No advertisements! No games! No tricks!
A simple and effective principle which has helped messaging application success over giants such as Facebook Messenger, LINE, iMessage, WeChat, Snapchat, LINE, Kakao-Talk, Kik Messenger, and more. The messaging service is working with a team of 50 employees.
What is WhatsApp?
WhatsApp is an instant communication platform used by over 2 billion users in 180+ countries. People use WhatsApp to stay connected with their friends and family members anywhere at any time. WhatsApp is available on Google Play Store and App Store, available for free. Simply put, WhatsApp offers attractive features such as simple, reliable, secure, calling available on every mobile device.
Mission
Jan Koum and Brian Acton are the founders of WhatsApp. They introduced the application in 2009 after they quit the job at Yahoo in 2007. They left the job for a world tour, and after a few days, their earnings started shrinking. They have no money in their bank accounts. They have applied for a job at Facebook but got rejected. They were pretty disappointed when they got rejected by Facebook.
Failures are the stepping stones for success!!!
Jan Koum and Brian started their journey, successfully creating the application – WhatsApp.
In the initial days, they created WhatsApp as an alternative to SMS (short-messaging-service). But now, WhatsApp supports sending messages, sharing text media documents such as images, videos, location and more. Users can make international voice calls and video calls. Every message and call is highly secured with “end-to-end encryption”. It means, nobody has a chance to hack your message or spy on your video calls including WhatsApp. Jan Koum and Brian Acton always try to come up with new features that will let the user interact with their dear ones anywhere without barriers.
“We just wanted to build a product that people used,” Koum said.
WhatsApp 1.0
WhatsApp had successfully launched in 2009.
Jan Koum purchased a new iPhone in January 2009. Later, he realised the capability of applications on AppStore is not up to the mark. He wants to give a new look to the application by introducing “WhatsApp Status”. Koum discussed the idea with his partner Acton. They both started working on it. They have visited “Alex Fishman” where they can get more insights regarding the application. But, researching for more insights was a difficult process without an iOS developer. Soon, Alexa has introduced both the founders to one of the great Russian developers. His name is Igor Solomrnnikov, he is the founder of the website – RentACoder.com.
The initial days of their journey were not easy, they never lose hope. Like many successful startups, they have received a fruitful result. Finally, Koum has developed a powerful iOS application and joined WhatsApp inc in 2009. He named the application as “WhatsApp” – as it sounds like “What’s Up”. Koum introduces the app to their friends and others, but nobody is satisfied. There are few issues encountered in the app such as battery draining, poor performance, crashing and more. This had made Koum highly disappointed and made him weaker and he finally lost his hope. Koum started searching for another new job. But, Acton doesn’t lose his hope. He encouraged Koum by saying “You’d be an idiot to quit now. Give it a few more months.”
Push Notification – Addon
Apple had launched a new update i.e push notifications in June 2009. Push notifications allow users to receive messages, reminders and alerts when they’re offline. Users can receive notifications when they’re not accessing the application. Jan Koum had worked on this push notification update and done modification and applied to WhatsApp. He sent push notifications to their friends and others. They started receiving the notification whenever their contact user changed the status on WhatsApp. Their friends got attracted to the update and found it entertaining. They started messaging each other with their statues like – What’s up? How was your day? Can’t talk, I’m at the gym and more.
Within less span of time, this feature has become a popular real-time communication channel. Users have started communicating with each other by updating their status. For example, when someone posts “How are you, Tom?” and Tom would give a reply by changing his status.
WhatsApp 2.0
Jan Koum and Brian had identified the importance of instant messaging apps, they’ve launched WhatsApp 2.0. People across the world began to use WhatsApp even more. They love the idea of creating a WhatsApp account with their mobile number. People started registering their valid mobile number and started to send messages to their friends through the internet. Everyone is happy because they don’t need to recharge any SMS plan to send messages.
WhatsApp Business
Jan Koum and Brian have introduced WhatsApp Business to help small and large organisations. Businesses can interact with their customers and clients under one roof. They’ve launched “WhatsApp Business” in 2018. Many businesses are creating “Business WhatsApp” and building trust among the audience. If you’re running a small business, promoting your products or services is easier with WhatsApp Business. All you need to create a WhatsApp Business account and add your customers and clients. Now, you can send the latest offers and notifications to your customers and clients. Simple right!!! No SEO is involved to promote your products. Customers can share their queries and suggestions directly to your WhatsApp Business account. Jan Koum and Brian are earning billions of dollars using WhatsApp Business. But how? As mentioned earlier, customers can share their queries, it might be regarding new product details or return the product. The business owner should respond to that customer within a duration of 24 hours. If not, certain charges will be applied to every unresponded message after 24 hours.
Conclusion
Is there anybody who doesn’t know the founders of Whatsapp? Of Course nobody!!! Jan Koum and Brian are the founders of WhatsApp. They’re the ex-employees of Yahoo who worked together with hope and launched a successful communication platform. Users can send messages or share multimedia files overseas. Irrespective to the file size, users can share media files without hassles. Instead, to make money by promoting other businesses through ads on the WhatsApp user account, the WhatsApp team has given top priority to their user experience. Customers around the globe love using WhatsApp till the date.
