Ask someone with enough experience

with 360 filmmaking (like Alan), and they'll tell you -- it's not

always been a user-friendly undertaking. From exporting to editing,

making great 360 content could definitely be a chore. Insta360

Marketing Director Michael Shabun visits the podcast to explain how

their products try to make the process seamless for all 360

filmmakers.

Alan: Welcome to the XR for

Business Podcast with your host, Alan Smithson. Today's guest is

Michael Shabun from Insta360. He's the marketing director of Insta360

and leads North American marketing strategy, partnerships and

communication efforts. Michael specializes in helping overseas brands

build their presence in North America. Previously to joining

Insta360, Michael led the Business Development Team for DJI -- that's

the crazy drone company in North America -- where he was instrumental

in moving the company into the public spotlight through a series of

strategic partnerships with entertainment, sports, and enterprise

verticals. If you want to learn more about Insta360 and the awesome

cameras and platform that they've built, you can visit insta360.com.

Michael, welcome to the show, my

friend.

Michael: Thank you so much for

having me, Alan.

Alan: All right. Tell us what

Insta360 is, and how you got involved with it.

Michael: It's been quite a ride that the last couple of years. Insta360 actually started off as a very tiny company in the dorm room of our founder and his name is JK Liu. And what he wanted to do was create a product that was simple and easy to use and had 360-degree capabilities. And he didn't really see an all-in-one product in market like that at the time, four years ago. And so he created the hardware and wrote the software to make 360 truly a consumer product. And in that four years, Insta360 has grown to become the global leader in 360-degree cameras, whether it's on the consumer, prosumer, or professional side. We now have 11 products in market today that, again, range from tiny little portable cameras that are fun for social media, all the way through to cinematic cameras that now shoot 11k. We run the gamut in terms of what cameras are in market, could we cater these cameras, too. And at the end of the day, it's really all about the user experience. So how do you create a powerful, strong camera, 360 camera tool, but also give it the ease of use of a consumer product, and not have to spend too much time in post and all those things?

Alan: Insta360 in my mind really stands out above the crowd, is for you guys to be the number one 360 camera company is saying a lot because there have been a lot of entrants into this market. Samsung, Nokia entered with their OZO, Jaunt -- which recently just got sold to Verizon -- they had their Jaunt One camera. There's been a ton of companies try to come to market with a 360 camera. There was even the Bubble Cam out of Toronto. But where you guys, in my opinion, have really made a big impact -- and I love this about it -- is two things. One, ease of use. I can take a photo, it stitches on my phone. I can take a video, it stitches on my phone. But then, the user experience on my phone is absolutely spectacular. I can create a tiny planet, I can create an animation, I can post it directly to all my social media platforms, instantly. And that's where I think some of the other larger companies have failed. They've created amazing hardware, but they failed on the delivery of the actual experience, from the hardware to the software, out to how people actually want to use it. Where did you guys come up with the idea of the stabilization? Because this is key to VR. One of the key things about the Insta360 platform is that I can run down the street with a 360 camera, and the software automatically stabilizes it. T