The Future Is Now: Ben Conway Of VNTANA On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The Tech Scene
An Interview With Fotis Georgiadis
Trust your gut and act quickly.
As a part of our series about cutting-edge technological breakthroughs, I had the pleasure of interviewing Ben Conway.
Ben Conway is co-Founder and COO of VNTANA, a SaaS platform that makes 3D asset management and distribution incredibly easy via the industry’s only fully automated 3D optimization and content management platform. Ben has delivered “world’s-first” mixed reality experiences for brands like Microsoft, Intel, Adidas, & Nike across the globe and has been working in the mixed reality space for over nine years. Ben was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list in 2018, with VNTANA named to the Inc. 500 list the same year. As COO, Ben oversees all operations and sales for VNTANA’s software platform with a particular focus on retail & apparel clients like VF Corp, Diesel, & Hugo Boss.
Prior to co-founding VNTANA, Ben was District Manager at Fortune 300 human resources management software company ADP, where he became a top sales performer. He is a graduate of the University of Southern California’s Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, with a BS in Business Administration-Entrepreneurship.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit about you. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
One thing is sure about VNTANA, the journey has not been straightforward. I’ve always been drawn to building things — complicated things. When I was a kid all my Christmas presents were erector sets, Legos, or K-Nex. As a grown-up, that turned into holograms and interactive 3D experiences. In our first iteration of VNTANA, we were building life-size interactive hologram experiences for brands like Lexus, Nike and Adidas. To create those experiences, we would receive massive, 3D models of each product. They were way too big to run in game engines, so we would have to manually optimize every file. We realized there was an even bigger opportunity — what if we can figure out a way to automatically optimize these 3D files and provide a content management system to manage and distribute them? What I love about this industry is that there’s always something new to learn and I get to work with companies that are building the technologies that will change the way we interact with one another and the world around us.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
A story that I tell all the time is about our very first paid job as a company. I don’t know if it’s the most interesting, but it certainly is the most memorable. We had been hired by an agency whose client was Microsoft to put on a hologram concert at a venue in Chicago. We had never done this before. On the day of the event, nothing was working, and we were drowning. I spent the entire day rehearsing how I was going to tell the client that the event wasn’t going to happen, and we had spent all of their money, but we put our heads down and just kept going. 5 minutes before doors opened, we got everything to work. When I pressed the play button on the computer, it was one of the best feelings I had ever had. It felt so good to have imagined something just a year ago and see it come to life, despite many at the time thinking we definitely weren’t qualified to be working at that scale. I think it inspired me to keep pushing the boundaries and tackling new and harder problems.
Can you tell us about the cutting-edge technological breakthroughs that you are working on? How do you think that will help people?
One of our core technologies is our patented optimization engine, which allows us to automatically reduce 3D file sizes by up to 99% while still maintaining ultra-high visual fidelity. The goal here is to be able to optimize 3D assets for any platform and any channel automatically, without requiring a human to visually inspect the assets. To date, we have made huge breakthroughs in the fashion industry, and we are continuing to expand into other verticals while adding the ability to optimize more file types in more specialized ways. This saves 3D artists hours of time and also allows brands to deploy their products in 3D and augmented reality on e-commerce BTOB channels and the meta-verse. Scaling the production, optimization, and distribution of 3D content is critical for brands over the next decade as they begin to access and deploy more immersive digital experiences.
How do you think this might change the world?
There’s been an enormous amount of discussion around the metaverse and the future of immersive technologies. A critical component for the development of the metaverse is having digital versions of physical products. In the same way that Netflix or Youtube will adjust the quality and resolution of a video that you’re watching depending on your internet speed and device screen size, 3D models of products will need to be optimized for the device you are accessing the metaverse or another immersive experience from. Our technology is truly the only fully automated solution that can handle the automatic optimization & distribution of the millions of 3D models that will populate the metaverse.
Keeping “Black Mirror” in mind, can you see any potential drawbacks of this technology that people should think more deeply about?
The biggest thing that people need to worry about is too much of a good thing. Having access to the internet on your phone is great, but I think we all agree that spending all day mindlessly scrolling is not healthy. The same will be true of immersive 3D experiences.
Was there a “tipping point” that led you to this breakthrough? Can you tell us that story?
I’d say that the tipping point for us came in the middle of 2019. For years, we were trying to build a business that would scale and continue to push the boundaries of what is possible with 3D experiences. We were on track to have our best year yet and were generating millions of dollars in revenue, but it felt like we were pushing a boulder up a hill. Although we had automated much of the process of creating an interactive hologram experience, there was always customization involved and we always ended up spending a good deal of time manually optimizing 3D assets. The lightbulb moment for us came after a difficult project where we spent a lot of time looking for a more automated solution that could help us, but we couldn’t find anything. That’s when we realized there was a massive void in the market that was only going to become more pronounced over the next few years, and our team was perfectly poised to fill it.
What do you need to lead this technology to widespread adoption?
We are already quickly heading in the right direction. The more compelling end use cases there are for 3D content, the faster brands will move towards developing their products in 3D. Massive conglomerates like VF Corp (Vans, Dickies, The North Face) have made enormous strides in their digital product creation process, which has allowed them to create novel experiences in Fortnite and Roblox that are paying real dividends.
What have you been doing to publicize this idea? Have you been using any innovative marketing strategies?
We’re finding that having genuine conversations on social channels is working really well for us. There is so much noise and frankly nonsense right now in the 3D space. There are a lot of big promises being made that are going to lead to disappointment, because in some areas the technology just isn’t there yet. Having authentic conversations that are grounded in what’s possible today has been resonating with our customers. People are looking for actionable information that they can trust.
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?
I am extremely grateful to my mom. More than just advice, she has always been there to listen to me and pick me up when I’ve been knocked down (and you get knocked down a lot in entrepreneurship). She has also jumped right in to help. Many years ago, when we were initially trying to figure out exactly what VNTANA would be, we had a demo scheduled to showcase some of the technology we were working on. We had almost no money at the time and were attempting to build our own projection screen and freestanding projection rig on a very small budget. We were literally pouring concrete into buckets in the garage and my mom was right there to help. When the day of the demo came, she helped us load into the venue and then, like the good mother she is, she went out and got sandwiches, so all the guests were fed.
How have you used your success to bring goodness to the world?
I try to provide mentorship whenever I can to other founders. I often don’t have the answers, but I know what mistakes I’ve made in the past and what I wish I knew when I was starting my career. Being an entrepreneur can be incredibly isolating. You often feel like you need to be positive all the time and constantly keep your foot on the gas pedal. The reality is that you’re a human and you get tired and discouraged and burnt out just like everyone else. Having a peer who has been there has been so important for me personally and I want to pay that forward.
What are your “5 Things I Wish Someone Told Me Before I Started” and why?
- This is going to take way longer than you think. Take care of yourself.
- When I started the company, I thought we’d be an overnight success. I was wrong. I often treated the journey as if it were a sprint rather than a marathon. This has led to burnout in the past, which can be really difficult to overcome. Life is short and outcomes aren’t guaranteed. It’s important to make sure you’re taking care of yourself so you can stick it out for the long haul.
- Say no more often.
- It’s so easy to get distracted and trick yourself into thinking that you can do it all. I have wasted lots of time and effort trying to tackle multiple markets and customers at once. Focus is so powerful. You really need to understand your customer to be successful and the only way to do that is through focus.
- Trust your gut and act quickly.
- Almost every time my gut sensed something was wrong, it was. It’s super easy to rationalize inaction, whether it’s with employees, investors or something else entirely. The longer I’ve waited to act on it (firing someone, having a difficult conversation, etc.) the worse things have gotten. When your gut senses something is off, it is.
- Breathe deeply, not everything is an emergency.
- In the world of start-ups, where you are trying build the plane while you’re flying it, everything can feel like an emergency. Hastily made decisions have almost always come back to bite me. Don’t let emotions cloud your ability to make clear decisions. Not everything requires you to send an email right away.
- A good mentor is worth their weight in gold.
- Going it alone is really hard. Make finding mentors and peers who have the right experience a priority. A good mentor can accelerate your development way faster than you would be able to do by yourself. An important caveat here is that a mentor isn’t just someone who is more experienced than you. If you don’t trust them or connect with them on a personal level, move on. Bad advice is way worse than no advice.
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. 🙂
I would just encourage people to ask themselves in every interaction, “am I acting from a place of fear or a place of love?” I think so much bad behavior is driven by fear. Whether we make a negative comment about someone else because we’re afraid that we’re not good enough or smart enough, or we try to exert control over someone because we’re fearful of change. I think fear is at the heart of a lot suffering in the world. If we all took a deep breath before we acted or spoke, asked ourselves this simple question and answered it honestly, the change in the world would be dramatic.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?
“I am what I am. I don’t worry about anything that I can’t control.” Tom Watson
There are so many things that we cannot control, and I have spent many late nights worrying about them. Letting go of what I can’t control and focusing on the areas where I can have an impact has made me happier and more productive. I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on my deficiencies but instead try to find what I’m naturally good at and improve.
Some very well-known VCs read this column. If you had 60 seconds to make a pitch to a VC, what would you say? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Covid accelerated everyone’s need for 3D content management, but IT infrastructure was built for 2D only. Every platform requires different 3D specifications, which is expensive and time consuming to enable. VNTANA solves this with automated software. VNTANA is a first-of-its-kind 3D Infrastructure Platform, which can add 3D capabilities to any platform (including PLM, DAMs, and marketplaces) at a fraction of the cost and time. VNTANA’s fully automated, patented 3D optimization software reduces 3D file size by up to 99%, instantly converting existing 3D design files into the file types and sizes needed for any end use case and delivering those optimized files through the industry’s fastest-loading, highest-quality 3D web viewer. We are trusted by brands like Hugo Boss, Diesel, VF Corp and others and are on track to grow over 300% this year.
How can our readers follow you on social media?
Those who are interested in following VNTANA can find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
Thank you so much for joining us. This was very inspirational.
The Future Is Now: Ben Conway Of VNTANA On How Their Technological Innovation Will Shake Up The… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.
