Jamie Fleming (Altoura) and Marcus Farquhar (Microsoft) on Future Construct

Um, so we got introduced and myself and I , our CTO got pretty fascinated with this strategy around what Jamie was doing at Alura , uh , as you know, VR AR it's , it's not new , but , um , if you look at it in terms of the biggest opportunity in the industry, that people can't actually read drawings, people can't actually , um , they don't actually understand what they're they're building and what they're managing, and the largest purchase you'll make site unseen is a building.

And so we think that they're what we got intrigued with , uh , what Al and Jamie is doing, is this idea of , um, the no code aspect of creating an AR VR experience.

If you think, you know, put yourself even 15 years ago, could you have imagined that basically anything that you wanted to buy , uh, in the world you could access digitally online and see an image of it. Everything is becoming digitized and that same transformation that's happening right now, particularly in the inter where people are, are , um, we're able to leverage the 3d models of environments or equipment and allow enterprises to do work in or on those models.

Um , as a spatial reality, instead of just as KP was, was mentioning, instead of just trying to understand to three dimensional object on a two-dimensional , uh , surface, and God forbid that's paper, but also just on your screen, seeing , uh , lines on a two-dimensional screen and trying to understand what you're looking at.

So , um , there's a , there's a , just a tremendous opportunity there in , in allowing enterprise customers to figure out how they want to leverage the power of that 3d model , uh , to do their work.

So my background is in , I have an undergraduate degree in business, but then I went and got a master's in architecture for the university of Washington and worked as an architect for a number of years and , um, was fortunate to, in my personal journey to , uh, be introduced to BIM right as the con the concept of BIM was just kind of emerging back in the early two thousands and really got into 3d modeling and started teaching 3d modeling at the university of Washington as an adjunct.

And I realized there was an interesting opportunity to , to form a company that was just focused on these 3d models and how to leverage 3d models back then the real power outside of just trying to figure out how to dimensionally codify a design , um, was the visualization that you could produce out of this 3d model . So we initially were focused on helping architects and designers just understand visually what their designs were.

So before they showed them to , uh , their client, they were like, oh, crap, is this really what we we're trying to sell them. Um, and ran that company for a number of years and literally built tens of thousands of 3d models of all different sorts of things, but, but primary really focused when architects and building developers.

And , um, then in, in the late two thousands , uh, who were actually approached by Microsoft, who had , uh , is kind of in our backyard and based in Seattle Washington , um, and they had identified my company as one of the top 3d modeling companies. It , um , that they had encountered and said, Hey, we've got a special device that we're working on putting together.

And we, we are interested in having companies come in and build experiences on this device that turned out to be the hollow ones one. Um, but we don't want you to just come in and build something in a vacuum, similar to how you guys are running this podcast. We actually want you to bring a customer with you that has a real need for this concept of mixed reality, which is Microsoft's term of kind of the metaverse .

And so we brought Scansca in as a customer in, in that engagement, we built the , the world's first mixed reality leasing center for , uh , a tower in downtown Seattle called two and U that's located on second university. And so the concept was brokers would put a holo lens , one on their potential , uh , tenant, and they could take a virtual tour of the building , um, and walk through it as if they were actually there.

And they could spatially move through the space and check out , uh , check out the building. And so that was really successful and kind of that's where light bulbs started to spark for us of like, oh, wow, there's a lot of interesting opportunity to leverage these 3d models for different uses.

I don't know how everybody just manages to take a step forward and money gets exchanged and companies get built so times when you look at the process, but it happened for you and, and has invested in a lot of great companies. So he does invest and you've raised capital. Can you talk a little bit about that process and, and, you know, what was that, that kind of synergistic moment, cause it's really important to choose the right BC as well as raising the capital.

Uh, his name is bra Alia , and Barat had a lot more experience than I did in working for , um, SaaS companies and big enterprise companies. I'd been , uh , running a services company, a successful services company, but very services oriented that has , um, very little bearing on , uh , a product or a SaaS company.

So , um, thankfully brought came with an entourage of that helped us kind of get that first angel investment where really they were investing in the team and frankly, they were investing in broad because they knew , um, they knew he was very technically oriented and had a lot of great experience and , um , very, very smart individual.

And so these angels were basically like, look, Bro's validating Jamie , Jamie's got some experience running a services business, let's throw a little cash at this and see what happens. Like, you know, it would be a fun pet project. And thankfully, because we had worked so closely with Microsoft pretty early on something that distinguished Alura from a lot of other startups out there is we had real customers that were using the product and giving us , um, giving us feedback on our product.

And you're gonna hear from Marcus , uh , later on your show. But, you know, we took a very specific philosophy at URA of we're only going to build features that customers ask for, we're never gonna go into our basement or our garage and say, wouldn't it be cool if we built this? Every people would love this.

There were no shortage of those ideas, but we tried to be disciplined of saying, we're not gonna build it unless someone's paying us good hard cash to build that feature because obviously that then they can use it. And hopefully another customer will have a similar need and say, oh yeah, that's cool. We can use that.

And I think that's one thing that helped us separate as we were pitching to VCs is we could tie back to customer stories of, Hey, this is how our product is providing value for the customer, because they're , they've paid for us to build this and they're , and they're using it.

And it is hard when you're building a company to, to, to try and, you know, assess what the full market landscape is, unless you really have some key customers. And it sounds like Microsoft was , was very helpful in that, in that journey. Absolutely.

There is a little bit of you , you know, you're selling a vision essentially to the customer and you're saying, Hey, you know, if we can deliver this for you, can you use this? Or, you know, tell us how you would use this. And then they're saying, yeah, I think we we'll , we'll buy that. And then you're like, oh , okay, let's go quick. We gotta build this thing. Now we gotta deliver this thing to the customer.

So there is a little bit of , um, I don't know which one goes first that , that maybe that's the chicken and then you're quickly building your egg. But , um, but yes, I think that is a , uh , I'm, I'm sure there are genius founders out there, or maybe just incredibly lucky founders out there that do have an idea. And then they introduce it to the market and it takes off like wildfire.

But I think the safer route is to , is to focus on just building things that customers are asking for and willing to pay for it

And I think that's incredibly good advice. And so K I'm gonna come to you and say, well , so what was your first impression when you met Jamie and team?

And I think what's unique about our industry is that it's very hard to like, just show up outta college and build a startup in our industry. You , you have to have had the industry experience, you have to understand the industry nuances. And then there's a little bit of this industry is a little bit of like, well, who do you know game , right? Like, oh, do you know?

So and so over it's you know, so , and over against like there's that game, it's almost impossible from someone outside the industry to play. So we, we wanna understand kind of the foundational experience and knowledge of the team and where they've been what's interesting is around this idea of like first customers, our thesis is , is that first customers are easy in a way. Right.

It takes some comp , you know , and I'll , I'll talk a little bit about what Jamie was talking about, but first customers are easy. Um, it's the, how do I , how did you get it and where you, how are you gonna scale?

So we, we, and I have this saying like, you know, as a founder, the first thing you do is you sell your are friends and family, but that doesn't mean as much until you hire a stranger to sell strangers, cuz you're gonna go from selling friends and family and then you're gonna go sell a stranger and then you're gonna hire a stranger to sell strangers. That's when scale and that's when magic happens and we want to understand and like, what is it gonna take to hire a stranger to go sell strangers?

Cause I mean, I can sell you stuff. Right. I can sell you some stuff. You're like, oh sure, K I'll buy stuff from you. And well , you know, it's like, whatever, that doesn't mean as much as someone cold calling you and selling you. Right. And so yeah . That's good luck with that. Yeah. Right . Exactly.

And so I think, you know, the thing that Jamie was talking about is like, you know , um, in the middle of like overhearing the Theranos , uh , uh , verdicts and all of the fake it , so you make it extremes. Um, I do think the right customer or prospect, if you're building something that is not what is today, but what is the future? What is their choice? Their choice is to either bet on you as a resource to go figure it out or bet on an internal resource that maybe isn't quite as inventive.

So they're saying, okay, we wanna go at execute on this grand vision. Should we partner with a startup that is inventive, that is risk averse, all those things , you know, that is more risk oriented or am I gonna pull in a product manager from my massive business? Um, that's probably working 38 hours a week and has six weeks of PTO and whatever, whatever. Um, that's not that motivated and not that inventive. Am I gonna bet on that resource?

So I think the right customer understands like that they're betting on a vision in a future and they're okay with failure.

So both of you kind of mentioned this kind of magic fairy dust or this sort of combination, you know, are , are there. And I know there's no formula, but you know, there, there is a visionary component to, to being a founder, to being in technology. I mean, it just, you know, we have a certain company to thank for, you know, the metaverse now being on everybody's, you know, lips, but you know, the reality is this technology has been around for decades.

Um, and it does take some vision to harness it. It takes even more vision to sell it. So what does that, is there, is there a , a balance between sort of the practical and the visionary, I'm gonna start with U KP that you look for and with you Jamie that's like just part of your sort of day to day .

Good luck with them, you know , cause they might feel like they look stupid or whatever. Right. But I think what you start to see is that, you know, the people that are now running the industry had an email address and a computer day, one on the job, they didn't actually go through this. Oh, I have to go from writing things down to using a computer. You know, they, they started day one at their job with a computer, with an email address.

So I think that the cultural shifting of like the why now is that people are willing to put something on their head. They're willing to carry an iPad around. Uh, I remember with a first version of the iPad out with the CEO of a construction company and he had just bought it and he's like, I'm returning it. It's just a very expensive piece of glass.

Um , I think , I think we certainly understand the day to day and the utility today is very clear .

And our belief is that, you know, most of the world, the enterprises out there rely their physical products or , uh , environments in order to be productive. Um, these are called the frontline or the first line workers and they're more of them than information workers today. And so, you know, the ability to capture physicality and digitize it and make its spatial and then provide tools for different workflows. We feel like that is absolutely the inevitable trend.

And so we're, we're building for the inevitable, not for the hopeful. Um, and, and we, we believe that this, these digital assets will , um, um , become as valuable or potentially even more valuable than physical assets in the future because you can make them ubiquitous, you can run workloads on them, you can tease data out of them. You can do all these sorts of things that, that the physical world is really is limiting in a lot of ways.

So you see this emergence with NFTs and other things already just starting scratch the surface of this. But, you know, imagine instead of just a gorilla with a mustache and a cigar, it's a , it's a , it's a digital representation, a digital equivalent of this, your IP or your asset that you've got. And , um, and so there's just a, there is a huge we're at the tip.

I don't even think we can see the tip of the mountains yet of what lies ahead of us in terms of the opportunity of, of , um, of, of metaverse and enterprise and just circling long-winded back, feel free to edit any of this out. But , um, you know, I think there's are people today focused on, wouldn't it be awesome to have a zoom meeting in the metaverse instead of like what we're doing right now? And I , I would say maybe, I mean, that could be cool. Maybe that reduces fatigue. I don't know.

I , it , it still is pretty compelling for me to see a video of you where I can see your facial expressions and, you know, we're not doing all these other gymnasts , but what I love about where we are as a company is we are solving problems that have a business value today. We're not, we're not focused on , uh , necessarily a future vision of something that needs to happen, you know, in order for it to provide value.

And , and I'm not saying that that won't just having a pure spatial meeting with avatars for a social event. Won't one day have value. It may, but, but what I love right now is being able to, to show and track ROI and value for customers on their assets today, offloading workflows onto these digital assets. That's really exciting to me because there's just, again, it's just the tip of the iceberg of what you can do.

Uh , but before we do that , uh , Jamie , I have a question that I ask everyone on the show, and if you could project yourself 20, 25 years in the future, and you could bring any product or service with you that would just make you personally happy or just make your life better in some way, does not have to be based in reality , could be cloak of invisibility , whatever, what would it be and what would it do?

But , um, my background is as a design engineer, I've worked for very large construction contractors and in the inspection maintenance space , uh , applying innovative technologies in all of those spaces. Um, and now here as an owner operator and , um, coming on board , uh , to Microsoft, you know, XR and Mr is a frequent tool I've used in each of those various , um, sectors of the digital building lifecycle.

Um, so when I came on board , they were looking kind of for a partner in Microsoft to , um, kind of further along alter being used at Microsoft. And so with my name coming up, they kind of introduced me to Alterra and said, you too, like mixed reality, go apply it, please. Um, and so I came along , uh , that was about January, February, I believe, of, of 2021 is when we got introduced , um, kind of internally at Microsoft.

And so we've taken what T has done , um, at Microsoft previously and developed it over this year.

And what are some of the ways that you think, you know, in , in addition to Alura that, you know, owner operators and is it gonna be on owner operators to really enact this change and to start leveraging the power of this technology at every stage? Because we're , we're finding that they're typically kind of solving one problem with one technology, right? Not really thinking about how do we seamlessly take this technology and apply it across this life cycle .

Um, so you are correct, but uh , I would just from my perspective and our perspective at the center of innovation, yes, we are kind of defining that strategy and what that kind of holistically looks like and how we don't have have data loss from step to step , you know, from my design to construction all the way through how do we maintain our 3d models and assets well enough that really any mixed reality app , um, could be used to access that data.

And , and , and I think about the whole process of someone thinks about, you know, we all think in 3d and then we draw it in 2d to try to communicate a 3d idea. Um, it's like this cycling of kind of information from brain to paper , paper, to the computer kind of thing. And, and you know, what do you think it takes? Cause you've had experience beyond Microsoft to get people to understand. I saw it in BIM. They're like, oh, we're too small to use BIM.

I'm like, that's exactly why you should use it. How , what do you think that that click is gonna have to be for smaller owners and operators to realize as technology will act , it's actually more applicable to them than maybe a larger owner.

These technologies really allow us to move more quickly and more effectively because our information is more accurate. And I think that , um, kind of investment curve, you know, high initial costs and then benefits later on, that's difficult to communicate , um, cuz it is a completely new alien concept to a lot of people. Um, so , uh, basically the way that we pursue that internally is getting hands on .

I'm a very hands on learner, getting people actually in the field using these tools, getting engaged in the process and um , really touching and feeling the experience.

So I think it's also, it , it , it seems that the process needs to be not, not just about standards in the traditional sense, but sort of a standardization of process and workflow where it's sort of Dore to have a digital twin of your building. And I think we're moving towards that. Um, but I , I don't think we're quite there yet.

And I'd be curious to see what you think some of the steps are , uh , you know , to help us get there, where it just makes total sense that you would always have a digital twin of, of your, your building from an Asbuilt perspective.

So that is a very big subject. Um, but I will say that defining the, you know, in your total digital building life cycle , at the very end you have, what's known, you know, as a digital twin, the thing that the owner operator can use for the lifetime, the life cycle , the building over 30, 40 years, what are the you proof points of that? Um, easy ones are energy, thermal, electric facade , um, roof inspections, things like that are, are fairly easy to define.

Meaning I don't have to send a roof inspection crew of my roof anymore . You know, I can have sensors up there, vibration sensors on each chiller and I can actually do , um, projections, meaning can , uh , simulate the vibration frequency of that roof chiller and understand that once it gets shakier a certain point of shakiness, it's gonna break next year, right? So you can start to do that. And, and that type of proactive simulation is really where digital twins have a as power .

Um, but defining each Proofpoint is a big, big venture. It's a big matrix conversation. Um, I think in terms of , um, we can talk specifically about mixed reality and digital twins, if that's where you're going with this .

And then there was the renovation a year later because they weren't involved in the process because they don't spend their time looking at drawings. They don't like, they don't know what to look at versus like throw this headset on and, you know, go walk through the new building and tell us what you like and what you don't like.

But for that very reason where we want to kind of onboard our stakeholders into our built environment before it's even physically real. Um, and we kind of break that down into four themes . So we're trying to communicate Microsoft, which is , um , every one of our buildings will be the most connected, accessible, sustainable, and protected , um, assets. Um, and so that's kind of how we break down , alter a story and application and how our stakeholders use that.

So communicating our maintenance costs beforehand so that they can kind of absorb that , um, and think about it and give us that feedback.

Um , and , but do, do you feel like just almost handing owner operators, the business model and the tools that they need and, you know, Alura is a no code environment so that they don't have to worry about engineers? I mean, what are, what are, what are some of these like boxes that you're checking to to really help propel the technology you've spoken about a few.

So , uh , the stance of each owner operator, I think will depend , um, you know, how many buildings I have, how involved they want to be , uh , specifically what we're looking at in terms of strategies , you know, the owner operator owning that data, cuz we're the central hub at the end of the day, we own the building. We should open that data , um, where that centrally housed, how we access that, how each business group access that central to model from a headset.

You know, those are things we're trying to tweak out cause every region's different , um, especially across country, if you , uh , expand that, you know, argument that macro.

So , uh , I don't have an easy answer for you for that, but we are exploring that and trying to like define that guideline , um, in terms of how we want to receive BI, how digital twins are formulated, kept hows maintained and then how our business groups access them for what value use cases , um , that is a developing subject. Um, and we could dive into a specific example, but um , that's how we look at that.

And I think it's great that they're taking the time and energy to really own the process because owners write the check, but they don't care to own the process. And I think it's, it's, it sets a good tone in terms of leadership to other companies when owners do care about the process and they, they're not afraid to dictate process, which has been in the past, there's a lot of fear for owners to dictate process.

And , um, it is perceived that, you know, having owners kind of dictate that , um, can be very valuable , um, cause at the end of the day we're, we're the user. Um, so if we're not happy with it , uh, like what you just said, we have to retrofit a year later, which is a massive cost that we could have avoided.

So in that regard , um , there's a really cool product that came out , uh , previously that I don't think really took off, but , um , there's mixed reality. Like snow sport goggles that I thought was very fascinating , um, and that could be translated to cycling or mountain biking or really any sort of sport there and what I would really like to see and use.

Um, and I think their LIDAR technology needs to increase far beyond what it is now, but I'd like to see a corollary between video games, like for kids and simulating that video game on the actual mountain skiing.

Um, there was a group that started to doing this, but I don't think the technology was quite there yet, but I really like the idea of having , um, you know, like the Nintendo switch, you have accelerometers on your body and you're simulating the movements of that sport, having that experience, but then having the same experience in your living room in real life and this I as Corolla area to simulations in construction.

Um, so that's kind of where the idea stems from, but in terms of personally, I'd like to see like a mixed reality sports Goggle that is also tied into gaming systems, if that makes sense. Wow.

I forgot the name, but , um , that's great . I don't know if the, like the active light are that used the map, the terrain to place the , uh , 3d objects. I don't know if it was mature enough yet, but I'd like to see that,