Rejected for a job in Facebook, selected to be on its board of directors!

“I’m convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance.”

-Steve Jobs

He was born in a small village outside Kiev, Ukraine (erstwhile Soviet Union). His father was a construction manager and mother, a housewife. He led a life full of hardships, his family struggling hard to make ends meet. His house, which was located in an area having an average temperature of about eight degrees Celsius, did not even have electricity. His parents rarely used the phone for fear of it being tapped by the oppressive Communist state.

“Our school didn’t even have a covered toilet on its premises,” he said. “Imagine the Ukrainian winter, temperature dipping to -20°C, where little kids have to cross the parking lot to use the toilet.” He started to study Mathematics and Computer Science but confesses to having been “equally bad at both”. Worse, he was a troublemaker at school! His mother migrated with him to the United States when he was 16, along with a stack of Soviet-issued notebooks, to avoid paying for school supplies.

They lived in a small two-bedroom flat with government support. His mother worked as a babysitter, while he went to school during the day and swept floors in a shop to make a little money. His father was supposed to join them but never made it, dying in 1997. He used to collect food stamps and stand in a queue for his food packet. By 18, he learnt computer networking all by himself with the help of manuals from a used books store. He says he “barely graduated” from high school and “dropped out” from the university. He applied for a job with Facebook in 2009 but was rejected. Life took a tragic turn when his mother was diagnosed with cancer and died in 2000.

Do you think a person with this profile could have ever achieved anything worthwhile in life? But hold your breath! This man is none other than WhatsApp’s low-profile CEO, Jan Koum, who has become a billionaire overnight by selling his mobile messaging platform, WhatsApp an instant messaging company he founded less than five years ago to Facebook for a whopping $19 billion! Forbes estimates that Koum owns about 45 per cent of WhatsApp, which would net him $6.8 billion in the deal. That figure dwarfs the amount the founders of Twitter made during the company’s IPO in November 2013. He hasn’t simply achieved the type of success that sets up a good life. Jan Koum has earned wealth that can take care of his family for generations to come.

Jan Koum, now 37 years old, used the door of his old welfare office to sign the deal with Facebook. Standing outside a derelict building that was once his lifeline, a 6-feet 2-inches tall, Jan Koum signed the deal that consigned his impoverished childhood to history books. The last time he stood outside the run-down former North County Social Services offices in the Californian suburb of Mountain View, he was queuing to collect food stamps as a teenager. The complex deal with Facebook paying a mix of cash, stocks and shares, means Jan, will make even more in four years. He will also sit on Facebook’s board an incredible turnaround from the day he was rejected for a job there.

He won a place at San Jose State University studying Computer Science and began work at Ernst & Young as a security tester. Koum later got a job at Yahoo as an infrastructure engineer. Brian Acton sat across the desk from him. They stayed with Yahoo for nine years and when Jan’s mother died in 2000, it was Brian who stepped in with support, inviting him around to his house. Finally, he enrolled at San Jose State University. In September 2007, Koum and Acton bid farewell to Yahoo and decided to unwind and travel around.

As their savings started dwindling, the duo started thinking about new startup ideas. Koum bought an iPhone and figured out that apps would be the next big thing. On his birthday in February 2009, he registered WhatsApp, the name with a twist on the greeting “What’s up?” He thought creating a hassle-free instant messaging service would work wonders across the globe if it had mobile users as the base. The idea was to get people across the world to network on a single platform effortlessly. It took him months of back-breaking work and meticulous testing to get the code in place. There were several anxious moments and doubt-filled trying times when things did not seem to work out. Koum had even thought of giving up the idea but Brian Acton convinced him to keep at it.

Initially, the messaging service was tried on the phones of his Russian friends. The response was encouraging. Koum released WhatsApp 2.0 with a messaging component and the number of active users went up to 250,000. By 2011, WhatsApp found a place among the top 20 apps in the US app store. Two years later in 2013, WhatsApp’s user base had zoomed to 200 million active users

Initially, the messaging service was tried on the phones of his Russian friends. The response was encouraging. Koum released WhatsApp 2.0 with a messaging component and the number of active users went up to 250,000. By 2011, WhatsApp found a place among the top 20 apps in the US app store. Two years later in 2013, WhatsApp’s user base had zoomed to 200 million active users. Today, WhatsApp has more than 450 million active users and has reached that number faster than any other company in history.

Unlike Facebook and Twitter, WhatsApp does not collect any personal information from users. Making the app paid-for rather than free, slowed its growth but helped maintain their stand against advertising. The app is an instant messaging service used between two people or within a group. It sends text-style messages for free and needs no login. It simply uses your mobile number. The world now uses Whatsapp to send photos, video and audio messages. The app is free for the first year, and then costs Rs.69 per year.

Mark Zuckerberg and Jan met for the first time in a coffee shop. They spoke for a couple of hours but struck no deal. After more meetings, a formal proposal on February 9 this year invited Jan to join the Facebook board.” I’ve also known Jan for a long time and I know that we both share the vision of making the world more open and connected,” said Zuckerberg in an interview.

His humble beginnings appear to have instilled in him a strong work ethic and dislike for egotism WhatsApp may be a global phenomenon but it has no sign at its office. Koum and Acton developed WhatsApp in coffee shops and at their homes. They eschewed marketing and didn’t employ a public relations person, relying on the word-of-mouth recommendations of its users instead. The service became popular with friends and family communicating in different countries, especially in Europe, because it circumvents the fees charged by phone carriers. Another fascinating aspect is that WhatsApp runs lean with just 32 engineers. One WhatsApp developer supports 14 million active users; a ratio unheard of in the industry.

Jan keeps a note taped to his desk that reads, “No Ads! No Games! No Gimmicks!” It serves as a daily reminder of their commitment to stay focused on building a pure messaging experience.