Geodome was a startup that, as it was written in the landing page, created a virtual reality shopping platform where merchants could design, setup and manage their virtual stores. However, it took a long time before reaching that point: something like 5 pivots, 70 weekly work hours, 50 "Let me know how I can be helpful" investor email messages, 1 founder left, and 3 failed exams. While the COVID-19 cheap shot the startup during an already tough moment, forcing us to close the company in April 2020, we embarked ourselves in a difficult path long time before the pandemic, before our third pivot, before our second MVP, before our first meeting — probably before Geodome even existed. The moment when I was called by the other two cofounders and told that we could not work together anymore, was one of the most intense of my life, but also one of the most profound lesson. This is what I needed to finally learn to become customer-obsessed. It is important to say that we all know about it: we all studied thousands of articles, hundreds of videos and dozens of books, but we kept doing it anyway. To quote Lily Aldrin, “I know it’s a mistake, but there are certain things in life where you know it’s a mistake, but you don’t really know it’s a mistake, because the only way to really know it’s a mistake is to make the mistake, and look back and say, ‘Yep, that was a mistake.’ So, really, the bigger mistake would be to not make the mistake because then you’d go your whole life not really knowing if something is a mistake or not.”

Introduction

I was eating out with a friend of mine. We were at downtown Santa Monica, in a sushi handroll bar. I exactly remember two specific moments of that night: the first was when I look at the check after I ordered three tiny salmon temaki sushi. The second was when a Lamborghini dart outside the restaurant, forcing me to cover my ears. I remember that moment not for the beautiful car (it was pretty common finding them there), but for my answer to the question my friend immediately asked me, after glancing at the Lamborghini: “What would you do if you had that amount of money?” Looking back at it now, who told my friend that I did not have that amount of money? He probably noticed the face I did when I looked at the check a minute before.. At first, I instantly mumbled that I would buy a house on top of Malibu, but then I quickly realized that it was not such a great idea: first, living in a big house by myself with nothing to do was not going to satisfy any of my thirsts; second, the value of a Lamborghini would not even satisfy the cost of a one-bedroom in Malibu. I took a complete minute to deeply think about what I would actually do with a million dollars, considering that my basic needs (such as a house, food, car, etc) are met. “Invest in virtual reality,” I said, this time without mumbling like I knew the correct answer. As there was an actual right answer. After I noticed the confused face of my friend, I tried to explain myself: “There cannot be a future without virtual reality. What are we going to do, ignore it? Ignoring the possibility of overcome physical boundaries? Ignoring the possibility of connecting People around world meaningfully through the allowance of meta communication? It is just a matter of time. If there is one technology I would invest money on it, this is it.” (Side note: Let’s say that I’m paraphrasing what I said, and there is a significant likelihood that I was using different terms and spitting Little piece of rice).

This was the end. The end of the introduction, the end of my friendship (I never saw that guy anymore), and the end of Geodome. Before it was even started.

In that moment, in fact, I fetished an idea. I dreamed how the future had to look like. I fell in love with a technology. It was In that moment That I set up myself for a dangerous adventure that lasted two years: a solution in search of a problem.

How Everything Started

The first I met Simone and Pierlorenzo was in a small apartment in Santa Monica: they were coming from San Francisco, where they flew from Italy to pitch around their venture, but now they were looking for help regarding the legal side of their company. I and Simone's brother were studying in the same college and he knew I was working in a startup, so he asked me if I could have a chat with them to provide some feedback. We were around 6 people in a one-bedroom, and I am sure most people had to stand up because there were not enough chairs. I would say it was a professional chat, considering that we were waiting for each other to finish their sentence before speaking, and nodding while others were talking as we were agreeing with everything the other was saying. That night ended with us saying good luck to each other, as they had to take a flight back to Italy to finish their high school diploma.

Fast forward one year later, I am now sitting on the third floor of the Santa Monica College library: in front of me, Simone and Pierlorenzo — this time, screaming over each other, laughing out loud, and being ssssh'd by other people that were trying to study. After finished high school, they decided to come to Santa Monica College and study business administration in the same way I was doing. I had just finished my time at the startup I was working on, and I was just focusing on studying and playing football. However, once you created, you can't stop creating: most of our chats were filled with "what if you can" and "imagine if you had", and most of our free time was spent in a gaming LAN center, playing every kind of videogame until 3am. The first time the word "virtual reality" emerged in our conversations was when one of us mentioned, "What if we build a LAN center with virtual reality headsets?". I remember that same day I looked into the prices to rent a commercial space in Venice, but the idea quickly died after realized the amount of capital required. Nonetheless, ideas never just die. Sometimes they hide, sometimes they plant a seed before disappearing, sometimes they camouflage in another shape. In a Lavoisierian fashion, ideas do not die, but they transform. When Spielberg's Ready Player One came out, we quickly understood that: at the end of the movie, Simone whispered to Pierlorenzo: "What if there was an OasisIn the movie Ready Player One, people seek to escape from reality through the virtual reality entertainment universe called the OASIS (Ontologically Anthropocentric Sensory Immersive Simulation) but for online shopping?". For the sake of our public images, I would just refrain to say that it was not the soberest of the nights. We all got hyped up about that idea, but honestly… we were getting hyped up every time there was a new idea. However, something strange happened: the next days, we found ourselves talking about that idea again. And again. And again. For an entire month, that idea kept coming back in one way or another. It was never the main topic of the discussion, but it kept sliding in our conversations, as a snake trying to convince us to eat an apple. And well, we all come from Adam: "Let's create online shopping in virtual reality"

To be continued.

In Progress