Meet Michael Libby

We were lucky to catch up with Michael Libby recently and have shared our conversation below.

Michael, so good to have you with us today. We’ve always been impressed with folks who have a very clear sense of purpose and so maybe we can jump right in and talk about how you found your purpose?

I found my purpose shortly after I got out of grad school and was deployed onto a job site in Abu Dhabi. I had just gotten a master’s degree in Interactive Media & Game Design from USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, where I was first exposed to and then deeply immersed in a lot of the new media technology that we’re hearing about so much these days— real-time game engines like Unity and Unreal Engine, virtual reality and augmented reality, and machine learning. It’s still one of the best graduate programs out there if you want to go learn how to make video games.

All of my classmates at the program were big gamers. That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to do, though. I had already been working for a few years after college as a theme park designer, and I had a hunch that video games, which were already a major entertainment medium, were going to start becoming even more dominant and were going to start crossing over into other mediums like movies and theme parks.

During grad school, while I was learning this stuff, I started thinking about how these technologies could be applied to the next generation of theme parks and location-based entertainment experiences. Sure enough, shortly after graduating, I got a gig helping to develop the Warner Bros. World theme park in Abu Dhabi. I arrived onsite when there were about six months to go before the grand opening, and I immediately was immersed in some of the immense project challenges that were happening onsite during those final months.

Someone once told me that when you go to grad school and learn a bunch of new technology and tools, you graduate into the work force and realize that the real world is about ten years behind the things you’ve been studying and experimenting with in a risk-free academic environment. I found this to be very true.

There were many smart people on site troubleshooting some very complex technical integration problems, but I realized that this part of the industry hadn’t yet really been exposed to game engines, and were still solving these problems in traditional ways. I realized that many of these problems could have actually been avoided with proper use of real-time digital tools like VR pre-visualization, but most of the industry just wasn’t thinking about that quite yet.

My background in theme park design made my approach to learning game engines a bit different from normal game designers— I was focused on how they could impact the real world and the built environment. So when I was working on that big project, I had a very real in-the-moment epiphany that I was in the right place at the right time with the right knowledge to possibly disrupt my entire industry. This realization is when I found my purpose and started down the road of being an entrepreneur.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

My company Worldbuildr is focused on creating “digital twins” of immersive, location-based entertainment and the built environment— things like theme parks, museum exhibits, brand experiences, and live concerts. Our software allows our users to upload a 3D architectural model and start sketching in what the actual guest experience might be like inside that piece of architecture. This includes authoring the “show control,” or the timeline of lighting, media, and audio cues that happens inside of these attractions.

Our software also allows developers of these attractions to simulate things like crowd flow, guest spending, construction costs, and return-on-investment. These are some of the trickiest things to predict— many of these attractions take their best guess, then have to hastily make changes post-opening. If the Worldbuildr software is used correctly, there are no surprises— the digital twin simulation reveals any potential issues that might arise in the real-world version.

Most importantly, we’re trying to make the software as easy to use as possible. We don’t just want it to be for professional designers… we want it to be for consumers, too! So we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on our UI design, making it look and feel more like a video game than a professional design tool. We want Worldbuildr to be a collaborative design tool for experiences, almost like Roblox, but for the real world.

Our closed beta is currently underway, and we’re well on our way to releasing our full product. Stay tuned!

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

I’d say that the first two are connected— Storytelling and Pitching/Presenting.

I learned these while I was in college. I was a Creative Writing major in college, where I studied literature and was formally taught story structure, character development, and things of that sort. But simultaneously, I was working weekends at Disneyland, “skippering” boats on the Jungle Cruise ride and giving guests on-board a tour of the jungle, complete with jokes, puns, and ad-libs. I basically got a few thousand reps doing standup comedy while driving a boat… I like to call this my second major!

It was working in guest service at Disneyland where I learned incredibly important things like customer relations, how to read body language, how to phrase something in just the right way and just the right tone of voice, and how to deal with hecklers. It absolutely cured my stage fright and public speaking anxiety, too.

These are things that have stayed with me to this day. I’ve learned that how you pitch an idea is just as important as the content of the idea itself. You need to use storytelling to pitch an idea— its the ONLY way to make people care and buy-in to what you are trying to sell them on.

The third skill would probably be coding! As I mentioned above, I was a Creative Writing major in college and didn’t know the first thing about coding until I started grad school at age 29. Learning how to code is like playing an instrument or learning a foreign language— the older you are when you start, the harder it is. So learning how to code was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, and I’m still not great at it. But I don’t have to be! I learned enough to have an understanding of how software and interactivity works, which is how much of the world works these days! Even with generative A.I. making coding easier these days, you still need to have a good foundation of knowledge to use it.

Honestly, the biggest surprise to me was how creative it can be to code something! There are many different ways to accomplish the same task with computer code, so I was really surprised to learn that in some ways its just another form of creative writing.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

This is one I wish I had learned much earlier. I had always been a “grind it out” kind of guy, who was willing to take anything on and work harder than anyone to achieve my goal. But sometimes that’s not smart, efficient, or even healthy.

This is especially true about starting a company. Even as a founder, I’ve had to learn that I can’t do it all myself. Collaboration is so critical, and finding the right collaborators will make or break your endeavor.

It’s always difficult to be objective about yourself, but being able to self-diagnose the areas or skills that you AREN’T good at is one of the most important things you’ll ever do. Then, find collaborators who DO have that skill or expertise. Then make sure you get along, have compatible personalities, and are able to share the same vision of what you are building.

Not only will it help you divide and conquer the workload more efficiently, but it will also give you a sounding board when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Just talking through a problem with someone that shares the same goal but has a complementary but different perspective can be the best stress therapy there is.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://bit.ly/Worldbuildr
• Instagram: https://bit.ly/WorldbuildrInstagram
• Facebook: https://bit.ly/WorldbuildrFacebook
• Linkedin: https://bit.ly/2tnqfrQ
• Twitter: https://bit.ly/WorldbuildrTwitter
• Youtube: https://bit.ly/WorldbuildrYoutube