"Learn about that Industry" John Rudy - Upper Webside Marketing - Matterpod Ep. 14

John Rudy
You really should learn as much as possible about that industry and how it works.

Christian Adams
Welcome back to another episode of The Matter Pod. Today we are joined by Jon Rudy. We're really excited to talk to him about all things Matterport-related and get some insights from himself. Jon, I know this is a busy time of year for you, so thank you so much for taking the time to hop on and chat with us.

Christian Adams
We're really looking forward to it.

John Rudy
No problem. Good to be here.

Christian Adams
Jon, one of the things that you and I were chatting with about before starting this podcast episode was the RCP group. The reason that Jon and I actually got connected was through the RC group in general. And so I'm sure there's a lot of our listeners that aren't super familiar with what RC is. And so like if you wouldn't mind taking just a minute to maybe explain how you got linked up with RC.

Christian Adams
Talk a little bit about what it is and maybe why a Matterport provider would be interested in joining the RC group.

John Rudy
The AR RC, which stands for Reality Capture Experts. And again, I'm not a an officer with the company at all. I'm just a member. It's a collection of people in this industry mainly, I believe, Matterport but doing into other things, there's realtors, there's drone operators, but it's, it's basically a virtual, a virtual tour, basically a group.

John Rudy
I was invited in by another member, which again, I don't want to speak for them, but like I believe that's how it's usually done.

Christian Adams
Gotcha. So, so it is invite only. Like you've got to find somebody to invite you in.

John Rudy
Yes, I believe it is. And again, I could be mistaken. I'm I don't want to speak for them too much, but it's a great, great group that is very helpful to each other. We've done some very good things working together. My company included. We work with them on some excellent projects, brought in some good clients to work with and have gotten, you know, a plethora of information about the industry.

John Rudy
It's it's basically professionals that are looking to help each other. So I can't really say enough about it. Very good. Thanks. And it's I feel very fortunate to be a part of it.

Christian Adams
I love that. That's really the purpose of the Matterport, our podcast. We really just want to help Matterport providers all over the world glean insights and information from each other. And it sounds to me like that's similar to what the purpose is of the RCE group to come collaborate together, talk about new products in the industry, and what's working and help each other answer questions.

Christian Adams
And so I think that that's another.

John Rudy
Good thing about RC is it's also the referrals. Since we're a global network, you know, I don't have anybody in California that does tours, but I've had people come to me saying, Do you have somebody in this area? And so, therefore, you go in, you know, you find the people. Everybody is everybody's been vetted. So you can feel confident that the RCE network, as you know, those professionals are going to do a good job for you and for your client.

John Rudy
And it's and it allows small businesses to operate on a much larger location scale.

Christian Adams
Totally. I agree with you 100%. I think there are a lot of people that just don't know where to go when they have questions. And there are various Facebook groups and other things like that where people turn to answer questions. But I think that from what I've seen, the RC group is one of the best resources or one of the best places where you could be active and get help with all things virtual tour related.

Christian Adams
Like you said, not just Matterport. I've attended a couple RC meetings myself and I know that there are a lot of people in the group that are experts in a lot of things in addition to just Matterport, like you said, drone operators, etc..

John Rudy
So yeah, in this industry there are so many other services that can be offered. Yeah, and it's one of the, the phrases now is xor if you see for an extended reality, yes or no for reality. So there's a lot of other, a lot of other things that are possible. And again to have a group of people that can you know keep track on the industry is great.

Christian Adams
Totally I don't know a lot about a lot of the other stuff. I've spent the majority of my time in the Matterport silo if you will. But I remember on one of the RC calls I was on, people were comparing the Point cloud and the BIM files from a bulk camera to the Matterport Pro three. And I remember whoever it was that was talking was speaking a foreign language to me, essentially talking about the differences in the details.

Christian Adams
And so really, if you're looking to get involved on a more sophisticated architecture type level where you're doing, you know, remodels and point cloud files for, you know, architecture type clients like the RC group, again, can be a great resource for really a lot of things outside of Matterport as well. So John, if people have questions about the RC group, is it okay if they reach out to you and ask you, are you.

John Rudy
Not the person to speak to about RCE and you want to know who would.

Christian Adams
Be a good person to reach out to if they've got.

John Rudy
Clandestine testing? Gardner Sheri Rennick, let me get you the reality of capture experts is the name of reality capture. So I'm just a member. Okay, So if you went to reality capture experts dot com, you know, they don't have more information they're cool. Like I said, I'm just someone who's lucky to be there. I going to see it that way.

John Rudy
That's perfect. But yeah, Dustin is the one I believe that one of the main spokespeople they're.

Christian Adams
Awesome and I've personally chatted with Dustin as well He's very, very helpful. So that's a great resource. Go ahead and head to reality capture experts dot com and they'll be able to answer any questions that you've got.

John Rudy
But Dustin Gardner and Jerry that I want to make sure I said her name correctly. Sherry Reddick Those are the two principles there of of any questions with RCA.

Christian Adams
Awesome or John kind of shifting gears a little bit, I'd love to chat with you a little bit about what you're focused on currently. Some of the clients that you are working with and maybe hear a little bit about some of the services that you're currently providing them. I know there's a lot of different reality or there's a lot of different virtual tool providers that are working for all different types of clients.

Christian Adams
But I'd love to hear kind of where your head is at, where your current focus is.

John Rudy
Well, I started doing virtual tours. Oh my God, say 2004, 2005, using no.

Christian Adams
Way a long time ago.

John Rudy
Time ago using 3D, this software. And that was basically just moving the camera and clicking and creating a video. There was a bunch of different solutions back then too, and basically just moving the camera at different intervals and clicking and then using software to stitch it together. And we had some to have some pretty good success with that.

John Rudy
Not mainly real estate, but we actually had done some work for, for hospitals and so on and some commercial work. When the real estate market had its ups and downs, it kind of really wasn't one of the things we focused on anymore. Everything changed when Matterport came onto the scene. I got into Matterport about 2017, I believe, like a lot of other people, you know, the question is, do you want to take the risk on, you know, putting out that kind of investment I had?

John Rudy
Actually, I have a web design company as well, and my experience was when you have these extra services, such as virtual tours, it brings in more work, it brings in more consulting work, and which it had. And so we got into Matterport, did some, did some a lot of apartment buildings. And I work with corporate housing in New York City and a lot of apartment complexes here in New Jersey, Pennsylvania.

John Rudy
And everything changed when COVID hit. All of a sudden, the phone is ringing off the hook with very, very large companies all needing virtual tours for their apartments. Or one of my clients tree Cove. And so client asked me, can we put furniture in these vacant units? Is there any way to, to virtually stage these things? And at the time there was only one company that worked there.

John Rudy
They were still in data at the time and they had the they had the lock on it. They were the only ones licensed by Matterport, as you know. Which one was.

Christian Adams
It? Was it captured?

John Rudy
No, no. They didn't come until later. Now I was roomie.

Christian Adams
Roomie when.

John Rudy
He was in the room. He was the first one. And I remember going to in New York City for the day at a real estate conference. It was going to be connected. All right. In midtown Manhattan. I still remember it was about two degrees that day. And talking to one of their representative representatives about getting my client into their beta program.

John Rudy
And they eventually were accepted. They had yeah, there was some kind of stipulations. As a Matterport provider, I was not entitled to any commission in any way, shape or form. And not only that, I actually had to or my client had to have their own account. They couldn't stay under my account, so I lost money on posting there.

John Rudy
So but they actually did get into the program. It actually worked out very well. They were extremely happy with it. And when COVID hit, they were miles ahead of everybody else. And I also had I was very familiar at that point with how the system worked with that virtual staging at Captured and a couple of other companies talked about bringing in virtual staging.

But there they would do it in a different way. But as the industry moved on, I as you know, so many third-party applications came out. I mean, it was just there was always something and there still is always something new. Some are worth it, and some aren't. Now with the release of the ability to import and export pandas from the Matterport environment, a lot of companies are doing virtual staging themselves.

So it's completely opened up. So I have a background with, like I said, with real estate and as far as a lot of apartment buildings.

Christian Adams
Oh, gotcha.

John Rudy
And now we are we're looking into doing more and more commercial work, not just commercial real estate, but as you know, you, you know, retail establishments and things along those lines.

Christian Adams
Have you had success getting in with other customer types outside of the real estate market or is it been kind of difficult to demonstrate or educate them on the value proposition of why they shouldn't consider doing virtual tour-related stuff?

John Rudy
Well, it's I've been very fortunate that I've been kind of on the busy side, and I have to admit that I haven't done in a tremendous amount of a push on marketing. It's almost like as soon as I get time, I'll I'll start looking at the teams, what they find me. To be perfectly honest, like I said, I've been very I mean, I'm 45 minutes outside New York City, so, you know, between New York, New Jersey, and it really there's a lot here.

John Rudy
And we handle everything from, like I said, stores to we do corporate charter boats where people have, you know, their corporate events or sometimes weddings, things like that. I get a nursing home the other day. So it really is. There's a lot there. And I also want to sort of figure out where you're going to have the best return on investment of your time.

Christian Adams
Totally. No, I agree.

John Rudy
So it's like I said, you know, some projects don't take very long as opposed to other projects. However, how much time does it take you to procure that client? We work with some realtors now that are actually paying us to do Matterport and local businesses and interesting. And then it being that's being handed off to social media consultants that they are now integrating themselves in the community, especially a new business.

So it's it's kind of a win win for everybody. So I guess it's really it really is sort of a you know, I used to say that all you had to do is show it to them the Matterport any that they're going to want it or they're not. Now, it seems that as more and more you want to tell them how they're going to how it's going to benefit them, how they can use it, you know, having to toit's like, okay, this is cute.

We don't really need it. And I have actually had apartment companies say that to me. pre-COVID. They said, you know, I did a model once for a day. I did it for free model apartment right in midtown Manhattan, New York City, 50/53 Street, huge building. And there, you know, they looked at it. They had a conference about a meeting about it.

And they said, okay, this is great. It's cool. We don't really need it. And we're not really going to, you know, put forth the investment five months later, how soon can you be here? We have seven other buildings.

Christian Adams
And so show me how it works.

John Rudy
It's that's actually, I think, a large part in building. I handle New York. And so, like I said, if they see the value in it and I think that's where your product comes in, especially in the retail market, is, you know, how to enhance the shopping experience. You know, it's one thing to see a bunch of products on a website, but you know, if you want to if a client wants to our business wants to push the, you know, the look in the feel of their store and get people even to come in in person.

John Rudy
It's then it's it can be very valuable.

Christian Adams
Yeah 100%. I think my opinion on this from what I've seen so far is I would guess that just the way that there was kind of a lag like you described when you created this free model, gave it to the apartment complex or whatever real estate company was you were working with, like, this is cool, but we don't need it.

Christian Adams
And then, you know, months later they come back here like, Hey, how soon can you be here? I think that we're still, from what I've seen and what I've heard, which we ourselves are talking to, we're Matterport providers ourselves and we're talking to companies and trying to get them to create custom branded virtual tours outside of the real estate space.

Christian Adams
And I think we're still kind of in the phase of you show it to them and it's kind of a cool thing that piques their interest, but they're not to a point where they see it as this is a must-have. And so we get a lot of people that say, Cool, but no thanks. And so it'll be interesting to see if as time goes on and like you mentioned, X, R kind of continues to improve and 3D content, in general, becomes more mainstream with the adoption of Oculus, with Apple that's supposedly going to announce their, you know, R VR hardware this spring as these 3D content viewing mediums become more and more important

Christian Adams
and more widely adopted, It's going to be interesting to see the need and the demand for these 3D virtual tours experiences outside of the real estate industry. But like I said, that's just me forecasting. That's just my opinion based on what I've seen and the people that I've talked to so far.

John Rudy
Yeah, it's yeah, the thing is, that's why I never want to say VR is and people always have the, the impression of the goggles and the whole not the huge goggles.

Christian Adams
Yeah.

John Rudy
And, and I've even sort of even spoken to some of the apartment companies a while back for COVID saying, you know, if you had branded goggles that you could, you know, the cardboard and sewn in and this and that or you could, you know if you gave some. And the reason they wanted this is that if people come in to see an apartment and it's art and it's occupied, it's not available yet.

That's where the tour comes into play. And right. So I said, you know, if you you'd have to put them in a chair and kind of, you know if you wanted to use the goggles as opposed to just having a big screen or you can walk them around on a TV set, which is much better. So they actually said, as far as the goggles go, and you know, that's great until somebody gets pinkeye, at which case that's going to come to a grinding halt.

So it's so when it comes to the goggles like I said, it's and my girlfriend's son plays games, you know, constantly on those things. He loves it. But as far as using it and you know, in a widespread as a widespread solution, you know, I think that's going to take some time. And I.

Christian Adams
I agree. I think that the hardware will have to catch up with the software. Meaning right now the only way to I mean, you can view a Matterport tour in a VR headset, but I don't think there are that many people out there that are using it for that application. I would say the majority of people are digesting the 3D tours on their farms and on their computers.

John Rudy
And I going they put those things on.

Christian Adams
And I think that as the medium or the hardware or device, as those improve and make it so that it's easier and a better experience to digest that 3D tour, I think you'll see a demand in the need and use applications of that content type is going to go up. But you know, we don't know how long or how far away we are from getting to that point.

Christian Adams
But I know I mean, the biggest companies in the world, Facebook and Apple, are dumping literally billions of dollars into creating harbor devices that are focused on digesting these 3D content types. And so I it's going to be interesting to see what they come up with.

John Rudy
Yes, absolutely. So it's an interesting and exciting industry to be in. It really is.

Christian Adams
It's yes.

John Rudy
Yeah, it's I'm lucky I got in when I did. I really feel fortunate for sure.

Christian Adams
And it sounds like you've been busy and have a lot going on, which is for sure a blessing and a good problem to have on your hands.

John Rudy
Be careful what you wish for.

Christian Adams
Hey, if you do the right things and you position yourself in the right way, there's definitely a way to stay busy and make a good living doing what you're doing, creating virtual tours for various clients and customer types.

John Rudy
So absolutely. John, Do you think that people should think about is which industries do you want to go after? And, you know, like, right, you know, even from, you know, my own missteps so you know where you want to focus? In other words, do you want to focus on just this or do you are these industries? And, you know, if you're going to get into architecture and things like that, you really should learn as much as possible about that industry and how it works.

And, you know, and, you know, the CAD files and, you know, and all that stuff and to really have an understanding of how it's going to be used as opposed to just scanning.

Christian Adams
Most definitely.

John Rudy
Yeah. So it's good. And again, the more and more you can speak about it, the better you're going to be.

Christian Adams
Yeah. I think that's super sound advice sometimes especially when you're getting started. I think it's a great idea to kind of find your niche if you will. Don't try and be all things to all people and really go after a certain customer segment, kind of get some solid traction with that customer type, and then kind of step back and reassess from there.

Christian Adams
But I know that we ourselves personally have found ourselves getting distracted because we see so much opportunity with creating these virtual tours that we've tried to go after a lot of different customer types. And I think we would have been much better off if we just from the onset really stayed in one lane and tried to nail one customer type and get really solid traction with them.

So I think there's a lot of wisdom in what you just said for sure.

John Rudy
Yeah, and I got different industries are going to be different now. We're getting in with our architecture company is not going to be as you know, it's not going to be as easy as getting in with, you know, your local showroom right now, that kind of thing. And so it really is, you know, depending on what kind of marketing you want to do and how your sales team or your marketing team is going to be able to, you know, get your foot in the door in some of these places.

Like I said, I got very, very lucky in my area. A lot of these companies work together. So my name was moved around a lot.

Christian Adams
Yes. Well, John, we really appreciate you taking the time to hop on. If people want to get a hold of you and ask you any questions about anything, you're a veteran in the space since 2004. What is the best way for people to get in contact with you?

John Rudy
They can email me a j Rudy j r u d y at Upper West Side dot com you r w e b is boy s ideas and David aecom and yeah, that's probably the best way to want to get in touch with me.

Christian Adams
Perfect John thank you so much for your time and we wish you the best of luck with everything in the New York New Jersey area. So we'll be in touch.

John Rudy
Thank you.