11.8.22-Tokyo-Showcase-SoWork

VISHAL PUNWANI: [SPEAKING JAPANESE] Very happy to be in Japan today. So my name is Vish and I'm the CEO and co-founder of SoWork, the workplace metaverse. We're a Harvard-incubated team. But my co-founder Emma is a joint Harvard and MIT PhD student.

And so that's one of our many, many MIT connections. So right now, companies are struggling to find the right workplace experience, whether that's remote or hybrid or in-person. But if you think about all the teams right now who are remote or hybrid or maybe many of your employees today, trying to build a high-performance culture while only using softwares like Zoom or Slack, everybody can feel that something doesn't feel quite right.

You don't necessarily know what it is, but something feels off. And that's actually a big reason behind many companies' push to return back to the office. But that's not really a solution, is it? Because 95% of employees, even your employees, actually want more flexible work. And so a blanket return-to-office policy doesn't really suit anyone.

But still companies are going to have to solve this workplace experience problem, because if they do, then they create happier employees, which leads to higher productivity. And that leads to happier companies.

And so that is exactly what we're solving at SoWork, this workplace experience problem. In fact, over the last year, we've had thousands of companies move their virtual offices into SoWork's workplace metaverse. So here's a quote from a happy customer, "The best piece of software I've used in the past two years is SoWork, and it's not even close." So that is very high praise.

So what exactly did we do? Well, we built the workplace metaverse. It's like an MMO, like World of Warcraft or Runescape or any of those, but for workplaces. So we give teams the tools and the environment that they need to be thriving and happy, high performance and productive.

So what exactly did we do? Well, we started by building an immersive world where companies can build the digital HQs of their dreams, just like in the Sims or in Minecraft. We then gave employees the ability to create their own fully-customizable avatars. So them having avatars is much better for their psyches than just being a little tile in Zoom or a name on Slack.

We then added in all the things that businesses would need, so video and audio and chat, of course, but also very important things like business-grade privacy, business-grade security, encryption, reliability, stability, so you can actually get great work done. So let me show you what a typical day might look like in the office.

I think this is not our loading. We load very fast. This is-- [LAUGHS]. So this is me walking into our office in the metaverse. So I'm Batman in the metaverse, of course, because why wouldn't you be? So I see a couple of teammates there. So I'm just going to jump into a whiteboarding session with them.

We're going to get some work done. I see a few others bonding over a game. It's wonderful. I'm going to go over to my desk. And notice it's not decorated enough for Halloween yet. So I'm going to open our mapmaker and throw down some decorations to get into the spirit.

I'm then going to check my missed connections. These are memos left to me by my teammates when I'm out of office, sorted in order of urgency, which you cannot do in Slack I'm then going to go to another meeting. Notice I just walk up to my teammates. We automatically connect, videos automatically connect. No Zoom link, no calendaring, we can just walk up and connect just like in the real office.

I'm going to check another teammate's working hours, because I need to catch him before I leave the office. I want to make sure he's still there. I'm going to say hi to a few other teammates without actually interrupting their meeting. Then I'm feeling hungry. I'm going to order food. We have a built-in food integration that will deliver food to your house in real life.

And then we have some new employees starting. So I'm going to build out a new wing of our office for them to have their own little space. So this might look familiar. I'm then going to walk across the neighborhood. Lots of companies live in here. And I'm going to knock on another company's office who we're working on a partnership agreement with.

And in case you're wondering, it did work out. It was great. So that is-- we can go for it. There we go. So in SoWork you can get great work done no matter where in the world you are. It's faster than Zoom. It's less ambiguous than Slack. It's cheaper than a physical office.

Your teammates get back the spontaneity and the creativity that they really want, while keeping the flexibility that they deserve. Your company saves time. It saves money. And it increases your staff retention. So we're basically a competitive advantage for any business.

Here's an example. We worked with Tinder's workplace experience people to build the metaverse version of their real life LA office. It's called Tinder World. So Tinder uses Tinder World for their one-on-ones and their team meetings and their events, their hackathons, and my personal favorite, their new employee onboardings, so that no matter where in the world their new employees are starting from, they can get a much better onboarding into Tinder's workplace and culture than they ever could before.

Here are some testimonials about our company, including my favorite one up in the top left there. "SoWork has been a game-changer for our company. It's also now my favorite app. I will bleed SoWork until I die." I don't know how well that translates, but it's my favorite thing that anyone's ever said about our company.

So, of course, we want your teams and your companies to benefit as well. So if you want to save time, you want to save money, you want to increase your staff retention, and you believe your employees are worth investing in, then you can come and open your office up in the workplace metaverse. That's my email there. Feel free to get in touch and I will work with you directly to ensure that your team is onboarded and happy and healthy.

Thank you very much for having me. My pleasure to be here. [SPEAKING JAPANESE]