echo3D on Its Working Environment & 3D Management Solution

Introduction

I'm Koren Grinshpoon and I'm the Founder and COO of echo3D, a cloud platform for 3D asset management. I hold two law degrees from Tel Aviv University and Columbia Law School, specializing in technology and intellectual property law. I'm a Techstars alum, Intel Ignite alum, and an NYC Media Lab alum, and am admitted to practice as an attorney in New York.

In 2018, I founded the company with my twin brother, Alon Grinshpoon, who came up with the idea for our venture after also studying at Columbia University, mastering Computer Science, and specializing in 3D/AR/VR and human-computer interaction. Ben Pedazur, our "brother from another mother" also joined us and now we manage a team of 12 astonishing team members and 3D/AR/VR enthusiasts. We are on a mission to help developers and companies manage their 3D, AR/VR, Metaverse, and Spatial Computing content. Our vision is to become the number one platform of cloud services for 3D apps.

During our time at Columbia University and by observing many 3D/AR/VR projects in development, we noticed that developers struggle to create scalable and dynamic 3D apps. Today’s 3D apps are single-user experiences with static and hard-to-update content. It’s difficult to update 3D content across different platforms which often have platform-specific specifications. Developers struggle to onboard clients since any change in the app results in endless development and deployment cycles (think about these annoying update packs when you try to play online video games). In order to scale the development of front-end-heavy experiences like 3D apps, a 3D asset management platform is needed. We conducted interviews with developers who validated that key cloud infrastructure and development tools are missing, and decided to build it for them.

Today, echo3D is backed by Qualcomm Ventures, Konvoy Ventures, Remagine Ventures, Space Capital, and Techstars, and received grants from Y Combinator, Verizon, and NYC Media Lab. We recently won the Auggie Award for Best Developer Tool at AWE 2023 and also won the Best Web3 Award at CES 2023.

Working Organization

We are split into two teams that closely collaborate with each other – an engineering team, led by Ben, our CTO, and a business development team, led by me, our COO. All of us are overseen and led by Alon, our CEO. We have weekly team meetings every Monday and Friday (both as teams and as an overall company) as well as smaller individual sessions on Wednesdays. We use email and Slack for communication and Notion for our knowledge management. Goals are set on a weekly basis, with the engineering roadmap being guided by product and business development insights provided by leadership and the business development team. After each product release, we also have a sync-up session to make sure the business team knows about all the latest and exciting developments on the R&D side.

Our company offers a 3D asset management platform that enables developers and companies to manage, update, and stream 3D, AR/VR, Metaverse, and Spatial Computing content to real-time apps and games. We offer a 3D-first content management system (CMS) and delivery network (CDN), asset compression and conversion tools, and a scalable BaaS infrastructure that enables them to manage 3D content across teams and organizations and also process and stream 3D content to different 3D/AR/VR apps and games in real-time and across devices. 

We make it easy for every organization to store, manage, share, update, visualize, stream, and collaborate with 3D content through the cloud. Our powerful 3D asset management platform allows teams to organize their 3D content in one central location, stream and share 3D assets wherever and whenever it's needed, compress and convert 3D assets, and improve overall workflow efficiency and communication within their organization. We serve over 65,000 developers as well as many organizations that use echo3D to manage their 3D content and support different 3D experiences in different industries (for healthcare, entertainment, retail, gaming, training, and more). 

The Company's Solution

"API for 3D": echo3D's Hiring Practices

We are looking for people who are big on trust, curiosity, and ownership and who have a passion for 3D/AR/VR. We define our company values with the abbreviation "API for 3D" (which also summarizes our offering):

• Assume Positive Intent: We start from the idea that people mean well and are doing their best. We give people the benefit of the doubt by identifying the situational details and the bigger picture and recognizing that everyone wants to be successful in their jobs.
• Delivery: We are outcome-oriented and emphasize achievements and results. This is reflected in our KPIs and OKRs, our data-driven decision-making, and our clearly defined roadmap.
• Devotion: We are team-oriented. We reward accountability, collaboration, and the elevation of others. This is reflected in weekly team meetings, weekly updates, and our amazing internship program.
• Development: We are growth-oriented and encourage taking ownership, responsibility, and skill building. This is again reflected in weekly updates and shared knowledge management.

When hiring new team members, the above is what we look for. 

Avoiding Burnout

We make sure to plan in advance to avoid tight deadlines and fire drills, to begin with. In all cases, at least one member of the company's leadership is included to lead by example and maintain team morale (and a steady flow of chocolates). We also make sure that people use their paid time off and encourage people to share during our team meetings about fun (non-work related stuff) that they have been doing, to make sure people also focus on their own personal interests and mental health. In addition, we also have bi-yearly off-sites to generate greater results for the company but with better quality of life for our employees.

Approaches to Freedom and Education

Team members are encouraged to take on as much responsibility and ownership as they can carry and we emphasize the freedom to experiment as well as the usefulness of speaking one's mind. Being a company founded by brothers, it's important to us that people feel close enough to share and suggest new ideas for strategy and workflow. In our mind, the more the team is involved in the decision, the better the execution would be. Our engineering and business development roadmaps are visible to all team members (including interns!) and they all have an opportunity to opine on and affect strategic decisions.

One of our key values is "development" and we encourage that team members hone their skills and build their professional networks. Team members participate in conferences and are encouraged to attend webinars in their field of work. We also maintain partnerships with other companies in our space which allow our team members to meet their contemporaries at other companies and learn from them. In addition, every team member hosts a workshop twice a year about their work and role at the company to the rest of the team and our interns' class, and many of our team members mentor interns and help them grow and learn about "startup life," the 3D/AR/VR industry, and the different roles that exist in different tech companies. 

Advice for Beginners

Be communicative and think about how you can demonstrate that you will provide value to your company. Research the company you are interviewing for and ask questions that demonstrate that you understand the challenges it's facing and that you're already brainstorming ideas on how to tackle them. Emphasize that you are a curious person and are willing to take on big responsibilities.

Koren Grinshpoon, Founder and COO at echo3D

Interview conducted by Theodore McKenzie