I believe that business, contrary to popular believe is not a zero-sum game. There’s always a way for everybody to win. If you can’t find it, it doesn’t mean that it’s not there. It only means that you just can’t find a viable win-win solution.
When I started gantibaju.com, I got a lot of help from the t-shirt business community. They share abundance amount of information including their ‘secret’ methods of printing, their local distribution channels and their contacts. It was beyond me at first on why they would help me, but all of them commented in pretty much the same way: to help grow the industry, to ensure regeneration and enrich the healthy community of sharing. They believe that they couldn’t have done it themselves so building the industry in a collective measure is the way to go.
The same happens in the startup community in Indonesia. It’s a vibrant and knowledge-sharing community where people would share their methods, technology usage and contacts. Friendly bunch.
Even in building a business model, there’s always a win-win solution in such a meaning that literally everybody wins (expect maybe their competitors). I love to take example on these 2 win-win business model.
International Example: Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is an internet browser loved by hundreds of millions of its users, 400 million approximately. It’s very popular mostly because it’s free. But best of all, for a non-profit foundation, it boasts a striking high revenue at approximately $123 million dollars in 2010 it extended the deal last year for $300 million per year with Google.
Yes, despite it being free it’s profitable. Why does Google pay Mozilla $300 million per year? So Mozilla Firefox will keep using Google search as its default search engine. Which search bar? Well you see that tiny search bar on the top right? Yeah that one.
For the users, using Google to search is a win solution and Firefox being free is also a win for them. The revenue from Google will keep Mozilla operating nicely and profitably. Google will get more page views on their ads from Firefox users which holds about 24% marketshare of all internet browsers.
Everybody wins
Local example: Ruma
I met with Ruma at Boost Conference a couple of months ago and it’s a surprise to me that this social (yet profitable) startup stayed off my radar until recently.
Ruma enables people in rural areas to sell prepaid cellphone airtimes without any initial investment other than having a phone. That same airtime can also be used to pay for electrical and utility bills as well.
It has created over 10,000 microentrepreneurs all around Indonesia serving over 1,000,000 customers. As I quote from Ruma.co.id:
Over 85% of the customers are women and the majority lived below the poverty line when before joining Ruma. Because of this exponential growth, Ruma’s profile increased significantly after winning several awards: 1st place at The Harvard Social Enterprise Conference and 2nd place at the Global Social Venture Competition.
Ruma brings a massive social impact by increasing the income of rural society, bringing them better access to technology and they still remain profitable with over 100 employees all around Indonesia.
Conclusion
Judging from those examples, I believe whole-heartedly that every problem has a win-win solution. So find it, experiment with it and do what other people think is impossible. Good luck!
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Aria Rajasa is the CEO of gantibaju.com, a clothing startup not dissimilar to Threadless but with a touch of Indonesia and a very strong design community. His passion in entrepreneurship has gotten him to start a number of companies since leaving university.
