Do you have to change your WhatsApp number to use new software?

Every few months someone shows a business owner a new tool, and somewhere in the demo comes the line: "and you'll get a new WhatsApp number for this."

That is usually where the conversation ends. Fair enough. I would end it too.

Short answer: no, you don't have to change your number. Reva connects to the WhatsApp Business number you already use. Your team keeps replying from the app on their phones, exactly as they do today. The same chats also appear in Reva, so the work in them gets picked up and followed through.

Why is a business's WhatsApp number so hard to give up?

Because it is not just a number. It is the business.

It is printed on the bill book, the visiting card, the board outside, the Google listing. Customers saved it years ago. And it is not only customers. The karigar sends photos of work in progress to that number. The supplier confirms a dispatch on it. Staff send a voice note to it to say a piece is ready. Half of what the business knows lives in those chats.

So when a tool asks you to move to a new number, it is really asking you to split the business in two: the old number where everyone still messages, and a new one where the tool works. Nobody wins that trade.

What does "keep your number" actually mean?

It means three things.

1. The number stays on the phone. It stays in the WhatsApp Business app. Your staff open the same app, see the same chats, and reply the same way. Meta calls this coexistence. In Reva it shows as Keeps working in the app.
2. Every one-to-one chat on that number also shows up in Reva. Customers, karigars, suppliers, your own team. Whoever messages that number, the conversation is in one place where the owner can see it. Replies your staff send from the phone show up too.
3. Reva works from those chats. When someone promises a delivery on Friday, or a supplier says the stock comes Tuesday, that becomes a task for the right person, and Reva follows up on it. The chat is attached, so nobody has to explain it twice.

Nothing about how people message you changes. What changes is that the promises made in those chats stop depending on someone's memory.

What about chats that are not with customers?

This is the part most tools miss. They are built for "customer messaging", so they treat everything else on the number as noise.

In a real business, the chat with the karigar matters as much as the chat with the customer. If the karigar says the ring will be two days late, someone has to tell the customer. If a supplier confirms a dispatch, someone has to check it arrived. Those are the things that slip.

So Reva reads the whole number, not just the customer side. A karigar's delay and a supplier's dispatch each become a task for the person who has to act, with the chat attached.

One honest limit: group chats are not included. WhatsApp only shares one-to-one conversations. If your karigar coordination happens in a group, that group stays on the phone only.

What do you need before you connect?

• The WhatsApp Business app (version 2.24.17 or newer) on the phone that has the number. Ordinary green WhatsApp cannot be connected.
• A Facebook or Meta account that manages the business.
• About twenty minutes, with the phone next to you.

You do not need Meta business verification to start.

If your business number is still on ordinary WhatsApp, move it to WhatsApp Business first. Your chats come with it. One warning: contacts saved only inside WhatsApp are lost in that move, so save them to the phone's address book before you start. WhatsApp's own steps are here: moving to WhatsApp Business.

How does connecting work?

You start in Reva, finish in Meta's window, and confirm on the phone.

1. In Reva, open Connections, add a number, and press Open Meta and choose a number.
2. In Meta's window, sign in, choose the business account, and enter the number.
3. On the phone, a message arrives in the WhatsApp Business app. Tap Connect, then Connect to the Business Platform, and copy the code back.
4. Back in Reva, pick the number, keep the tick for past chats if you want them, and press Connect selected. Then give the number a department, so the right people see its chats.

The phone keeps working the whole time. Nobody has to stop replying while you set it up.

Do your old chats come across?

Yes, once. You can bring across up to 180 days of one-to-one chats, if you do it within 24 hours of finishing Meta's setup. It is one attempt per number. The tick during setup only gives permission. The import itself is a button on the number's card afterwards, so press it the same day. Attachments come through for roughly the last two weeks.

When is this not the right fit?

• The number is also someone's personal WhatsApp. Better to get a separate business number than mix the two.
• Meta marks the number "Not eligible". Then it cannot be connected this way.
• The number is already on another WhatsApp Business account. It has to be released from there first.

The point

Your team should not have to move for the software. The software should come to where the work already is.

That is the whole idea behind Reva: an AI workspace that follows through on your team's work, starting from the WhatsApp number you already have.

If you want to see it on your own number, message us on WhatsApp.

Pratik Jain, founder of Reva