Robert Seo, Wharton School MBA graduate, is not like most app bosses. “We pay them,” he laughs, as I question how he convinced smartphone users to willingly download adverts. “In the last few months we’ve paid out between two to ten dollars per user per month.”
He reels off some technical talk about a complex algorithm which determines how much cash users can bank. If that seemed complicated, the company’s concept is seemingly simple. It is also extremely well received. Slidejoy has enjoyed over 20,000 downloads.
“Every single time you turn your phone on you’ll see a different advertisement,” explains Robert. “You have a choice to slide to the right or left; you get taken to the home screen if you swipe right, and if you swipe left you engage with the advertisement you see.”
Robert, a former member of the US Marine Corps, is just getting warmed up before our talk turns to the company’s foundation. This isn’t just the story of an innovative technology start-up. It is the story of three Wharton MBA students – plus one developer geek – ditching the corporate track for entrepreneurship.
Robert is a veteran of the Iraq war and served at the vanguard during the initial push for Baghdad in 2003. He went on to receive a BA in economics and a minor in mathematics at the University of Maryland before joining the rank and file of UBS, the investment bank.
His background makes him an unlikely app expert. Not that that has held him back. A diverse background is perhaps what is needed if you want to make it in the mega-competitive mobile space.
Robert used to run combat missions. Today he runs mobile business development, where success is measured in downloads and revenue, rather than armoured reconnaissance. The only way he disarms opponents now is through his irresistible charm and third-person writing skills, or so his personal bio would have us believe.
His tech start-up officially became the best Wharton business earlier this month when it took home gold in the Wharton BizPlan. The competition also netted Slidejoy $30,000 in funding. The prize was awarded at the Wharton School’s annual Venture Finals. Student finalists received more than $125,000 in combined cash prizes and in-kind legal and accounting services.
Robert set-up the company with Wharton MBA co-founders Sanghoon Kwak and Jaeho (Jay) Chung, and Wharton undergraduate alumnus Diana Kattan, in September 2013.
In three months Slidejoy was downloaded more than 20,000 times and delivered more than 26 million ad impressions. Their clients include Groupon, Macy’s and Best Buy.
How have the co-founders gone on to achieve such success in only nine months? “The competition was very, very tight,” says Robert. “One thing I would highlight would be our team; I guess the point we’ve gotten to until now; and the potential opportunity.” But he quickly adds: “That’s not to take anything away from anybody else.”
In spite of the two years’ worth of tuition from one of the US’s best – and most expensive – MBA programs, he has continued to expand the business.
How did Robert get here? You can blame investment management. “Wharton was instrumental in helping me to realize what my strengths are,” he says.
After six years in the US military, he went into the finance sector. He spent three years with banking giant UBS, before moving onto Goldman Sachs at the start of 2010.
But it wasn’t enough. “During the best internship anybody ever had, based in Singapore with an investment management fund, I still wasn’t happy,” deadpans Robert. “I felt I wasn’t utilizing all the strengths I had.”
He realized entrepreneurship – something of a non-conventional path when it comes to Wharton – allowed him to use all of his talents. “Being an entrepreneur brought out those talents,” says Robert.
After finishing business school in 2012, he moved to Korea. Jay, in the Wharton MBA cohort two years’ below, was in the country on his summer break. Sanghoon had already come up with the idea for Slidejoy. “He was looking for a hustler,” jokes Robert. The three of them then banded together.
An MBA has been the key to Robert’s success. The mobile sector is set to become a key market for all businesses and there is no doubt that his concept is unique.
Wharton’s entrepreneurial ecosystem works because the network is so willing to help fledgling start-ups. Robert and his co-founders invested personally to get the company off the ground. The business was bootstrapped before they won capital from the school’s competition. But professors were only too eager to offer funding advice.
The competition, though, gave them much more than 30 grand. They have had some good growth since leaving the winners’ podium. “It was a great milestone in terms of a boost for credibility,” says Robert. “It was great for our team to say: ‘Hey, you guys are doing a good job – keep going. It was great for morale and we hope to use that momentum.”
Yet the biggest challenge has been reaching out and educating potential customers and users – even if Slidejoy pays people to use their app.
But Robert remains defiant: “We have something a lot better than anything else out there, mainly because it’s an opt-in profile and so we have higher engagement. It’s a lot more valuable than [a platform] within a website or an app; it’s a full-screen takeover.”
But it will take more than being a hustler to maintain their growth, and to get more advertisers to splash their cash. Robert is aware of the challenges. Does he think an MBA will help the business grow?
“I would say in every single aspect as an entrepreneur it’s been helpful,” he replies. “A better question would be: How has Wharton not been helpful?”
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