The Meet The Aptoiders series rolls on, as we continue to feature members of the international Aptoide team who are leading change in their respective fields, and helping shape the future of Android and mobile technology.
Today we introduce you to Sunil Prasad, a video games enthusiast and also our in house Growth and Engagement Specialist, who has had a thing for numbers ever since he was a pupil in school. An archeologist turned anthropologist, turned business intelligence specialist, turned data analyst, Sunil is also the man behind our growth and engagement team and our go-to guy for all things numbers - in short, a unique asset to Aptoide. Well, that and the fact that he is the undisputed FIFA champion at Aptoide. Read on to learn more about Sunil.
1. Hi Sunil! Tell us a bit about yourself and how you ended up at Aptoide.
Hello, everyone! My name is Sunil Prasad. I was born and raised in Malaysia (Apa khabar!) but spent 4 years in Indiana, USA (Go Hoosiers!) pursuing my Bachelor’s Degree, double majoring in Finance and Entrepreneurship. After completing my degree, I went back to Malaysia to work in two start-ups. One was a really small incubator-like start-up where I worked with a guy from Portugal who would eventually recommend me the job here at Aptoide and the other, a very successful e-commerce company in South East Asia called Lazada where I stumbled onto data analysis and business intelligence after working for 2 years there.
How I ended up here? Well, after being recommended to the management here at Aptoide, I met up with the CEO and VP of Asia Pacific in a bar in Kuala Lumpur. Let's just say...after an “unmemorable” night with them, a couple of interviews and a whole lot of stressing out with the work visa application, I made it to the Aptoide HQ.
2. Your position is super fancy. What does a day in the life of a Growth and Engagement Specialist look like?
The position is pretty much a mix of a project manager and a data analyst. I’m responsible for finding opportunities and improvements related to organic growth and user engagement while following through on those recommendations until completion with the goal of growing our user base and retaining them.
A typical day of a Growth and Engagement Specialist is very much driven by the tasks that the person is involved in and it could go along the lines of SEO, engagement actions, reporting and testing. Mostly, I would spend my time following up with the different stakeholders on the progress on what was being worked on regarding the tasks I’m involved in. This is made easier with JIRA and the fact that the people working here are very responsive and tend to give me updates every now and then. It's also my job here to give the stakeholders as much information they need so that they understand the situation and know what needs to be done. Once the stakeholders are done with their part, it's then back to me to track the performance of the changes or new features that were made and this can be done through monitoring flow funnels, channels conversion rates, test results and much more.
There are also some days where I spent doing a lot of research and planning. I would spend the whole day looking through data on various platforms and tools to find trends, problems or opportunities. If there is something, I would then create a slide deck on them and present them to the CEO and COO during my weekly meetings. In terms of planning, I would look to see what information or events that we are not tracking that we should and could be useful to us. Some of them are proactive and some are reactive.
3. Aptoide is growing at an alarming rate, we just surpassed the 3 billion downloads mark. How do you keep up with the numbers?
It can get pretty overwhelming but thankfully I have some pretty good tools to help me out. Everyday, I work with mobile analytics tools like Flurry and Localytics, web analytics tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console and our in-house Business Intelligence reporting platform. These tools are where I get most of my information from daily and I usually have a quick glance at the key metrics every morning before starting my work just to get an idea on how we are doing at the moment.
4. You've said once that databases are gold mines and that analytics are as extracting gold. Where does your passion for numbers come from? What did you want to be growing up?
I’ve always been very good with numbers since school and I like working with them as I see them as fun puzzles. That being said, I did not see myself working with numbers or data as a career until my first full-time job in Lazada where I worked in Business Intelligence. It was there I realised how powerful data is and how much you could influence people’s decisions through presenting accurate, relevant and actionable information.
As to what I wanted to be growing up...I really did not see myself working with numbers a lot. I actually wanted to become an Archeologist! So much so that I took courses in Anthropology and Bio-anthropology in university. It must have been beall of the National Geographic documentaries on Egyptian pyramids that got me...and probably the Indiana Jones movies too. I also enjoy travelling so I kinda saw Archeology as a way to do both but financially, it wouldn't be possible as a stable career and hence, I went into Business Intelligence.
5. You're a self-proclaimed video game enthusiast. What is your favorite game of all time and what games are you into today?
Did you know that I’m also the undisputed FIFA champion at Aptoide! It’s difficult to point out my all time favourite game as my preferences have kept on changing. I used to enjoy playing a lot of strategy games like Age of Empires and the Blizzard games but that was when I had a lot of free time. Since I'm all grown up and have a job now, I mostly enjoy story-based adventure or action games like Uncharted, Tomb Raider, Mass Effect and Assassin’s Creed as it gives me a way to immerse myself in a character, story and environment. These games also have an ending which means that I won’t spend all of my free time behind the controller and actually go outside every now and then. Did I mentioned that I’m pretty good at FIFA?
Would you like to join our big family and work with us?
Funny you should ask, 'cause we're hiring! Come join us or tag someone below you think would be a good fit! Check out all our job openings and get in touch with us.