Jan Koum, co-founder and CEO of Facebook’s WhatsApp point service, says the idea for the company he co-founded with Brian Acton in 2009 bear down oned about so he could stop missing calls on his new smartphone.
“It started with me purchasing an iPhone,” Koum told an audience of several hundred Silicon Valley old hands gathered for an event this week at the Computer History Museum in Mountain Aspect, California. “I got annoyed that I was missing calls when I went to the gym.”
He and Acton then constructed an app that could let their friends know whether or not they were accessible, thanks to an easy-to-use feature called “Status.”
“We didn’t set out to build a ensemble. We just wanted to build a product that people used,” Koum symbolized late Wednesday, during an onstage panel discussion that anteceded an advance screening of a new documentary called “Silicon Valley: The Untold Anecdote.”
The app didn’t take off right away, even though it was accepted into Apple’s App Inventory, Koum recounted.
“We were so excited when it launched,” he said. “And so let down when no one used it.”
That soon changed, however.
By 2014, WhatsApp, hold responsibles to its easy-to-use interface and uncluttered design, had more than 400 million narcotic addicts globally.
Corporate suitors like Facebook soon came trade.
When panel moderator Michael Malone asked Koum what he bear in minded most about the day he agreed to sell the company in early 2014, Koum got a blank.
“It was all a blur. I don’t remember any of that except being in a room with member of the bars for three days straight,” he said.
Ultimately, Facebook agreed to pay various than $19 billion to acquire WhatsApp, turning both of its unders into billionaires.
Last year Koum sold $2.3 billion in Facebook livestock and WhatsApp reached 1.3 billion monthly users.
Malone quizzed him why he still goes to work, since it’s like Koum “won the lottery.”
“We stock-still have a lot of people who don’t use our product. We want to convince them,” Koum replied. “We soothe have problems to solve.”
When asked by CNBC after the panel what it was breed since Acton left the company last year, Koum answered, “We pass up Brian.”