Entrepreneur shows aptitude for app ads

Employees at Youmi Mobile Internet Information and Technology Service Co's research and development center in Guangzhou. The company expects its revenue to grow to between 80 million yuan and 100 million yuan this year. [Photo/Provided to China Daily]

Guangzhou-based YouMi couldn't find its niche, so it created its own

Many Chinese youths do not know what they want to do when they graduate from college, but Chen Di was different - even as a child, he wanted to have his own business.

His plans were to work in real estate, finance or technology, but he did not expect to land in the mainland's first mobile application advertising company. Nor did he see himself on this year's Forbes China list of 30 outstanding Chinese entrepreneurs below 30 years old, at the age of 26.

The company Chen founded, Guangzhou-based YouMi Mobile Internet Information and Technology Service Co, has worked with more than 5,000 mobile phone websites and more than 50,000 apps. It covered nearly 200 million consumers in 600-plus Chinese cities by January, generating accumulative revenue of 60 million yuan ($9.67 million).

"YouMi's roots go back to Chen's days at the South China University of Technology, when he set up a business with other students. YouMi's business partners include China Mobile, the country's largest mobile phone service provider, Taobao, its biggest e-commerce platform, and 360buy, one of China's largest e-commerce websites," said an article on the Forbes website.

In his first year at the university, Chen began serving as an agent for a bank's credit-card business.

"I then felt that in traditional business, you receive your product supplies from others without any core competitiveness. It doesn't mean much to me," he said.

Chen then turned to his major, computer science, and attended innovation contests sponsored by the likes of IBM Corp and Microsoft Corp. With other students, he also developed software outsourced by companies.

"Some students enjoyed the process of writing programs but I preferred turning the technology to productivity."

In judging business potential, Chen considered large computers too complicated for a young entrepreneur and found the personal computer segment already highly developed.

He felt lost until he found that mobile phone games were an emerging market full of opportunities.

In an entrepreneurship program sponsored by the Central Committee of Communist Youth League of China and China Mobile, a game Chen had developed was downloaded more than 2,000 times a day. However, the reality was that few game users were willing to pay for such games, being accustomed to free offers.

New business model

Chen then hit on a business model that involved inserting advertisements into apps, a prospect strengthened by Google's acquisition of AdMob, one of the world's largest mobile advertising networks, for $750 million in 2009.

He launched his mobile phone advertising platform on April 1, 2010, three months before he graduated and became CEO of YouMi, which shares advertising revenue with app developers.