Pocket Gamer Biz interview Henry Fong, CEO of Yodo1

[Music] hey everyone my name is Henry F I'm the CEO and founder of uh Yoda onean uh we help Western game developers monetize and distribute their mobile games uh in the Chinese market cool okay so that sounds good so Yoda one what what precisely why why should we I'm a western game developer what what what why should I use Yoda one what's the the key tenant to the service well really it's it's about a comprehensive onstop shop right so if you're a mobile games developer you know that distribution and monetization are to of the things that are really important to you uh China is totally different to the rest of the world Google Play doesn't work here Amazon doesn't work here right who are the top ad networks who are top social networks right we kind of demystify all of that and instead of spending 3 or 6 months researching the market and finding out who to work with we can help you mobilize games in China in less than

7 Days 7 Days that's that's pretty rapid ah well that's um we hope to be able to get it to even less than seven days in the very near future okay um tell me a little bit about yourself this isn't your first uh startup is it no it's uh y one's my third startup um so my background um done a bit of everything so I started out as a developer so all the way back in the olden days of cobal Main frame client server uh done networking integration uh and then mov back into the uh the business development commercial Arena um raised a lot of money back during the dockon boom days crazy money uh retired for a little bit and then uh kind of founded my second startup which was a company called RTM Asia uh that we have been through RTM Asia helping Western tech companies expand in the Asian markets for the last 8 years uh and helped about

81 companies and uh last year at the end of the last year I founded Yoda one with a core team uh of EX colleagues and uh ex- business partners and we've gone from zero to about 100 people in the last 8 months that's that's relatively rapid growth then so um and you've just got your first kind of games uh coming coming to the market now yeah actually August was the uh our really laar state in China right so the first two Studios that we really work with and focus on robot entertainment and handy games uh we launch launched a number of their titles in the China market and uh they've been doing relatively well we're definitely in the seven figures in terms of active users just during the first month that's awesome uh and we are targeting to uh grow that exponentially in uh in the coming months fantastic and you've got plenty Studios lined up I guess to take advantage uh about 40 of them yeah okay okay so um so and what what's the aspiration do you just want to be the is it the you're planning to be just the definitive option for for

bringing games to China um you know our our goal is pretty simple we want to provide the easiest way uh and the quickest way and hopefully the most profitable way for Western mobile games developers to uh to mobilize in China cool and and what would you say if like what's the what's your most unique feature what is it that keeps you apart from the 10 cents or or the uh SE the nine would say the seven the nine or or any other the kind of players that are trying that not maybe offering the same service but certainly trying to help companies come to China what's the thing that really gets you y to one apart yeah I think there are two things so the first thing is that instead of you know forcing Gamers and forcing game developers to join our Network um per se right um our Focus really is on breaking open the the top distribution channels in China the top ad networks in China uh the top payment methods in China right so help games developers be able to

Aggregate and Federate uh integrate into these networks in a very easy way uh in a number of days uh the second aspect of our differentiator is that um our founding team and management team uh not only have we been in the China market and know the China Market uh for a long time um we all understand how Western tech companies and Western game companies think so um you know we've been educated overseas uh we've done a number of companies working with Western tech companies helping them in Asia so um a trust is a big factor so having that respect for intellectual property uh and understand you know what's important to Western game studios okay cool thank you very much and final question I mean if I'm a obviously this is a sort of thing you would solve but if I'm a western developer company wanting to come to Chinese market it's very exciting right now very very Buzzy a lot of things happening what what sort of advice would you offer what's the key piece of advice I'm if I'm going to come

why aren't you here already is the key question I ask you right so uh the market is going so rapidly you know literally there's going to be 200 million smartphones in China by the end of this year and it's doubling every year so and to put it in perspective even with 200 million smartphones in China that's less than 20% penetration rate so there's still a lot of growth left um monetization wise um it's not where where it needs to be right now but just with the pure volume of handsets are being sold here I think it's a market that you can't afford not to look at and with volumes increasing and monetization improving um now is a time to learn how to do China really well uh because if you don't the competition will to okay thank you very much thank you