The report helps in analyzing the journey of WhatsApp from the time of inception along with analysis of the different characteristics of the successful entrepreneurs in reference to WhatsApp enterprise has to be done in an effective manner. Furthermore, the position has to be analyzed as this will assist WhatsApp in positioning themselves for the strategic kind of advantage. Furthermore, the usage of innovation is required to be analyzed effectively as this will help in focusing more on innovative strategies.
WhatsApp Enterprise was founded in the year 2009 by Brian Acton and Jan Koum who were the former employees of Yahoo!. Jan Koum is Ukrainian-American inventor of internet and the computer programmer. He is CEO along with the co-founder of WhatsApp along with Brian Acton which is the messaging application that was required by Facebook Inc in the month of February 2014 for US$19 billion. It has been seen and noticed that both the founders of WhatsApp previously worked with Yahoo and they left that respective job as there was huge issues related to the different payments and other legal issues.
However, it has been noticed that after Koum was included in the different start up ideas, at that respective point of time it was noticed that Acton was still unemployed and this was the time when both of them started to work together as a joint venture and it was successful as well. Furthermore, in WhatsApp, it has been noticed that it is applicable in sending different replies to one another and there is privacy in the messages that is being sent to the individuals who uses WhatsApp on a regular basis as well (Block, Fisch and Van Praag 2017).
Furthermore, in February 2014, after venture capital financing around $1.5 billion, Facebook has announced that it was acquiring WhatsApp for US$ 19 billion. Furthermore, in July 2013, WhatsApp was made free with an annual kind of subscription fee of $1after the first year. In August 2014, it was seen that WhatsApp was globally popular kind of messaging application with more than 600 million users who are active in different social media sites.
In November 30, 2015, client of Android for WhatsApp started making different kind of links named Telegram that is uncopiable and unclickable. In the present scenario, it was noticed that founder of WhatsApp Jan Koum announced that the services provided by them will no longer be chargeable as there were different barriers faced by the various users who did not have credit card facility available with them. In June 2016, there were more than 100 million voice calls that were made per day on the WhatsApp application and this was seen as per the blog of the company. In February 2017, WhatsApp started and introduced new feature regarding the status and it was quite familiar to Snapchat and Facebook.
Additionally, it was seen that on May 2017, it was being reported that the European Commission was fining Facebook for around €110 million for misleading it as this happened during the takeover of the WhatsApp application. Currently, in January 2018, it was seen that WhatsApp has been able to launch the WhatsApp business for usage pf small business activities that will help them in maintaining their position in the market effectively.
Characteristics of Successful Entrepreneurship Skills in Reference to WhatsApp
There are different characteristics of the successful entrepreneurship Skills in reference to WhatsApp. The entrepreneurs are the ones who set up business with taking different kinds of financial risks in the hope of profit. There are different characteristics of the successful entrepreneurs that are required to be maintained by them in order to gain more successful and competitive advantage in the economy.
Proper passion and motivation is essential in nature and this is one of the essential traits of a successful entrepreneur as this helps in understanding the risks involved in the tasks that is performed by them. It is required to be analyzed that the entrepreneurs are being able to take various risks as their main motive of the entrepreneurs are to take risks and they are the risk takers. However, this has been seen that risk takers are successful kind of entrepreneurs and creativity is the main idea that helps in analyzing the uniqueness into the business effectively.
Furthermore, the communication skills and self-discipline are the other issues that have to be analyzed in an effective manner that will help the entrepreneurs in handling the situations in an effectual manner. The passion about learning among the entrepreneurs is the other major characteristics that is required to be inbuilt in them as this will help them in gaining important information and learn from their own mistakes as well. The entrepreneurs need to be passion driven and not money driven as money is not the primary kind of motivation and this will not be required to invent or make an amazing product.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Jan Koum did different menial jobs such as mopping or cleaning at various grocery stores. At this point of the life, both Jan and his mother were dependent on different kinds of allowances from the government. Furthermore, Jan signed the agreement with Facebook on door of social services and both he and his mother used to stand in queue to collect the food stamps as well. From such instances, it can be analyzed that in becoming a successful entrepreneur, this is essential to be stable in their own motives as this will help in becoming a successful entrepreneur in an effective manner.
Furthermore, it has been seen that the individual or the entrepreneur needs to be passion driven in nature and not money driven in nature. It is essential in nature and it has been learnt from Jan Koum that the products that will be sold to the customers would require to meet the needs of the individuals in an effective manner and this will help the entrepreneur in becoming more successful in the near future as well. According to Jan, money was not the primary motive and this is essential in nature to build a product and his main motive was not to create money and was to meet expectations of the customers.
Innovation is one of the specific tools of different entrepreneurs and this is one of the means by which they help in exploiting the change as one of the opportunity for different business or different kind of service. Furthermore, the different entrepreneurs are required to search purposefully for the different sources of innovation that helps in indicating the opportunities present in successful kind of innovation. Furthermore, it has been noticed that the entrepreneurial leadership is defined as the group of different individuals to achieve a common goal using the proactive entrepreneurial behavior by optimizing the risks and managing the change in an effective manner.
WhatsApp was first started by Jan Koum and Brian Acton and they tried to be successful in the respective venture in an appropriate manner as well. Furthermore, it has been known that Koum was eating into $400,000 in savings from Yahoo and drifting. Furthermore, in January 2009, he bought an iPhone and he tried to realize that the seven-month-old application will be changing and it is about to spawn whole industry of apps as well. Jan Koum visited home of a Russian friend who suggested Jan Koum with different suggestions during movie night at a friend’s place.
Jan Koum enrolled his name at San Jose State University and started working at Ernst and Young as security tester. He tried to gain knowledge on different aspects of computer networking and this helped them in managing the same in an effective manner. Furthermore, it was seen that after six months, Koum interviewed at Yahoo and he cracked the position of infrastructure engineer. Over the next nine years, both the founders of WhatsApp watched the ups and downs of WhatsApp together as well. Additionally, in the year 2007, both Acton and Koum left Yahoo and they tried to decompress themselves and started travelling around South America and played ultimate frisbee.
The entrepreneurial spirit of both Koum and Acton was that both of them struggled to perform their best in managing their different innovative ideas and this has helped them in being successful as well (Schaltegger, Lüdeke-Freund and Hansen 2016). The leadership quality of Koum was astounding as the main idea of opening WhatsApp was watching a movie at his friend’s place and he tried to guide Acton who is the co-founder of WhatsApp in an efficient manner as well. Koum immediately chose the name WhatsApp as it sounded like What’s Up and on his birthday that is on February 2009, he tried incorporating WhatsApp in California.
From this aspect, it can be analyzed and learnt that the approach applied by Koum was thorough and he was a professional kind of leader who had the entire idea of different computer networks and he was successful in the venture as well (Schaper 2016). Koum made WhatsApp unique as the login in it was done by the phone number of users, however it was noticed that Action was still unemployed and then both of them started working together for free for first few years and the largest cost was sending verification code texts to the users. From this scenario, it can be analyzed that the leadership capabilities and the entrepreneurial capabilities were astounding in nature as they were successful in their venture.
WhatsApp messenger is one of the free apps that helps the individuals in sending messages to the with videos and photos from the smartphones along with bypassing the wireless carrier’s messages and MMS charges as well (Phillips et al. 2015). The WhatsApp has gained strategic advantage in the entire competitive market as they have three compelling qualities that has helped them in managing their position in the market effectively. Proper positioning is essential in nature for all the organizations in the economy or the competitive market as this will help them in maintaining their strategic position in the entire economy.
There are different strategic drivers that is used by WhatsApp that has helped the company in their growth is keep growing as this has assisted them in maintaining proper competitive spirit in competing with the other companies in the market. The different technological innovations that has been applied by WhatsApp has helped them in becoming successful and this has assisted them as well in planning for the different future endeavors as to become successful in performing the tasks effectively (Caneque and Hart 2017).
The wide ranging cross platform support is the first criteria wherein it has been noticed that WhatsApp messenger is available for Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows and Symbian. However, on the other hand, Kik Messenger which is one other messaging application which is possible only on few platforms. In this regard, WhatsApp Messenger receive kudos in such regard and this is one of the point that has helped WhatsApp in positioning themselves in an effective manner. The WhatsApp messenger has tried to upfront about the no-ads policy and they have been successful in nature that helps them in maintaining their strategic position in the market. Furthermore, it has been seen that BBM, Apple Messenger that is the free iMessage services are limited to the users who only uses iPhone and this is not suitable for the ones who uses other handsets (Schumpeter 2017).
Secondly, there are lot of users is the other criteria and the positioning strategy that has been adopted by WhatsApp. This is the other major reason wherein currently it is seen that there are more than 450 million monthly users. The number of messages that is shared by WhatsApp is nearly equal to entire SMS messaging in the entire globe (Zahra and Wright 2016). For instance- it has been seen that Viber that is the messaging app has about 300 million and BBM has 80 million users.
From this, it can be analyzed that WhatsApp has more than 450 million users in the present scenario and more than 320 million individuals log into the specific application daily as well. Furthermore, there are different statistics in which this has been noticed that WhatsApp has tried to position themselves in such a manner that the application has become popular in Latin America, Europe, Asia as well as in India (Kuratko, Hornsby and Hayton 2015).
Lastly, there is less number of advertisements is the other main top reason wherein Facebook has spent more mega dollars on WhatsApp messenger is the user base. Currently, it has more than 450 million dollars monthly users (Scarborough 2016). On the other hand, there are different other free messaging applications such as WeChat in Asia and this includes advertising and this will be the other strategic advantage that can be gained by WhatsApp in an effective manner. When advertising is involved, this will create huge problems for the different messaging applications and this will be negatively impact the company in a negative manner. The advertisements are the major reason for WhatsApp to become more popular in the competitive market as well (Edwards-Schachter et al. 2015).
Therefore, these are the different strategies that can be adopted by the respective company WhatsApp and this has helped them in gaining competitive advantage in the entire competitive economy (Leyden and Link 2015). It was essential in nature for Apple to gain the strategic position in the market in such a manner that this will assist the entire organization appropriately. WhatsApp has tried to positioned themselves in such a manner that has helped them in managing their respective position effectively in the competitive environment effectively and efficiently as well (Huggins and Thompson 2015).
It has been noticed that the proper entrepreneurship qualities are essential as to make the different tasks more innovative in nature. It was noticed that there are different kinds of qualities that are required to be adopted by an entrepreneur as this will help them in being more successful in the ventures that is performed by them (Kuratko 2016). Furthermore, it can be noticed that the confidence is essential in nature that is inbuilt among the entrepreneur as to establish the goals effectively and solve the different queries effectively as well (Turner and Pennington 2015).
The different factors that are used as the strategic advantage are as follows:
Sustainable Competitive Advantage
Core Competency
Resources and Capability
The founders of Jan Koum and Brian Acton launched the organization with a straightforward proposition (Eesley and Miller 2018). They tried to create the application in such a manner that had no advertisements and this attracted more individuals towards the application as well. In WhatsApp, it has been noticed that the group chat feature in particular is the fist main feature that has helped them in becoming more innovative in nature. Furthermore, it is seen that the best reason to use WhatsApp for the business is that the many customers are using it and there are already using it in an effective manner.
The users of WhatsApp along with similar kind of services are willing to engage with the different businesses in an appropriate manner. In addition, WhatsApp make the easy to set up groups so that the messages can be sent to the entire group (Phillips et al. 2015). The other innovative technology that has been used by WhatsApp is of the strong privacy and strong security policy that has got huge attention in the present scenario and this has assisted them in maintaining proper and innovative position in the market as well. These are the different innovative techniques used by the company in order to gain more competitive advantage in the economy (Drucker 2014).
On the other hand, there are different other messaging applications like WhatsApp that includes the different kind of other messaging applications such as BBM, Vibe along with WeChat and all these applications have different kinds of innovative technologies and this helped them in gaining more competitive advantage. It can be seen that in BBM, which was introduced earlier did not have the group chatting facility for the different users who used Blackberry phones or handsets (Parker 2018).
On the other hand, it has been noticed that in Vibe and WeChat, there were no such facilities that is included in WhatsApp and this was ineffective in nature as well. Furthermore, it was noticed that in WeChat, there is WeChat shake and this is one of the simple concepts that can be used by them that has far reaching consequences as well. Furthermore, there are different kinds of payments that can be made by WeChat and this is the idea that is adopted by Facebook in the recent times wherein the individuals or the users of Facebook can send money through the respective application and this is one of the biggest innovative strategy adopted by Facebook in the recent times (Dees 2014).
WhatsApp has made the sharing of different documents easier for the different individuals who uses the respective application (Chatterji, Glaeser and Kerr 2014). Furthermore, it can be noticed that there are different PDFs, spreadsheets and others that can be sent from one individual to other in an effective manner and this has helped them in becoming one of the successful platforms in the entire world. Furthermore, it has been analyzed and noticed that there is end to end encryption and this has been inbuilt in the latest versions of WhatsApp used by the individuals (Bruton et al. 2016).
WhatsApp can be used by the individuals both in desktop or in phones and there is an option for group chats wherein the messages or the different images can be shared by them effectively and this is hassle free as well (Galindo and Méndez 2014). There is an additional implementation of both voice or video calls options available for the users and this is one of the unique selling propositions of WhatsApp that has helped them to succeed in comparison to the other applications present in the Google Play store. It has been noticed that there are different applications that is required to be analyzed by WhatsApp in order to become more popular in the coming scenario as this will help them in gaining more competitive advantage in the near future as well (Burns 2016).
Both Koum and Acton have tried their best in developing different strategies that has assisted them in becoming successful entrepreneurs in the entire world. Both of them tries to apply their different strategies in such a manner that this has assisted the company WhatsApp which is the parent company as well in gaining competitive advantage by developing different innovative techniques appropriately (Bruton et al. 2016).
Furthermore, it has been noticed that WhatsApp has created strong privacy and security policy that is getting huge attention in the present scenario as this will be helping the company in gaining strong customer base who uses WhatsApp for their business as well as personal use than any other messaging applications present in the Google Play Store. Additionally, WhatsApp has gained more importance by introducing the group chat options for their friends and family members as this will allow them to be more popular among the youths and the ones who own business or performs business effectively with the usage of WhatsApp.
Conclusion
Therefore, it can be concluded that proper innovative strategies are required to be adopted by WhatsApp have helped them in managing the innovative procedures in an effective manner. It has been noticed that the WhatsApp has gained competitive advantage in the economy by analyzing the position of the other competitors in the market and this has helped WhatsApp in becoming the most successful messaging applications in the entire world.
Furthermore, it has been seen and noticed that there are different growth opportunities applied by WhatsApp wherein it was seen that there are different security and privacy policies applied by them and the different messages that have been sent by the individuals to one another were deleted by the WhatsApp entity itself as well.
Lastly, it can be concluded that WhatsApp has tried to include different growth strategies as to monetize their target audiences effectively and they tried to make sure that the existing audiences are not being lost by them by including the different types of innovative techniques while developing the application in an effective manner.
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