Enterprise Monetization Podcast – Episode 21

Host: Sandeep Jain
Guest: Suhil Srinivas (Senior Director of Product Management, LinkedIn)

Introduction

Sandeep Jain: Welcome to the 21st episode of the Enterprise Monetization Podcast. I'm your host, Sandeep Jain. In this podcast, we invite thought leaders from enterprise monetization, including CPQ, billing, and consumption, to discuss challenges, opportunities, and best practices.

Today, I’m excited to have Suhil Srinivas with us. Suhil is a seasoned product management executive and currently serves as Senior Director of Product Management at LinkedIn, where he oversees Go-To-Market Platforms. Before LinkedIn, he worked at PayPal, focusing on global payment choices. Suhil, welcome to the show!

Suhil Srinivas: Thank you for having me, Sandeep. Looking forward to our conversation today.

Fun Fact

Sandeep Jain: Before we dive into monetization, can you share a fun fact about yourself?

Suhil Srinivas: Sure! I collect antique credit and debit cards. My collection includes cards from the late 1800s and early 1900s, showcasing how they have evolved over time.

Sandeep Jain: That’s fascinating! What’s the most you’ve paid for a card?

Suhil Srinivas: I’ve stopped short of paying $1,600, but rare black cards can go up to $2,000 in auctions.

Sandeep Jain: How many cards do you have?

Suhil Srinivas: Over 300.

Sandeep Jain: That’s amazing! We need a separate podcast just for this!

Career Journey & LinkedIn’s Structure

Sandeep Jain: Can you walk us through your career path?

Suhil Srinivas: I started as a mechanical engineer but transitioned to software engineering. After a few years as an IC, I realized I enjoyed interacting with users, which led me to product management. At LinkedIn, I initially focused on payments and self-service commerce before moving into enterprise monetization.

Sandeep Jain: LinkedIn has various business units like LinkedIn Learning, Recruiter, and Premium. How is monetization structured?

Suhil Srinivas: We think of LinkedIn as three marketplaces:

1. Knowledge Marketplace – Connecting knowledge seekers with experts.
2. Products & Services Marketplace – Facilitating interactions between companies, sellers, and advertisers.
3. Talent Marketplace – Connecting job seekers with hiring managers and recruiters.

Our monetization team functions as a horizontal enabler across all three marketplaces.

Monetization Team Structure

Sandeep Jain: How is your monetization team structured?

Suhil Srinivas: My product team partners with an engineering team. We focus on different phases of the customer journey and have five teams:

1. Pre-Sales
2. Selling Experiences
3. Post-Purchase Management
4. Member & Customer Success
5. Foundations

Each team ensures seamless experiences across both self-service and enterprise sales.

Build vs. Buy in Monetization

Sandeep Jain: Many companies face the “build vs. buy” dilemma. How do you decide?

Suhil Srinivas: We categorize our tech landscape into four buckets:

1. Custom-built systems – Strategic and unique to LinkedIn.
2. Third-party software with heavy customization – Like Salesforce, tailored to our needs.
3. Off-the-shelf tools with limited customization – Integrated into our ecosystem.
4. Standalone third-party tools – Used as-is with no integrations.

The decision depends on business needs, rate of change in our commercial model, and company scale.

Billing Systems at LinkedIn

Sandeep Jain: How do you handle billing?

Suhil Srinivas: We have two billing platforms:

• Self-serve transactions – Handled by our homegrown system.
• Enterprise transactions – Managed through a heavily customized third-party platform.

While maintaining two systems has challenges, we unify revenue recognition across both.

Sandeep Jain: Do you see a third-party solution handling both?

Suhil Srinivas: Not at our scale. Large companies need flexibility, and current solutions don’t fully support both high-complexity enterprise sales and high-scale self-service models.

Consumption & Usage-Based Billing

Sandeep Jain: AI and automation are pushing companies toward consumption billing. How does LinkedIn handle this?

Suhil Srinivas: We’ve supported multiple billing models for years:

• One-time purchases – E.g., buying InMail credits.
• Subscriptions – Recurring LinkedIn Premium memberships.
• Usage-based billing – Seen in our ads platform and job postings.

The complexity arises when bundling different models. Ensuring customers understand their charges is crucial.

Sandeep Jain: Is this built in-house?

Suhil Srinivas: Yes. The level of customization required made in-house development necessary.

Challenges & Priorities in Monetization

Sandeep Jain: What are LinkedIn’s biggest monetization challenges?

Suhil Srinivas:

1. Platform Consolidation – We’re merging separate platforms for self-serve and enterprise sales.
2. Faster Commercial Model Evolution – Enabling rapid changes in pricing and packaging.
3. Automating Self-Service for Customers & Teams – Enhancing automation for customers, customer support, and sales teams.

Self-Serve Expansion & Customer Autonomy

Sandeep Jain: Customers increasingly prefer self-service. What’s LinkedIn’s approach?

Suhil Srinivas: Our surveys show that 78% of customers prefer self-serve options for common tasks like updating PO numbers. We are prioritizing automation to reduce reliance on sales reps.

Sandeep Jain: Even in B2B, customers now expect seamless, self-serve experiences.

Suhil Srinivas: Exactly! Customers don’t differentiate between self-serve and enterprise; they just expect things to work.

Final Thoughts & Recommendations

Sandeep Jain: Any advice for vendors and product managers?

Suhil Srinivas:

• For product managers: Question complexity. Sometimes, policies exist simply because they were never revisited.
• For vendors: Understand your customer’s ecosystem before offering solutions. Listen before you pitch.

Sandeep Jain: Great insights! Any book recommendations?

Suhil Srinivas: Designing Your Life – A great book on balancing different aspects of life.

Sandeep Jain: Love it! Thanks, Suhil, for this insightful conversation.

Suhil Srinivas: My pleasure! Thanks for having me.

End of transcript.