Suzanne Borders says it all on being a female entrepreneur in XR

As a woman in VR, what are the difficulties that you’re finding because of your gender? Someone told me that they are more on the business side than on the technical side… (23:00)

I actually do agree with that. I have not had a ton of negative experiences with people in particular in AR and VR. I feel I definitely had some problems in other tech areas, but not AR/VR. I have been very welcomed by the men and women and every gender in-between… everyone has been very welcoming to me and very supportive.

Where I’ve had problems within the AR/VR community is getting funded. I feel like people really sometimes don’t want to fund female-led companies because there’s this sort of uncertainty of like “Oh will the woman go and have a kid? And will her attention be split between running the company and having children or managing a family?” It’s never explicitly stated that way, no one said that, but I feel like there’s this underlying sort of uncertainty about funding women, that is challenging.

Then the other side of that is that you have some funds that are specifically for women but those funds only give money to companies led by women that do feminine things. So they invest in companies that make tampons, or they invest in tech companies that provide childcare solutions, or make-up brands. You know, to me that’s equally as sexist as man discrimination. If you’re gonna fund women, why only fund women that adhere to traditional stereotypes? You’re not doing anything for this community that is revolutionary or really super helpful… and I’m very glad that there are funds dedicated to helping women in traditionally feminine industries, that’s great, I don’t in any way want to discourage that… but it is challenging, because I’m a woman but I’m not traditionally super feminine.

I don’t want to own a fashion company, I don’t even care about interior design or, like, makeup… and so I go and I pitch other women and they’re just like “oh well, it’s just not really in our wheelhouse… and it’s data, it isn’t really super feminine” and it’s just really frustrating. So I’ve actually had support in terms of funding from men and funds that are very masculine and I think that it’s a complicated topic… there’s no one single answer but I think that in general, the biggest challenge in AR and VR in particular is just getting people to buy into the vision of AR and VR.

Because there’s this negative connotation around VR in particular, because of the whole things that happened, the industry sort of collapsed there for a while… so you have that challenge and then you have the challenge of being a female founder… and everybody is just sort of skeptical about you… and for me, I don’t fit in with the very feminine women, I don’t fit in with the super masculine men, so I’m in this grey zone of like “hey I’m a girl but and I’m happy to be a girl and I love being a girl, I wouldn’t change that… but I’m not really feminine and my business isn’t feminine”. So, nobody just knows where to put me… they’re just like “you don’t go in any box” and so that’s challenging and I think that it makes people crazy sometimes but it hasn’t prevented me from succeeding and we’ve still been funded from some amazing people that do believe in me.

[I say at this point that when she will become rich, she can make a fund for people that don’t fit in boxes like her]

I’m so about that, I want to fund any person who doesn’t fit in, because it’s the weird visionaries, the people who do their own things, I think that contribute the most to society. So I am all right there with you: it doesn’t have to just be women, men, women, whatever, anyone, who doesn’t fit in, I want to know you, I want to fund you when I have the money to fund you. I want to be involved in that… so you gotta shot yourself a deal with me.

And how do we solve this problem of women that don’t getting funded by VCs? (28:00)

I think one of the solutions is just really throwing away gender roles and the idea that women have to found a business that’s feminine or solve a problem that’s feminine. I think that if we just look at men and women as people and we look at them based upon their own merits and what they’re adding to the world and what problems they’re solving without caring about gender, I think that’s gonna make society moving forward.

Specifically regarding to women, I really think a lot about this, we should all just look and connect with each other without being tied to gender. What I’m trying to say is that if you’re a man and you see a woman who’s really smart, don’t treat her like a woman who’s really smart, but treat her like a person who’s really smart, mentor her in the same way you’d mentor a man. And if you’re a woman, don’t look at your male colleague as a male, look at him like a person… the same way that you have a female friend it can be a male friend… and if we all just sort of look at each other in this way, if we’re judging each other on our merits and not on our gender, and not trying to push people into roles, it will help a lot with women being considered for funding, with women being able to achieve funding… because then, it’s not going to become this question like “oh well, she’s a woman, now it’s different… now we have this full different set of rules for her”… we all should have the same rules.

We can have some funds that are specifically focused on helping people that want to get into this industry and that come from disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds. I think that’s a differentiator more than gender. I think that we really should focus on people that come from low income backgrounds and helping them get funding, versus just saying that it’s a gender problem… because it’s really more of an income problem, if that makes sense.

Women who are coming from wealthy families have more opportunities and there are similar opportunities for men who come from wealthy families. There’s more of a difference between someone from a wealthy or poor family. I guess that for me we should just get rid of gender roles and look at it more as a socio-economic difference versus gender difference.

[After that, I say that I agree with her vision… and also that I follow her on Twitter because I esteem her for what she writes, for all the internal strength that she shows, not because of her gender]

Thank you, I have nightmares of people giving me opportunities because I’m a pretty girl. I don’t want the opportunity because I’m a girl, or because I’m pretty, or because of whatever. I want the opportunity because I’m good… and I want every day to wake up and have people that respect me for what I’ve done, for who I am and not because I have boobs or whatever… I feel like it’s so degrading to be told, it’s equally as degrading being told “oh well, here’s an opportunity because you’re a woman” as if somebody’s saying “oh you know you can’t have this opportunity because you’re a woman”… both times it’s because I’m a woman.

I don’t want that to have anything to do with it. I’m really good at what I do and that should speak for itself and I shouldn’t get special treatment on either side. I shouldn’t get beneficial treatment or negative treatment, I should just be able to do my things. I am a hundred percent right there with you. It’s like the biggest thing I constantly feel like: “oh well, the things that I’ve achieved in life… I haven’t achieved them because I’m good… I feel like people will just take interviews with me or talk to me because I’m a girl” and it messes with my head sometimes. “Oh boy, did I really earn it or is it just because people want to talk to me because I am woman?”

It is really awesome to hear that you follow me not because of that, but because you like what I have to say, like who I am as a person and what I’ve done. Just thank you that, really makes me feel good.

What can we do to make VR more attractive to people in general? (33:12)

Do you mean to make AR/VR accessible as an industry for people coming into it or as a product for people to consume?

[Both of them]

Okay, so I think that as an industry, for new engineers and for designers and people coming into this industry, we can make it more attractive by being less focused on technical stuff about the hardware and focus more broadly on the vision, of like creating this new digital world. And we should also empower everybody to have a voice… and that’s because we all have different backgrounds and different passions and different strengths and weaknesses.. and I think if we focus more on this collective vision that we all have of building this new digital world, then I think that it makes it more accessible to people entering it.

When you have these groups of people that are super hyper-technical about breaking down stuff and talking about steps, and talking about hardware and performance… you sometimes freak people out… because it’s so technical and they’re like “oh I don’t have anything to say about that, or what if I say something wrong?” and so it sort of excludes them and makes it seem a little bit more tricky. But I think we just need to focus more on this collective vision that we all have and encourage everybody to give their voice and to lend their hand and building this future together. That’s what I think we should draw people into working in this industry.

From a consumer standpoint of making this technology attractive to consumers, the very most important thing and something I’m super passionate about is giving people understanding of utility of the hardware.

As for now a lot of the focus on AR/VR has been on gaming and distribution of content and entertainment and I really think that people it’s like “oh that’s cool but I’m not gonna spend $200 or $3,000 to buy a headset just to play a game or go to an arcade”. If you really want people to buy this hardware, we need to have it solve a real problem, you need to have it prove out the utility and make people understand that having this hardware is crucial in the sense that it solves a problem that no other piece of hardware they have can solve or it solves that problem better.

If we can find a use case that can do that for a large number of people for the general public, we will have adoption through the roof in no time. We as an industry are still finding these use cases and figuring out which of these use cases speak the most to consumers… but once we find that, the challenge is done, the secret is unlocked and I feel like that’s the moment where we will have this sort of completely astronomic take off in our VR technology.

I’ve read that you have traveled a lot, you have been in 60 countries… so what is your favorite country and why? (36:42)

Actually, I need to update that. I think you’ve read it from my blog… I’ve actually been to 75 different countries now.

[Wow]

Yes, I love to travel, it’s big, I get the biggest inspiration from it. My favorite country… that’s a hard one. I think it’s either Hong Kong, which I guess that’s a “special administrative region” so that I’ve got two countries or India, I actually love that country.

[And why?]

I guess for both of them… for India I love the visceralness of the life that they live, so everything is just sort of like real and raw, there’s no sort of abstracting away from the harder aspects of life.

When somebody dies, they put the body, they open it and they burn it… In our modern culture, when someone passes, they fill him with wax and they try to make him look pretty, and they put him in this box, and everything’s clean and it’s sanitized… I just feel like we’re not tapping into that true messy vital aspect of what makes us human. I feel like in the Indian culture they do and they allow for that and they consider that to be normal… and the expression of emotion and passion is there and it’s not considered weird or crazy… or people can scream and they can express their grief.

I love the culture, I love that you know that everything there is very real, and I love the people, I love the food, I love Bollywood movies [laughs]. I’m definitely not one of those people that sort of like fetishizes the culture… I know that there are… I really do have a deep appreciation for the Indian culture, the Hindu religion… there is the mixture of different religions that exist within one country that’s also really exciting.

I love the different melting pot that it is, I also love that they have their own culture. A lot of times you go to another country internationally, as an American, and you hear American music, you hear Rihanna, you hear Katy Perry, you go to the movie theaters and all of the movies are from Hollywood… but I loved when I went to India, that I felt that in movies there was a whole culture that is unique and distinct to India and I thought that was great.

Then, for Hong Kong I love the entrepreneurship: everywhere you go, there are little shops. You go down the alleyway and there’s a little hidden flower shop or people setting up these little carts selling water and magazines and fish flip-flops… I appreciate the entrepreneurship of Chinese people and that they thrive in every situation to make the best of it and to capitalize in every way that they can. I love that about Hong Kong and again, I also love the melting pot of different cultures and different countries all coming together and living within this really dense metropolitan area.

[I add that I have never been in Hong Kong and maybe I will go there in the future]

What are the differences between the various VR ecosystems that you’ve found all over the world? (40:25)

In Asia, they are very much more open to AR and VR. I feel like they’re much further ahead of us in terms of offering that as a gaming solution, I mean offering that in gaming arcades… they have those all over the place and actually there is a “Bad VR” gaming arcade in South Korea! I’ve been there, I saw it after I founded the company, by the way.

[I tell them she should make money by suing VR arcades in Korea, she laughs]

Asian culture is more… they’re more easily embracing new technologies and less skeptical about them, and more forward-thinking in general… and you could see that reflected in all sorts of parts of their culture. You know, when you go to China you have WeChat, WePay and all of these different things, then there is Line in Japan and in some other Asian countries… and they just really embrace that because a lot of their existing technology infrastructures are not so good, so they have to work around really poor infrastructure, whereas here in America we have really solid, relatively solid infrastructure, so we’re not used to having to embrace new technologies to work around these different issues.

I think that because of these cultural differences, in Asian countries, you go there and you see all of this new crazy stuff, and VR/AR is one of those things. You see arcades, you see people talking into their phones and using the voice to text commands, and using mobile payment systems way before you start seeing them used commonly here in America. I think it’s really exciting.

I was in Hong Kong recently, and just walking I could see all these different AR/VR arcades, and people’s interest in that and their curiosity about it. I haven’t seen a ton of business uses of AR and VR technology in Asian countries, maybe in some factories and stuff… I know that there’s a lot of hype culturally and a lot of talking about it, but I haven’t seen it in use, but I also have not been to a ton of factories… so that may have something to do with it.

I just think in general, culturally speaking, there’s a lot less of what I like to call skepticism about AR and VR that I find in America, where some people say “that’s already done, oh that’s over”. Before you start writing off an entire technology, why don’t you think about that? I just feel like there’s been this knee-jerk reaction in the tech community in America, of like “Oh AR and VR is a joke”, “oh it’s all just for gaming”… and people just have this herd mentality of just dismissing it because their friends dismissed it… and this herd mentality of stupid self-perpetuating myths about this technology before it’s even given a chance. Luckily, that’s not a thing in Asia and I appreciate that… and I hope that it becomes something not a thing in America as well.

[I hope that as well]

I have also read that you are an artist, that you like poetry… so can you tell us a poem that you have written lately? (44:50)

I actually have not had the time to write poems, lately. The last poem that I wrote was in Budapest and that was a couple… four years ago, unfortunately.

I’ve written a lot of non-poetic, non-creative pieces about technology. I published one recently about why using VR for visual data visualization and analytics.

But from the creative side, I guess the most creative thing that I’ve written recently is a short film about an old lady who lives in a nursing home and her only friend is a Furby. Do you remember those little creatures, those fuzzy little creatures that are robotic and their eyes open and close and they go “Nanana”?

This movie is about that, about an old woman named Agnes Marshall that goes on adventures from her nursing home with her little Furby… so I did write that about four months ago, five months ago… and it’s like a 15 minute short film.

Some day, when I have the time and the extra money, I’ll film it. There are some sort of lines of dialogue that I thought to be poetic… but it was inspired by my own grandmother who recently passed away… so I put my grief in that process… I worked through it by creating this piece of art and this short film. And I do that often, so I have like on my computer, I probably have like 30 scripts for full feature-length scripts, and maybe 60-70 short films and I’ve written all of them, which have never been made. Someday, when I am retired and have tons of money I guess I will maybe make them or maybe not… who knows… I just enjoy writing.

[I tell her that Bollywood is waiting for her… she can make some movies in India! She laughs]

You have very creative interests, while you work in the technology field that is very schematic. How the mixing of the two can help VR and how is it helping your career? (47:13)

I think that’s really one of the biggest differentiators between my company and our competitors. They were taught in the same way you were taught from computer science, or in data analytics, or academic world, to think “here’s the box, you think within it”… and that’s how they’ve always been taught and that’s how they always think and that’s how they continue to think and they build a product that is within the box.

And that’s great right now… but you know, my creativity and all of the interest that I have allow me to think outside of that box and by thinking outside of that box I’m able to create products for the future. If I develop an idea of what the future may be, that is creative and different enough, that sets me apart and it allows my company to attempt building and developing products that are truly revolutionary… because I don’t believe that you have any sort of meaningful disruption or innovation within this box, it’s just self-perpetuating best practices and standards of today: you have to step outside of that box.

Without poetry and art and all of the weird stuff I’m interested in, I wouldn’t be able to innovate in the way that I do and I think that everyone who’s in engineering or any of these sort of sciences… or maths, or any sort of the STEM fields… could benefit greatly by stepping outside of that and going into the arts and going in more abstract creative sciences, because it may bring you the ability to innovate in a way and be creative in a way that you would not have been able to do before and everybody benefits from that.

They talked about that in Buddhism: the middle path. On either side you have extremes and those are always bad: if you’re too logical, that’s bad; if you’re too creative and emotional, that’s bad; but anytime that you have two extremes, if you go right down the middle, that tends to give you the best results. Because you’re bad on both sides, so I always strive for that myself: I don’t want to be too creative but I also don’t want to be too logical either. I want to find that middle path and I want to find teammates and to structure a team that balances those two things out, so I don’t end up with a product that’s a bunch of charts, of 3D charts at a virtual desk in VR, which doesn’t add any value, but I also don’t want a product it’s so completely out there and crazy that nobody understands what it is. I want that equal balance, and I’m using established theories but doing it in creative innovative ways so that when someone uses my product, it’s completely a huge added value for them.

What would you advice to someone that wants to take your same route and become a VR startupper? (50:47)

If you’re gonna go into competition, don’t go into competition against me because I’m very competitive [laughs].

If you want to step into the role of being a CEO and being a founder, just be really ready to have zero stability in your life and to really be ready to embrace the chaos and the unexpected. Because that’s really what is going to rule your life for the next couple years. I think people sometimes underestimate how chaotic and unstable it is to be a founder and it is to be a CEO of a company… I mean, obviously if you’re a CEO of an established company, that isn’t true, but being the CEO of a small startup you never know what’s gonna happen. Every day is a new adventure: you constantly have to learn new skills, you have to extend yourself in directions and bend in directions you’ve never bent before… income is unknown…

For me, I love that chaos and that instability. I really struggle when I have to be within a structured environment, like a nine-to-five job… I have struggled so hard with that. I don’t handle structured environments at all, so for me, I thrive in this chaos, but I know that a lot of people do find it stressful, they don’t handle the stress of not knowing when the next paycheck is gonna come or if you’re gonna make it or you’re gonna be able to raise the money… and maybe your business is gonna fail and you need a miracle… and you have to have this trust in something greater than yourself that’s gonna help you out.

A lot of people just struggle with that, so I would just say to anybody who wants to try this or who wants to do it to just get ready, maybe spend some time freelancing, or spend some time working within an unstructured environment where you’re not going to have to depend on a structure to help you get through,  so you can become familiar with that. And plan your finances accordingly: get a year or two years worth of pay in the bank so you are not going to financially ruin yourself in this process. Make sure you start from a place of stability, so that you can put in and stand the ups and the downs. And beyond that, just be true to yourself: it’s not worth the struggle to live somebody else’s vision.

So, if you’re gonna go through this process, and sometimes is a hell being a founder, don’t do it for anybody else’s vision, it’s not worth it. So, make sure you’re living your own truth, within your own vision and living your own dreams… yeah, that’s my advice.

What about your future and the future of BadVR? (53:32)

BadVR’s future definitely is looking bright. We’re gonna be raising another round at the beginning of next year, we’re gonna have a big product release early next year or the middle of next year… so, that’s definitely coming up, like I said. We have the release of SeeSignal this summer, which is super exciting: I can’t wait for everybody to get a little taste of what we’ve been working on… I think that as we continue to grow, you’ll see some really exciting innovation coming out of the team that we have put together.

I’ve been very honored and lucky to recruit some amazing people and I think that what we’ve been doing has been a little secretive and closed in the past because of patents and making sure that we have all of the stuff from an IP level protected… because it is truly innovative and it is going to really shake up the industry… and we want to make sure that people aren’t going to steal it from us. Once we have all that in place, we look forward to being more public about what we’re doing and giving everybody a glimpse of this cool stuff that we have and then I think obviously in the next couple of years we’re gonna continue to grow.

You’ll see some amazing enterprise use cases and stories coming out of the work that we’re currently doing with some really large companies, will continue to have more of these use cases and hone in on that and potentially partner with some government agencies here in America, specifically with legacy.

SeeSignal… I think that’s gonna continue to grow… you’ll see some cool stuff.

And eventually, one day you’ll be able to find me on the cover of Fortune magazine [joking], that I’m talking about all of my travels and all the cool stuff that I’ve done and I’ll have my charity… not my charity… I’ll have my own fund and I will fund bunch of companies of weirdo people that don’t fit in like myself and so I think that’s really what the future holds for us… and you know, you never know what may happen, but I hope and I believe that’s a path that we will take.

[I hope it will happen Suzie, so that I can get some money from your charity! :D]

There’s something else that you want to add for my readers/viewers? (56:00)

If I could say anything, I just want to thank everybody on Twitter that has been so supportive of what we’ve been doing and… I guess I apologize for not having more public stuff to share about what we’ve been doing at BadVR… you will have to trust me audience when I say that soon we will show all of this, we just have to get these patents filed and in place. We have a lot of them done there’s still some that are pending, so… think about it in the same way that you thought about Magic Leap: you didn’t see a lot of stuff from them, but when they released something, that was really awesome. It’ll be the same way for us, so thank you for giving me the benefit of the doubt despite you know the company being a little obtuse and mysterious about things.

And I am really thankful that everybody’s given me such a warm welcome in this community, that everybody has been so kind and especially you, Tony that have reached out to me doing this interview, and chatted with me on Twitter… you know, I just really feel like everybody’s been so welcoming and that’s been amazing.

I’m thankful that you guys see me as a cool person and a good personality and you know I don’t feel like anybody’s pandering to me because I’m a girl or anything like that. I feel like an equal so I love the community and I love the people and I’m just really thankful that I’m here and I get this opportunity… and I hope to do really cool things for the industry and I hope to fund your business later on Tony, when I can!

Anyone that needs that, is able to reach out to me at any time. If you have a question, I don’t bite and I love to chat with people and I love to connect with people, so I guess that’s amazing.

So good luck for your future… and thanks for your time!

Bye… thank you for listening!