Despite boasting impressive portfolios overflowing with award-winning, business-boosting customer experience accolades, our All-Stars are still human. And like any other humans, they have been known to make the odd mistake over the years.
As part of our XR All-Stars series, we asked our esteemed influencers to open up and reveal some of the mistakes they’ve made along the way, and what they learned from the experiences.
Below is a snapshot of some of their responses. You can view their complete answers to these questions and more in CX All-Stars or by clicking a leader’s name to view their full profile.
Timing
Several of our All-Stars highlighted mistakes related to timing – often through no fault of their own.
Steve Grubbs, CEO at VictoryXR, picked out a business venture that was scuppered by Covid.
“I started a VR arcade just before the pandemic. Sometimes, you cannot see the road ahead and you must survive to fight another day.”
Shawn Grover, VP of Operational Excellence at Trigger XR, highlighted the importance of timing in tech innovation:
Sometimes, despite our best efforts, a project or concept might not land as we hoped because the audience wasn’t fully ready for it,” he said.
“Timing can be everything in tech innovation. Our team at Trigger XR has been working in XR for a very long time and witnessed various trends come and go. My experience has taught me that to be successful in XR, it’s crucial to be in tune with the audience and the technology, understand where it’s headed, and recognize when the timing is just right for an experience to reach its maximum potential.”
Caleb Trees, Director of Operations at Immersed, echoed this sentiment about consumer readiness:
“Implementing a roadmap for a feature that was not yet consumer ready,” he said.
“A lot of time effort and energy went into the project and we ultimately ended up scrapping it.
“We learned that it was worth a shot but we should have waited for the underlying utilitarian use case for it was proven out further.
Matthew Chaussee, CEO & Co-Founder of CareerViewXR, noted a key mistake in business direction.
“If I had to choose one, the biggest mistake we made was spending too much time trying to make our business work in the residential real estate industry before making a major pivot.
“We didn’t listen to our gut and spent way too much time trying to get people to purchase our ‘great idea’, instead of trying to thoroughly understand the problems they needed solved.
“We learned the hard way that while people may say they love your idea, if you aren’t focused on solving their problem, then they will not buy it.”
Cory Grenier, CEO & Co-Founder of GEENEE, also learned about the necessity of adapting:
“Not changing product and market direction earlier for fear of alienating internal and external stakeholders,” he said.
“I learned not to hesitate, and let early customer signals (aka product market fit) focus all of the company’s energy, time and efforts.”
Building and Managing Relationships
A Host of All-Stars highlighted their relationships with other people has the source of some mistakes.
Jay Latta, Chief Dreamer at STINT, told of a start-up investment he made that quickly turned sour.
“The founder believed a chinese investor, ignored my concerns, IP was transferred to a CN entity and the rest is history,” he said.
Sören Syrbe, COO at Wonderland, reflected on a costly early decision while getting his business off the ground.
“I once hired a freelancer and paid him the full amount right at the beginning,” he said.
“I was dazzled by all the (real) comments from people on his LinkedIn profile and his many years of professional experience.
“Unfortunately, the work result was very poor. Since then, I’ve made sure to set milestones and clearly defined targets when drafting the contract, to which a later payment is tied. A rookie mistake.”
Radhika Mukhija, Co-Founder of Higher Prana Virtual Reality, also spoke to the challenge of balancing internal and external resources.
“At the start, we struggled to be present in multiple places since we were bootstrapped. We wanted to do it all,” Mukhija said.
“However, my Co-founder, Akash Sud, focused on outsourcing select VR product components, while the majority of our content is created internally.
“We have learnt how to stay close to the production process without doing it all and know how to smartly delegate some of the production work.”
Harriet Bartlett, Founder of Only XR, shared a poignant lesson on the complexities of business relationships:
“I believe the biggest mistake I have done was to think business relations could be friends,” she said.
“I have had my trust broken, deceptions in hard times, I have had my work taken out of my hands and been discredited by people who ate at my table.
“Now of course some true friendships have sparkled in my work environment; I love their energy and I couldn’t see my life without those close friends. But I have learn where to stand.”
Pricing and Product Development
John Luxford, Co-Founder and CEO at Flipside XR, highlighted the potential pitfalls of building on infrastructure from the tech giants.
I think my biggest mistake was in a previous startup, a music discovery and streaming service, and was relying too heavily on a single proprietary platform,” he said.
“We built it entirely on top of Google App Engine instead of relying on more open technologies. App Engine was still pretty new, and bandwidth was still quite expensive back then. One day, quite close to our public launch, Google announced a 4x increase in bandwidth fees which put the bandwidth costs way beyond all of our projections.
“We had to decide at that time whether to rewrite everything on top of a new tech stack in order to be able to find a cheaper alternative, and due to that and other circumstances of the time, we ended up not launching the service.”
Sara Johnston, COO at Motive.io, learned the hard way about valuing one’s services: “Not knowing our worth and undercharging,” she said.
“Lowering prices attracts the wrong kind of clients.”
Kevin Joyce, CEO at Tiny Brains Ltd., also faced challenges with pricing structures:
“Under pricing!” he said. “There have been a few times I’ve let that scale slide a little low and we’ve taken on too much work for a very small price.
Lair Anderson, a researcher at LAPISCO, emphasized the importance of understanding user needs over focusing solely on advanced technology.
“The biggest business mistake I’ve made was prioritizing advanced Virtual Reality (VR) technology over understanding user needs,” he said.
“This resulted in a VR application that, while technologically impressive, didn’t address real user problems or preferences, leading to low engagement and adoption.
“Users found the interface cumbersome and the features impractical for their needs. Significant resources were spent on cutting-edge capabilities that users didn’t value, and we missed out on crucial feedback that could have guided better design choices.
“Moving forward, it’s essential to balance technological advancements with a deep understanding of user needs to create VR applications that are both innovative and user-friendly, driving better engagement and business success.”
Fernando Cazares, Lead Digital Engineer at Capgemini, shared a similar lesson about iterative development.
“One of the biggest business mistakes I’ve made was holding off on sharing my work until I thought it was absolutely perfect,” he said.
“I spent so much time tweaking and refining that I missed out on valuable feedback early in the process.
“What I learned from this experience is the importance of showing your work early and often. Don’t be afraid if it’s not completed or perfect—sharing your progress allows others to give you feedback and helps you adjust accordingly.”
Best of the Rest
Matt Tullis, VP of XR at Ultraleap: “The biggest mistake I’ve made is holding on to a failed product too long,” he said.
“It’s often tough to give up on a new thing, especially when you’re the champion, but it’s important to remain objective and fail fast.”
Slawomir Matul, CEO & Founder of VR Factory Games and Skillmmersion: “One of the biggest business mistakes was the decision to list VR Factory Games on the stock exchange through a reverse takeover.
“I only found out after the fact that my shares would not be listed, and it took me 2 years to get all the shares listed, which is in turn a big success. I should make the company public through a traditional IPO. Of course, after this experience, I don’t think that going public through a reverse takeover is generally a bad idea.
“It depends on various conditions. My mistake was that I did not explore all aspects of this action plus one additional one, which let it remain my private knowledge.”
Miranda Palmisano, CEO at MadXR: “Embarking on a project with just the client’s written nod, without the safety net of a signed contract, was a misstep that taught us a profound lesson the hard way.
“It was a moment that deeply reinforced the value of patience and due diligence in the face of excitement and trust.
“This experience, while painful, has instilled in us a more thoughtful approach to our engagements, ensuring our passion for innovation is always paired with wisdom.
Adam Pomeroy, Middle East Operations Director at Luminous XR: “Shortly after finishing university I started a small photography business. This was before the days of digital cameras with internet and email being relatively new, I decide to promote my business with an ad-email to potential customers.
“I enthusiastically scanned several of my best photos to the highest resolution and attached them to an email. However, the scanned images were a huge size and having little understanding of resizing images at the time or what attaching large files would do, sent my email.
“Disastrously, the following day, I received a deluge of angry emails from my potential customers stating that my message had crashed their email and caused chaos, loosing any potential business!
“However, I bounced back and the business continued and I soon put the ad-mail behind me. I learnt that mistakes can and will happen, but bounce back and continue! Keep following your dream and learn from mistakes!”
Cam Stevens, CEO at Pocketknife Group, said: “One of the most significant learning experiences in my career occurred during a project at a water utility, where I was part of a team tasked with deploying an integrated, multimodal tech solution using BlackBerry Curve smartphones and SAP software.
Our goal was to deliver picture-based risk assessments to frontline workers. It was my first ever deployment of such a technology, and we made a critical mistake: we failed to consult the actual users of the system—the workers.
“The solution turned out to be impractical and was not well-received, underscoring the importance of user involvement in the development phase of any project. This experience profoundly shaped my approach to innovation, teaching me the value of stakeholder engagement and user-centric design.”