The Dog and Pony Show
Koum: We always had competition from day one. There was actually a point where a new messaging app was popping up every month. Every month there was an article on TechCrunch about how this awesome new app was going to take down all other messaging apps.
We would read this and go — they have no users. How can you write that story? It just makes no sense. We didn't want to say anything because we didn't want to draw attention to ourselves. We tried to stay under the radar. But it was kind of funny to see from the sidelines — all this dog and pony show.
They have no users. How can you write that story? We just stayed under the radar.
Good for You, Have the Publicity
Koum: There was PingMe, MessageMe, GroupMe, Kik — like 10 different messaging apps at some point, which kept getting all this publicity. And we were like — good for you, have the publicity you want. We'll just stay under the radar.
Good for you, have the publicity. We'll just stay under the radar.
Our Destiny Is in Our Hands
Koum: We always had competition — be it big guys like iMessage and Facebook Messenger, or little guys like Kik. Even today there are apps like Telegram, Line, KakaoTalk.
But what we said is that our destiny is really in our hands. We can't worry too much about competition. We have to worry about our product and our users. If we spend a lot of time thinking about competition or looking at competition, we're going to fail.
We can't worry about competition. We have to worry about our product and users. Otherwise we're going to fail.