Amit Ranjan is a co-founder, and the chief operating officer of the popular content-sharing service, SlideShare, which gets 70 million pageviews a month. Many people also know him through his observations on the Indian tech scene on his blog, Webyantra.

We caught up with him recently to find out what has changed for him and SlideShare ahead of his talk in Singapore next month. Amit is based in India and SlideShare does most of its development work there. We asked him what it’s like running a successful Asian web company outside Silicon Valley’s charmed circle.

Hear Amit Ranjan live at Accelerate 2010, Asia’s largest innovation conference on Sept 22-23. Book by 31 Aug for more than 30% off tickets. Use promo code ‘E27EARLY’.

On the challenges facing SlideShare

I think we have done well in overcoming our first challenge, of gaining users (SlideShare has 25 million visitors monthly, and 70 million pageviews). That we have gained a critical mass of users also means that our product concept is validated.

Phase two, which is where SlideShare is at now, is profitability. We raised funds through a round of Series A funding in 2008, and now we are very close to being profitable.

Now I think we have a much better grasp of the technology, and of the challenges of scalability than four years before, but a lot of this we had to learn on our own. India has a very active domestic scene, but very few Indian startups have a global footprint. We cannot just hire someone with relevant information; we have to work things out ourselves.

On being an “outsider”

You can’t deny that the centre of gravity is Silicon Valley. Not having a US footprint would definitely be difficult. SlideShare has a unique position as it has two offices—most of the development is done here in New Delhi, but the other two founders (Rashmi Sinha, CEO; Jonathan Boutelle, Head Geek) are based in our San Francisco office.

It’s less about having a physical presence in the US as it is about keeping abreast of what is happening in the tech capital of the world—who is doing what? How are they doing it? This can be through a US office, sure, but it’s also possible with US-based advisors and investors, and contacts.

On developments in the Indian tech scene

In India, more people use their mobile phones to access the Internet than with a PC. While the mobile platform has its limitations and is not suitable for all products and services, there is a lot of potential in payment platforms and gaming.

Currently, 3G services are limited and smartphone penetration is low. This may change when 3G is more widely rolled out in late 2010 so I’ll be keeping an eye on that.

I’m excited to meet tech folks outside of India!—I’m active on the Indian and Silicon Valley circuits but haven’t had much exposure to Asia. And there are a lot of exciting things happening in Asia—South Korea has the highest Internet penetration rate, for example, so I am excited about coming to Singapore for Accelerate 2010 and meeting these people.