Balachandar Karthikeyan

Balachandar Karthikeyan [Live Link]

Published on 16, Feb 2023

Tech WizKid Balachandar Karthikeyan, the Indian Behind WhatsApp, WhatsAuto-Reply, and Carving His Own Path

Tech wunderkind Balachandar Karthikeyan has had the industry abuzz as his career picks up speed as his new app WhatsAuto-Reply is used by over 25 million businesses globally. Receiving considerable press as the only Indian member having served in both the WhatsApp team and Signal team, Balachandar has gone on to establish his own LLC., creating his own app in the process.

“I’m self-taught as a tech engineer. I learned everything I know online,” Balachandar explains. Having dropped out of university, Balachandar earned a role on the WhatsApp team after discovering a security flaw in the app. The self-motivated tech professional was spared of the typical hiring process at WhatsApp and brought onto the team to instead work directly for Brian Acton, co-founder of the company.

“I was learning about tech through books and the internet when I was pretty young, I was introduced to programming and coding and the rest is history,” Balachandar says. “I knew that I wanted to do a lot with it, but I just didn’t quite know what.”

Having made huge contributions to Whatsapp’s capabilities, features, and layout, Balachandar proved instrumental in developing the app to promote higher app traffic. Balachandar had made crucial additions such as the creation of groups, statuses, video calling, and much more.

After the Co-Founder of WhatsApp Brian Acton left WhatsApp to establish the new app Signal, he brought Balachandar Karthikeyan on as a software engineer, later promoting him to CPA. “I’m very happy about the transition, as working with Signal’s systems has been a blast. WhatsApp lost quite a bit of traction when they updated their privacy features,” Balachandar says. 

Now leading as founder and CEO of Bringar Research & Development Pvt. Ltd. in India and Bringar Apps LLC in Dubai, Balachandar used domestic funding to develop WhatsAuto-Reply and market it to US-based consumers.

“It’s gotten wildly popular, over 25 million businesses are using it worldwide,” Balachandar says. “That’s amazing. When I dropped out of university, I knew that following my own path would work out, but I couldn’t have foreseen this success and to be honest its incredibly humbling. Success is not just about achieving a specific goal, but about continuously learning, growing, and making a positive impact."

Finding impressive success with Bringar Apps, Balachandar is determined to push his career even further as he continues to glean important insights from consumers and to sharpen his skills to bring greater advancements to the social messaging app industry. Speaking on his incredible support, Acton told Gadgets360, “I have a very very good friend and colleague who lives in Erode, in Tamil Nadu and I talk to him every day. He's telling me what's going on,” Acton says. “It helps me understand sort of what the Indian market is like. What's necessary. He's giving me product ideas, I think that's the best way to build a product for India and what's really awesome is India is such a strong representation of the world that if you build for India you build for the world.”

Balachandar continues to conduct business between India, Dubai, and the United States, as he continues to foster impressive growth for his emerging brand.

To learn more, connect with Balachandar on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/balachandar-karthikeyan-096b3663/

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