MEF Executive Questionnaire #25 Nickhil Jakatdar , Vuclip

MEF continues to seek new ways to profile its members and promote the thought-leadership of the senior executives within these companies. We are pleased to launch the MEF Executive Questionnaire to reveal the real people behind the industry in an informal and entertaining manner.

This will be a regular feature of the MEF blog, so make sure you subscribe via email or RSS. If you are a senior executive from one of our member companies and would like to be featured then please contact your local GM

The twenty fifth in the series is from Nickhil Jakatdar - CEO & Co-Founder of Vuclip.




Please describe briefly your main company activities and your role within that organisation

Vuclip is the world’s largest independent mobile video destination portal, delivering 350 million videos every month in the entertainment, sports and regional content genres to more than 20 million consumers worldwide, to over 200 countries. I am the CEO of the company.

Without necessarily revealing any confidential information, please outline the principal business models your company uses

Vuclip monetizes through a combination of an advertising model (video and banner ads) and a freemium up-sell of our various video subscription services, such as video alerts, movies, etc.

What has been your company’s greatest achievement to-date?

Becoming one of the top 10 mobile sites in almost all of the key markets we play in, including the US where we rank as the second largest video site after youtube mobile. And in markets like India, Indonesia, etc.

What is your company currently working on that is going to move the industry forward?

Our ability to provide targeted mobile video advertising will have innovations in analytics based targeting as well as real time video ad insertion into video content without the need for a browser.

What is exciting you most in 2011 (either personally or professionally)?

Professionally, I am excited about getting to our goal of delivering 1 Billion monthly video views on Vuclip while personally, I am preparing on my poker game to be ready in time for the WSOP 2012.

What is the most important piece of technology in your life?

My 4 hybrid golf club

What mobile device(s) do you use?

An iPhone and a Blackberry Bold

What’s your favourite application?

Vuclip

What’s your ringtone?

Waka waka

Which mobile industry blogs do you regularly read and why?

Techcrunch for its mobile and internet coverage and Moconews for its mobile ecosystem coverage

What is the biggest mobile content issue that is likely to affect the industry within the next 12 months?

A new balancing act for content providers between providing their content in an ad supported model vs. in a subscription model, in light of the decision by more and more carriers to move away from unlimited data plans.

Which other MEF member organisation do you most admire?

I like Hungama for its visionary leadership as well as its innovative products. Neeraj and his team have built a business that has the potential to become a billion dollar company in the coming years. I also like the Sidebar team and technology. Patrick and Kieran are creating something that will help revolutionize the discovery process.