1. Scaling SlideShare to the World An Asian Perspective

2. World’s largest community for presentation sharing….. We also invented this space!

3. If you don’t know SlideShare for photos for video for presentations

6. Who usesSlideShare? Technology Education Business Non Profits

7. … and the LOOOOOONG TAIL! Activism Mother’s day cards Academic Lessons Movie reviews Talk slides Humor Cartoons Paintings Standalone presentations Love Songs Advocacy Sermons

8. SlideShare - World’s Top 10 Elearning Platforms Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (www.c4lpt.co.uk)

9. 60 million users 8 million users 300 million users

10. SlideShareApp on LinkedIn is HUGELY popular 60 million users 8 million users 300 million users

11. 10 Lessons InScalingSlideShare 60 million users 8 million users 300 million users

12. 1) Organizational DNA matters more than idea, markets, competition.

13. Building products is the Art of Visioning the Invisible… No one (initially) knows the answer, so don’t chase the answer…

14. … chase an organisation DNA that has learnt to figure out the answer.

15. Organizational DNA will make/break your startup Organizational ethos Who you hire Who you promote/let go Merit driven culture How you map individuals to team goals

16. 2) Darwin’s Theory of Evolution applied to Product Development “It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change (flexible)”

17. Lean Startup Philosophy & Agile Development Model Keep initial product design + scope flexible Product launch is an early probe Product Development happens via incremental pivots Iterate and change quickly

18. SlideShare Lean Case Study: Eric Ries http://www.startuplessonslearned.com/2010/08/case-study-slideshare-goes-freemium.html

19. 3) Speed Now. Scale Later

20. Why startups need speed? Small & fast …

21. … being small is their biggest WEAPON

22. Set the tone for speed everywhere In development, design Site operations & performance Postpone scalability in favour of speed calculated risk

23. 4) First width (virality), then depth

24. Focus on Width (virality), Depth (engagement) later First grow user base with width strategy Viral Distribution for width Single minded focus on new user acquisition Viral loops, Viral coefficient, Viral tuning

25. Mould virality into core product design…

26. 5) Data/Metrics as the lifeblood for Product Decisions

27. Metrics driven organization Metrics are hard, but not sexy Need social context to be effective A/B Testing Funnel Tracking Kissmetrics, Unbounce, Google Analytics, Clicktale Data ergonomics matters A LOT

28. Data Ergonomics Think RSS of data (daily email reports) Differentiate between data for internal product decision making data for external marketing/business needs Differentiate between absolute data numbers (usually does not matter) data trends (usually matters most)

29. Metrics – Pitfalls to avoid Sexy Executive Dashboards Local Maxima Obsession

30. 6) EAST v/s West Differences

31. WestWest LifeStyle West East Punctuality Cartoons by Yang Lui West East

32. Opinion West East Contacts Cartoons by Yang Lui West East

33. Queuing West East Authority/Boss Cartoons by Yang Lui West East

34. Something else that has huge relevance in a technology company ….

35. Problem Solving Cartoons by Yang Lui

36. Knowing the East/West differences West > Left Brained (rational & analytical) East > Right brained (intuitive & synthetic ) Awareness of differences helps self correction checks Hiring evaluations Organizational capability

37. 7) Building the Team Bottoms Up

38. Team Building – Bottoms Up India ecosystem offers no choice but bottoms up Services mentality is SERIOUS bottleneck Few role models to inspire Pros & Cons of this approach

39. 8) Focus on your core, outsource non core complexity

40. When you are taking aim…

41. Think BULLS EYE. Period.

42. Outsource the Non Core Complexity Embrace the cloud : Amazon S3, EC2 Dedicated servers instead of co-location : Softlayer Billing / Payment gateways : Recurly, Braintree Widgets : Gigya, Addthis Analytics : Kissmetrics, Crazyegg, Unbounce, GA

43. Outsourced Plug & Play Architecture allows small startups to take on the Goliaths ….

44. 9) Focus on your USERS, not competition

45. Competition focus makes your reactive. You start playing a catchup game…

46. 10) Learn to manage RISK

47. Eastern Cultures have a negative bias.. Ambiguity Failure Risk Taking

48. Whereas the ruling trends are all about risk management…. Lean MVP Lean Agile

49. Take risk management HEAD-ON Risk management intrinsic part of startup lifecycle Be ready to face SERIOUS internal challenges Team buy-in for core philosophy Heightened team awareness & sensitization Be strong, don’t give up

50. Thanks! Question? Slides available at www.slideshare.net/amitranjan

51. Image Credits http://www.chem.ucsb.edu/~molvisual/Img/142A/B_DNA_side.png http://www.flickr.com/photos/13105441@N04/4357248545/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/twenty_questions/2192450204/sizes/l/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/bionicteaching/2920562020/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/juhansonin/3157888219/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/pedroaznar/130515600/sizes/z/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/singapore2010/4912934870/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/3137422976/sizes/o/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/dav/135566186/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/matthewmcvickar/154077776/ http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Victory_podium.png Yank Lui http://www.yangliudesign.com/