Let’s talk about competition, in business or anywhere else. First intelligent thing that pops to my mind: there will ALWAYS be competition in any space where there’s money, power or status to gain. You might think DUUUHHH! but in emerging markets first movers tend to forget or not realize that. For a period of time some company is the only significant player in a certain space and then someone will show up and seriously challenge them.
Right now in Indonesia we see someone seriously challenging Tokobagus for the first time. After a long period in which Tokobagus dominated the market 701Search decided it’s enough and increased the marketing efforts to an unprecedented level for Berniaga. Rocket Internet is another player that’s basically challenging the whole e-commerce Industry striving for world-domination. And obviously the media portals are already much longer in a brutal fight for domination.
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Ding dong! Newsflash from our reporter in Jakarta. November 20th (20-11-2011), exactly 26 years after the birth of Windows 1.0, now going into the history books as the big day for the most likable guy with the highest “cuddle” factor in the scene. Today the big guy from Dailysocial Rama and his lovely wife Puspa celebrated their love and eternal union and obviously Sangat Pedas was there.
Both the bride and the groom looked ravishing and an anonymous source within Dailysocial told me he was so happy to finally see “Mr. Hoody” as a real CEO. This despite his new haircut which has already become trending. Yep, everyone was present on this sunday morning red carpet event. Hell, it’s safe to say that every self respecting startup was witnessing the mariage of the “Michael Arrington” of Indonesia.
And of course the press and bloggers were present. The Jakarta Post Globe chatting with Aria who’s not amused with the paparazzi. Firman “Dailysocial wrecker” Nugraha from Teknojurnal managed to sneak in as well. The hardest working blogger at DS was busy declaring his love to not one but two Nokia N9′s.
We wanna wish Puspa and Rama a long and happy life together and keep having fun!
Yesterday I gave some excellent tips on how (not) to pitch your startup, good stuff! One of my points was it’s better to say that you haven’t quite figured out your business model instead of saying advertising is your business model. Internet addict Okto, better known as @labanux, asked me why. Why is online advertising as a sole business model so bad? Google, Facebook, Twitter, Kaskus, Detik and many many others run on online advertising so is it really that bad a business model?
Ever been to a restaurant where one waiter welcomes you and another waiter tells you the neighbors have great Japanese food? Ever been to a boutique where, before you bought anything, the sales person tells you two blocks down you can get 20% discount on an iPad? Well, chances are slim that this happened to you in a brick and mortar store but it happens online. Entrepreneurs on one hand do their utmost best to get more people to visit their site or use their app to then show them the way out with a banner or ad. Though this is a black and white interpretation of something that has more shades, it’s basically the paradox of using online advertising as your business model.
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Launching an Internet startup is a pretty daunting task and at some point most startups need to raise money to finance infrastructural investments, marketing and growing operating cost. That’s the point where entrepreneurs need to pitch their startup to investors and you know how VC can be to startups. This means that entrepreneurs have to come out of their coffee and cigarette fueled comfort zone and that’s hard.
But no worries, we’ve got it covered with the most essential tips you should follow to ensure you to leave mind blowing impression and cash the much needed $$$. Sangat Pedas style, polite, respectful and non-confrontational.
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DailySocial, Indonesias #1 #2 tech-startup (re-)blog site, trusted source by both investors and startup entrepreneurs. Great bunch of “crazy” guys, lots of laughs (despite that some got bombed by standup comedy lovers) but in the end the confrontation was inevitable. Yep, it’s about time we step in and set these guys straight for the sake of all startup entrepreneurs in the world. Sangat Pedas “tidak peduli” style, you can always count on us.
It started with a post by William Henly, corporate strategy expert, investment banker, multi sector entrepreneur & Fortune Indonesia’s Top 40 Executive Under 40. Basically William sees the Indonesian tech-startup market lately as overhyped, over-valued and he thinks the market is not transparent enough, even using the word “misleading”. Though I wouldn’t go as far as William, I too had some things to say about the Indonesian tech-startup market but from a different perspective. As for the transparency, William, here you can find some of the valuations and deal info of Tokopedia, Kaskus and Detik, even though it’s not all based on solid first hand statements it comes pretty close.
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This second post about SEO for startups is all about the importance of a first paragraph of your content. Now there are many factors in SEO that determine your position in search engines on certain queries but the first paragraph is probably the second most important after the title of your post.
The first paragraph of this post might sound a little bit redundant since the title is already clear on the fact that the first paragraph of a post is important but it immediately illustrates the point of this post. Obviously this SEO post is not only intended for startups but using by using “SEO for startups” I want to improve my #5 Google ranking (mirror) for this search query.
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Just three days ago I wrote a post about the seemingly lack of real fighting spirit in the Indonesian startup scene. The lack of discussions and the lack of telling it straight, like it is. Well, for starters it quickly became the most read post on SangatPedas, for whatever that’s worth and but it didn’t get the desired effect, up until yesterday. Continue Reading →
Indonesian Startups have become more and more the focus of attention of VC because the Indonesian Internet market is booming! Well, at least that’s what the world is saying and in terms of Internet users and potential that’s fairly accurate. Consequently in rapid pace a pretty big startup scene has arose in Indonesia, mainly young people inspired by te successes of giants like Facebook, Google and Twitter. Full of passion and ambition one by one they’ve launched or preparing to launch their social media platform, e-commerce site, street directory, real estate directory, clothing shop or whatsoever.
Both foreign and local investors have taken their positions or will do so soon so you could say all ingredients are there for some huge successes. But apparently there’s something lacking, that’s not me saying but the consumer. So far the Internet is dominated by the usual foreign suspects except some big media companies, a forum, some portals, banks and a classified site. All of these so far successful local players are already long time operating and from that perspective can’t be classified as startup anymore. And when going further down in the Alexa ranking for Indonesia it’s pretty shocking to see the long time lack of any fast movers.
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In my recent posts I haven’t always been kind on people doing boring, non-interesting and non-personal speeches. My rule, especially with presentations or keynote speeches is that you either do a superb job or don’t do it at all. Which probably is the reason why I haven’t done any on-stage presentations at all lately. But still, since Tokobagus is rising people have been asking me so now I’m planning to make that killer presentation that will awe people, but that’s far from easy.
Anyway, while browsing around all night looking for some inspiration I stumbled upon this presentation from Ned Potter a.k.a TheWikiman. Yep, I gotta hand it to Ned because not only what he says is spot on but the execution proves he doesn’t only talk the talk but also walks the walk. It’s a must see presentation especially for startup entrepreneurs planning to pitch their business to potential investors.
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I’m not so much into responding to posts of other bloggers but in this case I would like to make an exception. Last week I read an post written by Funcrowds’ founder Andre Siregar titled “Startup Indonesia: kurang orisinal?“. He wrote this article based on the fact that 9 startup entrepreneurs pitched their business to several VC and all the startups were basically localized clones. What I didn’t like about Andre’s post is that it’s tendentious because he only asks the question without giving his own opinion and just quotes Ryo Umezawa, director of venture capitalists J-Seed Ventures. So I think Andre has raised an interesting question but failed to shed some light on that question or simply didn’t want to burn his fingers on answering that question.
So allow me to share my opinion on this topic, does the Indonesian startup scene lack originality?
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Let’s talk about competition, in business or anywhere else. First intelligent thing that pops to my mind: there will ALWAYS be competition in any space where there’s money, power or status to gain. You might think DUUUHHH! but in emerging markets first movers tend to forget or not realize that. For a period of time some company is the only significant player in a certain space and then someone will show up and seriously challenge them.
