Outliers 29: Lessons Amit Ranjan learnt building SlideShare

Consumer Internet products are tough to build, and even tougher for them to survive on their own. If the product is good, it’s more likely to be gobbled up by a large software dinosaur. And if it’s not adding millions of loyal users at speed, a slow, painful death is the only way forward.
In June this year, Microsoft said it’s shutting down the company’s file sharing service Docs.com because its recent $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn brought in a rival product, which’s far more superior. The product, SlideShare, was acquired by LinkedIn in 2012 for over $100 million.
I sat down with Amit Ranjan, cofounder of SlideShare, who now spends time working with the Indian government on building next generation digital products.
In this two part Podcast, Ranjan discusses lessons in building SlideShare in the first part. In the second part to be published on Thursday, we focus on his experiences in working inside the government machinery.