The Idea: Dan Novaes was the kind of kid who, by high school, was already an eBay titanium power seller pulling in over a million dollars flipping gaming consoles between the US and Brazil. After college he built and exited a few consumer electronics ventures, including iFlask (the world's first "smart" flask) and an e-commerce business called Elekteks. But in 2015, he and his co-founder Kiran Panesar landed on a much bigger question: if smartphone makers earn billions from your screen time, why doesn't a single dollar of that go to you? Their answer was deceptively simple. Build a smartphone whose entire reason for existing is to pay its owner - for charging it, scrolling on it, listening to music on it, even reading the news on it. Brands pay for the attention. The user gets a slice. The phone gets stickier than anything Apple or Samsung ships. This was the beginning of Mode Mobile.
The Execution:
- 2015: Dan and Kiran founded Nativ Mobile, LLC out of Chicago, originally focused on mobile publishing tools and content monetization - the foundation that would eventually become EarnOS.
- 2019: The Mode Earn App shipped, paying users to listen to music on lock screens. Total revenue that year: $160k. A modest start, but the model worked.
- 2021: Launched the Mode EarnPhone - a real Android handset preloaded with proprietary EarnOS, sold direct and through Amazon, Walmart, and Best Buy. Annual revenue jumped to $22M as EarnPhones started landing in real users' hands.
- 2023: Ranked #2 on Deloitte's Technology Fast 500 with a near-unbelievable 32,481% revenue growth, then launched the Mode Earn Club subscription on top of the hardware to layer in recurring revenue.
- 2023-2024: Instead of chasing more VC money, the team opened up to retail investors via Reg CF and then Reg A+ crowdfunding through DealMaker, turning their own users into shareholders. Over 40,000 retail investors bought in, creating one of the largest community-owned cap tables in consumer tech.
- December 2025: Acquired NGL, the anonymous messaging app, plugging EarnOS into another high-engagement Gen Z audience and instantly expanding their distribution footprint.
- Today: Mode Mobile has 45M+ users across 170 countries, has paid out over $325M to those users, and has crossed $75M in cumulative revenue - all while running one of the most aligned business models in consumer tech.
The lesson? Mode's real moat wasn't the EarnPhone or even the OS. It was the alignment. When your users earn money the more they engage, and own equity in the company on top of that, every layer of the business pulls in the same direction. Pick a product where customers can genuinely become your distribution, your shareholders, and your loudest advocates - and you build a flywheel competitors with bigger ad budgets simply can't catch.