Coffee Chat: Running LinkedIn Singapore like a Startup

This post is a part of our coverage of Startups in Asia (Singapore), Penn Olson’s first tech conference. Our full coverage of the event can be found here, for our RSS feed, click here.

Summary

Penn Olson founder Willis Wee talked with LinkedIn APAC VP Arvind Rajan about running LinkedIn like a startup. Arvind talked about how he focuses heavily on taking the time to hire the right team.

They also talked about LinkedIn’s expansion, which has kept Arvind on the road nearly 80 percent of the time over the past few months. As for the elephant in the room, China, they’re looking at it, but Arvind wouldn’t talk specific plans. He did suggest LinkedIn doesn’t see a “breakout” competitor there yet, though.

What advice did he have for startups? Focus your time. Be sure you’re spending most of your time on the most important problems and moving your business forward. Because you have to juggle so many balls at a startup, it’s easy to get bogged down in the unimportant things. Also, be careful about your team. You spend all day every day with them, so you don’t want to hire weak links, and you really don’t want to hire assholes.

Liveblog

#10:17: And that’s it for that session. Thanks folks. Check out the next one with Steven Goh of mig33, coming up immediately!

#10:16: The hardest part of working at a startup is prioritizing. Focus on high-value opportunities, especially low-risk high-value opportunities. Work on the stuff you really think is going to move the business forward.

#10:15: Tips for startups: Don’t expand too quickly. Test first and make sure you’ve got the model right. LinkedIn waited five years before they opened an office outside the US because they wanted to get it right. But once they figure things out, they expand quickly.

#10:14: Would you ever quit and try to build your own startup? “I’d never say no,” but he’s happy and engaged in LinkedIn for now, hasn’t thought that far down the road.

#10:13: Arvind says he hasn’t mingled with the startup crowd in Singapore much, in part because he’s on the road more often. “But as I build the team out […] I’m looking forward to do more of that.”

#10:10: LinkedIn does have a recognizable brand, which can be a hiring advantage, but there are also people who prefer to build something. Sometimes startups have an advantage, too.

#10:09: “We want to make sure wherever you walk into a LinkedIn office…it still feels like the same culture. We spent an awful long time […] talking about culture and values.”