everyone knows much about me seeing as we are a small team and everyone needs to work closely. Although what may be surprising is that I was never into working with tech at first, because I hated math! I wanted to do something creative like design, art or writing. Now, working with our talented team, I can see the art and creativity that goes into the innovations of tech today✨

I’ve known you for some time, and one of the things I know about you is that you are a proud and loving dog mom of Nana, Korven and Tatsuku. What do they mean to you?

My life is so much better with my dogs. They give me energy when needed. calm me down when needed. A positive distraction ❤️