KaKao

In our DNA exists an aspiration to change the world for the better.

 

We met Felix, the CPO at Kakao, and Chloe, the head of Talk10TF, to inquire into the history of KakaoTalk’s growth. The two joined the company in 2011 and 2012 respectively, when KakaoTalk underwent a remarkable growth spurt. They looked back on things gone by and reeled off ideas on what should be done now.

 

# Driving force

"I joined Kakao as a server developer. No one ever taught or assigned what to do. 'Act on one's initiative,' - that was my task. I primarily coped with spam/abuse issues, developed QR codes for adding KakaoTalk friends, and implemented KakaoHome for the android OS launcher. It is much the same now as then to hear the question, 'Why are you doing this?'. The slightest slip could be considered as work-shyness or a supercilious attitude in Korea. In the meantime, however, the question reminds us of the motive and value of what we're doing now.”

 

It was Felix's answer to the question – ‘what do you think is the internal growth engine at Kakao?’

Chloe also pointed out autonomy as part of Kakao's dynamic nature that maintained its lead in the past decade's mobile content market.

 

"Since the days of the tiny KakaoTalk team, our members often confront each other regardless of work scope, expertise, and age. At Kakao, there are always trust-based, heated debates between members until we share a vision forward. We then dedicate ourselves to the path towards realization."

 

The two agreed that users' affection and support served as an external impetus behind Kakao's growth.

Chloe recalled, "We all laughed and cried, touched by hilarious user experiences at the time. 'Thanks to KakaoTalk, we could get married.' 'The free call feature enabled us to maintain our long-distance relationship.' Some users even sent us wedding invitations or thank-you letters, and we then sent congratulatory wreaths to them."

 

Felix added, "Kakao is armed with Krews who are geared toward inventing user-oriented services. We do not blindly follow users' opinions. Instead, we propose novel technological perspectives to solve users' pain-points. It is crucial here to understand what philosophy we should not abandon or what will bring about innovative changes to our lives."

 

# Growing Pains

In the Internet industry, full of fluctuations, there are very few services that continue sustained growth for a decade. No wonder KakaoTalk, being a precious ten-year-old offspring, has gone through various growing pains. Felix cited 'Project Barn' as one of the bitter experiences during Kakao's dramatic growth spurts.

 

"The project was designed to support end-to-end encryption, but only came under fire from users. Since then, the humorous kitsch style of KakaoTalk notices has somewhat faded away. We got badgered, in and out, for how to talk about serious topics.”

 

 

Occasional reception/transmission errors are another type of growing pain that KakaoTalk often encounters and has to resolve. Chloe explains, "Unlike most other IT services that have regular downtime for inspections, KakaoTalk runs 24/7 at full capacity. It’s an ongoing issue."

 

"At peak times, like a year-end or the beginning of new one, many Krews are on emergency duty all night. Still, unknown faults appear as service environments are changing from moment to moment. Every once in a while, we have to confront thorny problems."

 

Felix cited developers' recurring general statement, 'the code has rotted since it no longer fits its surrounding environment.'

“People may detect no noticeable differences, but developers always refactor codes behind service products. Improving one feature may entail modifying other mesh features together. For the past decade, faults were often identified while we replaced old KakaoTalk codes with new ones. One day, network equipment ran its course. We tried to troubleshoot using existing source codes. And some new features, being updated in that brief moment, conflicted with the legacy support. An unusually long reaction time tends to be considered a fault. There is a saying, ‘If you do nothing, nothing will happen.’ Something happened because we did something for the betterment of KakaoTalk. For whatever reason though, I’d like to take this time to say that we Krews are genuinely sorry for all those system failures.”

 

# Requests from inside and outside Kakao

“'The KakaoTalk app is heavy.' 'Please deploy a lightweight version.' We've received these requests for a long time. Global messenger apps usually provide a Lite version, so our move may have been considered 'stubborn.'”

 

Felix clarified that the expression 'heavy' could be interpreted in many ways. For example, users exchange and save plenty of photos and videos via KakaoTalk, which, they fear, occupies an extraordinary amount of device capacity.

 

"Network speed is getting much faster, and large data fees are typical these days. Therefore, we are expanding cloud capacity where users can upload photos, and videos exchanged on KakaoTalk."

 

People tend to pick up the word 'heavy' when depicting 'an app is slow.' “Developers behind are strenuously optimizing and refactoring codes every day. Their invisible efforts can be felt if you recall the moment that a task that took one second in the past now takes 0.1 seconds,” he added.

Some point out that there are so many services incorporated in KakaoTalk, and that they are the primary cause of faults. Felix's answer. "To become sustainable, KakaoTalk must establish itself as a 'relationship management platform,' while rolling out various innovative features aside from Chats. That is our fate. We should enhance both quality and convenience to make users empathize with our intentionality."

 

To those requesting a Lite version like other global messengers, Felix says, "Lite versions have only minimum features to target countries with low internet penetration. But things are different in Korea. Taking dedicated resources such as expertise and equipment into account, it seems infeasible here."

 

As almost the entire nation uses KakaoTalk, corporate roles and social responsibility are required to a substantial degree. Some describe this as the 'private company assigned the duties of a quasi-public organization.’ Felix affirmed that there will not be any Krews who will complain about such responsibility.

 

Krews seem to take grave responsibilities for granted, "If our service falters, the entire nation's daily lives will have a crack. We're likely to be blamed more than we deserve because responsibility and quality commensurate with affection are required.”

 

“We ask ourselves whether KakaoTalk has become a daily means to inquire after our family, deliver news to the nation, regardless of catastrophic disasters, and become the primary and essential tool that shapes and manage relationships between humans, or humans-to-everything. And we realize that there is a long way ahead. That is why we're continually emphasizing, ‘Never forget why we're doing this.’ If we can stably provide the necessary services, we will sustain ourselves for another decade, and no one will dare to deny our existence.”

# Hardheaded Evaluation

We have witnessed many Internet companies rise and fall since the 'dot-com bubble' in the 1990s. That is why people refrain from asserting Kakao's permanency even though KakaoTalk has been a bona fide star service for over a decade. In that sense, it is worth noticing the ease with which the Millennial and Z Generations seem to take KakaoTalk in stride.

 

Felix and Chloe showed the data from global research firms, saying they were following this phenomenon very closely. Those market reports analyzed that GenZ in each country tends to resist against the mainstream messenger services. This reflects a mentality of rejection or grouping.

 

Interestingly, we found KakaoTalk on the list of rising messenger apps among teenagers in the nation. Setting aside the fact that KakaoTalk may have been received by them as a fringe or unique app, the list itself still looked paradoxical. The irresistible demographic trend of a sharp decrease in teenagers also grabbed our attention.

 

Felix said, "It's not about how often KakaoTalk is running. It's about how much conversation is sparked per running." "The entire volume of communication between KakaoTalk users in their teens is declining compared to the past. That is what we're most concerned about," he added.

"Only with a phone number, can you start chatting on KakaoTalk right away. That's the expansibility of social graphs. However, today’s teenagers may use smartphones without their phone numbers. Not having phone numbers means no ability to check the growing needs of relating with ‘friends of my friends'. Ironically, phone numbers may estrange KakaoTalk from users who want to relate with the world in a fun way."

 

In such a throe of rebirth was developed 'Open Chat' where anyone can join a chat with a participation URL. Here, teenagers have more conversations compared to other generations. They do not care about open and easy engagements with others. In contrast, other generations see this feature as a privacy problem. KakaoTalk is not targeting any particular age group. That is why Krews' woes increase seeking solutions for all.

 

The 'network effect' built around phone numbers has become an impassable moat defending KakaoTalk from competitors in hot pursuit. At the same time, the moat is a barrier KakaoTalk must transcend for its survival.

 

Felix asserted that the network effect might be the single most potent weapon KakaoTalk possessed. He said, "We must add practical value to our app so that people can spontaneously embrace KakaoTalk as a living convenience in Korea. Otherwise, we cannot guarantee sustainability over the next decade."

As part of service improvements, Krews are currently undertaking a task to shape the less-used areas of 3rd and 4th Tab (i.e., ‘#’Tab and ‘More’ Tab) into ones that better-fulfill users’ needs.

 

# Habit

"The fact that the entire nation uses the service we're in charge of fills us with honor and worry at the same time." They dove into episodes and daily habits of people who take control of 'Quasi Public Goods.' Chloe started with her daily anecdotes.

 

"I observe how people use KakaoTalk out of habit. In a restaurant or cafe, I carefully listen to which sound alerts are ringing. At holiday gatherings, I focus on how habitually seniors use KakaoTalk like screen transitions or their habit of sending/receiving messages. Every April Fool's Day, Krews are peppered with questions. Fake news about service charging never fails to appear on that day. Having a lot on our minds, we're still motivated by what we hear en passant - I will do Ka-Talk!"

 

 Felix confessed that he often monitors IT heavy users' communities to collect user responses. Also, he regularly picks up KakaoTalk indicators firsthand and talks to his team about 'What' and 'Why,’ publicly and repeatedly, as a manager.

 

“Not to distort the outcome, it is essential to precisely convey what we're doing and why. Increasing the frequency of communication seems to be the most effective way from my experience. In a healthy organization, leaders present 'what' and 'why' and facilitate agreement with working-level staff to work in concert. Then, they all put their heads together to find 'How.' I continuously attempt to communicate, no matter how hard and strenuous it is.”

 

# The Decade Ahead

The past decade  was a long battle in the fluctuating IT industry. On the other hand, the 10-year-old messenger service has just advanced into adolescence. How do Felix and Chloe envision its next decade heading into adulthood? Chloe says that the title 'national messenger' implies that the nation expects it to transcend its 'free texting tool' status.

 

“After releasing our messaging feature, the follow-up features such as sending gifts, KakaoGames, free calling, etc., they garnered acclaim and applause from users - 'The Almighty KakaoTalk,' 'It's so nifty to use.' Such expectations served as a driving force behind our efforts to enhance accessibility for people with vision problems.”

 

Felix locates a clue in the inspirational idea that originated with IWILAB Krews (*IWILAB is the corporate name of early Kakao).  

"Mobile messengers will be successful in the market." Did they really make the app from this simple thought? Or did they take on a new challenge, saying, "We have to envision a whole new era and new daily routines ushered in by mobile devices?”

 

“The latter would be the answer in my opinion,” he added. “Just like DNA, the motive of shaping a better world has been inherited by today's Krews. That means, among Krews, there is the shared belief that they face the same direction. Centering around such DNA, we will begin changes for the next decade. KakaoTalk will develop into an essential tool to find, build, and maintain relationships (with humans, things, or any other forms), transcending its position as a messenger app. Everyone who lives in Korea will say, ‘You should install the KakaoTalk app to live convenient lives in Korea!’ - That is our goal.”

 

 

During the interview, the most-heard word was 'users.' Most companies and brands tend to segment their customer base by gender, age, user behavior, preference, etc., which is not the case for KakaoTalk. The vague substantiality of ‘users’ hardly seems to be at one's fingertips. Still, KakaoTalk should suit almost all tastes.

How will things that could usher in a completely different world take shape on KakaoTalk? All eyes are now on those who strive to make a difference every moment while safeguarding the entire nation's 'daily routine.’