Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 8)

SM: Have you seen advertisers take advantage of the platforms? RY: Yes, we have. Advertisers are interested in, and this is not exclusive to applications, identifying methods that will result in more users having a higher level of engagement with them. Applications provide a terrific way to do that. It can be accomplished through a

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Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 7)

SM: Social networks are becoming the voice of a generation. RY: Another thing to think about is that people are fundamentally social. What is happening online is a reflection of social behavior in the real world. Sites like ours just enhancing natural behavior.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 6)

SM: A lot of rep firms have a reputation for having very high commissions, often upwards of 60%. Are your rep firms requiring commissions that high? RY: No, they are not. It is a volume and scale business. Compared to what it would cost us to build and hold our own sales force, as a percentage of

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Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 5)

SM: How did you fund the initial startup? Where did you get the funding? RY: We had a rolling round, primarily from friends and family, with a target goal of $250,000. The first $10,000 came from my dad.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 4)

SM: How do you rank in the Spanish speaking countries? RY: We are the number one social networking company. SM: Do you have any idea why? RY: Because we targeted those demographics. We focused on Spanish speaking users.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 3)

SM: What business did you think you were getting into in 2003? RY: The business we thought we were getting into could broadly be defined as communication. We thought we were providing an option beyond what people were doing with email and instant messaging. Over time, new methods of communication have continually been invented. It

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Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 2)

SM: After working in some of the leadership development positions you felt confident you could leverage your experience with a startup of your own? RY: Yes. Unfortunately, I was overconfident. I jumped back into starting companies but I still had some learning to do.

Water Desalination

The Economist has an excellent overview of Water Desalination in the current issue. The Sea Water Reverse Osmosis technique that it discusses has been discussed here and on Forbes (Read Hydro-Alchemy) by me before in the context of Energy Recovery, Inc. which is about to go public.