Indonesia is unique, we are a nation comprised of thousands of islands, 70% of us still use feature phones and only about 9% percent of us have credit cards. More than 50% of Indonesians don’t live in cities so it makes sense that smartphone users are only 8.7% among 200 million mobile phone users.
Based on those facts alone, it should be obvious that Indonesia is different. We can’t just blatantly apply the same rules of startups like the Silicon Valley players or carbon copy the successful startups out there. Indonesia needs different or more customized startups, better suited for our unique environment.
Everybody will have their own opinion on this but here’s my version of what startups I would love to see more in Indonesia:
1. E-Commerce
E-Commerce is definitely an obvious choice and there’s no such thing as too much e-commerce. But I would definitely love to see more niche-based e-commerce. I still find it hard to get my favorite basketball shoes online (at least authentic ones). How about shopping for groceries online? Anybody needs a service to deliver beer? McD and KFC provide online ordering right now so why not make a startup for delivering home-made food for singles? Love the rise of man-only online fashion shops like fashionpria.com and brodofootwear.com.
Find your niche and run with it.
2. Social Enterprise
What’s not to love about social startups like Ruma.co.id? They provide means for everybody to be an entrepreneur by selling airtime directly from their mobile phones. They have recruited and trained over 10,000 low income entrepreneurs in Indonesia to sell prepaid airtime, electricity and other value-added service.
Startups like these create better living for people, increase entrepreneur percentage for the country and basically make the world a better place. We need more of you guys.
3. Empowerment
When I heard that we’re going to have an Indonesian version of kickstarter, I was ecstatic! So ecstatic that I made a project for it (although it got wasted). Wujudkan is the kickstarter for Indonesia, it has a couple of interesting projects in social, games, movie, even a museum project. This sort of startup empowers us to do more, and can help us make our dream come true.
Other empowerments includes helping business take care of the nasty stuffs like IPayMu that helps us manage payment, Tokopedia.com helps us sell stuff online and d-courier and gojek help with delivery.
4. Education
I would definitely love to see more startups in the education field. For example kieeds helps parents monitor their kids at school. How about startups for digital textbooks? It sure beats carrying tons of books to school. What about apps for helping students study and connect the students to collaborate more online?
That’s my take on what startups I would love to see more of, what’s your take?
Aria Rajasa is the CEO of gantibaju.com, a clothing startup backed by a very strong designer community. His passion in entrepreneurship has gotten him to establish a number of companies in technology and design industries since leaving university.
Aria Raja.
Sharp observation.
This is good.
Thank you.