Yo founder: Genius, or idiot?

Hearing people call their products "stupid", "idiot", the co founder of the minimalist communications application Yo (Or Abel) is calm and he listens a lot. He smiled and told the little man that it was not the worst and most scathing remark, "and it was said that the reputation of the Israeli scientific community over the years was ruined by Yo's hand!"

Of course, Russia Abel does not consider itself a "Yo" application to friends, enough to destroy the entire Israeli science and technology years of effort, "sometimes there is a line between genius and idiocy," he said.

Co-founder Moscha Hoggi (Moshe Hogeg) initially wanted to develop a big-button application in Russia, as a call to the Secretary of the Bell, click, the information will be pushed to the secretary's mobile phone. It took only eight hours to develop this application called Yo, only the word "Yo" was issued.

A lot of people don't think of Yo's next step, says Russian Abel, "If you only see now, yes, Yo looks like a stupid application, but we're not going to keep the status quo." Many great products are constantly being updated, and if we can bring more value to yo users, then you will understand the potential behind them. ”

He is not the only one who thinks so.

"Yes or no, yo or no yo, these are all single communications (one-bit communication), similar to sirens, parking lights, signs that are open," said Andreessen, the venture giant Anderson, on Twitter. Taxis show whether the empty seat ceiling lights and so on. ”

"The rejection of yo may be based on two prejudices: one is that there is no meaning to a single communication, and the other is that all markets in the world are the same as America. "he said.

In addition to the affirmation of Anderson, in the Quora question and answer forum, Russian Abel saw the most touching comment. Someone asked a question about yo and someone answered, he thinks Yo is a revolutionary app, because it's a communications platform, just a reverse operation, and the push itself is the message you want to send. "I was really moved to see this answer because he knew Yo's essence, knowing that someone had the same idea of me, that I was not crazy, that someone really had the same idea!" He said happily.

A junkyard might turn into gold.

It was officially online April 1 and is now available for download in iOS, Android, Windows, and the App Store for smart watch Pebble watch. The launch time is only 3.5 months, this from the design to the function is simple to nearly the brain residue application, accumulated 2 million users, on-line after the fourth day has accumulated 1 million users.

But it was not until two weeks ago that Moscha Hoggi and the Russians discovered that the rubbish heap under their own buttocks could be a gold mine. "Developers on Twitter are interested in yo, which makes us feel like we might be able to develop different products based on the Yo platform, so we decided to open the API," the developer from Israel said.

Over the past two weeks, more than 2000 developers have registered and extended many different applications. Someone using IFTTT (If this then that) not only can yo your friends, but also yo smart lights, air-conditioning, sockets and so on.

During the World Cup, developers used yo to cheer for the French team, and when the team scored, they gave back to the fans. In the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israeli developers used yo to inform residents that the Palestinians had fired missiles at Israel to alert the public; someone made a yo version of Flappy Bird. "The idea behind this is that when something happens, you get yo," says Russian bell. ”

He also intends to launch a commercial version of Yo for the business, so that this application is not just always hair yo harassing friends, the scope is not just friends to friends, there are businesses to customers, businesses to businesses.

The business version of Yo allows businesses to send millions of yo to subscribers at the same time, letting them know that the promotion is starting. The idea is this: when a customer subscribes to Yo, the store will tell you that when you have a promotion, you will send Yo, and the customer will know when they receive it, and you don't need to send an email or text message.

Now every mobile phone application has push function, however, the cumbersome text push information, sometimes let users feel tired and direct shielding, "Sometimes we do not need to read text, just want to know who sent the enough, do not need to download a bunch of applications not often open." ”

Yo's biggest focus is not the information itself, but the time it sends back to the sender. In the current information explosion of the society, whether it is micro-letter, line, WhatsApp a variety of different communications applications, are desperately to add functionality, but too much unnecessary photos and text messages, has made some users feel tired. The mentality of returning to innocence allows some users to start looking for simpler ways to communicate.

Create value for users

Even so, Russian Abel knows that yo must create more value to survive, and also to fight the market for plagiarism. He is considering the next major feature of the release, perhaps by allowing users to paste links and images, which can be automatically brought to the Web page as long as the user slides, which makes yo richer.

He also insists on Yo's minimalist style, will not change the product design, will retain a single large color block button, users simply enter the user name, do not need to verify or obtain the user's mobile phone number, mail box or address book information, you can communicate with each other, "Of course, there is a problem, is to see someone Yo you, But the account does not see who is, the problem is also being resolved, may let you write a sentence to introduce yourself, or photos and other personal data, so that the other side know who you are. ”

Yo doesn't have a friend limit at the moment, but Russia Abel says Yo's main idea is to get users to use the app with people who communicate with each day, not to have more than 10 friends, or it's going to be difficult to find someone. "There will be no search function in the future, otherwise we will have to join the keyboard, we will never do this," said the Russian-bell firmly, "can not be complex, a complex will die." ”

The company valued 10 million dollars?

The most difficult part of the current stage, he says, is that the infrastructure is now not enough to support a large number of users. Another problem is to develop more integrated functionality without hiring an entire team of engineers.

Foreign media reported that the company's valuation of about 10 million dollars. Some have criticized that this represents a move towards a bubble in the mobile internet, with too much hot money flowing to companies that do not have a profit-making model or are not too versatile. Like Facebook buys Instagram for $19 billion trillion whatsapp,10 billion.

"In calculating valuations, it is never about how much money the company is worth, but about the future of the company," he said honestly. I personally think that this number tends to be conservative, but the future of the matter who knows, I have no way to tell you this company will become the most successful company in the world, I can only tell you that I will work very hard. "He moved from Israel one months ago to San Francisco in order to be closer to the world's cutting-edge technology, hoping to get closer to the market," he said.

Yo has won the co-founder Moscha Hoggi 1 million dollar seed investment, Hodge is also the CEO of photo sharing application Mobli, although many people are interested to join, Yo is not going to accept it at this stage. He has two reasons: "Raising money means selling more shares in the company, we don't want to do it, and now we don't need more money because it's a simple application that doesn't require a big team." ”