Facebook Purchases WhatsApp for $16 Billion

tangy

tangy

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Dec 1, 2008
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vancouver, yo
This is epic, and a huge win for the WhatsApp staff.

If you're not involved in app development, why not? And if you think the space is saturated or competitive, I can assure you that it's not even close to PPC/CPA/SEO/SEP/SE1/wat

Anyways, the details: Facebook is buying WhatsApp for $16 billion | The Verge

Facebook has entered into an agreement to purchase WhatsApp, the massively popular messaging client, for $16 billion in cash and stock. A document filed with the SEC today confirms the huge purchase. As was the case with Instagram, the company says WhatsApp will continue to operate independently after the acquisition — separate from Facebook Messenger — but claims the deal "accelerates Facebook’s ability to bring connectivity and utility to the world." Facebook is also throwing in an extra $3 billion in restricted stock units that will go to WhatsApp’s employees; those will vest over a period of four years after the acquisition is finalized.

In a press release announcing the monumental buyout, CEO Mark Zuckerberg said, "WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable." He also shared news of the deal on his personal Facebook page, saying, "WhatsApp will complement our existing chat and messaging services to provide new tools for our community." Over 450 million people use WhatsApp each month, according to statistics in the press release, with 70 percent of those users active on a given day. WhatsApp co-founder and CEO Jan Koum will join Facebook’s board of directors as part of the deal, but his team will remain stationed in Mountain View, California.

"Doing this will give WhatsApp the flexibility to grow and expand, while giving me, Brian, and the rest of our team more time to focus on building a communications service that’s as fast, affordable and personal as possible," he said in a blog post. According to Kuam, users don't need to worry about ads "interrupting your communication." "There would have been no partnership between our two companies if we had to compromise on the core principles that will always define our company, our vision and our product," he said.
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$19 Billion... That's like a lot of money...

PIBAMx5.gif
 
tangy said:
If you're not involved in app development, why not?
Click to expand...

I have tons of great app ideas. Tons. I don't have the technical skills to bring them to fruition. When time allows, that's where my efforts are going shift.
 
Sounds like the product of a bidding war between Facebook and Google. It makes sense from a strategic perspective (WhatsApp somewhat directly competes with FB chat).

But $19bn? That's more than twice what Microsoft paid for Skype a couple years back -- insanity. Their employee account is somewhere in the 50-70 range, it's ~$300m per employee.

Makes the frothy Snapchat acquisition attempt look rather mundane.
 
jhoffy22 said:
I have tons of great app ideas. Tons. I don't have the technical skills to bring them to fruition. When time allows, that's where my efforts are going shift.
Click to expand...

What I did:

1) realize I'm in the same situation. App ideas and ability to market, but no dev experience and no dev desire

2) asked around my social network and found a developer with the opposite problems I had

3) lined up one other partner, split the equity and responsibility three ways and had the lawyer draft the paperwork

We got together in June of last year and our first app (dating) is stealth launching on Thursday. Basically we're following the "Lean" mentality: get the MVP live, build the analytics, digest the data, pivot if necessary and then scale it.

If there's a college campus near you, there is a pool of capable devs with no ideas or marketing skills that would likely be willing to work for peanuts or equity. Go find some and get rolling
 
jhoffy22 said:
I have tons of great app ideas. Tons. I don't have the technical skills to bring them to fruition. When time allows, that's where my efforts are going shift.
Click to expand...

It's really not that hard. I was able to build a solid foundation for programming in general and objective-c in about 2 months.

A couple hours a day starts to add up quickly.
 
mpbiz said:
It's really not that hard. I was able to build a solid foundation for programming in general and objective-c in about 2 months.

A couple hours a day starts to add up quickly.
Click to expand...

I need to add you on skype still. This is why I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd love to chat.

72Ie9.png
 
$16 Billion is seriously INSANE.

When I first saw the thread title I was like "No fucking way.."

But then again WhatsApp is WhatsApp and they have a huge user base.

As for snapchat, I still think they're idiots. I would be really surprised if anyone is still using them 2 years from now. Maybe one day someone will be able to quote this post and prove me wrong though.

I don't know. I'm just rambling but the way I see it companies like Facebook and Twitter are like countries, and you need to build apps that can become states in those countries.

Simple apps that do 1-2 things tops. If you look at all of the apps like snapchat, vine, secret etc. they all do one thing really well. Vine records video, snapchat makes pics disappear, secret posts secrets, etc.

So right now I'm just working on apps that do one single thing really well. If you pay attention, a lot of these single purpose apps get acquired by companies like twitter and facebook really quickly.

If I remember correctly Vine was acquired BEFORE the app was even finished. It's like if you can find one single thing that users will enjoy and can get it to scale you can get acquired or grab funding.

Sorry for the rambling but this shit is really exciting. Bubble or not, right now apps are HOT and I don't think we're done seeing acquisitions like this and it's exciting because programming is something that everyone can learn and anyone can do.

/ramble
 
Another thing I wanted to say about programming skills:

There are a lot of programmers out there that cringe at this stuff. I was reading the original post that Dropbox made on digg back when they were first getting started and there was a comment from some guy at the very top like "So this is what it's come to? Just making products that are super easy to use?" and it's crazy that people have a mindset like that.

A lot of experienced programmers out there like to bicker with each other about the perfect way to do things, and I think a lot of them hate guys like me because I'm a self taught coder that just wants to cash in on apps and is missing a lot of the theory and years of experience.

But honestly none of that bullshit matters and those guys are just mad because they've been banging code for 20 years for complex projects and then some kid makes an app like Snapchat and gets offered $3b from facebook and $4b from google. (Bad example because Bobby Murphy is a comp sci major, but snapchat is still a fairly simple app)

This should put things in perspective for you. Seriously, if I wanted to I could have a working snapchat clone 80% done by next week, and so could half of the Indians on elance. Shit, there are even tutorials out there to make one.

And I'm not trying to brag, I'm just saying that this shit really doesn't have to be that hard. Anyone can build a snapchat. Vine would be a a lot harder, but you could still make a rough cut of it pretty quickly.

You just need a good fucking idea. And a simple and clean UI. And you're already increasing your chances of winning the app lottery.

I know there's a lot more to it than that, and yes I'm rambling again, but all of these app acquisitions should be making your dick hard.

The time is now and I plan on taking full advantage of this environment.
 
jhoffy22 said:
I need to add you on skype still. This is why I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'd love to chat.

72Ie9.png
Click to expand...

Did I send you a PM with my skype info?

I have 53 notifications right now and not enough time to dig through them. Hit me up whenever you want though. I can recommend some learning resources that will have you up and running very quickly.
 
tangy said:
What I did:

1) realize I'm in the same situation. App ideas and ability to market, but no dev experience and no dev desire

2) asked around my social network and found a developer with the opposite problems I had

3) lined up one other partner, split the equity and responsibility three ways and had the lawyer draft the paperwork

We got together in June of last year and our first app (dating) is stealth launching on Thursday. Basically we're following the "Lean" mentality: get the MVP live, build the analytics, digest the data, pivot if necessary and then scale it.

If there's a college campus near you, there is a pool of capable devs with no ideas or marketing skills that would likely be willing to work for peanuts or equity. Go find some and get rolling
Click to expand...

Good luck on your app launch.
 
I agree with a lot of what mpbiz has said. Pretty cool stuff.

Facebook douches better not start censoring my dick pics I send on whatsapp or I'm gonna be pissed
 
mpbiz said:
Another thing I wanted to say about programming skills:

There are a lot of programmers out there that cringe at this stuff. I was reading the original post that Dropbox made on digg back when they were first getting started and there was a comment from some guy at the very top like "So this is what it's come to? Just making products that are super easy to use?" and it's crazy that people have a mindset like that.

A lot of experienced programmers out there like to bicker with each other about the perfect way to do things, and I think a lot of them hate guys like me because I'm a self taught coder that just wants to cash in on apps and is missing a lot of the theory and years of experience.

But honestly none of that bullshit matters and those guys are just mad because they've been banging code for 20 years for complex projects and then some kid makes an app like Snapchat and gets offered $3b from facebook and $4b from google. (Bad example because Bobby Murphy is a comp sci major, but snapchat is still a fairly simple app)

This should put things in perspective for you. Seriously, if I wanted to I could have a working snapchat clone 80% done by next week, and so could half of the Indians on elance. Shit, there are even tutorials out there to make one.

And I'm not trying to brag, I'm just saying that this shit really doesn't have to be that hard. Anyone can build a snapchat. Vine would be a a lot harder, but you could still make a rough cut of it pretty quickly.

You just need a good fucking idea. And a simple and clean UI. And you're already increasing your chances of winning the app lottery.

I know there's a lot more to it than that, and yes I'm rambling again, but all of these app acquisitions should be making your dick hard.

The time is now and I plan on taking full advantage of this environment.
Click to expand...

wow, that was a great post. it's been my mission statement for past year. the hackers news brigade are great programmers but they've no hustle. every second post is how something is broken or PHP is terrible or how the 'right way' to structure your code is or whatever. who fucking cares, just get the MVP up into the app store and repeat!

coding isn't that hard but it really is a great time to be able to do it.
 
tangy said:
What I did:

1) realize I'm in the same situation. App ideas and ability to market, but no dev experience and no dev desire

2) asked around my social network and found a developer with the opposite problems I had
Click to expand...

that developer really is an idiot. good work finding him though, i'm trying to do the same, have more ideas than i can execute.. i wish i could just clone myself 10 times.
 
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