September 5, 2025 • 37 mins
Aidan Wolf is the Co-Founder and CEO of DreamPark, a company reinventing the future of theme parks by bringing massive, multiplayer, mixed-reality experiences anywhere—malls, parks, or even your own backyard.
With a background spanning games, social apps, and AR, Aidan and his team are proving that immersive play can spark joy, community, and real-world revitalization.
Key Takeaways:
- Downloadable Theme Parks: DreamPark turns any large space into a "downloadable" theme park—no physical props, just a handful of headsets and compelling digital worlds. Experiences range from whimsical coin-collecting adventures to wizard duels and mixed-reality races.
- Designing for Immersive Play: The magic is in the details: seamless onboarding (no headset straps), worlds that feel alive whether you’re observing or playing, and player-driven, non-linear exploration inspired by theme park and classic video game design.
- Serious Growth, Real Impact: From all-in bets like forgoing rent to buy more headsets, DreamPark landed a commercialization breakthrough with successful public tests, a Shark Tank appearance, enthusiastic VCs, and rapid expansion into malls and parks in Seattle, LA, and soon, Long Island.
- Community and Accessibility: DreamPark is on a mission to revitalize real communities—bringing families and kids to empty malls and parks and creating new opportunities for play, learning, and belonging in overlooked spaces.
- Lessons in Iteration: The team credits their success to relentless user testing, honest feedback, and learning from customer behaviors in live settings. DreamPark’s vision is about lowering barriers for both players and aspiring creators—the next goal is to let anyone build and launch their own DreamPark.
Aidan’s personal journey—from childhood world-builder to AR founder, to DreamPark CEO—shapes every product decision around creativity, accessibility, and the belief that play can transform both places and lives.
With a growing suite of games and partners, DreamPark is shaping the future of spatial entertainment and the power of collective imagination.
About Aidan Wolf
Aidan Wolf is the award-winning creator behind hit viral AR apps like DoodleLens, Blue Sky Paint, and RPG for Snap Spectacles and is now on a mission to make an Earth Worth Playing at DreamPark, the downloadable theme park company.
A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.
At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.
In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.
If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Nathan C (00:00):
Hello and welcome to The Tech Glow Up.
I'm Nathan C and today I'mtalking with Aidan Wolf,
Co-Founder and CEO of DreamParkAidan, it is so exciting to talk
with you today! Thank you forjoining me in your very busy
schedule.
Aidan Wolf (00:14):
It's great to finally be able to do this!
We've run into each other andtalked so many times throughout
the years, so you've seen manysteps in the journey.
So it would be great to talk toyou today about DreamPark
Nathan C (00:25):
Heck yes! People in the world who have talked to me
since June, know that DreamParkwas one of my favorite
experiences that I saw atAugmented World Expo.
Could you introduce yourself andwhat is DreamPark
Aidan Wolf (00:39):
Yeah, absolutely! So I'm Aidan Wolf.
I am Co-Founder of DreamPark Ifounded it with Kevin Habich and
Brent Bushnell, my co-founders.
It's an awesome team.
My journey started in games.
Which became social apps, whichbecame augmented reality.
And really my interest area islike how do we combine games,
social apps, and augmentedreality to make experiences that
(01:02):
can bring people together?
And I've been on that journeyfor probably a decade just
trying to figure out, you knowusing all the latest
technologies to create newexperiences for people.
And now we have these incredibleconsumer headsets.
Like the Quest 3 that we'reusing that enable us to do truly
immersive 3D augmented realityin the real world.
(01:25):
And we're kind of right on thebleeding edge, cutting edge of
that.
And that's called DreamPark Andit's a place, it's places you
could visit today and play inmixed reality with hundreds of
other people all in headsets atthe same time.
It is pretty new.
I don't think there's reallyanything quite like it.
Nathan C (01:44):
When you introduce DreamPark to somebody for the
first time, how do you explainit to them?
Aidan Wolf (01:48):
I'd say, we're creating downloadable theme
parks.
And what does that mean?
Well, imagine if Disney Worldcould show up in your own
backyard.
Or at the local mall.
Or at the local park.
Imagine having that fidelity ofthe MoMA or the best museum in
the world available to you inwhatever small town that you're
in.
And so that's really DreamPark.
(02:09):
We're really figuring out whatneeds to be physical, what needs
to be digital.
But we're learning a lot of itcan be digital and once it's
there, it's something we canbring everywhere.
So it's, it's kind of like giantgames!
Nathan C (02:22):
So my experience at AWE opened my mind to a couple,
like really interestinginteractions and design
decisions that you had to make.
The game that I saw at AWE wasvery much like a kinda N64-type
explorable world with bricksand, you know, magic boxes and
(02:44):
funny little characters.
And the world was placed insideof just a giant expo hall with
like no markers, no set pieces,just a big open space.
I put on the headset and theworld is there and ready for me
to explore.
And just by like running aroundand tapping things with my hand,
(03:05):
I can bop coins out of boxes.
I can fight, villains.
I can explore different things.
And I found that I got soenmeshed in this world that I
lost myself absolutely,completely in the real world.
I didn't run into any person.
But I actually did like run intoa sign that had been like
(03:26):
scooted into the play fieldaccidentally.
I was so enthralled in the videogame.
If you had looked at me, youknow, I'd been wearing this
headset, just like runningaround like a mad person.
But it was so good.
I like told five people as soonas I left, I was like, you have
to go try! So I've seen thepopups in some of the locations
(03:46):
that you do, and it's gotta justbe an automatic attractor, to
see people running around withthis technology totally
enmeshed, it kind of sellsitself if you're in the public
view, right?
Aidan Wolf (03:57):
Yeah, that was one of the earliest insights we had
while working on this.
Because it actually started outof the Two Bit Circus arcade in
LA.
What we would do is wait tillthere was a full arcade night on
like a Thursday, Friday,Saturday.
And we'd head down there withour headsets, on trikes going on
racetracks, you know, wizardbattles, everything like that.
And the people would just turntheir heads and start staring
(04:20):
and going, what's in thatheadset that we aren't seeing?
It would just create a naturalpull.
And we realized it was like theboxiness of the headset itself.
Which is usually seen as thisbig detractor was actually a
great communication to thepublic.
People who aren't quite familiarwith VR, but they know what it
looks like.
They would see the headset andgo like,"Oh, interesting.
They're seeing something inthere.
(04:41):
I wanna try it out!" So that'swhat we witnessed on the
promenade.
That was our biggest kind oftest case so far.
That's thousands and thousandsmaybe, maybe more people in
public, in a walking mall,outside in the sun with palm
trees and everything, playingthis game while other people are
shopping and walking around themand eating ice cream cones.
We don't have any boundaries.
(05:01):
We don't have fences.
It's not exclusive.
It's just part of the mesh.
Nathan C (05:05):
If you don't really have like physical components
that are part of thisexperience, can you really just
sort of adjust your boundariesand sort of scale the world to
fit?
Aidan Wolf (05:17):
That's the, what we're working towards.
Nathan C (05:19):
That's the direction?
Love it!
Aidan Wolf (05:20):
That's the key, with what we'll have this year and
what we're putting out willenable anyone to set up a
DreamPark anywhere, any park,wherever.
Even ticket for it.
They could set it up for theirfriends, but they can also set
it up as a business.
And I think that'll be very,
Nathan C (05:36):
Oh goodness!
Aidan Wolf (05:37):
very interesting.
Nathan C (05:38):
You're in a very interesting moment, because
you've just recently had somefantastic, good news and are
kind of in a growth moment.
Can you talk about what the lastthree to six months have been
like for you?
Aidan Wolf (05:53):
It started with my co-founder and I, Kevin,
deciding between money for rentor buying six Quest 3 headsets,
and we ended up buying the Quest3 headsets and sleeping on the
couches at the arcade.
Which, you know, sometimes youjust have to, that's what you
have to do.
But it was that sense of like,we're all in.
This is the thing we're gonna doand if this doesn't work, we're
(06:16):
gonna do something else.
So we very quickly built outwhat is Super Adventure, which
is the game that you played atAWE, to get it out there on the
promenade in Santa Monica.
And luckily the Santa Monicaadvisory board was really into
it! They were happy! It waslike, hey you're bringing life
to this part of the promenadethat, that needed it.
(06:38):
If you read our article in theSanta Monica local press, it's
like, people are pretty enthusedthat this place that you know,
has kind of sadly lost a lot ofits life is being brought back
to life by stuff like this.
So that was that.
We bought five headsets, andthen that was all we had, and we
would just be out there everyday showing people the game,
(07:00):
tweaking it, improving it,everything.
It was just always in the youknow, public facing experience
for us.
And then, we used that momentumto launch ourselves into
Founders Inc.
in San Francisco.
They brought us in.
It's an incubator with thepossibility of investment.
We kept the same mindset ofwe're all in, we have five
(07:21):
headsets to our name and we'regoing to figure this out.
And we wanted that investmentand I think we, we showed up
with that enthusiasm.
We set up a DreamPark in thefirst three days at their
office.
So that was also the first testof like, could we bring this to
another location and it works?
Because at this point we're justmanually moving stuff on screen
hoping it lines up.
And then that led to our firstinvestment.
(07:43):
I think it came down to the kidsof our investor, Hubert coming,
playing.
Him seeing that it was like, ohthey're not just playing it and
like, it's been 15 minutes andthen oh, it's been 30 minutes.
Oh, it's almost an hour thatthey've been playing and needing
to drag them out.
I think these are the kind ofmoments that it was like, okay,
maybe these guys are ontosomething with this thing, you
(08:05):
know, if my kids are into it,so.
In that moment we got the SharkTank news that our episode was
airing.
By the way, you, you don't evenknow if your episode's gonna air
once you filmed.
So that went out.
It was perfect timing for usbecause we just got this ball of
momentum that we turned into alarger fundraise with Long
Journey.
And that's who's, who's on myhat! They're the coolest,
(08:28):
they're very community orientedVC, I didn't even think that
existed.
And that inflow of cash hasallowed us to experiment and do
things that we didn't think waspossible, which was this
expansion now into multiplelocations, building out our
platform so that we can scalewith this.
And also developing out thecontent.
So we have Super Adventure,which is that kind of like
(08:48):
whimsical, you know, silly badguys and black smashing lava pit
jumping kind of game.
But now we have Wizards on theway.
That's gonna be you know, wandsand runes and dragon battles.
We have Power Force, which is aspaceport with bad guys and, and
force powers, things like that.
And a couple more games, weactually just released our first
(09:10):
additional content, which is ourCrash Course raceway.
So that's over at Seattle.
So people are on vehicles, realvehicles, like moving through a
mixed reality racetrack, whichis in insane.
And it's working great! Peopleare freaking out and they love
it.
We had a couple theoriesoriginally, which was, it
actually came from one of myaunts, she was thinking about
(09:30):
like real estate and she's like,well people own all this real
estate, but it's empty.
They don't do anything with it.
You know, they're trying tolease it, but it, it just stays
empty.
And we're like, well you knowour solution we don't have to
drill into the walls, we don'thave to hang stuff from the
ceiling.
There's no sensors or anything.
We just show up with a box fullof headsets.
And we can set this up.
Actually, we set up Seattle, ourfirst like big location, it's a
(09:52):
mall called West Canal Yards inBallard.
It's this giant mall.
We were able to get it up andrunning in, I think my
co-founder timed it, like 20minutes! We were, we had it, we
had it set up.
Which is unbelievable! So if youthink, like I just said it took
us three days to set up a newlocation, which already felt
pretty fast.
And now we're basically to, youknow, 20 minutes, an hour, and
(10:15):
we could be running.
So it's, it's kind of cool tosee that progress.
Nathan C (10:18):
What a ride, for a year.
Just to summarize, like startingwith this bet, having to make a
choice of do I choose the saferoute or do I bet on this idea?
And how you make that choice isa question we have to get into.
But then, being able to, takethat leap bet on yourself,
(10:39):
invest enough to get a productout there.
And then one of the things Ilove about how you show up in
the world is when you're talkingabout cutting edge technologies,
you have to show people.
What they're getting into, youhave to help them imagine what
(11:00):
it's gonna be like.
You have to like get themexcited and about things that
like, like you said, they'veprobably only ever heard about.
And you do this fantastic job ofbeing audacious with the
headsets, showing up in publicplaces.
And it's just that right levelof playful, you're showing off,
(11:21):
but you're also like veryaccessible.
You are like just this elegantexample of showing what the
magic of the technology can be.
And then fast forward, you gofrom these moments of hardcore
user testing and adaptation andlearning to like everything
starts to fall in line, right?
Like Shark Tank's ready, they'reready to air, investors are
(11:45):
ready.
And now you're like growingmultiple locations.
And like honestly, if you'relooking at mall spaces, Portland
has an outrageous mall communitythat is developing that
DreamPark would be perfect for!
Aidan Wolf (12:00):
I'd love to know more about that! Yeah.
Nathan C (12:01):
Oh my goodness! So, a lot of times, whether it's in
technology, whether it's instartups or even creative, the
joke is always, the overnightsuccess that only took 10 years
to make.
It couldn't have been this easythe whole time.
You've been exploring,connecting people with
technology.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you got here and what were
(12:23):
those learnings and moments thatyou look back on as being so
foundational in your ability tomeet this moment?
Aidan Wolf (12:30):
Yeah, to create any origin point, it would just be
my own childhood.
I was more like a kid who likedto draw and stay in his room and
build worlds and do stuff likethat.
And you realize there's notamazing ways to like connect
with other people when you havethat type of mind.
You know, and a lot of the, thestuff you draw is the way you
(12:51):
talk and communicate.
And, I early in my life,realized the way that I like to
connect to people is throughlike the things that I imagine
and come up with and I wannagive those to people and they're
like gifts.
And seeing how they react to itis like, is everything, because
maybe I didn't understand whateveryone was into you like, in
(13:12):
my peers or like saying thingsand not knowing why, maybe I'm
not heard the way I wanna beheard or like, you know, people
use words maybe differently thanI do.
So it's like, oh, drawing wasthis thing that I, I started to
relate to people with.
And then that turned intomaking, animations and games and
things like that.
And just growing this greaterfidelity to like, reach people,
(13:33):
but also like show people how Ithink or what I'm into.
And you know, many timesthroughout childhood, just with
a vivid imagination, you kind oflook out in the world and you're
like, oh, like I see some, I seea T-Rex in the front yard, you
know, is just a common one.
I love Jurassic Park.
So it's like, imagine justdinosaurs running through the
yard would just be the coolest,coolest scene ever.
(13:53):
And going and then justimagining everyone with their
bikes and kids showing up.
And like jumping off into theyard to like look at dinosaurs
and run with dinosaurs.
If there was a version of playthat was more like the way that
I imagined things like, theshared you know, making things
up.
A fun thing that we kind of losealong the way for some reason.
We turn 10 or 12 and suddenlyit's not fun to play
(14:14):
make-believe anymore orsomething.
And it would be cool if we justlike kept that going.
And that made me really curiousabout augmented reality
technology.
Now this is back in like 2006,2007 or something.
Cameras actually had someinteresting features back then.
They had depth sensors, thingslike that.
I became very curious about thetechnologies that were
available.
(14:35):
Even just to do this for stillphotos.
Because at the time I wasinterested in animation and
claymation, so I was like, oh,if I could find a way to like
put characters into the world,this would be so cool! And I
grew a lot of interest there.
But the idea of this real timeAR thing was like not a thing
until iPhones started gettingcameras that were pretty good.
And I kind of immediately jumpedinto that in like 2014, 2015
(14:58):
because what was occurring wasmy parents were like moving
outta my childhood at home.
And I love that place.
I grew up, you know, from thetime I was a baby and I was sad
that all these memories that wehad growing up would just be
kind of like lost in space.
Like the next people to move inwouldn't know what it was like
when we were there.
And I saw my parents paintingover the height measurements on
(15:20):
the molding.
I was like, how is this not themost heartbreaking thing?
I guess it was.
But to me, I was like, we needto preserve this.
And so just the idea of like,what if I could take a photo of
that and keep it in the sameplace it was so people could
visit the house and know what itwas like when we were there.
As they explored and thenthinking about that for every
space.
And that was actually like myfirst AR venture or company back
(15:42):
when I was like 19.
Dropped outta school, pursued itas a startup.
And I learned a ton throughthat.
I was a naive kid now running abusiness.
Didn't know what that entailedtruly.
But I've learned a lot since.
But yeah, I think it really justcomes down from like a desire to
connect to people in places likethe way that I feel or think
which is maybe nostalgic orquestions of things.
(16:06):
You know, why is anything theway that it is?
A big role model of mine isRodney Mullen, who is
interestingly in the AR space.
Like, how did that happen?
But he just has a good quoteabout like, outsiders finding
their way in.
And that's what I think of a lotlike where I'm seeing the cross
section with DreamPark.
That makes me so happy, which islike, I'm not gonna be like the
center of the party.
I'm not the dj.
(16:26):
I'm not a performer in thatsense.
But I do wanna participate.
And so like the fact that thistech knowledge and creativity
that I've really invested in,which has been kind of like a
lonely activity, honestly,something I you know, I do by
myself is now like my entrypoint to like, reaching crowds
of people.
That is truly like a dream cometrue.
And I would say for like anycreators coming up, if you're
(16:48):
really into your art and yourcreativity a big part of it will
be figuring out how you can usethat to connect to people and
reach people, because they'rethe people who will give you the
energy back and like the, youknow, resources even that you
need to like, keep doing that.
And when you find that some kidsfind it really early, which is
amazing, some find it later, butlike once you find that thing
(17:10):
that like, lets you relate topeople and then they relate
back, it's kind of the mostmagical thing in the whole
world.
So I feel like I'm close to thator, in that right now.
Nathan C (17:19):
I love this idea like the technology is really like
the creative medium that givesyou the ability to sort of
express and share andparticipate, in a way that makes
sense to your vision of theworld and like, that balance and
(17:39):
that adapting to your strengths,I think is really beautiful.
I love any story aroundtechnology where the answer is
creativity or finding your voiceor like, this passion for like
sharing all these ideas that youcan now manifest into the world.
Along this journey, one of thequestions that I always like to
(18:01):
ask is about when you've had toeither, make a decision or, when
you've learned something,usually it's from your
customers.
And how do you respond to eitherthat critique or that
opportunity, when you see it?
With your partners or, in thework that you've done
previously, how do you approachlearning moments, whether
(18:22):
they're positive or negative?
Aidan Wolf (18:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
So this is where I have anamazing co-founder, Kevin.
We worked together for a decadeand a lot of what brought us
together early on especially wasthis honest feedback and like in
helping each other and whatwe're working on and like
brainstorming and thinkingthrough things.
And also he helped me get what Iwas working on in front of
(18:46):
people, which was fantastic whenI, I would be tweaking on
something for months and months,without even showing anyone else
'cause it needed to be perfectright before I could show
anyone.
He would just grab whatever Iwas working on and start showing
people you know, in thecoworking space that we were in.
And then you actually like seetheir smiles or their reactions
and their laughs and then you'relike, why did I wait six months
(19:07):
to like, it would be liketelling the longest joke of all
time.
Why would you, why would youwait?
Nathan C (19:12):
You wait till the end of the comedy special to clap!
Aidan Wolf (19:14):
Yes, exactly, exactly! Like hold your laughter
until the end, okay?
Really that, that opened me up alot, helped me get my, my stuff
out there, working with Kevin.
And that's how, honestly, it'scontinued to this day.
Kevin would take the latestversion of DreamPark, get it out
on the promenade start showingpeople.
So we just constantly collectfeedback.
(19:35):
We'd watch and see theirimpressions.
People, especially the public,are quite honest.
It's kind of cool actually in LAespecially, I say is a good
ecosystem because everyone hasaccess to great art, great
experiences, movies, they kindof understand it.
Like people who live there areinto it as like a, you know, a
culture and a history andeverything.
(19:57):
So when you show them something,you know, you get, you get good
honesty and so we did look atlike certain metrics, right?
Which would be like, ifsomeone's enjoying this, they
would probably wanna play it fora long time.
And so, you know, a big balancein the beginning was thinking
about like, how much do weactually have to build for this
to be enjoyable.
And then Brent, our otherco-founder, gave us like a good
(20:20):
metric, which was, he's like,well, in the arcade business
it's about a dollar per minute,or more, for entertainment,
premium entertainment.
So you need to keep people infor 20 minutes at least.
So we can sell a$20 ticket.
Ideally 30 minutes.
And it was like, oh! That'sgreat.
So we have like a timeframe wehave to work towards.
And then when you're only liketwo developers working, doing
(20:42):
all the art, doing everything,you're like, how are we gonna
produce 20 minutes of contentthat this is like, like
especially when we only reallyhad maybe four weeks, five weeks
because we're on this like nobudget.
You know, we had no money, wejust had these headsets.
The testing and getting outthere was so essential to see
that even just from a smallamount of content, something
(21:04):
that we thought was only really30 seconds or a minute, two
minutes at most of play, endedup being like 10 minutes, 15
minutes.
We're like, well that's strange.
Oh, because it's actually fun toplay in this like larger space
in this like kind of beautifullocation with your friends.
You know?
There was like all these likeconditions that weren't just in
there in the editor when we'reworking on it.
(21:24):
When working on something, it'sreally essential to like, just
get it out to people.
Read their genuine reactions.
Like you kind of have to bethere to see their face, you
know?
And we did get some of thatwhere it's like, this is the
headset.
It would be like, they put it onand look around.
Oh, cool! Thanks! You know, andit was like, it wasn't like a,
"This is the most life-changingthing!" You have to kind of
(21:45):
measure between like, you know,hey, they're saying it's great
and thanks, but they're handingthe headset back in 30 seconds.
That's probably, you know,probably something missing.
So what we worked towards wasthe person who took the headset,
put it on, went"Wow!" And like,didn't listen to us.
Like after that.
Like they didn't even take itoff if we were like, oh, and by
(22:06):
the way you have to like, theywere like, eh, whatever.
And then were already walkinglike towards something.
And that was the moment we sawthis like launch off into
something.
For example, you saw at AWE wedon't use straps on our
headsets.
So that was like a big insightwe learned on the ground.
We wouldn't have learned that ifwe weren't play testing.
And that opened up so muchbecause now we weren't there
(22:30):
strapping'em in.
Oh, by the way, when you're astranger on the street showing
someone a headset that's nowgonna be like stuck to their
face, they, they just go, ohyeah, yeah, no thanks.
I don't know who you are, what'sin there.
This is scary.
You hand it to'em and you put itin their hands and they hold it
up themselves.
You know you got'em.
And so we just like broke downthe time to entry from like 15
(22:53):
seconds, 20 seconds to a second,and then they were already
walking off to the races.
And it was all these smallinnovations that led to seeing
that metric that Brent had setfor us, which was like, you
gotta get people in there for,you know, at least 20 minutes.
And then it was like, wow, inour, our five week prototype was
getting people in there for 20minutes.
(23:15):
I've never had someone use my ARapps for more than maybe a
minute!
Nathan C (23:18):
20 minutes is a long time for me to be in headset.
Like, if I'm doing anythingother than like meditation or
like a game maybe, but like I'mnot very tolerant of it, but
there's something about thatfreedom and safety that, just
being able to pull it on andoff.
And I think that the world isanchored around you.
(23:39):
You see other people, you seethat you're still in the park.
That all you know, I think makesit that much more accessible.
The metric, right?
Like there is no better sellthan, having the VC investor's
kids, you know, be stuck in thegame for an hour.
One of the things that I, I'venoticed in augmented reality
(24:02):
games and in virtual realityspaces is if the user experience
is pleasant and delightfulenough and has a little bit of
intuitive interaction, peoplewill typically try to do
everything that's possible.
That was my experience when Itried DreamPark at AWE was like,
(24:23):
I wanna see all of the differentspaces.
I'm a little bit like, I'm notas much of a gamer.
I'm not in like massivemultiplayer game spaces a lot.
So the, the idea of like anactive game board that's kind of
there and people are interactingwith it, but like, there's no
start line.
(24:44):
You know, so many, you know,video games in my era, you know,
you start in the same place andit's a very narrative sequence.
And what I loved about DreamParkis that the world is there.
People are already playing.
There's animations and thingsthat are timed.
And there's also things that arelike, triggered by what I'm
doing as a player.
(25:04):
And, it made it feel like therewasn't a set script that I had
to do, but there was anincredible amount that I could
do.
And once I like got through,there were a couple different
acts.
And like, once I got to the partwhere I had the wand, I wanted
to go through the whole thingand try to get to that place
(25:25):
faster and more intentionally.
So that active space was just,such an eye-opener for me.
How did you sort of come tothat, design choice or that,
content decision?
Aidan Wolf (25:35):
Some of it is necessity.
We had to work on something in ashort timeframe.
But what it really comes down tois inspiration from theme park
design.
That's why we call it a themepark.
If you observe the peopleelement at theme parks, you
realize even a group of peopleare on all these different
trajectories.
You know, you have like the momwho's there with the kids, and
(25:56):
the kids really want to go onall the rides, and the mom
doesn't.
But she gets some food and isable to watch them and is just
enjoying the ambience of thepark because it's just a nice
place to be.
There's characters walkingaround, there's music,
everything.
So, taking that inspiration oflike, there's something for
everyone, whether they're likean active player or just, you
(26:16):
know, an observer and are justenjoying looking at the
experience.
So you'll notice like in thebackground, there's characters
jumping up and down and there'syou know, movement and things.
It's just like, this whole worldthat I can kind of like look
around and explore.
And this has boiled down nowinto, you know, a hundred
different design guidelines thatI'm trying to piece together for
(26:37):
everyone because yeah, it's,it's like, it's so many small
things.
And it's just getting better andbetter.
We're learning so much throughall these different park
designs.
But a lot of it just comes downto like, you know, consent in
the nicest word of just like,you know, you don't throw stuff
at, you know, a player's facewhen they don't want it to.
You know, you don't pop out andscare them when they're in, in
(26:58):
an ambient experience enjoyingit.
There's all those elements andthen, like how we play with
scale.
Because we can do this likemassive mixed reality things
that are large in the distanceactually just look interesting
as is.
It's kinda like the castle atDisney, right?
Like it's not doing anythingcrazy.
You know, outside of getting areservation to it, you can't
even go into it.
You just look at it.
(27:19):
And that's still a greatexperience for people.
So we were just taking in allthose concepts of like, oh yeah,
make something that'sinteresting to look at.
And then fun to interact with ifyou deepen your interest and
engagement.
And then make it wide open,because at a theme park, you can
go to the largest rollercoasterin the park before you go on the
kiddy rides and you're allowedto do that, you know, there's
(27:41):
no, like, you need to go throughrollercoaster 1, 2, 3, and 5 to
build up, you know, the choiceis yours.
And I just remember that goingto Six Flags, that was like the
inspiration.
I was like, sometimes the firstthing you do is you just beeline
to the boss fight.
You go to like Superman, thelargest rollercoaster.
You get that amazing high andthen everything else is just fun
(28:01):
after that.
'Cause you're scared too.
You're kind of like, Ooh, I, youknow, I don't know if I have a
big rollercoaster in me and yougo do it.
And then with video games, thevideo game element, I'll just
say is first-person narrativegames.
Half-Life was a huge part of mychildhood.
As violent as it was, but whenyou look into the design of that
game it's so well thoughtthrough and designed.
(28:22):
The people behind it were just,you know, incredible thinkers,
designers, developers, becauseeverything was built to respond
to the player and the thingsthat you think are just
happening around you.
Even just the sound effects andlike the drop of water that you
hear in the corner was thoughtthrough by someone who was like,
I am going to keep theminterested and build a world
(28:45):
around them.
And that is a huge inspirationfor how we like design the
actual game elements is, hey howdo you make a world that feels
like it exists, whether I'm hereor not.
That it's something that I'vewalked into that, I just
happened to be catching the mostincredible magic moments, but
actually it was designed thatyou, you know, you would see it
intentionally.
(29:05):
So, that's a huge inspirationpoint as well.
Nathan C (29:08):
How you balance the storytelling and the vision of
the, the immersive experienceand this sort of innate,
directorial role that the playerhas in a space like that.
In many experiences, you're kindof in the single track thing
where you have to do the onething to unlock the next.
(29:29):
And, the player focused reactivespace, is just a design choice
that I, I so appreciate.
The name of the show is calledThe Tech Glow Up, you know it's
a notable transformation orrebirth.
We use it to talk about goals inthe short to midterm.
So I'm curious in the next threeto six months you alluded to
some things you're building.
(29:51):
Some content, some platformthings.
What's the big glow up thatyou're focused on at DreamPark,
in the next bit here?
Aidan Wolf (29:57):
Yeah.
Wow! It's three wild horses thatwe need to rein in and, and get
into the same place.
I would say it's, you know, thelocation acquisition, the square
footage quest.
How can we get to every mall,every park?
We wanna work with the malls andparks.
We wanna make this like a greatcollaboration.
Those conversations are goingwell.
(30:18):
It's really cool to be like, heyparks actually need help these
days.
We didn't realize that becausepeople are going to them less,
when there's less people inthem, they actually are less
safe.
So families stop coming and thenit's like, well, what if there's
a DreamPark there that gets allthese families out?
There's a big thing of likefiguring out what the real world
needs and how we potentially arehelping in ways that we didn't
(30:38):
think were possible.
Like it's not just like a, ohyeah we'll set up a DreamPark
and it's a business and a funthing.
It's like, oh yeah, like mallsare dying.
We can help malls.
Like parks are empty.
We can fill them up with people.
What is our towns and stripmalls and main streets for
anymore?
Maybe we can help with those.
We wanna help like glow up MainStreet.
How do we bring, you know,mainstream America back to life
(31:01):
with a DreamPark?
With just exciting games,museums, education, everything
that like, you'd have to driveinto the city to do.
You can just get 10 minutes fromyour home.
And then the other thing is wehave all this great content on
the way.
You saw the preview potentiallyof it at DreamPark in AWE.
That's our, you know, sci-fi,spaceport park.
Just awesome robots, spaceships.
(31:22):
It's so cool! And then Wand DualWizards Way, which is, you know,
just a full on, you know,magical wands, wizards
collecting magical ingredients,everything like that.
So much fun! We have CrashCourse with the obstacle course,
Fall Guys-style gameplay.
And a couple other things thatwe'll announce.
Obviously we're looking atholiday content, things like
that.
(31:43):
Excited about that.
It's getting all that greatcontent ready and then on our
platform so that when we go toall these locations, it's
available to play and set up.
And then that third aspect islike the platform underneath the
content powering the locations.
Like what's that service thatpeople are implementing, what
does it look like?
And that is just gonna look likeget DreamPark on your own
(32:07):
headset or, get headsets fromus.
If you're more like a businessuse case and wanna do that.
And then just really just beingable to look at a space, you
know, whether it's a park oryour own retail space or a mall.
You can use DreamPark and ourapp to set that up.
In less than an hour, you couldjust have like a whole theme
park to yourself.
That you can do anything youwant with.
(32:29):
If you're a taco stand with aparking lot, you could build a
DreamPark around it and just getpeople, you know coming to play
and enjoy what you're serving.
So it's like, give everyone justan ability to kind of set up
their own DreamPark whereverthey are, is really the goal.
And then how we manage thatafter, because ideally we have
(32:49):
so many people who wanna setthese up that it's gonna be
quite interesting to see whatthey do with it, where they set
it up, everything like that.
So yeah.
Nathan C (32:58):
You hinted, potentially at also creating
tools for other people todevelop in DreamPark?
Aidan Wolf (33:04):
Little, little bit later.
I take like a Nintendo approach,so it's like you kind of have to
use your first-party content todefine what the hardware is and
the software is.
And then you can extend that tothird-parties.
And so I think we're really inthat delicate phase.
We are learning so much on thedesign and people side of
things, that is so valuable thatonce we figure out how to
(33:25):
translate that into maybefeatures or like dev tools, it's
gonna help everyone just do thismixed reality in the real world
stuff better.
Like we talk about, you have nocontrol over the real world in
many regards.
And you have to be able toadjust for that.
And that's what I think we'redoing a really good job doing.
And we're gonna be able to like,translate that to other
(33:46):
developers.
Nathan C (33:47):
That's amazing! I have this vision of like a Chromebook
cart full of Quest 3 headsets,and a locker of tricycles.
And it's just a kit that youcould ship off on practically a
pallet.
I love it! What an amazing timeto be building and sharing this
(34:09):
spatial understanding of theworld and this, this very
playful, collaborative approach.
Real quickly, so The Tech GlowUp always likes to make time to
give a shout out to a communitygroup or somebody you think is
doing great work that could usea little spotlight.
Is there, anybody that you'dlike to share a spotlight with
(34:30):
today?
Aidan Wolf (34:30):
First that comes to mind is look'em up, Trev 3D on
Instagram, Twitter.
Just kind of creating the mostmind blowing, technologically
rich laser tag experience formixed reality.
Just sets up laser tag whereveryou are, you could play and
blast with the each other and,and just all the details are so
(34:50):
nice and it's so fun! And stilllike a grad student, you know,
that I think deserves aspotlight and industry
attention.
So you know, look out for them!And then I think any of the
other ones would be too biasedor selfish here because it would
be like, you know, check outAlan working on Wand Dual.
Of course Wand Dual is part ofDreamPark and he goes by Zu Lipa
on Twitter.
And my awesome co-founders,Brent Bushnell and Kevin Habich.
(35:14):
Kevin goes by Kevando on hissocial media.
Check him out! Brent goes by hisname.
Nathan C (35:19):
Support 3D creators and people building mind blowing
experiences in mixed reality!And making it accessible!
Aidan Wolf (35:27):
And anyone doing it now, where the industry is at
such a low point, you'reincredible because that just
shows your heart is in it.
Your creativity, you care!Because, you know, people are
struggling out there, but someof you're just still putting in
the work.
I love to see it!
Nathan C (35:41):
I love this! How about you and the DreamPark team?
Is there anything that you'relooking for these days and how
can people, uh, follow up andlearn more?
Aidan Wolf (35:50):
Yeah! We do want to work with great content
creators.
People who have ideas they mightsee translate into DreamPark.
So if you're imagining like50,000, a hundred thousand
square foot, you know, mixedreality experiences hit us up if
you have cool things! If youhave locations that are
underserved, or you couldimagine this being part of your
like, existing events,conferences, things like that,
(36:11):
that's something we wanna getmore into.
It's just like, you know, morepartners that we can expand
with.
You can also book a ticket to aDreamPark today.
So if you go to visitdreampark.com, you happen to be
in the Seattle area, or SantaMonica, LA area you can go and
then soon enough Long Islandwill be opening in the next two
weeks or so.
(36:32):
And that will also be throughour website.
So you can go and go check itout! It's like a ticketed thing.
There'll be people there, theyhave headsets, they'll get you
in.
You can have fun.
Nathan C (36:40):
Oh, goodness! So amazing! Aidan Wolf, it has been
such a lovely conversation tolearn about how this desire to
express yourself, to connectwith people and to sort of
express this creative worldbuilding vision that you've
always had has led you to such amagical spark of a mixed reality
(37:05):
concept that's allowing you toconnect with users to help
cities and real estatedevelopers and theme parks
understand how they can buildcommunity and use their space.
I love that play and connectionand testing is part of not only
how you've had so much successthis year, but also how your
(37:29):
co-founders, sort of challengeand encourage each other.
This has been, such an inspiringconversation.
Really one of the top XRexperiences I've seen all year.
Such a delight.
Thank you for joining me on TheTech Glow Up today!
Aidan Wolf (37:43):
Thank you for having me, Nathan.
This is awesome! It's only gonnaget better, from what you saw at
AWE, the experience is just onits way.
So yeah.
Thanks for having me.
Love to talk about DreamParkanytime and get the latest from
you!
Nathan C (37:55):
Visit dreampark.com.
Awesome!
Hello and welcome to The Tech Glow Up.
I'm Nathan C and today I'mtalking with Aidan Wolf,
Co-Founder and CEO of DreamParkAidan, it is so exciting to talk
with you today! Thank you forjoining me in your very busy
schedule.
Aidan Wolf (00:14):
It's great to finally be able to do this!
We've run into each other andtalked so many times throughout
the years, so you've seen manysteps in the journey.
So it would be great to talk toyou today about DreamPark
Nathan C (00:25):
Heck yes! People in the world who have talked to me
since June, know that DreamParkwas one of my favorite
experiences that I saw atAugmented World Expo.
Could you introduce yourself andwhat is DreamPark
Aidan Wolf (00:39):
Yeah, absolutely! So I'm Aidan Wolf.
I am Co-Founder of DreamPark Ifounded it with Kevin Habich and
Brent Bushnell, my co-founders.
It's an awesome team.
My journey started in games.
Which became social apps, whichbecame augmented reality.
And really my interest area islike how do we combine games,
social apps, and augmentedreality to make experiences that
(01:02):
can bring people together?
And I've been on that journeyfor probably a decade just
trying to figure out, you knowusing all the latest
technologies to create newexperiences for people.
And now we have these incredibleconsumer headsets.
Like the Quest 3 that we'reusing that enable us to do truly
immersive 3D augmented realityin the real world.
(01:25):
And we're kind of right on thebleeding edge, cutting edge of
that.
And that's called DreamPark Andit's a place, it's places you
could visit today and play inmixed reality with hundreds of
other people all in headsets atthe same time.
It is pretty new.
I don't think there's reallyanything quite like it.
Nathan C (01:44):
When you introduce DreamPark to somebody for the
first time, how do you explainit to them?
Aidan Wolf (01:48):
I'd say, we're creating downloadable theme
parks.
And what does that mean?
Well, imagine if Disney Worldcould show up in your own
backyard.
Or at the local mall.
Or at the local park.
Imagine having that fidelity ofthe MoMA or the best museum in
the world available to you inwhatever small town that you're
in.
And so that's really DreamPark.
(02:09):
We're really figuring out whatneeds to be physical, what needs
to be digital.
But we're learning a lot of itcan be digital and once it's
there, it's something we canbring everywhere.
So it's, it's kind of like giantgames!
Nathan C (02:22):
So my experience at AWE opened my mind to a couple,
like really interestinginteractions and design
decisions that you had to make.
The game that I saw at AWE wasvery much like a kinda N64-type
explorable world with bricksand, you know, magic boxes and
(02:44):
funny little characters.
And the world was placed insideof just a giant expo hall with
like no markers, no set pieces,just a big open space.
I put on the headset and theworld is there and ready for me
to explore.
And just by like running aroundand tapping things with my hand,
(03:05):
I can bop coins out of boxes.
I can fight, villains.
I can explore different things.
And I found that I got soenmeshed in this world that I
lost myself absolutely,completely in the real world.
I didn't run into any person.
But I actually did like run intoa sign that had been like
(03:26):
scooted into the play fieldaccidentally.
I was so enthralled in the videogame.
If you had looked at me, youknow, I'd been wearing this
headset, just like runningaround like a mad person.
But it was so good.
I like told five people as soonas I left, I was like, you have
to go try! So I've seen thepopups in some of the locations
(03:46):
that you do, and it's gotta justbe an automatic attractor, to
see people running around withthis technology totally
enmeshed, it kind of sellsitself if you're in the public
view, right?
Aidan Wolf (03:57):
Yeah, that was one of the earliest insights we had
while working on this.
Because it actually started outof the Two Bit Circus arcade in
LA.
What we would do is wait tillthere was a full arcade night on
like a Thursday, Friday,Saturday.
And we'd head down there withour headsets, on trikes going on
racetracks, you know, wizardbattles, everything like that.
And the people would just turntheir heads and start staring
(04:20):
and going, what's in thatheadset that we aren't seeing?
It would just create a naturalpull.
And we realized it was like theboxiness of the headset itself.
Which is usually seen as thisbig detractor was actually a
great communication to thepublic.
People who aren't quite familiarwith VR, but they know what it
looks like.
They would see the headset andgo like,"Oh, interesting.
They're seeing something inthere.
(04:41):
I wanna try it out!" So that'swhat we witnessed on the
promenade.
That was our biggest kind oftest case so far.
That's thousands and thousandsmaybe, maybe more people in
public, in a walking mall,outside in the sun with palm
trees and everything, playingthis game while other people are
shopping and walking around themand eating ice cream cones.
We don't have any boundaries.
(05:01):
We don't have fences.
It's not exclusive.
It's just part of the mesh.
Nathan C (05:05):
If you don't really have like physical components
that are part of thisexperience, can you really just
sort of adjust your boundariesand sort of scale the world to
fit?
Aidan Wolf (05:17):
That's the, what we're working towards.
Nathan C (05:19):
That's the direction?
Love it!
Aidan Wolf (05:20):
That's the key, with what we'll have this year and
what we're putting out willenable anyone to set up a
DreamPark anywhere, any park,wherever.
Even ticket for it.
They could set it up for theirfriends, but they can also set
it up as a business.
And I think that'll be very,
Nathan C (05:36):
Oh goodness!
Aidan Wolf (05:37):
very interesting.
Nathan C (05:38):
You're in a very interesting moment, because
you've just recently had somefantastic, good news and are
kind of in a growth moment.
Can you talk about what the lastthree to six months have been
like for you?
Aidan Wolf (05:53):
It started with my co-founder and I, Kevin,
deciding between money for rentor buying six Quest 3 headsets,
and we ended up buying the Quest3 headsets and sleeping on the
couches at the arcade.
Which, you know, sometimes youjust have to, that's what you
have to do.
But it was that sense of like,we're all in.
This is the thing we're gonna doand if this doesn't work, we're
(06:16):
gonna do something else.
So we very quickly built outwhat is Super Adventure, which
is the game that you played atAWE, to get it out there on the
promenade in Santa Monica.
And luckily the Santa Monicaadvisory board was really into
it! They were happy! It waslike, hey you're bringing life
to this part of the promenadethat, that needed it.
(06:38):
If you read our article in theSanta Monica local press, it's
like, people are pretty enthusedthat this place that you know,
has kind of sadly lost a lot ofits life is being brought back
to life by stuff like this.
So that was that.
We bought five headsets, andthen that was all we had, and we
would just be out there everyday showing people the game,
(07:00):
tweaking it, improving it,everything.
It was just always in the youknow, public facing experience
for us.
And then, we used that momentumto launch ourselves into
Founders Inc.
in San Francisco.
They brought us in.
It's an incubator with thepossibility of investment.
We kept the same mindset ofwe're all in, we have five
(07:21):
headsets to our name and we'regoing to figure this out.
And we wanted that investmentand I think we, we showed up
with that enthusiasm.
We set up a DreamPark in thefirst three days at their
office.
So that was also the first testof like, could we bring this to
another location and it works?
Because at this point we're justmanually moving stuff on screen
hoping it lines up.
And then that led to our firstinvestment.
(07:43):
I think it came down to the kidsof our investor, Hubert coming,
playing.
Him seeing that it was like, ohthey're not just playing it and
like, it's been 15 minutes andthen oh, it's been 30 minutes.
Oh, it's almost an hour thatthey've been playing and needing
to drag them out.
I think these are the kind ofmoments that it was like, okay,
maybe these guys are ontosomething with this thing, you
(08:05):
know, if my kids are into it,so.
In that moment we got the SharkTank news that our episode was
airing.
By the way, you, you don't evenknow if your episode's gonna air
once you filmed.
So that went out.
It was perfect timing for usbecause we just got this ball of
momentum that we turned into alarger fundraise with Long
Journey.
And that's who's, who's on myhat! They're the coolest,
(08:28):
they're very community orientedVC, I didn't even think that
existed.
And that inflow of cash hasallowed us to experiment and do
things that we didn't think waspossible, which was this
expansion now into multiplelocations, building out our
platform so that we can scalewith this.
And also developing out thecontent.
So we have Super Adventure,which is that kind of like
(08:48):
whimsical, you know, silly badguys and black smashing lava pit
jumping kind of game.
But now we have Wizards on theway.
That's gonna be you know, wandsand runes and dragon battles.
We have Power Force, which is aspaceport with bad guys and, and
force powers, things like that.
And a couple more games, weactually just released our first
(09:10):
additional content, which is ourCrash Course raceway.
So that's over at Seattle.
So people are on vehicles, realvehicles, like moving through a
mixed reality racetrack, whichis in insane.
And it's working great! Peopleare freaking out and they love
it.
We had a couple theoriesoriginally, which was, it
actually came from one of myaunts, she was thinking about
(09:30):
like real estate and she's like,well people own all this real
estate, but it's empty.
They don't do anything with it.
You know, they're trying tolease it, but it, it just stays
empty.
And we're like, well you knowour solution we don't have to
drill into the walls, we don'thave to hang stuff from the
ceiling.
There's no sensors or anything.
We just show up with a box fullof headsets.
And we can set this up.
Actually, we set up Seattle, ourfirst like big location, it's a
(09:52):
mall called West Canal Yards inBallard.
It's this giant mall.
We were able to get it up andrunning in, I think my
co-founder timed it, like 20minutes! We were, we had it, we
had it set up.
Which is unbelievable! So if youthink, like I just said it took
us three days to set up a newlocation, which already felt
pretty fast.
And now we're basically to, youknow, 20 minutes, an hour, and
(10:15):
we could be running.
So it's, it's kind of cool tosee that progress.
Nathan C (10:18):
What a ride, for a year.
Just to summarize, like startingwith this bet, having to make a
choice of do I choose the saferoute or do I bet on this idea?
And how you make that choice isa question we have to get into.
But then, being able to, takethat leap bet on yourself,
(10:39):
invest enough to get a productout there.
And then one of the things Ilove about how you show up in
the world is when you're talkingabout cutting edge technologies,
you have to show people.
What they're getting into, youhave to help them imagine what
(11:00):
it's gonna be like.
You have to like get themexcited and about things that
like, like you said, they'veprobably only ever heard about.
And you do this fantastic job ofbeing audacious with the
headsets, showing up in publicplaces.
And it's just that right levelof playful, you're showing off,
(11:21):
but you're also like veryaccessible.
You are like just this elegantexample of showing what the
magic of the technology can be.
And then fast forward, you gofrom these moments of hardcore
user testing and adaptation andlearning to like everything
starts to fall in line, right?
Like Shark Tank's ready, they'reready to air, investors are
(11:45):
ready.
And now you're like growingmultiple locations.
And like honestly, if you'relooking at mall spaces, Portland
has an outrageous mall communitythat is developing that
DreamPark would be perfect for!
Aidan Wolf (12:00):
I'd love to know more about that! Yeah.
Nathan C (12:01):
Oh my goodness! So, a lot of times, whether it's in
technology, whether it's instartups or even creative, the
joke is always, the overnightsuccess that only took 10 years
to make.
It couldn't have been this easythe whole time.
You've been exploring,connecting people with
technology.
Can you talk a little bit abouthow you got here and what were
(12:23):
those learnings and moments thatyou look back on as being so
foundational in your ability tomeet this moment?
Aidan Wolf (12:30):
Yeah, to create any origin point, it would just be
my own childhood.
I was more like a kid who likedto draw and stay in his room and
build worlds and do stuff likethat.
And you realize there's notamazing ways to like connect
with other people when you havethat type of mind.
You know, and a lot of the, thestuff you draw is the way you
(12:51):
talk and communicate.
And, I early in my life,realized the way that I like to
connect to people is throughlike the things that I imagine
and come up with and I wannagive those to people and they're
like gifts.
And seeing how they react to itis like, is everything, because
maybe I didn't understand whateveryone was into you like, in
(13:12):
my peers or like saying thingsand not knowing why, maybe I'm
not heard the way I wanna beheard or like, you know, people
use words maybe differently thanI do.
So it's like, oh, drawing wasthis thing that I, I started to
relate to people with.
And then that turned intomaking, animations and games and
things like that.
And just growing this greaterfidelity to like, reach people,
(13:33):
but also like show people how Ithink or what I'm into.
And you know, many timesthroughout childhood, just with
a vivid imagination, you kind oflook out in the world and you're
like, oh, like I see some, I seea T-Rex in the front yard, you
know, is just a common one.
I love Jurassic Park.
So it's like, imagine justdinosaurs running through the
yard would just be the coolest,coolest scene ever.
(13:53):
And going and then justimagining everyone with their
bikes and kids showing up.
And like jumping off into theyard to like look at dinosaurs
and run with dinosaurs.
If there was a version of playthat was more like the way that
I imagined things like, theshared you know, making things
up.
A fun thing that we kind of losealong the way for some reason.
We turn 10 or 12 and suddenlyit's not fun to play
(14:14):
make-believe anymore orsomething.
And it would be cool if we justlike kept that going.
And that made me really curiousabout augmented reality
technology.
Now this is back in like 2006,2007 or something.
Cameras actually had someinteresting features back then.
They had depth sensors, thingslike that.
I became very curious about thetechnologies that were
available.
(14:35):
Even just to do this for stillphotos.
Because at the time I wasinterested in animation and
claymation, so I was like, oh,if I could find a way to like
put characters into the world,this would be so cool! And I
grew a lot of interest there.
But the idea of this real timeAR thing was like not a thing
until iPhones started gettingcameras that were pretty good.
And I kind of immediately jumpedinto that in like 2014, 2015
(14:58):
because what was occurring wasmy parents were like moving
outta my childhood at home.
And I love that place.
I grew up, you know, from thetime I was a baby and I was sad
that all these memories that wehad growing up would just be
kind of like lost in space.
Like the next people to move inwouldn't know what it was like
when we were there.
And I saw my parents paintingover the height measurements on
(15:20):
the molding.
I was like, how is this not themost heartbreaking thing?
I guess it was.
But to me, I was like, we needto preserve this.
And so just the idea of like,what if I could take a photo of
that and keep it in the sameplace it was so people could
visit the house and know what itwas like when we were there.
As they explored and thenthinking about that for every
space.
And that was actually like myfirst AR venture or company back
(15:42):
when I was like 19.
Dropped outta school, pursued itas a startup.
And I learned a ton throughthat.
I was a naive kid now running abusiness.
Didn't know what that entailedtruly.
But I've learned a lot since.
But yeah, I think it really justcomes down from like a desire to
connect to people in places likethe way that I feel or think
which is maybe nostalgic orquestions of things.
(16:06):
You know, why is anything theway that it is?
A big role model of mine isRodney Mullen, who is
interestingly in the AR space.
Like, how did that happen?
But he just has a good quoteabout like, outsiders finding
their way in.
And that's what I think of a lotlike where I'm seeing the cross
section with DreamPark.
That makes me so happy, which islike, I'm not gonna be like the
center of the party.
I'm not the dj.
(16:26):
I'm not a performer in thatsense.
But I do wanna participate.
And so like the fact that thistech knowledge and creativity
that I've really invested in,which has been kind of like a
lonely activity, honestly,something I you know, I do by
myself is now like my entrypoint to like, reaching crowds
of people.
That is truly like a dream cometrue.
And I would say for like anycreators coming up, if you're
(16:48):
really into your art and yourcreativity a big part of it will
be figuring out how you can usethat to connect to people and
reach people, because they'rethe people who will give you the
energy back and like the, youknow, resources even that you
need to like, keep doing that.
And when you find that some kidsfind it really early, which is
amazing, some find it later, butlike once you find that thing
(17:10):
that like, lets you relate topeople and then they relate
back, it's kind of the mostmagical thing in the whole
world.
So I feel like I'm close to thator, in that right now.
Nathan C (17:19):
I love this idea like the technology is really like
the creative medium that givesyou the ability to sort of
express and share andparticipate, in a way that makes
sense to your vision of theworld and like, that balance and
(17:39):
that adapting to your strengths,I think is really beautiful.
I love any story aroundtechnology where the answer is
creativity or finding your voiceor like, this passion for like
sharing all these ideas that youcan now manifest into the world.
Along this journey, one of thequestions that I always like to
(18:01):
ask is about when you've had toeither, make a decision or, when
you've learned something,usually it's from your
customers.
And how do you respond to eitherthat critique or that
opportunity, when you see it?
With your partners or, in thework that you've done
previously, how do you approachlearning moments, whether
(18:22):
they're positive or negative?
Aidan Wolf (18:23):
Yeah, absolutely.
So this is where I have anamazing co-founder, Kevin.
We worked together for a decadeand a lot of what brought us
together early on especially wasthis honest feedback and like in
helping each other and whatwe're working on and like
brainstorming and thinkingthrough things.
And also he helped me get what Iwas working on in front of
(18:46):
people, which was fantastic whenI, I would be tweaking on
something for months and months,without even showing anyone else
'cause it needed to be perfectright before I could show
anyone.
He would just grab whatever Iwas working on and start showing
people you know, in thecoworking space that we were in.
And then you actually like seetheir smiles or their reactions
and their laughs and then you'relike, why did I wait six months
(19:07):
to like, it would be liketelling the longest joke of all
time.
Why would you, why would youwait?
Nathan C (19:12):
You wait till the end of the comedy special to clap!
Aidan Wolf (19:14):
Yes, exactly, exactly! Like hold your laughter
until the end, okay?
Really that, that opened me up alot, helped me get my, my stuff
out there, working with Kevin.
And that's how, honestly, it'scontinued to this day.
Kevin would take the latestversion of DreamPark, get it out
on the promenade start showingpeople.
So we just constantly collectfeedback.
(19:35):
We'd watch and see theirimpressions.
People, especially the public,are quite honest.
It's kind of cool actually in LAespecially, I say is a good
ecosystem because everyone hasaccess to great art, great
experiences, movies, they kindof understand it.
Like people who live there areinto it as like a, you know, a
culture and a history andeverything.
(19:57):
So when you show them something,you know, you get, you get good
honesty and so we did look atlike certain metrics, right?
Which would be like, ifsomeone's enjoying this, they
would probably wanna play it fora long time.
And so, you know, a big balancein the beginning was thinking
about like, how much do weactually have to build for this
to be enjoyable.
And then Brent, our otherco-founder, gave us like a good
(20:20):
metric, which was, he's like,well, in the arcade business
it's about a dollar per minute,or more, for entertainment,
premium entertainment.
So you need to keep people infor 20 minutes at least.
So we can sell a$20 ticket.
Ideally 30 minutes.
And it was like, oh! That'sgreat.
So we have like a timeframe wehave to work towards.
And then when you're only liketwo developers working, doing
(20:42):
all the art, doing everything,you're like, how are we gonna
produce 20 minutes of contentthat this is like, like
especially when we only reallyhad maybe four weeks, five weeks
because we're on this like nobudget.
You know, we had no money, wejust had these headsets.
The testing and getting outthere was so essential to see
that even just from a smallamount of content, something
(21:04):
that we thought was only really30 seconds or a minute, two
minutes at most of play, endedup being like 10 minutes, 15
minutes.
We're like, well that's strange.
Oh, because it's actually fun toplay in this like larger space
in this like kind of beautifullocation with your friends.
You know?
There was like all these likeconditions that weren't just in
there in the editor when we'reworking on it.
(21:24):
When working on something, it'sreally essential to like, just
get it out to people.
Read their genuine reactions.
Like you kind of have to bethere to see their face, you
know?
And we did get some of thatwhere it's like, this is the
headset.
It would be like, they put it onand look around.
Oh, cool! Thanks! You know, andit was like, it wasn't like a,
"This is the most life-changingthing!" You have to kind of
(21:45):
measure between like, you know,hey, they're saying it's great
and thanks, but they're handingthe headset back in 30 seconds.
That's probably, you know,probably something missing.
So what we worked towards wasthe person who took the headset,
put it on, went"Wow!" And like,didn't listen to us.
Like after that.
Like they didn't even take itoff if we were like, oh, and by
(22:06):
the way you have to like, theywere like, eh, whatever.
And then were already walkinglike towards something.
And that was the moment we sawthis like launch off into
something.
For example, you saw at AWE wedon't use straps on our
headsets.
So that was like a big insightwe learned on the ground.
We wouldn't have learned that ifwe weren't play testing.
And that opened up so muchbecause now we weren't there
(22:30):
strapping'em in.
Oh, by the way, when you're astranger on the street showing
someone a headset that's nowgonna be like stuck to their
face, they, they just go, ohyeah, yeah, no thanks.
I don't know who you are, what'sin there.
This is scary.
You hand it to'em and you put itin their hands and they hold it
up themselves.
You know you got'em.
And so we just like broke downthe time to entry from like 15
(22:53):
seconds, 20 seconds to a second,and then they were already
walking off to the races.
And it was all these smallinnovations that led to seeing
that metric that Brent had setfor us, which was like, you
gotta get people in there for,you know, at least 20 minutes.
And then it was like, wow, inour, our five week prototype was
getting people in there for 20minutes.
(23:15):
I've never had someone use my ARapps for more than maybe a
minute!
Nathan C (23:18):
20 minutes is a long time for me to be in headset.
Like, if I'm doing anythingother than like meditation or
like a game maybe, but like I'mnot very tolerant of it, but
there's something about thatfreedom and safety that, just
being able to pull it on andoff.
And I think that the world isanchored around you.
(23:39):
You see other people, you seethat you're still in the park.
That all you know, I think makesit that much more accessible.
The metric, right?
Like there is no better sellthan, having the VC investor's
kids, you know, be stuck in thegame for an hour.
One of the things that I, I'venoticed in augmented reality
(24:02):
games and in virtual realityspaces is if the user experience
is pleasant and delightfulenough and has a little bit of
intuitive interaction, peoplewill typically try to do
everything that's possible.
That was my experience when Itried DreamPark at AWE was like,
(24:23):
I wanna see all of the differentspaces.
I'm a little bit like, I'm notas much of a gamer.
I'm not in like massivemultiplayer game spaces a lot.
So the, the idea of like anactive game board that's kind of
there and people are interactingwith it, but like, there's no
start line.
(24:44):
You know, so many, you know,video games in my era, you know,
you start in the same place andit's a very narrative sequence.
And what I loved about DreamParkis that the world is there.
People are already playing.
There's animations and thingsthat are timed.
And there's also things that arelike, triggered by what I'm
doing as a player.
(25:04):
And, it made it feel like therewasn't a set script that I had
to do, but there was anincredible amount that I could
do.
And once I like got through,there were a couple different
acts.
And like, once I got to the partwhere I had the wand, I wanted
to go through the whole thingand try to get to that place
(25:25):
faster and more intentionally.
So that active space was just,such an eye-opener for me.
How did you sort of come tothat, design choice or that,
content decision?
Aidan Wolf (25:35):
Some of it is necessity.
We had to work on something in ashort timeframe.
But what it really comes down tois inspiration from theme park
design.
That's why we call it a themepark.
If you observe the peopleelement at theme parks, you
realize even a group of peopleare on all these different
trajectories.
You know, you have like the momwho's there with the kids, and
(25:56):
the kids really want to go onall the rides, and the mom
doesn't.
But she gets some food and isable to watch them and is just
enjoying the ambience of thepark because it's just a nice
place to be.
There's characters walkingaround, there's music,
everything.
So, taking that inspiration oflike, there's something for
everyone, whether they're likean active player or just, you
(26:16):
know, an observer and are justenjoying looking at the
experience.
So you'll notice like in thebackground, there's characters
jumping up and down and there'syou know, movement and things.
It's just like, this whole worldthat I can kind of like look
around and explore.
And this has boiled down nowinto, you know, a hundred
different design guidelines thatI'm trying to piece together for
(26:37):
everyone because yeah, it's,it's like, it's so many small
things.
And it's just getting better andbetter.
We're learning so much throughall these different park
designs.
But a lot of it just comes downto like, you know, consent in
the nicest word of just like,you know, you don't throw stuff
at, you know, a player's facewhen they don't want it to.
You know, you don't pop out andscare them when they're in, in
(26:58):
an ambient experience enjoyingit.
There's all those elements andthen, like how we play with
scale.
Because we can do this likemassive mixed reality things
that are large in the distanceactually just look interesting
as is.
It's kinda like the castle atDisney, right?
Like it's not doing anythingcrazy.
You know, outside of getting areservation to it, you can't
even go into it.
You just look at it.
(27:19):
And that's still a greatexperience for people.
So we were just taking in allthose concepts of like, oh yeah,
make something that'sinteresting to look at.
And then fun to interact with ifyou deepen your interest and
engagement.
And then make it wide open,because at a theme park, you can
go to the largest rollercoasterin the park before you go on the
kiddy rides and you're allowedto do that, you know, there's
(27:41):
no, like, you need to go throughrollercoaster 1, 2, 3, and 5 to
build up, you know, the choiceis yours.
And I just remember that goingto Six Flags, that was like the
inspiration.
I was like, sometimes the firstthing you do is you just beeline
to the boss fight.
You go to like Superman, thelargest rollercoaster.
You get that amazing high andthen everything else is just fun
(28:01):
after that.
'Cause you're scared too.
You're kind of like, Ooh, I, youknow, I don't know if I have a
big rollercoaster in me and yougo do it.
And then with video games, thevideo game element, I'll just
say is first-person narrativegames.
Half-Life was a huge part of mychildhood.
As violent as it was, but whenyou look into the design of that
game it's so well thoughtthrough and designed.
(28:22):
The people behind it were just,you know, incredible thinkers,
designers, developers, becauseeverything was built to respond
to the player and the thingsthat you think are just
happening around you.
Even just the sound effects andlike the drop of water that you
hear in the corner was thoughtthrough by someone who was like,
I am going to keep theminterested and build a world
(28:45):
around them.
And that is a huge inspirationfor how we like design the
actual game elements is, hey howdo you make a world that feels
like it exists, whether I'm hereor not.
That it's something that I'vewalked into that, I just
happened to be catching the mostincredible magic moments, but
actually it was designed thatyou, you know, you would see it
intentionally.
(29:05):
So, that's a huge inspirationpoint as well.
Nathan C (29:08):
How you balance the storytelling and the vision of
the, the immersive experienceand this sort of innate,
directorial role that the playerhas in a space like that.
In many experiences, you're kindof in the single track thing
where you have to do the onething to unlock the next.
(29:29):
And, the player focused reactivespace, is just a design choice
that I, I so appreciate.
The name of the show is calledThe Tech Glow Up, you know it's
a notable transformation orrebirth.
We use it to talk about goals inthe short to midterm.
So I'm curious in the next threeto six months you alluded to
some things you're building.
(29:51):
Some content, some platformthings.
What's the big glow up thatyou're focused on at DreamPark,
in the next bit here?
Aidan Wolf (29:57):
Yeah.
Wow! It's three wild horses thatwe need to rein in and, and get
into the same place.
I would say it's, you know, thelocation acquisition, the square
footage quest.
How can we get to every mall,every park?
We wanna work with the malls andparks.
We wanna make this like a greatcollaboration.
Those conversations are goingwell.
(30:18):
It's really cool to be like, heyparks actually need help these
days.
We didn't realize that becausepeople are going to them less,
when there's less people inthem, they actually are less
safe.
So families stop coming and thenit's like, well, what if there's
a DreamPark there that gets allthese families out?
There's a big thing of likefiguring out what the real world
needs and how we potentially arehelping in ways that we didn't
(30:38):
think were possible.
Like it's not just like a, ohyeah we'll set up a DreamPark
and it's a business and a funthing.
It's like, oh yeah, like mallsare dying.
We can help malls.
Like parks are empty.
We can fill them up with people.
What is our towns and stripmalls and main streets for
anymore?
Maybe we can help with those.
We wanna help like glow up MainStreet.
How do we bring, you know,mainstream America back to life
(31:01):
with a DreamPark?
With just exciting games,museums, education, everything
that like, you'd have to driveinto the city to do.
You can just get 10 minutes fromyour home.
And then the other thing is wehave all this great content on
the way.
You saw the preview potentiallyof it at DreamPark in AWE.
That's our, you know, sci-fi,spaceport park.
Just awesome robots, spaceships.
(31:22):
It's so cool! And then Wand DualWizards Way, which is, you know,
just a full on, you know,magical wands, wizards
collecting magical ingredients,everything like that.
So much fun! We have CrashCourse with the obstacle course,
Fall Guys-style gameplay.
And a couple other things thatwe'll announce.
Obviously we're looking atholiday content, things like
that.
(31:43):
Excited about that.
It's getting all that greatcontent ready and then on our
platform so that when we go toall these locations, it's
available to play and set up.
And then that third aspect islike the platform underneath the
content powering the locations.
Like what's that service thatpeople are implementing, what
does it look like?
And that is just gonna look likeget DreamPark on your own
(32:07):
headset or, get headsets fromus.
If you're more like a businessuse case and wanna do that.
And then just really just beingable to look at a space, you
know, whether it's a park oryour own retail space or a mall.
You can use DreamPark and ourapp to set that up.
In less than an hour, you couldjust have like a whole theme
park to yourself.
That you can do anything youwant with.
(32:29):
If you're a taco stand with aparking lot, you could build a
DreamPark around it and just getpeople, you know coming to play
and enjoy what you're serving.
So it's like, give everyone justan ability to kind of set up
their own DreamPark whereverthey are, is really the goal.
And then how we manage thatafter, because ideally we have
(32:49):
so many people who wanna setthese up that it's gonna be
quite interesting to see whatthey do with it, where they set
it up, everything like that.
So yeah.
Nathan C (32:58):
You hinted, potentially at also creating
tools for other people todevelop in DreamPark?
Aidan Wolf (33:04):
Little, little bit later.
I take like a Nintendo approach,so it's like you kind of have to
use your first-party content todefine what the hardware is and
the software is.
And then you can extend that tothird-parties.
And so I think we're really inthat delicate phase.
We are learning so much on thedesign and people side of
things, that is so valuable thatonce we figure out how to
(33:25):
translate that into maybefeatures or like dev tools, it's
gonna help everyone just do thismixed reality in the real world
stuff better.
Like we talk about, you have nocontrol over the real world in
many regards.
And you have to be able toadjust for that.
And that's what I think we'redoing a really good job doing.
And we're gonna be able to like,translate that to other
(33:46):
developers.
Nathan C (33:47):
That's amazing! I have this vision of like a Chromebook
cart full of Quest 3 headsets,and a locker of tricycles.
And it's just a kit that youcould ship off on practically a
pallet.
I love it! What an amazing timeto be building and sharing this
(34:09):
spatial understanding of theworld and this, this very
playful, collaborative approach.
Real quickly, so The Tech GlowUp always likes to make time to
give a shout out to a communitygroup or somebody you think is
doing great work that could usea little spotlight.
Is there, anybody that you'dlike to share a spotlight with
(34:30):
today?
Aidan Wolf (34:30):
First that comes to mind is look'em up, Trev 3D on
Instagram, Twitter.
Just kind of creating the mostmind blowing, technologically
rich laser tag experience formixed reality.
Just sets up laser tag whereveryou are, you could play and
blast with the each other and,and just all the details are so
(34:50):
nice and it's so fun! And stilllike a grad student, you know,
that I think deserves aspotlight and industry
attention.
So you know, look out for them!And then I think any of the
other ones would be too biasedor selfish here because it would
be like, you know, check outAlan working on Wand Dual.
Of course Wand Dual is part ofDreamPark and he goes by Zu Lipa
on Twitter.
And my awesome co-founders,Brent Bushnell and Kevin Habich.
(35:14):
Kevin goes by Kevando on hissocial media.
Check him out! Brent goes by hisname.
Nathan C (35:19):
Support 3D creators and people building mind blowing
experiences in mixed reality!And making it accessible!
Aidan Wolf (35:27):
And anyone doing it now, where the industry is at
such a low point, you'reincredible because that just
shows your heart is in it.
Your creativity, you care!Because, you know, people are
struggling out there, but someof you're just still putting in
the work.
I love to see it!
Nathan C (35:41):
I love this! How about you and the DreamPark team?
Is there anything that you'relooking for these days and how
can people, uh, follow up andlearn more?
Aidan Wolf (35:50):
Yeah! We do want to work with great content
creators.
People who have ideas they mightsee translate into DreamPark.
So if you're imagining like50,000, a hundred thousand
square foot, you know, mixedreality experiences hit us up if
you have cool things! If youhave locations that are
underserved, or you couldimagine this being part of your
like, existing events,conferences, things like that,
(36:11):
that's something we wanna getmore into.
It's just like, you know, morepartners that we can expand
with.
You can also book a ticket to aDreamPark today.
So if you go to visitdreampark.com, you happen to be
in the Seattle area, or SantaMonica, LA area you can go and
then soon enough Long Islandwill be opening in the next two
weeks or so.
(36:32):
And that will also be throughour website.
So you can go and go check itout! It's like a ticketed thing.
There'll be people there, theyhave headsets, they'll get you
in.
You can have fun.
Nathan C (36:40):
Oh, goodness! So amazing! Aidan Wolf, it has been
such a lovely conversation tolearn about how this desire to
express yourself, to connectwith people and to sort of
express this creative worldbuilding vision that you've
always had has led you to such amagical spark of a mixed reality
(37:05):
concept that's allowing you toconnect with users to help
cities and real estatedevelopers and theme parks
understand how they can buildcommunity and use their space.
I love that play and connectionand testing is part of not only
how you've had so much successthis year, but also how your
(37:29):
co-founders, sort of challengeand encourage each other.
This has been, such an inspiringconversation.
Really one of the top XRexperiences I've seen all year.
Such a delight.
Thank you for joining me on TheTech Glow Up today!
Aidan Wolf (37:43):
Thank you for having me, Nathan.
This is awesome! It's only gonnaget better, from what you saw at
AWE, the experience is just onits way.
So yeah.
Thanks for having me.
Love to talk about DreamParkanytime and get the latest from
you!
Nathan C (37:55):
Visit dreampark.com.
Awesome!
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.