1001 Startup Ideas - Virtual Reality Content Creation Platform

What is the idea? The startup idea is to establish a company, which would create" Virtual Reality Videos." The world is moving towards ‘Virtual Reality' (VR), and there are numerous devices available which can play/run VR content, but there is not enough content. 

Various users/customers would want VR content created for many reasons. This startup aims to solve this problem.

Market Definition According to Deloitte, 2016 will be the first billion-dollar year for VR with the sale of VR hardware aggregating USD 700 million and rest coming from VR content. Digi-Capital has estimated that the AR/VR could reach an industry size of USD 150 billion by 2020 with VR contributing USD 30 billion to it. 

SuperData has predicted that 11 million users would be using VR at the end of 2016 and in a separate report, Statista estimates the total number of active VR users to reach a figure of 171 million by 2018. Piper Jaffray estimates that throughout 2016, Samsung will sell 5 million Gear VRs, Facebook will sell 3.6 million Rifts, HTC will sell 2.1 million Vives, and Sony will sell 1.4 million PlayStation VRs.

Competitor Analysis Many companies have entered the VR content creation space; the notable ones are Matterport, Koncept VR, and Wevr. 

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Koncept VR is the creative cadre of Freedom360, makers of the original 360° VR video camera mount. It is a full-service virtual reality agency that focuses on providing high-quality 360º video content & VR experiences. Koncept VR provides end-to-end production services for 360° video content starting from conceptualization through pre-production, shooting, stitching, app development and deployment.

Matterport is an immersive media technology company that builds 3D media solutions across industries. Matterport has developed the first end-to-end media platform that allows users to easily create, modify, navigate, and build on digital representations of real places. In addition to this, it is building a community of photographers that can help you in creating VR content. Matterport is playing in the hardware, VR conversion in the cloud and marketplace segments.

Wevr, on the other hand, aims to create youtube for virtual reality. Though VR music videos are in the embryonic stage, Wevr is already rising as the premiere production studio for VR Videos. The VR momentum is strongly laced with the challenge of creating a new market segment altogether; Directors have spun out from this company to work on virtual-reality music videos, including Tyler Hurd, who turned a seven-year-old Future Island song — Old Friend — into a three-minute psychedelic animated music video for the HTC Vive. The aim of Wevr is to create youtube for virtual reality.

Pain Point & Target Audience The targeted customer market for this business is the "business owners looking to create VR content." It is estimated that the video content on the web will move to being VR content. Small business owners would want to create such content for their businesses. Currently, it 's hard to find VR content creators. This startup aims to solve this problem by connecting them to professionals who can create VR content for small businesses. 

Value Proposition VR content creation companies have been catering to various large firms and focus till now has been on the application of VR in the gaming segment. 

There are various small businesses which have been thriving in the internet economy, for e.g. People are getting into the business of renting Airbnb apartments and in the future would be able to give a better view of the rooms through VR videos.  Others like event managers who wish to give a sense of venues to their customers would also love to have VR videos created for places, so the customers do not have to travel to each site. These are some of the examples of the business opportunities that would be available, and this startup aims to tap into that. 

Business Model This will be a platform, which would aim to connect VR content producers to small business owners and charge a facilitation fee.  The platform would provide project management and graphical editing tools for the VR content producers in the future.

To start with the platform should have it’s team of VR producers so that it can refine and define the business model. The platform would charge consumers a 20% commission.

Way to market The first step is to start with a market where small business owners would be keen to create the VR videos/content for their businesses. Economies in Southeast Asia are very adaptable to new technologies and a place like Singapore, or Hong Kong would be a perfect place to start a business like this. The startup should initially focus on high quality and work with a small team of VR professionals producing exceptionally cool experiences.

Milestones Once the startup has created a market and name for itself, it should aim at launching the marketplace, as that would be an ideal model for scaling the business. It would not be possible for the startup to be present in every city and launching a marketplace would ensure scaling up fast globally.          

Investment Needed For PrototypeThe startup needs to keep its cost to the minimal to create a lean business model. The startup would need to buy the equipment for the creation of VR videos. It could start with purchasing the Ricoh Theta S and Kodak SP360, which are point and shoot cameras for the creation of VR content and cost in the range of USD300-500. Other options include buying GoPro cameras to create high-quality content. For the creation of a 360x120 video, four GoPro cameras are arranged in a square, and for the 360x360 view, six GoPro cameras are arranged in a cube. One GoPro camera can be bought in the range of USD200-400.  

Considering the above cost, the startup would need at least USD 100K, which could be raised from angel investors or known accelerators in your country. There should be no office rentals or salary payout; the entire budget should be apportioned for customer acquisition and technology. 

Team Capability It would be ideal to have a co-founder with experience in video editing technologies and the other being a marketing expert to consolidate the platform further.

Investors / Expert Take One of the biggest examples of investor interest in the VR arena is the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook for a humungous sum of USD 2 Billion. Wevr has raised USD 25 million recently. Investors are throwing billions at a pool of eager companies hoping to cash in on the virtual reality industry, with funding reaching $2.8B this year and totaling $8.8B since 2012.