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Home | Business Section
November 24 - 30, 2000
Philadelphia Chinatown Wins Stadium Fight
(in National News)
Comfort Women Demand Justice
(in Bay Area News)
India's Global Talent
(in Business)
Korean Women Expose War Atrocities Through Art
(in A&E)
Emil Amok:
(in Opinion)
The Shattered Ceiling
John Yi says his MonetaCards will become the Internet currency for the new economy. Photo courtesy of MonetaOne.
Q&A with John S. Yi of MonetaOne
Launched this fall, MonetaOne aims to be the “new money for the economy.” The MonetaCard, MonetaOne’s first consumer product, is a stored-value, prepaid cash-card on a mini CD-ROM. The MonetaCard can be spent at any online store that accepts Visa or MasterCard. The MonetaCard, currently being tested throughout San Diego County, provides secure Internet commerce access to teenagers too young for credit cards and to those consumers who prefer cash-based transactions.
Age: 34
Background: Born in Seoul, Korea. Moved to Southern California in 1979. Yi has worked at General Dynamics, National Systems Research and Galaxy Scientific Corporation. In 1994, Yi started KES, Inc., which provides outsource information technology services to large government agencies and corporate customers. He continues to act as chairman of the board for KES. In 1999, Yi started MonetaOne.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, University of California, San Diego.
AsianWeek: What gave you the idea to start MonetaOne?
John Yi: MonetaOne is the second company I own. I started KES six years ago. My expertise is the ability to be creative and to be able to start things. About a year-and-a-half ago, I was transitioning; I hired a general manager so I could delegate day-to-day organizational responsibilities at KES and concentrate on creating a new business, which is MonetaOne. Moneta is Latin for money, and ‘one’ because we are a single and comprehensive payment solution for both consumers and businesses to transact. It’s absolutely free. The consumers have [buying] freedom without using a credit card or cash.
About 10 years ago there was a big discussion about the information highway. There was a lot of opportunity created by companies like 3-COM and Cisco, who built the information highway. And then about six years ago, guys like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com recognized there was this road that they could put shops on. Now we have the roads and the stores — but the people who are visiting as well as the e-tailers are still stuck in the antiquated currency, which has prohibited a lot of people from being able to spend money online.
We like to categorize those people into three groups. One group doesn’t have access to credit cards, such as teenagers. Teenagers spend up to $650 billion a year. About $200 billion comes from their own pockets and the rest comes through influential purchases through their parents or other relatives. There is also the cash-based ethnic market. Asians tend to fall into that category. They’d rather use cash than credit cards. The second group won’t use credit cards [over the Internet] because they are concerned about identity theft. They don’t want to use their $10,000 credit line to make a purchase on Amazon for a $20 book. Third are people who are not familiar about purchasing online. It’s very cumbersome. You have to fill out what seems like an application. MonetaOne makes it easy to fill out that information and use the MonetaCard.
AW: What are some other advantages of the MonetaCard?
JY: Our product is a mini-CD-based product. You put it into the computer and without any modifications to your hardware and software, it will walk through a simple registration. It will ask for your e-mail address, password and log-on ID. You can then take the MonetaCard and make purchases pretty much anywhere on the Internet.
It is more secure than using a credit card. It’s limited in terms of your lines of spending power. The cards range from $25 to 500. Currently, we are doing the market test selling the $25 and $50 card.
AW: How will you make money?
JY: We have 14 revenue models. But I’ll give an anecdotal example. We had invited an industry leader to be on our advisory board. He tested the Moneta Card and later said he used it to purchase a video. I asked him if he had ever purchased anything online before, and even though he is in the high-tech industry, he said no. That came as a surprise. I asked him where he purchased the card and he said ccvideo.com. They’re part of our 4,000 affiliates.
What our patent does is shape the way people purchase things. For example, this particular person put the card in and was taken to a site that we directed him to. When he made the purchase using the MonetaCard, immediately we made a 12 percent commission.
He had never bought anything online and never heard of ccvideo.com, but he ended up buying something from one of our business customers. We are telling the e-tailers that we can bring them the customers with money available to spend through our dynamic subscription technology.
Furthermore, when people buy MonetaCards, there is a certain time delay before they use the cards, which is great for us because we get prepaid, and that is part of the revenue. It’s well known from secondary research in a similar market like the gift cards market, there’s about 20 percent breakage, which means that people buy these for gifts and about 15-20 percent never get used. So you can see how quickly we will make money.
AW: Are you currently profitable?
JY: Not yet.
AW: Are you planning to go public?
JY: We were targeting to take the company public in 2001. Since the April market correction and the unfriendliness of the market right now, we are thinking of taking the company public in late spring 2002.
AW: How is the company funded?
JY: A lot of the funding came from me, and we have a few key seed investors. Right now we are in our series A to raise about $7 million.
AW: How is the company doing currently?
JY: We are doing great. Around late fall last year, I saw this need and we did market research. Just to show you how quickly we leaped forward, the company was set up on Jan. 20. We set up the office headquarters in March, and we were selling products in September. Currently, we are selling in San Diego County in 27 stores. That’s something I feel good about. We are collecting a lot of market data in order to take the next step, which is the market launch into metropolitan areas in the United States.
AW: What do you view as your greatest achievement so far?
JY: I haven’t thought about that because I feel like I’m just getting started now. I’m still a fairly young guy. I think my greatest achievement is to be in a time where I can bring services to the people and really see it mature. I tell this to my wife all the time: How can a guy from Korea who came here in high school have the opportunity to shape how people spend money? Just to be in that situation is probably my greatest achievement, right next to my two boys and God.
AW: What obstacles have you faced?
JY: With respect to challenges within the business community — I don’t think I’ve had any difficulties. Most people have been very helpful.
But before that, obviously, going through high school, there were a lot of difficult times, just the fact that I couldn’t express myself and looked different from most the kids. I’ve gone through a lot in terms of having to deal with that, but one of the things that I’m trying to do with my kids, who are Korean American … yes, they do look different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m trying to change that to a positive thing.
AW: What was it like for you when you first came to the United States?
JY: I have a 9-year-old and 5-year-old, and kids do something my wife and I call the ‘pee-pee miss.’ That’s when they play so hard they forget to go to the restroom, and then they have to go right away. That’s basically what I had to do when I first came here. I didn’t know how to speak the language even to ask directions to go to the restroom. When you’re in a situation like that, you try hard so that you can pick up the language as quickly as possible and you don’t stop to think about it. I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I just went to school. The high school teachers were really friendly. I had a strong math and science background, and I think teachers saw that I was really trying hard.
AW: Where would you like to see the company in five years?
JY: I would like to see MonetaOne really becoming the new money for the new economy. I would like to see five years from now, kids like my kids ask their moms and dads, ‘What did people use before MonetaCards were invented?’
Home | Business Section
Philadelphia Chinatown Wins Stadium Fight
(in National News)
Comfort Women Demand Justice
(in Bay Area News)
India's Global Talent
(in Business)
Korean Women Expose War Atrocities Through Art
(in A&E)
Emil Amok:
(in Opinion)
The Shattered Ceiling
| Philadelphia Chinatown Wins Stadium Fight (in National News) Comfort Women Demand Justice India's Global Talent Korean Women Expose War Atrocities Through Art Emil Amok: |
|
|
|
Launched this fall, MonetaOne aims to be the “new money for the economy.” The MonetaCard, MonetaOne’s first consumer product, is a stored-value, prepaid cash-card on a mini CD-ROM. The MonetaCard can be spent at any online store that accepts Visa or MasterCard. The MonetaCard, currently being tested throughout San Diego County, provides secure Internet commerce access to teenagers too young for credit cards and to those consumers who prefer cash-based transactions.
Age: 34
Background: Born in Seoul, Korea. Moved to Southern California in 1979. Yi has worked at General Dynamics, National Systems Research and Galaxy Scientific Corporation. In 1994, Yi started KES, Inc., which provides outsource information technology services to large government agencies and corporate customers. He continues to act as chairman of the board for KES. In 1999, Yi started MonetaOne.
Education: Bachelor’s degree in computer science, University of California, San Diego.
AsianWeek: What gave you the idea to start MonetaOne?
John Yi: MonetaOne is the second company I own. I started KES six years ago. My expertise is the ability to be creative and to be able to start things. About a year-and-a-half ago, I was transitioning; I hired a general manager so I could delegate day-to-day organizational responsibilities at KES and concentrate on creating a new business, which is MonetaOne. Moneta is Latin for money, and ‘one’ because we are a single and comprehensive payment solution for both consumers and businesses to transact. It’s absolutely free. The consumers have [buying] freedom without using a credit card or cash.
About 10 years ago there was a big discussion about the information highway. There was a lot of opportunity created by companies like 3-COM and Cisco, who built the information highway. And then about six years ago, guys like Jeff Bezos of Amazon.com recognized there was this road that they could put shops on. Now we have the roads and the stores — but the people who are visiting as well as the e-tailers are still stuck in the antiquated currency, which has prohibited a lot of people from being able to spend money online.
We like to categorize those people into three groups. One group doesn’t have access to credit cards, such as teenagers. Teenagers spend up to $650 billion a year. About $200 billion comes from their own pockets and the rest comes through influential purchases through their parents or other relatives. There is also the cash-based ethnic market. Asians tend to fall into that category. They’d rather use cash than credit cards. The second group won’t use credit cards [over the Internet] because they are concerned about identity theft. They don’t want to use their $10,000 credit line to make a purchase on Amazon for a $20 book. Third are people who are not familiar about purchasing online. It’s very cumbersome. You have to fill out what seems like an application. MonetaOne makes it easy to fill out that information and use the MonetaCard.
AW: What are some other advantages of the MonetaCard?
JY: Our product is a mini-CD-based product. You put it into the computer and without any modifications to your hardware and software, it will walk through a simple registration. It will ask for your e-mail address, password and log-on ID. You can then take the MonetaCard and make purchases pretty much anywhere on the Internet.
It is more secure than using a credit card. It’s limited in terms of your lines of spending power. The cards range from $25 to 500. Currently, we are doing the market test selling the $25 and $50 card.
AW: How will you make money?
JY: We have 14 revenue models. But I’ll give an anecdotal example. We had invited an industry leader to be on our advisory board. He tested the Moneta Card and later said he used it to purchase a video. I asked him if he had ever purchased anything online before, and even though he is in the high-tech industry, he said no. That came as a surprise. I asked him where he purchased the card and he said ccvideo.com. They’re part of our 4,000 affiliates.
What our patent does is shape the way people purchase things. For example, this particular person put the card in and was taken to a site that we directed him to. When he made the purchase using the MonetaCard, immediately we made a 12 percent commission.
He had never bought anything online and never heard of ccvideo.com, but he ended up buying something from one of our business customers. We are telling the e-tailers that we can bring them the customers with money available to spend through our dynamic subscription technology.
Furthermore, when people buy MonetaCards, there is a certain time delay before they use the cards, which is great for us because we get prepaid, and that is part of the revenue. It’s well known from secondary research in a similar market like the gift cards market, there’s about 20 percent breakage, which means that people buy these for gifts and about 15-20 percent never get used. So you can see how quickly we will make money.
AW: Are you currently profitable?
JY: Not yet.
AW: Are you planning to go public?
JY: We were targeting to take the company public in 2001. Since the April market correction and the unfriendliness of the market right now, we are thinking of taking the company public in late spring 2002.
AW: How is the company funded?
JY: A lot of the funding came from me, and we have a few key seed investors. Right now we are in our series A to raise about $7 million.
AW: How is the company doing currently?
JY: We are doing great. Around late fall last year, I saw this need and we did market research. Just to show you how quickly we leaped forward, the company was set up on Jan. 20. We set up the office headquarters in March, and we were selling products in September. Currently, we are selling in San Diego County in 27 stores. That’s something I feel good about. We are collecting a lot of market data in order to take the next step, which is the market launch into metropolitan areas in the United States.
AW: What do you view as your greatest achievement so far?
JY: I haven’t thought about that because I feel like I’m just getting started now. I’m still a fairly young guy. I think my greatest achievement is to be in a time where I can bring services to the people and really see it mature. I tell this to my wife all the time: How can a guy from Korea who came here in high school have the opportunity to shape how people spend money? Just to be in that situation is probably my greatest achievement, right next to my two boys and God.
AW: What obstacles have you faced?
JY: With respect to challenges within the business community — I don’t think I’ve had any difficulties. Most people have been very helpful.
But before that, obviously, going through high school, there were a lot of difficult times, just the fact that I couldn’t express myself and looked different from most the kids. I’ve gone through a lot in terms of having to deal with that, but one of the things that I’m trying to do with my kids, who are Korean American … yes, they do look different, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I’m trying to change that to a positive thing.
AW: What was it like for you when you first came to the United States?
JY: I have a 9-year-old and 5-year-old, and kids do something my wife and I call the ‘pee-pee miss.’ That’s when they play so hard they forget to go to the restroom, and then they have to go right away. That’s basically what I had to do when I first came here. I didn’t know how to speak the language even to ask directions to go to the restroom. When you’re in a situation like that, you try hard so that you can pick up the language as quickly as possible and you don’t stop to think about it. I didn’t do anything extraordinary. I just went to school. The high school teachers were really friendly. I had a strong math and science background, and I think teachers saw that I was really trying hard.
AW: Where would you like to see the company in five years?
JY: I would like to see MonetaOne really becoming the new money for the new economy. I would like to see five years from now, kids like my kids ask their moms and dads, ‘What did people use before MonetaCards were invented?’
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