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Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

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Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#171

Post by petercooper »

keerthiko wrote: post #69

This. This is the answer I have always looked for. > "But, but, how is WhatsApp any different than iMessage / Facebook Messenger / Hangouts?" I have made this exclamation multiple times, and my friends in India and Singapore and other parts of Asia just turned up their palms with a "I dunno, everyone uses it and told me to get it." I refused to use it since I like to use as few messaging platforms as possible (just G…

My answer is "It Just Works."

I only have my parents and my wife on WhatsApp but none of them have or need a Google account or a Facebook account (which my dad refuses to use) and nor do they need to be iPhone users.

WhatsApp works quickly, cleanly and seamlessly across mobile platforms, and that's all it needs to do.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#172

Post by aleh »

SyneRyder wrote: post #152
mkesper wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Use SMS.

Not when SMS costs 29c per message. The free global text messaging that Whatsapp provides is potentially very disruptive to telcos.

It's the same way around. If telcos drop SMS const or make them free few people will have initiative to use Whatsapp.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#173

Post by antirez »

The j2me is just a piece of "it just works".

1) Covers a huge amount of devices. Yep, because j2me, but also because what could be the top-1 competitor, Apple iMessage, can't inter-operate between Apple and Android devices (very stupid tactic, it will get marginalized).

2) Does not require an account, so it is not bound to Facebook, Twitter, ... You may ask, what's the problem with having an account? That you capture in your use base non-social people. Hey mom, put this in your phone and we'll exchange messages for free.

3) Because it just works and is not bound to a specific social network / company, people see it as SMS that is both free (hugely important because of stupidly overpriced SMS are, and especially, were). And... an improved version of SMS because MMS are totally a fail: limited, costly, lame.

4) Add to this business smartness behind that: old users don't pay for premium accounts, no ADV, resist to the temptation of fixing what is irrelevant for the mass of people (security) if this impacts in any way the product aspect (no account, trivial recovery of the account if you change phone).

5) Add to this product/technology smartness: don't archive messages server side so the service runs with 1/100 of resources. No huge scaling issues.

So this is just a very very very well executed product, that was able to provide what users wanted, and this is why they did a 16B deal, not for the j2me app, every successful business is a mix of a number of critical things.

The ground that made this possible was the incredible situation where on the internet era you had to pay 10 cents to exchange 160 chars between two phones.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#174

Post by byoung2 »

sspiff wrote: post #134
merloen wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU is a $16.5T economy, most of it on the internet, vastly underserved by internet companies compared to the U.S. Even Facebook was English only until 2008. Big business opportunities are being missed there.

The smorgasbord of languages and cultures makes it harder to target though. But German, French and Spanish markets are big in their own right, especially if you consider you can reach other territories with them as well. (Austria, Switzerland and to some extent eastern Europe with German; Canada and much of connected Africa with French; Phillipines and Latin America with Spanish.)

You won't find many Spanish speakers among the younger generation in the Philippines, and that's your target market. You'd be better off using English or Taglish for the Philippines.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#175

Post by brown9-2 »

colin_mccabe wrote: post #15

Let's not forget Symbian and Blackberry either. WhatsApp also runs on those. I don't think starting a new Blackberry, Symbian or J2ME project today is really a good idea, though. It takes at least a few years for a company to make an exit, and by the time you do, those burning platforms will have flamed out.

But if your app has the goal of letting people communicate with their friends, I think it absolutely makes sense to target as many platforms as possible.

Not every app or startup is a messaging one and has the same goal of connecting people no matter what platform.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#176

Post by bernardom »

avenger123 wrote: post #155

The message of the article is good but it's not seeing the forest from the trees. Having just read the Forbes artcile on the company and Jan in particular, some interesting things stood out: 1) Jan had money to start and was able to take time to build a user base and find the real value in the App and didn't need to go around "raising money". The SMS component of the app wasn't the initial focus. The company didn't n…

I think the three points you raised are about how the company was built.

For entrepeneurs, it's good to study success stories, but it's sort of like the comment below saying that "J2ME is how it was built, it's not really the story." Knowing how WhatsApp was built gives some clue as to how it reached success, but doesn't fully explain why the value is so high.

The article is right- it "reached the middle billion" of people who spend $10/day and don't have a smartphone.

Here's a really interesting question: how many of WhatsApp's customers overlap with Facebook's? For the ones that do overlap, what are their usage patterns (i.e. which service do they use more)?

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#177

Post by laurentb »

Pxtl wrote: post #170
laurentb wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

to most french people, it's the actual content being in english that isn't helping...

I know, I just mean offering a French-language Reddit UI is better than many other platforms. That said, http://fr.reddit.com/ should be the top posts from the French-language subreddits, not just the main frontpage with a French UI.

I can only imagine the nightmare of manually selecting subreddits for each languages though!

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#178

Post by diydsp »

pjmlp wrote: post #49
SunboX wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the key of Firefox OS. Use well known technology and try to go into these markets.

My problem with Firefox OS is that they don't add any value over what is already possible in modern mobile OS. All of them have a web browser of some sort.

Thinking about what is technically possible has been very limiting for me. The value proposition of Firefox OS is that apps will run on all phones, unlike the current iOS vs. Java schism.

Of course it is likely to have other issues, but don't limit yourself to saying what is possible... think about the cost to actually deploy that possibility.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#179

Post by netcan »

corresation wrote: post #129
netcan wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One such "platform" is made up of the 80% of android phones that are cheap and basic with small data plans and limited access to slow wifi. The anecdotes from the 80s & 90s when annual PC sales for any given year were a substantial portion of the overall PCs in use at the time are interesting. The realization that software could be written for the newest machine and it would run everywhere soon enough is not directly…

the 80% of android phones that are cheap and basic with small data plans and limited access to slow wifi Ignoring the fictional statistics, the cheap devices (e.g. Xiaomi) in countries like China still tend to be surprisingly powerful, and you hardly need to design down to them. And it's a rare app, beyond something like video conferencing, that puts any real burden on connectivity.

It is pretty much fictional, or rather arbitrary because you can draw the line between low and high end wherever you want. I actually got it from here:

http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/11/12/idc-data-shows-66-...

And it turns out I misrepresented the fictional statistic. The "real" number is 66%. Though I suppose if you count older mid tier models (this counts sales) still in use, 80% might be pretty close.

IMO you still need to design dow a bit, especially for data poor users. Also smaller screens. In some cases I think craigslist is the thing to emulate.

Re: Your Path to a $16B exit? Build a J2ME App

#180

Post by clavalle »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #166
avenger123 wrote: post #155

The message of the article is good but it's not seeing the forest from the trees. Having just read the Forbes artcile on the company and Jan in particular, some interesting things stood out: 1) Jan had money to start and was able to take time to build a user base and find the real value in the App and didn't need to go around "raising money". The SMS component of the app wasn't the initial focus. The company didn't n…

I'm a little more skeptical. This guy worked hard, sure, but as he seems to be the only guy making out big, after scores of guys worked hard. Maybe he's not much of a hero.

I don't think anyone is denying the role of luck, but there is something to be said about not falling in love with 'making the start up scene' so to speak. For many people it is a colossal waste of time.

I am trying to reign in a co-founder right now (not surprisingly the only non-technical co-founder) that is just a goo-goo eyed about the scene and not our product and not what I think his main goal should be which is selling. I get breathless phone calls describing some lunch meeting with some formerly successful founder or wealthy investor who now wants to partner/might know someone to invest/just wants to chat about common goals or whatever. I don't care. We don't need funding. He is wasting time or worse. I've tolerated it because it keeps him enthusiastic (he really does beat the pavement fairly well and this obsession is fairly new) but it is starting to get a little overboard.

I think that is what avenger123 is saying: keep your feet on the ground, focus on the product, and ignore the scene bullshit. That takes some foresight and discipline.

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