all right. Thank you so much For 20 into forward Thinking Founders, this is the podcast will be highlight. Undiscovered talent. We're scanning. Why Combinator, Pioneer Product Hunt Twitter, Indie hackers all these different networks to find really interesting founders and interesting projects and start ups. And we feature them on the podcast before you've probably heard it, any of them and that what's great about this is you get to follow along on the return as they become more and more successful and say I knew them when? So thank you so much opportunity in the foreword Thinking Founders and let's get into our next founder You haven't heard of. But you will. All right. How's it going? Everyone? Welcome to another episode of forward thinking founders, but we talk to pound is about their companies,

their visions for the future. And how the two Kaleida today I'm bigger. Excited to be talking to Kaya Fraser, who is the founder CEO of Chi X are welcome to the show. How's it going?

I'm doing great things for having me.

Yeah, Thanks for coming on. This is definitely a very interesting company. You. As I told you before, we we got We got started recording. You're combining the education and virtual of mixed reality until on I'm like, That's my life. Pretty much so for people who don't know You know what I'm talking about Or know what chi X art is? Can you please? I'm just talk about what it is and what you're working on.

So are no problem. So, like a seven a Miss Chi Fraser, founder and CEO of kayaks are We are a kid friendly of the our platform where kids can explore, dream and create and diving into that limit further on our platform, kids can explore RVR build ships, but they can also improve their tech skills by crane, their very own of the our adventures. So we like to say that we we give educators, parents, students. We give them all an accessible path to being early adopters of mixed reality.

So I have so many questions. So let's start with who s so let's say a teacher, or like a school, decides to adopt chi x. Are can you kind of walk through on like a child gets a chance to get ahead set and go through an experience can just talk about the user experience, Um, for for a student and you know what they're able to do and kind of how it all works. A little in detail.

Sure, that's perfect. So far, we have a web based company, so no app needed. We work on any heads or device, and even if you don't have a headset, you can still use our product, which is great. Um, and that's what we're striving for. Accessibility. Um, once you go into the sites, you log in. Um, and we have three tiers to explore,

dream and create our tiers. So explore you can explore VR field trips so you can go slept. Ah, video. You want to watch? You can watch it on your smartphone. You can watch it on your desktop laptop, maybe one immersive experience. We are mobile based company as well, so you can pull them on your smartphone, put it into a cardboard headset on, and you can watch directly from there. Um, we also sell cardboard headsets. We have VR steam kits and that comes with hi. Eggs are car board you get ah,

notebook. Pencil can take, knows everything you're seeing, um, on some cool kayaks. Our squad we have in there for you. One of my favorite things. You can decorate the headsets for stickers. We can kind of make a local call and everything for kids. So that's the first part is explore page of your site. The dream part. Um, we call it like RVR dream rose so you can basically drag and drop onto a playing a 3 60 experience. So the more you drag and drop, you can go directly into your VR world. You put the headset right back on and see what you made.

There's no coding requiring just getting used to thinking on a three dimension playing like that. And then the last part of our platform is create and creates where you create create the VR from scratch. So that means, you know, if I'm gonna have floor, I'm gonna put the floor down. What texture will be? What color robe you over the walls look like that you could build from scratch. It's still a dragon drop what you're thinking about more? Um, the accesses, the planes gorging on spawn points. A lot of these things that you didn't have to go deeper into in the last one. So what we do is we offer, um, stepping stones of getting into VR in a stepping so in a way that kids could go from or of from moving from being consumers of the are but actually being juicers of er so they can get their feet wet watching the armed.

They can have a little dragon drop fun stuff with the dream space, and then it actually start to create it. And if they can get through all that, maybe one day they will want to start creating on unity or in riel or some more expensive VR headsets and things like that. So were their first touch point.

Yeah, this is This is awesome. This is more awesome than the website looks, and the website looks pretty awesome. So it's so

everything is changing tonight. So everything is really making a lot more

since, Well, so we'll know the website. It's still awesome as well, but it's cool to hear you talk about it. So are you. I guess I'm having trouble mentally putting you in a category. Are you liking education? Are you that a company that's providing education or do you go into educational institutions and provide the augmented

education. How

do you kind of see yourself in the educational world at least now? And, like, maybe, how about change over time?

Yeah, That's a really interesting question, since the whole educational world has basically changed overnight right now. So because of the way I had some function, I've been a bootstrapped company for a very long time. So when you're selling into a school cycle, you Tricia, we have one time to sell it to that well cycle. Have you missed it? You missing the weights the next year? Pretty much so. I never could put all my eggs in one basket, so I couldn't be the school solution. So we decide will be the school solution. The homeschool solution, the parent solution, the Children's hospital solution.

Eso. What we do is we have our services or anybody can jump on and use it however they want to. So we have teachers that have one to use it for after school programs. We now have teachers who want to use it for virtual after school programs and summer camps and things like that. We have teachers that want use it as their stim curriculum. So how can they have a class about teaching? Br So we try to make it pretty much open so you can use is the way that makes sense in your classroom or you're learning environment. Where that maybe

And why FDR like what about VR is interesting? You, I can tell you're super passionate about it s So what's the kind of the background behind your interest in BR?

Sure, So you know what's interesting is, um, I am I tell people that VR is a learning tool is one learning tool. And for me personally, it's the strongest learning tool I've seen for kids. One of my favorite stats is when kids use VR. Um, they usually have a 90% comprehension rate when they're learning new things for the first time, as opposed to pencil and paper, it's 40%. So from a teacher, I'm excited about it because it helps, um, with their academic comprehension. But it also gives them an exposure to a lot of things that weren't normally capable. They couldn't see.

So, for example, maybe I have a kid who wants to go into, um being a career as making mixed reality. For example, one of our VR experiences. How do you make mixed reality? Um, so they can see that and jump around and they can know what they may have an interest in doing and what they may not have interest in doing. That's important to, um So for me, we change a company that kayaks are so we could continues to journey into different mixed reality. We can add all going to reality sewer stuff we can. You know, we don't know what that looks like. That's what we use x are,

um, but I'm also very clear people. If a new learning tool comes along, that is really great and has the same, You know, uh, um could do some great things with kids to I'm all for that, too. I'm looking for tools that help my kids succeed in the classroom beyond,

and you might have mentioned this, but maybe didn't fully understand. So you're allowing for that third phase you were talking about the third product where the students are able Teoh for the kids were able to play to build their own experiences. But you mentioned that maybe eventually they couldn't build in unity or build an unreal. I'm curious. Did you Did you create your own light version of unity? Or like, how are they? Can you tell you how do you enable something in between nothing and unity? But I guess I mean, under the space by Wells. I love to hear how you did

that. All right, That's really is a really great question. So the funny thing is, when I was working with VR, um, there was an epiphany for me when I was going into schools that I would have failed if I didn't teach kids how to make the VR. Ah, lot of the kids were asked, like, How do I make my own game? This is cool. But now I want to make it. I had nothing for them. So I spent a lot of time just, you know, aspiring the Internet for anything I could find.

That was great. That can work with kids who maybe don't have a parent home that understands coding and can really, you know, champion them on. So what happens if a kid like a latchkey kid and has to figure this stuff out? And maybe it's emotional problems and things like that was a lot of my students. Um, so I found different coding things that were cold gains. And that was still a strain for my students. Um, so that was we saw that wasn't gonna be the homeroom. And then I kept looking, and I saw some Mozilla products to their part in particular that were really not so much of a use case. More developer tool to get people in severe are, um, And when I saw it,

I said, Oh, my God, this is it. This is this works of kids. There's no coding is collaborative. It's safe for a lot of er rooms like social BR rooms. You could just drop into any room. You don't know who's in the room. That could be a pedophile room of the kids that you don't know any this stuff. But for this one, you to put a code in. Um, so you cut. You could control who was in the room when he gave a lot of parents. Ah,

peace of mind for that too. So I was using the program to get kids interested, and I'm nowhere. One day we got a email from Mozilla and Ah, and they were asking if we could talk more about just collaboration. And the way that came to be is there was a coder at Mozilla, um, whose dad was a teacher in ST Louis, and his dad's our article about my work and was like, We need this for our kids. You have to help her and then him being two months into Mozilla Thomas, he advocate on my behalf to do a collaboration with us. So we got to call all the heads of Mozilla mixed reality have nowhere not even knowing that we were using their stuff. Really, There's there's a father basically just made this call, made this ask So unless it came down to was,

it was a perfect fit. So we've been working of them to see how we can modify this tool for everybody and really make it an educational tool. And that's when a lot of works we have to cut out a lot of things that maybe we're not copal comply. And maybe, uh, if you if you work with middle school boys, for example, you can see a lot of things and where is gonna go for example, one of the tools on this flat form was a pin, a drawing pin. And if you know kids and you give him a drawing pin, here's some crazy things drawn for the 1st 5 seconds. Eso just trying to, like, get ahead of starting things that kids may do and it's really taken. Educational institutions we have male on modifications is available tools.

It will work with kids from all backgrounds, and it's a safe space for them. For example, a lot of these basically want to make VR. Maybe you could find every weapon you can want and are so on this side. So we've had to go the comb through every single thing to make sure that kids can't get into much trouble is kid friendly. It's safe on. That's where we got the the help with the maker space with the VR content that's been addition. Security in content. We make sure that we made ah, we make content as well. So we also have a mini production arm that we go out. We film different content right now, we're finishing up our latest VR content, which is crisper, the gene editing technology and that was the highlight woman. Instead, that's a really cool to be trying to make this diverse of VR experiences and to make this whoa around it, kid friendly safe platform for them.

And you mentioned that you been bootstrapping for a while. I know, actually, a ton of other VR founders that, um, that everyone's really impressive. Anyone that able to build on the are right now and build a company in the space of like has the chops. My experience, Um, when I have talked Teoh the investors about VR is literally go like it's not there, It's not there alone. Like I, you know, kind of like I have my under fans on that I'd like to hear, like, Have you have you tried to? Is this something you want to be interested in?

How have you wanted to raise if if solely What's been your experience on, like the VR block for investors? Enough not, um then I'd love to hear kind of what? What? What you do plan on doing with with the company as it grows?

Sure. So I before we even get into the VR block, I'll tell you, we have a lot of other things stacked against us. So I think the first status something like only 0.2% of black women raise venture capital funding. That's the 1st 1 that I think is something like only any. There's less than 40 black woman who have raised more than a $1,000,000 dollars in venture capital. I think ever, um, that's another like this dismal stat to where things are. And then on top of that, Ed Tech is not a really sexy category when it comes adventure. So it is a huge boom and bust that was happening me like 2014 and beyond. So let me We don't want to invest into Ed Tech companies and Tool. It's not risky at all. It is arming close to a $1,000,000. That's another thing we have and then tune.

We are categorized as a social impact company, so its social impact that's not always seen as making large returns. Therefore, it's not sexy to investors. You compon all of that and then say we're doing VR. So it's been a very challenging feels that we've been boots trump up into our recent Techstars investment. That was our first investment in January. Um, And then we just recently wanted, um ah, investment from a, uh, CEO ventures. It's, ah organization out of, ah,

they have wings and US, Canada, Zealand and Australia. So that was, um, that was extremely helpful, and we have not officially kicked off fundraising round. We've gotten these two recent awards, but eso now with our demo day coming up with text, are if we have to see what that looks like and it's really interesting cause we're in the space of cold it right now where a lot of people are unable to write all of their hockey stick projection charges we know went straight to the dance with Cove. It, um so we're are in a very unique situation where we have a solution. That is, I don't want to say Colbert resistant, but it's solving a really big gap. That cove it produced.

We were always trying to make our constant, So accessibility was, um, a priority and an afterthought, Um, and cold bit. It was a priority for everybody overnight as parents became home school teachers on. And that goes back to Is this a school solution? We never intentionally made it just for school because we had issues getting into schools. So by always thinking our customer main customer will be parents when parents became homeschool educators, we almost basis and have a change our business model, because they are still the teachers right now. So a lot of things have worked in our favor. So now we are launched of this week. We have to put our money where our mouth is is you know what happened and see if we can get people our platform and we can make these rapid iterations. So,

um, when I'm looking in the ed Tech market right now and call bit, everybody's trying to get activities out for, you know, basic and learn really fast is different education platforms, and we are education platform. But I don't see too many that are focusing on the much of the extra curricular stuff. So, um, for example, field trips can happen for anybody right now, But there's such a huge part of education on my other favorite stats is that kids that go on field trips are 95% more likely to graduate high school, although since 2010 50% of schools don't take filters anymore. We've called it 100% of schools don't take them. So we're one of the rare companies that are still giving, um,

kids that opportunity. And then when you get to VR, cos most are not maker spaces from everything we've seen were first to market VR platform with a maker space, so they can, you know, go back and forth to from consuming too producing. So we're really excited with the unique opportunity that were in with this launch.

And let's look out for a little let's say you launch, it goes great. You have 100 laundries in between now, in a decade from now, they're all great, like every everything just works in your favor. Um, you know, what would this look like? What could this look like? What will this look like in a decade or two? I guess my question is, what is the big vision for this company? And, you know, what will it look like when it gets there?

Sure. So I usually catch people off guard this one. My best case in there of my company is that, you know, in 5 10 years, we have lots of kids that make their own companies. And they have tech skills so they can actually do that in scale their companies and work together to doing this. Um, for example, people always do likewise, and we are taking off. I don't even do a lot of VR experiences because it's rare. Find the our experience is that I want to do. And if I'm looking for VR experiences that look like me, a lot of them or refugee camps and things like that, Um, and I don't always want to see a refugee camp,

you know. So when I ask kids, what they want to see is completely different. So I'm hoping that we are giving the next generation the tools they need to make the learning the experiences in the economic mobility, Um, to get into the technically brings to, ah, the world, even right now, if we have kids who are making virtuality companies and Kobe strikes excellent virtual company when everybody's looking for a virtual solution. So what does that look like for a lot of these kids just sparking the idea in their mind. So if you spark and they go beyond VR, so we're hoping that We're an entry point for kids to start thinking about what tech looks like. And how do they make solutions for their communities? And how can they work together to make those solutions?

Yeah, this is I have I'd like to think like it with my optimistic view that, like, you're like, I want, you know, once you once techstars is done, you have demo day Like investors will be, like be flocking to invest because you just have this. Like what you put people, parties Holyrood about told you this already. But just like confidence on the aura of like, I'm a badass, this is what I'm doing is his dope. And, like, I don't know,

it was just a good founder. It's a good founder trade. I really like it. Um, I thank you. No problem. No, it's just I mean, it's just I don't know, it's just his energy. And I think when you're a founder, you need energy because you're talking to a 1,000,000,000 people. The time and there you no good impressions mattered for everyone, Right? For employees, for investors,

customers, games, etcetera. Anyways, for the last question of the podcast, you know, you have a lot of ah stuff going on. You really exciting stuff going on? Is there anything that the listeners can do to help you? Or is there an ask that that you have someone listening might be able to assist with?

Sure, So are asked as we're launching this week, so as of next week will be up and running. So every day there's new features coming to the site. Um, so I everybody, if you can go to www dot chi x r dot com you can go. Ah, check out the site If you have parents who are pulling their hair, I don't know what to do with their kids. Send them to our sights taking. Have something for the kids to do. We also have VR steam kits, right? VR headsets. So if you want ahead, step for the kids and the younger kids who you don't want t bucket.

Maybe Oculus quest to, um or kids. They are prone to break things carb or is an amazing place to start. Um, so you know, Please go to the side. And then, as on a professionally business, ask, um, we're always looking for ad credits, you know, as covert strikes when Travis Llinas possible. Ah, we have to do advertising this to get to different people who don't even know VR is an option. And that gets to be expensive.

So there's ever add credit that are out there Facebook, LinkedIn, Google as anything. Please think about me and you can find a contact me form on the page. And we would love to talk more about that. That's a small ass. So that's very helpful when it comes Teoh getting the word out in different communities that are usually overlooked also on our site since where Social Impact company, our structure is to give back. So when you buy subscription our account, we give one back suit for free. Um, same thing on our site. We have donations. So if you want to donate a VR steam kit, we have kids all day who are waiting for something, and we make sure we give those back Teoh different people who can't afford them. So any web traffic on our site is much appreciated. Eso thank you in advance.

All right, we'll tie. Thank you for coming on. Really enjoyed the conversation. What you're working on this phenomenal. And I look forward to seem this success in the progress and getting involved. You know, however, else I can especially will conduct off line. But, like, I work for education company and it's totally some collab ops there for sure. So But regardless, thanks for coming on. And I wish you wish you best of luck.

Sounds great. Thanks so much to talk to you soon.

Okay? Thank you, everyone for turning into that episode. I hope you really enjoy it. And luckily, there's another one coming up real soon. But before then, I have a couple things to tell you. First, if you're listening to this and you think you're working on something, who are you? Think you're smart? Hit me up on Twitter. I am at Matt Underscore Sherman. And that is Matt with one t. So hit me up. Shoot me a GM,

and I'm happy to check out what you're working on and maybe we can get you on the part of. But at the very least, I'm happy TV feedback on your product or project or start up. Lastly, if you can please rate this podcast in the iTunes stores, that would be awesome. I'm trying to get up in the rankings and more people discover these awesome founders. And the only way to do that or one of the ways to do that is growing with making. So if you like what You're listening, Teoh, please just go onto the 18 story, give it five stars or for you know, or three. I'm not gonna tell you what to give. We'll just tell whatever I deserve. You should read that with that. I'm signing off. See you next time.