The Road to Goa – Where It All Began

Throwback to the night that started it all - our
first AR & VR showcase at India Beach Fashion Week 2015, The Lalit Resort & Spa, Goa.

Ten years ago, in Goa - our story truly began. It was October 29, 2015, India Beach Fashion Week – Season 2, held at The Lalit Resort & Spa, Goa.

We were just a small team with a big name - Madras MindWorks - and even bigger dreams.

AR and VR were still new, strange words to most. And honestly, even to us, they were mysteries we were still figuring out.

We had partnered with 6Degree.co, and during one of our early calls, they asked a question that would define our path:

“You talk about AR and VR… but what can you do for the fashion industry?”

We didn’t have all the answers. But we had curiosity, courage, and one small car packed with dreams and gadgets.

So, four of us started from Chennai and drove all the way to Goa. No flights. No production vans. No fancy setups. Just a single high-end PC (our “server”), a few phones, some printed markers, and one GoPro.

Yes - one GoPro. We were supposed to get six, but when we arrived, we found ourselves with just one.

Typical startup luck. That night, tired but buzzing with ideas, we looked at each other and asked 

“Can we still make a 360° fashion show with one GoPro?”

We decided to try. We shot test footage, clicked photos from every angle, manually stitched static frames, looped clips and somehow made it look alive. It wasn’t perfect. But it worked.

Around the same time, we were building an AR experience with one of the most advanced SDKs available back then right before it suddenly vanished from the market after an acquisition. Overnight, the tools we depended on were gone. But we didn’t stop. We improvised, reworked, and somehow made it all come alive just in time for the show. (That story deserves its own post — because what happened that week taught us a lot about resilience, innovation, and how fragile access to emerging tech really was.)

We even created AR stickers that said “I Love Fashion.” People could point their phones and watch digital content pop out. Simple marker-based AR, but in 2015, it felt like pure magic.

And during the event at The Lalit Resort & Spa, something amazing happened. People who couldn’t enter the ramp area could still experience it - through a VR fashion show using Google Cardboard. They could stand virtually inside the show, surrounded by lights, music, and models walking right past them.

For that brief moment, we weren’t just the tech guys. We were dreamers who turned limitation into innovation.

That Goa trip became our first real showcase. The long drive, the sleepless nights, the single GoPro, the AR SDK chaos every bit of it was worth it. Because that day, we didn’t just show technology. We showed possibility.

Looking back now, it wasn’t just an event. It was the spark that shaped everything we’ve built over the past decade.

Every time I see that old footage, I smile - because sometimes, all it takes is one GoPro, a few sleepless nights, and a stubborn belief that you can make it work.

That’s what Madras MindWorks has always stood for. We don’t just follow immersive tech, we create the way forward. We tinker, we break, we fix, and we keep experimenting fuelled by curiosity and caffeine. Because innovation isn’t about what you have it’s about 

"what you make out of what you have"

Remembering it, exactly ten years later October 29, 2025. From that road trip to Goa to everything we’ve built since the spirit remains the same. The tools have changed, the team has grown, but the heart hasn’t. We still chase that same excitement we felt that night when one GoPro, one trial SDK, one unforgettable journey to Goa and one crazy dream defined who we were going to be.