WoW Women in VR and AR | Helen Brown and Harriet Grant, co-founders and directors of 3Cubed

Interview by Marija Butkovic (@MarijaButkovic)

After a 10 year career as a professional and international beach volleyball player, Helen Brown decided to transfer her skills into business. She has found the recruitment industry to perfectly suit her drive and determination, and has an exceptional record in a relatively short time. Helen strives to be the best at everything that she does.

Harriet Grant has been working within recruitment and executive search since 2008. She’s worked with an array of clients both nationally and internationally and has successfully built high performing and market leading teams. Harriet has also worked in business development supporting the growth of a number of companies and is eager to be a key player in this rapidly developing industry.

Helen and Harriet are co-founders and directors of 3Cubed, where they work with with small and large firms within the VR/AR and AI marketplace, to help them find and hire top talent to grow their businesses. 

What is the idea behind 3Cubed and how did you come up with it? When did all start and do you have other members in your team?

3Cubed was established in summer 2016 with the sole intension of becoming the first international executive search firm working solely within the VR/AR industry. Helen and I worked together within recruitment, running a successful desk, for several years prior to any discussions of starting our own business. When we met a mutual contact, Alex Perry, now the third founder of 3Cubed, we quickly realised that we wanted to build a business in this exciting, new and rapidly developing space. We are all passionate about building a company that steers clear of all the typical “recruitment” stereotypes; creating a company that is built on honesty, integrity and professionalism. It is important to us that we become a trusted and effective partner to our clients, supporting their growth at this crucial time.

We’ve recently taken on 4 new member of the 3Cubed team; Adam, Connor, Mary and Zoe taking our team to 7. We are now excited by the opportunity of being able to expand further within this space.

How long did it take you to be where you are now?

It’s an ongoing journey which is heading in the right direction. For us our key focus is developing strong, long term relationships with clients and candidates internationally.

What was the biggest obstacle?

Probably the fact that this is still a relatively young industry and therefore there just aren’t enough people with the skillsets and experience required. We’re finding that many of our clients are searching for the same skillsets and the candidate pool is still very small, although this is growing every day.

What are your biggest achievements to date?

We’re really proud of the amount of positive feedback we’ve been receiving from both candidates and clients in such a new industry. As above, the most important thing for us was to defy all of those typical “recruitment” stereotypes and so many people have recognised the fact that we really different in the way in which we conduct ourselves and in the service that we provide.

What are the challenges of being a female founder and entrepreneur in AR/VR?

For us this has been an incredibly positive and rewarding experience, and we’ve been really well received. From our perspectives, we’ve met so many incredibly talented and inspiring women in this industry. Although there still far fewer women in tech than there are men, what is apparent to us is that the women within the industry are highly sought and respected. As female founders, we feel that it is our responsibility to encourage more and more women to enter the AR/VR space and will do all that we can to promote this.

What is the most important piece of advice you can give to all female founders and female entrepreneurs in AR/VR out there?

From what we are seeing, as an industry, diversity is celebrated and sought after. If you want to succeed, you’ll need to be confident, tenacious and assertive but if you’re willing to work hard and have the drive then you can achieve anything. Helen and I have a longstanding joke that if you just keep on peddling you can make anything happen.  

Who are your 3 inspirational women in AR/VR?

There’s just too many inspiring and inspirational women out there, making a huge impact in this industry for us to name only 3. However the women who lead the women in VR groups are doing amazing work and are such inspiring leaders, helping to increase the numbers of women within the VR/AR industry as a whole. In addition to this Muki Kulhun and Tanya Laird are both incredible women within the industry and have been a huge support of 3Cubed since the start.

Website: http://3cubed.tech/

LinkedIn: Helen Brown 

LinkedIn: Harriet Grant

Twitter: @3CubedSearch

Facebook: 3Cubed

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, co-founder of Women of Wearables and Kisha Smart Umbrella. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship and diversity. Visit marijabutkovic.co.uk or follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic @Women_Wearables @GetKisha.