Telegram
Instant messaging client and cloud-based platform Telegram is now estimated to be worth $30 billion. What is particularly remarkable about this company, though, is that it is run with just thirty employees. It is very uncharacteristic, given that tech companies usually have large departments and layered management hierarchies. So, in this article, we will explore how and what has led to the success of the application with an incredibly small number of employees and the peculiarities that have helped the application stand out in a very competitive market.
The Origin and Vision of Telegram
Telegram was founded in 2013 by two Russian-born twins, Pavel and Nikolai Durov. Following their misadventures with their first social network site, the Durov brothers decided to develop an application that focused on messaging speed, safety, and confidentiality. The latter was intended to be a reliable platform, especially in the context of growing threats to the users’ right to privacy.
Telegram started with the aim of being completely different from everything else out there. Unlike many technology start-up-oriented companies that primarily concentrated on increasing the number of employees, Telegram embarked on another strategy. They thought that a relatively small and lean workforce could be smarter and produce more output. The idea was simple: By eliminating layers of hierarchy, the general workers would be enabled to work harder and take full responsibility for their duties; this, in essence, creates a culture of innovation, new ideas, and quick decisions.
A Small Workforce with a Large Role
It uses Phone Copy GmbH, the German Telegrams promoter company with only 30 employees, as the research subject. Nonetheless, in traditional organizations, this implies that with many people on board, many activities are shared, implying increased bureaucracy. Instead, Telegram decentralizes many of the platform’s primary functions. It allows substantial responsibility to the individuals in its lean workforce since the task can be accomplished in a short amount of time without requiring multiple layers of approval.
For instance, Telegram is an extraordinary example because it lacks many of the organizational structures that are typical for a tech company, such as the human resources (HR) department. It may sound strange because, in one way or another, HR is viewed as crucial for the effective control of a company’s personnel. But it has eliminated this layer, though their team can work much more independently now to develop the app and improve users’ experience.
This lean approach is taken in every segment of the business. Although it has a smaller employee base, it is able to work in a way that is quite incredible. Every person on the team responds to something that would entail a lot of employees in huge corporations. This freedom allows employees to be more creative than they would be if they were governed by so many layers of management or standard operating procedures.
Flexibility and Efficiency: Telegram Competitive Edge
One of the most significant strengths resulting from Telegram’s tiny team is the flexibility it has. Managers in the modern technical environment require flexibility when implementing strategies, and, given its structure, Telegram is mired in flexibility. Having a small team also means there will be fewer people to consult with and less time to adapt to the needs and wants of its users.
This agility is one of the reasons that it can fight with companies much larger than it, and, in fact, the company itself is small. Larger companies can take a few months to bring new features to the app or to incorporate feedback from users, but it can do this quickly. It has placed the company in a strategic position and strengthened its position in the keenly competed messaging application sector.
In particular, the small number of members enables Telegram to concentrate solely on improving its application. Attending to many other people would waste the workers’ time on improving customers’ experience. This focus on the primary messaging service is one of the reasons why it has remained loyal despite the competition, including Facebook’s WhatsApp and Messenger.
Privacy and Security: Telegram Core Values
The most fundamental and, at the same time, the main achievement – the share with which Telegram was built and with the help of which it continues to grow – privacy and security. In the current era of such a high alert regarding data privacy, Telegram has set itself apart from competitors in providing a platform that puts importance on the security of user data. Of the two types, the “Secret Chats” applied in the app use end-to-end encryption to allow only the sender and the receiver of the message to view its content. It has made Telegram especially famous amongst users who have issues with government spying or hacking of their accounts.
Privacy as a selling point is real for Telegram, but it goes beyond just a marketing gimmick by the company. The creators of the Durov brothers have stated this numerous times, and it is the reason why the app’s privacy is designed this way. Unlike many other tech companies, it does not utilize advertising, which entails that the firm has no reason to gather and sell users’ information to other parties.
This emphasis on privateness has served to develop positive consumer loyalty to Telegram. By 2023, the application will have about 700,000,000 active users who are using this app as a secure messaging application as compared to others. It also has not jeopardized privacy and, thus, has opened new opportunities to enter regions where that might be a problem, like certain parts of Asia and the Middle East.
Telegram Global Reach
It’s great popularity is noted despite the tiny staff of the application developers. Telegram currently boasts of users worldwide, total more than 700 million, making it among the leading messaging apps in the market. The company’s success can be attributed to this factor, especially because it is relatively small compared to some of the companies it competes with.
In this case, the vast capability of the app is among the reasons for the expansion of Telegram in different regions. Beyond privacy and security, which are pivotal to its operation, the app provides users with many other features, making it unique from its competitors. For instance, it enables the creation of group chats with up to 200,000 participants, sends files that may be as large as 2GB, and possibly creates network through which they can send messages to many recipients at a time. These features have made Telegram suitable for personal communication, business, social, and even political transformations.
Furthermore, the product’s availability on several platforms makes it usable by many people. The app is available on iOS, Android, Windows, MacOS, and even as a web app, which means users have difficulty connecting to the device they prefer. Thus, Telegram is popular among people in territories where mobile devices are the only means of communication.
Competing with Tech Giants
Even though it currently employs significantly fewer people, Telegram has been able to challenge some of the titans of the tech industry, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Telegram’s distinctive competency is, therefore, its ability to provide features that other similar apps do not. For instance, in terms of file sharing, Telegram is definitely superior, and there is no need to use third-party services to send relatively large files to other people.
However, the most compelling reason why Telegram stands out in an already congested market is the firm’s dedication to users’ privacy. Unlike WhatsApp, a similar app that has been reportedly under fire for sharing users’ information with the parent company, Facebook, Telegram is considered to be an application that values its users’ privacy. This has enabled the application to gain a niche user base, particularly people who value their privacy as they seek to accomplish with the application.
On an interesting note, Telegram currently works with a small number of employees, but it still actively develops and introduces novelties that enthrall users. Suppose it is the upgraded voice and video call, new customization features, or better group chat feature. In that case, Telegram has continued to innovate as it seeks to solve the needs of its users. This ability to innovate at a fast pace and efficiently is one of the key aspects that makes Telegram continue competing in the face of strong competitors hailing from much larger companies.
The Power of Staying Small
In a world where companies are busy growing and adding departments and other people to their organizations, Telegram has a different opinion. The company has been able to keep its headcount down and thus remain lean and very much in focus. Decisions are made fast, and there is no intermediation since every single employee at Telegram, regardless of their position, is valuable.
As a result of low overhead costs, Telegram has expanded at a steady, restrained pace while still maintaining focus on its fundamental objectives. Most firms have assumed that becoming successful requires employing more individuals and developing intricate hierarchies. Still, Telegram has demonstrated that having a few individuals on the team does not indicate that it cannot adequately compete. When people are given solutions that are best not only for privacy and security but also for user experience, it again shows that one does not need a large human resource, and that is what Telegram has successfully copied.
It also allows every Telegram employee to take full responsibility for their actions and outcomes at work. The small teams allow every team player to contribute and play a role in bringing success to the company. This has developed an organizational culture of innovation and self-employment, whereby the employees are free to innovate and explore new ideas without going through so many layers of management.
Limitations of a Small Workforce
On the one hand, its telegram team has been one of the titles of success. However, challenges lie. First, a small number of employees implies that each one works more than others and hence can easily feel overwhelmed and/or out of control. Thirdly, given that so many critical missions are in so many people, the company needs to be certain that it has adequate personnel to run a worldwide messaging firm.
The second factor that may pose an issue for it is scalability. Telegram must plan its employees and its team to accommodate the rapidly increasing number of subscribers. Although the company has been able to operate effectively with only 30 employees to date, it is still being determined how long this approach will be viable as the platform grows and becomes more popular.
Nevertheless, Telegram’s steps have demonstrated that it is possible to manage the activities of a global IT company with a minimal number of close-knit team members. Hence, the company has been able to manage the various constraints that are inevitable with a lean human resource advantage while retaining progressive growth and expansion in a competitive environment.
The Future of Telegram
In the future, there is no indication that Telegram will lose momentum in its growth. Even with new features that improve the user experience, as well as data privacy & protection issues, the company has paid attention to it. Today, more than 700 million people use Telegram, and the market worth of the application is $ 30 billion.
Despite having a small working team, which is rather unusual, this factor became one of the major Telegram assets. Due to continuous operational cost control and low overheads, Telegram has managed to keep up and even supplant any major competitor and achieve that perfect niche marketing position. It will be very exciting to follow how Telegram and its parent company will develop their app and corporation in the future, especially in view of these challenges of scalability and further growth while keeping up their core values, which have made them grow this far in the first place. When people always believe in the perception that the larger, the better, Telegram has proved that excellence comes in small packages.