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 Buy. You tap on that notification and you will see a $5 gift card from Best Buy. You redeem that gift card by entering your email address. Best Buy will then send a code to your email that allows you to redeem your gift card at any Best Buy location.

Sramana: What is the market size for Kiip based on current awareness?

Brian Wong: This year the mobile ad market is estimated to be around $1.5 billion. In two years it is estimated to be around $15 billion.

Sramana: You have distinguished your offering from ads by creating a mobile rewards category. What is the TAM for that category?

Brian Wong: We are creating another pie. We know there are trillions of dollars spent on marketing on a yearly basis. We have the potential to create a value-added business item on virtually any point in a mobile application where a user interacts with the application. We can own anything related to action. I want to own every single achievement moment on the planet and to power and reach people when they are happy. That is almost a limitless TAM. I could say we have created a billion-dollar market today, but it will only be greater later after people have gotten used to the fact that reward enabled models are the most effective way to interact with people.

Sramana: Isn’t your market really just in-game advertising?

Brian Wong: No, I don’t think that is accurate. We have non-games which are part of our portfolio. Achievements don’t just exist in games. Imagine running 10 miles and getting a free Propel fitness water. There are a lot of achievements that are part of actions which can be anywhere. That is where the mind can explode around the business model that we have created. We can create a network that goes well beyond games.

Sramana: The delivery infrastructure of identifying what is happening outside of games sounds like it would be a bit more difficult to verify using a mobile phone.

Brian Wong: In some cases it is extremely easy. There are apps like MapMyRun and MyCalorieCounts. We have started integrating with fitness apps that have 500,000 daily unique users. I did not have to change anything to integrate our product into those apps. We are already reaching hundreds of thousands of people with rewards for Propel, and that is just for fitness. We can move to music and entertainment where we give away music downloads to people who are doing things that meaningfully interact with an artist. You can give away vouchers for discounts off of tickets if people watch sports on their iPad. You can give away a free photo book to people who take a lot of photos with Instagram. Everything has the potential to be reward enabled.

Sramana: Congratulations on what you have built so far. It is very well done.

This segment is part 7 in the series : Building the World's First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip
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