In this episode of The Techne Connect, we speak with Mike Lawton, Director and Co-Founder of Oxford Dynamics and long-time entrepreneur. Mike shares how he built five companies, the lessons learned from early ventures and why team, timing and technology must align for a business to work.

He explains how to turn ideas into real products, validate markets early and avoid the common traps faced by academic founders. Mike also discusses timing pitfalls, from being too far ahead of the curve to winning MOD contracts after predicting the rise of natural-language AI years before it reached the mainstream.

He gives practical guidance on leadership, work-life balance, startup culture and the traits he looks for in engineers joining Oxford Dynamics. This episode offers clear insight for anyone considering entrepreneurship, AI, robotics or early-stage innovation.

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