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.

Social Networking Without Boundaries : hi5 CEO Ramu Yalamanchi (Part 1)

Ramu Yalamanchi runs hi5, one of the leading social networking companies in the world. The company is recognized as one of the fastest growing social networking companies. Here I discuss the strategy behind hi5 with Ramu and gain some of his insights for the future.

When Will LinkedIn Open Up?

Nielsen has released some interesting numbers on social media traffic. The most interesting of these is that LinkedIn has grown 361% y-o-y.

Deal Radar 2008: hi5 Going Strong

Last week we took a look at Xanga and today we will take a look at hi5, another popular social networking site. hi5 has an Alexa traffic rank of 8. hi5 is more popular globally than it is in the US. It is the number one site in Peru, Dominic Republic, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Portugal,

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