Can we imagine a
world without WhatsApp, can we keep our smart mobiles without WhatsApp? Obviously,
answer is great “No”.
WhatsApp was acquired
by Facebook in February 2014 for a huge US $19.3 Billion.
Jon Koum co-founder of WhatsApp was born in Kiev, Ukraine in a Jewish family. He faced a life of true hardship. He knew the meaning of living in the throes of deprivation. Koum was so poor that his house did not even have electricity.
His mother moved with
him and grandmother to California in 1992, where a social support program
helped the family to get a small two-bedroom apartment, at the age of 16.
His father had
intended to join the family later, but he never left Ukraine, and died in 1997.
Koum and his mother remained in touch with his father until his death.
At first Koum's
mother worked as a babysitter, while he himself worked as a cleaner at a
grocery store. His mother died in 2000 after a long battle with cancer.
The great American
dream did not make its way to Jan’s life as quickly as he hoped. Everything in
the United States was expensive.
By 18, Jan knew he
wanted to learn to program. He knew this was his destiny. Jan studied by buying
second hand books and stationary and returning them after he was done.
He was hit with a
major blow when his mother was diagnosed with cancer in 2000 and Koum was left
to fend for himself in a strange and unknown country.
But life’s
adversities only made Jan Koum stronger and resilient. By 18, he learnt computer
networking all by himself with the help of manuals from a used book stores.
Little did he realize that this was the beginning of
an illustrious career. Meeting Brian Acton was a turning point in his life.
Along with that, he also began working with Ernst & Young as a
Security Tester.
Jon Koum and Yahoo
However, Koum did not
stay on the job for long. In 2007, Koum and Acton bid farewell to Yahoo and
decided to unwind and travel around.
In 2007 after giving nine
years of his life to Yahoo, Koum and Acton left Yahoo and took a year off. And this is when it all began!
But they weren’t sure what to do next. They took a year off traveling around
South America to refresh their minds.
Origins of WhatsApp
In 2009, after
purchasing an iPhone, Koum had the vision to see that an entire industry was
about to form based around mobile apps.
The app store was
just a few months old, but Koum saw it starting an entire new industry. He
started thinking about building an app.
At the time, Koum was
living off of his savings from Yahoo!, with little direction as to where his
next career path would take him.
Looking to capitalize on this up-and-coming industry,
Koum began to explore the possibility of creating an app that would let mobile
users better interact and engage with their friends, family, and business
contacts without ads.
Koum almost immediately chose the name WhatsApp
because it sounded like "what's up", and a week later on his
birthday, February 24, 2009, he incorporated WhatsApp Inc. in California.
WhatsApp
was initially unpopular, but its fortunes began to turn after Apple added push
notification ability to apps in June 2009.
Koum changed WhatsApp
to "ping" users when they received a message, and soon afterwards he
and Fishman's Russian friends in the area began to use WhatsApp as a messaging
tool, in place of SMS.
The app gained a
large user base, and Koum convinced Acton, who was then still unemployed, to
join the company. Koum granted Acton co-founder status after Acton managed to bring
in $250,000 in seed funding.
It
was a bit of a rocky start for WhatsApp, though. After numerous crashes and
failures, Koum grew frustrated with the app’s development and reportedly
considered giving it up entirely.
Luckily for the both
of them, the duo did indeed stick it out and saw the app through to its
eventual success. By February of 2013, WhatsApp boasted 50 staff members and
200 million users.
Shortly thereafter,
the app was bought out by Facebook for a staggering $19 billion—a number that
stands as the largest acquisition in the world to date.
Another fascinating
aspect is; WhatsApp runs lean with just 32 engineers. One WhatsApp developer
supports 14 million active users, a ratio unheard of in the industry.
The most remarkable
aspect of the company is that, “It doesn’t even employ a marketer or PR person.
Yet like the world’s greatest brands, it’s created a strong emotional
connection with consumers.
Written
by Engr Maqbool Akram with help of Wikipedia and other write-ups available on net.
Photos are from sources with thanks.