Julian is a Product Manager specializing in international expansion and localization with more than 7 years of experience. He is one of the earliest employees and was the first-ever Product Manager hired for Airbnb, WeWork, and GOAT in Asia. Currently, Julian is the Country Director for China at GOAT, where he is responsible for their market entry into China. Prior to his current role, Julian was a Senior Product Manager at WeWork, with a focus on Growth, Billing and Payments. Julian first gained Product Management experience working at Airbnb, having worked on improving and localizing Airbnb’s web and mobile products for the Mainland Chinese audience, and was also responsible for managing translation and localization across 10 languages.
Artificial intelligence in the post-deep learning era
Julian Leung, GOAT. Lessons of Glocalization from Airbnb and WeWork
1. JULIAN LEUNG | 2020-10-09
Lessons of Glocalization
from Airbnb and
WeWork
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5. Lessons of Glocalization from Airbnb and WeWork
Agenda
● Key Considerations of Going International
● Challenges of Translation and Content Localization
● Good and Bad Examples of Localization
● 8 Personal Dilemmas of Product Localization
8. “Glocalization” is the practice of
expanding the target audience of a
domestically or regionally focused
product or service to other
overseas markets.
9. The purpose of “Glocalization” is to
achieve similar or higher level of
success in the overseas markets as
it does with the domestic market.
10. What kind of products or services
should NOT go international?
25. IF …
Similar products are already popular
Your competitive advantages are not transferable
You don’t have local partners
You don’t have extensive capital
35. The Challenges of Translation
2012 - 2016
● The sheer volume and diversity of content to be translated
● Prioritization of what needs to be translated first
● Helping freelance translators understand the proper context
● Direct translations are often odd-sounding and unnatural
● Proper quality assurance is very time consuming
● Requires much collaboration with Product and Engineering
● Balancing Speed vs. Quality and Consistency
56. Translation Beyond Just Texts
Examples
● Font Size, Line Breaks and UI Fit
● Context, Relevance, and Tone of Voice
● Date and Number Formats
● Currency
● Phone Numbers and Email Addresses
● Screenshots, Icons, Logos, Illustrations, Videos
● Local Laws and Regulations
111. (4) How do you ensure stable
development of the localized
features?
112.
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114. (5) How do you use
experimentation to make
decisions?
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119. Challenges and Limitations of Experimentation
Specific considerations when it comes to localization
● Lower Sample Quality
● Smaller Sample Size
● Have to rely more on Proxy Metrics
● More Assumptions Made
129. 165% lift in Users Visiting Help Center Contact Page
30% lift in Users Creating Inbound Tickets
10% of users in the experiment group clicked on the link
131. 20% more bookings and 4.5% lift in searches for the group
that received both the engagement message and coupon;
for the group that only received the engagement message,
the booking number is neutral but we saw a 5% lift in
searches and a 2% lift in searchers.
A: Do Nothing
B: Push/Text
C: Push/Text + Coupon
132. (6) How do you decide the scale of
the changes made?
137. (7) How do you handle requests
coming from regional operation
and marketing teams?
138.
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147.
148. (8) How do you choose between
manual and scalable solutions?
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154. “Lessons of Glocalization from Airbnb and WeWork
Key Takeaways
● It takes a lot of resources and commitment to go global
● Translation is a very complex and tedious process
● Good Localization is all about attention to detail
● Start with the most fundamental and essentials features
● Lean on your intuition to make product decisions
● Unscalable solutions could bring better user experience