Organizing a new XR product department

After fulfilling the role of Project Manager at creative AR/VR agency Capitola and working Ad Interim for Polestar Automotive for 11 months, I received a promotion for the role of Business Development Manager end of 2022. My new task was to transform the agencies' custom-innovation approach into a product-based offering. This turned out to be quite a journey full of insights that challenged my resourcefulness and agility.  

In the beginning of my role, I took a structured approach, defining several product verticals.I started setting up systems and operations for marketing, sales and product development. I also performed thorough market analysis and created a unique webpage for each product or service. The first product offering we marketed was the AR web-viewer, an online plugin that can be installed on any webpage enabling websites to show their product in 3D.

In order to promote this product offering, I designed a product webpage and a price configurator. We then had a google ads specialist configure many ad variations leading to the page.

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After spending significant advertising budget, I came to the conclusion that the results weren't what I was hoping for. And after talking to several leads and prospects, I found that by defining our innovations as specific products, it became much easier to compare our offerings to various competitors that were already on the market. And since there was a wide range of small startups who were carving out their niche and trying to gain market share, that playing field turned out to be quite competitive.

Rethinking my approach

The challenge then, was to identify a new use case, a problem to be solved that hadn't been tackled by anyone else in the market.
And when I visited the trade show Laval Virtual 2023 in France, I gained many of the insights that lead to development of this new product.

Insights

Here are some of the key insights I gained from the first phase:

• Our AR product configurator on a tablet was of such high quality, that there was a sincere interest with automotive manufacturers.
• The specific use case for these product viewer was always within a physical sales conversation
• Demonstrating products in 3D through remote conferencing isn't really possible yet,
• This is mainly due to the low adoption of VR headset
• The individual nature of these experiences.

It is my strong belief that the golden opportunity is to combine the XR capabilities of mobile phones and tablets, and the newest XR headsets.
All that was needed was a way to communicate on a Multi platform basis, managing 3D content from a single account.

The challenge was that, even though we had developed all of these features separately at some point in time. To integrate them, however was quite a big undertaking.
My resources were quite limited, so I asked Paulus Hendrix to join me at Capitola, because he's a highly skilled technical generalist.

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To achieve this, I developed several innovative products including a Web-AR plugin for e-commerce, Augmented Reality Tourguide Apps, Product Configurators, VR-Movies, AR-Campaigns, and augmented print/physical objects. I took a holistic approach to each product, creating a complete user journey that included video-ads on LinkedIn, SEA campaigns, sales materials, pricing structures, landing pages, and customer support systems.

XR suite

3D Web-viewer

3D plugin

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I worked closely with my team, meeting weekly to review and optimize our product journeys, making improvements based on feedback and market trends. My focus on developing innovative products and creating a seamless customer experience resulted in increased sales and a better understanding of our clients' needs.

This project was a challenging but rewarding experience that allowed me to showcase my ability to lead and drive innovation, while also demonstrating my expertise in product development, marketing, and customer support. The success of these products has helped to establish Capitola as a leading player in the AR/VR industry.

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