Brian Wong

Brian Wong
Born	(1991-04-14) April 14, 1991
Occupation	Founder and CEO of Kiip

Brian Wong (born April 14, 1991) is a Chinese-Canadian entrepreneur. In 2010, Wong co-founded Kiip, a mobile app rewards platform that lets brands and companies give real-world rewards for in-game achievements.

Early life and education

Wong was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia. He is also of Hong Kong Chinese descent. His father was an accountant and his mother was a nurse.^[1][2] He received his high school diploma at the age of 14 after twice skipping two grades.^[3] Wong received a degree in Commerce from the University of British Columbia at the age of 18.^[4] While at university, Wong launched his first company, FollowFormation, which Mashable called "the easiest way to follow the top Twitterers by subject matter or topic."^[5][6][7] One of his most recent ventures, Kiip, made him one of the youngest internet entrepreneurs to raise venture capital.^[8]

In 2010, Wong worked for the business development of Digg, leading the development and release of the Digg Android Mobile App. He was retrenched after five months, an experience that eventually led to him opening his own business.^[9]

Kiip

Wong received the initial inspiration for Kiip on an airplane as he observed his fellow passengers interacting with their iPads.^[10][11] He noticed that many passengers were playing games, and felt that the games' advertisements took up screen space without adding any real value.^[11] Because he perceived that games are a "holy grail of achievement," Wong wanted to leverage key moments of achievement—such as level ups and high scores—with a targeted, relevant rewards program that enabled brands to reach consumers when they were most engaged.^[3][4][12]

In July 2010, Wong teamed with his fellow former Digg employees Courtney Guertin and their mutual friend Amadeus Demarzi to found Kiip.^[13] Currently, Kiip is active on more than 400 apps on 30 million devices, and sends 100 million moments of achievement-based rewards notices to consumers monthly through its network.^{[9][14][15][16][17]} By mid-2012, Kiip had raised more than $15 million of venture capital from companies like Relay Ventures, Hummer Winblad, True Ventures, Verizon Ventures, CrossLink Capital, and others.^[18][19][20] Kiip has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo and London.^[21] The company has established strategic partnerships with more than 40 major brands, including 1-800-Flowers, Amazon.com, American Apparel, Best Buy, Carl’s Jr., Disney, Dr. Pepper, GNC, KY Jelly, Pepsi, Playboy, Popchips, Sephora, Victoria Secret, Vitamin Water and others.^[22][23][24]

Reception

In 2010, Wong became one of the youngest company leaders to ever receive funding from a venture capital firm.^[9][25] He has spoken at several popular conferences, including TEDx and SXSW.^[26][27] In addition, Wong and Kiip have been profiled in such global publications as Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Inc. Magazine.^{[9][22][28][29][30]}

Awards

• Named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list at the age of 20.^[31]
• Named one of "The Top 5 Young Entrepreneurs to Watch" by Mashable.^[32]
• Recognized among AdAge’s Creativity Top 50 in 2011.^[33][34]
• Named to Business Insider’s Top 25 under 25 in Silicon Valley and 18 Most Important People in Mobile Advertising .^[35][36]
• One of Canada's Top 20 Under 20.^[37]

References

External links

• Kiip
• Brian Wong's profiles