The Daily Quarterly: You grew up in Slovakia. What’s the climate like there for entrepreneurs and app designers?
Rene Pour: My company, operating in the affiliate marketing business, was built up in Slovakia and I am living there, and Reality Lovers is UK based. The climate in Slovakia is like in every other country, you have to deal with the same issues and topics, some of them may be slightly different, but the nature of managing a company and administration is the same as in other EU countries. One of the biggest challenges is finding good developers and people for technical positions.
TDQ: When did you know you wanted to be an entrepreneur?
RP: This was a longer process in my professional life, and as I was working in telecommunication services and mobile internet services, I found out that there was some space and a possibility within the mobile affiliate network business. I took the chance and started working on it. The basic idea was to do business with a small team of people. However, this changed when we realized the potential in the mobile adult entertainment. To be a good entrepreneur, I think you need to have visions, ideas and a good feeling for business, the mindset of “this is something I know, something I can put together”.
TDQ: What is the best advice you have ever gotten?
RP: “The meaning of life is to be stronger!” If you really take it to heart, being stronger can help you in a lot of situations.
TDQ: What is the worst advice you have ever gotten?
RP: I have never received bad advice. Even if you think you got a bad piece of advice, you can still learn from it. In the end, any advice is good!
TDQ: Who are your influences?
RP: I do not have one specific person who influences me, it´s more situation-based. I am inspired by how people face(d) different situations, like Steve Jobs’ active return to Apple or how a young person like the F1 Racing Driver Sebastian Vettel can put so much focus and passion into his work. Another good example is the Austrian owner of Red Bull and his story of how he has built up and manages the Energy Drink Empire. I am more influenced by stories such as these.
TDQ: Tell us about your virtual reality entertainment site “REALITY LOVERS”
RP: RealityLovers.com was launched in May, 2016. I dare to say that the videos we currently produce are top-notch in terms of technology and content. We are continuously improving and adapt to the latest trends and technical possibilities. Recently, we have started shooting from two angles – POV and Voyeur. To make our customers happy, we have weekly updates (two updates per week) with new movies and furthermore, we are launching two more niche-sites with VR content, focusing on MILF and Tranny Lovers. With RealityLovers.com, we want to give our users a completely new feeling of watching porn, they should feel like they are in the middle of action, directly in the scene. To bring users closer to porn-stars and provide them with more fantasy, entertainment and pleasure compared to just watching 2D porn. We got into a very interesting, new situation during a porn conference in Berlin, where our female customers were complaining that we have not enough female-focused movies on the site. VR made porn interesting for women and opened a new target group for us! A woman also wants to be made happy by men! With RealityLovers.com, we are offering cutting-edge adult entertainment.
TDQ: How did you get into the VR and porn genre?
RP: The idea behind the company’s involvement in virtual reality was born during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona in 2014 where the technology had been presented by major mobile industry players.
Our team’s focus on mobile technologies naturally leads us to continuously seek new, innovative products to diversify the portfolio of company services, which is why the business of virtual reality immediately caught our interest. After researching the specific possibilities in the adult entertainment vertical, we were convinced that VR would play an incredibly important role as a new medium and would have an enormous potential due to a deeper connection with people’s hearts and imaginations. We also believed that VR content would not focus solely on video games and conference calls as some people seemed to think. The market in the adult vertical was quite new and open, and we saw a huge opportunity to enter.
We can say that again, as it already happened in the past, it was porn that moved the needle to bring the VR closer to the masses. Within a few years, the market has evolved to offer an amazing array of high-quality entertainment filmed with the newest VR camera technology. There are several key players on the US and European markets that exclusively produce erotic content in VR, following the goal of putting viewers in the middle of the action instead of behind it and providing immersive, truly emotional experiences.
Reality Lovers went live in May 2016 and within a year accomplished a few milestones including winning a Venus Award for the Most Innovative Product.
TDQ: What project are you working on next?
RP: It´s a secret ;-)! In general, we are focused on producing more and better content, and currently, we are working on our own green room studio, which will enable us to work with the background of the scene. The user can choose the location he/she wants the scene to take place. Further, we are working to move the viewer from the passively watching position deeper into the real virtual reality world. The customer should be able to actively react and make decisions based on the situations in the scene and their body should also be able to feel what is happening there.
TDQ: Where do you see yourself and Reality Lovers in five years?
RP: I see us following our target to be one of the leading brands for adult VR entertainment. VR and Mixed Reality will be main drivers in the sex industry, giving much bigger possibilities to users, eventually coming close to a more interactive virtual sex experience. With RealityLovers.com, we want to offer our customers maximum quality and the best entertainment, also in combination with active sex tools. Personally, I don´t want to replace normal sex between people, which is simply irreplaceable! However, by diving into the world of virtual sex and their possibilities within, we want to provide more entertainment, pleasure and fulfill the desires of adult online consumers.