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.

Sramana: It sounds like you got investment before you had your first customer. How did you recruit your investors?

Brian Wong: I did get investment before the first customer. Honestly, finding investors was a combination of luck and a few other factors. I met him at a party at SXSW, and I met him only for about 10 minutes. I was still at Digg, and he was able to tell what type of personality I had. I then met the founder and CEO of PopChips. He understood the model and loved it. One of his good friends happened to be the same guy I met at South by Southwest, who was the CMO at Vitaminwater. He liked the concept, so he called up his friend and asked him if he remembered meeting me. The founder of PopChips told him that he wanted to invest in Kiip. They talked through it and made the decision to invest.

Sramana: How much money did you bring in during that round?

Brian Wong: That round consisted of angel investors like the two of them and True Ventures. I raised $300,000 in total during that round.

Sramana: How were you able to get through to True Ventures?

Brian Wong: I got an intro to Adam [D’Augelli], an associate there. I talked with him and shared the concept behind the company. He liked it and we went from there.

Sramana: So you had a $300,000 round, the former CMO of Vitaminwater was one of the investors, and Vitaminwater was introduced as a potential customer. Did anything else happen in that time?

Brian Wong: When I met with Adam, I just went and had a coffee with him. I did not expect too much from it, but then he called me the next day and invited me to attend a partners meeting. This was my first time raising money, and I had no idea what a partners meeting was. I went back in and did my whole pitch, waved my arms around, and they handed me a term sheet a few days later. It was a very fast process.

Sramana: How did you manage to get your first few customers? What were the early days of building your company like?

Brian Wong: I had the early investors, and we decided to aim for a goal. It was not easy to convince people of the value proposition. We were talking about an entirely new way of interacting with customers. Part of it was just hustle. I had a list of people I wanted to reach out to, and it was very easy to just email them. I did that and had meetings with them.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Building the World's First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip
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