Brian Wong is the 23 year old founder or Kiip-a company whose technology allows mobile in-app advertisements to improve the user experience, rather than diminish it. Even prior to founding Kiip (pronounced “keep”), Brian was a noteworthy wunderkind, graduating from the University of British Columbia at the age of 18, starting one company, and spending 5 months working on Digg’s mobile app. This beginning gave him the credibility he needed t
o receive funding from a venture capital firm, becoming the second youngest entrepreneur to do so.
The idea for Kiip came out of a plane ride. Wong noticed the pervasive use of iPhones and iPads for gaming, and thought of how annoying it is to be “rewarded” for an achievement (such as a level-up or beating a high school) with pop-up ads. He thought that advertisements should a) have relation to what you’re doing in the game, and b) reward you for your success. According to Kong, an advertisement should take advantage of what is happening in the moment you see it.
To accomplish this, Kiip partners with app-developers and advertisers and tailors custom rewards from the advertisers to offer users upon achievements. For instance, when a child beats a level on Candy Crush, they might be offered free Sour Patch Kids in congratulations. This has a two-fold effect: app-developers are happy because users enjoy their app more, and look forward to milestones even more; while advertisers are happy because they now have more effective advertising, and instead of being an annoyance to their target, they’re creating customer delight!
Brian Wong followed a familiar path to innovation. First he noticed a problem: ads are nothing but an annoyance for users. While considering this problem, he also took notice that this hurts the companies advertising their products as well. In creating a technology that solved both of these problems, he is able to double the demand, and insert himself as a third partner in advertising.
Particularly unique to Brian is his genius focus on the significance of the moment. He doesn’t consider Kiip a mobile advertising company, he considers it a moment capitalization company. The premise of the service is that consumers are particularly open to certain advertisements and offers at certain moments. A discounted oil change is of much greater interest to me after Mojio alerts me that my car needs an oil change rather than after I watched a video on YouTube. Now I have an incentive to keep using Mojio, as well as an incentive to go to (insert a mechanic’s shop here) instead of where I usually go.
In Kiip, Brian Wong has exemplified many great entrepreneurial traits. The innovation that Kiip brings could change mobile advertising as a whole. In creating a broad mission (to capture the power of the moment) he refrains from limiting Kiip to a single category of advertising. Finally, he has made use of every opportunity he had. All this has led to his great success.
I’m continually intimidated by the way that people are able to come up with amazing technological solutions to today’s problems. It’s a unique solution to multiple problems that brings value to several different markets. Bravo.