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Damn, this is a huge shame. What were this sticking points for investors if you don't mind me asking? What is the value proposition? I mean, I am really interes

Damn, this is a huge shame. What were this sticking points for investors if you don't mind me asking? What is the value proposition? I mean, I am really interested in potentially using this in the AEC industry as an open source product. But where would the revenue come from?

Arathorn 3y ago
The biggest sticking points were: a) metaverse hype collapse causing blowback oversteer against any kind of virtual world platform b) the team wasn't interested in running it standalone as a for-profit startup outside of the Matrix Foundation, and Matrix doesn't have enough $ to fund core Matrix, let alone Third Room c) big organisations who claimed they were interested in funding it within Matrix entirely failed to follow through (which probably maps to metaverse hype collapse). My favourite example is Rolls Royce, who ran a fullblown innovation challenge in May, saying they were specifically focusing on interoperable 3D collaboration: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/opportunities/rolls-royce-sme-innovation-challenge-2023/ https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/opportunities/rolls-royce-sme-innovat.... We invested significant effort in applying, and never even heard back from them at all. As far as I know, they silently ditched the innovation challenge without telling anyone who'd applied to it. You can see our showreel for it at https://youtu.be/cFKJ-IuGaKA https://youtu.be/cFKJ-IuGaKA. In terms of business models: selling SaaS hosting and proprietary apps & DLC on top of the open platform is the way to go, imo. https://thirdroom.io/preview#what-can-you-use-it-for https://thirdroom.io/preview#what-can-you-use-it-for has ideas for problem domains. If anyone reading this happens to have $500K-$1M/y available to fund core dev, there's a small but finite chance of finding a way to get the project back on the road. But the core Third Room team has disbanded, and as per https://matrix.org/blog/2023/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-update-2023/ https://matrix.org/blog/2023/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-update... the focus of the remaining Matrix core team is currently monomaniacally on core Matrix foundations rather than future-facing stuff like Third Room. Needless to say, I feel incredibly frustrated that we funded TR so far, and then had to stop before it got to escape velocity: simultaneously helping the open metaverse while setting it back too.
- ImHereToVote 3y ago
  Thank you for outlining the challenges. I think the whole metaverse angle has been a mistake. There are many legitimate use-cases like work collaboration, or multiplayer games. The marketing of the metaverse just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. If one were to create a MVP for a collaboration platform. Would it be possible to do that with the current state of Third Room in your opinion?

Arathorn 3y ago

The biggest sticking points were: a) metaverse hype collapse causing blowback oversteer against any kind of virtual world platform b) the team wasn't interested in running it standalone as a for-profit startup outside of the Matrix Foundation, and Matrix doesn't have enough $ to fund core Matrix, let alone Third Room c) big organisations who claimed they were interested in funding it within Matrix entirely failed to follow through (which probably maps to metaverse hype collapse). My favourite example is Rolls Royce, who ran a fullblown innovation challenge in May, saying they were specifically focusing on interoperable 3D collaboration: https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/opportunities/rolls-royce-sme-innovation-challenge-2023/ https://iuk.ktn-uk.org/opportunities/rolls-royce-sme-innovat.... We invested significant effort in applying, and never even heard back from them at all. As far as I know, they silently ditched the innovation challenge without telling anyone who'd applied to it. You can see our showreel for it at https://youtu.be/cFKJ-IuGaKA https://youtu.be/cFKJ-IuGaKA. In terms of business models: selling SaaS hosting and proprietary apps & DLC on top of the open platform is the way to go, imo. https://thirdroom.io/preview#what-can-you-use-it-for https://thirdroom.io/preview#what-can-you-use-it-for has ideas for problem domains. If anyone reading this happens to have $500K-$1M/y available to fund core dev, there's a small but finite chance of finding a way to get the project back on the road. But the core Third Room team has disbanded, and as per https://matrix.org/blog/2023/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-update-2023/ https://matrix.org/blog/2023/12/25/the-matrix-holiday-update... the focus of the remaining Matrix core team is currently monomaniacally on core Matrix foundations rather than future-facing stuff like Third Room. Needless to say, I feel incredibly frustrated that we funded TR so far, and then had to stop before it got to escape velocity: simultaneously helping the open metaverse while setting it back too.

ImHereToVote 3y ago
Thank you for outlining the challenges. I think the whole metaverse angle has been a mistake. There are many legitimate use-cases like work collaboration, or multiplayer games. The marketing of the metaverse just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth. If one were to create a MVP for a collaboration platform. Would it be possible to do that with the current state of Third Room in your opinion?