Jan Koum, Jump to the top by WhatsApp

Jan Koum (in Russian: Ян Кум) is the CEO and founder WhatsApp together with Brian Acton. WhatsApp is a mobile messaging app that was acquired by Facebook, Inc in February 2014 with a value of $ 19 billion. Koum currently holds a 45% stake of WhatsApp to the value of nearly $ 7 billion.

Koum life story begins in a small village on the outskirts of the city of Kiev, Ukraine on February 24, 1976. Jan Koum was the only child of the couple housewife and a construction manager. At that time, the political situation in Ukraine is not friendly. Living under authoritarian regimes, making it a small family feel unhappy. Therefore, they decided to move to another place which could offer a more free life.

They moved in 1992, when 16-year-old Koum has been matured enough. Koum moved to the United States with his mother and grandmother. His father planned to join them next, but eventually decided to remain in Ukraine. In America, they lived in a cramped apartment that is government assistance in Mountain View, California.

To make money, Koum’s mother worked as a baby sitter. While Koum help sweep at the grocery store. But, bad luck is coming his family. His mother exposed terminal illness diagnosis, cancer. Her mother is no longer able to work. Eventually they fully live dependent on social benefits.

In high school, though like make trouble, Koum like self-learning. At the age of 18, he became interested in programming. Through the used books he bought, he studied computer network. Koum joined the group of hackers and had a chat with the founder of Napster, Sean Fanning. After graduating from high school, Koum went to San Jose University. To get more money, Koum took part time jobs as a security tester at Ernst & Young. He was also the part of the hacker group w00w00, and meet people who later founded Napster, Shawn Fanning and Jordan Ritter

In 1997, January Koum was hired by Google as an infrastructure technician. He also met Brian Acton, an employee of the 44 Yahoo. Its meeting is a good sign for Koum’s life because both felt fit to become a partner. Six months later, Koum accepted as Yahoo and Infrastructure Engineer. Yet, Koum was still in college. Just two weeks working at Yahoo, Koum then decided to drop out. Three years later, his mother died and Koum be alone.

In September 2007, Koum and Acton exit from Yahoo, then they went around South America and played frisbee for a year. Both had applied for on Facebook, but failed. In January 2009, he bought an iPhone and realized that the App Store is then aged seven months to hit the industrial world applications. A brilliant plan comes in his mind. He then visited his friend, Alex Fishman, and both deliberated for several hours about the idea at Koum applications. Koum chose name of WhatsApp because it sounds like the phrase "what's up". On the day of his birthday, in February 24, 2009, he founded WhatsApp Inc. in California.

image source: cdn.ndtv.com

WhatsApp initial user is the Russian community close to Koum. From them, all sorts of status ideas came. Including "Can not Talk WhatsApp Only", and "I'm at the gym". When the application version 2.0 was released, the number of users rose to a quarter million people.

Koum then showed it to his best work. When viewing this feature, Acton realize that WhatsApp can be more effective than the MMS message, which was then still a trend. October 2009, they received funding $ 250 thousand from fellow former Yahoo employee. They then used this fund to develop it in the WhatsApp BlackBerry, Nokia, and Android.

WhatsApp appraise prestige of a high rise. In early 2011, WhatsApp is the most downloaded applications in the United States. However, success did not make Koum being overbearing. He still looks simple. When one of her staff asked why he's did not announce this achievement to the press, he's just a simple answer as well. He said, "This is only going to make you forget to focus on the product".

They are also not desperate to get funding from investors Ventura. In fact, Jim Goetz, of the famous Ventura investors Sequoia Capital, it takes up to eight months to be involved in funding WhatsApp worth $ 8 million. February 2013, they opened new funding to develop the business. At that time there were 50 people WhatsApp employees serving 200 million users. Seqouia Capital infuse money $ 50 million. This funding boost WhatsApp value to $ 1.5 billion.

The number of users that are increase bring WhatsApp value continues to swell. Until finally Facebook has agreed to buy WhatsApp worth a total of $ 1.9 billion. With this purchase, Koum was turn into a conglomerate with other Facebook billionaire Eduardo Saverin, Sheryl Sandberg, and Dustin Moskovitz.