In July of 2014, I sold off all my furniture, gave away a ton of stuff to good friends, packed the remainders in a handful of FedEx boxes and moved from San Francisco to Orange County to join NextVR as one of its early employees (#4).

At the time, the responses from my friends and family were entirely supportive because they could see the enthusiasm in my eyes — but generally included an air of skepticism or confusion, “Virtual Reality? What’s that for? Something, something Facebook?”

My parents were certainly happy that I was moving back closer to home. They live in Irvine and NextVR is in Laguna Beach. But I could see where worry or apprehension showed through the cracks when they learned of the hours I was working or the response they got from family and friends when they told them that their daughter was working on a startup doing something with goggles that take you into other worlds. (Recently, I traveled to China and learned that the Cantonese words for Virtual Reality directly translate to “Magic Lens” — how awesome is that?!)

Fast forward to today —

From that first time I reached out in delight toward confetti while enjoying a Coldplay concert on stage to today, just months before the tsunami of consumer virtual reality devices releases (Oculus Rift, Playstation VR, HTC Vive, etc).. I have never been more excited about a technology, team, and product I am helping to build.

Virtual reality is the last medium. This is a technology and medium that is one of the most intimate ways to share and experience the world through. It is today’s method of teleportation. NextVR is somewhere that my skills and interests in technology, startups, and humans challenge me to grow more than I could imagine.

Speaking to 500+ virtual reality pioneers at the 2nd annual Proto Awards

I was terrified of public speaking and honestly, am still prone to mad butterflies before audiences today.

However, that doesn’t stop me. Next month on December 3rd, I am returning to speak at the TVOT Show in NYC and will announce several other panels soon.