How To Make Freemium Work: Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile (Part 4)

Sramana: Would you talk about some of the smartphone games you have brought to the market and the business dynamics behind those games? Niccolo de Masi: When I started with Glu, I was cognizant of hardware and gaming preferences. Both tend to trend upward rapidly. Consumers demand higher quality content that shows off their new

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How To Make Freemium Work: Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile (Part 3)

Sramana: What is the business model of Glu? Niccolo de Masi: Glu used to be a company where 100% of our revenues came from carrier billed stores. Today a majority of our model is coming from the Android Marketplace or from the Apple app marketplace. That is largely credit card billings, not carrier billing. In

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How To Make Freemium Work: Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile (Part 2)

Sramana: You are saying that you identified a macro trend at the very beginning of that trend, correct? Niccolo de Masi: Yes, and I feel like I have been riding that macro trend for the past eight years. I believe it will only accelerate for the next eight years. We are going to start calling

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How To Make Freemium Work: Niccolo de Masi, CEO of Glu Mobile (Part 1)

Niccolo de Masi is the president and chief executive officer of Glu a 3-D mobile social gaming company. Prior to joining Glu, Niccolo was the chief executive officer and president of Hands-On Mobile, a mobile technology company and developer and publisher of mobile entertainment. Niccolo was previously the chief executive officer of the London-listed mobile

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Domain Knowledge Wins: Larry Goldenhersh, CEO of Enviance (Part 7)

Sramana: How big do you think the market is? Larry Goldenhersh: We did a bottom up analysis and we arrived at 1.4 billion dollars. From a top down look other companies have arrive at numbers ranging from 1 to 2 billion dollars.

Domain Knowledge Wins: Larry Goldenhersh, CEO of Enviance (Part 6)

Sramana: When did you sign Pacific Gas & Electric, and what was the momentum like for your next group of large customer? Larry Goldenhersh: We signed Pacific Gas & Electric in 2001. We then set out to win at least 50% of the deals in the space for the next four years. We signed Southern Company

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Domain Knowledge Wins: Larry Goldenhersh, CEO of Enviance (Part 5)

Sramana: Who was your first paying customer and how did you find them? Larry Goldenhersh: The DuPont Corporation was our first material customer. We were in Washington briefing Senate and Congressional staff on the vision of using the Internet to cut the cost and improve the quality of environmental compliance. I had worked with Congressional

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Domain Knowledge Wins: Larry Goldenhersh, CEO of Enviance (Part 4)

Sramana: Whom did you find to come on board and actually build the product? Larry Goldenhersh: I live in San Diego, which has a ton of high-tech entrepreneurs, some of whom were my neighbors. I believe that the domain and presentation are the most critical elements of executing on a vision. Technology is very important

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