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

Read Full Article »

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

Read Full Article »

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

Read Full Article »

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,

Read Full Article »

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

Read Full Article »

Building the World’s First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip (Part 1)

If you haven’t already, please study our Bootstrapping Course and Investor Introductions page.  Brian Wong is the founder of Kiip.me, a mobile rewards program. Prior to founding Kiip, he worked at Digg in business development. His five months there ended when he was laid off because of cost-cutting measures, an event that motivated him to start his own company.

Read Full Article »

From New Zealand to Silicon Valley: Victoria Ransom’s Wildfire Journey (Part 7)

Sramana: If you had a daughter in her early years of school right now, what would you do? Victoria Ransom: I would encourage her to study sciences. Sramana: You could encourage, but she might not respond. The peer environment does not always support that. Victoria Ransom: Very true. It also may not be what her

Read Full Article »