WATTY create AR projects for business and develop own apps
Please introduce yourself and your startup Watty to our readers!
Hi, I am Gleb Braverman — co-founder and CEO of WATTY. Along with my co-founder and CTO Vlad Vodolazov and our amazing team we are creating a future where people can collaborate in AR remotely, sharing emotions and feelings through AR experiences, even though they are separated geographically (they may even be on different planets one day — hello, Elon!) We believe we can achieve this by building multiuser AR interaction technology called WATTY Remote which supports all AR compatible devices, including wearables.
We create AR projects for business and also develop our own apps to demonstrate how far we can go with this technology. For instance, we are now launching an AR Ping-Pong app in which players from around the globe compete with one another in real-time table tennis matches and share their emotions about it in AR.
How did you get the idea for Watty?
Me and Vlad go way back together. We met around 4-5 years ago: I joined a team of talented developers as a business guy and managed everything but code. We have made several products, none of them actually took off. Along the road we’ve discussed several areas we were both fond of and AR was among them. It was before ARKit, ARCore, and Niantic’s huge success, and there was none of the hype that we see around the technology now. We dreamed about virtual worlds merged with our everyday lives. We quickly came to the idea that in order for an experience to be truly immersive it has to be available to the masses. This is how WATTY Remote was born.
What is the vision behind Watty?
We want AR to become massive, increase adoption of the tech among absolutely all groups of people. We want to make AR more useful and helpful for everyone.
History tells us that everything from mobile phones to gaming is moving towards multi-user experiences. For any tech to be successful it needs to connect people around the world.
We believe we can make AR better by creating tremendous immersive uninterrupted multi-user experiences together with an array of companies from around the world: we are actively creating showcases for different industries including retail, telecom, medical and gaming.
Being immersed in an experience allows you to feel emotions as well. Feeling emotions is crucial because it allows you to make a connection with a feeling, bond with the message that you are being presented. As a result you get a memorable experience.
How difficult was the start and what challenges did you have to overcome?
A team is always a challenge. We spent around 7 months gathering the best minds in the AR, marketing, product sectors. AR as an industry is relatively young and there are no real guidelines on how to do things, no historical data. However, I believe we did an amazing job bringing together such wonderful people.
What is the USP of your startup?
Team and expertise in a broad array of areas. Me and Vlad believe in expertise diversification: we get our inspiration from everything around us and look for the same in our team members. Despite starting as a gaming company we quickly understood that there is so much more around us. This is how we came up with the idea for hiring people outside of the typical fields of expertise.
Can you describe your typical workday?
Every day is a challenge. As Ben Horowitz put it in his famous book, we typically experience only two emotions: euphoria and terror, lack of sleep enhances them both. Word.
Where do you see yourself and Watty in five years?
AR market is very competitive with more and more companies, studios and indie devs entering it almost daily. We believe we can make this market even more diverse by collaborating with companies from all sectors starting from gaming to the space industry. In 5 years we see ourselves as one of the biggest providers of multiuser AR interaction solutions for small and medium studios and businesses that want to launch their own internal AR products.
What 3 tips would you give to other start-up founders on their way up?
Read more. Stay healthy. Sleep well.
More information you will find here
Thank you Gleb Braverman for the Interview
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