It started as research. Back when Holodex was still a wild idea taking shape in my head, I threw myself into studying webcam technology. I obsessed over how it all worked—the lighting, the framing, the interfaces, the quiet intimacy of it all. I wanted to understand the mechanics, but also the mood. The subtle psychology behind it. So I went where the action was: Live Jasmin.

I told myself it was purely academic, just part of the job. But then I met her.

Working as an Eskimo—a term we jokingly used for our team in the frigid workplace atmosphere—was always an exercise in endurance. Yet, amidst the daily grind, there were moments of unexpected brilliance, like when Andrey, the Holodex developer, dropped a bombshell.

Things took an even darker turn in 2016 when an unexpected email landed in my inbox. It was from a Holodex fan, asking about our “new VR technology.”

New VR technology? This was news to me. Intrigued and slightly alarmed, I dug deeper, only to be presented with an article in Vice magazine. There it was: Holodex VR. The name, the concept—it was everything I had dreamed of, the kind of groundbreaking innovation that had lived rent-free in my head for years. And the Vice article? The kind of glowing publicity I’d spent sleepless nights chasing.