Success Story of Jan Koum (WhatsApp Co-Founder)

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No one denies that WhatsApp is the largest messaging platform in the world, the success story of WhatsApp is very inspiring. Jan Koum has seen many ups and downs in his life before launching WhatsApp.

Early Life
He was born in Ukraine (Kiev) in a small village. Jan Koum’s house didn’t even have electricity supply. He and his mother both migrated to (California). They both managed to get a 2 bedroom apartment with US government support.

His mother was diagnosed with cancer.  He had to accept small jobs like cleaning store and running errands for the nearby shop.

While working at Yahoo, Jan met his Co-Founder, they worked together at Yahoo for 9 years and then left Yahoo together.

Rejected By Facebook
Jan Koum and his Co-Founder Brian Acton applied for a job at Facebook but both of them were rejected in 2009. He said after this:

“Facebook turned me down. It was a great opportunity to connect with some fantastic people. Looking forward to life’s next adventure.”

Starting WhatsApp

Jan & Brian have bought an iPhone in 2009 and they released that the mobile applications would be the next huge thing, though they decided to create an App. After researching, they decided to do a messaging App free of advertisement for mobile users. They launch WhatsApp  in 2009

Why WhatsApp Doesn’t Sell Advertisement
Jan and his Co-Founder said that they had worked in selling ads in Yahoo and they know how users annoyed by seeing ads. Jan & Brian vision is not to put ads inside WhatsApp.

Acquisition by Facebook
It was the largest acquisition made by Facebook until this moment. The acquisition has done after several after months of Venture Capital financing. Facebook announced that an acquisition for WhatsApp has been done in February 2014.