WhatsApp and Signal Messenger have become a way of life in India. With more than 400 million active users per platform, these are the most popular messaging applications in the country. The platforms are used for everything from staying connected with family and friends, to sharing news and updates, to conducting business. It is a vital tool for communication, as it can reach a large audience quickly, and is free to use. In addition, its end-to-end encryption ensures that conversations are secure. Many businesses have integrated WhatsApp and Signal into their customer service operations, using it as a platform to communicate with customers and respond to their queries. The widespread use of these applications in India has made it an indispensable part of daily life.
Balachandar Karthikeyan, a 28 year old techie from India had been one of the developers of the popular app, and prides himself on being one of the only Indian men to have had the opportunity to work on both WhatsApp, and Signal Messenger (Co-Founder of WhatsApp’s second startup).
If you live and work in America, you probably have seen WhatsApp or Signal and may have used them on occasion. However, across the world, millions of Indian men and women are running their businesses mainly through the use of these platforms. And it’s not just businesses: roughly 400 million people in India use WhatsApp or Signal to keep in touch with relatives overseas, send money, access critical medical information, and more.
When Balachandar began working with the WhatsApp/Signal teams he had no idea how widespread the scale of their use would be in his home country. WhatsApp’s streamline design and Signal’s easy to navigate user interface has helped make it a hit internationally, especially in countries where most people don’t have iPhones to use iMessage or affordable cell phone plans to send SMS messages.
Balachandar is one of the most successful tech founders who does not come from a prestigious education background. Having dropped out of college, this self-taught techie learned everything he needed to know by reading books and researching computer programming and other technical skills. As a developer of one of the most popular apps in the global market, Balachandar has gone on to achieve more success as CEO of his own company, Bringar Apps LLC in Dubai, where he developed his own communications platform–WhatsAuto – Reply App.
This application has reached a staggering 25 million businesses worldwide, with a mission to help small and medium businesses around the world to be more productive by offering them an affordable chatbot that can be used without any technical knowledge.
