InMobi Global Event Calendar For September

InMobi kicks off the conference season this month with a presence at a number of great events around the globe. Please contact events@inmobi.com if you have questions or need additional information.

Asia Pacific

iMedia Brand Summit - Hunter Valley, Australia
Date: September 13-15
Location: Cypress Lakes Resort - 9 Thompsons Rd. Pokolbin, Pokolbin 2320, Australia
www.imediaconnection.com/summits/
Emmanuel Allix, InMobi, Vice President and Regional Director, Asia Pacific is presenting at the Innovation Forum.

India Product Managers’ Conclave
Date: September 19
Location: IIM Bangalore
Sridhar Ranganathan, InMobi, Vice President of Product Management is speaking on panel at 12:45-1:15pm.

Digital Media Conclave, Mumbai
Date: September 24, 2010
Location: The Residence Hotel & Convention Centre, Saki Vihar Road, Near Vihar Lake, Powai, Mumbai
www.digitalmediaconclave.com
Sridhar Ranganathan, InMobi, Vice President of Product Management is giving a keynote.

Mobile Apps Conference
Date: September 25, 2010
Location: Nimhans Convention Centre, Near Diary Circle, Bangalore - 560029
www.siliconindia.com/events/siliconindia_events/agenda.php?eid=MobileAppsConf2010_Blore
Sridhar Ranganathan, InMobi, Vice President of Product Management is giving a keynote.

iMedia Agency Summit - Bali, Indonesia
Date: September 27-28
Location: Conrad Hotel - Jl Pratama Raya 168, Tanjung Benoa, Bali 80363
www.imediaconnection.com/summits/
Robert Woolfrey, InMobi, Director of Brand Advertising, Asia Pacific is presenting at the Innovation Forum.

Europe

Mobile Tech Conference 2010
Date: September 6-8
Location:   Rheingoldhalle Mainz - Rheinstrasse 66, 55116 Mainz  (outside of Frankfurt)
www.mobiletechcon.de/2010/
Limvirak Chea, InMob, Director, Business Development Europe and Middle East will give a Keynote, September 7 at 14:45 - 15:45 titled “Economics of Your Ad Supported Application Business”.

Over the Air
Date: September 10-11
Location: Imperial College, London
www.overtheair.org/blog/competition/
Limvirak Chea, InMob, Director, Business Development Europe and Middle East will give a Keynote, September 11, at 11am in the Huxley Room titled “Economics of Your Ad Supported Application Business”.

Mobile Entertainment Meet-Up
Date: Monday, September 20 from 6:30pm - 12:00am
Location: 24 Kingly Street, London, W1B 5QP
www.mobile-ent.biz/events/233/Meet-Up-July
IMobi the sponsor of this industry mixer and the event is free to attend. Please register at: Katy.Grant@intentmedia.co.uk

AD:TECH London
Location: Olympia Conference Center, London
Date: 21-22 September 2010
www.ad-techlondon.co.uk/adtech2010/
Rob Jonas, InMobi, Vice President and Managing Director of Europe and Middle East is conducting a workshop Tuesday 21 September 12:30 – 13:00.

U.S.

AppNation
Date: September 12-13, 2010
Location: Moscone Center, San Francisco
www.appnationconference.com
Patricia Clark, InMobi, Head of Advertising, North America is speaking on the Mobile Marketing Apps Panel.

IAB Mixx Conference and Expo (During AdWeek)
Date: September 27-28, 2010
Location: Crowne Plaza Hotel - 1605 Broadway, New York
www.mixx-expo.com
Anne Frisbie, VP and Managing Director, North America, will be presenting at a workshop on September 28 from 2:00pm to 2:45pm.

Download Ashwani Kumar’s Silicon Valley Android Users Group Presentation

We want to thank everyone for showing up at the Silicon Valley Android Users Group last night. InMobi is very happy to be working with such an engaged and energized group.

“Hey guys, it was great to share some learnings about the Android market and advertising metrics. There were quite a few who were interested in looking at the presentation afterwards. We have posted it on our blog for everyone to download. Let us know if you have some issues accessing it or have other questions. For the fastest response find us @inmobi on Twitter.”

Ashwani

A PDF of the presentation can be downloaded here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9843154/AndroidMeetupAug2010.pdf

InMobi Welcomes Apple to Mobile Advertising Industry

Haiti Still Needs Our Help! Text “Haiti” to 90999 to Donate $10

The InMobi community joined dozens of mobile industry companies across the world helping provide relief to the Haitian people.  We launched a US campaign yesterday with a click to text call to action campaign running through our mobile ad network.  Consumers will be encouraged to simply text the word HAITI to 90999 to give $10.  When prompted, they reply with YES to confirm a one-time gift. The $10 donation will appear on their next mobile bill and 100% of the donation will go to Red Cross to help those hit by this natural disaster.  The campaign was set up by mGive which you can read about at
http://blog.mgive.com.  We will be sure to share results of the campaign with you in a follow-up post.

Please spread the word and if you have the means, text “Haiti” to 90999 to donate your $10.

Thanks,
The InMobi Team

From mKhoj to InMobi

Like any other start up venture, mKhoj has had its share of ups and downs. We started business by diving into the first business model of solving the local information problem using SMS based search and worked on SMS based monetization as a revenue model which would eventually morph into an SMS Ad Network. At the time, it had seemed like a great problem to solve since the proliferation of PCs was rather weak.

But after a few months into the market, the model did not fare as had been envisaged earlier. The team had failed to clearly understand the cultural aspect of India, where every individual on the road is a source of high quality (& mostly user friendly) information. Thus the demand for the service was not very high and the money was running low.

A few months into the venture the team faced its toughest decision, a decision which would prove to be the turning point in mKhoj’s life. The decision was to abandon the existing business of SMS and focus on the mobile web ecosystem, which had lately started to show signs of a strong future. It was an emotionally charged period for the team as it wasn’t easy to see all the hard work of the past months go to waste and start fresh from ground up.

The next several months were very tough as everyone worked on developing the new product and taking it to the market. Everybody tried to hold a brave face but it was really difficult as a thousand questions were brewing in everybody’s minds about the future of this new venture. The company was running low on money and on morale and the product had still not hit the market so had no paying customers. It was also pretty evident that no investor would invest in the business at that stage.

The team decided to work without pay and also pitched in with their credit cards. The cards were used to run the company till the product was out in the market and started to gain some traction such that the venture capitalists would agree to make the required capital infusion. Team members refrained from making personal purchases using their credit cards because credit limits were getting breached rather quickly. It was these tough periods that really brought the team close and showed great commitment.

As they say, even the worst of times come to an end and things started to look for the team when Kleiner Perkins and Ram Shriram (Sherpalo Ventures) decided to put money into the company. Finally, the hard work of the team, their sacrifice and the risk that each one of them (& their families) had undertaken paid off and helped get mKhoj to a new platform from where it could scale.

Post venture funding, we suddenly faced a new set of challenges. Now the focus shifted to putting together a great team. Initially, there had been 8 people in the company in 2008. Now, exceptional focus was being given on hiring so that only the best people in the industry joined the little but soon-to-be-big start up to take it to the next level.

InMobi, previously mKhoj

By the end of the year over 50 people in 4 offices across the globe had joined the company. By the middle of 2009, growth surpassed all expectations and we grew beyond 75 people across 4 offices in the world. We are now one of the fastest growing mobile advertising networks in the world. Here we are today, ambitious to make it big on the world scale. With that intention, we chose a new name, InMobi, that we think conveys our value proposition greatly.

The story sure seems like a long one but one would like to believe this is still the beginning of an exciting journey of the dream called InMobi!

- Naveen

The Dream Called InMobi

Today we’re rebranding and launching ourselves as InMobi, with aspirations to be a global player in the mobile web ecosystem, enthusiasm in our veins and earnestness in our work. The journey so far has been really exciting for me and the team that has come with me all along. This journey, as with most others, started with an inspiration.

The conceptualization of InMobi (previously mKhoj) began in the second half of 2006 when I was visiting India and was intrigued by the continuous proliferation of mobile and the evolving mobile landscape but rather slow innovation on the content side for consumers.

Preliminary thoughts were floated around with a few folks in the mobile industry along the lines of a mobile search engine. Some initial excitement led to a business plan which I took to a friend-angel investor. Somewhat fascinated by this business plan, my friend agreed to introduce me to other investors. At that point I was asked for the name of the company and I came up with the name ‘mKhoj’, khoj meant ‘search’ in Hindi.

Around the same time, I happened to meet a very close friend of mine from my undergrad years, Abhay, at a bar in New Delhi. Over drinks, casual conversation flowed which led to finding out that Abhay was also contemplating a similar idea. It did not take long for us to decide that our destination was the same and as such we began to give shape to the business plan, together. Very soon we met Amit, on a trip to Bangalore and began convincing him to join us on this venture, which hadn’t even been established till then.

Now, we had the business idea, the expertise, the will and the experience. But we still lacked a key ingredient: funding. But as it would happen, fate smiled upon us and on July 26, 2006 I happened to meet Sasha Mirchandani and Prashant Choksey for the first time in a hotel in Delhi. The introduction was made by a common friend and I was floored by the exceptional energy levels of both the guys (despite Sasha being sick that day). The meeting went considerably well and things moved forward quickly after that. Then came September 7, 2006, the most extraordinary day in our and mKhoj’s life. That day a presentation was made in front of the ‘band of angels’, a group of illustrious businessmen of Bombay, who had come together for the first time. The air was filled with tension and we were trying hard to think positively when the wise men around the table gave us a thumbs-up and decided to put their money behind ‘three guys with a power point’.

Now all the loose ends had been tied and we started further work on our brainchild. We worked from Amit’s prior company in Bangalore or from bistros scattered across the city. By the time money was in the bank, it was the end of the year and all of us decided to move to Bombay to start the company. The initial days in Bombay were rather interesting when; we worked out of an empty apartment. During those days, talks were already on with Mohit, who was working with Virgin Mobile in San Francisco, to join us in our efforts as CTO.  Mohit joined the venture a few weeks later after it was initiated.

Thus, with the money in the bank, team in place and the first office of mKhoj, the dream of  ‘three guys with power point’ kicked-off and mKhoj started functioning as a proper corporate company in early 2007.

In my next post I’ll share with you the highlights of our journey from mKhoj to InMobi.

- Naveen