“No ads! No games! No gimmicks!”– A simple mantra that helped a small messaging application win over giants like iMessage, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, etc. Yes, we are talking about WhatsApp here. Today, More than 2 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family anytime and anywhere.Before its $19 billion jaw-dropping sales to Facebook, WhatsApp had just one business-development employee, one marketing executive, one human-resources head, and one publicist. They were all the same person, Neeraj Arora. For a long time, Neeraj was the “All things business at WhatsApp.” In his own words, in the early days of WhatsApp (he was the 4th employee at WhatsApp), he had done things that a typical founder does for their venture, right from getting furniture, ordering food for employees all the way to raise money for WhatsApp, and everything in between.Before joining WhatsApp in 2011, he spent four years handling corporate development for Google Inc. Before Google, he was part of the Investments and Corporate Strategy teams at Times Internet Limited, a subsidiary of the Times of India Group.Post his stint at WhatsApp, even though Neeraj is on a break right now, he Co-Founded Venture Highway. This early-stage VC firm teams up with the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing guidance and capital to nascent ideas in technology. Some of the portfolio companies of Venture Highway are Meesho, Airmeet, Moglix, OKCredit, Sharechat, MPL, etc.Neeraj loves to connect with entrepreneurs solving big problems and are out there trying to make a dent in the universe, as they say.We are proud to have Neeraj on CoffeeMug :-)
“No ads! No games! No gimmicks!”– A simple mantra that helped a small messaging application win over giants like iMessage, WeChat, Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, etc. Yes, we are talking about WhatsApp here. Today, More than 2 billion people in over 180 countries use WhatsApp to stay in touch with friends and family anytime and anywhere.Before its $19 billion jaw-dropping sales to Facebook, WhatsApp had just one business-development employee, one marketing executive, one human-resources head, and one publicist. They were all the same person, Neeraj Arora. For a long time, Neeraj was the “All things business at WhatsApp.” In his own words, in the early days of WhatsApp (he was the 4th employee at WhatsApp), he had done things that a typical founder does for their venture, right from getting furniture, ordering food for employees all the way to raise money for WhatsApp, and everything in between.Before joining WhatsApp in 2011, he spent four years handling corporate development for Google Inc. Before Google, he was part of the Investments and Corporate Strategy teams at Times Internet Limited, a subsidiary of the Times of India Group.Post his stint at WhatsApp, even though Neeraj is on a break right now, he Co-Founded Venture Highway. This early-stage VC firm teams up with the next generation of entrepreneurs by providing guidance and capital to nascent ideas in technology. Some of the portfolio companies of Venture Highway are Meesho, Airmeet, Moglix, OKCredit, Sharechat, MPL, etc.Neeraj loves to connect with entrepreneurs solving big problems and are out there trying to make a dent in the universe, as they say.We are proud to have Neeraj on CoffeeMug :-)
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