Hi, there. This is Shinyoung from Funji – a virtual community for iPhone/iPod.
I created my first startup (a child education portal), raised capital and sold it to an education company in South Korea. Then, while working as a project manager at SK Telecom- the mother company of Cyworld, from 2002-2006, the mobile industry grew exponentially and Cyworld became the ultimate social networking destination for 30 million Korean citizens. It was the golden age. After I moved to the U.S in 2006, I looked closely at how virtual communities and the mobile industry were growing and decided to start my second startup, Funji Inc, to create a virtual community for the iPhone/iPod Mobile Addic -Me!-Me!-Me!- Generation Me (age 13-21).
In Korea, we were talking about a 30M market but in the U.S we are talking about 200M in Generation Me. They’re texting 100 char/min in the classroom behind the laptop, playing games on their iPod, and always looking for something new. What about tweens (age 8-12) who have been playing with Dad’s iPhone? The market is getting bigger every year. Are we ready to serve them? How are they going to express themselves in the mobile context?
Here is why Funji quenches the thirst of Generation Me.
We are a four person team in downtown SF and released the first public alpha, Funji Home about 10 weeks ago. By updating every two weeks, we made Funji Home into a service, not just a single piece of content. Users keep coming back, create avatars and are making friends all over the world.
For instance, Little Denna says “good bye,” before going to bed. Buddyguy messages me in the car saying “I just got french fries! yay!! brb.” Our community is free to express themselves and extend their friend network beyond on the real world. Currently, they’re testing out the new version and spontaneously giving us awesome feedback.
We tweet the best room of the day on twitter. Check out our cuties on twitter!
Here is a sneak peak at Funji Home 2.0 while we wait for approval from Apple (arrrgggh Apple please, approve soon…Funji friends are waiting for new hotness)! This version is based on what we’ve learned from user feedback for weeks since May 23.
We also submitted three more mini-games (Funji Float, Funji Flush, Funji Bunny) and one expansion pack (Funji Avatar) two weeks ago to create a virtual economy around Funji Home. Via an integrated point system, users can earn points by purchasing external apps through Funji Home. We’re not only building our own app network, stay tuned for something to change the current app store eco-system!
Ps. Dave was interested in Funji Flush. Hope the trailer of Funji Flush gets some laughs.
Next episode: What we’ve learned from fbFund REV! + more fun videos
Comments:
