The following is an update from Layar CEO Quintin Schevernels.

My first 100 days as CEO of Layar have been very exciting!

When I started we launched our online self service tool for the print industry; the Layar Creator. This gives the opportunity to companies from all over the world to make their print products interactive within 1 minute. Now they can add the power of the internet and mobile directly to their print products. They now can give the opportunity to their users to watch or read additional content, buy products, share articles and more - all on top of their print products, giving print a new dimension. 

In less than 100 days over 15,000 Creator accounts have been created, including companies from over 100 different countries, ranging from Japan to Argentina and from Sweden to South Africa. These companies are making their newspapers, in-store promotions, magazines, business cards, packaging or annual reports interactive with the Layar Creator.

Also we launched version 7.0 of the Layar App. This version is a big improvement. We made the app as easy and simple as possible and made Interactive Print the central focus. Based on initial feedback, the 7.0 launch has been a big success. We welcomed our 25th million download on the 17th of September, reaching a major milestone. And this number is growing every day with over 35.000 new downloads from all over the world. 24/7!

Big numbers. In a market that is emerging. This is just the beginning.

Over the last 100 days, I spent a lot of time with people involved with Layar. The founders, the management team, the Layar crew and of course our launching customers (just to name a few). We also did a lot of research. Research on the market, our users and our own statistics. Based on this it became clear that interest in Interactive Print is high. Therefore, Layar is ready to accelerate with Interactive Print.

Over the coming months we will focus on building best practices. We want to help customers in the print industry translate the possibilities of Interactive Print to their business objectives. We want to create a steep learning curve. This will create valuable insights that will help create the best possible products and the market to mature.

In order to take this next step, we will make a few changes:

• We will focus our product development on Interactive Print. Over the past years we have been exploring AR. This has been a very valuable journey. A journey that gave us a lot of insights and brought us to the strong position where we are today. However we are still a small company. We see a lot of opportunities in Interactive Print and we want to focus on these. One of the consequences is that we will stop the further development of Stiktu. Also we will strengthen our development team in Amsterdam and will be recruiting for developers.
• We want to lead innovation in Interactive Print. We believe that now is the time to add interactivity to print. With over 25 million downloads of the Layar App and the early adoption of the Layar Creator, we are in a very strong position for this. However, the possibilities of Interactive Print are for a lot of companies still a big unknown. Therefore we will do additional investments in marketing, business development and customer service to create awareness for Interactive Print and help customers get started. Amongst others, we recently decided to open an office in NYC (headed by Maarten) and we are recruiting for a V.P. of Marketing. Over the next months we will also be reinforcing our partner network.
• Last but not least, a maturing market and a changing strategy mean changing roles. Two of our founders and shareholders, Raimo and Claire, will soon have new roles. Together with co-founder Maarten, they brought Layar to where it is today and deserve tremendous respect for this. Now that they have brought the management in for the next phase, both Raimo and Claire feel comfortable to change their involvement. This means that from the 1st of January next year both Claire and Raimo will no longer be involved with Layar on a day-to-day basis. Raimo will of course continue to be a member of our Supervisory Board and keep on acting as sparring partner for our product strategy. Claire will stay involved as advisor to continue to represent our company around the world and show all the opportunities that AR and Layar have to offer.

My first 100 days at Layar have been very exciting. I have the strong feeling there is much more exciting times to come. We will keep you up to date!

The following is a note from Layar co-founder Raimo van der Klein.

Dear friends,

It is Layar’s mission to connect our digital lives with the physical world. In 2011, we identified that, together with the print industry, we can actually bring our digital lives to magazines, posters, newspapers, brochures, catalogues and more. It is in this vein that we have developed new products like the recently launched Layar Creator, Layar Connect API and Stiktu.

Layar is entering the next phase within its life-cycle: our base-camp from which we can build a profitable, sustainable and relevant company. With this change comes some new roles and new faces.

Today, I am stepping down as CEO of Layar.

I’m not leaving Layar, however. I will continue as Creative Director, focusing more on our next generation products and new business opportunities. I will further take-up a seat in Layar’s Supervisory Board. With this move I can keep doing the things that I really love, and that is to innovate and shape new markets and products.

It has been an absolute privilege to lead the most exciting company in the mobile space the last three years. I want to thank everybody at Layar for this amazing opportunity.

With that, I am happy and very excited to introduce Quintin Schevernels as our new CEO. Quintin is a business professional with a wealth of experience in growing companies and building businesses. Read our press release for more information about this change and about Quintin.

Raimo

Earlier this week, Layar CEO Raimo van der Klein spoke with Anita de Beijl of Sanoma Media’s vtwonen at Mobile Convention Amsterdam. The two shared statistics and insights from vtwonen’s recent campaign using Layar to augment the pages of its magalogue.

Embedded above is the entirety of this presentation, which was given in Dutch (sorry non Dutchies). Click here to learn more about the vtwonen project!

Thanks to MoCoAm for letting us record and post this presentation.

The following is an entry from Layar CEO Raimo van der Klein.

Last year, Peter Vesterbacka from Rovio asked me to present in Helsinki, Finland at Slush, the leading startup conference in Northern Europe.

Peter is a great supporter of the Finnish startup scene. Helsinki is not an uncommon place for me being half Finnish and having worked for Nokia earlier in my career, but the startup scene is certainly new to me.

I was kindly invited to visit Startup Sauna at the Aalto University, a great hub for startups that now even extends the Finnish borders and has links to the Baltics. I was really impressed with what I saw. I met many super ambitious Finns hungry to conquer the world and a healthy ecosystem between governments, schools, industries and entrepreneurs.

To me, it seemed to be very fertile ground for people with great new products in the technology sector. Recently, a video of my presentation became available online, so I thought it would nice to share it. In my talk I provided answers to the questions that young startups ask me most. These include:

• How did you get started?
• How did you get funding?
• How did you get traction?
• How do you build a great team?
• How do you earn money?

So check out the video below or watch it on YouTube. I want to thank the Slush11 team for being extremely great hosts and for organizing an amazing inspiring event. Also, thanks to Peter for inviting me.

Recently, we revealed our new Layar Vision extension and announced the Creation Challenge. Now, the Layar Vision beta is available and the Challenge is open for submissions!

“Augmented Reality is at the stage where it can add real value to existing businesses,” said Maarten Lens-FitzGerald, Layar co-founder and General Manager. 

“This is what we are focusing on with our challenge; we’re not looking for just a cool layer using Layar Vision, but for creative, smart business ideas that will provide lasting value for both user and publisher.”

We’re giving away a total of $55,000 in cash to 10 developers who create the most useful, creative or otherwise impressive experiences with Layar Vision; we want to see content that really makes us say “Wow!”

You can now download the Android APK beta and begin building with Layar Vision! Public versions for both Android and iPhone will be available in the coming months.

Please submit your Creation Challenge layer anytime between now and September 15th. After the submission deadline, we will determine the finalist short-list and announce it a week later.

Our internationally-acclaimed jury of AR enthusiasts, including: Layar co-founder and CEO Raimo van der Klein, Wired UK editor-at-large Ben Hammersley, sci-fi author and AR wizard Bruce Sterling, former AdMob evangelist Russell Buckley and author/futurist Gerd Leonhard, will judge and rank the finalists to determine the top 10 ranking.

Important Challenge dates:

• August 15: Submissions open
• September 15th – Submission deadline
• September 22nd – Finalists announced
• October 3rd – Winners announced

Please visit our Layar Creation Challenge page for complete rules and details, peruse our documentation, and direct any questions or comments about the Challenge to Challenge[at]Layar[dot]com.

Good luck!