Sangat Pedas

Steve Christian: Now This Is How You Do It!

April 7, 2013 by Remco | 0 comments

steve-christianYou know what they say, once you’re lucky twice you’re good. And while everyone seems to be consistently negative about Indonesian digital entrepreneurs they tend to overlook the ones that are doing great, like Steve Christian. Steve is known from founding Kapanlagi.com together with Eka Wiharto and making it the largest entertainment portal in Indonesia.

Steve is a busy guy, being involved in multiple startups in different digital industries. One of them is news portal Merdeka.com which started early 2012 and has managed to become #6th biggest local site and #20th overall most visited site in Indonesia according to Alexa in just a matter of 14 months.

This is not luck, this is experience, dedication and pushing hard every day. This is not launching something and waiting for a miracle to happen, but knowing that to grow you need to take matters in own hand and enforce growth.

I don’t think I ever met Steve, he doesn’t seem to attend  any of the many digital (startup) events and I like that because those events add basically nothing to the growth of your company. They’re more events to showcases ego’s. Anyway, here’s to Steven and his team, good for you guys and cheers to much more in the future. To other startup entrepreneurs, this is how you do it:

Merdeka Indonesia growth

Is Bitcoin A Ponzi Scheme?

April 6, 2013 by Remco | 0 comments

Is Bitcoin a Ponzi Scheme?Sometimes I’m too hasty with my conclusions. This morning I tweeted: “so bitcoin is a (slow) ponzi scheme, well surprise surprise!”. This based on the article BitCoin, Pyramid Schemes and Alternate Currencies on The Refined Geek. After my tweet I immediately got comments from nzBTC.com claiming my conclusion is wrong.

Truth being told, I think I know quite a lot about Ponzi Schemes and can spot a scam from quite far but I’m no expert on Bitcoin so I guess had to do some research to  learn more to see if I would stick to my initial conclusion.
For those of you who don’t know what a Bitcoin is, in short it’s a digital (crypto-)currency created by Satoshi Nakamoto, which is actually not his real name. Some say it’s not even one person, others say it’s these guys based on a patent registration: Continue Reading →

Danger Looming Large In Indonesia’s New E-commerce Law?

March 23, 2013 by Remco | 4 Comments

ecommerce-law-indonesiaUPDATE:
There has been a discussion about the definition of a “Public Service”. In the context now most agree with my definition of “a service that’s accessible for the public”. But I gotta agree that usually “Public Service” is defined as a government service such as gas, electricity and public transport. So probably they should change it to “Public Accessible Digital Service”.

For people who still disagree with this interpretation please read art 1 par 4:

Penyelenggara Sistem Elektronik adalah setiap Orang, penyelenggara negara, Badan Usaha, dan masyarakat yang menyediakan, mengelola, dan/atau mengoperasikan Sistem Elektronik secara sendiri-sendiri maupun bersamasama kepada Pengguna Sistem Elektronik untuk keperluan dirinya dan/atau keperluan pihak lain.

Translation:

Electronic System Operator is any person, state officials, business entities, and community provider, manage and / or operate Electronic systems individually or together to Users for Electronic Systems her needs and / or needs of others.

Pretty clear in my opinion.

ORIGINAL POST

This week the long awaited and probably feared Indonesian E-commerce law PP 82 became public and even though I’m no longer (directly) involved in any e-commerce business I thought I would take some time to read it. Mind you, this law is just the beginning and will be followed by 10 government regulations which will provide more details.

My friends from Dailysocial already reported on this law yesterday highlighting the part that requires any e-commerce company doing business in Indonesia to register in Indonesia as well as running their platform on a .ID domain name. Already excisting e-commerce companies are excused from the last clause, for now they are allowed to continue running their service on a .com or any other top level domain name.

Though I agree that the need for a .ID domain name is weird to say the least, it seems that the law poses bigger worries for new and existing e-commerce players in Indonesia. I won’t be discussing the whole law but just highlight some things that attracted my attention.

Continue Reading →

Pirate Bay – Away From The Keyboard Documentary [VIDEO]

February 10, 2013 by Remco | 1 Comment

This was for sure the best way I could have spend 80 minutes of my Sunday, watching the documentary about the founders of Pirate Bay called “Pirate Bay – Away From The KeyBoard”. If you’re a geek or even just have the slightest interest in Internet this is a definite MUST WATCH. If you enjoyed “The Social Network” you probably enjoy this documentary way much more.

Best way I can describe it is using the word “Surreal”. No script writer in Hollywood could possibly come up with the scenario and the characters of this story, it would be dismissed as “over-the-top” or “too far fetched”.

The documentary is about “freedom of speech” or “copyright infringement” depending on where you stand. It’s  IT mixed with a little bit of ideology, intrigues, law suites, lots and lots of alcohol and drugs and a datacenter in an atomic bunker (so cool) resulting in the biggest p2p file sharing site in the world.

Opinion wise I’m totally against copyright infringement and the “Freedom of Speech” argument is total bullshit. On the other hand the movie and record industry should smarten up and realize times have changed. Instead of fighting and trolling they should realize the Internet made/makes people consume in different ways. Sticking to an old school approach will lead to more smarter and harder to fight “Pirate Bays” and not solve any issue at all.

But for me this documentary wasn’t so much interesting from the angle of the debate, it was more the story itself and even more the persons behind Pirate Bay. To see how naive highly intelligent people can be. Another example that being smart and being intelligent don’t always go hand in hand.

If you enjoyed this docu like I did, please help out the makers of this docu with a donation.

Business In Indonesia – The Case Of The Chicken And The Egg

February 9, 2013 by Remco | 0 comments

Cute yellow baby chickThe coming time I want to share a bit about doing business in Indonesia, mostly aimed at foreign investors and entrepreneurs. Because, my fellow foreigners, things are indeed different in Indonesia. Applying the same strategies, approach, culture etc in Indonesia as you’re used to abroad might very well lead to unexpected surprises. But more on that in a later post.

This post is about a simple example of some of the frustrations you will encounter when doing business in Indonesia. Mind you, I love Indonesia and I believe there are great opportunities here. However, I also see Indonesia as a graveyard for foreign entrepreneurs and investors who think they know it all and for sure know better than the Indonesians themselves. If you don’t learn about the culture and the way thinks work in Indonesia, if you’re not extremely patient you might be in for a surprise.

Anyway, when setting up a business you will encounter a lot of bureaucracy and crazy long forms to fill out. It is what it is so just do it. Once you’ve got approval from the Ministry of Justice for your business you need to obtain two documents: SIUP (Business License) and TDP (Company Registration). Easy, just fill out the forms and wait for it… Just one thing, you need a bank account.

Ok, easy lah. You just go to the bank and open account, right? Just one tiny problem. Due to new legislation to fight money laundering  the banks now request your SIUP and TDP, without it no bank account. Uuuuuuhhh……

Good luck with that and till the next “Business In Indonesia”.

Make It Happen! #Life #Startups

February 9, 2013 by Remco | 1 Comment

stop-waiting-make-it-happen

I guess the last months I was kinda numbed compared to the rest of my life. Starting something new isn’t easy, no matter what I might have accomplished in the past. Success is nothing but a snapshot of the moment. Today one can be considered successful and the next day you’re old news.

Success made me a bit lazy and somehow I expected things to happen all by themselves, solely based on what I’ve accomplished in the past. Obviously it doesn’t work like that. What someone did in the past is pretty much irrelevant. What are you doing now? That’s the only thing that matters.

Weird that I’ve gotta realize that again after a live full of highs-and-lows and always making things happen. So back to basics, kick myself in the ass and start building again. No one will make it happen for me and ideas are worth nothing if they’re not turned into action.

Jakarta Floods 2013 – Photos

January 17, 2013 by Remco | 0 comments

January 2013, after 5 years Jakarta is again struck by serious floods. Driving in the streets this morning I got a bit of an impression on how severe it is but some of these pictures show the worst hit areas in Jakarta where levels rise to 1.5 meter and above. Some people have died and thousands had to flee their home.

The floods are caused by a heavy rainfall in Jakarta and upstream Bogor combined with a pretty bad infrastructure in which drainage is clogged with trash and pumps are failing. At the moment it finally stopped raining in Jakarta but the predictions are not yet favorable. The government has issued a 10 day state of emergency for Jakarta and we’re hoping the floods will be gone soon.

For my family and friends back in Europe, no worries, I’m living on higher grounds in Jakarta.

Sources:
MetroTVNews.com [2]
Solopos
Viva [2] [3]
Indonesia Raya News [2]
Kompas [2] [3] [4]
Lensa Indonesia
Tempo

Disclaimer: All photos have been shared for informational/non-commercial purposes only with a mention of the source. If you own the copyrights of any of these photos and you object this publication then please send an email to info[at]sangatpedas[dot]com and the photo(s) will be removed as quickly as possible.