Freemium, Conversion Rates and More: AVG CEO J.R. Smith (Part 2)

Sramana: How long did your journey in cellular continue? J.R. Smith: My U.S. experience in cellular lasted until 1997. Shortly before VoiceStream was acquired by T-Mobile, I left to go on a temporary assignment with Motorola in Prague. They were deploying a network for Radio Mobile and I knew a lot about network deployment, cite

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Freemium, Conversion Rates and More: AVG CEO J.R. Smith (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  J.R. Smith is the CEO of AVG, which offers antivirus solutions through a freemium model. Prior to joining AVG, Smith served as chief executive officer of United Kingdom-based Dot Mobile Limited, a mobile virtual network operator he cofounded in 2005 and that partnered with Vodafone Group

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Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 7)

Sramana: Would you give us an example that illustrates the difference between ad and reward with one of your brands and game partners? Brian Wong: Sure. You can play a game like Unblock Me. When you finish a level and complete the puzzle then you get a notification that you just got something from Best

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Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 6)

Sramana: Would you talk some about your co-founder? What are the skill sets each of you brings to the company? Brian Wong: I have two co-founders, Amadeus Demarzi and Courtney Guertin. I knew Courtney from my time at Digg. He was one of the engineers who first interviewed me. He left a month before I

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Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 5)

Sramana: What was the first case study you were able to develop? Brian Wong: We did a case study with popchips. Our case studies were still limited. We did not have the full gamut of details that a half billion dollar ad network would have. We just had a version that we could show, and

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Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 4)

Sramana: When you reached out to major brands, were you reaching out to the CMOs? Brian Wong: I reached out to CMOs and agency partners. I reached out to anybody that I could get a hold of. I realized that the community was quite small. If you had a few key people on your side,

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Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 3)

Sramana: When you were starting the company, how did you get your first customer and validate that your concept was indeed going to be effective? Brian Wong: Our first customer was Vitaminwater. Their ex-CMO was an investor in Kiip.

Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 2)

Sramana: Once you recognized that people did not like advertisements in games and had identified the concept of recognizing achievement, what was your next step? Brian Wong: I immediately vowed to not do anything with ads. We don’t do anything with them at all. Our entire model centers on awards. We create a reciprocal connection

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