Tango CTO: “Alibaba investment gave us wings”

In May 2014, Alibaba led messaging app Tango’s $280M financing round, during a period when the mobile messaging space saw giant movements with acquisitions from Facebook (Whatsapp) and Rakuten (Viber) also hitting the headlines.

It’s apparent that Alibaba didn’t want to miss out. It has been trying hard to push its own Laiwang app, but has had little success. Chairman and founder Jack Ma has even deserted Tencent’s Wechat to get people to notice his own messaging app, but it hasn’t helped much. That’s good for Tango, because had Laiwang been a success in China, the Tango deal might not have happened.

Having explored Tango recently, I understand better why the deal makes sense for Alibaba. Tango is a lot more than just a messaging app. Within the app, users are just a tap away from music, news, and games. Compared to other messaging apps like Whatsapp, which give a lot of screen real estate to messaging, Tango is way more content-focused.

The difference in focus explains how Tango has successfully captured a very core group of users who actually prefer being exposed to that content. There’s a difference in its audience and user habits. A Whatsapp user would probably find Tango too cluttered and difficult to use. But that’s okay, because there’s a market for every product.

Co-founder and CTO of Tango, Eric Setton

In a chat with co-founder and CTO of Tango, Eric Setton, he told me:

People discover new things when they message their family and friends. Tango has shown that. The first person who discovers good content, say a music track, will send a clip to their friends. I think there’s an advantage that ecommerce can tap into that space.”

Setton didn’t specifically say that ecommerce would work better on Tango than other messaging apps, but I speculate that it stands a better chance given that its users are already used to having extra content and promotions within the app.

When asked specifically about ecommerce integration on Tango, Setton insisted that there isn’t anything to share. “It is obvious that there’s interest in mobile commerce from both [Tango and Alibaba]. But I have nothing to announce today,” he says.

To Setton, having Alibaba as an investor “gave Tango wings.” For instance, after the investment, Tango had the financial muscle to announce a $25M game fund in an attempt to attract the best game developers on its platform. The funding also helped Tango reach out to quality talents in Silicon Valley. Morale in the team is at all-time high.

“There are a ton of lessons that can be learned from Alibaba. They are very generous with their time and have a long-term approach,” he added.