History Oculus: How to start a company is bought out by Facebook for $ 2 billion
Makradar Technologies / / December 19, 2019
"I hardly earn a lot of money on this project, the main thing - to recoup the cost of parts, manufacturing, delivery and credit card / fees on a Kickstarter, well and on top of $ 10 to buy pizza and holidays beer". So thought skromnyaga Palmer in early 2012.
August 2012: within a few hours Oculus raises $ 2.5 million on Kickstarter.
March 25, 2014: Facebook bought the company for $ 2 billion.
Miracles and only!
So, what is this and why it Oculus founder Palmer - lucky?
Too many first heard about the company Oculus in late March of this year, thanks to the decision of its acquisition of Facebook. However, there is already more than... years.
Start
Around the age of 15 years, Lucky Palmer (Palmer Luckey - yes, his name sounds Practical as "lucky") began to fall in love with the concept of virtual reality.
In the afternoon, he attended classes at the local college. At night, he turned into a founder and administrator ModRetro, the community dedicated to the modification of the old game consoles. The older, the better. My favorite thing assembled Palmer? Virtual reality headset (the first attempt).
Throughout the late '80s and' 90s, dozens of companies have tried to achieve the commercial success to turn the virtual reality headsets. All they could not - it was hard: some gadgets getting too expensive, and many simply do not work and is not worth a damn. they are all too ahead of its time (too expensive for the production of components; most home computers were too weak to support such a device).
All conceivable ways Palmer to complete his collection of virtual reality headsets, trying to save "Penny": he managed to liquidation of goods, state auctions and myself went to the sellers, not to pay for delivery. As a result, he received at the hands of the headset, which cost once on 100 thousand dollars, less than 100 bucks. According to its own estimates, Palmer is the world's largest private collection of virtual reality headsets.
Around 16 years Palmer captures a new hobby: self-assembly of the headset, as it did not like that there. He set out to do something better. Some of the prototypes were assembled piece by piece from his collection; some were modified versions of the displays, which contrived other enthusiasts... It was close to the company formation. Palmer, in parallel studying journalism, worked as an engineer in the laboratory of Mixed Reality lab at the University of Southern California, experimenting with virtual reality displays, and fixed to the head.
Company
You never know who will cross, walking over the Internet. Once Palmer in one of the chat met John Carmack. Yes, it was the same John Carmack. Co-founder of Id Software; Chief programmer Doom, Wolfenstein 3D and Quake. And so well matched that Carmack thought about the idea of creating their own pumping glasses virtual reality, modifying the headset, which has been in his presence. Palmer hurried mention prototypes made them. Carmack was interested so that he was ready to buy a display, which is attached to the head. Of course, Palmer just presented him with this gadget.
It was probably the best decision in the life of Lucky. A few months later, Carmack was at E3, showing everyone to one of the prototypes of Lucky.
Suddenly, this thing has ceased to be simply ignorant of the invention of a fanatic. Internet erupted with talk of a "new project of virtual reality Carmack" - although Carmack has officially joined the company during the year. Finally I got a chance to Palmer. Within a few weeks, Palmer dropped out of college to pursue now. In June 2012, he appeared OculusVR.
Kickstarter
When Palmer first began to think about the Kickstarter - long before he met with Carmack, long before it created a company - it is hoped that at least 100 people enthusiastic support him project. Then there was a blurb from Carmack. Other industry titans such as the what Gabe Newell of Valve, lent their support to the project.
August 1, 2012 Oculus launched its campaign on Kickstarter. For a company with such ambitious plans - to revive a genre to succeed where many failed just ten years ago - they had a fairly modest goal of 250 thousand dollars. This is less than some of the headsets from the Palmer Collection, when they first appeared on the market.
Within 24 hours, they attracted 2750 people and 670 thousand dollars. For three days, they have earned a million dollars. By the way, at that time in the company Oculus had 10 employees, and when the company was sold to Facebook, already 100 people working in it).
Dev Kit 1
Oculus Rift DK1 allowed people to look at the potential of the Oculus and understand one thing: this small headset for $ 350 is better than anything that came before it. But it was not ideal (the screen is low resolution, the problems with tracking the position of the head). Despite the shortcomings, Oculus was able to sell all the headsets to a single - 65 thousand units Dev Kit 1 were officially sold out February 21, 2014.
Dev Kit 2
The morning of March 19 (the week before the acquisition of Facebook) Oculus began taking pre-orders for the second release - Developer Kit 2. This is still not a product that Oculus intends to deliver to consumers, but close to it. This version fixes many of the problems of the previous (display resolution is improved from 640 × 800 to 960 × 1080; It solved the problem of motion sickness caused by motion blur; appeared external camera).
Now what?
Prior to the acquisition in Facebook Oculus were two major points in the list of cases: 1) to ship all pre-orders they received in the second set, 2) to refine and sell the product for consumer.
After the news about Facebook buying the company there was a huge new challenge: to keep people on their side.
One of the biggest advantages of Oculus has always been the way people perceive it. This is a favorite fairy tale in the tech world: simple but gifted guy manages to go from the garage project to a company that makes millions. So it turns out that the acquisition Facebook'om was perceived negatively by some biggest fans, for which Oculus was like your favorite band that has taken and to "sell".
A few hours after the announcement, many pledged to cancel their orders and became DK2 podnachivat others. Notch, creator of Minecraft, immediately (and publicly) killed the company plans to create a version for the Oculus.
Oculus persistently explains that to remain completely independent to Facebook. Now their task is to somehow convince the world.
The best thing that Facebook can do is to keep your hands away from the company. Let Facebook pours money, but will leave the brand and enable the company to implement its plans. If a long-term game, the short-term strategy of Facebook should be to remain at a distance.