Brian Wong
Co-Founder & General Partner, Ascii Ventures. On 2 shows, 2 appearances. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinvestorauthor@brian_wong ↗LinkedIn ↗brianwong.me ↗Wikipedia ↗
Brian Wong is the co-founder and former CEO of mobile rewards platform Kiip, which he founded at age 19. He is also an investor and the author of the 2016 book The Cheat Code.
2shows
2appearances
28statements
2resolved
2supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
8said about them ↓ Everything Brian Wong said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Wong: Doing a priced seed round was Kiip's smartest decision
“Yeah, very rare for its time, but I don't regret it at all. In fact, it was the smartest decision we ever made, because we didn't have to deal with all the pricing weirdness that happened in the years afterwards.”
Worrying about pre-exit cap table mechanics wastes founders' mental energy
“Getting your, yourself frustrated with cap table mechanics pre-exit and any particular liquidity event is a waste of your mental energy. At the end of the day, it's what your exit is. If it's IPO, if it's an acquisition, if it's the merger or whatever it is yo…”
True Ventures Originated the Founder-Friendly VC Movement in Silicon Valley
“The philosophy was actually, thanks to True given to me because of their philosophy, which was seeking founder-friendly venture capitalists, and that was really kind of their contribution to the ecosystem, was how do we find, how do we be the most founder-frie…”
Despite the Branding, Very Few VCs Are Truly Founder-Friendly
“And then, yeah, and then, and even now there's not that many founder-friendly VCs.”
Struggling Companies Need Founders to Step In and Restore Original Vision
“There was also sort of this need for a founder to come in and reinstate their sort of the reasons why the company was started in the first place and kind of bring things to this original vision.”
Board Meetings Should Review Pre-Discussed Items, Not Introduce New Decisions
“The board meeting is really kind of a review of everything that's already been talked about. It's not supposed to be a place where you talk about brand new things That require a lot of heavy decision making. It's just a place for people to convene once those d…”
Founders Cannot Truly Judge a VC Until Working With Them Directly
“It's been so noisy in the past five years since I've started doing this. It's been five years now that it's almost so hard to know if a VC is truly someone you want to look up to or respect until you actually know them.”
Founder-Friendly VCs Avoid Taking Too Much Equity in Early Rounds
“Well, practically speaking, it's not gobbling up so much of the company in the first chunk that you have zero incentives to stick around as a founder.”
Raising Mega Growth Rounds Requires Triple-Digit Year-Over-Year Revenue Growth
“It's really hard to raise growth capital, ah, especially off of revenues, ah, primarily because unless, and especially in this environment, and the reason is because as much as it sounds there's tons of growth money being thrown out there, like a hundred milli…”
Kiip Raised Most of Its Later-Stage Capital From Strategic Corporate VCs
“Pretty much most of the new capital we've raised from new funds in our latter rounds have been pretty much only strategic, ah, corporate VCs.”
Founders Should Prioritize Revenue-Generating Investors Over Cool or Prestigious Ones
“I care less about investors that are generally cool, Right? And I care more about investors that can help us generate more revenue.”
A CEO's Primary Job Is Sparking Strategic Ideas, Not Direct Execution
“Making sure that you have some bandwidth as a CEO to keep your head above the water to sort of see what's going on and really understand what you could try doing and knowing that it is part of your job to go out there and think of very strategic ideas that peo…”
Kiip Generates Eight Figures in Revenue With 60 Employees
“Generating eight figures in revenue. We're at 60 employees. I'm still CEO. Five years later, pretty, pretty darn proud of what we've accomplished as a whole team.”
Kiip is embedded in almost 5,000 mobile applications
“Keep is a platform that's embedded into now almost 5000 apps, and it takes triggers or actions that you do in those apps, like leveling up in a game, or finishing a run, or crossing off a to-do in your to-do list app, and then rewarding you with something that…”
Kiip operates on a 50-50 revenue share with publishers
“So we typically do a fifty-fifty rev share with our publishers”
Kiip sold 20% equity for its $300k seed round in 2010
“I think we did sell about 20% of it for 300 K.”
Kiip processed $11M in total transaction volume in 2015
“Well, last year, we did eleven million in revenue.”
Kiip projects $19M to $20M in transaction volume for 2016
“This year, we're projecting about 19, twenty million.”
Kiip had roughly 55% gross margins in 2015
“It's the total transaction volume, so our margins are around 55%.”
Kiip expects gross margins to expand to 63% in 2016
“And this year our margins are actually increasing substantially to about 63%.”
Kiip sees an average reward engagement rate of 10%
“Our engagement rate on average right now is about 10%.”
The other half of the tape: Brian Wong's own voice is left out of every number here. Other people bring the name up 6 times in 3 episodes across the shows. 2 statements on the record name them. every mention, with the transcript →
Who brings them up most Nathan Latka 6
Statements about Brian Wong, by other people (2)
Craig wrote the very first check into Wish.com
“I wrote Probably the first, the very first check into a company back then known as context logic, which is now wish.com. And they're a very large e-commerce play now, billions of dollars that came from an introduction from Brian Wong of keep.”
Brian Wong Graduated College at 18 and Launched Digg's Android App
“He skipped four grades in school and graduated university at just 18, at which point he moved to the States on his own, and within months Was working alongside tech legends Kevin Rose and Jay Adelson at Dig, where he launched their Android mobile app.”
Every mention by year
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Top Founders 6
2016 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Brian's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 20VCLEDGER | Co-Founder & General Partner, Ascii Ventures | 1 | 14 | 100% 2/2 | full record on 20VC → |
| TOP FOUNDERSLEDGER | Co-Founder & General Partner, Ascii Ventures | 1 | 14 | — | full record on Top Founders → |