WhatsApp Success Story, Journey

History of WhatsApp

WhatsApp Messenger and simply WhatsApp is an American freeware, cross-platform centralized instant messaging (IM) and voice-over-IP (VoIP) service owned by Facebook. WhatsApp allows users to send text messages and voice messages, make voice and video calls, and share images, documents, user locations, and other content. WhatsApp also allows peoples to send a documents videos and photos to our friends, family, and other people. WhatsApp's client application runs on mobile devices but now is also accessible from desktop computers, as long as the user's mobile device remains connected to the Internet while they use the desktop app.
In January 2018, WhatsApp released a business app especially for small business owners, called WhatsApp Business, to allow companies to communicate with customers who use the standard WhatsApp client. WhatsApp was founded by Brian Acton and Jan Koum, former employees of Yahoo!
Jan koum was born on 24 February 1976 in Kyiv, Ukraine, then in the Soviet Union. Jan koum family was very poor and they didn’t have even electricity in their house. He grew up in Fastiv, outside Kyiv, and later Jan koum moved with his mother and grandmother to Mountain View, California in 1992. Jan koum spent his childhood in a humble 2 bedroom apartment in Mountain View, California and they obtained this apartment through a government-run support program.
At first, Koum's mother worked as a babysitter, while he was 16 years old and he himself worked as a cleaner at a grocery store. His father had to join the family but he never left Ukraine and died in 1997. Jan koum was a boy who was interested in computers at an early age. Jan and his mother remained in contact with his father until his death.
After the death of his father, his mother got cancer. At the age of 18 he was interested in programming he taught himself computer networking through the study of manuals. Koum didn’t have much money to buy a new manual so he bought them from a used book shop and returned them after he had read them to save money. He also joined a group of hackers that began in 1996 called w00w00, where he met the future founders of Napster, Shawn Fanning, and Jordan Ritter. Later he enrolled at San Jose State University and simultaneously worked at Ernst & Young as a security tester.
In 1997, Koum met Brian Acton while working at Ernst & Young as a security tester In 2000 his mother died after a long battle with cancer later he lived alone. Jan koum was an expert in computers so a job was offered to him on yahoo. He leaned on his good friend Acton for support and together they left Ernst & Young to work at Yahoo!. Jan Koum was hired by Yahoo! as an infrastructure engineer. Later In 1997 he dropped out of the university and focus on work at yahoo. Jan koum worked at yahoo for almost 9 years after leaving work from yahoo. In September 2007, they both left Yahoo! and decide to take a year off, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Both applied to work at Facebook, and both were rejected. At this both friends are jobless.
In January 2009 Jan koum buy iPhone and realized that the app store is going to launch new apps. After seeing this Jan koum got an idea and thought he should make the app thorough which people and talk to each other with messages and he thought that this application should not run any ads on it and no need to log in before using it. He visited his friend Alex Fishman and they talked for hours about Koum's idea for an app.
Later Jan koum choose the name “WhatsApp” for his app he choose the name with the phrase “what’s up”. Later on 24 February on his birthday in 2009, he launches WhatsApp. When WhatsApp was launched Jan koum didn’t get instant success because WhatsApp was very unpopular and WhatsApp had only a few users. Another reason for the unpopularity of WhatsApp was it was easily crashed. At first, Jan koum gets disappointed by the result and decided to find a job for himself but then his friend's brain Acton motivates him. Koum released the WhatsApp 2.0 version with additional features of messaging. This is one of the turning points in the history and success of WhatsApp.
Later apple add a new feature which is pushing notifications then Jan koum lucks turn around and this feature was good for koum app because whenever the user have a new message WhatsApp notify the user. Later WhatsApp was adopted as the messenger app due to this app the user can contact their friends, family, and even those friends who are in a foreign country without any cost. Due to the notification feature, WhatsApp gained more attention.
When WhatsApp was launched later the blackberry version of the App arrived two months later. WhatsApp switched from free service to paid available service. This strategy was implemented by WhatsApp to avoid growing too fast. In December 2009, a new feature of sending photos was added to WhatsApp on iPhone. The move became a success for WhatsApp and it was added to the top 20 App on the App store by early 2011.
Later WhatApp slowly gained more and more reputation. The app gained a large user base, and Koum convinced Acton, then unemployed, to join the company. Koum granted Acton co-founder status after Acton managed to bring in $250,000 in seed funding. Later WhatsApp gained 1.5 billion active users, 1 million new registrations daily, and 300 million daily users as of 2019. The app is used in 180 countries and is the largest of all messaging networks.
One of the most strange things is that was no person who promotes WhatsApp and it’s only become famous with its reputation. On February 9, 2014, Zuckerberg asked Koum to have dinner at his home, and formally proposed Koum a deal to join the Facebook board. Ten days later Facebook announced that it was acquiring WhatsApp for US$19 billion.
WhatsApp became the world's most popular messaging application by 2015. This application has over 2 billion users worldwide as of February 2020.

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WhatsApp Success Story

WhatsApp Journey

WhatsApp History