I’m writing this three days after moving from Gainesville, Florida to Vienna, Austria. It’s a little different. Fewer Alligators. More bakeries. The hummus is better, but the peanut butter leaves much to be desired. I always liked how multicultural Gainesville was compared to my hometown of Daytona Beach, but Vienna really takes it to another level. Is EVERYBODY here fluent in five languages?
When I first started developing ERAS in 2020, I was transitioning out of a role where I was working with a very diverse group of people. We had (in no particular order) Indian, Nepali, Taiwanese, Chinese, Korean, and Russian people who all enriched my life in many ways just by being my coworkers. I came to have a lot of respect for other cultures and found myself fascinated by the variety that I found in their art. The thought of enabling collaborative, mixed reality art in real time across the globe is just too exciting!
However, global can also mean expensive. Shipping a painting from the US to Europe or Asia is generally not good for business. If PBM is to be a global project, we need to have copies of ERAS in many countries. And of course, every area has a different market, meaning what works in one place might not work in another. So how can we adapt?
The plan for now is to take a franchise-style approach in the US. The next version of ERAS will be one that can operate for hours independently without needing someone to load/unload materials. Much like mining crypto, we want to make it profitable for operators to keep an ERAS in their garage, or have a larger operation with multiple ERASes in a dedicated space.
But what about outside the US? Because I’m now in Vienna, a city known for its artists, it only seems natural to me to work with ERAS on projects that are not strictly business. A small teaser – the next project is called “Tanzen mit Pflanzen” (dance with plants). The idea is that growing projects in locations outside the US will bring new opportunities. If not for the intercultural exchange with Asia in California, we would never have achieved the Sushi Burrito!
I’m excited by the opportunity to combine what I’ve learned working in the Gainesville startup community with the art scene in Vienna. It’s a privilege and a half to be on the cutting edge of the mixed reality movement while also living in such a multicultural city. I feel kind of like a mad scientist, mixing random vials of colorful liquids together, having no idea what will come of it. Maybe through all of this, we’ll discover something really amazing!