Venture for America Company Spotlight with TurboSquid, located in New Orleans, Louisiana:
TurboSquid is:
- The largest library of 3D products for sale in the world.
- A clearinghouse for digital artists to make money selling their content.
- A place to find premium plug-ins for 3D software applications.
- A forum for 3D professionals to exchange ideas.
- A production tool to help digital artists more rapidly find, preview and acquire essential content.
CheckMate Ambassador at TurboSquid, Michele Bousquet, tells us more:
1. Tell us about TurboSquid.
The original idea for an online marketplace began in 1995, with New Orleans natives Matt and Andy Wisdom envisioning a world where computing involved infinitely fast CPUs, infinitely big hard drives, and infinitely fast network speeds, but it wasn’t until 2000 that TurboSquid was founded. At the time, there were some other sites around for people to exchange 3D models, but TurboSquid was the first to set up a system for artists to buy and sell them. That year, the company was announced at Siggraph, the largest computer graphics conference in North America.
2. Name a fun fact about TurboSquid.
The digital 3D models on our site are often mistaken for real items! We even have a funny video about it:
3. What does your ideal Venture Fellow look like?
Passionate about computer graphics or a related field like game development. Love of creativity. Interested in coming up with, and discussing, wild and crazy ideas for expansion and promotion.
4. What does the daily office routine look like?
Come in. Brawl ensues in kitchen over bagels someone has brought in. Cream cheese everywhere! Meeting. Write some copy for a blog post. Nerf gun fight in next room, dodge a flying plastic disk. Look at sales statistics. Someone brought in one of those flying sharks and is flying it around in the hall. Meeting. Big argument with head of development over a new feature I want. Hes wrong, and I am going to prove it next meeting with a bunch of Analytics data. Ha! Chex mix. More work. Go home.
Additional thoughts and comments:
TurboSquid is a unique place. Most everyone here loves the graphics business, and were passionate about making the 3D world a better place.
To find out more about TurboSquid:
Web: http://www.turbosquid.com
FB: http://www.facebook.com/TurboSquid3DModels
Twitter: @TurboSquid
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TurboSquid