If you have a device that looks and feels like traditional glasses, but enables you to create and place an unlimited amount of virtual displays of any size and shape you desire, which can follow you around as you walk, why would you ever want to replace those with physical displays?
Since I wore glasses for the first time as a kid, I never particularly liked wearing them, due to their tendency of fogging up, the way the frame impairs the field of view, and the weight on the nose and ears when wearing them for many hours.
Certainly, I would have some uses for such AR glasses, but I wouldn’t like to wear them all day unless they are literally (and completely unrealistically) invisible and weightless. They won’t replace displays.
What I’d really like is paper-like non-emissive, high-contrast, full-color-gamut, millimeter-thin, wireless multitouch displays I can hang everywhere. Those are similarly unrealistic though.
Everything you’re going through is perfectly normal for a startup founder closing up shop. Everything about it is a painful process, and it can be damaging to your self-worth.
Mourn it, move past it, and treat it as another stint of professional experience. You haven’t wasted time, you don’t have to start over. everyone works on a project that doesn’t live up to expectations at some point in their career. You’ve likely learned a lot and grown professionally.
Leverage what you’ve learned however you see best. Could be another startup, a bigco, academia, etc. The right companies will respect your startup experience. I’d strongly suggest taking 2-4 weeks completely off- no interviewing, no working, just recovery. (It won’t be enough to fully mentally recover- that will take much longer, but should be enough to get you back on track professionally) Lay down your arms so you can fight another day.
I agree fully, though I’d like to add a layer of nuance.
The best engineering leaders I’ve encountered have been hands-off (as you said, at a certain point it’s nigh impossible to scale otherwise) However, they’ve uniformly retained engineering mindsets, and have great spidey senses for when things are being overengineered, or when complexity is being underestimated, and much more. They all have also demonstrated the ability to drill in deep when the situation arises, and tend to have strong understanding of high level architectures and systems. I’ve had “pure people managers” who were non-technical and ended up having myriad weaknesses. The opposite has been even worse. But the best know exactly when and how to put on both their people and technical hats.
I’ve been in the enterprise vr industry for almost 7 years, and you’re correct with your estimate being very close to where I’d put it. The vast majority of revenue is from gaming.
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At the intersection of technology, science, business and sports, Strivr offers an end-to-end, VR-based immersive learning platform that changes the way people around the world train, learn and perform. With a mission to elevate performance through immersive experience, we are redefining an industry in real time and shaping the future of learning, and building the bridge between the enterprise and the Metaverse.
Very impressive product- I certainly applaud your efforts and agree that the price is competitive for what it is. You can even use ultra wide monitors at similar resolutions as a comparison point. (Though of course they end up way ahead in terms of ppd)
I went from a 3 person startup doing low 6 figures in annual revenue to a startup in the same space that had just closed its series A.
I interviewed with FAANG’s and startups in nyc and the Bay Area. I felt like my experience was valued by most companies I interviewed with, to my surprise, and many others had similar stories to mine.
It felt like the right the step, like going to a version of my company that’d turned out (a lot) better. It’s been a great experience- went from senior dev to manager, and love doing both. Management allows me to wear a bunch of hats in a similar way I did as a founder, but with a safety net and much more support.
My experience as a founder was extremely valuable. It made me a much better engineer and a much better leader than I could’ve been if I hadn’t done my startup. Overall, my career trajectory is better than it would’ve been otherwise, barring some stroke of luck in the corporate world. I have no regrets.
It wasn’t all roses, though. For the first 18 months or so after we shut our startup down (and through my subsequent return to full time employment), I was hurting pretty bad, constantly thinking of what I could’ve done differently and still had many, many sleepless nights. It took those 18 months to really get it out of my system and move on.
> I was hurting pretty bad, constantly thinking of what I could’ve done differently and still had many, many sleepless nights. It took those 18 months to really get it out of my system and move on.
Thanks for this insight. I recently made the leap to quit my tech job to build a startup. I keep telling myself that if it doesn't work out (which is the statistically likely outcome) I can at least go back to another tech job. But tbh, I'd probably also be devastated for some time.
I guess if you had to do something differently for your next attempt, what would it be?
1. Start with a problem, not a solution. And validate that you can reach customers who will pay for your solution to solve their problem, before day 1.
2. Don’t pay attention or compare yourself to other startups/potential competition. No good comes of it.
3. Recognize how large a factor luck is. This means preparing for things to go wrong, but also accepting that factors beyond your control can hugely impact the trajectory of your business.
If you have a device that looks and feels like traditional glasses, but enables you to create and place an unlimited amount of virtual displays of any size and shape you desire, which can follow you around as you walk, why would you ever want to replace those with physical displays?