The AR Show: Kirin Sinha (Illumix) on Creating Digital Infrastructure for Real-World Venues

10:15PM Nov 20, 2023

Speakers:

Jason McDowall

Kirin Sinha

Keywords:

ar

company

experience

work

people

build

point

confidence

great

venues

notion

lumix

technology

digital

bit

kirin

create

entrepreneur

feel

focus

Welcome to the AR show where we dive deep into augmented reality with a focus on the technology, the use cases and the people behind them. I'm your host Jason McDowall.

Today's conversation is with Kirin Sinha. Kirin is the co founder and CEO of Illumix a company building the digital infrastructure for real world venues. You may be familiar with Illumix if you're a fan of the horror franchise Five Nights at Freddy's and the mobile game Five Nights at Freddy's AR special delivery. While the game found a tremendous amount of success, the company has shifted its focus to enterprise customers and raise an $18 million dollar Series A round of financing in early 2023.

Prior to founding Illumix, Kirin was the founder and executive director of Shine For Girls whose mission is to transform the lives of middle school girls by cultivating a passion for mathematics through a program that incorporates both math and dance.

Kirin has a BS in theoretical math and computer science from MIT, as well as three master's degrees spanning mathematics, machine learning and business from Cambridge, the London School of Economics, and Stanford.

Kirin and her team have been on this journey for over six years now. Kirin originally joined the podcast back in early 2021. And our most recent conversation, she shares how the company's focus has evolved to working with major venues and brands such as theme parks or sports stadiums to provide the digital infrastructure for guest experiences.

We believe that digital and physical coming together is a big part of the future. And that in that world today, the places where the most value is created is in these venues where people have a reason to hold up their phone where you can tell someone to try and experience and it can really be shared and become a part of how people experienced. I think that that is the vision we were able to share.

We're go on to talk about the evolution of the company as they went through the Disney accelerator in 2021. How they're working with major venues and expanding consumer experiences, the underlying cultural and technology shifts that are helping to drive success, the fundraising journey, confidence, how to build it and how to lose it, and setting the right mindset to thrive during the fundraising process. As reminder, you can find the show notes for this and other episodes at our website, the AR show.com. Let's dive in.

Kirin, it's so great to chat with you again here on the podcast. And as we were just chatting here, before we turn on the microphone, my daughters are absolutely obsessed with reading. There's not a moment during the day when they're not actually at school or some sport, that they don't have that Kindle open in front of them or some book open in front of them. They can be brushing their teeth while reading a book they're putting on their socks while reading a book like literally every moment of the day. They're reading some book, I know that when you were young had a similar sort of obsession. What was an early memory of like a book or a storyline that you got really excited about?

It's definitely Harry Potter. For me. I was obsessed from the very beginning. It was the first real book like adult books that I read completely on my own. When we started the Sorcerer's Stone, I must have been in first grade or kindergarten and it was a I would read one page, my mom would read one page, but I became so invested in this world and story I actually stole the book away and read the rest of it without her. And it became this first book that I finished I loved it. We did my first birthday party, Harry Potter themed and this was early right this was before I think it was the sensation that it is today. Or even that it became you know, one or two years later. And my mom had to hire what was basically just an old man and tell him to wear a long beard and call himself Dumbledore. He had no idea what was happening at this child's birthday party, but I loved it and throughout the rest of my childhood and honestly into adulthood. I think that story really has stuck with me. I think as an entrepreneur, you can relate to it. I think as an outsider, you can relate to it. And I think just the world building that has JK Rowling has done is so phenomenal. I mean, this range is from my mom had to literally lock the books away sometimes so that we would sleep at night or you know, and I would stash them at different places around the house. I put one like under the sofa cushions so she couldn't find it or, you know, under the sink in the bathroom. And you know, I would play the audio books while I showered. I mean, this was just a huge thing. I mean, even last Halloween, I actually dressed up my dog as a griffin door, just for fun. So definitely Harry Potter, for me was the most influential storyline and books, I think in my life. Yeah,

in that story, you describe it as the book that kind of pulled you into reading at some level. Not that you weren't into it already. But that was the first thing you noted that you'd finished. It's kind of a big, a big kids sort of book or grownup sort of book that lit the fire in some ways. And still with you today. That's awesome. For my my daughters. For them, it was Rick Rodin's Percy Jackson series that kind of lit the fire. Another great one. Yes. And we've really gotten into Stephen Fry's mythos and heroes like the Greek mythology series, in part because they had such a great experience with Percy Jackson, the Greek mythology that it's founded in religion. And so now we're all enjoying these very grown up interpretation. tons of his very grown up stories from Greek mythology and his interpretation of them. It's absolutely brilliantly done the sort of Greek mythology that Stephen Fry has done. And his audio versions are phenomenal. If you haven't heard them, anybody's interested, highly recommended, because he is himself, of course, an amazing performance actor. And anyway, brilliant. So I love that it had such Harry Potter, such a huge influence on you. And really the whole idea around storytelling, when we had our first interview we talked about, you'd shared a story where you'd spent some time before college at a convent in northern Italy, in one of the opinions you had there was to go and sit with yourself, and also to spend a lot of time reading. And one of the highlights you noted was this, the magic of the phrase once upon a time, and this notion that we as humans suddenly transport our minds into some alternative world into the storyline and fully immerse ourselves in our imagination. But then you've gone on to kind of have a different sort of storytelling experience in through the work that you're doing at a Lumix. And maybe you can describe kind of the nuances of the difference between storytelling and the Once Upon a Time sort of books that we've loved and enjoyed and the sort of things that you're creating there to Lumix. Absolutely.

So at its core, a Lumix is a technology company, right, we are providing the technical infrastructure for venues, you know, some of which are very based on storytelling, whether that's a theme park or, you know, a entertainment venues, sports, stadium, retail, whatever it is, but I think that when we really get into space, specifically, the more entertainment centric use cases, I do think that AR provides a different way to experience those stories. And what I mean by that is that once upon a time, and I think traditional linear storytelling has really been about following a character you hopefully relate to in some kind of deep way through their life, right? You're, you're experiencing everything through their perspective. And I think what AR does is it flips it, where all of a sudden, you are a character, and often the main character in that story. So you're stepping into a world that you maybe know and love, or maybe you're discovering for the first time. But it really is from a truly first person point of view that I think is new and is automatically very viscerally connects with people because it is about them, and their perspective and how they choose to move through the world. And I think that's really something

incredible. This notion of the user being the protagonist really changes how the story is created the first place, right, the sort of considerations you have to put into because it's no longer the storytellers story, in a traditional sense. There's a joint creation process that goes on. And so you end up leaving more to the user, in some ways, in order to construct that story, or at least progress that story in some way. And you had early on in the limits of history, you had worked with an amazing franchise, Five Nights at Freddy's in trying to connect that user to that world and that story. Maybe you can describe a little bit about what the Five Nights at Freddy's experience was for AR that you had created. And kind of how it took connects to the storytelling elements.

Absolutely. So I think traditionally, if you look at the franchise, Five Nights at Freddy's, it was very much about these animatronics coming to life in a specific location. You know, it was often, you know, the security guard was I think you could argue the main character in some ways, or the way that us humans kind of related through to the storyline of these animatronics coming to life and was happening in a specific place. What we did with AR is what if that actually existed in the world? What if these animatronics were out there in the world and it was about them come after you. So we've kind of removed this construct of the security guard being the quote unquote, main character, and it turning into you to that shift into a more first person user experience. And so we have these animatronics coming to your house stalking you wherever you went, whether it was to the office, or you know, school, whatever it was, these characters were always following you around. And I think it gave really people a sense of, they get a relationship with the animatronics directly. They are the most important person in the story. And I think that's incredibly empowering right not only form a great relationship with the characters in the franchise and the world, but I think it actually puts people in the position to feel like they are at the center of their own stories. Absolutely.

Really the the quintessential storytelling company we're going to go beyond five nights at Freddy's which has its own massive fan base. And a fan base has a really rabid fan base around it. But the the one that has the most general appeal, I guess is Disney. And Disney in its original form, which is really just Disney and its various characters is way that it leveraged technology to kind of mix new types of storytelling elements into the movies and animations long form animations that we have all enjoyed. But then they've also acquired other properties over time. Other sorts of companies had similar sort of ethos, whether it was Pixar or Lucasfilm. Number, et cetera, et cetera, Marvel NOW, you as a company had an opportunity to join Disney in their accelerator back, I think shortly after we ended up doing our first interviews back in 2021. And what was it? What was appealing? What was interesting to you about the accelerator? Why did you guys do it?

I think you hit on it to some level of when you think about excellence in storytelling, that's still very deeply tied to technical innovation. I think Disney is the company that has to come to mind there, they have a rich 100 year long history of leveraging new advances in technology, all in service of telling these stories and better ways and finding ways for their their guests and fans to engage in these worlds in different ways. And I think that you're right, all the companies that they have bought, in some ways have a similar ethos of combining technology with content. And I think that was always the ethos of Lumix. And I think the opportunity to work with a company with such rich IP and such, I think, a deep understanding of the potential of what technology can do for entertainment and storytelling was just, it was an immediate Yes, from us, you know, we were somewhat mature company. At that point, we weren't looking for an accelerator to help us create our first product and, you know, find our first investor and jump off. So it really would have had to been the right opportunity for us to engage in that kind of way. And I think that Disney accelerator did just a phenomenal job, helping us learn about that company and forging a path forward there.

And so one of the things I can imagine that comes from an exposure to Disney is not just that they have a tremendous libraries, minutes, IP libraries, the fact that they engage through their entertainment properties in a variety of different ways, including at theme parks and other types of venues like that, which in my mind seems to connect really well to the sorts of experiences that you you're enabling the sort of notion of AR mixing the reality with the virtual and some sort of storytelling element. And so interested to hear kind of how your evolution of, of how you thought about adding AR elements to real world places kind of began to evolve, maybe through that experience and beyond.

I think that coming off of the game, we were already becoming more interested in venues specifically. And I think that was because the game was really effective and taking this world and bringing it to users as we sort of just touched on. But I think what we saw was, there was an opportunity here to make AR even more immersive and even more interactive, if you know, the space around, right, I can't possibly know every place you go in the day and the environment. And it's really challenging, I think, to create as immersive and experience as possible, when there are that many variables when you're in unknown space, all of a sudden, you have a little bit more control. And you can create something that I think truly IS NEXT LEVEL magical and the sort of spectacular experience. And so we became really interested, particularly given that our Tech's focus was that hyper precise integration of digital and physical in these locations to see what could be possible. And I think that around the time that you know, join the accelerator was around the time, we really shifted our focus to be entirely around venues. And that was everything from the parks, to sports stadiums to Tourism and retail opportunities. So it's a huge market still, but it is a little bit more specific, I think, than just creating AR that can exist anywhere, whether it's at your home or you know, office or anywhere in between. So we have as a company, I think from the last time we spoke have really narrowed our focus and said, We're going to be the company that you go to a place to have an experience, whether that's a concert, whether that's a theme park, whether that's a hotel, and there's a digital layer, we are the company powering that digital there. That is where a limit sits in the market today.

Maybe we can talk a little bit about what those digital layers look like when you talk about a variety of different venues and so a hotel experience are different than a theme park experience different than the stadium experience. And so across all these different categories of venues, and maybe the brands that kind of drive them, can you describe some the different types of experiences, the types of motivations that a user might have been wanting to engage in those experiences?

Absolutely. And it can, it can range, as you said, by what the use case is specifically. So I'll give two or three different examples, right? When you're at a concert, for example, you go for anyone who's been to the Taylor Swift concert or out there any concert really, people have their phones off. And the recording part of the experience economy today is not just going to an event but being able to share that you were at that event. And I think there's an incredible opportunity there for both artists and users to have a sort of larger than life experience. I kind of point to the recently launched MSG sphere. If you saw any clips of what the YouTube YouTube scuze me experience was like and people just thought it was mind blowing how immersive it was. as adding this digital element to the music to the show, that's what we can do. But without the two to $3 billion physical investment that it requires and years of, I'm sure permits and building and all of that we can do that to any venue really. And I think that's, that's really exciting. Now, that to me is where the future of live entertainment is, you take it all the way to something that's maybe more utility centric, you're at a retail destination, or you know, a casino, a large shopping destination. And all of a sudden, you can walk around and start to see if there are specials along the way the storefronts can come to life, right? Like, there's a lot of different ways that you can engage there all the way over to Beaver amusement parks, where you have this huge opportunity to introduce what are basically become virtual attractions, right? I think similarly, when you don't have to invest in physical infrastructure you have what's kind of a cheaper, faster, and more adaptive layer that you can start to play with, whether it's characters greeting you, whether that's, you know, something that's super personalized, or even seasonal, that you want to add, if there's digital content coming out in another part of the business that you want to bring in, as a part of the physical experience of being inside of a park, the opportunities are truly limitless. And when we talk about kind of commercialization of this, it's not just hey, this would benefit guest experience, because I think that's mostly a given, particularly since and this is an incredible stat to me, as someone who remembers the days without internet and dialing up and connecting. And that sort of timeframe of the majority of the world's population today is digital native, the majority. That's pretty incredible. And that's a huge shift in consumer engagement. When you add digital, much like what we've seen in almost every other in industry, when you add digital to physical experience, you see a lot of the same revenue possibilities, right, whether that's, you want digital upsells, whether that's guiding people to commerce hotspots, whether that's just frankly, you have it and you basically doubled your real estate, all of a sudden, you have a whole digital layer where you can have ads or sponsorships or different types of engagement. It's I think, something where we're seeing a lot of venues really push in that direction as a clear indication of what is happening as we move into

the future. You noted that there is it is shocking to me now. Now that I'm older than I was with each passing year seems to happen despite my best efforts. But we are as a population digital native now. Definitely the case. And it is existing consumer behavior, especially for those that are going to a concert and even I imagine other sorts of venues, sports venue and theme park everywhere that we're always sharing. We're always sharing what we're doing with others. That was part of our lived experiences to make sure that others can appreciate experience that amongst others in some some level. And so you're tapping into an existing consumer behavior also, that they have their phone, they're already using that camera that already facing the world in some way. And so it makes sense that the next step is okay, let's let's extend that existing behavior and allow a better experience overall for them.

I think that that is honestly one of the big things that changed from 10 years ago, I actually remember trying to talk to someone inside of Disney Parks almost a decade ago, but before we even really had formed the company. And we were really excited early on, like the early founding team about this idea of theme parks and cruises and, you know, malls, and we were really, in some ways, always interested in this path. But the feedback we got very consistently at that time was we don't want people on their phones, when they're in physical experiences, right? There was a push against, I think what was all what has now been seen as it's already over. People are on their, on their phones, I think Disney World or Disneyland is like the most Instagrammed place on the planet, right? Like this is. And that's just one example. But you know, look at the Taylor Swift concert, look at, you know, even sports games, right? Like the social media presence and the sharing that has become core to the experience economy has now I think shifted how businesses think about the importance of that you can do something that further engages that, that user or that guest if you can do something that's personalized, if you can do something that can change and evolve with different different sports games or different seasons. That becomes, I think, incredibly compelling. And what you've done is you've turned basically each of your guests, you've turned into an actually authentic influencer of your brand, right? If you do create something really compelling, that becomes really interesting. And it's, you know, I don't want to overemphasize, it's not just a marketing opportunity. We're talking about everything from marketing to core guest experience to revenue generation. But I think as we look into the future, both with phones today and maybe even headsets in the future, I think these specific venue entertainment experiences are going to be a big part. how people engage in that digital physical future.

Let's shift a little bit into how you enable these sorts of experiences. So you initially built out a set of tools to enable you to deliver Five Nights at Freddy's as an experience. Yes. And since then you've narrowed, maybe a slight shift in focus in enable all of these in person in venue sort of location experiences. What have you had to create for a company to enable these brands to to create these sorts of experiences?

Absolutely. So we took the core of that interaction engine that we had built for Five Nights at Freddy's. And we're still using that same core, but we've developed it further. Certainly, right, we've added more technology, we've added, you know, deeper, deeper ways to integrate digital and physical environments, especially and known venue. So there's a lot of technology development that's occurred over the last two to three years. And part of it is also we're really a b2b company now. And that's different, right? Enterprise level support, being on site, making sure everything is perfect. There's there's a real shift from I think, serving a direct to consumer audience and building a game, to thinking of yourself as a top tier enterprise company. And there are different things you have to think about right? You need to make sure everything is security compliance at the highest level and COPPA compliant, you need to make sure that everything is perfect in all of these different scenarios that someone can't break the technology. I mean, it's a really deep commitment to a specific tech stack and, you know, technical path forward,

all sorts of things you didn't think you would have to worry about when the focus is how can we just create a great user experience how we just make this amazing for the user?

It's, it is different, right? I mean, we are a core tech company. And all a lot of our tech, really all of our tech stack at this point is completely proprietary, like we're not using outside of AR kit AR core for slam everything else we've developed.

That's incredibly impressive and daunting. And because in many ways, you're recreating the sort of value that an epic or unity or an antique an eighth wall are also trying to provide, perhaps with a different focus. And maybe that's what the distinction is, but how is it when you go to one of these major brands or venue owners, and you say, use a Lumix? Not XYZ? What is that conversation? What is that argument? What is the differentiator, so you're highlighting,

it comes up all the time. So I will say for things like epic and unity, we consider those partners for us. So we're not trying to create an entirely new 3d content system or kind of interaction engine from that perspective. So we layer into and we can be compatible with both of those services. And most of our clients use us in addition to one of those two. So we're really talking about more of the AR SDK, since that's functionally what a Lumix provides is an AR SDK plus a management platform. And I think what it comes down to, as you said, its focus, right, we focus entirely and specifically on venues, and we are great at that we can make the precision in any known environment to a level at which you know, let's call it like the Google geospatial tools. And then I antics and April's simply can't, right eighth wall, I think has always been, I don't want to make this sound like I'm coming at them, because I think they're fantastic at what they do. But they're very much and always have been focused on a marketing use case. And, you know, they run on web, and that's a perfect fit and technology, innovation and kind of ownership for them. We're not focused on marketing campaigns, right? We're focused on what we consider infrastructure, right? The same way you build in physical infrastructure. When you go to a venue, we consider ourselves the digital infrastructure. And it's just a different. It's, frankly, a different core tack. It's a different tech stack. It's a different technological approach. We integrate directly into our venues, apps, this isn't a separate AR application. It's not even a game, right? We're not saying hey, let's take your IP and go and build a separate game off of it. Frankly, if you want to do a world scale game, and geolocation Niantic is probably second to none. Right? And so it really comes down to use case. And that's what we what we tell everyone is, I'm not a big fan of hard selling and trying to bring down other people in this world, especially in the AR space. It's such a small space, I really believe that, you know, rising tide lifts all ships. And so for us, it's identifying the right clients and making sure their goals are aligned with what we specifically are great at. If you are looking to market to a Gen Z audience that already exists. Like maybe you should build a filter on SNAP. Right? That's, that's going to be great for you. If you want to build awareness of your experience. That's probably what I would tell you to do. If you want to take your IP and allow people outside of your venue to experience it anywhere and have this major game or get people moving. You should probably work with Niantic they're great if right if you want to do a marketing campaign that's AR or something coming to life that anyone can use and you don't need them to download an app. And it's easy APR is great at that. Right. And I think it's up to us. But if you want to add a digital layer to your physical venue, and that's owned and operated, and you want this to be about your relationship with the consumer, we are great at that. And so for us, it's just finding where you live in this wider market.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I'd like to maybe poke just for a moment at one of the areas again. So it makes great sense in my own limited mind here, why a major concert venue or a sports venue or entertainment venue, amusement park would add an extra digital layer helped me better understand from an end users perspective how that connects to making my experience in a retail setting, more engaging, more enjoyable.

The retail is definitely a newer section, I think that we're exploring right now. We think about it more broadly as live events, right? So I think about what fashion shows look like I don't know how involved you are Paris Fashion Week is happening now. Right? And it wasn't on your radar, it's very heavily all over my feeds. But when you think about that's another to me, it's it's not so dissimilar from a concert or sports experience. People go there's a lot of trap and build up, you hold up your phone to have this limited physical experience you're sharing? Most certainly, how can we create that additional layer that might be personalized to each individual person that might allow these designers new ways of expressing things. And when you take that example, and you build it out into retail, whether it's about, you know, taking the storefronts themselves and turning it into part of the brand story that engages people to come in, whether it's providing discounts along the way, or doing wayfinding whether it's changing billboards from being these flat, 2d things that float through to something that's immersive and engagement, engaging and larger than life. I think you see this a little bit with 3d billboards today, if any of you have seen I think in Times Square, there's some in Japan, there's a few, but they're incredible experiences. And I think that again, it goes into how can we provide this without having to spend all of the money on the physical infrastructure? So that's that's the retail use case, I think a little bit more but, but certainly, I think when we look at accommodation and entertainment and sports, there's, I think, a really obvious fit today. Yeah,

that makes perfect sense. And we have a great time at the Paris Fashion Week, next week, oh,

I'm not going it's happening. I'm sitting here in my apartment, running. But let me tell you from the experience economy, I feel that I am experiencing it from all of the content that's flooding my social feeds. So that tells you anything, there

you go. And that's really ties back to the whole notion that we live in the sharing economy, we get to experience so much more about the world because of all the other people who are there in person insuring it out. One of the highlights, I guess, since we last spoke, some of that came up earlier this year is that you announced this really impressive series a and a $2 million, Series A. And I find that to be extra impressive, because this is not been really the best market in which to raise money for AR companies, especially AR technology companies, and it's for VR company. And I'd love to dig in a little bit more into this experience you had in raising that round, around, specifically, maybe the start where some of the biggest challenges were in doing that fundraise.

Sure, as you pointed out, I think it's a challenging time for fundraising, frankly, even outside of the world of AR just in general, fundraising is more challenging today than I can recall during the history of the company it ever being. So I think threading the needle really tightly between when you as a company are ready to raise, like when your core financials and your data and your story really line up to when the market feels like it's slightly more open is challenging. And I think where we really landed as a company is a little bit ignore the market and choose when we think it is the right moment for our company to take in more capital when we think we are ready. And we have shown that significant progress. And I think as founders, right, you have to have some confidence that what you're building has those underlying pieces that make it worth it. I think if in 2021, right, you who sort of get away with this is a great story and a great concept and a great team. And we're going to believe that this works out. And unless you are basically a generative AI company today, that's just not going to be your reality. And so that really comes down to sort of fundamentals in some ways, right? It comes down. Are you building a real business? Full stop? Can you reach profitability? It's sort of the going back to basics of before you pull yourself out of the VC mindset, which is can you make it to the next you know, 18 to 24 months? And you say are you building a business that can last which I just think has really not been a part of the conversation That's the That's the question. I think we've been lucky. And I'll be honest, I felt FOMO in the past around not jumping on some of those cycles, like the metaverse cycle would have been a great time, hypothetically, for me to raise off of, you know, a bigger story. But we chose not to, I think we have always been a little bit more slow and steady wins the race, let's really build up our company and business fundamentals. And I think that in this environment, that actually helped us a little bit, right, we've always had a little bit more of that traditional, more conservative, I suppose approach versus a little bit more aggressive. Vc is shiny. And I think in today's world, that's an approach that's, that's more aligned with market conditions. And with I think people seeing that you're a good steward of, of capital, and that you can have efficient growth, right, you don't need $100 million, or a billion dollars always to make progress. You don't.

As an aside, I am working with a friend's lunar rover company. They're building this fantastic modular lunar mobility company platform. And they do unfortunately, need 50 to $100 million.

Hardware is a different beast.

That was the thought that pops in my mind. Anyway. So going back to this notion. So this focus on pragmatism and building a real company definitely resonates I think, with where the fundraising the investor market is today, there's less patience and appetite, and less except for generative AI, for betting on the hypothetical betting on this, oh, yeah, the world is gonna be a much better place tomorrow than it is today. And so you know, everything will be okay. But now, they're, they're investing in more real solid companies. And as you noted for what you're creating, you don't need 50 to $100 million in order to make significant progress. But even that isn't enough to raise money. Just being a good steward of the resources and having a focus on profitability is not quite enough. No,

it's not you're you're still raising money from a VC. So any which way you cut it, right? Just saying, Hey, we're slowly building a strong business, you have to be able to believe in genuinely and see for yourself, in addition to storytelling, communicate a huge win potential. And I think the advantage that anyone in AR has to some level is that one, if you find people who believe that AR is the future, I think that's necessary, right? You're not going to convince somebody that they're going to give you big, big money if they don't think AR is a part of the future. So make sure you're talking to the right audience. But for people who believe AR is the future, I think if you can tell a story about while why you create value today, and you're a solid company today to the first point, but also why the changes in consumer behavior, the changes in technology, the changes in hardware are going to take you from a good business today to an exceptional when that's owning the world tomorrow. That's really how you do it, right? So it's a combination of when a are really isn't it's, Hey, day, we're going to be one of the biggest and most important companies out there. And if that day takes a little bit longer, we're still a great company, and you're not going to lose money. I think that that balance really worked well. For us. There's

already a huge challenge in raising money in this market that you overcome. Was there other things that contributed to the challenge? was being a female founder and extra element? Is that something you felt?

You know, I get asked this a lot. I don't perceive it to be so at this space. And I think that is all estrus, that I think certainly earlier when you're trying to get someone to believe in you for the first time, gender and race and all of that. I mean, there's statistics to back this are factors whether we want them to be or not, I have always sort of taken the attitude of flying in the face of it and just ignoring, ignoring it. And just being as you know, loud, proud, confident, and just showing up as much as possible, and just not taking it to heart, I think I have a really long history of being the only woman in a room, almost to the point where it really doesn't faze This is not the first time I've been in this environment. It's probably the millionth time and so I barely register and notice that now. So the short answer is no, I think when I am doing the fundraise, I don't feel that I am being discriminated against or kind of at any disadvantage, especially since our company is already established and pieces like that. I think what is interesting, as you know, now, I've gotten to know more of a growth stage community is I think, where women maybe sometimes are at a disadvantage is just being in the right rooms when I talk to some of my founder friends who have raised incredible money and you know, certainly have great companies. Again, it's not a slice of the company. But when I talk to them about their fundraise process, there's a lot more of this guy took me to Vegas, I was at a concert with him and we got to know each other and almost like there's a friendship In this underlying experience that people are sharing, and that's never once happened to me with a VC. They're all like my last round was all 100% Zoom meetings, very formal diligence, the whole nine, it was certainly not a, I got to know them and got them hyped. And we went out for dinner and drinks and a concert or whatever it is, I've never in my life had that experience with a VST. And I don't think I really even registered that that was happening until recently. But certainly, it was. And I think it maybe is, I'm not sure as much in today's world. But I think that that's where I've noticed a distinction of, I can't say for sure that's a gender thing. But I think it's a factor

that probably indirectly, at least indirectly, a gender thing, in my mind, as I think about this, because you hang out with your body, and your body tends to look like you at some level. And since most of the current investors, the majority of the current investors are still males and white males, generally, then their buddies gonna be other white males. And it's less likely that you know that white male is hanging out with a female of color in some similar sort of social experience with a sort of natural reality, naturalness that would come from

and I'll throw up some of it might just be personality of like, a lot of founders are big, bold, you know, very extroverted and love that kind of, if someone asked me to go to a concert to Vegas, I would shutter I mean, I would be happier reading Harry Potter instead on a Friday night, honestly, even at this phase. And so it's just a, I think some of it is just who you are and what, what circles you run in? Yep,

Yep, absolutely. So as you have gone through this experience, you went through many formal pitches you, as you noted, refined in focus the company since we last chatted in the lead up to the Series A, there's really strong sense of who you are. And my readers that that who you are, and where you're going is a little bit different today than it was a couple of years ago. So what is the vision you're pitching? Or did pitch during the series, a fundraise? I think you're

right, you know, the, from the very beginning, we have always pitched that we are going to be the sort of underlying AR engine that is powering end consumer experiences. I think that's the piece of the story. And frankly, if the company more than the story that has never shifted from, you know, before founding to this very moment, what has shifted I think is the way we have looked at that when we first started the company, we were very focused on AR gaming and like direct to consumer gaming. And I think that first game was so successful, right? It's, you know, over 50 million downloads organically, we've done really well, you know, it's generated millions and revenue, we've done really well with that. And what we have faced at that point was, do we build another game? Do we become a game studio? Or are we an AR technology company, and I think at our core, we have always been an AR company, we are an air company. And with that in mind, it was either going and finding other IPs and other partners to build game content on our engine. And we had a hard time finding that, frankly, the AR gaming market was not the hottest place and I think still isn't like necessarily the biggest most thriving section of mobile gaming today. And so we didn't feel we were in a position as a company to really pursue that option. We didn't want to be a game studio. And so when we looked at what we're really great at, like what we do really well with the Five Nights at Freddy's audience that made us so successful, a lot of that came down to was the immersion in the story, that digital physical blending that we had done, and the shareability of it. And I think we took that and we said, how can we take these core tenants and apply it to and other entertainment use cases that maybe aren't, you know, at home mobile games, and that's sort of, you know, where we landed where we are today. And we found a lot of traction in that space, specifically. So I think the story that we're telling today, I mean, it's much like the story we've we've been chatting about just in this episode of, we believe that digital and physical coming together is a big part of the future. And that in that world today, the places where the most value is created, is in these venues where people have a reason to hold up their phone where you can tell someone to try and experience and it can really be shared and become a part of how people experienced. I think that that is the vision we were able to share that made sense to some investors, or at least the ones who gave us money. And that, you know, in the future, this is going to be even larger part, this idea of digital infrastructure, and we are going to be the company that owns that. And then of course, to back it up, you got to have the right partners, and you got to show that traction. And you've got to be able to show why your technology is differentiated. And I think we had those

bits, the digital infrastructure for real world capture. Yeah, fantastic. So as you now have presented a plan within this within this series a raise, not just this vision, but not just the traction, which of course both Essential and amazing on their own. But there is some sort of next milestone that often, you know, as part of these stories that we're telling during these fundraising efforts. What is the sort of next major milestone that you can chat about, at least publicly at this point that you hope to achieve is kind of part of this next phase of the company's growth.

I'll speak a bit generically here. But I think with all companies, right, especially AR companies, or technology companies, early on, I think a lot of what it is, is showing team showing the technology and the product and why that really holds weight. We spent a lot of time with VCs, vetting that and making sure that those bits were there and made sense. And, of course, we had the the traction of the game that showed that we knew how to scale, we knew how to gain consumer attention, and monetize that. And then we had all of our evidence showing in the sector, we're getting real traction from big enterprises. As we move into the future. We're really a growth stage company now. Right. And so we think about the when we think about the next raise and the milestones, they are a bit different, right? They are more I think financially driven, they are more BD driven. In some ways, of course, that all stems I think from having the best product possible. That's always the beating heart of a Lumix. But we think about raised statistics, I don't expect that the next round is really going to be about here's all of the feature improvements that we've made. And the incredible team we've put together, it's going to be this is what our revenue growth rate is, this is what our net retention is with our clients look at the quality of the logos that we are working with, look at the size of the TAM and the kind of diversification that all of these venues can use the same product, I think that's going to be a lot of the story and of the reality in terms of those milestones. Sure.

It's kind of going back to this notion of setting your path. I had a chance recently to speak with Ross vindman. Ross was a an entrepreneur who sold his first company tonight and takes better machines and and he is now working, working on a second second startup. But in my conversation with Ross, he talks about this idea of tapping into existing behaviors and existing budgets, as much as possible. Do you agree or disagree that that's necessary, as you kind of think about more experiential AR sorts of experiences that you're creating, as opposed to the more sorts of pragmatic experiences maybe that he's currently focused on? How does it play here in this sort of in consumer world?

I think he's right, certainly about the first of all, I mean, Ross is a brilliant entrepreneur, I think AR technologist. And when we think about what we're focused on, I think for the user behavior part, absolutely teaching a user a totally new behavior, especially if that user is the is a consumer, I think you're in a really difficult position. And there are very few companies that have ever been successful in that. But capitalizing on an existing shift. And you know, we've talked in the past about it just in this episode about people holding up their phone, people being digital natives, that huge generational shift and engagement shift that we're seeing. I think that that is really relevant here. Because it creates an urgency for the companies to engage, I think they see the problem of people are standing there, and they are less patient, and they are more involved in their phones, and they are more disengaged. And so I think that that actually creates a reason to do something about it and creates that problem functionally that your technology is solving to the point of budgets. Yeah, it's, it's critical right to understand what that company cares about. What I would say is, I think sometimes startups can get caught a little bit in, take this with a grain of salt. But I think over solving for what a specific client wants, right? Like you do a lot of interviews, you try to really understand and you either create something that's hyper tailored, or the reality is they actually didn't realize what they wanted in the first place. And so I think a big part of what we have to do is figure out where we think the most value is created and keeping in mind as much as the paying customer matters. And they do what the consumer thinks matters most if the customer pays for it, and then it goes live and consumers don't use it or hate it. You're dead in the water anyway, right? Like there was no point in any of that. And so I think having a really clear perspective on what consumer behavior is how AR impacts that end consumer, assuming you're running something that does touch the consumer at the end of the day, and being able to I think help guide the companies through here's the missed opportunity that's in front of you hear, here's something where you can generate more revenue and more engagement than you thought possible. And here's why it's the most efficient and effective way of doing that. I think that that's something that budget can be created around often.

You highlight a big risk that chatting with customers can pose which is many startup will end up finding a large entity for example, as a first customer who is more than delighted to have a start to kind of do their bidding, and design a product that meets their specific needs, and then the startup may discover that that company's needs are very unique in the world, and doesn't translate doesn't, you know, represent other opportunities. In a more general case, and or more specifically, the specific features that were requested by that large customer don't end up applying. So you're over invested in one customer. And and customers don't know exactly what they want. They may attempt to articulate their need, but they may not themselves really know or appreciate the need. And, and so in the end, you may not have built the right thing anyway, even though you're doing a great job of listening. And I appreciate very much this notion that part of this is belief based, right? You as an entrepreneur, have to have a deep understanding of the underlying motivations, behaviors of the end user, in this case, since you're, you're b2b, to see ultimately, in order to have a successful product. And so there's a balancing act. I wonder how you manage this, this balancing act between pushing back on the paying customer and the business in favor of making sure that it's a good end user experience?

What we have found is that when companies work with us, they work with us, yes, because of the technical offering. And yes, because I think what we can enable what that technical offering is meaningfully differentiated from what you could do using another AR SDK. But I think part of that is also AR is the Wild West, there is no clear handbook or ability to kind of copy and say, Hey, this is the right way to do it. This is what's going to work for me and my customer, right, this isn't, you know, I think we've hit that point a little bit in mobile gaming, where there's a clear playbook on how to do this and how to do this, right, we've hit that point a little bit with ads and social media, their best practices and an AR, that book is still being written. And I think one of the big advantages a Lumix has created partially through the success with the game partially through working with some of the biggest names inside of venues is, we really have a deep understanding, I think it's always developing, but we have a fairly deep understanding of what works and what doesn't. And we've just spent more hours doing this and thinking about this than most people on the planet. And so when we work with even really large clients, we find that it is a little bit more of a partnership of us saying, Here's what we think here's your objectives, let's talk it through, versus us just being dictated to. And I think that that helps in in solving that. And I think, again, I think people are looking for a perspective, right? Like people are looking for a sense of here's how to do this, right, here's the right path forward, here's why I think that they're not gonna blindly listen to you, you have to have reasons. But I think if you do, and if all of that is based off of true experience and true thoughtfulness that you know underpins it, then I think that it can be really powerful moving forward. And I always tell every entrepreneur to your point of like, over solving for what someone says, it always reminds me of the Henry Ford quote, if you ask people what they want, they would say faster horse. And so I think it's that careful, you don't want to hyper optimized locally and miss the global optimum of if you're starting a company, you need to have that in five years and 10 years and 20 years, the world will look like x. And this is how our company participates in that vision, or helps get us there. And I think it's easy when you're working with large enterprise clients to lose that in favor of their world and their vision. But I think every morning when you wake up, you need to know what that means and what that looks like for you. And sometimes the hardest thing is you have to say no, we've had to say no to some clients, or some projects, because it just wasn't a good match.

And it is in your best interest in their best interest at that point to not Yeah, it's

difficult. Sometimes, you have to understand what winning really means, right? And it's not just getting the deal. It's way past that. Absolutely.

Want to comment on on the faster horse. And then I won't jump back into your entrepreneurial experience. But this notion, this Henry Ford quote about asking people what they want, they want a faster horse, they do want a faster horse. But what they're saying that's what the those the words are saying but what they mean is, right. And that's I think part of the entrepreneurs challenge is how to ask the questions and listen to the answers in a way that is truly fundamental to what the user needs. And a faster horse is exactly what they wanted, because they wanted to get from point A to point B more quickly. Of course, there are other elements. There's the safety element and coordination element, all these other components that go into this, but fundamentally, it's about transportation and moving from point A to point B, even though they articulated as I want a faster horse, which I think for so many entrepreneurs going back to this risk of, of over optimizing for one particular client is that if you don't know how to listen to the answers you're getting, and you don't know how to deeply abstract and appreciate what they're saying and how it applies to broader market opportunity. Then you can easily paint yourself into a corner and you said When the rather than becoming a product focused technology company, for example, you suddenly find yourself being a, a excellent service oriented company building one off things for for different customers.

Yes, it's so important to avoid that and make we try to make sure everything we build applies across a number of clients and even verticals, right, we won't necessarily we won't really build something that's hyper hyper specific for anyone. Does that make sense?

Yeah. One of the things that you had mentioned in your fundraising journey is that you yourself, your own personality, just exudes this belief and confidence. And you don't let it bother you. If you are the only one that looks like you in the room. And that stems from a level of confidence that you have that others may not have. And so I'm curious, how did you develop that confidence? And how did you end up applying it here in this sort of entrepreneurial context,

I always say that confidence is a muscle, I think that people think people are born with confidence or form without confidence. But I think it is something that you work out and you build in something that can deteriorate when you're not using it, right. And I think for a lot, a lot of confidence is just being willing to do something, right. If you define failure as not trying, I think that that's very hand in hand with confidence of not everything I've done has worked not within a Lumix not within my wire life. And I think that part of it is you bounce back and you learn. And that's okay. And I think, you know, and some of the things that we've taken swings that have worked and have been fantastic successes. And I think actually an equal measure both of those improve your confidence. So for me, confidence is really built by putting yourself out there and trying, right, I can be small things every day, right? That could be going and sounds ridiculous. But for a while, what I was doing is I have a little socially shy. And so like when I'm in an elevator with someone, I immediately look down and pull out my phone and pretend to read an email or actually read an email. But I started to try to have chats with random people around me, which was horrifying, but it actually really built my confidence, I'm just giving a small example, right, you can start a company and do something and fail, and that will build your confidence in its own way. Or you can do something tiny every day. But it's stretching yourself, it's being willing to be comfortable in the uncomfortable. And I think that showing that you can do it and you survive and you get through it, you become more confident. This

notion that you can build that as a muscle, through even the sort of little experiences, you describe an artist they don't, they don't feel a little like if you are standing in that elevator, the first couple of times you put yourself out there, it doesn't feel small in that moment. But in the larger scheme of things that you can reflect back onto it is relatively a small, small moment, that this notion that you can build this up over time, and that that can lead to the next sort of challenge present for yourself to kind of build that confidence and to define failure, not as trying and it not working out as you hope. But simply to not try feels like a really powerful set of tools that somebody could could leverage to kind of slowly build up their competence. And then also, you'd notice that it is like a muscle in that it can deteriorate over time. And so if you don't, if you don't continue to exercise it, you can regress, and I'm curious for just to have a second, have you ever seen this sort of notion of deterioration of confidence? Or experienced it yourself? Yeah,

absolutely. I feel like I have experienced it, where sometimes you get really set in your ways. And then, you know, fundraising and it's always a great time to talk about this. Because you're getting you know, you're pitching a lot you're pitching something you believe in and you've dedicated your life and your work to, and you're gonna get a lot of notes, right, you're gonna get a lot of rejection. And that can sometimes be be tough. And you can either I think, take it and view it as it wasn't the right fit. And the right fit is common, or you can take it I think more personally and have it be a personal indictment. And I think a lot of the difference I've found in how I'm able to deal with that is one sleeve, but to confidence. So where I am at that moment of the right thing is coming because I know I feel confident in myself and what I've built and what we've done as a company, or you know, sometimes if you haven't been putting yourself out there, you've been very stuck in your comfort zone. Those things will not keep more and sometimes you have to do things that shock you to get you in there. Like if I call my mom and I'm really upset because I've had a tough day and she knows it's because I'm just not feeling confident. Sometimes she makes me stand on my balcony and scream. You know, like I am the best. Like my company is getting fun at whatever it is right? You can pick anything when I was a child, she used to make me do stand on my piano bench and scream like I have the best when I was crying and feeling unconfident. And just those little crazy moments and hearing your own voice say something with conviction. It does. I think speak to your kind of inner inner self and just going out and doing little things and knowing you can get through it. I think it makes a really big difference in how you receive the larger things in life. Yeah,

Incredible, as I have my own pair of daughters who I'm trying to help mold on their own journeys into becoming competent, how young women, is there a difference in gender and the advice that you would apply to a young man versus a young woman, there's

no difference in the advice that I would give. But I do definitely see women sometimes more affected by it. And I think that's just societally, how we're shaped right? Things are more about who you are, there's a lot more judgment that's just built into the process of growing up that I think can deteriorate your confidence a little bit, and there's a lot more of a pressure I think, in some ways to fit in. And again, it doesn't, this societal contract sort of doesn't allow you to push into the uncomfortable, which is where you're building that confidence muscle, right, it's more about putting you back into the box and putting you back into something known and existing, conformist comfortable. And I think that that's where you just don't have the opportunity to build that confidence, right, you're functionally being shrunk down versus pushing up against those uncomfortable boundaries and breaking through, which is the process of creating confidence. I also think there's just a lot of there's a lot of focus on rejection for women, right, in every phase being rejected as the worst thing, whether it's dating, whether it's in school, there's there's a perfectionism there that I think can be really challenging and dangerous, particularly in entrepreneurship settings. Yeah,

my younger has this more than my, my elder daughter. In this, this notion of perfection. In her mind, everything, every piece of schoolwork, I'm trying to convince her to like, this morning, the conversation was this math homework does not need to be perfect, like the teacher is literally in the span half a second, looking at the quality of your graph, it does not need to be perfectly drawn parabola in this particular space. But she'll spend, you know, the extra half hour or hour on the math homework just to make it look visually perfect. Anyway, and so this is part of the conversation is this, this notion of the love layers, ultimately into this conversation, but this notion that, that I feel like sometimes inadvertently, we as a society, and maybe the male figures in particular, but even even the female figures in a young woman's life, there's layer of protectionism that kind of goes into, I want to make sure that this gentle child, this female child, my daughter, is protected from the world because the world is a dangerous place, we need to make sure that women are, in particular are safe within that space. And even though it says may not be an explicit sort of decision making that goes on, implicitly, kind of it can show up in all sorts of little decisions that we do. And then there's this other side of it you described, which is this, that women tend to be far more judged for far more superficial things than the men in our lives. And that adds up cumulatively, and can have lots of negative effects, especially as it relates to confidence.

I think that's right, like no, look, no one likes being rejected. And I think that that fear of judgment is so built into everything that women do in a way that isn't necessarily always true of men, that creates just more of a sensitivity, right? Like, if you rob a spot over and over again, it's going to become more sensitive. And I think when you look at really difficult moments in the entrepreneurship journey, for example, fundraising, it's hard to walk to run into a brick wall 100 times waiting for Yes, not knowing for sure if it's ever going to be there. And for me, what I've really leaned in on is just like I said, I think it's all about what you can control if you can't control if a VC is going to like the pitch and like the business but you can control I think your mindset around it a little bit I you know, the two big reframes that have massively helped me during my entrepreneurship journey and fundraising specifically have been around thinking of it as a fit issue of you don't need you know, you don't even want 100 yeses, you want to find the right people that understand the vision and understand the company and they're gonna be good long term partners for you. And I think the second piece is reframing the know of, to the point of it's hard to run into the brick wall 100 times in a row. If I told you for sure that you're five nose away from a yes, you would run into that wall over and over as fast as potluck you would be excited to run into that wall because you know, at the end there's a yes. And I think that that's how I frame it of like I'm 50 noes away from a yes and whatever that you can pick a number whatever it is, but it kind of gives you this Jawad Aviv and enthusiasm for running into the wall. Because you know, in your heart there is that Yes, coming. And I think if you really believe that's the case, in a weird way, I think you're more likely to get to that. Yes. And it really makes the nose not hurt as much because you kind of knew that there were going to be nose on the way to the Yes, I think there's an inherent, you know, confidence ego, whatever you want to call it of every entrepreneur, you walk into the room and you expect it to be a yes, because what you're doing is brilliant, and it makes perfect sense and how could they not see it? But if you walk in and you think I'm gonna find the right partner here, I'm looking they're looking we want to make sure It's a good fit long term, and I'm a few noes away from finding that right person at being a yes, it's just a lot less scary.

It's such a brilliant and amazing reframing. I love this so much. And I was thinking of this very simplistic parallel, that we torture ourselves in other ways on a regular basis for the benefit of the longer term outcome, such as exercise, is it truly fun to, you know, work your butt off for 30 minutes whenever you're doing or an hour, and whatever you're doing. In that moment, walking into that extra step, for me, at least, this notion, like, Okay, I'm about to, like, create all this physical pain for myself and mental pain for myself. The first, once I get past the first couple of minutes, it's fine. And at the end, it's amazing, because you have those endorphins, but over time, you just recognize I'm going to walk into this pain every day, knowing that the longer term benefit is gonna is going to be there, it's not quite, not quite the right analogy. But anyway, in the sort of daily life experience, there are other moments that we can draw from in which we just acknowledge that there will be some pain that we're gonna hurt. And we're gonna run to that brick wall. Because we know there's benefit on the other side, at some point, it's going to yield the result that we want.

And we had such incredible investors join in this round that way, honestly, beyond what I could have even pictured coming in. Right, we had, I think, for me, the series A was my dream list of investors from the smartest people in my opinion on just finance in general, what it takes to build a great company, we had Henry Kravitz join, right as a part of it, you know, the legendary founder of KKR, all the way to Matt ball, who's probably the biggest expert in AR VR, the metaverse to, you know, Mark Cuban, all the way over to Rich Greenfield, who has been, I think, a leader in thinking about TMT companies and stocks and technology and media for ages. And so it was just, it was really, I think, felt so good. At the end, it was worth worth every face plant hit into that brick wall, for sure.

Fantastic. Let's do a couple more. And then we'll do this last couple of Lightning Rounds. As you have now been at this as an entrepreneur for six, seven years or so now, how have you seen yourself grow and evolve and change as an entrepreneur and CEO,

I think I'm a lot less reactive and impacted by the external circumstances than I once used to be, I think about how I was at the beginning and every news article about another AR company. And I would be panicky for a second. And, you know, every just everything was a crisis and on fire. And I just very much felt there had to be this intense level of vigilance. And I'm not saying that was necessarily all bad of that detail orientation. And that work in that paranoia, I think is part of what it takes to build a great company. But I think I certainly took it to an extreme where Emotionally, I was really impacted by what was going on in the company to be effective, which was probably not great for the company. If I was every time it was high, I was high. And every time it was low, I was low, right? There wasn't that modulation. But I think I, especially over the last two years or so I think I've really come afar, quite a long way. In that specific regard of when things are great. I try to take a moment and celebrate. But I think that everything is a little bit more closer to median for me now. And I think that's actually made the journey a lot more pleasant.

Yeah, that's impressive and important, I think migration for your own sanity and health, and maybe for the company and the people directly around you as well in the company. As you think about advice that you share with other founders pursuing a company based on some sort of Frontier technology. What is a common piece of advice that you end up sharing? For

specifically companies that are building frontier technology? I think it's really important to give people the why they should care. Before you get into the what it is, I think there's a real desire to always jump in. Because you're Excel, you already know that why it matters to you. And you want to jump into why what you've done and why it's cool and why it's different. But if they don't know why they care, you've already lost them, like you're already dead in the water. And so I think it's just really important, before every conversation to tie in to the How does this matter in their world? What is it important for them to know to know, how do you prime them to understand why what you're saying is exciting. I think that that is probably been one of the biggest learning lessons that I've had during the journey.

Yeah, fantastic. Let's wrap up the last couple of lightning round questions here. And some of these we asked before and so maybe there's an updated answer, or maybe not. But first step is what commonly held belief about spatial computing or AR Do you disagree with?

I can't remember if this is what I said before, but it's always that multiplayer is the unlock. I still feel like I come up against that sometimes of like big multiplayer experiences are are better and I just disagree. I don't think that it is an unlock in any way. In some ways. It complicates things.

So single user experience can be an amazing X perience and we're

even we're even asynchronous multiplayer like it does this idea of synchronous multiplayer being the core of everything. I just I've been hearing that for seven years, and I just have always disagreed.

Besides the one you're building, what tool or service do you wish existed in the AR market?

Good question. The one I think of the most sort of exists, but I don't think is great anywhere. I think visual search still has a long way to go. And it's certainly something that would change my life. And I think most users if it was a little bit better, what

book or podcasts or video or some I know your book readers are for what sort of media have you read or consumed recently that you found to be deeply insightful or profound?

Yeah, I've read a lot of books recently, the one that I can't believe I actually hadn't read until this point. But I think about all the time, and I think everybody should read is The Alchemist. Just a fantastic book about finding, I think, your personal legend, as they call it in that book, but kind of finding your calling and pursuing your journey, I think, especially for entrepreneurs. I wish I had read that every year of my entire journey.

It's not a very good book, either. It's a no, it's

a very quick read. And you know what, I actually listened to it on Audible, as well. And it's great. It's really well done.

Yeah, very cool. If you could sit down and have coffee with your younger self, we'll say five years ago self, what advice would you share?

Last time, I think I did the genie test. So I'll choose something different. One of the things I've been thinking about a lot recently, if I looked at myself five years ago, when I was just early in the company journey is, I would tell myself, to not sacrifice some of the family and friend moments that I did. I think if I look back, and I say what was my biggest regret during my entrepreneurship journey, that's definitely it for me if I was so intertwined, and if I'm not here, for the next two days, the whole thing will go bust and belly up. And this is the most critical, and this is on fire. And when I think about the vacations and the memories, and some of the things like that, and the family moments that I missed, because I was doing the company, and I felt like I was being hardcore and dedicated, and this is what it takes. I think in the macro seven years out, it wouldn't have mattered, we'd be exactly where we are like, none of it would like outside of maybe one exception, it never would have mattered, there was never such a critical thing that it was worth completely missing out on those moments. And I would love to go back and shake my younger self and say, balance it out, it's going to be okay, you're going to end up in the same place at the end of the day.

How do you in the moment distinguish between the actual fires, and the imagined fires so that you can give yourself permission to go and be with friends or family in that moment?

It's a tough question. Some of it is pattern matching. Sometimes I feel like it's sort of like deep learning, like you just have enough inputs, you don't know exactly what the algorithm is, it's happening that you know, but I would say one of the big things that someone once told me was understanding the impact of time on that problem, this time make this problem worse, does it make it neutral? Or does it make it better? I think, in general is a very rough heuristic, it's a good sense of something's really on fire time is gonna make it worse, and you need to drop everything and deal with it. You know, it's some real crisis, if it's something has gone wrong, and it's going to be the same tomorrow or a week from now, I think you have the power to say this is when it makes sense for me to do it, right. Versus someone else is freaking out on Slack and saying, Can you get on a zoom right now, but this was your time to eat lunch or your time to work on your personal stuff or get to Inbox Zero, really consider what works best for you. That's been a huge shift for me. And I think there are some crises that frankly, get better over time you get more information, things died down. And that's when you can and should take a beat. So I think think about the impact of time on any crisis. And that will help you understand the best way to deal with it. Yeah,

it's a great heuristic. It's wonderful. Any closing thoughts you'd like to share?

I think just in general, that it's an exciting time to be an AR entrepreneur been doing this for a long time. And I think there's always been a question around market timing. That's just the reality of this space. And I think with Apple putting their kind of line in the sand and at least getting us started. And there being a lot more interest around these new hardware and progression, I think, in general and how we're seeing at least what we're seeing, like some of these big companies think about it. I actually think that this industry is going to be lighting up and really exponential over the next decade. And so I'm just as exciting and wonderful as the last decade was I think the next decade is going to be even better.

Amazing. What can people go to learn more about you and your efforts there at a Lumix?

To learn more about a Lumix, you can always visit our website, which is just www.eliminex.com.

And you don't want them to talk to you.

If you want to talk to me, you're obviously welcome to do so I'm probably I haven't been terribly active on social media lately, but probably the best way to reach me is a message either through LinkedIn And or through Instagram and my handle is just Kiran Sinha

amazing Kiran, thank you so much for the conversation.

Thank you.

Before you go, I'm gonna tell you about the next episode. In it. I speak with Baba Tavin gar Babak is the co founder and CEO of brilliant labs, a company building open source hardware and open source hardware and software for wearable AR devices. They're working to support hackers and creatives who are reimagining the future. And as part of that mission, they are enabling generative AI to extend our idea of what AR can be, we'll get into the origin of the company, the uniquely hackable monocle wearable device, generative AI and more. Thank you really enjoy the conversation. And thanks for listening