My Journey in Virtual Reality: 9 Months in a Start-Up

Earlier this year I received an unexpected phone call from an old Sony colleague called Alexandra Hussenot. She had put her rather successful career on hold to pursue her dream of launching her own start-up and wanted someone on board to advise with PR and communications. She wanted to know if I might be interested in being that person. I had privately entertained fantasies of dropping everything and joining some visionary start-up that would take the world by storm before retiring to neck champagne and circumnavigate the world on my new 50-foot yacht. Sadly, with a family to provide for this wasn’t really on the cards but I could certainly hear what she had to say.

Alex told me about her company which was called Immersionn and was a virtual reality (VR) search engine. There was apparently far more to VR than just gaming. I was intrigued. I had read a lot about VR and seen the huge sums of money being invested in different companies in the States, particularly Facebook’s purchase of Oculus. But I had also read reports dismissing it as too niche, too overhyped and just for gamers. Goldman Sachs had made the prediction that the market would be worth over $80 billion by 2025, so if the experts expected the market to grow exponentially surely there must be something to it. What the hell I was in. I was now a ‘Board Advisor’ for a VR start-up.  

Immersionn is a platform and search engine that helps people discover new VR content. You type in what you are interested (we are also working on a voice search option as well!) in and all relevant content appears in front of you. For example, if you typed in ‘Jimi Hendrix’ a bunch of different videos of him performing or being interviewed would appear for you to explore in VR format. You can save and share searches with others and create communities of shared interests. It uses a technology called WebVR which works by allowing VR content to be played on a typical web browser. Alex’s bet is that when 5G networks become more prevalent around the world with their fast data speeds and VR headsets come down in price the market will quickly scale. Today, the typical experience requires a user to be tethered to a static device such as a console or PC but by pushing all the clever techie stuff to the cloud an individual using a VR headset can experience VR wherever they might happen to be.

Of course, gaming is a huge application for VR and rightly so – it’s an amazingly immersive platform. But Alex is also fascinated by the huge amount of VR content that just sits there unseen and unloved. There’s also a rich immersive community out there where people are creating compelling and creative new content for VR and Alex wants it to reach new audiences. There’s content covering art, culture, news and education amongst many other topics. Imagine putting on a VR headset and being able to view the Mona Lisa up-close or a sculpture or a famous building from the comfort of your sofa as if you were actually there in person. It gives you the opportunity to learn new things and experience new ideas in an entirely unique way. Immersive news is another area we’re looking at. VR will enable viewers to experience live events as if they were actually there in 360 degrees. We’ve already agreed partnerships with a number of news outlets including Arte (a German broadcaster), Dagens Nyheter (Sweden’s premier newspaper), Euronews and News UK.

In a short space of time Alex pulled together an impressive team of experienced advisors from Amazon, Apple, BBC and Sony to name but a few as well as a full-time team creating the product and working full-time. Nine months later after various pivots, twists and turns, after endless discussions, arguments and resolutions we had a product and something we were all pretty proud of. Some people stayed the course and others jumped ship but behind it all was Alex pushing, encouraging and cajoling the team to realise her vision. Her enthusiasm is extraordinary. She also manages to lead the UK’s Women in Immersive Technology group and is a member of 5GUK presumably in her spare time.  

We are just about ready to launch and are currently seeking investment and things are looking positive. We’re holding a drinks reception at Jimi Hendrix’s old flat this week (let me know if you want to come!). We were invited by Huawei to demo at a 5G event in Rome last week and have been invited to attend a delegation in China showcasing our technology. A number of mobile operators have also expressed interest in using our service. 

Even if this all ends tomorrow it’s been an incredible journey working on a project with amazingly talented new people and seeing the astonishing level of dedication and commitment it takes to make your idea a reality. We’ve had countless doors slammed shut in our face but we just keep knocking and people are finally starting to answer.   

Have a look on our website at Immersionn.com or drop me a line if you want to know more.