Igor Magazin: how Russian Israeli created Viber

Фото: Depositphotos

Igor Magazinnik is an Israeli with Russian roots who created the popular Viber messenger, the number of users of which has already exceeded 500 million people. In 2014, he sold the messenger to the Japanese holding Rakuten for $900 million and focused on creating a competitor to Uber in New York. The programmer is currently developing a taxi-hailing startup called Juno.

The shopkeeper was born in Nizhny Novgorod (Russia). In the 1991 year, at the age of 16 years, he moved with his parents to Israel, where he graduated from school, university and served in the army, writes CNews.

It was in the army that he met Talmon Marko. The men were united by their love for gadgets. When the friends fulfilled their duties to the state, they founded their first startup - the file-sharing network iMesh.

Later, they decided to create an analogue of Skype for mobile devices, but so that users do not have to pre-add each other to their contact lists for making calls.

In addition, unlike Skype, the program was originally created by mobile devices, so Viber is trained to save the battery of a smartphone, while leaving the user constantly in touch, thanks to pop-up push messages.

Initially, we didn’t even have an idea - there was a problem: it was terribly inconvenient to call when you are in roaming, especially abroad while traveling or on business trips. Then smartphones appeared, including the iPhone and its AppStore. Technology has come to the conclusion that nothing should disturb you, just dial a person - and he would answer you. Regardless of where you are and where he is. But there were no such products then.

“Because of this headache of constantly traveling and trying to call people, we decided to try to make voice communication over the Internet normal so that it would just work. Because at that time Skype (and especially its mobile version) worked in such a way that it could not be called work. It was necessary to arrange a call in advance (for example, by email) so that the person would log into Skype and not waste the battery - and only then call. This is not the experience the user needs. The user just wants to click on the contact’s name and the call will take place. Skype does not provide this now and did not provide it then,” Igor Magazinnik told the publication "Hacker".

WhatsApp works on the same principle - after installation, the user immediately sees all the people from his address book who also have the application. But Viber, unlike its American competitor, focuses on voice calls, although it allows free text messages.

The founders took money to develop the application from friends and family. Before the sale, 11,4% of the company belonged to the Marco family, and 55,2% to the Israeli Shabtai family. Magazinnik’s share was not disclosed, but it is known that the founders invested part of the money they earned with iMesh into the company.

The total investment in Viber at the time of the purchase of the Japanese Rakuten amounted to $20 million. Viber Media is registered in Cyprus and the USA, but programmers are located in Belarus - due to cheaper labor; there is also a feed in Israel. In addition, the company is registered as a resident of the Belarusian High Technology Park. This gives Viber huge tax breaks in this country, writes the Belarusian publication “Our Niva".

By the way, Magazinnik has dual citizenship - Belarus and Israel, although he lives in different countries.

At first, Viber did not bring profit. The founders began to monetize the service only in November 2013, launching a store of stickers. Initially, users are available and a set of free stickers, but their number is limited. A much wider variety is provided for money. At the end of January 2014, users have downloaded more than 100 million paid stickers.

After the sale, Magazin and Marco remained at the helm of Viber Media for some time, but then retired, saying they were preparing a new secret project in a completely different field.

As a result, in February 2016, programmers announced that they were preparing a “competitor to Uber” - the Juno taxi service, the first launch city of which was New York, writes Forbes.

According to Talmon Marko, Juno has “a number of advantages that will distinguish it from other similar services on the market.”

The main difference between the new ambitious service will be its relationships with partner drivers. Unlike Uber, which sets a 20% commission on each ride, Juno plans to take only 10%. In addition, the startup “reserved” exactly half of the company’s shares for the drivers.

In 2016, Juno was “beta-tested” in New York. The startup paid Uber drivers $25 a week just so that they could also use the Juno app while driving on regular routes.

“To make sure everything works at scale. In addition, the collected data gives us the opportunity to understand patterns, behavior of road users, hours of activity, and so on,” Marco justified the idea.

The program was created in Minsk, the startup also has a team of engineers in Israel. In addition, the company rented an office area of ​​almost a thousand square meters in the center of Manhattan. Therefore, Shopkeeper now spends most of his time in the United States.

As of February 2017 Juno Successfully working in New York while in beta, offering passengers 35% discounts to gain customer base. The company is also actively recruiting drivers - they accept those who have had at least 100 trips with Uber or Lyft, and their rating there is at least 4,65, writes Curbed. In interview TechCrunch Talmon Marco reiterated that the main difference between the new and ambitious service will be its relationship with its partner drivers. In particular, the startup “reserved” for drivers exactly half of the company's shares. In addition, unlike Uber, which set the 20-percentage of the commission from each trip, Juno plans to take only 10 percent.

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