Percolate en-us Thu, 25 Dec 2014 12:35:22 -0500 Thu, 25 Dec 2014 12:35:22 -0500 The latest news on Percolate from Business Insider Business Insider Everything You Need To Know About Xiaomi, The 'Apple Of China' Thu, 24 Jul 2014 13:36:00 -0400 Jason Shen <p><img style="float:right;" src="" border="0" alt="XIAOMI MI4 smartphone launch lei jun CEO" width="480" /></p><p>We&rsquo;ve written about many of the big players: <a href="">Google</a>, <a href="">Apple</a>, <a href="">Facebook</a>, <a href="">Twitter</a>, <a href="">LinkedIn</a>,&nbsp;<a href="">WeChat</a>. However, there&rsquo;s a company that&rsquo;s well known in tech circles but is still reaching the mainstream: the Chinese tech company <a href="">Xiaomi</a>. Here&rsquo;s your cheat sheet for this rising tech superpower.</p> <h3>1. Xiaomi is the fastest growing smartphone maker in the world.</h3> <p>In the first quarter of 2014, Xiaomi shipped 11 million smartphones, with virtually all of them (97%) going to China. While it&rsquo;s total volume is only 10% of 97M phones shipped that quarter in China, Xiaomi has already doubled its market share from the second quarter of 2013, when it held only 5%, making it the <a href="">fastest growing smartphone maker</a> in the world, and third in the Chinese market, behind Samsung and Lenovo.</p> <p><img src="" border="0" alt="xiaomi" width="800" /></p> <h3>2. It is a young company founded by Chinese software veterans.</h3> <p>Xiaomi was founded only four years ago, in April 2010, by eight partners, including Jun Lei, CEO, and Bin Lin, President. Lei was an early employee at Kingsoft, a Microsoft-esque software company in China, and led the company as CEO to a successful IPO in the <a href="">Hong Kong stock exchange</a>, where it has a market cap of about $3.6B. Lin was previously worked at Microsoft, before becoming VP of the Google China Institute of Engineering, where he worked on mobile search and Android app localization teams.</p> <h3>3. Xiaomi raised funding at a $10 billion valuation nearly a year ago.</h3> <p>In August 2013, Xiaomi announced they had raised an <a href="">undisclosed amount of funding</a> in a Series D round, which more than doubled their valuation from $4B to $10B. In the previous three years, the company had raised nearly $350M in funding over three rounds. For comparison, Apple&rsquo;s market cap in August 2013 was about $420B and Facebook&rsquo;s was $101B. Still, both of these companies have been around for many more years than Xiaomi.</p> <h3>4. A company built off the back of a modified Android ecosystem.</h3> <p>One of the biggest differences between iOS and Android is that Android is <a href="">open source software</a>. This means that any developer or company can freely use the main code base and modify it in many ways, while still keeping it compatible with hundreds of millions of Android applications. <a href="">Amazon&rsquo;s Fire tablet</a> operating system is based on a heavily modified version of Android. Similarly, Xiaomi developed Android-based software called MIUI and in October 2011 shipped its first smartphone, the M1, which ran MIUI or &ldquo;stock&rdquo; Android. Far from being a minor set of alterations, a new release of MIUI is shipped every week to a group of core testers.</p> <h3>5. Its product line includes phones, tablets, smart TVs and now, wearables.</h3> <p>Xiaomi rapidly diversified its product offerings, and currently a large number of products, including three different smartphones: their entry-level <a href="">Redmi</a>, the <a href="">Redmi Note</a>, and the flagship <a href="">Mi 3</a> (soon to be replaced by the M4); as well as a tablet, <a href="">Mi Pad</a>, a 47inch 3D smart TV: <a href="">Mi TV</a>, and most recently, a Fitbit competitor called <a href="">Mi Band</a>.</p> <h3>6. Xiaomi has built a clamoring fan base off of high-end, quality products at middle-market prices.</h3> <p>Xiaomi famously sells its products only online, in fairly small batches (~100k units) and never in retail stores, a practice perhaps inspired by CEO Lei&rsquo;s experience seeing one his investments nearly tank because it held onto too much inventory that it later couldn&rsquo;t sell. Their model means that new batch of phones can sell out in seconds, creating hype and excitement around their brand that some have compared to new Apple product launches.</p> <p>Xiaomi has learned to fan the hype flames <a href="">through social media</a> very successfully (Lei has nearly <a href="">10M followers on Weibo</a>) and spends far less on marketing than other manufacturers (Xiaomi allocates only 1% of revenues on advertising vs Samsung&rsquo;s 5%). These cost-savings have allowed Xiaomi to ship with the quality and feel of higher end phones but sell them at prices that middle class citizens can afford: an Mi 3 retails $270, less than half that of an iPhone in China.</p> <h3>7. Revolution is basked into the company's name.</h3> <p>On their about page, Xiaomi claims their logo &ldquo;MI&rdquo; stands for &ldquo;mobile internet&rdquo; or even &ldquo;Mission Impossible&rdquo;, but this may be a backronym. The characters <a href="">小</a><a href="">米</a> (xiao mi) literally means &ldquo;little rice&rdquo; or millet, and some say it is a reference to Chairman Mao&rsquo;s description of how the Communist party, armed with only &ldquo;millet plus rifles&rdquo;, would still beat out the Nationalist Party&rsquo;s aeroplanes plus tanks. A fitting analogy for a technology upstart.</p> <p>So with all this said, the company is still not out of the woods yet. Samsung is still the undisputed leader in smartphone makers, while domestic competitor Huawei has also made a <a href="">strong showing in 2014</a>. But having <a href="">recently snagged</a> Google&rsquo;s head of product for Android, Hugo Barra, to head global expansion efforts, the future is bright for &ldquo;little rice&rdquo;.</p> <p><em>Learn more about how technology is transforming China in&nbsp;<a href=";ukey=agxzfnNpZ25hbHNjcnhyGAsSC1VzZXJQcm9maWxlGICAgL_JzpoJDA&amp;k=5e6684d5-bd6b-4993-a378-5c05e47374d1" target="_blank">our free report</a>.</em></p><p><a href="">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Now THIS Is The 'Right Way' To Start A Company Wed, 14 Nov 2012 10:55:00 -0500 Alyson Shontell <p><img style="float:right;" src=";maxY=301" border="0" alt="noah brier james gross percolate" width="400" height="301" /></p><p>Ok, fine.</p> <p>There probably is no "right way" to start a company.</p> <p>But, if there WERE a picture-perfect, fool-proof method, it might look like <a href="">Percolate</a>.</p> <p>Percolate, a <a href="" class="hidden_link">SaaS</a> solution for marketing managers, was founded by James Gross and Noah Brier in early 2011. Today <a href="">it raised a $9 million Series A round</a> and it has more than 30 Fortune 500 companies as clients. They're each paying Percolate about $10,000 per month.</p> <p>There are a few things Gross and Brier did in their startup's earliest days that set them up for success.</p> <ul> <li>They each worked for marketing companies before founding Percolate.</li> <li>When they had enough knowledge and industry connections, they quit.</li> <li>They bootstrapped until they proved their model.</li> <li>The used outside capital to step on the gas.</li> </ul> <p>Gross was a former sales executive for <a href="" class="hidden_link">Federated Media</a> and Brier worked for a marketing agency, The <a href="" class="hidden_link">Barbarian Group</a>. While they were there, they created a lot of contacts in the marketing and advertising departments of major corporations. They were also able to see inefficiencies and demands in the industry. Later, while the two were bootstrapping Percolate, everything they absorbed at Federated Media and TBG became very valuable.</p> <p>Being employed also enabled the pair to save up money and bootstrap. They funded their startup themselves for one year, during which Brier and Gross worked out initial kinks.</p> <p>When they finally had a working model and paying clients, they sought outside capital. They used a $1.5 million seed round to accelerate growth; they didn't waste it stumbling around and pivoting.</p> <p>Of course, a lot of successful companies have been founded other ways. Zuckerberg never had a job before founding <a href="" class="hidden_link">Facebook</a>. Ben Silbermann initially set out to be a doctor, but he ended up founding Pinterest.</p> <p>It's too early to guarantee Percolate's success. But whatever Gross and Brier have done up until now, it seems to be working.</p><p><a href="">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Percolate, A Marketing Tool Used By The CMOs Of Amex And GE, Raises $9 Million Wed, 14 Nov 2012 09:30:00 -0500 Alyson Shontell <p><img style="float:right;" src="" border="0" alt="noah brier james gross percolate" width="401" height="300" /></p><p><a href="">Percolate</a>, a <a class="hidden_link" href="">SaaS</a> company that helps marketing managers create branded content, has raised a $9 million Series A round.&nbsp;The round was led by GGV Capital with participation from existing investor <a class="hidden_link" href="">First Round Capital</a>.&nbsp; GGV's Jeff Richards is joining Percolate's board of directors.</p> <p>James Gross and Noah Brier founded Percolate in early 2011. It helps CMOs figure out what their brands should be discussing on social media.</p> <p>More than 30 Fortune 500 companies use it, including <a class="hidden_link" href="">American Express</a>, <a class="hidden_link" href="">GE</a> and Diagio. Many of them were <a href="">on-boarded in the past six months, and they're paying up to $10,000 </a>per month to use Percolate.</p> <p>Over the past year, Percolate has been able to run on its own revenue and turn a small profit. It raised a <a href="">$1.5 million seed round</a> after Gross and Brier bootstrapped for the first year and onboarded big brands like <a class="hidden_link" href="">MasterCard</a> and Amex themselves. Gross was a former sales executive at <a class="hidden_link" href="">Federated Media</a> and Brier worked for The <a class="hidden_link" href="">Barbarian Group</a>; combined, they're well-sourced in the PR and marketing fields.</p> <p>Gross says the company will use the $9 million to kick the business into overdrive and secure a new office five times the size of its current space, which is overflowing with new employees.</p><p><a href="">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p> Percolate, New York's Gift To CMOs, Has More Than 30 Fortune 500 Clients Paying $10,000 Per Month Sun, 30 Sep 2012 08:33:00 -0400 Alyson Shontell <p><img style="float:right;" src="" border="0" alt="noah brier james gross percolate" width="399" height="299" /></p><p>These days, it's tough to be a CMO.</p> <p>You have to make sure your team of community managers produces tons of (appropriate) daily content and spread it across a slew of social media sites.</p> <p>You're humanizing the voice of the brand every day; it's time consuming and difficult to consistently come up with ideas for brand-related content.</p> <p><a href="">Percolate</a> is a New York-based startup that helps CMOs manage all of their social media content and it suggests content for them to blast to their followings.</p> <p>In the past six months, the<a href=""> team of 22 people</a> have signed up 25 Fortune 500 companies. Now there are more than 30 corporations paying for yearly licenses to use Percolate. Brands including <a class="hidden_link" href="">Reuters</a>, <a class="hidden_link" href="">GE</a>, <a class="hidden_link" href="">American Express</a> and <a class="hidden_link" href="">MasterCard</a>, and they are each coughing up $10,000 per month.</p> <p>When you add it up, that's more than $3.5 million per year, which isn't bad for a startup that's only raised $1.5 million and isn't even two years old.</p> <p>Percolate was founded by former <a class="hidden_link" href="">Federated Media</a> Vice President, James Gross, and former Director of Strategy for The <a class="hidden_link" href="">Barbarian Group</a>, Noah Brier. Between the two, it's not hard to see why Percolate is doing well. They're both well connected in the advertising and PR industries, which makes them perfectly suited to sign up major brands and spin them positively to the world.</p> <p>Brier and Gross made a bet that content would come to rule advertising. So far, they seem to have been right. A recent study from a Garter analyst predicts that, by 2017, <a href="">CMOs will spend more on IT than CIOs</a>. Brier and Gross hope their social media dashboard can nestle itself squarely in between the marketers and the technology they'll need to spread their brands' messages.</p><p><a href="">Join the conversation about this story &#187;</a></p>