The magic of PhotoBloom AR | Sunday Observer

The magic of PhotoBloom AR

17 December, 2017
Sladana Mladenovic
Sladana Mladenovic

Young Slovenian, Sladana Mladenovic is the Vice President (Business Development) of PhotoBloom AR, a Texas based company started by young entrepreneur Justin Anthony Lemus.

PhotoBloom AR is the first full-service Interactive Print platform that allows users to make incredible photo products that come to LIFE with movement and sound - using personal or business videos. This is done through the ‘magic of Augmented Reality (AR)’.

In 2006, Slađana won an entrepreneurial fellowship program initiated by the US Department of State and supported by the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF) and went to Austin, Texas to hone her skills in entrepreneurship.

For two weeks Sladana was stationed at Austin’s Capital Factory. There she worked on improving their marketing/business strategy, growing its network of supporters, searching for new partnership opportunities, and met with a ton of experienced mentors getting valuable feedback.

Sladana took part in the Global Entrepreneur Summit (GES) 2017 in Hyderabad, India recently and talked to the Sunday Observer on the PhotoBloom technology and how it could be used to share memories of life and also to develop businesses through video interaction.

Excerpts from the interview:

Q: Tell us about your current venture?

A: I am VP Business Development at PhotoBloom AR, CEO and founder of this company is Justin Anthony Lemus. This is the first full-service Interactive Print platform that allows you to make incredible photo products that come to LIFE with movement and sound - using your videos - all through the magic of Augmented Reality (AR).

Steps: You go to our platform, upload your video, choose a photo from this video that we print and send to you. When you receive it - you download Photobloom AR APP on your mobile device and point it to the picture. Now you can scan the picture and watch the video that you uploaded. Simply put, we’re the shutterfly for your video.

Q: How did you get involved in this venture?

A: It all started with Justin’s successful Kickstarter campaign.

Q: What is your market now? Who are your clients?

A: At present, we are focusing on B2B while we are building a B2C platform; the target audience includes video-makers (gopro enthusiasts), photographers, newspapers, artists and even creative individuals who want to share something interesting and different with their friends and family.

Q: How do you plan to expand this project?

A: With the help of social media and influencers who are dominating it, we will be able to make PhotoBloom AR viral.

Q: What are the concerned areas of business?

A: It could be anything from photo, video, events to newspapers.

Q: How can the newspaper industry use this technique for ads?

A: Newspapers are limited when it comes to space (number of pages and page size) that they have. And now with our help, they can put a lot more content in smaller space. With video we can tell so much more and they can do it with even smaller space. Readers of the newspaper will always have video in their hands if they find the content interesting and want to share it with someone else.

Q: Tell us about your experiences at GES?

A: My experience at GES has been amazing. I am not exaggerating when I say it was by far the best conference I attended. I met a lot of amazing entrepreneurs from all over the world and we are already finding interesting ways of doing business together and also helping each other with our ventures and expanding them to other countries.

I only slept for four hours per night, trying not to miss out on anything that was happening and networking as much as possible.

I thank the organizers who put together such an amazing event for over 1,500 entrepreneurs from all over the world and yet we haven’t felt any confusion or stress.

And last but not least, India is amazing with a lot of potential and I am looking forward to coming here again.

Q: How did you see the enthusiasm?

A: I could feel the enthusiasm the whole time during the conference - from the organisers, to the speakers and also other entrepreneurs. But it also helped that we had a really nice and warm weather so the whole atmosphere was perfect.

Q: What message would you like to convey to the youngsters?

A: Anything is possible as long as you make sure to meet as many amazing people as you can and learn from their stories. They could be your mentors, teachers or other entrepreneurs - someone that inspires you to be better and do more. It will give you the confidence and knowledge to succeed in life (personal or professional).

Make sure to connect to your local organisations, government and your U.S. Embassy. There are a lot of programs that can help you reach your goal! Together we can do so much more. 

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