Justin Gordon (@justingordon212) talks with Jon Morris (@yojonmorris), Founder and CEO of NOWHERE, an online metaverse platform that aims to revolutionize gathering with patent pending video presence technology that allows serendipitous social mingling between conversations with friends or colleagues at conferences, meetings, or parties all within dynamic web environments.
Jon Morris is a conceptual artist who creates multilayered installations, performances, and experiences with the express intent of elevating his audience to a sublime state. Challenging the relationship between art and spectator, Morris’ work is typically equal parts technical, playful, inventive and rich with depth. From Le Louvre to Lady Gaga from Cirque Du Soleil to the Metropolitan Opera, his work has been praised by NY Times, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Rolling Stone, NBC, VICE, Wired and more. He previously founded The Windmill Factory, an interdisciplinary arts collective that creates interactive installations, immersive performances, stage designs, and experiential events.
He has been a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, Kinnernet-Europe Experience Director, LaMaMa ETC Artist in residence, Watermill Center Fellow, Tennessee Williams Fellow, NCAA Post Graduate Scholar, 6-time All-American Springboard Diver, and holds a B.A. from the University of the South, Sewanee. Jon has taught master classes at Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Pace, The University of The South, Vanderbilt.
Website: https://www.urnowhere.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonlmorris/
Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/yojonmorris
Show Notes:
0:00 The future of online gathering with NOWHERE’s metaverse platform
0:49 Jon’s journey from all-American springboard diver to tech founder
2:35 NOWHERE as a pandemic-born pivot
6:08 Early creative development for the platform
8:38 Developing NOWHERE’s vision and the challenge of finding web3 engineers
11:51 Sourcing talent and building the NOWHERE team
16:27 The power of spatial audio in the NOWHERE platform
19:34 Customer discovery and growing to venture scale
22:46 How NOWHERE plays into the future of work
25:50 NOWHERE’s competitive advantage
27:42 Where to connect with Jon
More about the show:
The Vitalize Podcast, a show by Vitalize Venture Capital (a seed-stage venture capital firm and pre-seed 300+ member angel community open to everyone), dives deep into the world of startup investing and the future of work.
Hosted by Justin Gordon, the Director of Marketing at Vitalize Venture Capital, The Vitalize Podcast includes two main series.
The Angel Investing series features interviews with a variety of angel investors and VCs around the world. The goal? To help develop the next generation of amazing investors.
The Future of Work series takes a look at the founders and investors shaping the new world of work, including insights from our team here at Vitalize Venture Capital.
More about us:
Vitalize Venture Capital was formed in 2017 as a $16M seed-stage venture fund and now includes both a fund as well as an angel investing community investing in the future of work. Vitalize has offices in Chicago, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.
The Vitalize Team:
Gale - https://twitter.com/galeforceVC
Caroline - https://twitter.com/carolinecasson_
Justin - https://twitter.com/justingordon212
Larissa - https://twitter.com/LarissaInsogna
Vitalize Angels, our angel investing community open to everyone:
https://vitalize.vc/vitalizeangels/
