I talked about how to build products for different geographies like India, USA and South East Asia. How users change, how product change and how development process change.

1. Product Across World

2. Intro
● Working at Branch.io as Senior Product Manager for Core Platform and User
Experience
● Branch is California based attribution and deeplinking Unicorn
● Worked at Tokopedia in Indonesia as Senior Lead PM for Data and Growth
Products
● Tokopedia is Indonesia’s biggest ecommerce and SEA’s 3rd biggest startup
$7B
● Worked at Paytm as Product Manager for Consumer Payment Products
(started out of B.Tech)
● Launched Paytm QR code, Paytm SDK’s, Paytm Passbook and Bank

3. Agenda
● Talk in general about how
○ Users
○ Products
○ Culture
○ Startups and
○ Teams
differ across India, SEA and USA
● How you can expand a product across India
● What are Pros and Cons of working outside India

4. Expansion
- Language Barrier
- Local office
- USA Service and Sales
- Product hunt
- Twitter and YC tags
- Attend Conference

5. Product
India -
● More Strategic
● Need Driven
● Target is not profitability and currently in expansion mode
● UI and UX is much more cleaner and intuitive (specially main apps)
● It’s more towards growth and stability and less innovation/R&D
Example -
Paytm QR code - Started from 200,000 to 50M till I was there

6. Product
Indonesia -
● Generally a model copied from other parts and modified and adapted to
market
● Target is profitability
● Competition is more and thus more towards sustainability
● UX and UI is more visual and graphical
● Operate on PAAS model

7. Product
USA -
● Generally Mission Driven
● Try and Fail mindset
● Copying is looked down upon
● Since people pay for service, profitability is not true worry, innovation is.
● Simpler, One Product - One Service

8. Start Ups
India -
● Less risky road
● Prepare for backup options
● More business savvy
USA -
● Silicon Valley kids, so have seen their
parents work in or start startups
● Try to change the world and thus more
mission driven
● Network effect is profound
● High Risk appetite, may be due to society
SEA -
● High Pressure to be rich
● Side hustles along the work
● Studied outside, saw a trend,
monetizing it at home
● Since copying is okay, need
to be frugal and cunning
● China 1 child policy

9. Users

10. Users
India -
● Want maximum out of minimum
● Ready to adjust on quality
● Market is so big, that everyone can find a
niche
● Less loyalty
● More tech savvy
USA -
● Early Adopter and Innovators
● Loyal
● Pay and expect quality
● Expect low mental load
SEA -
● High Spending Power
● Promo hunters
● High Language barrier
● C2C economy
● Frugal
● Low loyalty
● Respectful

11. Tech and Process
India
● More varied tech level, can find people at all level
● More on What and less on Why.
● QA is still not high priority
● Choose tried and tested stacks
● More informal towards process
● Jugaad mentality
● Find the best what works for them

12. Tech and Process
Indo
● More like, Google it and implement what is on top
● Respectful
● Hierarchical
● Tech stack and code quality is cleanest
● They lack the speed of execution
● Talent gap is prominent
● Language is one big challenge

13. Tech and Process
Since technology is still growing, projects like PWA and AMP are popular.
E.g. -
- Implemented PWA to go beyong Jakarta
- a 5X jump in conversion rates, a 40% increase in organic traffic, 65% faster page load times, and a 60% lower
bounce rate, which highlighted better engagement.
- https://amp.dev/success-stories/tokopedia/

14. Tech and Process
USA
● More formal in office
● Social Norms and Work life balance is promoted
● Respect Time
● Focus more on Why and How
● Spend time in R&D
● Avoid hacks and prefer delayed but quality product
● Strong QA focus

15. Pros and Cons
Pros -
● Experience and Exposure
● You have influence in Indonesia, in USA it’s tricky
● Career Opportunities
● Learn empathy and best practices
● Networking

16. Pros and Cons
Cons -
● Language is a barrier in day to day life in Indo, you miss stuff
● You may be smartest person in room and that is not good
● It’s not acceptable to have the Indian attitude
● Learnings in Product could be less
● Personal aspects (family, friends and stuff)

17. Career Opportunities
● USA, L1 or H1B
● Indonesia and Singapore, easier. Singapore has Employment Permit.
● SEA yes, a lot of influx of engineers from Indians recently.
Let’s talk about how

18. Thank You