Who introduced Jan Koum to WhatsApp's early iPhone developer Igor Solomennikov?

Alex Fishman introduced Jan Koum to WhatsApp’s early iPhone developer, Igor Solomennikov. Fishman was Koum’s Russian friend in West San Jose and helped turn the initial concept into a working app.

After Koum and Brian Acton began discussing an iPhone application, they realized they needed someone who could build for Apple’s platform. Fishman searched RentACoder.com and found Solomennikov, a Russian developer. He then connected Solomennikov with Koum.

The early WhatsApp idea was not initially a full messaging service. Koum imagined an address-book application that could show changing statuses next to contacts, such as whether someone was working, on a call, or otherwise unavailable.

Apple’s push-notification technology, introduced for apps in June 2009, changed the project’s direction. WhatsApp began notifying contacts when statuses changed, and users started using those updates like messages. WhatsApp 2.0 later added a dedicated messaging component.