Interview with Wenhan Zhou – Cofounder of 2359Media

Having changed their business model since its inception, 2359Media has transitioned from being an ad network to being focused on mobilising content across smartphone platforms. With their first mobile application, SG Malls (opens up iTunes) as an example, they look to continue building high value location-based applications that are useful to consumers, and effective as rich media advertising platforms for advertisers. They also recently won the Microsoft Mobile Incubation Week. We sit down with one of the co-founders, Wenhan to find out more.

Hi Wenhan, glad to have you on SGE. Tell us about your background and how you met your cofounder, Hong Ting.

Hi Gwen, We met on the National University of Singapore (NUS) Overseas College program where we were both part of NCSV 12th Batch. We worked together for the first time when we formed a team in our Global Venture Creation Class taught by Tom Kosnik, as part of the program. Hong Ting and I are academically trained in the fields of Quantitative Finance and Computer Engineering respectively.

Why was 2359Media started?

2359Media was started because we felt that the mobile space will be undergoing a sea change, with opportunities for us to become a driver of this revolution. Our name “2359” (a minute before the dawn of a new day) reflects the belief that we are just at the cusp of the mobile revolution, where the confluence of factors will bring about the true potential of mobile as a media platform.

While we started off as an ad network with standard ad banners, we felt that we could benefit potential advertisers more by providing custom ad units and formats. Given these considerations, we have since morphed into a mobile advertising platform, providing an easy route for advertisers and content publishers alike to mobilise materials into attractive mobile applications across the major handset platforms. For content providers such as websites, blogs, magazines, newspaper, our advertising engine is available for publishers to monetize their content.

2359Media recently won the competition at Microsoft Windows Mobile Incubation Week. Tell us about that experience.

Microsoft Windows Mobile Incubation Week was hosted by Chris Chin to introduce developers to the Win Mo 6.5 platform, undergoing technical training with Nick Randolph, a Microsoft MVP. In addition to the training, the experience sharing that took place between attendees added fresh perspectives and sparked new ideas for possible mobile applications.

From a development perspective, the platform was relatively easy to pick up, and by judging day, the SGMalls WinMo version was 60% feature complete. Right now we are focused on polishing the UI to ensure that the WinMo users have a good an experience as our iPhone users.

Where do you see the mobile space heading in the next 3 years?

The successes of the iTunes App store, has proven that the app store model works as an app distribution channel, as well as an important factor in the purchasing decision of mobile phones. Given this, while Apple currently dominates the mobile app space, every other handset/OS player is launching competing app stores. At CommunicAsia 2009, for example, Samsung and LG both featured their own app Store that will initially sell Window Mobile apps. With this trend in place, we foresee that mobile apps will certainly flourish both in terms of quantity and quality over the next 3 years at least.

On the horizon though, with the cost of data on the decline, a question remains whether mobile web apps will overtake native apps. Currently, with the high cost of data, native applications have a leg up as they are more responsive and can provide a better user experience. However, as we have seen in iPhone 3.0, mobile web apps are taking advantage of certain features that were once the domain of native apps (e.g. location sensing and local SQL storage).

What would you advise a developer who is deciding which mobile platform to develop on?

As a company, we will always aim for the platform with the largest market share in the specific demographic segment. With most platforms having about the same learning curve of 1-2 months, the time invested to build an app is similar. Therefore, the return on investment lies upon the platform decided upon. For us, this decision takes into account the number of users and the probability that a user will download an application. Having built our iPhone and Windows Mobile products, our next few targeted platforms are Android and Nokia Web Run Time.

What difficulties have you faced in trying to run 2359Media?

The mobile marketing industry is still at its infancy. Therefore educating marketers to understand the potential of the mobile phone, in addition to SMS marketing, has been a challenge for us.
Even though the iPhone has a very large mindshare, its market share is still minuscule, leading to marketers who might not be as tech savvy not noticing how mobile marketing could change the way companies and consumer interact. However, similar to how marketers are finally beginning to adopt social media, we firmly believe that mobile marketing will become another dominant channel of marketing in the near future.

What is the biggest risk you had to take so far?

Launching the Malls application in Sydney was one of the biggest risk for us. Despite being without prior business experience in Sydney or having the luxury of a local business partner, we understand the importance of being a global company from day 1 and decided to spend precious development time to release the Sydney version of the application. This risk has seemed to pay off, with us attracting the attention of the local mobile community who has offered to help us publicise and possibly monetise the app.

With Sydney on a growth track, we will be launching the Malls app for Johannesburg, Beijing and Shanghai in the coming few months.

How has 2359Media been funded and are you looking for (additional) funding?

Currently we are self-funded. We are applying for the YES! startup fund and iJam funding.

Where do you see 2359Media in one year?

Other than having a fleet of the Malls application in all the major cities in the world, we see ourselves as an enabler for content publishers and advertisers alike to distribute content to and publicise on mobile devices. Providing the best in class experience for users to consume content, we look to fuel mobile-based and location aware content consumption throughout the world.

What do you think are the three most important traits an entrepreneur should have?

Passionate, Observant and being a People’s person. Firstly, passion is what drives an entrepreneur through difficult times, motivating one self to work hard despite immense challenges that one might face. Passion also drives one to not settle for being “good enough”, instead pursuing perfection with everything that one does. Secondly, being observant allows one to identify market opportunities, filter through potential solutions, and understand the difficulties that potential clients face. Last but not least, without a highly skilled and closely-knitted team, it is almost not possible to succeed in the competitive and globalised markets nowadays. Being a people’s person helps in assembling that team together and motivate them to success.

Pleasure to have you on SGE. All the best in 2359Media!

Editor’s Note: You can also check out iHealth SG, a Ministry of Health application developed by 2359Media.

About Wenhan Zhou

Wenhan graduated with a Second Upper Class Honors in Bachelor of Engineering (Computer Engineering) with a minor in Technopreneurship from the National University of Singapore. At NUS, Wenhan has served on many student organizations, most notably as the Chairperson of NUSSU Business committee and as the Director of Marketing of the Student Union.

In May 2007, Wenhan also founded the now defunct www.Tagxe.com, a taxi ride sharing website that was featured on numerous newspapers and had over 1,500 users. Tagxe served as an excellent experience in learning to scale the number of users.

Wenhan was a key employee at GetQuik.com from July 2007- July 2008. GetQuik is an online marketplace for consumers to order food from restaurants across Silicon Valley, where his role as the first employee, Business Development Executive and Product Designer helped GetQuik to quickly grow to 7 employees with an annual transaction rate of over a USD1 million.

About Hong Ting Wong

Hong Ting has notable experiences in product management, marketing and event management, including being part of an enterprise software company in the Silicon Valley and propelling a Singaporean leadership consultancy to become one of the market leaders in the industry.

An active citizen in entrepreneurship communities, Hong Ting is a founding member of the InCub3, is an active contributor to the NUS Overseas College Alumni Network, and was the President of the Asia-Pacific Student Entrepreneurship Society (ASES) Singapore Chapter.

Currently, other than being a spokesperson on the opportunities that lie in the mobile advertising industry as part of 2359 Media, Hong Ting also actively consults organizations on leveraging technology to increase their efficiency and to better support existing customers while reaching out to new ones.

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