Some days ago, I read an article on Businessweek Indonesia magazine 15-21st September 2011 edition about Steve Perlman and his business incubator, Rearden.
Steve, Rearden founder, is developing DIDO (distributed-input-distributed-output). It is explained on the magazine, DIDO a wireless technology that is expected to be the solution for the network traffic and disturbed phone calls.
The article is interesting for me because it is not only the story of Steve and DIDO, but more about Steve Perlman mentality who always gives innovation to all the things he developed. He even criticizes the Silicon Valley mentality that is not that cool as it used to be in which people dare to take risk and focus on innovation.
From that article, I see that Steve Perlman feel sorry about the condition in Silicon Valley that is flabby and not that adventurous. They are focusing more on investing internet business that seems to be interesting from the outside. However, still, some people there want to work hard to make innovation.
Another interesting thing is as stated by Andy Rubin (Android), Steve ever came and brought $10.000 to Andy in 2003 when Android is run out of money. As stated in the article written by Andy, Steve did not want to take the stocks. He wanted to invest on the idea and the thing to change the history.
Then I compare it to the condition of technology startup in Indonesia, entrepreneurship, and business dealing with technology in Indonesia. For sure, it cannot be generalized, there are many factors should be considered. On the other hand, what is done by Steve can be an inspiration for startups in which innovation and new development or improvement for business development.
It does not mean that the recent startups or services are not innovative. They might be innovative with their own way according to their own ability. However, they still do not show the innovation or bring the idea up to the next stage and disruptive.
From the casual conversation that i had, reading other information and from some discussion, I think that there is an obstacle other than the spirit to create new ideas. I think the obstacle on idea can be defeated by developers, founders and netpreneurs in Indonesia. However, there is another obstacle, capital.
Creating service innovation which has not existed before might need a lot of money for research, development, and to get users. Limited capital can be a disturbing problem faced by netprenuer or startup although they have a good idea.
Then I come into the conclusion (it might be a premature one) that the ones who should support the process of innovation, new invention are the incubators, accelerators, angel investor and VCs. They are the one who will take the risk by funding for innovation or improvement from the previous idea.
The startups/developers can feel free from heavy mind about money so they can focus on the development, research, and strategy to get users. They will not be bothered by how they can get money or how they can give the capital back.
While as a business person, founders or startups should learn about business elements, users’ acquirements, monetizing strategy, business plan and so on. On the other hand, they also need to make new ideas, innovations, improvements, disruptive ideas and solution for users’ problems. It needs focus and hard work. It requires most of their time to work on.
I believe that this article is discussable and needs some other opinion. I am trying to improve it by searching for references and discuss it with some relations. Therefore, if you have any comments or opinion, kindly write them up on the comments column.
