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Google For Startups - THub

The document discusses strategies for building a company, including funding, team, culture, and product development. It uses the example of Function Space, a social learning network for science founded by Adit Gupta from 2012-2015. It analyzes Function Space's minimum viable product, experiences improving the user experience, growing the community through engagement tactics, and challenges with distribution and monetization. The key lessons are to understand user needs, apply the KISS principle, build on existing strengths, and react to emerging opportunities.

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Adit Gupta
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131 views23 pages

Google For Startups - THub

The document discusses strategies for building a company, including funding, team, culture, and product development. It uses the example of Function Space, a social learning network for science founded by Adit Gupta from 2012-2015. It analyzes Function Space's minimum viable product, experiences improving the user experience, growing the community through engagement tactics, and challenges with distribution and monetization. The key lessons are to understand user needs, apply the KISS principle, build on existing strengths, and react to emerging opportunities.

Uploaded by

Adit Gupta
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Strategy and problem solving for building a

company
Adit Gupta

Google for Startups | T-hub


2

Adit Gupta 2009 Freelancer, Author on Smashing Magazine

2010-2018 Technology Evangelist


@aditgupta Python Lead
Designer - Furlenco, PayPal
Founder - Function Space

2019-Present ServiceNow
Design Mentor - Google for Startups
Philosopher-in-training
3
Subject matter

Funding Team

Culture
Hiring

Product Distribution
4
HBR Strategy Ideas

Doing something new Building on what you Reacting opportunistically to


already do emerging possibilities
5
The Structure

Strategy Idea Analyse the outcome Takeaways

Map is not the territory


Function Space
A social learning network for science that
provides a complete ecosystem (articles,
video lectures, problem-solving,
discussions, and networking) for
participants from academia to corporate
research.
Adit Gupta

Timeline : 2012 - 2015

Team of 52 members.
Raised funds from an institutional VC.

6
7

Product

How might we differentiate our product in a fragmented space of


online science discussions?
8

Version 1- Minimum Viable Product

Doing something new


9
The experience hierarchy

Meaningful
Pleasurable
Users were not getting relevant content
The platform lacked modern social
networking features
Convenient
The platform had discoverability issues

Usable Functional
The platform had no usability issues The platform was functional and stable
Better experience 10

Real-time feed
Central location comprising of
everything on Function Space based on
users preferences— Peer activities,
Discussions, News, Books, Articles and
Challenges. A real-time feed meant
reduction in cognitive load thereby
making the whole experience more
pleasurable. (second tier of the
pyramid)

Pleasurable

Meaningful
Gami ed experience 11

Function Space Index


We introduced the idea of Function
Space Index, a score like h-index to
recognise your contributions when
somebody nds it insightful. The
science community loved it and
embraced the new concept of making
contributions on a digital platform.

Pleasurable

Meaningful
fi
fi
Creation over complexity 12

Equation Caller
We introduced simple ways to write
equations thereby reducing any friction
for those who were not well-versed with
LaTeX.

Convenient
13

Product Distribution

How can we grow our community?


The Hook Model

Trigger Action

Emails
Comments

Noti cations Discussions

Investment Variable Reward


More discussions
FSI/Scoring points

More engagement Reputation privileges

Doing something new


fi
Quarter Topic
Sharing 4 interesting science topics in a
day with users to keep them engaged
on the platform. (Acting as a trigger)

Doing something new


16
But we had distribution failures..

No campus ambassadors No platform chapters


01 Promising way to increase engagement
02 Adding new people to the
in colleges community

Over-relying on PR and
03 advertisements

Building on what you


already do
17

Distribution

How can we monetise the platform?


18
The Fallacy

Advertisements

Marketplace
Partnerships

“User is the new Not proactive about Too many thoughts


currency” monetisation with no focus
19

Reacting opportunistically to
emerging possibilities

The Creator Economy


20
The Big Takeaways

Doing something new

Understand the evident and latent needs of people

Apply the Occam’s Razor

Novelty is not always the solution


21
The Big Takeaways

Building on what you


already do

Regular Feedback, Quick Iterations

Supplement and Complement

Don’t replace what’s not broken


22
The Big Takeaways

Reacting opportunistically to
emerging possibilities

Distribution rst mindset

First mover advantage (if executed well)


fi
23

Thank you!
@aditgupta

GDG Bangalore DevFest 2019

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