Exploring the blue ocean

Bootcamp

Sven Bally began his career as a consultant for Ernst & Young, working for companies like American Express, but was quickly propelled into the role of crisis manager.  Thus began his entrepreneurial experience: going into a troubled company, looking for the asset that can be rescued and building a new business around it.  Sven and his colleagues managed to transform a coupons’ business into a maker of payment terminals.  The new company got acquired by Thales and Sven was asked to stay on in a sales and marketing function.  But in 2004 he got a call from a head-hunter for a business development position at mobile marketing company E-Zone.   Sven took the plunge, but three years later became impatient with management—things weren’t moving fast enough.  So he made the switch to ONE Agency, a rapidly growing interactive agency.  This time, however, he didn’t just take a job—he went in as a shareholder.  Also, ONE wasn’t the only company he bought shares in.  

Entrepreneur 

“In 2008 my partner and I got the opportunity to buy a struggling company in the mobile space.  They distributed games for mobile phones in Belgium but the model didn’t really fly here.  I felt there was potential abroad, especially in Eastern Europe, Russia and South America.  We moved the company—it’s basically a two-man IT team—to the Seed Factory in Brussels and started exploring the market in Eastern Europe.  People declared me crazy.  Perhaps.  I went to Sweden to see the people at Tele2, a telco operator, since they had strong operations in Eastern Europe.  At first they didn’t want to see me, so eventually I took a flight to Sweden and simply announced myself at the company’s reception.  That did it.  I had the meeting and got the deal—access to Eastern Europe.  Russia was next.  I went to Moscow and St Petersburg and managed to recruit a number of resellers.  Again people declared me crazy, saying I’d never see my money.  As it turns out, my Russian clients pay a lot more promptly than my Belgian clients do.  Look, it is a different culture and it certainly was a learning experience, but business can be done there.  In fact, Russians are very direct in their dealings—I actually prefer it, you know where you stand very quickly.  

Keep it light

We outsource practically everything.  The games are developed in India—we couldn’t possibly do that in Belgium given the costs here.  In the Philippines they do the rote IT work, transforming the thousands of images so that they comply with the different operator platforms.  And in Russia we do the final customisation work and translation.   So in the process we’ve managed to build an international business but one that has a very flexible and light operation.  We’ve got most of Europe now, and Turkey, Kuwait and the US.  North Africa and South America we’re exploring too.  But our cash cow remains Eastern Europe and Russia.  

The business is becoming quite large, but it remains an e-enterprise.  Our Brussels office is tiny.  All our work is done a remote basis.  I fly around a bit to develop new markets but once a frame agreement is signed that’s basically it for me.  My partner is committed full-time to the company since there is so much multinational invoicing to do, but I’m basically able to run the business on a part-time basis.  

Upping the game

Mobile Vision is the one business, but there’s another major project we’ve been working on.  Over the past two years we’ve used the profits of Mobile Vision to develop a payment platform, and this week we’re launching the product, the first prepaid Mastercard in Belgium.  It’s got all the functionality of a Mastercard, but you can’t go negative.   We’re positioning it as the ideal family card, or second card, because it’s so safe.   Anybody can have it, blacklisted people too.  There’s no real barrier to using it.  You don’t need to open a new bank account either—everything is done online: check your balance and your last transaction, top up your account, etc.  

Essentially the business is about marketing.  Our business model rests mainly on the potential of white-label programmes.  Obviously we hope that our own brand—Colibricard—will take off but we’ve designed the platform mainly with white-label programmes in mind.  A retail brand, a football club are ideal here—they’re able to offer their customers a loyalty card that also is real Mastercard but without the restrictions and risks typical to credit cards.  

It’s interesting business in an interesting market—the whole interplay between electronic payments and telecommunications.  

Lessons for starters

You can’t do what we’ve done if you confine yourself to existing products.   But doing something completely new is nearly impossible too.  So you need to mix things up.   It’s like a Blue Ocean strategy, but look for the bits of ocean in between the things that exist already.   That’s what I do on a daily basis.  I mix things up and look for new spaces.  And don’t just look at it from a local perspective.  Look at what works locally and then try to duplicate it internationally, do a copy & paste.   You really don’t need to fear the physical barriers anymore, the distance, etc.  With today’s communication technology it really is possible to run things on a remote basis.   But you do obviously need to focus.  And stay the course, whatever you do.  You’ll encounter obstacles, headwind, but keep at it.