AI Summary
5 min readOliver Lastname, a Norwegian engineer turned ag-tech executive, moved his family to Kansas City to lead the U.S. launch of Monil, a virtual fencing company. The product is a lightweight, solar-powered collar that uses GPS and cellular signals to create sound-based boundaries for cattle, replacing physical fence. In this conversation, Oliver explains how the technology works, why it doubles grazing capacity on some ranches, and what he has learned about American farmers after working with cattlemen across Norway, the UK, Ireland, and the U.S.
The Collar That Replaces Fence Posts
Monil’s collar sits on top of the animal’s neck—a deliberate design choice. The founders, all engineers from microchip and drone backgrounds, prioritized making the device as small and energy-efficient as possible. A solar panel on top keeps it charged, and the collar contains a GPS receiver, accelerometer, magnetometer, and a cellular SIM card that connects to either T-Mobile or AT&T. When a cow approaches a virtual boundary set by the rancher through a phone app, the collar emits a rising tone. If the animal does not turn back, it receives a mild electric shock—much weaker than an electric fence. Cows learn to associate the sound with the correction within a few days. After that, the sound alone usually stops them.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (03:12) **Guest Introduction: Oliver from Monil** - The hosts introduce Oliver, a Norwegian now living in Kansas City who works for Monil, a company building wireless collars for cattle, sheep, and goats.
- 2 (05:44) **From Engineer to AgTech: Oliver's Origin Story** - Oliver explains his background in robotics and sales, and how a moment of disillusionment at a corporate gala pushed him toward startups.
- 3 (15:26) **Building Monil: From Prototype to US Launch** - The company went from a founding team of seven to a first prototype in just two months, and sold out their first batch of 400 collars in Norway in 2023.
- 4 (26:23) **What Engineers Love About Monil** - Oliver shares that the company's engineers, who previously worked on abstract tech, are deeply motivated by solving a tangible, real-world problem for farmers.
- 5 (28:26) **An Outsider's View of America and American Farmers** - Oliver contrasts his expectations of Americans with his actual experience, noting they are not only welcoming but also willing to have deep, meaningful conversations quickly.
- 6 (44:23) **What is Monil? The Virtual Fencing System Explained** - Monil is a GPS-based collar that acts like an "Apple Watch for cattle," containing them without physical fences by using a sound and then a mild shock.
- 7 (50:15) **Saving Time & Increasing Carrying Capacity** - Beyond just replacing fence, the system saves significant time by automating herd movements and providing health alerts.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
A rancher outside Kansas City put collars on 30 cows and went from moving them every two days to every four or five days on the same ground, at the same cow condition. That is double the carrying capacity overnight, and we spent most of this episode on how virtual fencing works and what it costs.
The collar runs $280 plus a subscription. Users report getting back 8 to 10 hours a week. The GPS is accurate to about 4 or 5 feet, which is roughly one fat cow in any direction. One challenger cow averaged 800 sound warnings a day for three weeks, about one every 30 seconds she was awake, while other cows in the same group got one a week. When a cow does get out, she is back inside 80 percent of the time within 5 to 10 minutes, because her friends are still there. There are around 6,000 of these collars in North America and they only started selling here in June.
Then we put the skeptic hat on. What happens to your herd if the company runs out of money. Who owns the data. Why he tells customers to never trust a virtual fence alone along a highway, because the liability is too big. And what happens to cattlemen when Silicon Valley decides cattle are a robotics problem.
Also in this one: an engineer who quit a VP title in Norway, visa on Monday and a plane on Friday, a farmhouse built in 1318 and the man who will not give it up, why so many farmers keep a town job for the insurance, and what a Norwegian thinks of American water, groceries, and youth sports.
Low profit is the one problem every farmer in every country has in common. The other is that not one of them thinks he owns the land.
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THIS EPISODE IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY:
● Propane Farm Research Program ➱ https://propane.com/farmfunding
TIMESTAMPS:
00:00 Fencing cattle without building any fence
04:00 A Norwegian engineer lands in Kansas
06:24 The engineer who got pulled into sales
07:43 Back from paternity leave to 30% cuts
08:57 The gala dinner that changed everything
12:35 The news story that started a company
14:05 Seven engineers, a prototype in 2 months
18:57 Propane Farm Research Program
19:28 Their US hire quit before he ever moved
21:20 Dying broke with a bank of good stories
23:10 Visa on Monday, gone by Friday
27:32 A float trip with people who bought nothing
33:48 Kruger Dunning and the Mountain of Stupidity
43:18 So what is virtual fencing, exactly
44:18 A sound first, then a shock she remembers
51:46 One cow tested it 800 times in a
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