Jan Koum

A Story from Poverty to Riches

Jan Koum

Biodate

Name: Jan Koum

Age: 39

Born: February 24, 1976, Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union  

Position: CEO of WhatsApp & Managing Director in Facebook, Inc

Reason I Choose Jan Koum

Have you guys ever find that now days people are used to looking at smartphone, sending Whatsapps message. And this WhatsApp application since 2009, are the first place in App Store, Google play in the downloaded list. So, how is this from happening? The founder, Jan Koum said before they are do one thing, and do it well! So this is the reason I want to discuss this entrepreneur, he is inspire many people especially in this technology era. He will never give up although being fail to work in Facebook company.

Entrepreneur is the people who able to see potential in the market and sets up a business, taking on financial risks in the hope of profit. Jan Koum had created a massive successful messaging company, in wikipedia, he had been choose as the entrepreneur list of 21st century and in Forbes he had been listed as an Entrepreneur with real time net worth as $6.8 billion.(http://www.forbes.com/profile/jan-koum/)

The Background

So who is this Jan Koum? An entrepreneur? A technician? A billionaire? In 19/2/2014, Forbes had post a news about the Jan Koum, the title which sound like "Exclusive: The Rags-To-Riches Tale of How Jan Koum Built WhatsApps Into Facebook's New $19 Billion Baby". Now, who is this Jan Koum? I am believe that no one knew him until he had create Whatsapps and successfully sold to Facebook with $19 billion.

The whole story is began when Jan Koum had buy an iPhone and he started realize that this will create a new  industry and able to bring a great fortune. Jan Koum was learning computer networking by himself at 18 years old by purchasing manuals from a used book store. After that he joined a hacker group called woowoo on the Efnet internet. He enrolled at San Jose State University and moonlighted at Ernst & Young as a security tester. In 1997 he met Acton, the co-founder of Whatsapps, and at that time they are not more than just a Yahoo employees. After over the year watched Yahoo go through multiple ups and down, in September 2007, Koum and Acton finally left Yahoo and took a year to decompress, traveling around South America and playing ultimate frisbee. Ironically, both of them are failed to work to Facebook but now turn up Facebook is buying their product.

The Business Development

The turning point is started at Jnuary 2009 and Koum buyan iPhone. He found out that the application having a great potential and able to bring new industry. Thus, he visit his friend Alex Fishmen and discuss about his idea. Later on, Koum decided to choose the name WhatsApp which sounded like "what's up". The reason is letting people to be more easy to contact and connecting to each other so that they are more closer to each other.

After decided what to be done, Jan Koum is persuaded Acton to join him. And at that time, the founder successfully form a small group from the Yahoo employees and able to pool $250,000 in seed money. In early 2010, Whatsapp is able bringing about $5,000 a month. In 2011, within one year, WhatsApp hit the top 20 in Apple's App Store.

The Legend

In 2014, Facebook had announced that buy WhatsApps, company with at most $300 million revenues, and 55 employees at the price of $19 billion. Undoubtedly, this news had surprise everyone and doubt that is WhatsApps worth so much? 

WhatsApp had more than 4.5 million users and this had show that Facebook is planning to dominate the message market era in mobile communication. This also will helping Facebook get into the teenagers who do not like mainstream social networks but like the instant messaging like WhatsApp and Line. 

From here we can see how a person is able to change from a poverty to the richest. Just like what the founder of WhatsApps said:"Do one thing, and do it well!"

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Koum

www.forbes.com/profile/jan-koum/

http://mashable.com/2014/02/20/whatsapp-jan-koum-career/

http://www.popsugar.com/tech/WhatsApp-Founders-Jan-Koum-Brian-Acton-34113022