What are the hot trends in the industry and how can social data can be used? At Casual Connect Europe, Yinon Horwitz, director of business development at StartApp, gave his take on who is playing the right cards and what is the near future holding for us in the game industry. Yinon predicted, “Messaging apps will play a big role in game dicsovery and data is going to be the holy grail”
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Yinon Horwitz, director of business development at StartApp, reveals that the challenge of working in a fast-growing startup was exactly what he was looking for when he came to StartApp almost four years ago. Eight months ago Yinon relocated to the company’s headquarters in New York, an achievement that was a dream of his since he was very young. Yinon is responsible for StartApp’s business growth and development, including executing their unconventional growth through new products and strategic partnerships.
The Startup Mentality
Every day Yinon’s work brings new challenges and opportunities to learn, with constant action and excitement. Even after five years, StartApp maintains the startup mentality, striving for innovation and new technologies. For Yinon, the most satisfying aspect of his job is creating and building something out of nothing, and his personal focus on continuous innovation blends well with the company.
Yinon’s understanding of business began at a very early age; by fifteen he had his first company. While getting a BA in economics and management, he gained a deeper knowledge of business, including how businesses operate, how to anticipate client needs and how important it is to build relationships in the world of business.
Yinon started in the game industry while still young. One of his first jobs was working in Q&A for a games-on-demand company in Tel Aviv where his father worked. Every school holiday Yinon would come in to work also. To his, the games industry feels like one big family, with familiar faces everywhere in this very supportive, knowledgeable group of people, and he is grateful his career path has brought his back into it.
Connecting Knowledge of Trends with the Company’s Abilities
Yinon emphasizes that the game industry is extremely fast-paced and rapidly changing, so it is essential to keep up to date with all of the trends. From there it is necessary to be able to connect that knowledge with the company’s abilities and roadmap and quickly adapt. He says, “We are in a saturated market and the ability to differentiate yourself from others is one of the most important things. As a company we are able to do it well; we have great people, creative thinking and the never-wavering goal to innovate and lead.”
To stay on top of the industry, Yinon spends a good deal of his time reading and watching videos from industry leaders, in particular studying new technologies. As he sees it, data will be the most important indicator for StartApp (and for the world) as they move forward. Yinon also notes that our social online behavior is changing rapidly.
StartApp has recently launched SODA a new Social Data Platform for messaging, dating and social apps, and Yinon describes the vision of how the future of mobile engagement is within messaging apps. Yinon believes the platform will fundamentally change the way social app publishers make decisions for their entire user experience in terms of on-boarding, user retention and through engagement with the right content.
Another major trend Yinon sees coming is VR. The trend is already starting to gain traction, especially in the games industry. StartApp considers that the technology goes hand-in-hand with their strategy for building mobile advertising. At Casual Connect Europe, Yinon introduced their new ad units designed specifically for VR.
As a newcomer to New York, Yinon is spending much of his free time building his new life. Although his family and friends are very important to hms, they are now far away. However, he enjoys playing in a football league every week and also continues to travel and explore new places as part of his work.
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