Brian Wong
Canadian entrepreneur (born 1991)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Brian Wong (born April 14, 1991) is a Canadian Internet entrepreneur. In 2010, Wong co-founded Kiip (pronounced "keep"), a company offering a mobile app rewards platform through which computer game players would receive real-world rewards from brands and companies for in-game achievements.
Early life and education
Wong was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, to parents of Hong Kong descent. His father was an accountant and his mother was a nurse.[1] He received his high school diploma at the age of 14, after twice skipping two grades at the University Transition Program at the University of British Columbia (UBC).[2] Wong received a bachelor's degree from UBC at the age of 18.[3] 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."[4][5][6] One of his most recent ventures, Kiip, made him one of the youngest internet entrepreneurs to raise venture capital.[7]
In 2010, Wong worked in business development for the news aggregator Digg, leading the development and release of the Digg Android Mobile App. Soon after a joining and after a disastrous redesign, Digg had a round of corporate layoffs. Wong was let go after five months, an experience that eventually led to him opening his own business.[8]
Kiip
Wong received the initial inspiration for Kiip on an airplane at age 19 as he observed his fellow passengers interacting with their iPads.[9][10] He noticed that many passengers were playing games, and felt that the games' advertisements took up screen space without adding any real value.[10] 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.[2][3][11]
In July 2010, Wong teamed with his fellow former Digg employees Courtney Guertin and their mutual friend Amadeus Demarzi to found Kiip.[12] As of 2017, Kiip was sending achievement-based rewards such as coupons to 100 million consumers per month,[13] and had raised more than $32 million of venture capital from various sources, including Relay Ventures, Hummer Winblad Venture Partners, True Ventures, Verizon Ventures, and Crosslink Capital.[14] Kiip has offices in San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Tokyo and London.[15] The company 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's Secret, and Vitamin Water.[16][17][18] Kiip was on track to do more than $20 million in revenue in 2017.[19][needs update]
Recognitions
In 2010, Wong became one of the youngest company leaders to ever receive funding from a venture capital firm.[8][20] He was called a self-made millionaire by the time he was 20 years old.[21] By 2012 he had spoken at several popular conferences, including TEDx and South by Southwest.[22][23] Wong and Kiip were profiled in such global publications such as Forbes, Entrepreneur, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and Inc. Magazine,[8][16][24][25][26] and he was on the cover of the September 2014 issue of Entrepreneur as one of the young millionaires changing the world.[27] Wong was named in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Social/Mobile list in 2011.[28]
