Let’s be honest - starting and running a VR / AR startup is a real challenge.Consumers are constantly looking for more exciting experiences, most of them have only a blurred idea of what virtual reality and augmented reality are. Due to the novelty and expensiveness of VR and AR technologies their popularity in the world is just gaining momentum on the market.
The raising interest to the VR/AR startups is reflected in a number of articles at the popular IT resources and various market forecasts.
Six tips with what to begin:
1. Define your product
Firstly, you have to define what kind of VR products you want to produce.Find your niche in this industry.
2. Define your audience
The Statista forecast approximates a number of consumers that would use some kind of AR/VR technology around the globe to 171 million by 2018. You can find your potential users among them. Of course, it calls for an extensive marketing research, but having an idea for a product and prospective audience figured greatly helps to attract investors.
3. Hire the best AR/VR app development company
The future of your product depends on this step.That's why try hard, put lots of efforts to find the best possible software company (if that has experience, nice portfolio and good capabilities in augmented and/or virtual reality app development).
4. Watch new developments
Mark Zuckerberg’s farsight in many respects has determined the current popularity of the VR. When Facebook acquired the Oculus company, it increased the interest of the rest of the world to this technology. Enormous attention is attracted to such brands as HTC and their HTC Vive, created in collaboration with Valve. Of course, Sony, one of the largest publishers in the gaming industry, couldn’t miss the unstoppable stream of VR/AR technology development. Let’s not forget the Samsung Gear VR wireless headset developed in 2015. Keeping on par with the vicinal developments helps to get ideas for new devices, apps, and services.
5. Watch the AR/VR industry trends
The virtual reality is gaining momentum, and there are numerous speculations about its current and future tendencies already. For instance, one of the most intriguing trends for the coming years is the mixed reality (MR). In short, while AR is a reality with integrated digital elements, MR is a virtual reality with integrated elements of real life.
6. Build the company structure
CEO, CTO, managing partners – startup co-founders should determine their roles since the very beginning. Besides, any startup looking for the investor attention, must know and then name the key first hirings.
Then you have to decide either hire an in-house development team, or take advantage of outsourcing.Today there is plenty of custom software development companies, and you have a power of choice.
Additional points to pay attention on
1. 3D modeling
3D modeling is a core technology in AR/VR enterprise, thus, to offer a really great product you need to hire a whole team of experienced 3D artists or partner with IT company with a required expertise.
2. High-quality software
More often than not, qualitative and bug-free software that is constantly maintained and updated constitutes greatly to the startup success. Bad user experience can undermine all the efforts in other parts of the project.
