Younger generations need to value loyalty and experience

Carson Ting | BCBusiness

Brian Wong. Founder, Kiip

Having skipped four grades in high school and earned a UBC commerce degree by the age of 18, it’s fair to assume that Brian Wong is an entrepreneur in a hurry. Wong, 24, is the founder and CEO of Kiip, a Silicon Valley-based company that rewards customers via the apps they use after they’ve reached certain milestones: log enough miles on a running app, for example, and you can redeem points for a music download. Wong has already received nearly $16 million in venture capital funding and he’s constantly pitching for more investors. Achieve. Get rewarded. Set another milestone. It’s the business model behind his company, but his big idea is something slower, less upwardly mobile.

My Big Idea

“Younger generations need to value loyalty and experience.”

Everyone wants everything instantly, and that desire was really crucial for our company. We don’t want people to have to do more to get things. Just you living your life is doing enough. The pattern of behaviour we wanted to create was something that augments, facilitates and makes more efficient the way we live our lives. It’s the whole basis of being rewarded. As a younger CEO, I don’t always get that the person I’ve hired has a wife or a husband who also deserves their time—that they have in-laws, anniversaries, vacations that can’t be cancelled. When you’re young, you think: I work seven days a week, why doesn’t everyone else do that? We have employees of all ages and one of the biggest lessons I’ve learned, the big idea, is that there is a loyalty in prior generations that is something my generation really needs to understand. We have short attention spans nowadays. It’s difficult for people to commit. We get distracted, but when it comes down to it, if you have loyalty and a foundation, you have something to build on. It’s not just taking an idea; it’s having people who believe in it. That’s something that only comes with time and loyalty.