The Challenge

Transform WhatsApp from a 1:1 messaging app into a place for meaningful community building. It must keep privacy, simplicity, and reliability across 120+ countries.

Users were already creating workarounds to connect with real-world networks, but it was messy and hard to navigate.

People wanted to use WhatsApp for groups and communities, but the app wasn’t built for it. Messages got overwhelming, finding groups was impossible, and navigation was a mess.

My role

Led a team through a journey to achieve product-market fit. Inherited an initial MVP and guided two designers through phases 2 and 3 of the transformation.

Part I: Users didn’t get it

Users understood structure but not the value proposition.

Solution 1: Better announcements

Transformed announcements from one way messaging to a hybrid post format, adding reactions and threaded responses while preserving privacy

Impact: We delivered broadcast-bubbles and replies. These features distinguished the broadcast space. UXR validation showed improved comprehension between announcements and regular chats.

Solution 2: Navigation to provide clarity

Radical navigation redesign creating explicit “community spaces” with clear group relationships

Impact: Increased sub-group discovery by 7% and reinforced nested interaction model. AndroidPolice recognized navigation improvements: “navigating communities easier with a new icon.” Research shows significantly improved comprehension for Communities and subgroups.

Part II: Pivot to member-driven growth

The problem: Only admins could grow communities. Too many permission restrictions meant growth stalled.

Solution 1: Let members suggest groups

Conceptualized distributed ownership model with member-suggested groups, ensuring coherent integration with existing permission framework

Impact: Established strategic foundation for member-driven growth while maintaining design consistency across community features.

Solution 2: Open groups by default
I changed WhatsApp from closed-by-default to open-by-default for communities.

Impact: Group joins doubled, Added about 500K new people joining communities

Results

Scale: 120 million active Communities globally serving organizations from schools to crisis response teams

Product-market fit: Achieved 19M daily-senders, hitting all our top-line PMF goals. This bent the Communities trajectory from a PMF crisis to exceeding goals. This occurred during a period when “success was not guaranteed.”

Growth innovation: Shifted from admin-dependent to member-driven growth, enabling sustainable organic

Speed: Shipped 20+ features during Q3 focus room to exit and turnaround struggling product to PMF.