Way back in nineteen ninety-two an immigrant from Ukraine came to the US in search of some opportunity. This young teenager was accompanied by his mother and they barely had any money for their daily expenses. Due to limited cash on hand. He used to save his old Soviet notebooks for school and queued up with his mom for food stamps under government subsidy. At the same time there was another guy who had lost a small fortune in the. com bubble and wasn’t quest of finding something big.Now the friends have come together to disrupt the communication sector by inventing a mobile messaging app. Which today has over 1. 2 billion monthly active users. With over 30 billion messages sent everyday. The friends we are talking about are and Brian Acting and the company they founded together is none other than the most popular mobile app currently in the world. WhatsApp.
Yan is no stranger to failure and is a founder who had to go through his fair share of rejections by top tech companies including the one that eventually bought their servers only to become the most valuable messaging platform on the planet. Today we are going to talk about the inspiring success story of and who invested their blood, sweat and tears to make WhatsApp as the most sought after company in the world.
Yan was born in the rural areas of Ukraine. This was during the Soviet era. So being a Jewish and living in a rural area was definitely not easy. He lived in a house that did not even have electricity connection and being in a country that mostly had a temperature below zero degrees. They didn’t even have hot water. His parents also denied the usage of phones because they were often tapped by the government.
To worsen things more being financially unwell. They also had to go through a regularity of hardships as well. Hence in an attempt to put an end to all this Yan along with his mother and grandmother decided to move to mountain view California in nineteen ninety-two. In the US they were helped by a social support program to get a small two bedroom apartment. During this time Yan started learning computer networking by reading manuals that he used to purchase from a used bookstore at the age of sixteen.
He had also began working as a cleaner at a grocery store. While his mother worked as a baby sitter. Just things began to look normal. Another tragedy hit his life when his mother was diagnosed with cancer. But he always believed that whatever did not kill you only made you stronger and his adversities were only making him more resilient.In the next two years he had fully trained himself all about computer networking and was all set to take up his next task. This is when he gained a sudden interest in programming and got himself enrolled at San Jose State University.
Along with that he also began working with Ernston Young as a security tester. After working there for roughly 6 months. Yan got the biggest opportunity of his life. When he got selected to work at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer. Now this was when he was still studying at San Jose State University. Yahoo back then was just another startup and was beginning to grow. And since Yan loved what he was doing. He dropped out of his college and moved ahead with Yahoo.However, his happiness was short lived as his mother couldn’t outbeat cancer for long and passed away in the year two thousand. He was suddenly left all alone.
And that is when his friend from Erston Young and Yahoo Brian Acton helped him fight the loneliness by inviting Yan to his house for playing soccer and ultimate frisbee. Together they went on to work with Yahoo for more than nine years. While at it they got to intake numerous amounts of priceless knowledge and experience.Later in January 2009 Yan bought an iPhone and realise that the seven month old App Store was in the process of launching a whole new range of apps. This gave him a brilliant idea. Although the idea itself was at very stages, they were very clear about three rules. Number one, their service would definitely not carry any advertising. Number two, their service would have a satisfying experience. And number three, keeping in mind the privacy of their customers.
Their product would not store any messages. Additionally, they would also maintain to deliver the product without any gimmicks or stunts with endless amount of readability and risk experience. Having that Yan quickly got the name WhatsApp Incorporated on his birthday. At his twenty-fourth of February 2009 in California. Now, as the world progressed, they figured that WhatsApp kept crashing or getting stuck at a particular point. This went on for a long time which built up a great amount of frustration.Yan at one point even lost hope and felt like giving up and looking for a new job but Brian helped him get motivated and got his act together and asked him invest a few more months and finally a few months down the line help came from Apple. They launched their push notifications which used to ping their users when they weren’t using the app. But till August 200nine WhatsApp had no significant growth. This time Yan persuaded Brian Acton to join him.
Later in October of 2009 Brian contacted several old Yahoo buddies and got together a $250, 000 in C funding. This earned prime the title of co-founder and since then there was no stopping to this tech phenomena. By the early 2014 WhatsApp had witnessed humongous growth in its user base with millions of people across the globe using its messaging service. WhatsApp had never publicised or promoted itself anywhere and had organically grow in numbers. By that time it only had 55 employees who were serving millions of people each day.
Later the very next month in February 2014 Facebook declared that they were acquiring WhatsApp in a deal which was started to be one of the biggest acquisitions in the tech history. Facebook acquired WhatsApp at a whooping $19 billion dollars and also offered a board member position to Yan in Facebook. Yan signed the Facebook takeover contract at an unused building in Silicon Valley. Where he and his mother once queued for food stamps in the city of view where WhatsApp was located.
Well, the story of WhatsApp is yet another live example of innovation and true terms for everyone out there waiting for motivation. The journey of and Brian Acton is a lesson for every entrepreneur that capital dumping and marketing will not reap you benefits. It is ultimately the product and the service that automatically drives customer traction without any need for paid publicity. Well, with Billy of users addicted to WhatsApp style of keeping in tights. It is undoubtedly a tech marvel of this era. Tied up stories wishes Brian Acton and WhatsApp all the very best.
We hope it keeps growing with the same force. Thank you so much everyone for suggesting us to bring WhatsApp success story. We hope you liked it. Do let us know whose story do you want to see next in the comment section below and we’ll soon have it uploaded on this channel. For more inspirational stories and updates from the startup world. Visit our website startup stories. IA. Till then stay motivated.
