MY STARTUP JOURNEY: CHALLENGES AND THE BATTLE FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
YC Startup School and the co-founder matching platform After completing the YC Startup School last summer, I found myself on a relentless pursuit of a co-founder and an exciting project to join as a technical partner. I figured it would be share the startup journey with someone else. Eager to connect with like-minded entrepreneurs, I turned to a co-founder matching platform that not only provided a platform for collaboration but also organized online matching events.
ACE TRACE SOCIAL FEED AND 2022 UPDATES
2022 summary A lot of things have happened in the last year: I’ve hired several ML engineers to help me with the object-tracking algorithm. I’ve hired two interns. One for computer graphics research and another - for an alternative tracking algorithm research I learned a lot at the YC Startup School. I met a dozen local indie founders from Boston. I met a hundred other founders at the YC cofounder-matching platform.
HOW TO BUILD AND USE A DYLIB IN IOS APP
In Ace Trace App, I apply different curve fitting algorithms to create a smooth line and draw it in a video. In order to draw a realistic ball golf trajectory, it needs to follow the physics of the ball flight. There are many articles about specific forces affecting the ball. In the end, calculating coordinates at a time point comes down to solving differential equations with these forces and predicting the trajectory by experimental data.
SUMMER STATUS UPDATE
For the past few months I’ve been working non-stop on two things: Finding product-market-fit for Ace Trace Searching for like-minded people to build a new company together. For the Ace Trace my main focus was: UX improvements to increase the value of the product and hopefully retention Experimenting with the pricing and purchase options to allow more users to enjoy the app on one hand, and to target professional users separately to offer premium features for a higher price Delivering the automatic tracking feature for disc golf users to increase the value of the app, and enable B2B sales in the future.
SAN FRANCISCO STARTUP CONFERENCE
What makes Silicon Valley a unique place? It’s supposed to not have seasons and very high prices - that’s what I was told all the time. And what about big Californian taxes? However, for some reason, I always see this place in a completely different light. Day 0 I flew from sunny Boston to rainy San Francisco. And it’s not a joke, apparently, I managed to choose the worst possible week to fly there, which is technically not my fault - I was only trying to attend a conference.
MATRICES AND CAMERA POSE ESTIMATION
Camera pose estimation One of the essential features of Ace Trace app (a video editor) is to figure the camera motion as well as zoom changes. This enables the app to pin an object trajectory to a certain point in the physical world coordinate system vs working in the camera viewport. The process of estimation of the camera pose is called SLAM (Simultaneous Localization And Mapping), and here we’re are going to talk specifically about Visual SLAM, meaning that we’re only using the visual information to estimate the camera pose.
REALITY HACK IS OVER
Phew! 5 days have passed, and it feels like it’s been a year, and at the same time, I cannot believe it’s already the next week. Weird but fun time travel experience! I decided to join a project about a pitch training game. The idea is to make it fun to practice pitch recognition, which is essential for musicians of all sorts. The team was a fun group of very different people:
GETTING READY FOR MIT REALITY HACK
MIT reality hack is about to start in a couple of days, and I’m excited to join many talented people to build something beautiful this week! It’s time to get a fresh glance at the AR technology - it must have developed significantly since my last project. I’ve created a prototype of a VR frisbee game that allows you to throw virtual frisbees that fly as they would fly in the real world.
I QUIT MY JOB
I quit my job a week ago. It’s ironic because, it’s probably the worst possible time right now to be unemployed if you are from where I am. Because of the war. However, the decision has been made, and now I enjoy the freedom of being in charge of my own life. The sense of responsibility goes along with the strong desire to just take a break and do as little as possible enjoying free time.