A virtual giveaway

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This article was published 13/07/2016 (3365 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It sounds like something a multibillion-dollar multinational corporation might do to stimulate global demand.

But it’s actually a small Winnipeg company, Tek Gear, that’s giving away a new mobile virtual reality head-mounted display for free.

The unit is called FreeHMD.

Tek Gear is the operating entity for the incredibly enterprising Winnipeg technology entrepreneur, Tony Havelka, and his four associates.

When the free offer started Tuesday morning, the website — freehmd.com — crashed with every thousand or so orders.

Havelka has been making head-mounted displays longer than the players in the latest iteration of the VR boom have been living.

In the ’90s Havelka’s former company, Liquid Image, was making $10,000 VR headsets for the military, medical and industrial clients

“We have watched VR grow, collapse and watched it grow again and then we’ve watched it not deliver on promises,” Havelka said.

He was disillusioned with the big buzz about the release of the Oculus Rift equipment that came on the market at a much higher price point than anyone expected and likely priced the casual enthusiasts out of the market. (The Oculus headset retails for US$599, provided you have a computer that can handle it, which could set you back another $1,500 or more.)

With extensive experience building and selling all sorts of specialized technical hardware for the past 20-plus years — Tek Gear runs an online store for all sorts of niche electronics some of which Havelka and his team developed themselves — he found a factory in China that can make the headsets cheap enough for Havelka to give them away (shipping not included).

“The reason we are giving them away… it’s not just because we are generous,” Havelka said. “What we are trying to do is continue on and build the market.”

It’s also Havelka’s attempt at a stylized marketing campaign for some of his own products.

“Everyone who wants one gets one,” he said.

Unlike other similar giveaways, Tek Gear has not capped the number of units its prepared to ship.

“For us, the end game is playing the percentages,” he said. “Maybe one quarter of a per cent will want input devices.”

In 2008, Havelka acquired a company that made a small handheld keyboard that Tek Gear re-engineered into various iterations including a wireless version, called the Twiddler. It has sold thousands of them for about US$200 each. They could be configured to be used with a VR head-mounted display.

“A small percentage will want a higher-end version, much higher end than what is out there now. We have that in the pipe,” he said. “So that’s our game.”

Lesley Klassen, one of the founders of the Campfire Union — the Winnipeg virtual reality content house — is a fan of what Havelka is doing. (Campfire Union’s virtual reality relaxation product, Yana Virtual Relaxation, is being included in the FreeHMD.)

“I think it’s really cool, actually giving people who may be skeptical an opportunity to try a head-mounted display,” said Klassen. “I also like the idea that he is doing the hardware freemium model rather than software. It’s a little riskier but an interesting play.”

Havelka has always done things on his own and established all sorts of partnerships along the way. He has never pitched to venture capitalists and the company is entirely self-financed.

In addition to hardware items, Havelka has also designed and marketed a streaming video service for children called Ameba TV with more than 100,000 subscribers. He’s now partnering with others who want to use the Ameba platform to launch their own content streaming service, like a mini-Netflix.

But Havelka said he’s never been able to figure out the best way to market his products and services.

“Marketing has been biggest bugbear for us,” he said.

He said rather than think about how much it costs him to make the FreeHMDs (less than $10 each) he said he is approaching it just like any other marketing expense, such as a $20,000 trip to a trade show that might otherwise be spent building new products.

“If we took some work to an engineer and they came back with a circuit board in a shoe box, that would not be acceptable,” he said. “But it seems no one can guarantee success on the marketing side other than best efforts and something those best efforts yield nothing.”

He wouldn’t say just how much Tek Gear will spend on the FreeHMD (other than he doesn’t think it will be $1 million) but he believes it will be a good investment in the company and in the development of the virtual reality market.

“This is a guaranteed effort and guaranteed results.”

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca