Makers of The Metaverse: Dalia Lasaite of CGTrader On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality Industries
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Improvements can definitely be made for overall health and mental health from our industry. We’ve seen people dealing with their fears — fear of heights, vertigo, motion sickness, and training with simulations to practice and confront the fears to overcome a mental or physical challenge.
The Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality & Mixed Reality Industries are so exciting. What is coming around the corner? How will these improve our lives? What are the concerns we should keep an eye out for? Aside from entertainment, how can VR or AR help work or other parts of life? To address this, we had the pleasure of interviewing Dalia Lasaite of CGTrader.
Dalia Lasaite is the CEO and co-Founder of CGTrader, the world’s leading provider of 3D content and chosen by 150 of the Fortune 500 companies. Dalia joined the company in 2015 and has been instrumental in growing both business lines — the B2C Marketplace and B2B ARsenal — and professional 3D designer community, which now tops 5 million. She currently lives in Vilnius, Lithuania, with her husband and children.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit. Can you tell us a bit about your backstory and how you grew up?
I was born in Lithuania when it was still a part of the Soviet Union. When I was a young girl, I saw all the changes that happened when we regained our independence as a country. It was a really turbulent period in history, but I appreciate the experience because I was able to witness an important transition period that shaped Lithuania into what it is today and appreciate the freedom that we have even more. This transition also gave my parents the opportunity to become entrepreneurs and slowly grow their businesses, which led me by example. By the time I graduated from university, I saw entrepreneurship as a great next step that could lead to a fulfilling career. CGTrader was born in Lithuania and is now a global company with an international workforce and a strong presence in the U.S. The dynamic changes that have shaped my country and career happened in a generation’s time and is a great lesson in how quickly technology can change an industry and the world.
Is there a particular book, film, or podcast that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Two books come to mind. One I read when I was studying finance and economics in university called “Fooled by Randomness” by Nassim Nicholas Taleb. It made me think about risk in a new light. Once I realized that events do not occur linearly, it completely changed the way I approached my life and career. Instead of viewing risk as something to avoid, I began to see it more as something that could open many doors. Suddenly a corporate career path seemed less appealing and I began to gravitate towards the rapidly changing world of technology and found a better fit with startups.
Another novel that has stuck with me through the years is called the “Three Body Problem” by Liu Cixin, which is about how the human race clashes with ExtraTerrestrials and how Earth’s various organizations could not work well enough together to come to a resolution. I really enjoyed it and think that it is reminiscent of today’s current events with geo-political conflicts and the on-going pandemic. It serves as a reminder that good leadership is essential in turbulent times.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting out in your career? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
CGTrader is my third startup so I’ve learned quite a bit since starting out. In my first startup, we made every mistake in the book including spending an entire week debating the color of the logo for a concept that had not even been launched yet. We didn’t have a tangible product and placed so much emphasis on the brand logo as it felt like the defining piece to go to market. Clearly, I learned a valuable lesson and many more since then and placed a heavier emphasis on prioritization and really learned how to focus my attention when building a new business.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
Jon Bradford is the founder of an accelerator called Difference Engine in the UK that I participated in years ago. I am grateful for his support and advice over the years. It really has inspired me to propagate the practice of “paying it forward” and mentoring others. I try to share my own expertise where I can in the spirit of start-up culture and learning from his leadership and example.
Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think that will help people?
Whether you work in E-commerce, the metaverse, or gaming, 3D content creation is one of the biggest bottlenecks in the industry right now and we are solving that through our ARsenal platform. We have the largest 3D designer community in the world that can quickly convert any quantity of images into high quality 3D models. Customers can reap the benefits of AR and VR in an easy and affordable way without ever having to bid, while designers enjoy a platform that helps them grow in their careers.
Another aspect of the business that is helping reduce this bottleneck is the CGTrader marketplace which has the largest repository of 3D models for sale on the market. So far we have 5 million users buying and listing 3D models on the marketplace… and counting. We also depend on our designer community to provide the scale that our customers are looking for. So many companies in our space claim they can provide scale and quality to the projects that brands and companies are looking for when starting with 3D, but we can truly back that up with the number of designers and models that we create monthly. Our platform on the designer side is easy and seamless for them to sign up and start working right away. There’s no bidding system for designers, they can pick up projects right after signing on and create models.
Ok super. Thank you for all that. Let’s now shift to the main focus of our interview. The VR, AR and MR industries seem so exciting right now. What are the 3 things in particular that most excite you about the industry? Can you explain or give an example?
Virtual try-ons is one of the most exciting aspects of the industry in my opinion. It’s been around for a couple of years now but the technology is getting much more sophisticated and leads to so much creativity. The customers interact with brands in various ways and have the option to experience a store-like visit whereas before, you had to purchase the product, wait for shipping, and then return half of the items that did not suit you. Which leads me to my second point, which is the sustainability aspect of our industry. We are seeing a huge reduction in carbon footprint from less returns, shipping, waste, and even less samples being produced. Some of our customers at CGTrader have adopted 3D into the design and production process so there’s no need to create a physical sample of a product for testing or approval. It has cut down time, processes, and even more waste! We truly hope more companies are able to follow this trend in the near future as they evaluate their ESG policies.
And lastly, from these new practices, we’re seeing products from brands that only exist in the digital form or a physical product with a digital twin where you can wear the product and have a digital copy of it to use for social media, your avatar in different games, and in virtual worlds. The extended life of the product and a branding opportunity for the company are all aspects of 3D assets we try to educate our client about when they’re evaluating the investment into 3D.
What are the 3 things that concern you about the VR, AR and MR industries? Can you explain? What can be done to address those concerns?
I think an overarching theme of concern in the industry for me is the user experience and usability of the platforms. If there’s no delight to the user right away or it’s too difficult to play or understand, it will delay the mass adoption of VR, AR, MR by the mainstream consumer. And without the industry being more mainstream, you won’t attract brands which will want to play in the space with branding and advertising opportunities.
NFTs are an interesting space with a lot of potential, I think it’s still early days so something to watch there, especially with pricing as it’s volatile in movement.
Trust and risk also comes to mind as the technology becomes more realistic — think deep fakes and the blending of the real world and virtual reality.
I think the entertainment aspects of VR, AR and MR are apparent. Can you share with our readers how these industries can help us at work?
I think the last two years have shown us that these technologies are not only a nice to have, but a must have at this point. Collaboration and enhancement of physical space is important to our ongoing work and our need to feel connected.
Are there other ways that VR, AR and MR can improve our lives? Can you explain?
Improvements can definitely be made for overall health and mental health from our industry. We’ve seen people dealing with their fears — fear of heights, vertigo, motion sickness, and training with simulations to practice and confront the fears to overcome a mental or physical challenge.
What are the “myths” that you would like to dispel about working in your industry? Can you explain what you mean?
The myths are a bit one-dimensional — the belief that you need to know 3D to be in this industry or need to be highly technical to work. I think it’s important in this industry, and even the broader tech industry, to understand that there are different roles you can use your talent to achieve a successful career. There are entry points you can create that are complementary to this specific industry. If you’re passionate about VR, AR, and MR — choose a career in marketing or engineering and the creative side and have a fulfilling learning experience while performing the role you work in. At CGTrader, we have seen a lot of transferable skills from employees in different departments and they didn’t necessarily know the industry at all when they started but were able to learn quickly and provide value to the business.
What are your “5 Things You Need To Create A Highly Successful Career In The VR, AR or MR Industries?” (Please share a story or example for each.)
1 — An idea: always focus on what you want to achieve, technology is a means to an end
2 — Early adoption mindset, setting up experiments: knowing it’s ok to fail and fail fast in the beginning
3 — Curiosity: continuously looking for information and new technology trends in the space (what others might be doing or solving)
4 — Technical inclination: technical skills can be learned so you don’t need to necessarily start with these skills but the ability to learn them fast is helpful
5 — OK with the unknown / open mindset: new territory, new industry, always will be unpredictable
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
Currently my mind is mostly around Ukraine. And the support for them, especially monetary support. It’s the most efficient way to help them. CGTrader donated $100K to the effort, especially for helping women and children refugees. As a mother, a movement that I would most like to inspire is one where we humanize refugees, especially in the case with Ukraine — women and children, since the men aren’t allowed to leave the country. We want to make sure the children are still able to receive an education by volunteering our time to teach and our money to help them set up schools. Our recruiters also prioritize finding Ukrainian women candidates for our open roles and any type of freelance work they’re able to do within our community. We are already seeing a great deal of generosity from our designer community where they have also donated part of their royalties to the on-the-ground efforts for Ukrainians. We hope Ukrainians know how much they inspire us when defending themselves against Russian aggression and find it encouraging that they’re already starting to return to the larger cities, like Kiev, to stand their ground.
We are very blessed that very prominent leaders read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would like to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
I must say Elon Musk — he has had such a massive impact on several industries, and is a true entrepreneur tackling impossible challenges.
Thank you so much for these excellent stories and insights. We wish you continued success on your great work!
Makers of The Metaverse: Dalia Lasaite of CGTrader On The Future Of The VR, AR & Mixed Reality… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
