Koum is said to have come up with the idea because the gym he went to every day did not allow the use of mobile phones and he missed many calls during his workout. As a solution, he came up with the idea of having a status label appear next to the name in the contact list of our mobile phone ( at home, at the gym, busy, online, etc.). In this way, he would allow other users to know if that person is available to make calls or send messages.
In February 2009, they founded the company and gave it the curious name that we already know. The meaning of WhatsApp is the result of a wordplay between What's up?, which means "what's up?" in colombia number data English, and App , the abbreviation of the word application (application) also in English. In May of that same year, they already had the application in the Apple Store.
Koum was determined that the app should have no games or advertising ; WhatsApp was just for communication . The latter would be a very decisive factor in the history and philosophy of the company.
However, the beginnings were tough : the app kept crashing and no one was downloading it, but it was Brian Acton who encouraged Koum not to give up. That's when Apple updated the iPhone software and allowed notifications to arrive. Koum made the corresponding changes so that the app would notify its users every time a contact changed their status. Thanks to this, Koum had unwittingly created an instant messaging system .