#073 From a Garage VR Experiment to Working with the World's Biggest Brands with Matthew Celia

Built For This Podcast, with Carly Pepin

August 17, 2026 by

Carly Pepin

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In this episode of Built For This, Carly Pepin sits down with Matthew Celia, co-founder and Chief Creative Director of LightSail VR, to explore what it takes to build a sustainable creative business around technology that never stops changing.

Matthew's journey into immersive storytelling began the first time he experienced virtual reality. He could immediately see its potential, but he could also see what was missing. Much of the early VR content felt like a demonstration of the technology rather than a story worth staying for. You could visit Mars or explore an incredible environment, but once the novelty disappeared, what kept you watching?

Matthew believed the answer was the same thing that had kept audiences captivated for generations: characters, conflict, emotion, and great storytelling.

So he and his business partner Robert started experimenting. Matthew bought 10 GoPros using a zero-interest credit card offer, and the pair began figuring out how to tell stories in 360 degrees. Then came a call that changed everything.

A friend needed someone to create a 360-degree experience for Paranormal Activity. Matthew and Robert shot it in Matthew's garage, Matthew stayed up through the night stitching the footage together, and the finished experience went on to generate 10 million views. That early project helped put LightSail on the map, eventually leading to work with some of the world's biggest companies, including Meta, Apple, Amazon MGM, and Google.

But this conversation isn't really about VR. It's about what happens when you build a company at the edge of an industry that hasn't finished inventing itself yet.

Matthew shares how LightSail survived wave after wave of technology hype by refusing to build the company around any single trend. While other businesses raised significant capital and rapidly expanded during the VR boom, LightSail deliberately stayed lean. Matthew developed what he calls an "accordion structure," bringing in specialist talent as projects require it rather than carrying the overhead of a huge permanent team.

That same philosophy extends to hiring. Matthew explains why he would rather find someone with exceptional creative taste, curiosity, passion, and tenacity and teach them the technology than hire someone who knows every piece of software but lacks creative instinct.

Carly and Matthew also explore the reality behind creative success. The finished project might look polished, but getting there requires constant experimentation, wrong turns, failed ideas, and collaboration. Matthew believes that if you're not failing regularly, you're probably not pushing yourself far enough to grow.

They also dive into AI and the role it could play in the future of creative production. LightSail is already experimenting with agentic coding, internal software, production automation, and AI-assisted tools that can analyze documentary transcripts and help teams identify potential story arcs. But Matthew doesn't see AI replacing filmmakers. He sees its greatest potential in helping creative teams communicate, collaborate, and spend more of their time doing the work that humans do best.

From a garage filled with GoPros to Emmy-winning productions for global brands, this episode is a fascinating conversation about creativity, entrepreneurship, emerging technology, failure, patience, and why the fundamentals of great storytelling matter even when everything around them changes.

Key Themes

Build Around Something More Durable Than the Technology

LightSail has lived through VR, AR, blockchain, virtual production, AI, and countless technology hype cycles. Rather than betting the company on one platform becoming the future, Matthew kept the focus on immersive storytelling. Technologies and distribution platforms will change, but audiences will continue caring about characters, conflict, emotion, and stories that make them feel something.

Hire for What You Can't Teach

Matthew can teach someone which software, button, plugin, or workflow to use. What is much harder to teach is creative taste. That's why he prioritizes qualities such as instinct, curiosity, passion, tenacity, and willingness to learn, then gives people opportunities where their natural interests can become an advantage.

Failure and Collaboration Are Part of the Creative Process

For Matthew, failure isn't something that happens on the way to creative success. It's part of how creative success is produced. Emerging technologies rarely come with established playbooks, so teams have to experiment and get things wrong. And despite the mythology of the lone creative genius, Matthew believes filmmaking will always be a team sport. Great work comes from talented people bringing different perspectives and skills together.

About Matthew Celia

Matthew Celia is the co-founder and Chief Creative Director of LightSail VR, an Emmy-winning immersive cinema studio based in Los Angeles.

Since launching the company in 2015, Matthew has helped grow LightSail from a two-person startup experimenting with early VR cameras into a multimillion-dollar production company delivering immersive projects for organizations including Meta, Apple, Amazon MGM, and Google.

The studio has produced more than 200 projects spanning immersive film, live music, and branded entertainment, including work featuring Sabrina Carpenter and Shawn Mendes. Early in the company's history, its Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension VR experience reached 10 million views and helped establish LightSail as an early leader in immersive storytelling.

In 2025, the company earned a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy for its work on the Saturday Night Live 50th Anniversary Special.

Today, Matthew continues exploring the intersection of creativity and emerging technology while sharing his experience building sustainable creative businesses, navigating technology hype cycles, and developing teams capable of producing exceptional work in industries that are constantly changing.

Memorable Quotes
"I can teach you what button and plugin to use. I can't teach you taste."
"If you're not failing 80% of the time, then I think you're not growing."
"There's no such thing as an auteur... I'm nothing without the team of people that we've built around me."

Matthew Celia