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Samreen Ahmad · · 6 min readVoice app by Tencent-backed Chinese founder resonates in rural Asia
Forrest Chen isn’t your typical tech founder. Unlike many who emerge from Silicon Valley or the bustling mega-cities of his home country, he grew up in a small village in China’s Sichuan province.
After completing a degree in computer science and AI, he founded mobile app analytics startup Umeng. He then sold the company to Alibaba for US$70 million in 2013.
But it wasn’t until he traveled to India in 2019 that the idea for his next big product took shape.
YoYo founder Forrest Chen (left) while doing a market survey for the app in India. / Photo credit: YoYo
On his trip through tier-two and three towns like Kanpur and Darjeeling, he noticed something: People weren’t typing messages on their phones. Instead, they were using voice notes on WhatsApp to talk to friends and family.
It was a more natural, accessible way for them to communicate, he says, especially for those who weren’t fluent in English or comfortable with typing.
But voice messages, being inherently private, were often limited to familiar circles. It made him wonder if voice could be the foundation of a public social media experience – one that connected people not only with friends but also with strangers with common interests and hobbies.
That laid the groundwork for what is today known as YoYo, a voice social app built for emerging markets. It’s similar to Clubhouse, which rose to popularity in 2021, when people couldn’t get together because of the lockdowns.
Interestingly, Chen isn’t a stranger to the Indian market.
YoYo’s parent company, Hong Kong and Dubai-based Hacker Interstellar, launched news aggregator NewsDog in India in 2016. But the platform eventually shut down in 2020, reportedly because of a stagnating user base and downloads.
The company launched YoYo as a video and image sharing platform afterward, but it didn’t gain much traction.
In fact, a 2020 Entrackr report noted YoYo’s struggles in the Indian market. Instead of shuttering yet another product, however, Chen made a bold pivot: He transformed the platform into a voice-based app focused on real-time conversations.
Image credit: YoYo
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Forrest Chen sold his first startup to Alibaba, stumbled with a venture in India, but ultimately struck success with a Clubhouse-like voice app for rural Asia.
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