A major player in the drone and action camera market Insta360 has grown in popularity quickly. Max Richter, co-founder and VP of marketing has been with the company since its infancy. In this interview he talks about his role, his goals, how the company is pushing boundaries and his day-to-day life in Shenzhen – think drone coffee delivery and working with Elon Musk…
Landing a job at DJI was serendipitous
I grew up in Stuttgart, Germany. After I graduated, I went to Hong Kong and had my first job there, but the corporate business environment wasn’t fulfilling. At the end of 2014, I used all my courage to go to Shenzhen and interviewed with DJI. It was an exciting international company with great products, who were looking to expand into the European market at the time. I helped them to build a European business and was frequently traveling between back and forth between Frankfurt, Rotterdam and Shenzhen.
Insta360 had a team of around 50 people when I joined…
After DJI, I went back to Shenzhen looking more for more global roles. I wanted to learn more about global operation, global impact and strategic content marketing. Shenzhen itself is an amazing place for camera technology hardware, because there’s so much innovation happening around drones and camera technologies.
While in Shenzhen, I heard about a company called Insta360, which was very small at the time but had a visionary founder, JK Liu, and breakthrough technology. This made me super excited. I connected with JK through a personal friend, and that’s how I started at Insta360.
I’m responsible for the internationalisation of Insta360
I am responsible for the global brand and the global internationalization of Insta360. I think that was, from day one, how I helped the company succeed in the overseas marketplace. It’s quite remarkable, for us as a Chinese company, that more than 70% of our revenue comes from the overseas markets.
Forging a partnership with Leica is a career highlight for me
Coming from Germany and having grown up with Leica cameras – my father was a photographer and always had a Leica camera – I’m proud of the Insta360’s partnership with them.
The collaboration began when I met with one of the Leica team engineers at the Consumer Electrics Show in 2019. This turned into a three-year partnership, which extended another three years. Here, we are merging German engineering and image quality with our Insta360 speed and innovation. To create synergy between a camera legacy brand like Leica, and a new generation camera company like Insta360 was a remarkable moment for me. It felt like a full circle moment, linking back to my life in Germany.
The Think Bold Fund is all about championing big ideas
The Think Bold Fund encourages our community to think outside the box, and we champion ideas that are different. If users have great ideas, we will support them to make it happen, in the same way our engineers were supported to create Insta360’s amazing features and breakthrough innovations. We recently worked with an Elon Musk Neuralink patient that uses our Link 2 webcam to control his thoughts, through that Neuralink interface.
We’re on a mission to build the cameraman of the future
Since the earliest ages of humankind, people have wanted to keep their memories and not forget the magic moments. Even in the Stone Age, you had people writing their memories on the wall, right? And now people still want to share great memories and footage with their friends and family.
There’s a fundamental need to combine these two things and be part of the culture trend – and Insta360 is right at the forefront. We are building the cameraman of the future. If you think about a cameraman as having different parts: the ‘brain’ is the AI technology we’re developing, the ‘eyes’ are the camera lenses, the ‘body’ represents the drone or robotic hardware, and the ‘hands and feet’ reflect the gimbal and stabilization systems. Each part of that cameraman has its own area of expertise — and we’re working to bring all of those components together.
I travel a lot
I truly embrace the travel cultural immersion that my job brings. Next week, I will fly to Germany to go to Leica for an event we are running together for content creators. I will then be back in Hong Kong, for the opening of our flagship store. We are opening more direct to consumer retail stores in different major cities around the world and have a store in London planned.
Photography and content creation is my passion
I’m really interested in photography and content generation. I spend a lot of time seeing what our community is creating and what our users are doing. Art and photography have always been an interest and something I pursue.
Early morning workouts clear my mind
To try to keep up with my sometimes chaotic and hectic lifestyle, I do early morning workouts – mainly gym-based and running. These balance my day – it’s kind of a meditation for me to stay focused and resilient with all the projects and initiatives going on within the company.
Technology is a big part of life in Shenzhen
It’s a convenient place to live – I’d say it’s unmatched in European countries. I order my morning coffee, and it arrives within 10 minutes. What you can do with your smartphone here is super advanced. We have drone delivery. It feels a little bit like living in the future here – I’m used to it, but I appreciate it. Technology is a big part of life here.
I won’t be long until my Tesla drives me to work
I drive a Tesla Model 3, but you see more autonomous driving here as well. I think that’s going to be the next step- you won’t need to drive your Tesla – the Tesla will drive you to work.
Find out more at insta360.com.
