00:00:01 · S0, S1, S2, S3, S4
Ad[00:00:01] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:00:02] S1: you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks, Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, and availability varies 18 plus. Ad[00:00:26] S2: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed Sponsored Jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:00:56] S3: Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Ad[00:01:08] S4: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
00:01:08 · S4, S5, S6
Ad[00:01:08] S4: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Ad[00:01:11] S5: Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep. Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just a $120 a year can save you time and over $700. Wanna Wanna get in on a membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club. Ad[00:01:32] S6: Annual plan only auto renews TNC apply estimate based on average combined Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus savings among members of both for one plus year versus nonmember or club member pricing slash fees excludes membership fees. See Walmart Plus terms and Sam's Club terms for more info.
00:01:41 · Steven Zhao
[00:01:41] S7: I remember vividly, there's a story where we try to hire a game producer, and he asked, how can Sandbox beat Sony or Nintendo or any big VR players in The United States? And, of course, coming from a Hong Kong company where we never seen success in Hong Kong at that scale, that was a very valid question. I always believed that in order to make a big change, you have to have a direction that's uniquely different. We believe that what we are building is something that no one else in the world is doing right now. I put all the money into the company, and then in six months' time, we built the technology infrastructure. At that time, it was what we call the winter of VR. Us trying to race in 2017 was essentially impossible. So we had just two months of runway left, and then I really wanted to build, you know, this physical space in VR. None of the investor came in. One of the biggest feedback that we've gotten is like, well, this works in Hong Kong. It could work in Asia, but this probably would not work in The US. That kinda pissed me off. So I thought, okay. You know what? We're gonna bring this to The US. And we decided to open in San Mateo in the heart of Silicon Valley. You know, this is our flagship store. We're able to share this with the world. And, of course, we're ready for the next stage, which is get to series b. But a couple months later, the whole world shut down. My name is Steven Zhao. I am the founder and CEO of Sandbox VR. So what we do is we provide a full body VR experiences for friends to play together in our retail spaces. So we create our own technology that enables that. We also create our own content, and we both open our own locations and franchise them out. Today, we have 47 locations, so we grew pretty quickly. We have eight pieces of title, not just original IP. We're also working with Netflix. So Squid Game is in Sandbox. Rebel Moon is gonna come out later this year. We hope to continue to partnership with them and other IP holders. So I grew up in San Francisco. As a child, I spent a lot of time pretty much alone just like do a lot of reading, sometimes playing games, and part of it is the immigrant stories. Both my parents immigrated here when I was a child, and they work long nights. So I have a lot of time to myself just kinda doing my own things.
00:03:46 · Steven Zhao
But luckily, at a young age, my parents got a computer, and then I really started to kinda figure out how to use that machine. And one day, my friend showed me a game creation software, which I put into the computer and I started making games, and it started becoming a hobby of mine. So since 12 years old, I've been building games. So I studied in UCSD, University of California San Diego in electro engineering. After college, I moved to Hong Kong to build a gaming studio called Blue Tea Games where we made PC and mobile games. You know, we grew from two people to 40 people. It was pretty successful for a time. And during that period, PC was pretty hot. People download the game on the computers. But the shift to mobile created like a brand new way of playing experience. And for me personally, I didn't adapt fast enough. I was late to the mobile space. And because of that, when we transitioned to mobile, we didn't catch up and weren't able to create games that was able to be successful. So that was a pretty big learning for us is always look at what is trending in terms of technology and how do you build for that future. So when you build a game, it's important to not build what is popular today because by the time you finish, you know, you'll be nine months too late. What is gonna be popular one or two years down the line? From my first startup at Blue Tea, we failed to do that, and we weren't able to scale. And it was around 2015 we saw that VR was becoming very hot. So we decided, it's like, hey. Why don't we take our learning as a game developer and bring it to a whole new medium, double down on VR? And then we decided to do that with a brand new company. So that was essentially how Sandbox was formed. So when we started the company, we were, like, doing two things. Number one, we were building games on the VR consumer market. A part of us also took our learning back at Blue Tea, which was you always wanna build for the future. What do people want two, five, ten years in the future? And we felt like the consumer VR headset itself wasn't enough. We wanna be fully immersed. We want
00:05:42 · S0, S1, S2, S3, S4
Ad[00:05:42] S0: This episode is brought to Ad[00:05:43] S1: you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome, that's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web, like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50 page restoration block or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini in Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses, setup required, compatibility, and availability varies 18 plus. Ad[00:06:07] S2: This episode is brought to you by Indeed. You're ready to level up your business, but the pressure to find the right person to make that happen is intense. Indeed sponsored jobs can help carry the load. It boosts your job post to help it reach quality talent fast. Cut through the chaos with Indeed sponsored jobs. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com/podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Hiring now? Then this is a job for Indeed sponsored jobs. Ad[00:06:37] S3: Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change. Your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Ad[00:06:49] S4: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.
00:06:49 · S4, S5, S6
Ad[00:06:49] S4: Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing. Ad[00:06:52] S5: Sam's Club is the club for every holiday club. Guess who's joining the club this season? Walmart Plus. Yep. Sam's Club Plus membership now comes with Walmart Plus at no extra cost. Two memberships, one great price. Just a $120 a year can save you time and over $700. Wanna get in on a membership duo of the century? Visit sam'sclub.com. Come join us. Sam's Club. Ad[00:07:13] S6: Annual plan only auto renews TNC apply estimate based on average combined Walmart Plus and Sam's Club Plus savings among members of both for one plus year versus nonmember or club member pricing slash fees. Excludes membership fees. See Walmart Plus terms and Sam's Club terms for more info.