Cherian Thomas, the architect behind BYJU’s American expansion, will now helm Impending, the studio behind apps like Heads Up, Clear & Here Kitty
Impending Inc., the company behind iconic apps like Heads Up, Clear, Classics, etc., has announced the appointment of Cherian Thomas as its Chief Executive Officer. Impending is credited with defining UX innovations that have since become standard in the industry, like swipe to complete, tilt to change, pinch to insert, flip to change etc.
Cherian Thomas is a proven business leader and entrepreneur who has an excellent track record across innovative consumer tech companies. As the CEO of Impending Inc., he will focus on building and scaling the product portfolio while strengthening and growing a global talent pool. Cherian is looking to leverage his diverse background of experiences, strategic capabilities and operational effectiveness around building businesses to create impact in his new role.
He had played an integral part in setting up the US operations at BYJU’S, one of the world’s largest ed-tech companies. He was also responsible for spearheading the business of Osmo as its CEO, a BYJU’S subsidiary, with a revenue of over $100 million in FY21. He was the first international employee at Byju’s back in 2017 and was credited with building the international organisation ground up to acquiring companies like Osmo.
Prior to this, he had co-founded and sold a VC-backed startup, Cucumbertown, to Japanese conglomerate Cookpad in 2016. He was also one of the earliest employees at gaming major Zynga.
Impending Inc. is one of the earliest Apple-focused studios in the world that has been building for the Mac community since the early 2000s, and later the iPhone. Frequently showcased at Apple’s WWDC, Impending Inc.’s core focus is to build for the masses and let the products speak for themselves.
“Impending espouses everything I’d do if I were to start again,” said Cherian Thomas. Products that are built for people to love for decades, a small, highly talented and nimble team, high gross margins, low marketing costs etc., form the core of his principles.
Without any external funding, Impending Inc. has always chosen the long-term view of building products with a slow compounding principle. “There’s no sword hanging with deadlines or metrics to impress a board. It’s all about executing, failing, evolving, re-releasing and scaling without being questioned,” Cherian Thomas added.
Said Phill Ryu, Co-founder, Impending Inc., “We are hugely excited to have Cherian Thomas on board. We share a vision of creating inspired apps with pop culture potential without compromise and have convinced each other that we are going to make it happen together.”
Heads Up, a joint venture between Impending and Warner Bros., having 70 million downloads, has been the number one paid game for almost a decade with Ellen DeGeneres as its ambassador. Clear, the iconic to-do list app launched in 2012, has remained at the top of the charts for nearly half a decade. Other apps like Classics have been top grossers too. The studio had recently launched Web Roulette, a TikTok-style app to browse popular websites.
