They spent 9 years working together at Yahoo and became good friends.
But in 2007, they both left Yahoo with some cash and no plans.
Can't get a job at Facebook?
You can always sell your startup to Zuckerberg for $19 billion.
Here's the crazy story of WhatsApp👇
They spent 9 years working together at Yahoo and became good friends.
But in 2007, they both left Yahoo with some cash and no plans.
...and failed
they were proud members of the "Facebook reject club"
"Wow, this new App Store could be huge."
At the time, the App Store was 7 months old.
Koum thought it would be fun to put statuses next to friends' names in your address book.
So he went to RentACoder..com to hire a guy to build the 1st version.
But it kept crashing.
After a few though months, Koum wanted to quit and look for a job.
So he asked his friend Brian Acton for advice.
Acton said,
"You'd be an idiot to quit now.
Give it a few more months."
In June 2008, Apple unveiled push notifications for iPhone apps.
Koum added 1 feature to WhatsApp:
Every time a friend changes their status, you get a notification.
These statuses turned into fun messages.
He had accidentally created a messaging service.
It had 1 main feature: Messaging
2.0 took off like a rocketship and hit 250,000 users.
At the time, Acton was unemployed working on other dead end projects.
He secured some funding, joined as the 2nd co-founder, and got 20% of the business.
Koum had an obsessive focus:
"No distractions. No bullsh*t".
By 2011, WhatsApp was top 20 in the U.S. app store.
Then Jan Koum got an email from some guy named Mark Zuckerberg.
The subject line?
"Get together?"
It had grown faster than early Facebook.
In 2013, WhatsApp was adding 1 million new users...
PER DAY.
WhatsApp had...
• 450 million users
• only 56 employees
• only $20 million in revenue
Can't get a job at Facebook?
— Chris Hladczuk (@chrishlad) June 7, 2021
You can always sell your startup to Zuckerberg for $19 billion.
Here's the crazy story of WhatsApp\U0001f447
--> just follow me @chrishlad
More from Chris Hladczuk
David Ogilvy is the King of Copywriting.
And in 1982 he writes a 38 lesson manifesto titled
"How to create advertising that sells"
Here are the top 7 tips that you can use today:
We Make the Wrong Promise
A promise is not a random claim or stupid slogan.
It is a benefit for the consumer.
And the product delivers that benefit.
Awards are Dumb
"Pursuing creative awards seduces creative people from pursuing sales."
Translation:
If your job is to sell, focus 100% of your energy on selling the product.
Not selling yourself to voters to win an award.
"Nobody was ever bored into buying a product."
Give it some magic and charm.
The iPhone vs. Blackberry is a modern
Hit the Headline
"On average, 5 times as many people read the headline vs. the body."
People are scared of writing clickbait titles.
But the truth is that clickbait exists only when you fail to keep your promise to the reader.
h/t @nicolascole77
And in 1982 he writes a 38 lesson manifesto titled
"How to create advertising that sells"
Here are the top 7 tips that you can use today:
We Make the Wrong Promise
A promise is not a random claim or stupid slogan.
It is a benefit for the consumer.
And the product delivers that benefit.
Awards are Dumb
"Pursuing creative awards seduces creative people from pursuing sales."
Translation:
If your job is to sell, focus 100% of your energy on selling the product.
Not selling yourself to voters to win an award.
"Nobody was ever bored into buying a product."
Give it some magic and charm.
The iPhone vs. Blackberry is a modern
Steve Jobs killed BlackBerry.
— Chris Hladczuk (@chrishlad) December 7, 2021
By creating a cult and inventing new rules
Here's the breakdown and why it matters\U0001f447
Hit the Headline
"On average, 5 times as many people read the headline vs. the body."
People are scared of writing clickbait titles.
But the truth is that clickbait exists only when you fail to keep your promise to the reader.
h/t @nicolascole77
