This week we get a spooky one. Robin Cowie helped make The Blair Witch Project, wrote narrative for Madden, and built 32 haunted houses. Now he’s putting VR headsets and smart glasses in auto repair shops from his base in Carolina Beach. It’s about half company story and half founder lessons, and Robin is one of the best storytellers we’ve had on the show.
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Who is Robin?
Robin Cowie is the CEO and founder of Skillmaker, an AI and XR workforce platform that assesses, trains, and assists auto technicians. Robin grew up in South Africa, went to film school, and co-created The Blair Witch Project, which went on to gross more than $500 million. From there, he ran Haxan Films, which made movies, TV, graphic novels, and games. He spent five years as narrative producer on the Madden franchise and was CEO of e-commerce company Worldwide Brands. He was also creative director for a $500 million performing arts center, and head of technology at Helo, a London immersive-experiences company. Skillmaker is his first venture-backed company. He co-founded it with his dad, an industrial psychologist who spent 50 years in learning and development. Robin’s chief revenue officer is Camden, a UNCW grad.
Highlights
Point-of-view learning: Robin’s dad filmed gold mine work from the workers’ perspective to train miners who couldn’t read. Robin carried the camera gear as a kid, and that idea runs through Blair Witch, Madden, and Skillmaker.
Sundance at 5 a.m.: Right after shaking on the Blair Witch deal, Robin and his producing partner crashed their van on ice and had to dig it out of the snow. Nobody else knew yet that they’d sold the movie.
“I’m not that crazy a horror fan”: Robin spent 15 years in horror, including making 32 haunted houses.
Madden Longshot: A six-hour, choose-your-own-adventure story inside Madden. It won sports game of the year and spawned three sequels.
Get paid to listen: NAPA’s head of training paid Skillmaker for two months just to talk to shop owners and technicians about their pain points.
2 years to 30 to 90 days: Skillmaker’s headsets reduced the time needed to train an entry-level technician from two years to 30 to 90 days. The industry faces a shortage of about 650,000 auto technicians.
Assess, accelerate, assist: The platform has three parts: a 45 to 60 minute VR skills assessment, accelerated training built on his dad’s “teach 5, test 5” method, and smart glasses that save 3 to 25 minutes per repair order.
148 hours in a year: Built on a Quest 3 and Unreal Engine, the training includes 170 tests, 53 NAPA certifications, and 3 ASE certifications. An automated content pipeline made that pace possible.
Distribution is the hardest part: “The technology these days is kind of table stakes.” Partners NAPA, Solera/Identifix, AutoVitals, and ASE give Skillmaker reach into hundreds of thousands of shops.
The paid “broken” beta: More than 460 shops joined the Champions Circle and generated about $1 million in revenue before the official November 3 launch. Skillmaker has raised $4.5 million on a SAFE and plans a priced round early next year.
“My goal is for us to be boring”: Technicians love tools. Robin wants Skillmaker to stop being a novelty and become just another tool in the kit.
Robin says nine-tenths of a startup is believing you can, and the other tenth is being stubborn enough not to give up. That about covers it. Enjoy the conversation.
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