LimeLife: MocoNews.net Venture Showcase

[by Matt Maier] The first MocoNews.net Venture Showcase company is LimeLife, a Menlo Park-CA based mobile content company focused on developing content for women. Consider it an iVillage of mobile content, so to speak. A detailed interview by Matt Maier, senior writer with Business 2.0, with Kristin Asleson McDonnell, CEO of LimeLife.
The series is sponsored by Softbank Capital

 

A powerpoint presentation on LimeLife’s company overview, here

Walk me through your prior experience?
My co-founders and I have been in entertainment software for 12-20 years each. A lot of us worked at EA together, the Imagination Network-which was on of the first online game services in the early 1990s-eventually became the AOL game channel. I was at M-Player, one of the first Internet game services. I have done a lot with online entertainment and online communities. As you know, women are pretty heavy users of online games; 60 percent who play games on the web are female. Since 1994, my co-founders and I have been associated with female content in the online space and entertainment software for girls. They did Barbie CD-ROMs, and Dora the Explorer and Thomas the Train. Have a real deep understanding of feminine game mechanics.

Is that something that’s been largely overlooked with mobile entertainment?
Our initial reaction when we looked at the deck, there was not a lot of content there that was interesting to us personally. Then we started to do research and found that that type of content that was of interest to women really was not there when you look at it quantitatively, and we are a very research driven company, and we surveyed thousands of women and done focus groups with dozens of women and we are finding that there is not much on the deck so far that is really compelling women to download software.

What does appeal to women?

Without giving away too much, there are typical type of gameplay mechanics that women like along the categories of board games, puzzle games and card games. There are different types of content beyond games that women are interested in-fashion, fitness, home and family are all more typically more female-oriented interests and responsibilities. We have also quantified the brands that are most interesting to women-we’ll be making announcements in Q4 regarding that.

Have you announced any brands yet?
No.

Is the market ready for this yet?
The mobile industry is in the same point in its evolution as the web was in 1996-maybe even 1995. People know somebody that has downloaded content to their phones; they may have downloaded a ringtone or wallpaper but that’s about it. In terms of doing more interactive applications, they are still not there yet. They don’t think of their phone as a computer yet. We do think it’s early in this market’s evolution. Only about 3-5 percent of women in the US have downloaded a game to their phone. When you look at the web, it’s about 20-30 percent of women play games on the web. We know the demand is there it’s just a matter of creating the games or lifestyle content that will be of interest to women.

The market is fairly crowded, do you worry you may be late? The winners and losers are separating themselves.
That’s true if you are focused on 18-34 males. If you are doing sports games and action games and 3D games, and male-oriented poker games then yes it’s absolutely crowded. I don’t see much around food or fashion or family.

Is there any competition for this market?
I think of it as the onesey-twosey approach. Glu may have two applications targeted at women, so I think it we would make it in buckets. 50 percent of the content is action sports oriented content. 30-40 percent would be what I consider unisex games-Tetris, Boggle, Solitaire. 10 percent are these applications that are clearly oriented towards women, and I might even call this 5 percent. Something like Metro Girls from Digital Chocolate would be the rare example. If you are going to serve the female market, you have to do it right. The education process is important-we need to educate women on how to do this. We are focused on being in the media that women read

These are things like?
If you look at any magazine stand and look at all the magazines oriented towards women, there is not news there about what’s on their phone. We want to keep it very relevant to them and blending into what they are already doing in their lives and making that the focus of our efforts.
I think what will really help us is the prevalence of gaming on the web. Women view it as something that’s normal for women to do, whereas I still think they view the Xbox as the guy’s device. I think they think of PC web-based gaming as their device, and they really think of the phone as their device. It is not a foreign piece of hardware to them; it’s very personal. During our research, we’ve heard women say amazing things about what happens when they lose their phone: I feel lost, I feel like I’ve lost my arm, I feel naked,” etc. We know that this device, they are embracing it so closely that I think they will be very willing to do a lot of different things with it. You don’t have to overcome that hurdle of them accepting that device. The phone has the power to be so many things-we are just starting to imagine the possibilities. How do we transform the way women transform and manage their lives through their phones?

Will LimeLife be focused more on games or applications?
It will change over time, both on the consumer demand and market opportunity side. We will focus on the highest revenue opportunities at first-games and such. Over time, we will migrate more towards lifestyle as those opportunities emerge and the market matures. A lot of what’s been out there so far on the lifestyle side has not been very well done.

Can you give an example of a lifestyle application you’d like to create?
After my third child was born, I lost weight through a website-diet where I was entering everything I ate on this website, and I did this whole fitness interactive application on a fitness website. I kept thinking these are such amazing experiences I am having with these websites and I kept feeling this stuff should be on my phone, not on a website. I’m not going to the gym with my PC, and I’m not taking my PC to a restaurant with me. My phone should be tracking all this stuff and giving me feedback. That is one of the first a-ha’s that I had that there was an opportunity here.

What about applications that take into account the phones inherent communication value-something that few do at this point?
Good point. Women are big communicators, obviously. I think it’s funny, if you go into the slots rooms on a web-based game site, here’s this very standalone game-slot machines-and nobody can see what’s happening on your machine, but there are all these women chatting up a storm while they are playing slots. Women love to feel the presence of other people, and they love to communicate and that will be a key part of what we are focused on as well.

How much mobile experience does your team have?
Erica Chris is our VP of business development and she started at NextBus, which did bus notification. Then she was at Bain and did their wireless strategy, and then was at Digital Chocolate. A lot of our engineers come out of mobile. We have about 30-35 people working for the company in one way or another, employees, consultants, part-time employees, etc. The org chart is getting quite large.

What can we expect from LimeLife in the next few months?
You’ll see more content coming out on Verizon, Sprint and Cingular. You’ll see announcements on how we are working with major advertisers as well. That’s another key part of our strategy; I come out of online advertising. The phone is the next medium, the carriers are working feverishly to define how advertising will work and they are sitting on a really compelling advertising medium.

Have you seen an ad model that makes sense for mobile yet?
Yes. We are doing pure branding advertising right now for an upcoming title. I’ve seen stuff that is clickable with more information with the advertiser; I think we will move more towards that. It is just a matter of understanding what consumers want to see and what they will respond to-women definitely want certain types of info and advertising from brands that are important to them. And so it’s a matter of incorporating the advertising into the applications such that it’s useful.

What are women looking for?
Women either purchase or are heavy influencers for 85 percent of all household purchases, so they are responsible for the outflow. So they want information about all the stuff they are buying-making that function easier, efficient, and more convenient. (Everything from new product information, to comparing pricing, etc.) I wouldn’t say it’s the CNET, comparison electronics shopping type stuff. It’s more, here are my key items and here are my key stores, tell me what’s going on in that intersection. Women have so little free time that anything that can help them be more efficient would be a good thing, and something they would pay for. And they would gladly accept the advertising that goes on around those things.

Is LimeLife primarily focused on the US market?
Right now we are. Although we are taking to Canadian carriers and we have had a lot of inquiries internationally. What we find in our research is that women are pretty much the same from 15-45. They have similar interests and brands; we do see some nuances of brands coming and going in different regions and ages. But there are common themes that run through women’s lives, and those themes are often the same around the world, it’s just the brands that are different. It will be a matter of localization to the brands that are local to a country. Think about P&G and Unilever; they are able to be international all they have local brands because women wash dishes around the world; in terms of interests women everywhere are interested in food and fashion and staying fit. These are core themes.

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