Long Road From Cuba: Manny Medina, CEO of Terremark (Part 4)

SM: Why did you make the decision to finish building NAP? It sounds as though, given the implosion in the industry, that staying with real estate would have been a better decision. MM: I don’t believe that for a minute. Look at how we are doing today.

Long Road From Cuba: Manny Medina, CEO of Terremark (Part 3)

SM: What else was going on around you at this time? Wasn’t Exodus a high-profile data center company at the time? MM: Absolutely. That was in 2000, and Exodus was going through the roof. Global Crossing had a global center.

Long Road From Cuba: Manny Medina, CEO of Terremark (Part 2)

SM: When did you start getting into the data center business? MM: The more we got involved in the telecom hotels, the more in love I became with the data center business. All the folks who were renting space from us, such as Global Crossing, were operating data centers. Because of that I started learning

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Long Road From Cuba: Manny Medina, CEO of Terremark (Part 1)

SM: Manny, let’s start by talking about yourself. Where do you come from? MM: I was born in Cuba and left in 1965, when I was 13. My parents left the Castro regime. We came to Miami, and I grew up and went to school here. I went to a junior college here, which is

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Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 7)

SM: What else should I have asked you? RZ: I would like to give you some reasons why I think we have a good model. I think that our model differs from other models in the casual gaming space, such as the download model or subscription models.

Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 6)

SM: Can you describe the games that people are playing in these tournaments? RZ: We had about 150 games on the site. They are classic casual games. They go from puzzle and word games to suduko and card games. We develop all the games in-house.

Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 5)

SM: Let me ask you some ramp questions. In 2003, you launched the site. In 2005, it started becoming profitable. What was your revenue ramp between 2003 and 2005? RZ: In 2003, we had very little. Revenue, in euros, was 14,000. In 2004, we had 2.3 million and in 2005 we had 10.8 million.

Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 4)

SM: Who were your primary partners in the early days of King? RZ: We partnered with Lycos, T-Online, and major portals.