Time runs like water. If that’s so, then in the first year of starting own business time flies like a tsunami after an 8 magnitude earthquake. It goes that fast that I’m actually thankful to be stuck at the Hong Kong airport with a pretty long overlay, so I can finally start this short but spicy recapitulation of our first year building a global virtual and augmented reality studio Yord.
Garage band start
We have started Yord in a small office of the garage size in the so-called Prague’s Silicon Valley – Karlín. The 16 meters squares with 2 meters high ceilings office became our home for working, eating, drinking and especially thinking … At the time it was only 2 of us, working long hours after our actual work.
When speaking about tsunami speed, the first months actually felt quite the opposite. They felt like the story of an old man and the sea. Just us, small boat calm water and thousands of questions with no answers on the horizon. How to show validity if you are only starting? How to reach to the first clients? How to cover expenses of self-funded investment demanding startup?
First partner, the first product
As we started Yord, we always conciliated this idea around what we called the hybrid model – building VR and AR products and use our knowledge to execute agency work for others on the highest level.
It didn’t take too long to find our first partner in crime for the product part. JHV is a partner with love for innovations that strongly believes in the power of immersive technologies. Partner with whom we created a new product-focused startup MAINWARE.
This helped us quite early found some so needed answers we were initially looking for. We realized we needed to address a mature market where the power of immersive technologies already has an unquestionable impact. Impact that powerful that we were able to leave the comfort of our safe employment and put ourselves fully into this whole new startup world.
One year to establish an agency
While happily working our asses off on our new AR product, we haven’t forgotten about the initial model. We used our resources and possibilities to spread the word about this newly founded VR / AR Prague-based studio with a fantastic tech team and big dreams.
We spent a considerable amount of time evangelizing the VR / AR topic where we potentially could. After several disappointments, dozens of presentations, meetings, and conversations led to our current work with multiple enterprise-sized clients. You can see some of our projects in the section all projects.
Surfing that wave
Nowadays, Yord consists of more than 10 people and we are still hiring guys, so check more at (careers). As we are growing as a team we are trying to focused on the culture and values. We want to build a company, where the best ideas beat hierarchy, where people feel purpose and connect with our ultimate vision & mission. Also, it’s crucial to say that we are heavily meme driven company (whatever that means).
Moreover, as we believe Prague has the utmost potential to become a VR/AR hub, we tried to push things further and support the local XR community. Recently by hosting XR meetup.
Yet the biggest challenges are still to come. As proper pirates whose hearts are filled with rum and dreams, we are about to sail out of the safe shores of Prague to distance places. Wish us luck or join us in the year number. II.
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