When was WhatsApp created? WhatsApp founder Jan Koum. Biography and family of Yan Borisovich. So, who is Jan Koum?

Find out the history of the creation of the most popular messenger. Who created Whatsapp, why it became so popular - we have prepared answers to these questions. From the article you will learn about the application developers. You will also learn how you can achieve great heights and earnings through perseverance and work.

Who created WhatsApp

Until recently, the application had stunning popularity and success, but due to many analogues it has lost its primacy in popularity. But even now hundreds of thousands of people use WhatsApp to communicate. Invented this program and a simple Ukrainian entrepreneur brought his idea to life, and this brought him billions of dollars in income and popularity in the world of programming.

Jan Koum: biography

Jan Koum is a famous American programmer, born on the territory of the former Soviet Union in the city of Fastov, located near Kiev. His family has Jewish roots. They lived very poorly, only one father worked in the family, and there was always not enough money. After the collapse of the USSR, the family emigrated to the USA and began to live in the town of Mountain View. After moving, Ian continued his studies in high school and at the same time got a job as a cleaner in a store to earn money for his family.

Yan’s mother did not work after emigrating because she became seriously ill. Due to illness, they began to pay her state benefits and gave her a small apartment. In the USA, the family also lived poorly and Ian lacked not only money, but also normal human communication with people, since the Americans were not as kind in communication as the Ukrainians. No one could have imagined that in the future a simple Jewish boy would become a billionaire.

The Secret of WhatsApp Success

The application has become popular due to the fact that it is free to use and with its help you can avoid spending money on communicating with friends. The service also allows you to make free calls to subscribers and exchange different files no larger than 16 MB in size. That is why many users download WhatsApp and use it for communication.

The development of the program took a couple of years. Initially, it did not gain much popularity and did not gain many users. This was due to the fact that the software did not have a large set of functions; it could only change the status and send SMS. The utility gained popularity after the pop-up notification function appeared in Apple's mobile OS. Immediately after this, the popularity of WhatsApp increased and many users began to install it, the number of which reached 250 thousand. And with the advent of file transfer functions (video and photos), the number of users increased to 1.3 billion.

Ease of use, the presence of only the necessary functions - this also influenced the popularity of the program. Nothing superfluous is the motto of the software creator and it is this that brought him stunning success. The application does not contain games or unnecessary functions. This allows one programmer to serve fourteen million subscribers. Thanks to this, the number of company employees is about 300 people, which will save money for the company.

Banning advertising is another credo of the software creator. There are no ads, no unnecessary pop-ups, and users love this because nothing distracts them from chatting with friends. Not a single dollar was spent on the promotion and promotion of WhatsApp. Initially, Acton, Kuhn's partner, wanted to add advertising to the messenger, but Kuhn did not allow it, although in the beginning they made almost nothing from it. In 2014, WhatsApp wanted to buy Google for $1 billion, but Facebook exceeded this amount nineteen times and offered $19 billion. Thus, the creators of the messenger earned a lot of money.

Creating a messenger

There are several versions regarding the creation of software:

• According to J. Hertz from Sequoia Capital, it was the difficult financial situation that prompted Kuma to create a new service. He wanted to contact his relatives in Ukraine and wanted to find a less expensive way to do this.
• According to some journalists, Kuma was inspired to create the messenger by the ban on mobile phones in the gym. He visited the gym and, due to the fact that the phone was turned off during training, he missed many important calls. Because of this inconvenience, Ian thought about how to make the subscriber’s status automatically displayed by the program and explain why he could not pick up the phone.

Be that as it may, starting with a small team of 10 people, Koum was able to build a huge company and turn his startup into a popular application all over the world.

History of development

WhatsApp has gone through a long development process to achieve enormous popularity. Every year new functions appeared in it, which only improved its functionality.

Date of birth WhatsApp

The program was officially registered on February 24, 2009. Its release date seriously hit the profits of telephone companies.

Meaning of the name

The software got its name completely by accident. Translated from English “What’s up” this means “What’s the matter?” or “How are you?”, the prefix “App” from the abbreviated word application, which means “application”. Combining these two terms together, we got the name WhatsApp.

Benefits of WhatsApp

The most important advantages of the program are:

• In addition to functioning on the platforms iOS, Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Nokia Symbian and Nokia S40, WhatsApp has a computer and web version of the software - this will allow you to communicate through a regular browser. To do this, you need to launch any convenient browser and go to web.whatsapp.com.
• The application has already gained great popularity, especially among young people. If one of your friends uses this messenger you will be sent Announcement that you can also join the number of subscribers of this social network.
• The software perfectly synchronizes the list of existing contacts from the phone book of a personal device, since the registration process is carried out by phone number.

• The program has the ability to create group chats for communication based on interests. 256 people can take part in one chat - this is a huge number. When setting up a group, you can specify its name and set up notifications on this topic.
• You can make free audio and video calls through the messenger. To do this, you just need to connect to the Internet. There will be no charge for calls; the user only needs to pay for Internet services according to the tariffs of his provider.
• Through WhatsApp it is possible not only to send photographs, but also videos, PDF documents, slide shows and much more, the main thing is that the file size does not exceed 100 MB.
• All attached files for transfer are processed on a special HTTP server, and only after that are delivered to the recipient. Thanks to this function, Internet traffic is saved.
• While writing an SMS, you can edit the text using different markup, highlighting it in *bold*, ~strikethrough, ~ and _italics_. To do this, you just need to place the desired piece of text in special characters.
• Since 2016, the software is absolutely free for all users.
• The program does not have in-app purchases.

Install WhatsApp on your personal device and join a large family of users.

The popular WhatsApp messenger originally belonged to WhatsApp Inc., which was founded by American entrepreneurs Jan Koum and Brian Actom. The head office was located in the USA in the small city of Mountain View, California.

In what year did WhatsApp appear?

The company was founded on February 24, 2009, the same date is considered the birthday of the first line of code of the application, which has not yet become a messenger. The program's ability to exchange messages between users was created in the summer of 2009. WhatsApp quickly became popular thanks to its simple and user-friendly interface. In just 3 years, the number of WhatsApp users exceeded 100 million people, and by 2015 the number of installations on Android devices increased to 1 billion. Initially, the application was paid and cost about $1, but from February 18, 2016, the fee for use was completely removed and the user pays only for Internet traffic.

When did WhatsApp appear in Russia?

The appearance of WhatsApp in Russia can be equated to the date of appearance of the messenger in the online stores AppStore and Google Play. Since the application appeared in stores almost immediately after its creation, it was presented in Russia at the same time.

Who owns WhatsApp now?

On February 19, 2014, information appeared about the purchase of WhatsApp by Facebook. It was assumed that the company would buy the license for the messenger partly in cash and partly in shares. Thus, starting in 2014, Facebook became the owner of the WhatsApp license.

How much did they sell WhatsApp to Facebook for?

The deal to buy WhatsApp by Facebook was initially worth $16 billion. Moreover, 4 billion of this amount will be paid in cash, and the rest will be purchased in the form of shares. In addition, the agreement provided for the transfer of shares worth 3 billion to employees of WhatsApp Inc. within 4 years after its acquisition by Facebook. As a result, the purchase amount became 19 billion. However, the value of the shares as of October 7, 2014 increased, due to which the purchase amount increased to $22 billion.

Surely everyone who considers himself an advanced smartphone user knows what WhatsApp is. This is a mobile application that is designed for quick communication with acquaintances and friends over long distances. More than 50 million SMS messages are sent every day through this application, but hardly anyone thinks about who is the creator of this program, convenient in all respects. If you are interested in this, then we will tell you his name - this is Jan Koum - an American talented programmer who today is the co-founder and director of the WhatsApp messenger and the second person in the Facebook empire.

Jan Koum: biography

It turns out that the American programmer is a native of the USSR. He was born in the small village of Fastov (today an urban village), which is located near the capital of Ukraine, the city of Kyiv. His family was not rich, one might even say living below the poverty line. My mother never worked and was a housewife, and my father worked as a laborer at a construction site. Yang was the only child in his family, which had Jewish roots (like the famous Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg). In 1992, after the collapse of the USSR and the fall of the Iron Curtain, their family (father, mother, grandmother and Ian himself), like many members of their nation living in the USSR, decided to emigrate to the United States of America and settle in the small town of Mountain View. Arriving in the United States, the future founder of WhatsApp, Jan Koum, continued his studies at a local high school, and in parallel with his studies, he began working as a cleaner in a store. After all, it was necessary to exist somehow. In a foreign country, the mother of the family became seriously ill and found herself incapacitated. Fortunately, she began receiving government sickness benefits. In this regard, they were also given a small apartment. Despite the fact that the state was favorable to their family, young Ian was very depressed by the coldness of the Americans, because he was accustomed to warm and friendly relations with the Ukrainians. The family, as during their life in the USSR, lived poorly on American soil, and nothing foreshadowed that Ian would become a billionaire in 20 years.

Carier start

In 1997, the father of the Kum family died, and all care of the women (mother and grandmother) fell on Jan’s shoulders. Despite its small size, Mountain View was a great place to create innovative technology projects. When Ian was 19 years old, he got his first computer, which interested him very much. Since then, he constantly learned new things, was an excellent student, was interested in computer technology, and was interested in programming. He was self-taught in many matters, rented textbooks and “greedily” acquired new knowledge. After school, he entered the University of San Jose, but continued to work part-time here and there. In his soul he cherished the dream that he would be able to get out of poverty, and would never again be in need, as in childhood and youth. This desire spurred him on to be one step ahead of his peers, to never stop there. One day he became part of a group of hackers who were engaged in serious hacking of the servers of famous companies. Having extensive computer knowledge, he easily found work, and one day, at such part-time jobs, the young man met one of the employees of the social network Facebook, B. Acton. He noticed the potential of young Jan Koum and got him a job at Yahoo.

New perspectives

The Yahoo search engine at that time was one of the most serious and largest Internet companies. Many people dreamed of working here. Of course, Jan Koum was truly lucky to be lucky enough to get into such an organization as a security and infrastructure engineer. He even dropped out of university because he spent most of his time in the company. Thanks to this, Kum gained a wealth of experience, learned a lot of useful things about the Internet industry, and made acquaintances who later became his investors.

Black line

Soon grief fell on the Kum family: his mother died. At the same time, his good friend, who had already turned into a friend, Bryon Acton, the same one who got him a job at Yahoo, lost his savings. And then friends - Jan Koum and Acton - decided to leave Yahoo. During the period of work, Ian managed to amass a small fortune of half a million dollars. With that kind of money he could go without work for some time. He wanted to get a job at Facebook, but they didn’t hire him. Of course, this left the young man confused, and he still could not understand what to do next.

The first iPhone

In 2009, he accidentally bought an iPhone for himself. And then the idea of ​​​​creating applications for mobile phones was born. Among his few friends was the excellent programmer Igor Solomenchikov. He met him during a meeting of emigrants from the USSR. And so he came to Igor with his idea, and together they decided to bring it to life. Here is the answer to the question of many: how did Jan Koum come up with WhatsApp? Of course, initially he didn’t quite imagine what exactly it would be and what it would be called, but he knew for sure that thanks to this application people would be able to communicate quickly, and this communication would take place through a number that would be linked to a smartphone.

whatsapp

The application that Jan Koum invented was called “Whatsapp” completely by accident. From English this expression is translated as “What’s the matter?” And the word App in modern slang means “application”. A few months later, WhatsApp was included in App Store, however, it did not become popular then. The godfather was very upset and even in despair, because his expectations were practically not met. At one point he decided that he should give up everything and leave.

Success

Once again he was helped by chance. Apple smartphones have a new push notification feature in iOS. Jan Koum immediately took advantage of this and added the same function to WhatsApp. Thanks to this, users of this application could share their statuses with friends. And this meant: Jan Koum, who invented WhatsApp, made a real breakthrough in this area, namely, he created a full-fledged messenger. It was soon downloaded by about half a million users, and the project began to develop at a rapid pace. Every day, downloads began to grow, and the subscriber base began to be replenished with more and more new users.

Development

The more people started using this application, the more investments needed to be made. It was necessary to pay the operators mobile communications, so it was decided to make the application paid. Jan Koum came to this decision. WhatsApp was supposed to cost very little - just $1. Of course, there were people who didn’t like it, but the number of people willing grew and the profits grew.

Big success

According to statistics, at the very beginning of 2013, the WhatsApp application was installed by 200 million users! It became free again. After this, the social network Facebook, which once denied Kum a job, expressed a desire to buy from him whatsapp app for 16 (in some sources 19 billion) billion dollars. The Irony of Fate! By the way, this deal was one of the largest in the history of the Internet industry. Today Koum is the second most influential person at Facebook after Zuckreberg himself. At the end of 2014, Koum donated one million dollars to the Free BSD project. In the entire history of this project, there has never been a donation of this magnitude. It exceeded its annual budget. Jan Koum has been using FreeBSD for over 10 years, both at Yahoo and on the WhatsApp server infrastructure.

State

The name of Jan Koum is often included in the ratings of such famous magazines as Forbes. He is a real businessman - “self-made”. He is the founder of the WhatsApp messenger. After that, his fortune was estimated at 9.2 billion US dollars. However, after the sale of the WhatsApp application to Facebook, his fortune can be said to have doubled and today is estimated at 15.8 billion.

Jan Koum: personal life

Today, one of the richest people on the planet, Jan Borisovich Kum, is among the most desirable bachelors in the world. Of course, he has a girlfriend, and what a girlfriend! However, as long as there is no marriage stamp in his passport, all potential brides on the planet can still cherish hopes of falling in love with this sought-after groom. Who is considered the lady of his heart today? Of course, this is no ordinary girl. She is a famous top model, who, before winning the heart of the founder of WhatsApp, was “without 5 minutes” the daughter-in-law of the richest man in Ukraine, Rinat Akhmetov (Tatar), as she was engaged to his son Damir. Her name is Evelina Mambetova. She is a citizen of Ukraine, born and raised in Crimea, and is Tatar by nationality. Damir gave his future wife a penthouse in London worth £135 million. Nevertheless, she left him. Jan Koum and Evelina Mambetova met in Kyiv in 2013. This was precisely the period when he, having sold WhatsApp to the social network Facebook for $19 billion, became the richest person from Ukraine, beating that same Rinat Akhmetov. Evelina is a very smart girl. She quickly realized what prospects awaited her. In order to match her chosen one, she entered Oxford to study law. He continues to give her original, expensive gifts. For example, by his order, the creative director of the Mulberry brand, Emma Hill, created a line of Evelina handbags in honor of Evelina.

As a conclusion

Jan Koum is certainly one of the luckiest businessmen in the world, who made his fortune on his own, without any help. As a child, he saw many financial and domestic difficulties. My father passed away early, my mother fell ill with cancer, was ill for a long time and died. All these difficulties strengthened the young man, who decided that he had to get out of poverty and live his life with dignity, which he certainly succeeded. His example should serve as an incentive for many young men who find themselves in difficult life situations not to despair, but to gain knowledge and move forward. By the way, he never graduated from the university, because at the beginning of his career, Ian decided that his studies were interfering with his work, and began self-development. Of course, he did not succeed in everything with ease; he encountered obstacles on his way, but they did not break him, but made him stronger and moved him forward. If you remember so much how Facebook initially refused to hire him as an employee, and then bought the application he created from him, as a result of which he became the second person in the company after Zuckerberg. He was also very lucky to have a mentor friend, Baryon Acton, because he always supported him even in moments of disappointment, when he wanted to quit everything and do something more tangible.

Kum (photo below) was unknown to anyone.

He was an ordinary employee computer company, one of several thousand. Tried to get out of the poverty into which he was born. And in my free time, I read scientific literature and developed a completely new product in the world of Internet technologies. Thanks to many years of hard work and determination, today he is a man with a huge fortune, the developer of the popular worldwide communication program WhatsApp.

Biography

Yan Borisovich Kum was born in a small Ukrainian provincial town in the late 70s. His family was the most ordinary and unremarkable: his father was a builder, his mother was a housewife. Childhood was not easy, because the family lived more than modestly. To earn at least a little money, her mother worked as a nanny, and Ian took on any work feasible for a schoolboy. Then came the collapse of the Soviet Union and the difficult years of perestroika. Jan's father died after a long illness. Part-time work did not bring the young man a stable income; his mother, due to her age, could not get a job. Then it was decided, having sold everything possible and collected all the savings, to move to America. It took two years to prepare for the move, during which the boy studied English and took private lessons to improve his knowledge. The family moved to a town called Mountain View.

Jan Koum, whose biography was very difficult, got the opportunity to study and do what he loved - studying books on programming. During his student years, the young man had fun creating hacker programs and independently studied literature on writing program codes.

Career failures

At this time, things were still going badly for the family. Ian's mother was diagnosed with a malignant tumor, and for several years they lived in a modest rented apartment on sickness benefits. After some time, his mother died, and Ian was left alone.

Brian Acton, whom he met at Yahoo, had a great influence on the young man’s life. Ian got a job at this corporation in the hope of starting a career and getting good money. It was there that two friends spent several years creating advertising and network engineering, but neither of them received any pleasure from this routine work.

There were attempts to invest, as well as projects to open their own businesses. But they all ended in failure and instead of profit brought further waste. But Jan Kum, whose fortune was still an insignificant amount, did not lose his persistence and moved on. I failed to graduate from university because my studies interfered with fruitful work. Ian chose self-education and never regretted it. He read books voraciously, buying them in small stores and at street sales. And he continued to work at Yahoo Corporation.

One day, all the computers at Yahoo offices crashed. They began to urgently call employees to troubleshoot problems. They called Ian, but he was at university at the time and replied that he would not be able to come. Perhaps it was at this moment that the young man came up with the idea of ​​​​creating a smart program for the phone that would tell everyone in the contact list whether the subscriber was busy or could answer, whether he was in class or at the cinema, out of reach or free to communicate.

New stage of life

Working at Yahoo took seven long years in the lives of the young Internet genius and his friend Brian. Finally, one day, they agreed that creating advertising projects was not what they dreamed of. Having accumulated a certain amount in their accounts over the years, the young people terminated the contract with the company and set out to travel around the world. They visited South America, where they were able to properly relax and gain strength for new achievements.

One day Jan Koum picked up an Apple phone. According to the programmer himself, this moment became a turning point in his life. An idea that had been hanging around in my head for several years suddenly became clear and understandable, and unique opportunities mobile device suggested how to bring this idea to life.

Path to the Top

During the same period, the future creator of WhatsApp, Jan Coombs, became close to an equally purposeful young man, Alex Fishman. Together they spend days discussing the idea, working on its improvement and implementation. Alex helped Ian find a qualified mobile application developer (it was Igor Solomennikov).

And a long period of studying literature, writing codes, and developing programs began. Ian spent several months studying the telephone codes of all countries and cities so that messages about the new product could be received by millions of subscribers around the world. The result of painstaking work was a mobile application that instantly informed the user’s entire list of contacts about the user’s new status, automatically recognized subscribers of any telephone system, and turned out to be very convenient for text messages. It was the ability to quickly send messages that made the new program popular in a short time, because it had no analogues.

The name WhatsApp did not appear by chance: Kum played on the expression, which means “How are you” and is the most popular and frequently sent message.

Difficulties again

The unknown application did not bring in profits that could cover the costs. After all, it was necessary to maintain an office and a staff, albeit a small one. A lot of money was also spent on communications. We can say that for several years the developers only invested in the business without receiving anything in return. Although no, there was still something - the growing popularity of the new mobile product.

After the program added the function of sending not only text applications, but also images, music and videos, the number of users increased to several hundred thousand, and the developers realized that they had created a more functional replacement for SMS and MMS. The first investors were found, which means the application began to generate income. A new office appeared, employees began to receive decent pay. A long-term idea has finally received a worthy embodiment! And Jan Kum realized that he was now firmly on his feet.

Deal for 19 billion

WhatsApp founder Jan Koum admits in an interview that he never considered himself an entrepreneur, and is even seriously offended if he is called this word. He claims that he developed the application not for money, but for the sake of realizing his idea. If something useful is created, it will definitely become known and appreciated - this is the opinion of a computer genius. That is why Jan Koum did not conduct major advertising campaigns for his brainchild, did not try to attract the attention of the press, and did not even develop the logo right away.

Nevertheless, popularity came with enviable speed. The application firmly held the top position in the ratings of mobile gadgets as the most popular and in demand. This rise could not help but be noticed by such giant corporations as Yahoo, Google, Facebook and many others. There were many lucrative offers to sell the brand. And finally, in 2014, a deal took place that instantly made not only WhatsApp, but also its creator, world famous. The app was sold to Mark Zuckerberg for a record nineteen billion dollars! Its developers Jan Koum and Brian Acton became shareholders and remained to work in the company. A guy from a poor Ukrainian family became a billionaire and one of the most eligible bachelors.

Personal life

It is not surprising that with such an attitude towards work there is little time left for personal life. For Jan Koum, WhatsApp is the meaning of his life, his idol, his brainchild. He does not part with his mobile phone, afraid of missing important messages from business partners. He is ready to work day and night if any problem arises in the operation of the application.

Even if Jan Kum married, his wife, alas, would not occupy the first place in his life. This is probably why a talented programmer prefers to remain single. According to press reports, Ian is now dating a model of Ukrainian origin, Evelina Mambetova. The girl is young, but is already known to the whole world as very beautiful and promising; she has already collaborated with such brands as L. Oreal, Mulberry and Aveda. Perhaps energetic and ambitious young people will be able to create a strong union.

Hobby

Jan Koum devotes almost all his time to work. He monitors the rating of his invention, studies consumer reviews, and constantly works to improve and add new useful features. He has little interest in political events and does not take part in them. He does not like popularity and is not very willing to communicate with the press. Everything related to PR and advertising, since his time at Yahoo, has brought melancholy and boredom to Ian.

Despite a busy work schedule, there is a place in a young man’s life for a hobby. Boxing became his favorite pastime. It is probably not by chance that this particular sport was chosen, because it is simple and understandable, obeys strict rules and requires complete dedication during training. Isn’t it these qualities that Jan Koum values ​​most?

When talking about plans for the future, Ian only thinks about his project. According to him, success can be considered achieved if the application in twenty years is as popular as it is now.

A motivating article that talks about the creator of WhatsApp and the path he had to go through to achieve success!

Today, everyone probably already knows what the WhatsApp mobile program is and what they eat it with! 🙂

I am sure that every second person (who, of course, has mobile phone with some bells and whistles) - have already downloaded the WhatsApp mobile application for quick communication with your friends.

Every day we send about 50 million SMS through this application and don’t even think about how this program was created and who its founders are!

So, who is Jan Koum?

Jan Kum is a native of Ukraine, who is the creator of this WhatsApp mobile application! He is the second most influential person on Facebook after M. Zuckerberg.

Let's take a closer look:

How could an ordinary programmer Jan Koum achieve such success?

And it all began...

Ian was born outside Kiev, in a small town called Fastov.

He grew up in a poor family: his mother was a housewife, his father was an ordinary construction worker.

There were moments in their family when their house was completely left without heating and electricity - there was no money to pay, they survived as best they could.

According to Jan Koum, it was this bitter life experience that helped him become stronger and achieve dizzying success in the future!

His family was forced to emigrate to the USA because they had Jewish roots...

Moving to the USA

Thanks to some social program, the Kuma family received a small apartment from the state.

WhatsApp success

The WhatsApp mobile application is an ordinary simple program that was created from scratch and shot to the skies - making its creators billionaires with a capital B!

These were the people who simply dreamed of making a high-quality product that was user-friendly!

Be sure to watch this interesting video,

where you can find useful information about mobile application whatsapp

Simplicity and only its most necessary functions - that’s what the developers of the WhatsApp mobile messenger relied on.

In the world of high technology, you don’t always need to reinvent the wheel; sometimes it’s enough just to understand what the user really needs...

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