Whatsapp is the fastest and the best way to reach hundreds of millions of Indians, which makes it a dream distribution channel for everybody. But its owner Meta maintains an iron grip on its APIs, pricing, and policies, making it a risky place to build. This is Whatsapp’s double life. 

This deadlock is why Whatsapp is universally used but not universally loved by India’s users. It’s why startups have an opportunity in front of them, but one shrouded in doubt. 

In this episode, we have two wonderful founders who are building companies on top of Whatsapp and have their own reasons to try to break this deadlock. Swapnika Nag is co-founder and CEO of Periskope, an AI platform supercharging sales and operations on Whatsapp, and Dharmesh Ba is founder of October Chat, which builds AI agents for Whatsapp. With co-hosts, Rohin Dharmakumar and Praveen Gopal Krishnan, they unravel the risks and rewards of building on one of the world’s most popular messaging apps.  

This episode of Two by Two was mixed and mastered by Rajiv CN, our resident sound engineer. 

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Additional reading

Dharmesh Ba’s substack: https://newsletter.theindianotes.com/