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.

Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 2)

SM: How much did you sell the company for? RZ: We sold it for $764 million.

Making Serious Money From Casual Games: King.com CEO Riccardo Zacconi (Part 1)

Riccardo Zacconi is the CEO of King.com, a company that is pioneering casual gaming online. Prior to coming to King, he was EIR at Benchmark Capital and before that, managing director at Spray, a European portal company that was sold to Lycos in 2000. Before joining Spray, he was a consultant at Boston Consulting Group.

Read Full Article »

Venture Capital in India: Ashish Gupta (Part 7)

SM: I think the individual-led incubator model is the best one for India. AG: A lot of these education institutions are hampered by the fact that the quality of mentors to the entrepreneurs is not high. They continue to labor under serious delusions as to what constitutes a business.

Venture Capital in India: Ashish Gupta (Part 5)

SM: What is happening on the retail side? AG: Lots of interesting stuff is happening in retail, financial services, and education. One way to look at India is as a readjustment of a standard of living. Everything that goes into standard of living is in a boom phase.

Venture Capital in India: Ashish Gupta (Part 4)

SM: There was a wave in the category of mobile value-added services. What is your synthesis of that at this point? AG: The biggest challenge for most of the companies at this point is that the carriers choose to keep 85% of the revenue. They expect the startup to put in the capex to get

Read Full Article »

Venture Capital in India: Ashish Gupta (Part 3)

SM: What about entertainment? AG: There are a lot of Bollywood and music sites. They have unclear business models, but traffic continues to grow and they are able to pay for themselves. Those continue to flourish.