Brian Wong (born April 14, 1991) is a Canadian

Internet entrepreneur An Internet entrepreneur is an owner, founder or manager of an Internet-based business. This list includes Internet company founders and people brought on to companies for their general business or accounting acumen, as is the case with some Chie ...

. In 2010, Wong co-founded

Kiip Kiip was a mobile advertising network.Edwards, JimThis 21-year-old May Have Cracked the Future of Mobile Advertising ''BusinessInsider''. May 21, 2012. Holiday, RyanOnline Advertisings Greatest Missed Opportunity? Kiip.Me Founder Brian Wong Answ ...

(pronounced "keep"), a company offering a

mobile app A mobile application or app is a computer program or software application designed to run on a mobile device such as a phone, tablet, or watch. Mobile applications often stand in contrast to desktop applications which are designed to run on d ...

rewards platform through which computer game players would receive real-world rewards from brands and companies for in-game achievements. He was replaced as Kiip CEO in March 2019 after being indicted for sexual assault.

Early life and education

Wong was born and raised in

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

, to parents of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

descent. His father was an accountant and his mother was a nurse. 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 The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

(UBC). Wong received a bachelor's degree from UBC at the age of 18.Building the World's First Mobile Rewards Network: Brian Wong, 20-Year-Old Founder of Kiip
''Sramana Mitra''. April 5, 2012. While at university, Wong launched his first company, FollowFormation, which

Mashable Mashable is a digital media platform, news website and entertainment company founded by Pete Cashmore in 2005. History Mashable was founded by Pete Cashmore while living in Aberdeen, Scotland, in July 2005. Early iterations of the site were a ...

called "the easiest way to follow the top

Twitter Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...

ers by subject matter or topic." One of his most recent ventures,

, made him one of the youngest internet entrepreneurs to raise venture capital. In 2010, Wong worked in business development for the news aggregator

Digg Digg, stylized in lowercase as digg, is an American news aggregator with a curated front page, aiming to select stories specifically for the Internet audience such as science, trending political issues, and viral Internet issues. It was launch ...

, 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.

Kiip

Wong received the initial inspiration for Kiip on an airplane at age 19 as he observed his fellow passengers interacting with their

iPad The iPad is a brand of iOS and iPadOS-based tablet computers that are developed by Apple Inc. The iPad was conceived before the related iPhone but the iPhone was developed and released first. Speculation about the development, operating s ...

s.Tsotsi, Alexia
Kiip’s Brian Wong On Taking Risks As Young Entrepreneur
''

TechCrunch TechCrunch is an American online newspaper focusing on high tech and startup companies. It was founded in June 2005 by Archimedes Ventures, led by partners Michael Arrington and Keith Teare. In 2010, AOL acquired the company for approximately ...

''. April 12, 2011. He noticed that many passengers were playing games, and felt that the games' advertisements took up screen space without adding any real value. 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. In July 2010, Wong teamed with his fellow former Digg employees Courtney Guertin and their mutual friend Amadeus Demarzi to found Kiip.Tsotsis, Alexia.
19 Year Old Kiip Founder Closes 300K Angel Round For Mobile In-Game Ad Startup
. ''

''. October 27, 2010. As of 2017, Kiip was sending achievement-based rewards such as coupons to 100 million consumers per month, and had raised more than $32 million of venture capital from various sources, including Relay Ventures,

Hummer Winblad Venture Partners Hummer Winblad Venture Partners is an American software and web focused venture capital firm based in San Francisco, California. Its founders include John Hummer and Ann Winblad. The firm was an early investor in Napster, the first popular file ...

, True Ventures, Verizon Ventures, and

Crosslink Capital Crosslink Capital is a leading early-stage venture capital firm with an asset management business that continues into the public equity market for fast-growing companies. The firm has over $2.0B assets under management that it invests in consu ...

. Kiip has offices in

San Francisco San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

Tokyo Tokyo (; ja, 東京, , ), officially the Tokyo Metropolis ( ja, 東京都, label=none, ), is the capital and largest city of Japan. Formerly known as Edo, its metropolitan area () is the most populous in the world, with an estimated 37.468 ...

and

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

. The company established strategic partnerships with more than 40 major brands, including

1-800-Flowers 1-800-Flowers.com, Inc. is a floral and foods gift retailer and distribution company in the United States. The company's focus, except for Mother's Day and Valentine's Day, is on gift baskets. They also use the name ''1-800-Baskets.com''. Their ...

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc. ( ) is an American multinational technology company focusing on e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. It has been referred to as "one of the most influential economi ...

American Apparel American Apparel Inc. is an online-only retailer and former brick-and-mortar stores operator based in Los Angeles, California. Founded by Canadian businessman Dov Charney in 1989, it was a vertically integrated company that ranked as one of the l ...

Best Buy Best Buy Co. Inc. is an American multinational consumer electronics retailer headquartered in Richfield, Minnesota. Originally founded by Richard M. Schulze and James Wheeler in 1966 as an audio specialty store called Sound of Music, it was rebra ...

Carl's Jr. Carl's Jr. Restaurants LLC is an American fast food restaurant chain operated by CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc., with franchisees in North & South America, Asia, Oceania, Europe and Africa. In 2016, ''Entrepreneur'' listed Carl's Jr. as No. 54 ...

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Dr. Pepper Dr Pepper is a carbonated soft drink. It was created in the 1880s by pharmacist Charles Alderton in Waco, Texas, and first served around 1885. Dr Pepper was first nationally marketed in the United States in 1904. It is now also sold in Europe ...

, GNC,

KY Jelly K-Y Jelly is a water-based, water-soluble personal lubricant, most commonly used as a lubricant for sexual intercourse and masturbation. A variety of different products and formulas are produced under the K-Y banner, some of which are not water-so ...

Pepsi Pepsi is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by PepsiCo. Originally created and developed in 1893 by Caleb Bradham and introduced as Brad's Drink, it was renamed as Pepsi-Cola in 1898, and then shortened to Pepsi in 1961. History Pepsi was ...

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. K ...

Popchips Popchips is an American brand of popped potato and corn products marketed as similar to potato chips. They are manufactured by processing potato starch at high pressure and temperature, in a process similar to that used for puffed rice cakes. Hi ...

Sephora Sephora is a French multinational retailer of personal care and beauty products. Featuring nearly 340 brands, along with its own private label, Sephora Collection, Sephora offers beauty products including cosmetics, skincare, body, fragrance, n ...

Victoria's Secret Victoria's Secret is an American lingerie, clothing, and beauty retailer known for high visibility marketing and branding, starting with a popular catalog and followed by an annual fashion show with supermodels dubbed Angels. As the largest ret ...

, and

Vitamin Water Energy Brands, also doing business as Glacéau, is a privately owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company based in Whitestone, Queens, New York, that manufactures and distributes various lines of drinks marketed as enhanced water. Founded in May 1 ...

. Holiday, Ryan
Online Advertisings Greatest Missed Opportunity? Kiip.Me Founder Brian Wong Answers
''Forbes''. April 25, 2012.Tsotsis, Alexia
Kiip: A Win-Win for App Developers and Advertisers
''Entrepreneur''. March 9, 2012. Kiip was on track to do more than $20 million in revenue in 2017. In March 2019, after Wong was accused of sexual assault, Kiip replaced Wong as CEO. His removal came after an indefinite leave of absence, with Kiip CRO Bill Alena serving as interim CEO in his stead.

Recognitions

In 2010, Wong became one of the youngest company leaders to ever receive funding from a

venture capital firm Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

.McMahan, Ty
Betting Venture Capital On An Unproven 19-Year-Old
''Wall Street Journal''. August 6, 2010.Arrington, Michael
True Ventures Invests In 19 Year Old Entrepreneur Brian Wong
''

''. August 3, 2010. He was called a self-made millionaire by the time he was 20 years old. By 2012 he had spoken at several popular conferences, including

TEDx TED Conferences, LLC (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is an American-Canadian non-profit media organization that posts international talks online for free distribution under the slogan "ideas worth spreading". TED was founded by Richard Sau ...

and

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

. Wong and Kiip were profiled in such global publications such as ''

Forbes ''Forbes'' () is an American business magazine owned by Integrated Whale Media Investments and the Forbes family. Published eight times a year, it features articles on finance, industry, investing, and marketing topics. ''Forbes'' also re ...

'', ''

Entrepreneur Entrepreneurship is the creation or extraction of economic value. With this definition, entrepreneurship is viewed as change, generally entailing risk beyond what is normally encountered in starting a business, which may include other values th ...

'', ''

The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', and ''Inc.'' Magazine,Takahashi, Dean
Kiip expands beyond games to rewarding fitness “moments”
''Venture Beat''. March 22, 2012. and he was on the cover of the September 2014 issue of ''

'' as one of the young millionaires changing the world. Wong was named in the ''Forbes'' 30 Under 30 Social/Mobile list in 2011.

Publications

Wong is the author of ''The Cheat Code: Going Off Script to Get More, Go Faster, and Shortcut Your Way to Success'', a book that is "aimed at helping young people just starting their careers". It was published in September 2016.

References

External links

Kiip press page with profile of Wong
* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wong, Brian 1991 births Living people Businesspeople from Vancouver Canadian company founders Canadian computer businesspeople Canadian technology chief executives Canadian expatriates in the United States Canadian people of Hong Kong descent UBC Sauder School of Business alumni