“No ads! No games! No gimmicks!”

No ads! No games! No gimmicks!” – A simple principle which helped a small messaging application win over giants like iMessage, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, LINE, Kik Messenger, Kakao-Talk, and many others – while operating with a staff of just 50 employees.Even after ten years of existence, the company still boasts its no ads, no games, and no gimmicks principle while making millions in revenue.
 

      Ukrainian-born Jan koum co-founded the mobile messaging application WhatsApp with Brian Acton. The extremely popular mobile application was acquired by Facebook Inc. in 2014 for a whooping US$19 billion. A billionaire today, he is counted amongst the richest Americans but just a few years ago he was so poor that he had to live off food stamps. Born into a humble family in Ukraine, he migrated to the United States as a teenager with his mother and grandmother.

    The startup story began when they left their job to travel around the world. But soon, their savings started to sink, and they had to apply for a job on Facebook, which didn’t work out as planned as well. They were quite disappointed, but this failure led them to start a new life journey – WhatsApp.He named it ‘WhatsApp’ because it sounded more like what’s up, which aligned with the idea of statuses.

              “Being able to reach somebody halfway across the world instantly, on a device that is always with you, was powerful,” – Jan Koum