Simula Master Plan

Simula Master Plan

1 Simula.Godot

1.1 Simula releases Godot Haskell bindings for publicity.

There are people in the gaming community who are interested in Haskell Godot bindings. Announcing this in

• /r/godot
• /r/haskell
• /r/haskellgamedev

will be a good way to get some short-term publicity for Simula. Best case scenario for Simula: picking up a Godot enthusiast as a new contributor.

1.2 Simula achieves fundraising goals.

Simula needs to achieve the following fundraising goals by end of summer:

1. David salary. David should be paid a full-time salary.
2. Ludvig bounty. A bounty should be paid to Ludvig in appreciation for his contributions. (Ludvig should also have a path towards joining the Simula team full-time if he’s interested; depending on how well our fundraising goes, this could be a relatively simple process).
3. Zac bounty. A bounty should also be paid to Zac Slade; his feedback/alternative perspective is objectively good for the project.

Paths to fundraising. To do this, Simula has the following paths to fundraising:

1. ICOs/blockchain activity. Trey is still working on this stuff and appears to be on the cusp of hitting more funding by end of summer. If you’re curious about this just message me. The thing that is really needed is another crypto “boom” (in particular: a boom in the price of ETH). Proceeds from these investments will flow back into Simula.
2. YC. Simula will submit another YC application in ~4 months.
3. Traditional fundraising. If other options fail us, Trey and I will raise money from investors in person.

(2) and (3) will be fruitless if we don’t finish a usable MVP and start building a user growth curve.

1.3 Simula completes usable Godot MVP.

A “usable” MVP is one that at least one person can use for more than 1hr/day. This is the most important item in the Master Plan; without it, nothing else is possible.

2 Simula.2D

2.1 Simula considers changing its name.

Simula’s name can be criticized for

1. Coinciding with the name of the 1960s OO programming language
2. Being named for developers and not for users
3. Having an ominous connotation

See here for the argument that the names of companies should have positive, user-oriented names. David and I discussed the name “Manifold” at one point, but I’m not sure that this is user-oriented enough.

2.2 Simula UX is optimized for the effective use of 2D applications.

Before Simula can move onto 3D applications, it needs to be able to manage 2D applications very well. This could potentially include:

1. Pointing/Typing UX. Basic but crucial: Simula should figure out a suitable pointing and typing UX that is as natural as possible.
2. Usage of HMD Camera. Simula users should be able to use the camera located in front of the the HTC Vive to see their mouse and keyboard.
3. Window tiling UX. Similar to Safespaces, Simula should figure out a way to make window tiling in 3-space as natural as possible.
4. Text resolution. Text resolution remains an important feature of a competetent VR desktop experience; Simula should consider if there are things it can do to improve text resolution for 2D applications.
5. Environments. Users should be able to choose between different environments (i.e., outer space, a beach, a virtual office, etc) when using Simula.
6. 3D Pen. I find being able to sketch notes in the air while working (like in Tilt Brush) to be incredibly useful; if other early adopters are like me, something like this should be implemented in Simula relatively early.

2.3 Simula expands compatibility to more HMDs.

Simula needs to expand its compatibility layer to more HMDs than just the HTC Vive (including in particular the Oculus Rift).

2.4 Simula acquires 10,000 active users.

Simula should ideally have 10,000 active users (or a monopoly on the VR ∩ Linux market) before moving onto the next phase. An “active user” is someone who uses Simula for more than 1hr/day. Assuming Simula starts with 1 active user and growths at 50% weekly, then

1 ⋅ (1 + 0.5)^n = 10,000 ⇒ n ≈ 22 weeks

meaning it will take us approximately half a year to grow Simula from 1 to 10,000 users under these assumptions.

Growth should be organic. We should not plan on using heavy advertising/marketing in this phase [fn:1]; instead, our initial growth should be entirely organic and driven by early adopters wanting to use a product that is 10x better than what it replaces. Some acceptable strategies for growth at this stage:

1. Conference talks
2. Reddit
3. Blog posts
4. Website
5. HN

If this turns out to be a niave approach to initial user growth, then we’ll change our strategy.

[fn:1] One exception might be accelerating and publicizing the release of SimulaOS as “the world’s first VR Linux distro”.

3 Simula.OS

3.1 Simula is made compatable with at least one standalone HMD.

Simula will need to pick an exemplar HMD and ensure that Simula is capable of running on it. This will be crucial for SimulaOS.

3.2 Simula announces SimulaOS, the world’s first VR Linux distro.

Let D be a Linux distro. Naively, SimulaOS will be something like

SimulaOS = (Simula's Window Manager) + (D) - (D's Window Manager)

with drivers pre-installed for standalone HMDs and their peripheral accesories.

3.3 Simula extends compatibility layer to AR headsets.

Simula will need to extend a compatibility layer to AR HMDs.

3.4 Simula partners with manufacturer(s) to ship standalone HMDs running SimulaOS.

Simula will not be able to achieve its distribution upper bound without shipping as the pre-installed OS on the HMDs of the future.

4 Simula.3D

4.1 Simula develops the first 3D application on its new protocol.

Simula will need to develop a VR app protocol (a la motorcar) and build at least one sample application on top of it. Some ideas from discussions with Ludvig and David:

1. 3D file system
2. 3D programming environment (see, i.e., Luna).
3. 3D computing environment (i.e., Mathematica in VR).
4. 3D spreadsheet
5. 3D asset explorer
6. 3D email client
7. 3D paint (Tilt Brush clone)

4.2 Simula promotes the development of other 3D (office) applications on its protocol.

Thesis: The most important applications for Simula to initially develop and promote are not games but work and office applications.

1. New VR Applications. A proliferation of new (office) VR apps need to be developed on Simula.
2. Existing VR Applications. We also need to ensure that important existing VR (office) applications are compatible with Simula. For example, Simula might ensure that a native JanusVR (3D web browser) is compatible with our OS.

4.3 Simula organizes a [token-based] VR app marketplace.

Simula will use this marketplace as a way to (i) incentivize the creation of new VR applications on its platform and (ii) monetize its operations.

5 Simula.Hardware

5.1 Simula considers expanding its business activities to hardware.

Product ideas:

• Standalone HMDs
• BCI input devices (i.e., EEG “caps” that allow people to think-type at speeds comparable to QWERTY keyboards)
• VR haptic accessories
• Anything else that furthers Simula’s long-term vision
  • Simula’s long-term vision: allow people to be more productive on portable HMDs than they currently are on PCs & laptops.