In 2009, Jan Koum posted on FlyerTalk.com message board asking users to check out his new app he just made: WhatsApp.
hi there, i hate shameless self promotion, but i couldn't resist posting here because i wrote this app with people like us in mind (those who travel a lot)
ever since i semi-retired a little over a year ago, i been traveling A LOT and i hated it when people tried to reach me when i am on the plane or out of the country. so i asked myself -- wouldn't it be cool if i just set a status for my iPhone, similar to how you can set a status on yahoo messenger or skype.
problem found - problem solved. so i spent a couple of months and developed a little tool called WhatsApp - it can let you set a status like "On the flight to munich, send email instead of calling me" or "In Japan for two weeks, my cell there is +81 829 282718"
our site with screenshots and faq is: http://www.whatsapp.com and direct itunes link is: http://itunes.com/app/whatsapp
i would like to hear your feedback and suggestions on the idea. hit or miss?
(of course app is useless 'til your contacts begin to use it also)
P.S. - i know a lot of you are BlackBerry users, and we are working on a BlackBerry version already (wish there was more hours in the day)
The post went unnoticed on the message board for over 4 years. By that time, WhatsApp was valued at over $1.5 billion dollars.
Source:
https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-technology/952359-thoughts-about-my-free-iphone-app-whatsapp.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_WhatsApp
Image Source:
https://whatsapp.en.softonic.com/