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> Facebook took Instagram and WhatsApp and basically put it on steroids. Ok, I’m tracking. >Those apps couldn't have possibly been the behemoths they are now

by tw04 6y ago

> Facebook took Instagram and WhatsApp and basically put it on steroids. Ok, I’m tracking. >Those apps couldn't have possibly been the behemoths they are now without Facebook's ample innovative, world-class sales, marketing, engineering weight behind it [0][1]. Wait what? How on earth did you land there? From your own video, Facebook left WhatsApp alone, and the value they got from Facebook was increased velocity. Absolutely nothing in that video indicates they would have failed or not continued the trajectory they were already on, it would’ve just taken a bit longer and probably had a different back-end.

ignoramous 6y ago
Neeraj Arora: "You saw the result of that [Facebook's acquisition] because when we sold the company [WhatsApp] in 2014 we had 450M monthly active users and I think we doubled or tripled in a few years after that. So, it kind of shows that our speed of execution went up... it was just that we were able to hire aggressively, we were able to get a lot of other technical help from Facebook on the storage, on the server side of the things. They brought a lot of those things that we were trying to build ourselves that they already had... So, combining the two really turbo-charged the growth of WhatsApp. So, I think I'd say execution was flawless in terms of the deal." > ...it would’ve just taken a bit longer Yeah, we are in-agreement: "[Facebook] put its growth on steroids".
- tw04 6y ago
  >Those apps couldn't have possibly been the behemoths they are now without Facebook' You said they couldn't have possibly been the behemoth's they are. That's just patently false, their growth trajectory pre-facebook would've had them just as big as they are today 6 YEARS later. Post-facebook their growth actually stalled, it took them almost 4 years to double their user base from 2016 to 2020 - previous to that they were doubling every year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly-active-whatsapp-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly... https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/whatsapp https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/whatsapp
  - ignoramous 6y ago
    > You said they couldn't have possibly been the behemoth's they are. That's just patently false... We may never know what might have actually happened but the Stratechery article I linked to in my original comment has this tit-bit (albeit related to Instagram): ...Instagram was a product, and its business model was venture capital funding. To be sure, this wouldn’t be the case forever, but on April 9, 2012, the road from popular product to viable company was a long and arduous one. Instagram would not only need to continue growing its user base, it would also have to scale its infrastructure, figure out a business model (ok fine, advertising), build up tools to support that business model (first a sales team, then a self-serve model, plus tracking and targeting capabilities), all while fighting off larger and more established companies — particularly Facebook — that were waking up to the threat Instagram posed to their hold on user attention. Or Systrom and Instagram could offload all of those responsibilities to Facebook and continue being "extraordinary product leaders", and pocket $1 billion to boot... The difference from Zuckerberg — Instagram’s real CEO — is stark. Facebook launched in February, 2004, and sold its first ad two months later. True, “Facebook Flyers” bear little resemblance to the News Feed ads that power the company today, but Zuckerberg’s immediate instinct to build not just a product but a company is notable.

by tw04 6y ago

ignoramous 6y ago

Neeraj Arora: "You saw the result of that [Facebook's acquisition] because when we sold the company [WhatsApp] in 2014 we had 450M monthly active users and I think we doubled or tripled in a few years after that. So, it kind of shows that our speed of execution went up... it was just that we were able to hire aggressively, we were able to get a lot of other technical help from Facebook on the storage, on the server side of the things. They brought a lot of those things that we were trying to build ourselves that they already had... So, combining the two really turbo-charged the growth of WhatsApp. So, I think I'd say execution was flawless in terms of the deal." > ...it would’ve just taken a bit longer Yeah, we are in-agreement: "[Facebook] put its growth on steroids".

tw04 6y ago
>Those apps couldn't have possibly been the behemoths they are now without Facebook' You said they couldn't have possibly been the behemoth's they are. That's just patently false, their growth trajectory pre-facebook would've had them just as big as they are today 6 YEARS later. Post-facebook their growth actually stalled, it took them almost 4 years to double their user base from 2016 to 2020 - previous to that they were doubling every year. https://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly-active-whatsapp-users/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/260819/number-of-monthly... https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/whatsapp https://growthhackers.com/growth-studies/whatsapp
- ignoramous 6y ago
  > You said they couldn't have possibly been the behemoth's they are. That's just patently false... We may never know what might have actually happened but the Stratechery article I linked to in my original comment has this tit-bit (albeit related to Instagram): ...Instagram was a product, and its business model was venture capital funding. To be sure, this wouldn’t be the case forever, but on April 9, 2012, the road from popular product to viable company was a long and arduous one. Instagram would not only need to continue growing its user base, it would also have to scale its infrastructure, figure out a business model (ok fine, advertising), build up tools to support that business model (first a sales team, then a self-serve model, plus tracking and targeting capabilities), all while fighting off larger and more established companies — particularly Facebook — that were waking up to the threat Instagram posed to their hold on user attention. Or Systrom and Instagram could offload all of those responsibilities to Facebook and continue being "extraordinary product leaders", and pocket $1 billion to boot... The difference from Zuckerberg — Instagram’s real CEO — is stark. Facebook launched in February, 2004, and sold its first ad two months later. True, “Facebook Flyers” bear little resemblance to the News Feed ads that power the company today, but Zuckerberg’s immediate instinct to build not just a product but a company is notable.