
Ask HN: Would a “Wechat for America and Europe” startup make sense? - danloper
Hi, I have been reading HN for years but never signed up).<p>My question is: Would it make sense a startup that created an all-in-one messaging app with:
-Text messages (both individual and for groups).
-Video calls (both individual and for groups).
-Streaming capabilities.
-Business integration.
-News integration.
-Conversational bots + HTML5 based light miniapps without having to install them.<p>Would that make sense? Or it just won&#x27;t work in America and Europe? Is something impossible to do for a startup, provided that it would need millions of users to have a decent network effect? Are Google and Facebook trying to build something like this?
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mtmail
Background on wechat
[http://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chin...](http://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/china-
internet-wechat.html) (video)

Yes, Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Telegram are working on this. First
step was to allow third-party bots, then payments within the messenger (and
them taking a cut of the transactions).

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danloper
> Background on wechat
> [http://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chin...](http://www.nytimes.com/video/technology/100000004574648/chin..).
> (video)

Great video.

> Yes, Facebook, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Telegram are working on this. First
> step was to allow third-party bots, then payments within the messenger (and
> them taking a cut of the transactions).

Right, but sometimes it seems to me that they are really slow at it. I mean,
if they want to become (or want to build) the new Wechat, why are they
mantaining (even launching) so many different products with little integration
with their own ecosystem? For a company like Facebook, I think that it would
take one year at the most to merge Facebook itself, Facebook Messenger and
Whatsapp into a all-in-one, superpowered messaging app.

Also, I haven't heard of any startup trying to do something like this. It
would be a risky, homerun-or-strike-out swing, true, it would be very
improbable to success, ok, but could potentially be the next $100 billion
company.

