The story in brief
InMobi’s early founder account follows an initial mobile-search idea into a wider mobile business. It illustrates how a founding hypothesis can change as a team learns about the market.
In a published account of InMobi’s origins, Naveen Tewari recalls becoming interested in the growing mobile landscape while visiting India in 2006. The early idea was called mKhoj and involved mobile search. Conversations with Abhay, Amit and later Mohit helped turn the idea into a founding team and a functioning company in early 2007.
The opportunity changed shape
Tewari’s account was written as the company adopted the InMobi name and described an ambition to participate in the global mobile-web ecosystem. The company’s later identity centred on digital advertising. This is a useful reminder that the first description of a venture may be a starting hypothesis rather than its permanent category.
A global problem still has local details
A technology product can address a need across markets while encountering different customers, commercial relationships and operating conditions. International ambition therefore needs more than broad distribution. A team must learn which parts of its proposition transfer readily and where the experience requires adaptation.
The founder lens
Our interpretation of Tewari’s story is to preserve the insight while remaining willing to revise its initial expression. The founding team was responding to a changing technological environment. For another founder, the question is whether a change in product direction carries forward something learned or merely replaces one untested story with another.
Preserve the insight while questioning the first format
A founder can notice a meaningful change in user behaviour and still begin with the wrong product expression of it. Separate the underlying observation from the first proposed solution. Which evidence supports the broad opportunity, and which evidence supports this specific business model? That distinction makes a change of direction easier to explain without inventing a story of inevitability. The founding team also needs a shared understanding of what has been learned and what remains uncertain. A retrospective account is most useful when readers can see the decisions in their original context, before the outcome was known. That makes the journey a source of questions rather than a simple success formula.
Put the idea to work
Use these questions to investigate the idea in your own context.
- Write the market observation separately from the proposed product.
- Identify evidence that would challenge the first business model.
- Record why a change in direction follows from what the team learned.
A closer look
Does changing direction mean the initial idea had no value?
Not necessarily. An early idea can expose a market, assemble a team or reveal a more useful problem. The InMobi profile examines that learning process through a retrospective founder account, without treating every pivot as a sign of progress.
Sources & editorial note
This profile draws on the public sources below. Company and founder accounts describe their own perspective. Our analysis, questions and takeaway are editorial interpretation. This is not an original interview or a sponsored feature.
See our editorial standards or request a correction. For another perspective, read What an incubator brings to the table.
