On Wednesday (6/6) , ANGIN was cordially invited to Dila Karinta and Bettina Herz’ launch of their book Insider’s Guide to Jakarta Startups. While Bettina was unfortunately absent during the launch, Dila Karinta was accompanied by various speakers, including the Managing Director of Phoenix Communications, Alistair Speirs, Bizzy’s cofounder, Norman Sasono, the cofounder of Andalin, Rifki Pratomo, and others. The launch was held at what Speirs called “the first coworking space”, Starbucks. While the launch covered topics within the book, it included personal insights from each of the speakers on the startup environment, including the difficulty in making a startup, the necessity of perseverance in the face of failure, and many other topics.
Here are some important highlights from the event:
- The first question that should be asked before making a startup is “Do you really want to start a startup”
- “A startup is a newly formed business with particular momented behind it based on perceived demand…The intention of a startup is to grow rapidly as a result of offering something that addresses a particular market gap”
- It is difficult to create a startup by yourself –– build a team consisting of 2 or 3 people covering the technical, business development and creativity/marketing side
- Startups does necessarily have to be tech oriented but must use tech in order to be scalable
- It is important to have conviction and belief that your startup will succeed
- Because of Indonesian regulation (once a startup gets money from abroad, it becomes foreign), a lot of Indonesian companies are no longer Indonesian (Tokopedia is Chinese, Go-Jek is Singaporean)
- When startups get easy funding, they fall into the trap of over/reckless spending
- Indonesia’s startup landscape differs from Silicon Valley’s in that it tackles real world problems
ANGIN will continue to support efforts made for mentoring startups in Indonesia.
