WhatsApp, Focusing on Product & Services, Not Technology - HBR research/MediaWatch

WhatsApp Grew to One Billion Users by Focusing on Product, Not Technology

At a time when digital technology is transforming one industry after another, large companies tend to view innovation and disruption as the result of breakthrough discoveries or technological wonders. They look at the explosive growth of companies such as WhatsApp or Instagram and assume that true innovation is the realm of digital wonks and ambitious entrepreneurs. The corollary, of course, is "we don't know how to do that."

But when Mubarik Imam, head of growth and partnerships for WhatsApp, told the company's extraordinary story to a group of high-level executives and technology experts at a conference in Palo Alto last year, the narrative was conspicuously free of digital breakthroughs or "aha!" moments. For those who hoped to hear the secret of how digital wizardry turned two disgruntled Yahoo veterans into overnight billionaires<http://www.cbsnews.com/news/meet-silicon-valleys-newest-billionaires-the-yahoo-alums-who-co-founded-whatsapp/>, the real story was an eye-opener. Transforming a relatively simple idea into a $19 billion windfall, it turns out, was more about solving problems with the tools at hand than inventing new solutions from scratch.

For more insights - read online - https://hbr.org/2016/07/whatsapp-grew-to-one-billion-users-by-focusing-on-product-not-technology?
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