Sumesh Menon is the Co-Founder and CEO of U2opia Mobile, an innovator in mobile applications that focuses on growth and monetisation for social networks. His career spans over a decade in Marketing with a keen affinity for technology – both mobile and internet. In the past, he has held pivotal roles in global majors like Bharti Airtel and United Spirits.

His foray into technology began with the first wave of the internet in India, where he built up the e-commerce portfolio for a popular India-focused portal. He then transitioned to Brand Marketing with the UB group where he re-invented the Romanov Vodka brand with the much acclaimed Vonamor Romanov campaign.

At Airtel, Sumesh launched innovative services like CRBT, 2.5 G Data, Interactive TV gaming and Enterprise messaging. He later joined Valley start-up Bubble Motion in Singapore to power their foray into Voice SMS across operators in Asia and Africa.

In an exclusive interaction with India Digital Review, Sumesh talks about U2opia focus, revenue model, funding and future plans. He also gives his perspective on mobile medium and being a mobile startup in India.

What is U2opia current focus and plans for Indian market?

We have a significant user base for our Facebook for USSD service in India and the current focus is further user growth and plugging in enhanced engagement features onto the application. Apart from the basic features that Facebook for USSD provides its users i.e. status update, wall posts, responding to friend requests, commenting and so on, we have a suite of constellation services that add further value to the user experience in the form of birthday reminders, check-ins and chat. The idea is to keep building in relevant and engaging features.

Tell us more about Facebook by USSD and how has been its uptake in terms of user numbers and downloads?

Facebook for USSD is a service that is made available to the end user via their mobile operator. Using this service, the user can access Facebook on any phone without an internet connection.

The response to this offering has been phenomenal. In a space of two years, we have spread to 20 countries, in partnership with 40 of the largest mobile operators in the world. Facebook for USSD has enabled Facebook access in markets like Africa, Asia and Latin America.  These markets are the most promising markets that all major global internet companies are looking to address, but struggle due to infrastructural and connectivity challenges. With Facebook for USSD, we have created a model that bypasses these hurdles successfully. Today, 8 out of 10 users in African countries access Facebook via Facebook for USSD.

What are the other products that company is offering?

We’re in the business of creating applications that leverage the power of the social internet on mobile – from the most basic phones to feature phones to smartphones. Apart from Facebook for USSD that addresses the basic and feature phone market, we are also developing social apps for the smartphone market.

We also have an enterprise-centric solution called FoneVerify, which enables smartphone applications to verify phone numbers of new users registering on their service. It is a much superior alternative to SMS-based verification systems as the verification is instant and independent of the mobile operator, which reduces costs and complexity.

U2opia raised funding from Matrix Partners last year. Any plans for another round of funding?

At present, we are financially self-sufficient. However, keeping our widening portfolio of products and aggressive expansion plans in perspective, we might evaluate raising another round by the last quarter of the year.

What is your revenue model and how has been U2opia's growth in terms of revenue?

We work with mobile operators in the countries where we operate and have a revenue sharing agreement with them. Our revenue growth has been 135 percent year-on-year, which is very encouraging.

You have a special focus on emerging markets, any specific strategy in terms of product and marketing that the company is employing?

We look to partnering with the strongest mobile operators in every geography which automatically gives us the necessary scale for growth. Apart from this, Facebook for USSD has seen fairly viral traction, with users joining the service even while we were at the testing stage and multiplying thereafter.

What have been your learnings so far as a company?

From an operations standpoint, managing complexity in an infrastructurally-challenging market has been a rigorous learning experience.

Apart from that, hiring good talent is and always will remain the biggest challenge. We have a great employee referral system that helps build a common culture. We work with some very committed recruiters who understand our business well and can speak on our behalf with great authority. Finally, we have invested in building a solid HR team that constantly manages expectations and morale of our current team and the new talent coming in.

Mobile is being hailed as a powerful medium for brand communication, branding and marketing but still very less amount is being spent on it. Your take on it.

The global acknowledgement of the mobile phone as ‘the other screen’ (apart from TV) is a very real phenomenon. As of last year, users are spending 12 percent of their total media time on mobile devices and this trend is only slated to grow on the back of fast smartphone and tablet uptake, globally.

Having said that, the mobile device poses a very different engagement challenge to the advertising and marketing industry compared to traditional media like TV and print. The ad dollars will flow towards mobile faster as more and more feasible engagement models are developed to drive ROI. That trend is already underway as evidenced by internet giants like

Facebook prioritizing mobile in their expansion plans and multitudes of ad networks mushrooming around the world.

As a mobile startup, how has been your experience operating in India.

India is a highly complex market with very high barriers to entry. However, once you’re past the struggle of getting that initial foothold, it is a hugely rewarding market to operate in. It is one of the largest mobile markets in the world and additionally, it a market that is eager to experiment with new solutions and technology, which is a very potent combination.

What are your broad targets for 2013?

Expansion to multiple international markets is big on the agenda right now, especially Europe. In tandem, the team is aligned towards building a pipeline of intuitive products for the smartphone market.