Brian Wong CEO of Kiip

At the age of 18 Brian Wong had skipped 4 grades and graduated from college.  At 20 he was listed in Forbes 30 under 30 , named one of the top 5 young entrepreneurs by Mashables, and is one of the youngest people to have ever received money from a venture capital firm.  Wong was on the fast track and after losing his job after only 5  months after graduating Wong turned this misfortune into a multi-million dollar idea.  In 2010 Wong founded Kiip, a marketing company that gives tangible rewards for virtual success.  Wong’s brilliant plan hit him while in an airport while people watching.  What he noticed was that everyone was either “pretending to work” or playing a game on their phone.  What he realized was that ads had been appearing at the worst possible time.  As one reaches pure ecstasy as they win that baseball game or feels so smart after debunking a challenging candy crush level these ads were appearing! Its as if their prize for finally conquering the pesky boss was the opportunity to be bombarded by ads.  What Wong saw was an opportunity to turn that thrill of virtual success and capitalize off of it.  Wong’s company Kiip, (pronounced “keep’), partners with companies, such as Disney, Gatorade, and Pepsi, as well as apps and app developers to create in game achievements that allow for real world rewards.  For example a runner who just completes a 5 mile run and records it in RunKeeper may receive a free bottle of Propel.  Or maybe you finally eclipse level 1oo in candy crush and you may have just been rewarded with a free bag of sour patch kids.  In essence Wong has joined together some of our favorite things in life, winning and free stuff, and has launched the marketing and advertising business in a whole new direction.  I believe that this idea of Kiip is going to become the new way of advertising as the digital age becomes more and more prevalent.   Wong makes his money on a cost-per-engagement (CPE) basis, such as when a user submits an e-mail address to claim a reward (as 25 million have done so far). Kiip typically earns 30 cents to $3 per CPE, depending on targeting criteria, and splits the fee 50-50 with developers. The company reaches 10 million active users daily, up from 4 million last year; annual revenue is between $10 million and $20 million.   At the ripe old age of 23 Brian Wong has forever changed the way we advertise and has made a nice little chunk of change doing it.  In the mean time be on the look out for those kiip rewards who knows your mad candy crush skills may finally pay off!