Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Doyon Kim, CEO of Pangalore (Part 6)

Sramana Mitra: They are more powerful, which makes it a PR nightmare. So, you don’t have a solution to this. You observe a problem; I observe a problem. There is no solution. We’ll just have to deal with this muck. It is an open problem, don’t you think?

Doyon Kim: It is, yes. It is becoming a more serious problem. I read a book about five years ago – and I don’t remember the title of the book, and at the time I didn’t like it – that was criticizing the Web 2.0 movement. What they were saying, basically, is this Web 2.0 thing gives too much power to amateurs, and anybody can be an expert. Anybody can be influential with this new Internet. Because I was in the Web 2.0 industry, I didn’t like the tone at the time, but now I kind of agree.

SM: Yes, that’s interesting. Speaking of open problems, what do you see out there in all these different industries that you have crossed? Where do you see open problems? We just discussed one. What are other open problems that we can point entrepreneurs toward?

DK: I am full of problems, so it’s difficult to point to one.

SM: OK. Is there anything else that you want to discuss that’s on your radar, are there any interesting trends? I really like what you said about virality being kind of dead. It’s an astute observation and a profound one. I have talked to lots of VCs over the years, and we’ve gone through periods where VCs would ask, “Where is the virality in your design?” At that point, it would not have been sufficient to answer that the virality is in delivering a great product. They would not have accepted that as an answer.

DK: I’m in total agreement. You don’t see kind of thing anymore, or at least, it’s not that popular. But three or four years ago, whenever you would go to a bookstore, there would be books on buzz marketing and viral marketing. But what company was successful through viral marketing? Of course, Facebook.

SM: Facebook was very successful. Zynga was very successful.

DK: But I don’t think they did viral marketing. It was more that they grew virally.

SM: But there were viral elements designed into their spread, and the fact that other people could invite their friends to become Facebook members – with LinkedIn, it was the same thing.

DK: The viral part has to be part of the product … a good product and a viral element built into the product, but not just viral marketing. To say, “We’re going to grow virally” doesn’t work.

SM: Right. So, you’re making a distinction between viral marketing and viral product design, product design that has virality built into it.

DK: Right.

SM: In that case, that’s what investors have been looking for. Do you have virality built into your product?

DK: First of all, a product has to be good to be viral, but it has a viral element built into the product that helps accelerate the viral distribution. That’s about it.

SM: For products to play it requires you to invite other people. Facebook is a classic example of that. Facebook, to be fun, is something that you want to invite your friends to come into. LinkedIn is the same thing. You want to load up your contact database or your Rolodex onto LinkedIn for it to be interesting. Those are viral product design elements. Those are powerful product design elements. But the ability of other products to ride on top of Facebook or LinkedIn and use their viral elements as effectively as Zynga did, that era is dead.

DK: Yes, I agree.

SM: The other thing I heard you say that resonated was that the best customer acquisition strategy for gaming is to cross-promote with other games that cater to the same demographics. Those are two good nuggets that came out this conversation. And we will end on that note.

DK: Cool. Thank you.

This segment is part 6 in the series : Thought Leaders in Mobile and Social: Doyon Kim, CEO of Pangalore
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