How do you become a XR benchmark?

For our second edition of Asking &why, we have the pleasure to host Christina Heller, Founder & CEO of Metastage, an?XR (Extended Reality) studio that specializes in volumetric capture, translating that reality capture to 3D platforms such as augmented, virtual reality, or even 3D software. Christina shared with us the highs and lows of pioneering entrepreneurship on the cutting edge of technology, focusing on Why bravery and bravado are needed to create the future!

You used the phrase ‘pioneering on a hunch’ earlier in our conversation. Could you expand on that and explain why it’s important?

There are definitely people who have been pioneering in VR since the nineties, so I don't wanna discredit that. But that being said, especially with the latest tools there aren't a lot of experts. […]I was already kind of considered an expert when I was working in it for only two years because there are just so few people working in this space.

There are no true authorities when it comes to this, and therefore you can move forward with more certainty. If you have an idea, a hunch, it's just as valid as any anybody else's, and that you have the opportunity to truly pioneer something that people haven't thought of or considered before.

If you're looking at what everybody else is doing, you're not gonna be truly pioneering. You have to be thinking, you have to be using your inherent sort of gut to guide you as to what is going to work, what people are going to find value in, what's gonna be cool, fun, unique and work.?

From a business leader point of view, do you think creating new benchmarks and pioneering in these digital spaces something you can teach??

It's like a magical power almost. Is confidence in one's self and vision something that can be taught??

2013 was the first time I went to Burning Man and 2014 was when my creative colleagues and I decided to start VR Playhouse. I do not think that it, as a coincidence, going to Burning Man for the first time really expanded my conception of society, of technology and of what's possible. It allowed me to really kind of see what thinking outside the box looks like when manifested in a day-to-day reality for one week.

You’ve got to trust the process of your life.?

Can trusting the process ever get difficult? Have there been times where you've had to trust your courage or you've had to be especially brave??

Yes. I was the CEO of a VR playhouse from 2014 to 2017, and I would say that the common theme amongst our team was that we were outperforming our size and resources all the time. We were willing to be extremely scrappy and hardworking to get what needed to be done. That said, I was constantly outside my comfort zone during those three years.

There were also plenty of weeks where we were pulling all-nighters to get jobs done and not estimating the correct amount of time it would take to do something. It’s also very difficult to tell a white collar client who has no idea about how this technology works, that we need an extension on the deadline and there would be conflict there.

One specific situation came up. A technological challenge that had never been attempted by any team in the history of the world. And we were at first extremely excited about the opportunity to pioneer a new technology that no one had ever tried, only to quickly realize that our existing onsite render farm was not adequate to handle the amount of rendering that this project would require.

So here I was, early in my early thirties and I certainly had a decent amount of career experience at that point, but nothing could have prepared me for this moment where we're blowing through the budget, we need more expensive technology to complete the project.

We're under the gun with a client that's not being particularly understanding about our situation. And I ended up taking a personal loan out to buy a bigger render farm.

If anybody's in that kind of a situation, my advice would be: talk to people. I am sure if I had felt braver or more confident in talking to some industry colleagues about the situation we were in, somebody could have stepped up and maybe helped us out. But I think. I just didn't know what to do at that time.

I would say that that project was probably the hardest moment of my career. I was so afraid of losing everything. But those are the greatest learning experiences when you go through them.

I would handle it differently now and on a lot of levels, perhaps I might not even have taken on the project at this point. You learn the risk of being so excited about being the quote unquote world's first that you don't take into consideration the risk of attempting to do something like that.?

Although, it's very easy to see that stuff with hindsight, isn't it??

Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. It has high highs and low lows, and certainly, I've experienced a lot of those over my eight years of immersive technology, but clearly, I'm still in it and I still believe in what we're building and I'm excited about being a part of this community.

You can follow Christina Heller on LinkedIn, subscribe to our newsletter to keep up with the latest conversations and insights, or get in touch with us directly at [email protected].

Love,

&why team