How We Make $3.6M/Year Building The Top World's Metaverses

Published: February 17th, 2023
Gautam Arjun
Founder, EDIIIE
$300K
revenue/mo
5
Founders
150
Employees
EDIIIE
from
started December 2016
$300,000
revenue/mo
5
Founders
150
Employees
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Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?

I am Gautam Arjun, co-founder of EDIIIE: Experts in Designing Innovative, Interactive, and Immersive Experiences. A creative technology company that designs & develops next-generation experiences for global brands. We are India’s largest solution provider for AR/VR/MR and Gamification needs.

EDIIIE is also a leading player in designing and building metaverses that comprise several high-end games, new-age blockchain technologies, NFT design and development, sophisticated backend frameworks, and cutting-edge XR technologies across the industries.

Our team consists of award-winning artists, expert designers, and leading developers with DevOps capabilities, and aims to ensure exceptional quality and satisfaction to our clients through our immersive solutions.

We have delivered solutions to ventures in eCommerce, Training & Development, Retail, Real Estate, Entertainment, Manufacturing, FMCG, and various other domains. We have successfully delivered 200+ projects to businesses from The United States, Canada, Europe, India, and other parts of the world.

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What's your backstory and how did you come up with the idea?

During my professional journey with some of the top corporations, I worked with many EdTech and Health tech firms that had brilliant ideas and wanted to bring a change with their solutions.

Over the years, we saw a few players in the education industry develop solutions that made learning more interactive for learners. We also saw some significant developments taking place in the healthcare industry.

But many challenges still needed to be catered to. When it came to the education industry, there was still an element of passive learning that needed to be attended to. Apart from that, the open rate of learning resources and the retention rate of the learners still needed to be improved.

At the same time, the healthcare industry also struggled with providing experiential solutions to patients that not just helped patients in recovery but also helped them heal in an immersive way.

We devised two projects to test the waters in both industries and took them to the market. The very first was a Virtual Reality journey created for the solar system. We partnered with St. Xavier’s School in Jaipur and took over 800 students through this journey. The result? Students loved it, and the retention rates were exceptional as well as they were curious to learn more topics in this way.

The other project was designed to cure Amblyopia through VR. Amblyopia is more than an eye condition. In kids, it can not only have a functional impact but a Psychological and Social impact too. It leads to feelings of isolation and higher stress for the family. We went out, and through partnering with leading medical institutes in India, we were able to cure an 8-year-old boy dealing with Amblyopia.

The results these two projects achieved and the acknowledgment they got were the aha moment for us, and we knew we were on the right path.

Take us through the process of building the first version of your product.

Always focus on scalable projects and provide a solution to a specific problem your target audience is facing.

The two projects we took to the market during the validation phase were the first solutions we designed as EDIIIE. We started developing projects with Oculus Go which worked with 3DoF. The VR journey of the solar system for improving learning and an asteroid game in VR to cure amblyopia was the start of our official journey as a venture.

For both projects, we first surveyed the market and learned the problem that needs to be catered to. Once we were clear on what problem we were solving, our efforts went into conceptualizing what and how it will be shown through VR.

For the solar system project we knew that it would be difficult to arrange VR goggles for students at scale, so we went ahead and designed our cardboard VR goggles. This helped us in helping hundreds of children on the solar system journey at once.

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The co-working space we started from, and now we have three offices across three cities

After the successful implementation of these two projects, many EdTech and Health tech companies started approaching us for curating solutions that catered to their needs. Along with that, many leading manufacturing firms approached us, and we created training modules to improve the efficiency of the training processes and reduce the risks associated with training employees with risky machines.

(1) Augmented Reality-Based Training Module for Manufacturing Industry | AR in Manufacturing | EDIIIE - YouTube

Describe the process of launching the business.

Once we were clear in our vision, we started preparing ourselves for the launch phase. We planned to bootstrap our venture and went all in. All the activities we took up, i.e. from designing the website to developing the demos, from customer acquisitions to office expenses, everything were funded through the money that we invested in the company.

We decided to provide turnkey solutions to our clients. But it was also necessary to develop demo versions to create a portfolio of our work when we approached clients across industries like aerospace, defense, automotive, oil, and gas. We initially developed the demos on Oculus Go and then upgraded to Rift and so on.

With a strong network from past experiences, our primary way of approaching clients was to leverage that network and reach out to them. The whole team focused their efforts on tapping the potential that their networks held and that helped us get our first few clients within a period of a few weeks. Later, word of mouth became our strongest marketing pillar and we ensure that it stays the same even now.

Simultaneously, we started developing a dynamic website that highlighted our service capabilities and gave an organic boost to our brand through search engine queries. Our primary focus while developing the website was on SEO as it is the heart of any website. We leave no stone unturned when it comes to SEO so that our website rankings are improved every single day on more and more keywords.

During the initial days, one of the biggest lessons we learned was to keep upskilling ourselves and learn about new tech stacks, as the landscape of the technology industry has been continuously changing. A technology firm needs the capabilities to work with the latest tech stacks to maintain its hold in the market.

Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?

Retaining customers is the most crucial factor for our venture, and we ensure that our retention rate is kept high. We make sure that during the discussion phase itself, we make the client aware of all the increments in costs and timelines that can arise and how our solution will be able to bring better efficiency. It helps us build trust with our clients and retain them for a long time.

When it comes to attracting new clients For EDIIIE, we realized that keeping up with the market trends and what people want is essential. For instance, during the COVID pandemic, we saw a steep increase in the number of people playing games which directly led to the increased popularity of games in various categories like RPG, P2E, and more.

We analyzed this changing trend early, and thus, we were able to open new doors of opportunities for EDIIIE when it came to attracting new clients. We expanded our horizons and started providing solutions like game development, animations, and VFX. We also ventured into upcoming and niche technology projects like Metaverse development, NFT design and development, and more.

How are you doing today and what does the future look like?

Since the beginning, we have been a bootstrapped company, and we feel proud to say that we have been profitable since the start. We continue to focus on improving the profits YoY and work on even bigger projects.

We have developed 10+ metaverses that include the world’s top 5 metaverses today and have designed 100K+ NFTs. Not just that, we have delivered 2k+ immersive solutions, 500+ industry simulations, 50+ games, and 30+ blockchain solutions, and we aim to increase these numbers and provide solutions to some of the top industry leaders.

We now have a team of 150+ experienced employees across 3 offices who have helped EDIIIE deliver some of the top projects to many leading firms across industries. We, as a team, envision growing the team further and having great talent come on board.

Through starting the business, have you learned anything particularly helpful or advantageous?

The most important learning for me was that if you wish to grow and take your venture to the next level, having the right people in your team is very important. The right people will become strong pillars of support and help you achieve your goals faster.

Not just that, with the right people, it is easier to decentralize the work and focus on the aspects that need your attention the most without the stress of other work aspects, as the team can take care of them in the best possible way.

What platform/tools do you use for your business?

We are experts in using multiple software according to the requirements of the projects. Here are some of the top tools we use frequently:

  1. Adobe Photoshop
  2. Autodesk AutoCAD
  3. Autodesk 3ds Max
  4. Autodesk Maya
  5. 3D-Coat
  6. Lumion
  7. Revit
  8. Cinema 4D
  9. SketchUp
  10. Z- Brush
  11. V-ray
  12. Mental Ray
  13. Octane
  14. Arnold
  15. Unity 3D
  16. Unreal Engine
  17. CRY Engine
  18. Steam
  19. XCODE
  20. Android Studio
  21. Visual Studio
  22. Construct 2
  23. Node.Js
  24. Flutter
  25. Mongo
  26. MySQL
  27. For BlockChain Technologies: Ethereum, Polygon, Binance and Solana

What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or other resources?

I believe that there are many resources out there to keep you motivated and aware of all the latest happenings around the world that are relevant for you personally and professionally. For me, it has been the people around me and the companies I worked with that leave a great impact on me and help me learn something new everyday.

Advice for other entrepreneurs who want to get started or are just starting out?

Always focus on scalable projects and provide a solution to a specific problem your target audience is facing. When you provide a service or product that caters to the users' pain points, the people resonate with it more.

Also, always remember that it is essential to stay transparent with your clients at every stage, as it leads to better coordination of work and also helps build trust with your customers. Clear communication and detailed information provided to the clients will always help you build that brand authenticity.

Are you looking to hire for certain positions right now?

We have a few positions open across our 3 offices in India. Below is the list of open positions and the location:
Seo Analyst - Mohali

Senior Unity Developers - Mohali, Jaipur

Senior Technical Artist - Mohali, Jaipur

Senior Project Manager - Gurgaon

Pre-sales Manager - Gurgaon

If you are interested to become a part of an organization that helps you grow leaps and bounds in your professional life along with having the best of the times, apply at [email protected].

Where can we go to learn more?

If you have any questions or comments, drop a comment below!