Jan Koum is a Ukrainian American entrepreneur and computer programmer. He is the co-founder and former CEO of Whatsapp Inc.
Whatsapp was acquired by Facebook in 2014 for $19.3 billion and as of 2018 Jan Koum has an estimated net worth of $9.6 billion.
What you’ll find with these Jan Koum quotes is that Koum’s success with Whatsapp came down to have a very clear mission and his team acted upon that with relentless focus. Definitely some good inspiration to take away here.
Inspiring Jan Koum Quotes
1. “The F-word here is focus.” – Jan Koum
2. “Do one thing, and do it well.” – Jan Koum
3. “A lot of times, people start out with a lot of good ideas, but then they don’t execute. They lose the purity of their vision. You end up running around in circles.” – Jan Koum
4. “We’re the most atypical Silicon Valley company you’ll come across. We were founded by thirty-somethings; we focused on business sustainability and revenue rather than getting big fast, we’ve been incognito almost all the time, we’re mobile first, and we’re global first.” – Jan Koum
5. “Build a sustainable company that’s here for the next 100 years.” – Jan Koum
6. “We focus a lot on the quality of experience, speed, reliability. It’s not sexy from a lot of people’s perspective, it’s not glitzy in the feature set, but it’s what people come to rely on.” – Jan Koum
7. “If you really go all in, you go all in. Keep trying. If your original idea isn’t working, use what you’ve built to pivot into something else. Keep trying to find a solution to people’s problems.” – Jan Koum
8. “Focus on simplicity, listen to your customers, and iterate if you fail.” – Jan Koum
9. “Our team has always believed that neither cost and distance should ever prevent people from connecting with their friends and loved ones, and won’t rest until everyone, everywhere is empowered with that opportunity.” – Jan Koum
10. “Experiences from our youth shape what we do later in life.” – Jan Koum
11. “We continue to grow, and, just like with countries like China or other countries where we are not doing particularly well, we take a really long-term approach.” – Jan Koum
12. “WhatsApp’ began as a simple idea: ensuring that anyone could stay in touch with family and friends anywhere on the planet, without costs or gimmicks standing in the way.” – Jan Koum
13. “I have many regrets and things I wish I could go back and change, but I have also worked hard and tried to improve myself.” – Jan Koum
14. “Communication is at the very core of our society. That’s what makes us human.” – Jan Koum
15. “Anybody can build a company and sell the company the next day. That doesn’t make you special, it doesn’t make you unique, it doesn’t make you all that great.” – Jan Koum
16. “I didn’t have a computer until I was 19 – but I did have an abacus.” – Jan Koum
17. “No one wakes up excited to see more advertising, no one goes to sleep thinking about the ads they’ll see tomorrow.” – Jan Koum
18. “People appreciate a good product, a stable system. They want to communicate easily and use a product that just works.” – Jan Koum
19. “If you look at firms like General Electric or other large companies, they don’t just do one thing; they do many different things to generate sources of revenue.” – Jan Koum
20. “We want to do one thing and do it really well. For us, that’s communications between people who are friends and relatives.” – Jan Koum
21. “Clearly, you can’t believe everything you read in the press.” – Jan Koum
22. “Be simple and reliable.” – Jan Koum
23. “We won’t stop until every single person on the planet has an affordable and reliable way to communicate with their friends and loved ones.” – Jan Koum
24. “You want to raise money when you don’t need money, because when you need money you aren’t going to have the terms you want or leverage. It’s always good to have money in the bank. You can always do something with it.” – Jan Koum
25. “We were just fortunate in a way that we stumbled into something that people really wanted… but the credit really goes to not necessarily us having some brilliant idea. I think the credit goes to also being in the right place, at the right time, and building a product that people wanted, and just realizing that people wanted it.” – Jan Koum
26. “We didn’t set out to build a company. We just wanted to build a product that people used.” – Jan Koum
27. “I still live in the same place. I have the same friends, and that is very important. And I have the same job. After the deal with Facebook, 90% of my life did not change.” – Jan Koum
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