During my 11 years working in the Mobile industry (1993-2004), I was amazed at the rapid speed in which mobile handset technology evolved. I fondly recall the first time my boss at Optus gave me my first mobile.
It was an Ericsson GH197, a big old thing with an aerial that kind of flipped up and down like an arm. A veritable brick compared to today’s phones, but at the time it was the coolest phone ever. Never mind that it weighed a ton, that there was hardly any GSM coverage, and that the phone had almost no battery life. It was a cellular phone!
I was unbelievably cool way back then. In the mid 90’s you were just happy if you had a mobile. You were extremely lucky if you could actually make a call without dropping the signal, and if you were able to receive all your voicemail…which you had to pay to retrieve BTW! There was no SMSing, no cameras, no music and no web access. If I wanted to do some gaming, I had to go looking for my Donkey Kong.
It is almost 10 years since my time working for global mobile carriers like Optus and Vodafone, and the technology evolution has really only just started in my view. When I reflect on the last 30 years…the potential for the next 30 years really excites me.
I definitely agree with the views shared by Fred Wilson in his blog post earlier this week, Mobile Is Where The Growth Is.
There is a significant shift going on from web to mobile. It is an extremely exciting opportunity for companies like Pollenizer (and our co-founders) as we seek out new global mobile businesses to build, particularly in Southeast Asia where mobile is enabling the staggering customer growth rates that we have seen previously in more developed markets.
- It took AOL 9 years to get to 1 million users
- It took Facebook 9 months
- It took “Draw Something” (mobile app) 9 days
I’m really not surprised that great companies like Optus and Mi9 are taking the lead on getting behind innovation in Australia, and supporting our smart young entrepreneurs. It is fantastic to see this happening!
Mary Meeker referred to “re-imagination” in her extremely informative 2012 Internet Trends Report. She referred to a huge change in the way we live our daily lives through a re-imagination of computing and connectivity. Some of the stand-out examples of re-imagination we have seen include: Information Sharing (Twitter), Photography (Instagram), Social Interaction (Facebook), Note Taking (Evernote), Drawing (Paper), Scrapbooking (Pinterest), Magazines (Flipboard), Books (Kindle), Music (Spotify), Video Sharing (YouTube), Video Creation / Production (SocialCam, Viddy, GoPro), Coupons (GroupOn), Cash Registers (Square), Signatures (DocuSign), Learning (Khan Academy, TED-Ed) and Entertainment (Angry Birds)…the list really does go on.
“We hope to rewire the way people spread and consume information….We think a more open and connected world will help create a stronger economy with more authentic businesses that build better products or services” – Mark Zuckerberg, Founder / CEO, Facebook (Letter to Potential Shareholders, May 2012)Think about the possibility of further re-imagination when global internet users double over the next few years, and most will be mobile. Mash this with the fact that in 2011, of the 5.835M global mobile subscribers, only 235M owned smartphones (4%)…and in Asia the conversion of dumbphones to smartphone is only just starting!
Mobile commerce is also finally taking off. Here are some stats:
- 38% of US consumers have used smartphones to buy products or services (comScore – Dec 2011)
- PayPal’s mobile payments are growing rapidly
- Square launched about a year ago and is already processing about $10M per day
- Juniper Research is predicting a three fold increase in mobile payment transactions, rising to $670B by 2015
The time for mobile is right now.
If you would like to find out more about partnering with Pollenizer, and how as a technical co-founder we can help increase your chance of success (and reduce startup risk) by providing talent + process + capital, click here.
If you’ve got a big idea, lots of courage and share our passion for mobile, contact Pollenizer.