The Glow Up - Fabulous conversations with innovative minds.

Making VR Profitable and Leading Emerging Technology for the Enterprise - Alex Rühl

• Nathan C Bowser • Season 1 • Episode 34

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Alex Rühl is an award-winning immersive creator, technologist, and innovation leader whose career spans VR content creation, enterprise consulting, and emerging technology strategy. As founder of Cats Are Not Peas and former Head of Emerging Tech at PwC, Alex has helped shape how global organizations adopt and scale immersive technologies.

Key Takeaways

  • Roots in Innovation: Alex’s journey began with a fascination for new tech, inspired by her family’s early adoption of internet tools and gadgets.
  • Immersive Content Pioneer: She spent seven years building VR experiences and later expanded into AR and other immersive formats, always seeking to understand how people create and engage with new media.
  • Enterprise Innovation at PwC: At PwC, Alex led metaverse and emerging tech initiatives, guiding large organizations to adopt VR, AR, blockchain, AI, and quantum computing for real business value.
  • Value-Driven Approach: She emphasizes that enterprise adoption hinges on clear value—saving money, saving time, or creating new revenue streams.
  • Authenticity Over Transaction: Alex stresses the importance of genuine relationships in business, advocating for honesty and setting realistic expectations, especially in high-stakes innovation projects.
  • Learning Through Experimentation: She shared the story of launching Geospatial Insights, an enterprise app for Apple Vision Pro, highlighting the importance of transparency about risks and learnings in new tech deployments.
  • Balancing ROI and Innovation: Alex discusses the tension between the need for measurable ROI and the necessity of learning and experimentation in innovation, advising founders to focus on the right industry and buyer profiles.
  • Personal Glow Up: After a decade in immersive tech, Alex is taking a well-earned break and looking forward to a new phase of “giving back,” sharing her knowledge and supporting the next generation of innovators.

About Alex Rühl

Alex Rühl is an award-winning virtual reality creator and founder of Cats Are Not Peas. Formerly head of Metaverse Technologies at PwC. Since starting her VR career in 2015, she’s written, directed and exec produced several original pieces included 360º romcom Keyed Alike (Starring Gemma Whelan, HBO’s Game of Thrones, and Natacha Karam, Fox’s 9-1-1: Lone Star), interactive VR thought experiment Playing God (premiered at Cannes XR 2019) and her most recent piece Rock Paper Scissors which had its world premiere at Venice Film Festival in 2022 (first VR piece funded by BFI Network).

 A notable figure in the XR industry, she has received industry recognition for her work in immersive storytelling (The Drum’s 50 under 30, Women of the Future Awards, Pioneers of XR Award) and is a global keynote speaker on the topic of the metaverse (TEDx, BFI, Adobe, Royal Television Society, Department of International Trade & more). 

Alex has worked alongside the world’s big

A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.

At The Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.

In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.

If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.

Nathan C Bowser:

I'm Nathan C and I am so pleased to be talking with Alex Rühl. Alex, thanks for joining me on The Glow Up today.

Alex Rühl :

Thank you so much for having me! It makes my heart glow to be here!

Nathan C Bowser:

Oh, wow!

Alex Rühl :

And I'm done!

Nathan C Bowser:

Don't stop! Don't stop! Love it. So Alex, you have done so much in innovation. I hate to even try to summarize it myself. Could you introduce yourself to The Glow Up audience and tell us a little bit about what you do in innovation?

Alex Rühl :

Oh, that is a big question. I guess my innovation journey, well I think technically it probably started when I was a kid and my parents were obsessed with every new gadget. Including, for example, my dad was telling me recently that when he started his web design company, the modems in the UK were not built to send file transfers internationally. So he was one of the first people to go out and find an internet provider and a modem provider from across the globe because the UK just was not good enough at the time. So shout out to them for the innovation start! But then I guess my own kind of career took a dive into the innovation world back in 2015 when I had a bit of an existential crisis, bit of a quarter life crisis as one does in their mid-twenties. Decided to quit my job in television, move to Canada, and had no clue what I was gonna do. And at the time, this was when the new VR headsets were coming out the first new wave of consumer headsets. So I believe at that point it was probably the first version of the Rift or the Developer Kit and Google Cardboard and things like that. And yeah, I just remember putting that on my face for the first time and thinking, how on earth do people create content for this thing? I wanna know everything about this new technology. What is it? What are people doing with it? How are people creating for it? And from there, I essentially just dove straight into the VR industry. I spent a good seven years building content specifically for virtual reality. And then broader than that looking at immersive content in general, whether that be 360 for more traditional devices like iPads or desktop or AR content. And then, alongside that journey I was always interested in new tech, such as like blockchain and AI. But that didn't really factor into my life in a professional way until I joined PwC as the head of at the time metaverse technologies, but then became the head of emerging technologies after being there for a year. And what that meant is that I was like all of a sudden in charge of looking at not only how VR and AR could impact enterprises around the world, but also how businesses could kind of use newer technologies like blockchain, quantum computing, you know, how AI was gonna transform all of these technologies and how businesses could essentially make the most of these technologies.

Nathan C Bowser:

Wow! I love that in just a few minutes time, we went from dial-up modems that can't call internationally to running the practice area for like most deep tech and innovation for a consultancy like PwC.

Alex Rühl :

Yeah. Pretty mad when you say it like that.

Nathan C Bowser:

Hey but you did it! One of the things that you mentioned that I am endlessly geeky about is, everybody who has like a startup or is in innovation, is always trying to crack that enterprise nut, right? And the kinds of clients that you're working with as a consultant, where you're helping these very large organizations understand, adopt, and get value out of any number, from metaverse to blockchain, seems totally fraught. And there are thousands and thousands of people out there in the world trying to do it. And one of the gaps that I've always found is the connection between the technology and the value or the use case is usually one of the biggest determinants of if a product's gonna be get done, you also have to have stakeholders and there's some other parts to that digital transformation part. Can you talk about the kinds of core problems that you help these large organizations solve by bringing in these kinds of technologies?

Alex Rühl :

Yeah, absolutely! And it's interesting to hear you say that because in so many ways, I feel like enterprise is so much easier to crack than consumers. Especially for a technology like virtual reality, right? Like plot twist! Hot take! And I think the hardest bit is, to your point, if you don't understand what these large-scale businesses' core problems are, then you're probably going to find it difficult to break in. But once you know what they are and how your particular solution, your emerging tech solution can solve it, it's much easier to build a sustainable, scalable, high-profit business. That's my opinion. So to, to kind of I guess, directly answer your question, you know, in enterprise really what it comes down to, it's so simple. It's how is your product or service making a company more money? How is it saving more money? Or how is it saving time? Because time is money in these companies, right? So are you reducing cost? Are you reducing the amount of time it takes to do something? Or are you creating a new revenue stream? Are you helping increase profit? So with something like AI for example, most people will hear most commonly that AI is creating efficiencies. And what that really means is it is reducing the cost and reducing the amount of time it takes to do things, right? And in business terms, that is saving money, especially for time-based businesses. Some businesses are product-based and so therefore they'd probably be more focused on trying to sell more or create more profit or create new revenue streams rather than, I mean everyone wants to save time and money, but for time-based businesses such as consultancies, like we ourselves, I say"we" as PwC, I've actually just left. This is my first interview actually as not a PwC employee.

Nathan C Bowser:

Another Glow Up exclusive!

Alex Rühl :

It is, it is! Thank you for having me as me and not just my title. You know, there's always that moment when you leave a big job like that where you think like, do people still wanna talk to me? Thank you Nathan for still wanting to talk to me!

Nathan C Bowser:

Oh my goodness! You've started out on a couple really interesting tracks because, enterprise is easy if you understand the value is like, fantastic! And then this idea... in the B2B marketing space, we talk all the time about even in B2B, people still buy from people, people still like transact on relationships. So it's very interesting as somebody who's been incredibly you know successful in building powerful relationships and partnerships at the level that you have, that you still might have a little bit of that, shall we say, founder's doubt? I don't even wanna say imposter syndrome'cause like you own this space, like Alex Does VR, right? But it's super cool to see that, like even a very accomplished, experienced innovator might still have some of those feelings, no matter where they're looking from.

Alex Rühl :

Oh! That is a very Glow Up themed conversation I guess. I once watched this really amazing Simon Sinek talk about this exact concept, which is that he gives the analogy of this very highly influential kind of character. I think like some kind of general or something, who had a very fancy title. Simon talks about the fact that, this person is flown private to an event and they have a VIP experience when they come into event and there's a green room specifically for him before he goes on stage to talk. And that same person comes back to talk at that same event like two years later, but he doesn't hold that same position anymore. And he flies coach and he has to fly there himself. He has to get his own taxi to the event. He doesn't have a private green room, and he has to get his own coffee. And the point was that, you can't get too high on your own supply, right? Because ultimately yes, to your point, you can accomplish a lot and you can have a lot of experience, a lot of knowledge, but to some extent the privileges that you are afforded, especially as you work in these slightly more corporate high powered jobs it is reserved for the title, you know? It is reserved for the position that you hold. And this is going down a whole nother rabbit hole, so feel free to pull this one back. Like, I unfortunately believe that most people are quite transactional and it's really obvious when someone wants to talk to you because they want something from you rather than actually to build a genuine, authentic connection. That's one thing I've always loved about you, like I've known you for years. I feel like I must have known you or must have come across you at AWE before I even got my position at PwC. But you know, these kind of relationships that last kind of like throughout the years are built on genuine kind of shared passion, right? Rather than tit for tat. I want something from you. You want something from me, you know?

Nathan C Bowser:

As somebody who has been like a thought leader, a consultant who has been guiding these larger groups about how they can think about these tools, that journey of like expertise, that journey of leadership, that journey of relationship, comes out in the story that you tell. The wrapper of like, what is the business model or like how do we interact with clients? And the thing that I wanna pull out is it's so obvious why you have been successful in all of these places is that you have that focus on, what are those core things that these businesses and people are looking for, but that, those relationships that you have built are one of those things that allow you to drive these kinds of tough projects and these big new ideas into companies because you are more than just that transactional and that you can actually empathize and see inside what's going on. I'm glad we went there. Good! Continuing on this idea of learning from the enterprise and how we do innovation, I'm curious if you can talk to any times where on this innovation journey with your customer you've learned something about a project, you had an idea, you started to take it out there, and whether it was opportunities or challenges you had to like, change your approach. Like how do you guide, how do you approach this? You've just made a huge promise to a huge company. There's huge expectations. How do you guide those conversations and talk about change and learning in such an elevated environment?

Alex Rühl :

I'm a big believer on hardcore honesty from the start. And I think when you work in our fields you have to prepare someone, you have to prepare customers for the fact that they might spend what will be quite a significant amount of money on something that yes is still technically experimental and you can give as many, frameworks around like how you're going to make the project successful and what the core kind of KPIs are going to be of the project that will be closely monitored. You can talk about a theoretical return on investment that they could expect where the project, you know, to kind of be implemented correctly and succeed. But ultimately my big thing is if someone's gonna spend money, especially in organizations even if they're like the biggest organizations in the world that have so much money, every penny that you are taking for innovation, you are taking away from people's wages from all the other basic runnings of that company. So, I'm a big believer in saying right up front here's the reality of working with a technology like VR. Here's the reality of running like a kind of an alpha blockchain project. I am a big believer that that then leads to a much better working relationship. It means that if you do face challenges or things come up along the way, you've pre-prepared them for that fact. And also just really good stakeholder communication that I would say the big difference between working with small businesses versus mammoth huge global organizations is just the level of stakeholders and the amount of bureaucracy that goes into any decision. So when you start to work at that kind of level, you just need to understand that like your job is to essentially be kind of making sure everyone is on the same page. When people aren't on the same page, it's your job to facilitate a conversation. It's your job to kind of use your communication skills to try and work through any issues to get everyone back on the same page so you can move forward. I would say that, for most businesses trying to break into enterprise, that's just one thing to be aware of. I'm thinking of a particular project that we built actually internally, although it's now used with clients, but it was when the Apple Vision Pro first came out. And there was a lot of talk about the fact that, if we do this, if we build this product, which we believe is going to be like massively impactful across the organization, it's gonna help a lot of clients. It's gonna be fascinating, but it's going to be one of the first enterprise apps on this new device that no one has tested before. No one's ever built for it before'cause it's only just come out! So making everyone aware we are gonna invest this money. This is what we hope to do with that. This is what the roadmap looks like. If it fails though, we will have a load of learnings. We will put as many things in place to make sure it doesn't fail. And thankfully I can happily say that it didn't fail. But you know, we went into that being like, this could fail horribly because we've never built for this thing. And we had a very specific timeline'cause we were launching this app at VivaTech last year. So, yeah and we ended up doing it. That project is called Geospatial Insights. It's a PwC product that essentially allows you to map geospatial data on a 3D environment, so you can do things like logistics planning or climate mapping. You know, looking at what flood risks might be in a certain area or, for big event planning, how can you look where you might need crowd management or extra transport links et cetera. Really cool tool. So glad we did it. But just an example of a project where you go into it saying let's just make sure everyone is aware that this is a new device. This is a totally new thing we are doing. We are working with a new set of tools. We are building for a new headset that no one's ever really used before. There's loads of things that could go wrong, but if it works, oh it's gonna be magic. And it was!

Nathan C Bowser:

I really appreciate that, thank you. There's a little bit of a tension that I'm really enjoying, right? Because the first kind of direction that we started in like enterprise is easy'cause you gotta be focused on value and return. And now we're like, well innovation is a journey and you gotta set expectations and be patient. And I feel like that's like a continuum or even like a little bit of the client relationship journey in innovation. Like one is a starting point and one is the endpoint. How do you balance those two like really key elements of a relationship like this? Like on one, I remember a couple years ago in Vienna for AWE, in the enterprise program, there was some really compelling conversations, right? That I believe it was an insurance company was talking about their threshold for ROI and that they were totally willing to spend millions of dollars to get a 10x return. But that some of the challenges they had with like learning and innovation and like early VR training was they're like, okay, we can buy a bunch of headsets, we can do a deployment, we can do some training, and maybe a$200,000 investment will lead to a$500,000 return. I'm a global insurance company. That's not enough.

Alex Rühl :

Yep.

Nathan C Bowser:

Right? So like, I hear you on the learning and growing, but there's also this challenge of like how do you turn learning and growing into value, or how do you like balance those ideas in the same project? And I don't know if there's an answer, but if somebody knows you might!

Alex Rühl :

Yeah, I so appreciate your faith in me! No it's interesting, right? And there are definitely some industries and there are some I'll say buyer profiles that just won't kind of, they won't want to do the riskier stuff because they do want the massive return and they want the guaranteed return. And it needs to be able to scale and needs to be able to scale fast. So in that, I'm empathetic, right? Insurance is like a really low margin business as well. So in terms of, they really do need to get a massive ROI generally speaking to justify costs. But if you look at like a sector like retail, for example, retail is it's almost like you are doing the B2B bit so that they could do the B2C bit. And there's a lot more kind of like pressure on innovating because that's what their consumers expect. We did kind of strategic advisory work for a large retail brand. I think they're a global brand, but specifically based in the UK. And we were looking at their demographic was relatively an older, married woman was their core demographic. And they were saying that's amazing and that's fine for now, but ultimately we are not intaking any younger generations, right? We are not seeing our customer of the future coming up underneath our typical buyer. And that's a problem because in 10 years time we need a younger demographic to also be a core buyer of our services and we need to pre-plan for the future. So I would say, you know, that tension is all about A) If you are speaking to someone who isn't in the right industry, doesn't have that kind of risk appetite, it just doesn't make financial sense for their company, like that's the wrong person to be selling to. I'm a big fan of don't sell the unsellable. Focus on people that are closer to the yes, they know that they want to innovate, they know they've got money to spend in that. Or look at these kind of more innovative sectors. That's what I would say. I mean, it's kind of interesting actually talking about this in the age of AI because, again, interesting that I'm bringing up so much PwC literature after I've literally just left, but I guess it's fresh on the mind! But PwC released a report, I think in May, might have been early June, that looked at essentially what AI was going to do to jobs. And they did, I think it's literally called"The AI Jobs Report" and they released the first version of it last year and then they've done another one this year. And you can compare what the data is saying now versus last year and last year there was like a much lower percentage of industries that thought that they needed to adopt AI. And this year it was a hundred percent. A hundred percent of industries are adopting it. A hundred percent of industries are investing in it. A hundred percent of industries know that they need it. That's really interesting because all of a sudden you're seeing an emerging tech what was an emerging technology all of a sudden penetrate so kind of deeply that no matter who you are as a company, you need to invest. It's not a matter of when. And I feel like with newer technologies such as VR, such as AR, such as blockchain, such as quantum, these are much further out on their journey compared to AI. Like they're nowhere near ready to be like business as usual, like AI is. But they will go on a similar journey where at some point the tipping point will happen and it will go from a when, not an if. So the other thing for founders to think about is, how are you gonna stay alive between now and then? How are you gonna pay your bills between now and then? If you believe in the technology so much, if you believe in your product or service so much, then it's your responsibility, I guess, to kind of like keep an eye on which industries, which customers, which buyer profiles should you be going to now. Knowing that in a 5 to 10 year window, everyone's gonna be knocking on the door. Like, look at the Android XR glasses coming out, you look at Meta with Ray-Ban and with Project Orion. These are going to be the platform of the future! Like that is so obvious to me, and I'm sure it is to you, Nathan right? And everyone listening to this or watching this it is a matter of time. So, I still believe that no matter what anyone says about the XR industry, it's only a matter of time before these become very standard. I don't know whether it's gonna take 5 years, 10 years, 20, but it will. So again, in terms of that tension, that's something to keep in mind.

Nathan C Bowser:

Oh my gosh, so many gems in there. Just a quick recap. I love that when I asked about the tension between ROI and learning that you brought us back to who is the customer, what are they trying to do? What is their actual situation? Which any innovator should know is typically the best answer to any of those problems, right? If you're curious about how to do it, go talk to the customers. So thank you for bringing us back there. And then, love this data point on could be, should be, must be as a continuum for cultural adoption and understanding of innovative technologies. And you and I have been enjoying virtual reality since the Gear VR era, but wow! For only a few people has it been a must-use kind of technology. It's currently like rocket scientists and microbiologists and therapists. It's like incredibly practical and/or incredibly entertaining. I was just at AWE and I have to tell you the number of active world asynchronous multiplayer games using mixed reality, whether it was like a Quest 3 headset or in the Snap Spectacles were just so fun! And, dream Park, specifically Aidan Wolf's DreamPark, was this gigantic like Mario-type world that you could go and interact with and play. And the barrier to start was they literally hand you a headset with no straps. So you just hold it to your face where it's comfortable. And they said, this is your interaction. Like just touch things with your hand. That's it. And like you don't need it. But it is so easy and so fun. The joy and the like value of immersive play, just like rockets to the top!

Alex Rühl :

You've just touched on an amazing point there, which is like a lot of people don't think about the number one thing you can do to get more customers is to reduce the friction, right? The friction can be something like making your interactions really easy, making the barrier to access it really easy. Making it affordable, considering the ROI that person's gonna get, bringing down friction. That's also such an amazing kind of thing to point out.

Nathan C Bowser:

And the reducing friction approach, if you're doing it well, doesn't mean you have to build more. It usually means build less better.

Alex Rühl :

Yeah.

Nathan C Bowser:

You're just in the middle of a transition. You've left one notable career. You're headed off into the next one. The show is called The Glow Up, right? That is a rebirth, a re-imagining, a transformation of sorts. We use it to talk about like short term goals. So I'm curious, for Alex Rühl and CATS ARE NOT PEAS what's a big glow up that you're looking to make in the next six months or so?

Alex Rühl :

Ooh, what a great time to be asking this question! And actually, selfishly, like an interesting time capsule because I'll be able to revisit this in six months and see whether what I said I wanted to do is actually what I ended up doing slash did still want to do. So yeah, I am in a massive transitional time. I'm actually taking a break, which is the first break I've had since that aforementioned quarter-life crisis in 2015. So 10 years of working solidly in this industry. I feel like I've just about earned a proper rest. So I'm gonna have some much needed relax and recharge time. And then in terms of what's next, to your point, like I feel like I started my career as a kind of a tinkerer, someone that just wanted to learn how to do things for the VR headset, someone that liked to make stuff. I built my kind of online brand around the, the phrase Alex Makes VR. And I've joked with my friends over the last couple of years, you know I mean, technically I am still making things, but I'm personally not really making the VR anymore. So I've moved into a space where I'm more doing that kind of, that top level advisory around, actually even before you spend a penny on this technology, how is it gonna help your company? How is it going to help the people that you are rolling out to? What's the value of it? Helping people understand that. And then also on the other side, for creators, helping them understand how are you going to make your work reach an audience? How are you going to think about the distribution of your, like your products or services? Not just the fact that it's really cool because yes, it might be really cool! But if it doesn't get shown to anyone or if it doesn't reach the audience you intend then you know, potentially kind of like you are, you're selling yourself short. So I would like to think that my next challenge is to continue helping those who are still at the beginning of that journey, learn how to crack the enterprise nut. Especially on the distribution side of things, I'm really excited to see that Apple have obviously just rolled out an update for Vision Pro that is gonna help a lot more creators be able to kind of export their stuff and, and kind of load it onto the Vision Pro. So that's reducing barrier to entry like there. You know, so many things, but mainly I'm thinking I'm in a phase of my career where I would probably like to be"giving back." Just more like I'm tired and I wanna use all of the stuff I've learned over 10 years to just impart to everyone else. Flash forward a year and I'm like, so I've got a new piece out

Nathan C Bowser:

I've actually made a headset. Alex, I love this! Labels and words are really interesting. Alex Makes VR, Alex has been making VR happen at literally some of the highest levels for some of the largest corporations, like on the planet. And that somehow, whether it's capitalism, whether it's a ADHD. Who knows? Whether it's imposter syndrome, the not doing the task of physically coding the VR feels a little different than tying a business case, an enterprise, like return on investment together with a strategy that like actually makes it happen in the world. It's very interesting, to like you through your curiosity, through your experience, through this trial and error, through these 10 years in innovation, that there is still some of that like doing tasking deadlining, built into like the value of"making VR" even though that strategic, that research, that discovery, right? Like last couple inches of data that you need to connect a user to a technology to a business plan is, the strategy and the research and that understanding of the customer is what gets the value.

Alex Rühl :

Love that! Do you know what? This is, this is perfect. Can we do this every week? I'll fire my therapist.

Nathan C Bowser:

Hell yeah!

Alex Rühl :

That's actually what I came here for. I needed the affirmation. I needed the validation. I'm all here for it! I do see exactly what you're pointing at there. I do think that there's probably a bit of a yeah, being aware of just under capitalism the people that do the least work it seems and sit in the kind of cushiest roles tend to get the most money, the most glory, and I do think that there is probably sometimes a bit of a disconnect between the people actually physically doing the work, right? So maybe that's where that embedded comes. But I do like the reframe,"Alex Makes VR... Happen."

Nathan C Bowser:

"Alex Makes VR... Profitable." I feel like there's a whole series on this. Okay. This has been amazing! We're sort of blazing through the questions, we're blazing through the ADHD. You're on this journey. You're resting, you're recharging, you're getting ready for the next thing. How do you measure the impact, that you're making? How do you know that you've made it when you're on an amorphous journey like this and when you're looking, from this moment of rest and future, how do you set that goal?

Alex Rühl :

Yeah, it's such an interesting point around the"made it" mentality, right? And I feel like anyone on the founder's journey will be thinking in their head, when I do this, I've made it. When I achieve this, I'll have made it. When I make this much money, when I have this person as a client, when I have this many LinkedIn followers, when I've done this talk on this stage. As much as I've been very modest up until now, let me take a second to be slightly egotistical. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, that if you make, if you tie your worth and your identity to milestones such as money or success in a kind of a very traditional sense, you'll never ever feel fulfillment from that. I remember in 2019 doing a TED Talk, earning my first six figures, making a massive online product, I premiered a piece at Cannes Film Festival. Flash forward a few years I premiered at Venice. I got this job at PwC. These are all things that most people starting out in their journey would look at and go, that's when you've made it! When you've made that much cash, when you've been on that stage, when you've premiered at that festival like, that's when you've made it! And the truth is, I promise you now, the most that I've ever felt like I've quote unquote,"made it" the most happy I've been in my career, like the most fulfilled, the most energized. Was like when I first started my company and I was grinding and I was like showing up at these kind of events as a nobody quote unquote, and I was just making friends and I was talking about how much passion I had for this industry and I started learning stuff and I started sharing those learnings. Those for me feel like I can look back and say. Genuinely, those were the happiest memories that I've had so far in this decade long career. So I think my version of making it now is finding things that genuinely make me feel happy and energized. And I promise you, if you're listening to this and you're still chasing, I mean obviously everyone's gotta eat, everyone's got financial dependence and like financial goals, so ain't no shade if you wanna be chasing that milli, but just know that the milli is not gonna make you happy, right? What you are doing on a day-to-day basis, what your journey is like, who you are connecting with, who you are working with, who you surround yourself by, what are the things that are making you fizzy-brained as a friend of mine would say, these are the things that mean you've made it.

Nathan C Bowser:

I don't know if I can talk anymore on this episode. That was so good! I love it, Alex! Okay. To take a minute, one of the things that we do on The Glow Up is we make time and space for a shout-out or a community spotlight. In all of your time in the space, are there organizations, people doing good work, that could use a little bit of extra attention that you'd like to share your spotlight with?

Alex Rühl :

Absolutely! I am gonna shout-out a company in the UK called Virtual Umbrella. It's a small kind of independent company run by two of the most amazing humans, Bertie and Sammy. They are the people that I met when I very first started in this industry. The most genuine, kind, brilliant people. They are the unsung invisible heroes of a lot of the larger scale VR deployments and exhibitions. They help, for example, like film festivals with the logistics of how to showcase VR in a way that is sustainable and also come on the ground and actually help solve those big technical challenges that undoubtedly happen when you've got a crap ton of headsets all in one place. They've certainly helped us at, me as CATS ARE NOT PEAS back in the day, but also in my PwC capacity and helping roll out VR training to like hundreds if not thousands of people across our organization. They are just the most down to earth and most brilliant people. If I go back to me saying I wanna help people actually connect their work, their products, their services with the end customer. Virtual Umbrella tend to be like for me, that kind of middle piece. They will help you actually get it out there. They will help you deploy, they will help you showcase and they're just brilliant! So that's my shout-out.

Nathan C Bowser:

Heck yeah! Virtual Umbrella! You reminded me in your story how many projects I've been on where the core piece is like a creative technologist. With a really niche set of skills and understanding who is willing to get into like the API-level mess of it all to make sure something happens and that, remembering that like even at some of the largest three letter consultancies, there might be a crack team of some really geeky creatives, who are helping make everything, move through. And like when when you're thinking about making that innovation journey, that next leap, do you need, a giant player or do you need the right utility team, to help you get that core last mile stuff locked in? It's a good thing to ask yourself, right?

Alex Rühl :

Absolutely! Couldn't agree more.

Nathan C Bowser:

The value's not always with the star power, it's with that connection to the customer. And if that star has your connection, like by all means, but if they don't, there's all sorts of ways to get there.

Alex Rühl :

Yep.

Nathan C Bowser:

Alex Rühl, it's been so great to talk with you. In this expansive new phase with CATS ARE NOT PEAS, is there anything that you're looking for, whether it's inspiration, whether it's research, whether it's partners?

Alex Rühl :

I am always on the lookout for people that are doing interesting things with this technology. Some of the coolest stuff that I have ever seen happen in this industry is like the one man bands or the one woman bands that are just out there with a few headsets doing the kind of most specific things possible. Like there was this woman in the UK who ran a company called VR Therapies. And I remember seeing on a WhatsApp group that she essentially made a young child's dying wish come true because she loaded on some underwater content and took a VR headset to a hospital and she got to live out, this little kid got to live out her dream of being a mermaid before she died and just like in this day and age when war is imminent and AI is taking over the world, like it's stories like that that make me get up in the morning. So I'm always looking for people doing amazing, beautiful things with this technology. And other than that, I just love to hear from people that are keeping on in this industry. So please feel free to reach out to me. I'm Alex Makes VR on all the platforms.

Nathan C Bowser:

Oh my goodness! There is not a better place to end it. Alex Rühl, founder CATS ARE NOT PEAS. Alex Makes VR Happen. Alex Makes VR Valuable. Alex Makes VR Connected to the Customers. We have learned so much about doing business at scale. Doing business as humans and actually finding a path to value for immersive and innovation technologies. Thank you so much for joining us!

Alex Rühl :

Thank you so much and just thank you for all the amazing work you do in this industry!

Nathan C Bowser:

Thank you so much!