In an article, Dev Khare, a board member of Slideshare since 2008 has shared the policy for growth charted out by the founders:
1. Be frugal (if possible) but keep innovating, so you are around when lightning strikes in terms of user growth, revenue or outcomes.
2. It’s tough to balance growth versus monetization versus profitability. There is definitely a trade-off. Get lots of input on this from people who have made the trade-offs successfully.
3. Understand path from user acquisition to engagement to retention to monetization early on and track associated actionable metrics. Especially for user-generated content, there’s no automatic connection between usage and revenue.
Slideshare has an interesting mix of angel investors. From Mark Cuban, owner of NBA team Dallas Mavericks to Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. Most investors were found through the site. Mark Cuban was a Slideshare user and the company reached out to him to invest in the venture. Hal Varian was infact the first investor in Slideshare and was always convinced of its potential. The company raised a total of $3 million from a whole bunch on angels and Venrock.
Slideshare’s revenue model is largely based on advertisements. Major advertisers include Microsoft, Adobe and Webex. However, the company is attempting to raise a higher proportion of revenue from marketing services for users to market their businesses more effectively. Products like branded Channels, Leadshare and Adshare have been gaining traction. However, the dual business model continues where individual users can avail the services for free or a nominal charge as along as they can contribute. The company charges mostly for premium services like direct email, greater reach, branding and efficient communication.
After years of fantastic growth and creating a strong brand on the professional world, slideshare was acquired by Linkedin in 2011 for about $119 million. The deal was approximately 45 percent cash and approximately 55 percent stock. For linkedin, it was a no-brainer which brings synergy. Already a brand identified with business networking, Slideshare would be a valuable and unique addition to the portfolio. It would make the site more engaging with people sticking on the site to voew the content being shared by peers and business leaders. Slideshare is also a natural tool for delivering leads especially B2B marketing.
The founding members of slideshare still retain their respective positions with Rashmi Sinha continuing in her position as CEO. On the acquisition she commented, “We built SlideShare to help professionals share presentations and connect people through content. What we can build with LinkedIn, the largest professional network on the Internet, is the most natural extension of this vision. I am excited about what we can build together.”
B2B MARKETING PROGRAMS
E CELL, FMS DELHI
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