Fool's gold
The rise and fall of mobile content companies
and the future ahead
@benjaminjoffe | CEO, Plus Eight Star BuzzCity Developer Garage | Singapore, 2010.11
@benjaminjoffe
4 years 1 year 5 years
• CEO, Plus Eight Star | www.plus8star.com – Best prac2ces from Asia’s digital space – Research, Strategy & “Innova2on Arbitrage”
• Speaker 100+ talks in 16 countries
• Advisor
• Investor in Asia-‐based global companies
Angel Investor, Advisor, Keynote Speaker
Mobile Monday Beijing
4 years 37 events
130 speakers 3,000 par2cipants
For-‐Side.com (Japan)
For-‐Side Story
• Market cap was over US$2B – Acquisi2ons worldwide – Plunged
• Today: US$110 million (2010.11.24)
• From ring tones to… e-‐books?
Tapulous
• 2009.12 $1M/month
• 2010.10 bought by Disney (US$35M?)
• Downloaded 35 million 2mes
• Revenue 2010 $15 million?
Can you build one today?
• Early entry (before iPhone SDK)
• Bought content from developer
• Concept copy from DDR
• What next?
ngmoco:)
• “Next Genera2on Mobile Company” – 12 million users – 50 million downloads
• Funding ~US$45M
• Bought by DeNA US$300 million (+ 100M?)
• Revenue?
Deal!
• KPCB Holdings (32.72%) $98M • Ins2tu2onal Venture Partners (25.31%) $76M • Norwest Venture Partners (13.46%) $40M • Neil Young (9.52%) $28M • Bob Stevenson (9.52%) $28M • Google Ventures (3.65%) $11M • Maples Investments (1.81%) $5.4M
High Produc2on Value
Who buys today?
• Japan DeNA, GREE: x100M in the bank
• Korea Maybe Nexon, NC Soo, NHN?
• China Tencent? Others?
• US Disney
• Others?
Issues with the app economy
• User acquisi2on: Media / App Stores?
• Virality & Mobile silos
• Reach – 60 million iPhones – X million Android phones (app store fragmenta2on) – 7+ million iPads by end 2010, 30+ million in 2011? – How about low-‐end phones?
• Defensibility: IP + Game mechanics?
Fools’ Gold?
• Global developers on par with Silicon Valley
• Race to the borom
• Copycats
• Building sustainable cash flow
GREE (Japan)
GREE
• Market cap: US$2.9 billion (2010.11.24)
• From web + ad-‐based SNS to mobile + gaming
• Ad push
• Revenue 2010: US$400M+ – 60% profit margin
DeNA / GREE offering
Celsys
• Mobile Comics
• US$500M / year market
• Leading solu2on provider
• IPO Nov 4, 2010
• Revenue US$32M (E), 20% profit
Zappalas
• Mobile fortune telling?
• Subscrip2on + new currency, games – 2.2M paying subs. – 285 staff
• US$34M (May-‐July 2010) – 28% margin – Over US$100M in 2010 (E)
What to do?
• Distribu2on
• Service vs. Product – Business model – Sustainable business
• Dealing with “fast followers”
Ques2ons?
More about “Innova2on Arbitrage”
Thanks!
www.plus8star.com
benjaminjoffe
hrp://twirer.com/benjaminjoffe
www.linkedin.com/in/benjaminjoffe
www.slideshare.net/plus8star
+81 | Japan
+82 | Korea
+86 | China
Telecom & Internet
+ Added Value
* High quality