The idea of becoming a wood processing entrepreneur came to I. Akerfelds in the early 2000s. At that time, he worked at the LLU Faculty of Forest Engineering's Department of Wood Processing, teaching students about timber drying. "As a theorist, you also want something practical. Otherwise, you no longer truly believe in what you can explain to students on paper. You want to create something in reality," the entrepreneur explains, justifying why he left the university and, together with his cousin Mārtiņš Rugājs, founded his own wood processing company. Of what remained of the old MRS, the most valuable asset was a small drying kiln. The rest of the wood processing machinery, which MRS had used to produce pallet boards, was outdated. It had to be scrapped, with a total weight of around five hundred tonnes, which was fetching a high price at the time. This, in turn, created the opportunity to purchase the machine tools required for the new production.