WhatsApp could be incubating the region’s next billion-dollar startup

WhatsApp, the popular messaging app owned by Facebook, has changed the way people all over the world chat and interact with each other.

That said, it isn’t yet an “everything app” like WeChat, where people can pay bills, access online stores through sub-applications (or “mini programs”), make purchases, and connect with friends through a news feed – all without leaving the app.

Photo credit: Unsplash

Still, it has amassed over two billion users worldwide, double WeChat’s footprint in China. Today, many use WhatsApp as a way to share experiences through text, audio, and video – and increasingly, for business.

In Indonesia and many other places, shoppers often text online stores – particularly small businesses – to inquire about products and services, negotiate prices, provide feedback, or simply to establish trust.

As part of a broader Facebook ecosystem, WhatsApp can help nurture the next wave of billion-dollar ecommerce businesses. However, that depends on how well it can build out its tools and services. Also, with users spread out over 180 countries, ironing out kinks in that experience – particularly in payments – isn’t easy to solve.

A great number of companies have built their businesses around WhatsApp. Sama, a Singapore-based migrant recruitment platform, onboards a majority of its South Asian hires via WhatsApp. Digi-Prex, an online pharmacy store based in Hyderabad, India, delivers monthly medication subscriptions to its clients, based on prescriptions shared via the messaging platform. The list goes on.

The idea of riding on a messaging app that everybody uses for business isn’t new. Users of Pinduoduo, the social ecommerce marketplace that popularized the group-buying phenomenon in China, rely on WeChat’s massive reach to share deals, rally friends, and create groups in order to qualify for discounts on bulk purchases.

Today, Pinduoduo has over 480 million monthly active users and a market capitalization of US$95 billion.

See: Explaining Pinduoduo, and whether the model can work in Southeast Asia

For Sama, leveraging an already widely used app was a no-brainer. “WhatsApp has things like sending photos, voice memos – those are needed features, and we use them to communicate with our users. If [people] are already using these products, why don’t we start with something that they already have?” says co-founder and CEO Kirtan Patel.

Sama COO Nemanja Grujicic (L) and CEO Kirtan Patel (R) / Photo credit: Sama

In fact, Sama’s first touchpoint with prospective employees isn’t through its own website or its own app but via the messaging platform. Interested workers first send a text to Sama via WhatsApp to express interest, beginning a chain of identity verification through selfies and questions regarding work experience. All this is done on the app.

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