"The Bridge Between Photography and Videography" Brenda Chiri - Twinspace360 - Matterpod Ep. 13

This week we are joined by Brenda Chiri of Twinspace360 in Nairobi, Kenya. We discuss opportunities, challenges and the future of the 3D industry.

Checkout Brenda's website here, or you can follow her on Instagram here.

Brenda Chiri
Virtual Tours are the bridge between photography and videography.

Christian Adams
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the MatterPod. Today we are joined by Brenda from Twinspace360. We're super grateful to have her on the call today and we're excited to learn some of the insights that she has for everyone today. Brenda, if you if you would like to tell everyone where you're currently located and how you got started in Matterport.

Brenda Chiri
Okay. So, hi, my name is Brenda Chiri and I'm from Nairobi, Kenya. That's in Africa. For anyone who doesn't know, I have a background in construction management. That's my profession. But currently, I'm into now 3D scanning. I have a company together with my co-founder and the CEO right now, my co-founder and I. We started the company a few months ago. And basically we are 3D digital twin providers or maybe layman's language. We produced 3D virtual tours.

Christian Adams
So what are the main customers that you guys are currently creating? Virtual tours for? It sounds like you're new to this. Who did you decide that you initially wanted to target to create virtual tours for?

Brenda Chiri
So currently we usually just we just got into every industry. Let, let me just be honest, since we're a new company. So we just decided to get our feet wet and we started off with real estate company companies. We've actually done some tours for one realtor and that's how we get started. But currently, we are also shooting showrooms. There's an exhibition that we're supposed to be shooting come March. What else have we gotten ourselves into? Furniture shops and stuff like that. So I think we're in all industries right now. We just want to get a feel of all the industries before we decide to specialize.

Christian Adams
That's so cool. I think a lot of Matterport providers like yourself, initially get started doing real estate stuff and they see an opportunity there. Then sometimes after kind of getting their feet wet, like you mentioned, they branch off and expand their horizons a little bit and start doing more different types of virtual tours for companies like you said, you know, exhibitions, museums or showrooms, if you will. When you have approached showrooms or furniture companies, what has been the pitch you allow them or get them to want to create these virtual showroom experiences?

Brenda Chiri
Okay. Since the whole virtual tour idea or concept is not really mainstream in the country. So first of all, you have to kind of educate them. So after educating them and showing them an example of what you can do and how you can also customize and just put their brand colors and just, you know, make the virtual tour personalized. And I think that's the selling point for them. And honestly, when you tell them all about the benefits, then they are quite receptive if I can say so we tried calling Courtney.

Christian Adams
If you don't mind me asking, what are some of the benefits that you tell them? Are of having virtual tours?

Brenda Chiri
I think most. Let let me talk about real estate. So when I went to teach, yeah, when I went to pitch to the first client, we had the realtor. She had clients from abroad, so most of them wanted to see what she could offer, as, you know, types of listing and spaces. So she had talked about how many, many clients wanted to scout people from around the city to go and actually look and inspect the listings that she had. But once she had that, it can bridge the gap. And actually, most of her clients can see the virtual tours and actually have a sense of presence, you know, in the houses. She was impressed. And I think I think that's the idea. That's how I pitched to her. And yeah, she was quite receptive.

Christian Adams
That's cool. Yeah. A lot of times people will say, well, I can just see pictures of a listing. In my opinion, the problem with photos is you don't get context for the layout of the home. Yeah. You might be able to see like this is a bedroom, this is a picture of the kitchen, but you don't know where all those rooms are in conjunction with each other. So like you said, I love the the wording that you use that gives you a sense of presence in the room.

Basically, the next best thing to actually going and visiting the home in person. And so I think that there's a lot of value there. Have you been able to view, aside from the real estate clients, have you been able to work with furniture companies and how do you get in the door to those furniture companies and start start generating those conversations?

Brenda Chiri
Yeah. So first of all, it's a very funny story. The first furniture showroom I went to, which I really go physically, I did the cold calling and that didn't really work. And so when I went to the showroom and I actually showed the showroom manager what I could do for them and also told them how we could personalize them, the showroom in terms of tagging, he was very, very interested in the tagging because he was quite impressed how we could link a virtual tour and the website where people can actually buy the furniture.

Brenda Chiri
He was quite impressed. And it's an international client per se, So he was quite impressed that also people from maybe another part of Kenya or any other place could see the tour, we could actually take the tour themselves and see the furniture room in a different perspective, their own perspective. He was like, okay, this is something that he can see him escalating the proposal to his superiors and the rest is actually history.

Christian Adams
That's so cool. So did you take a camera with you or an idea or you show him a tour that somebody else had created or how did you when you were educating him on the potential of what this experience could turn out to be? What did that education process look like when you were talking to the show or manager?

Brenda Chiri
So the good thing about Matterport, it has a gallery where you can take maybe a sample of a showroom that they have done, or somebody whose worked in partnership with much of what they can. You can actually see it. So I walked in with my iPad. I decided to sit him down. I showed him the tour and I also gave him the opportunity to take the virtual tour himself so that he can see how easy it is to navigate.

Brenda Chiri
You know, sometimes when you tell somebody a brand new concept, they're like, Oh, how is it? What's the user experience? But once I gave him the tour to actually take it and take a walk-through, he was like, this is quite easy. And he could tell that his potential clients or customers could actually take the virtual tour, and walk through very easily. And yeah, that's how I decided to showcase what I could do.

Christian Adams
That's so cool. Have you had success continuing to try to sell those types of experiences to other customers or was it kind of a one-hit wonder if you will?

Brenda Chiri
I guess also when when you're starting out, you kind of have to give them something. So, for example, in the show, the show, the furniture showroom I went to, I decided to tell them that I want to shoot your showroom. But then once you see the look and you're impressed and everything, then we can talk about now payments and stuff like that.

So at least that gave him, I don't know. It kind of gave him a good feeling about it since he was getting it for free, but not really for free. So he could actually immerse himself in his own furniture room, post-production. So I think that also helped. And I think that's a good approach. If you're trying to look into it as a new company. But now moving forward, since I really have an example to show other showrooms, I think I'll try a different approach.

Christian Adams
You hit the nail right on the head, I think. You can't be afraid to give away a service for free. Yeah. Starting out. And that, you know, once you take that tour to the next customer, you can say, Hey, your competitor down the street actually just got done using this. And it's like, you should strongly consider potentially doing this for you guys.

And this is what you should want is something like this. So it's almost just a means to get your foot in the door and, you know, get some potential clients on the line. But I think that there's a ton of value in especially like you said when you're getting started initially, to not be afraid to offer a service for free for someone.

Brenda Chiri
Yeah, I think that's advice I can give somebody who wants to start venturing into 3D scanning. They should not be afraid to provide a service for free once they start out.

Christian Adams
Yes, for sure. One question that I have for you, Brenda, is what is one of the biggest challenges that you're currently facing as a virtual tour provider? What are some of the hurdles that you're trying to overcome as a company right now?

Brenda Chiri
So I guess I can start by seeing maybe educate, educating the potential clients that I want to work with. I think that's a challenge for us too, because, you know, sometimes the people in authority are a bit old, for lack of a better term. Oh, no, I know.

Christian Adams
I understand completely.

Brenda Chiri
They're a bit more mature, So not mature, but you get what I mean. So the.

Christian Adams
Older generation.

Brenda Chiri
The old.

Christian Adams
Not as familiar with the current technologies that exist. And so when you try and explain to them something, it's almost like a foreign concept. Like you're speaking the language, they just don't understand. Yeah.

Brenda Chiri
So and also meeting them is also sometimes a challenge because let's say if you want to meet a big client, there's no way you can meet the marketing team instantly. So they give you cards, and you try and email them, but I think I'll try another, another way of getting to them by maybe booking appointments. So I think appointments are key.

And I think also another challenge can be once the marketing team has seen and they're impressed about the work. There's a whole chain of command that the approval needs to go through. So I guess you never know if somebody up there is just not ready to embrace change and move away from photography and videography because, you know, virtual tours are a bridge between photography and videography. So yeah, I think that's the main two problems. Yeah.

Christian Adams
Yeah. No, I think in general I would say from the people that I've talked to personally, education is a big problem, especially outside of the state market. I think most people in the real estate industry now if you say Matterport or a 3D tour of a home all know what I'm talking about at this point. But when it comes to these other ancillary customer segments, like a showroom, like trying to create some sort of retail experience or, you know, or a school or an airport or whatever it be, I'm trying to explain the benefit or the service in general.

Christian Adams
I think it is difficult to help them understand and see the value of creating a virtual or custom-branded virtual experience for them. So and that's standard across all the customer segments except for the real estate customer. Yeah, Yeah.

One last question for you before we go. If I know that your new we starting out, you've only been at this, did you say three months?

Brenda Chiri
Yeah, three months. Yeah, I can say three months.

Christian Adams
So I'm sure that you've experienced and learned a lot in these three months. If you were talking to somebody who is considering getting started creating Matterport, what advice would you have for them.

Brenda Chiri
Apart from what we had discussed earlier? They should not be afraid to give one of their services for free. I think something else I could see is research. You know, Matterport is not the only software somebody can use but one. But I can recommend it a thousand times to anybody else. You know, somebody might talk about, oh, you can't really customize.

Brenda Chiri
You can't really do a lot on Matterport. And, you know, thank God for Openhaus because, you know, I was just thinking about like also having 3D vista sorry, or any other software to use in conjunction with Matterport. So I guess I also really, really thank Openhaus for creating just that add-on, just that spice, you know! Once a client sees them like the logos of their brand colors they're really quite impressed.

Brenda Chiri
I think we can see the sense of also like a stamp of like I'm here, you know, they can see their names, you can see their brand colors when whenever we have customized. That was I guess a summary, uh, research, research, research. See what works for you also work within your budgets don't really because you know yeah what within your budget there are so many statistics cameras out there.

Brenda Chiri
But if it's me who's recommending, just go for the best smart approach With 3D.

Christian Adams
There are lots of virtual tour technologies if you will. You would recommend Matterport work within your budget, but you always want to have the right tools.

Brenda Chiri
The Yeah, yes, yes. yes, Because if you're trying to also sell yourself and sell yourself big, you just better align yourself with also the best equipment, best software is out there.

Christian Adams
Yes. No, I agree with you about percentages. It makes me so happy to hear that you've had clients that are happy when you do show them the finished product with their colors, fonts, logos, branding, etcetera, that they're like, Holy cow, this is awesome. And truly, that's why we created Openhaus in the first place was because we landed a couple larger enterprise clients that were like, There's not really an overlay solution for Matterport that looks good enough Esthetically from a user interface standpoint that we want to put our brand on it.

Brenda Chiri
So yeah, yeah.

Christian Adams
Yeah. And so that's really what our focus is, is helping companies or your clients feel good and happy with wanting to share these virtual tours on their website, on their social media channels and email marketing campaigns, etc.. And so it makes me happy to hear that that's how it's been received so far. So anyway, Brenda, we're going to go ahead and wrap this up.

Christian Adams
I appreciate you taking the time to chat with us. And if the people want to reach you in the future, how is the best way to get in contact with you?

Brenda Chiri
I think we can just visit our website. It's www.TwinSpace360.com. You can also email us on twinspace360@gmail.com. On Instagram, just @Twinspace360.

Christian Adams
Awesome! We're so grateful to have representation from the Nairobi area and we wish you the best of luck, and we'll be in touch soon.

Brenda Chiri
Thank you so much.