This is a guest post by Chris Winterhoff, who is an expert in Growth. Currently Chris is a fractional Growth leader and growth advisor at Perceptycs.
Previously he headed Growth at Onto, a UK platform for all-inclusive electric car subscriptions. And was also Head of Marketing at Mashroom, which covers the UK housing industry.
Guest Author: Chris Winterhoff
The iPhone launch in 2007 ushered in incredible wealth for entrepreneurs. Today’s launch of the Apple Vision Pro will do the same for this generation.
Here’s how I see it playing out:
The Apple Vision Pro competes on two angles. Both are huge, but the second one is massively overlooked imho.
1️⃣ The TV 📺
This is the obvious one.
The TV is no longer the centre of home entertainment. Fortnite, Phone, Nintendo Switch and others have eaten away time spent on TV.
We play games online with friends. We watch Netflix, TikTok and YouTube on our phones. Often the TV is only somewhat involved with media consumption. Media entertainment has gone from multiplayer mode to single player mode.
Why does the Vision Pro trump the TV?
It’s more immersive.
You can watch on a bigger screen (projected out into whatever space you set in the Vision Pro).
And you don’t have to fight for the remote.
The last one is key. There’s so much content out there, that all tastes are catered for and family members can now opt for their own entertainment, but still be in the same room with Family/Friends.
The first offering of apps and games on the Vision Pro is going to be weak. Despite the initial snub from Netflix and YouTube, the Vision App universe will grow.
The iPhone also didn’t launch with an App Store.
2️⃣ The physical office 🏢
We’ve seen most companies clamour for a Return to Office because it allegedly fosters team cohesion.
But what if you could pop on your Vision Pro and create a virtual office?
Go see your colleagues in-person, but virtually.
Meta has been working on this for some time and supposedly it’s quite realistic (I’ve not tested it). If Apple and Meta can make inroads, companies won’t have much of a leg to stand regarding a return to the physical office.
Vision Pro prices will come down and competing manufacturers will jump in to make it more affordable. But even if they didn’t, the average UK office cost per person is almost £6,000 a year. The Vision Pro is likely to cost £3,500 in the UK so the cost advantage is already there (and there are likely going to be lower priced Apple models coming out in future).
I think the Vision Pro and other products like it could shift the balance towards remote working.
____
There is a lot of speculation in this piece.
No one knows the future.
But I think the Vision Pro will be the next wave that will enable more accessible VR applications.
Startups paying attention will be able to build products and generate significant growth precisely because there’s a lot of scepticism around.
Back in 2007, lots of people were skeptical that a high priced smartphone could defeat Blackberry, Nokia and Motorola. And you know how that played out.
