This is one of those stories that will make you a little (more) bitter and maybe want to kick yourself. Why? It has to do with a CEO and a business idea. That doesn’t sound so bad, right? Except, the CEO is 21 and the business idea is pretty awesome and making said CEO very, very rich. Let’s take a look at this mobile wizkid and how his app is rewarding users, and, subsequently, his bank account.
Digging the Prodigy
Brian Wong skipped a grade in school. No, wait. Make that four grades. When most of us were graduating high school at 18 he was graduating university. His smarts make you a little bitter, no?
At the age of 11, Brian started getting into the Internet and graphic design, even pinching a bootleg version of Photoshop. So, after graduating from the University of British Columbia, he did what most of us do… Cancun, baby!
No, wait, wrong again. He was busy developing the key publisher and tech partnerships for social news website Digg.com, and also launching the Digg Android mobile app, contributing to the company’s rising mobile presence.
(Something tells me this kid is actually a man with a tech world-dominating plan.)
Brian’s accolades read like a movie poster for young Silicon Valley:
- Wall Street Journal named him the “youngest person to ever receive funding by a venture capital firm.”($200,000 from True Ventures)
- Mashable says he’s the “The Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch”
- His native Canada presented him with a Top 20 Under 20 award
- The Vancouver Sun called him “a budding internet visionary”
And, this was all before the age of 20. Now, at 21, he’s full on into his new venture to kiip (pronounced keep) true to his teenage tech accolades.
So, Zuckerberg and Wong walk into a Bar…
Actually, I don’t think you’ll find these guys are regulars at the watering hole. They are, however, regularly compared. It’s easy to do. Mark was a promising tech wizkid and received his first funding for Facebook at the age of 20. Brian has the same traits, only he managed to secure his startup funding at 19. Boom.
Now, he’s the mastermind CEO of Kiip, a mobile app that rewards gamers through integrated adverts set for specific game achievements. And, he’s bringing in well over 7-figure revenue. Makes you wanna kick yourself, no?
So, what is this little app all about, and how is it turning the mobile advertising world on its head?
In a nutshell, Kiip rewards mobile phone users when they level-up on their mobile games, giving them an incentive to click on the ad and give marketers their info. To give you an example of how it works, for every 8 miles you ran on the mobile app MapMyFitness, Pepsi offered a free bottle of Propel that you could redeem.
Clients of the app include:
- Pepsi
- Best Buy
- Carls Jr.
- Popchips
- And, a little franchise called Disney
Kiip is currently inside 300 apps on Android and Apple platforms, on 300 million devices and has shown 500 million rewards to users. Engagement rate, according to Brian, is 25 percent with a reward redemption rate of 5 percent.
If you’re an advertiser, I would seriously check out this app. If you’re a prodigal computer kid, I seriously envy you. Brian will be a billionaire by 30. I’ll bet my not-so-prodigal money on it. We’ll check back in 9 years.
