We were lucky to catch up with David Garifo recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi David, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?

Everyone deserves to experience the future. I’ve been in customer service my whole life, from restaurants, to catering, to retail, to hotels, to luxury, to my own business and I absolutely love it. What it has really taught me is that all of us want to be treated well, and that all of us DESERVE to be treated well, as it generally makes people happy. I guess making people happy is really what we do in customer service, beyond answering questions and selling things. What I’m selling now is the future. At least a way to experience it. I wanted to make people feel a sense of joy and excitement for what else the future can hold for them. It may just be a virtual reality arena, but people leave here happy and excited and it truly feels like all the work has been worthwhile. Everyone deserves to experience the future, and we’re here to help.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is David Garifo. I was born into a very tech savvy family, lucky enough to grow up with a video game system always attached to the TV. During the beginning of Covid, around March 2020, my older brother raved to me about his new Oculus Quest. His exact words were, “You need to get one of these.” When mine arrived in May, I couldn’t wait to put it on. The moment I did, I simply explored the menu Home Screen, I was hooked. I knew immediately what I had to do: I had to find a way to get a large group of friends together to all enjoy at once. I began my search to bring my idea of what VR should be, to New Orleans, and after five years, we finally opened Zero Latency New Orleans. We are a free-roam VR arena, originally founded in Australia. What sets us apart from all the other Zero Latency VR installments around the globe, is the focus on making our product a luxury experience but also a place where people, primarily adults, feel comfortable. We are so proud of everyone who came together to make this happen. We are focused on providing the people of New Orleans a venue they can be proud to say is in our city.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

Coming out of college, all I wanted to do was work in politics, and having a real knack for fundraising gave me a great in. After getting the job I so desperately craved at 23, I realized that maybe politics isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Despite being great at what I did, my team had its contract terminated. I was devastated. I moved back home and started looking for work again. After about three weeks, my mom asked me to escort her youth group to New Orleans as a young adult chaperone. Not having much to do, I accepted. The city was great during the day, however, at night, my old college friend who lived there showed me around, and I absolutely feel in love. Six months later, I was living in Louisiana, doing a year of volunteer work in Baton Rouge, going to New Orleans every other weekend. Best decision of my life. Sometimes you gotta leave what you love and pivot.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

The initial capital for funding my business took a lot of work over a few years, and included a lot of luck. By my late 20’s, I had gotten a job at Saks Fifth Avenue, my best paying job yet, albeit, full commission. After Covid, we experienced some of the best sales years the store has ever seen, and Men’s Shoes, where I was working out of, was no exception. I sold $3million of merchandise in just under two years time, and I managed t0 invest most of what I made into bitcoin and Apple stock. This turned out very well for me. To help matters, I was supremely lucky to have a family that was also good at investing over time, and the small stock fund that my parents made when I was younger, had really blossomed with the help of Apple stock. This isn’t quite feasible for everyone, and I’m well aware of how lucky I am to have had parents who were able to make conscious decisions about my future. The nest egg and my savings, were enough to borrow against to make my initial purchase of licenses for the VR venue I wanted to open. With the initial funding out of the way, I was left to find investors who saw as much value in my vision as I did. I was lucky, again, to find that my parents were eager to see me succeed and thought my vision would pay off, so I took my parents on at 40% ownership. With the investment and now my parent’s added efforts, expertise, and experience, I was off to the races.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://zerolatencyvr.com
• Instagram: @ZeroLatencyNO
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/zerolatencyno
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-garifo

Image Credits

Selwyn Figg