This first international episode of The Tech Glow Up was recorded live in Harajuku, Japan at the offices of Mawari — a company building the streaming infrastructure for the next generation of smart glasses and immersive experiences since 2017.

Luis Oscar Ramírez is the co-founder and CEO. He started Mawari in Shibuya with a straightforward premise: if the world is three-dimensional, the internet shouldn't be flat. Nine years later, the company is one of the select few in XR that has earned more in licensing revenue than what they've raised from VC. Despite having an early innovation in a slow developing space, Mawari has adapted and grown; surviving when many of their peers have not.

They also built a distributed compute network backed by a real community in Japan. These are people who show up on Sundays to work on the mission, who sent handwritten congratulations notes to the company's virtual artist at her debut, who see participation in the network as something they actually care about.

This conversation covers what it takes to stay building when a market isn't ready. Luis talks about the moment that reframed everything for him: watching people with no connection to the tech industry spend 60 minutes in headsets at a concert, crying, holding hands. Not because the hardware was impressive. Because the content made them forget the hardware entirely. That's his definition of market fit.

We also get into the Techno Satoyama — his five-layer model for a self-sustaining ecosystem — and why Mawari moved to Harajuku to send a message: they're building culture, not just software.

Key Moments

• [00:00:51] What Mawari does and where the idea came from
• [00:09:50] Earning more in licensing than you've raised
• [00:11:11] What building in Japan teaches you about accountability
• [00:21:38] VTubers and why emotional presence beats impressive graphics
• [00:27:29] The five-layer Techno Satoyama model
• [00:34:44] Six-month milestones: platform launch, community event, 200,000 nodes

Watch the full Harajuku episode on YouTube → https://youtu.be/syDOFUIt6uE

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About Luis Oscar Ramirez

Luis is the Founder and CEO of Mawari. In this role, his mission is to enable Synthetic Reality for everyone. He is committed to experimenting and developing with emerging technologies such as XR, 5G, cloud rendering and streaming, and has designed a patent pending 3D Streaming CODEC and split rendering technology that runs in the Mawari Network, a decentralized 3D & XR content delivery platform that breaks the bottlenecks of infrastructure supply for real-time rendering, and the lack of local compute power on XR Devices.

Mawari’s proprietary CODEC enables the highest visual quality to be streamed to mobile XR Devices by substantially lowering the heavy processing requirements of rich interactive and ultra-realistic 3D content like real-time digital humans, reducing cost, data size and battery consumption while unlocking scalability.

Prior to Mawari, he spearheaded and co-founded the Japanese version of MUTEK, a world-renowned festival dedicated to the dissemination and development of digital creativity in sound, music, and audio-visual art.

He also served as a Global Head of Marketing at MUSIC Tribe, one of the world’s largest holding companies for pro audio and music instruments.

A "glow up" signifies a positive transformation, reflecting the journey of becoming a better, more successful version of oneself.

At The Tech Glow Up, we humanize the startup and innovation landscape by focusing on the essential aspects of the entrepreneurial journey. Groundbreaking ideas are often ahead of their time, making resilience and perseverance vital for founders and product leaders.

In our podcast, we engage with innovators to discuss their transformative ideas, the challenges they face, and how they create value for future success.

If you're a founder or product leader seeking your own glow up, or a seasoned entrepreneur with stories to share, we invite you to join our guest list via this link.