Mail.ru cofounder and CEO Dmitry Grishin. (Photo courtesy of My.com)As American internet firms go public, many have looked overseas to unearth untapped user bases. One Russian-based internet behemoth is doing the same, but instead of scoping out BRICs or other emerging nations, it's coming to the home of Twitter and Facebook.
On Tuesday, Mail.Ru Group, Russia's second-largest web company by revenue, launched My.com, a suite of mobile messaging, e-mail and gaming applications that represents its first foray into an already crowded U.S. market. For some, the move would seem counterintuitive in a nation's whose mobile users do not lack for a 'next big thing.' But for Mail.Ru cofounder and CEO Dmitry Grishin, the company's decision is a signal of intent-an attempt to make one of the world's biggest internet firms even bigger.
'It's a very exciting market to learn from,' says Grishin, wearing a standard-issue Silicon Valley hoodie with leather dress shoes in a recent interview in San Francicso. 'We also think that launching a product on the U.S. market will make us stronger on our local market because we're learning more and more and fighting here with the best of the best.'
In entering the land of giants, Mail.Ru, an $8.2 billion (market cap) firm controlled my majority shareholder and billionaire Alisher Usmanov, is in uncharted territory. Best known abroad for its Yahoo -like offerings that combine internet services like email and search on a single portal, the Russian company, with only a handful of games to date, is not known for its app-building prowess. This venture, however, represents a more focused approach,which hopes to engage users by enticing them to use multiple apps at any given time. To that end, Mail.Ru purchased the domain name My.com, allowing for the easy branding of its products, naturally called myMail, myChat and myGames.
'Guess any number and multiply it by five,' jokes Grishin when asked about the price.
While the U.S. market isn't totally foreign to Mail.Ru-the company was a large stakeholder in Facebook and benefitted handsomely off the social network's 2012 IPO-it opened its first office in the U.S. earlier this year, starting small with a six-person operation based in Mountain View, Calif. There, in the shadow of Google , it'll hope to replicate the same multiple-offering success that has defined the search giant and its products like Gmail, Google+ and Google Play.
MyGames represents the first aspect of that strategy, with freemium titles already launched in the U.S. including the FarmVille-esque Lucky Fields and Jungle Heat, already a top game on Android. While wary of the precedent set by social gaming failure Zynga, Grishin is betting on a similar thesis that all games, not just those on your phone, will eventually be free-to-play with users paying for in-game additions. It's Mail.Ru's way of dipping its toe in the market, introducing titles as a primer for grander announcements to come, says the CEO.
'Businesses in Russia and China are very focused on freemium models,' says Grishin. 'For example, if you look at the U.S., [big] gaming business here are based on a subscription model. You pay per month-$20 for World Of Warcraft... companies like Electronic Arts still stick with this old model.'
MyMail is perhaps a safer play. Without introducing a new email client, the Mail.Ru's mail app is similar to the iOS offering that comes standard on all iPhones. 'We decided it was would be the right move to connect already existing mailboxes,' says Grishin, as opposed to providing new email addresses and competing for market share.
Most intriguing is MyChat, whose swiss-army knife approach to communication combines the functionalities of popular voice and video apps like FaceTime and Viber with the text-message alternatives of WhatsApp and KakaoTalk. It's in communication that Mail.Ru's CEO sees the biggest potential, as one voice or messaging service hasn't grasped majority mindshare in the U.S market.
MyChat seems to borrow inspiration from other previous apps, delivering their functionalities all in one place. There's the push-to-call video ability like Skype, along with the cute messaging interfaces (complete with stickers) that have propelled offerings like KakaoTalk and Line to the top of Asian markets. And with so many options across different mediums, Grishin believes there's value in offering everything in one place. The only thing he needs now are users to pick up calls or message back from the other side.
Follow me on Twitter at @RMac18 or email me at rmac@forbes.com.
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