A Serial Entrepreneur’s Journey: Moshe Vaknin, CEO of YouAppi (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: Help me understand with a use case. Let’s say Uber wants to go global using your technology, what specifically happens? How does the technology help Uber go global?

Moshe Vaknin: Let’s say Uber goes to India. Then they’d say, “I’d like to have 300,000 users in the next six months.” With our technology and our inventory in India, we can predict and tell Uber, “Yes, we can deliver 300,000 users but you have to pay us $2 per install. That’s the price that makes sense to drive us the right inventory so we can analyze and drive your 300,000 users.” We do this kind of setting up of expectations.

Once you set up expectations, we start to deploy all the messaging that Uber wants. Our recommendation engine and predictive algorithms will recommend different users across our inventory to look. Typically, majority of apps are native. A user will see the native apps recommending them to download Uber app. Our goal is that users install and take the first ride. Uber has a KPI. Uber’s KPI is first ride. In other words, they have a target for first ride. If we meet that criteria, Uber continues to spend more money.

We see a lot of demand. Big clients like us to help them expand everywhere. Our big challenge is to make sure that we can drive them this high quality of users. It’s very challenging. It’s not as straightforward. As you scale and inject more inventory, you need to watch the quality further. That’s why you need technology because it’s an ongoing process. You always have to optimize and make sure that you’re staying within the range of KPI of the advertisers. We have about 100 advertisers globally. We are in the process of building more products. Video is going to be announced in the next couple of weeks. So far, so good. It has been working very well for us.

Sramana Mitra: What level are you at now in terms of scale?

Moshe Vaknin: We are more than $14 million already.

Sramana Mitra: How much venture capital did you raise this time?

Moshe Vaknin: So far we have raised $20 million.

Sramana Mitra: Are you planning to raise more money?

Moshe Vaknin: We don’t need to. If we find a good opportunity to add investors that add value, we will consider it.

Sramana Mitra: But you don’t need additional capital. You are profitable and scaling well with the organic growth that you have already been able to generate. You’re not dependent on outside capital.

Moshe Vaknin: Exactly. We don’t really need the money, but some strategic investors can help.

Sramana Mitra: What do you want to do in terms of exit? If next year, you’ll hit $100 million in revenue, are you looking at an IPO? What is your thinking?

Moshe Vaknin: We do like to build a big company but we are not rushing to sell the company. We are not rushing to have an exit at this stage. We are more interested in going public. Most likely, we can go public in the first half of 2018.

Sramana Mitra: Interesting. Excellent story. It sounds like you’ve experimented with different businesses. You’ve succeeded with several of them but this one is really taking it to the next level in terms of your own personal accomplishment.

Moshe Vaknin: That’s true. In the beginning, you are in a rush. You want to see the first million. Then you’re not in a rush. We want to build a big company and enjoy it.

Sramana Mitra: Thank you for your time.

This segment is part 6 in the series : A Serial Entrepreneur’s Journey: Moshe Vaknin, CEO of YouAppi
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