Rama Mamuaya

the retarded techno-rants of an idiot

  • Venture Capitalists : The Jakarta - Singapore Connection

    • 24 Apr 2010
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    It's been very confusing lately to see several Venture Capitalists come to Indonesia to start finding the next big thing here in our beloved country. Why? Because most of them are from Singapore. I met with 4 VC company so far, and another couple of VC companies i haven't met but i know they exists. The funny thing is, 6 our of 8 of the VC companies i know are from Singapore.

    Now this is intriguing, why would Singaporean VCs start investing in Indonesian web startups? The answer is, they wouldn't. As it turns out, they consider Singapore as the entry point to penetrate Indonesian market. East Ventures, for example, is founded by 4 people in which 2 of them are from Japan. East Ventures is based in Singapore, but now brutally (note the exaggeration) investing in several Indonesian startups including Tokopedia and several more i can't disclose. Second example is VentureX Capital, another Singaporean-based VC company with a representative here in Jakarta which i believe is led by Andy Zain (Chairman Mobile Monday Indonesia). I met Andy a couple of days ago but it was so crowded that i forgot to ask him about VentureX Cap. My bad. And 4 of those VC companies are mostly from the US but they're planning to operate in Singapore even though their main interests are investing in Indonesian startups.  

    Let's see this from a couple angles. On the first side, it's great to see how the world is trying to penetrate Indonesian market even though they're still afraid of operating fully here in Indonesia so they prefer to operate in Singapore where everything is more organized. But on the other hand, it shows that we really don't have any local VCs moving or at least reacting to this internet startup phenomenon. Sad.

    I myself feel a strong relation with Singapore when it comes to tech startups investments in Indonesia. Most of my investor partners are from Singapore. Haven't got the chance to discuss with them regarding this Jakarta-Singapore connection, but definitely will. In the mean while, I'm still trying to encourage local investors and VC companies to believe in our own local power. Investors are all about the money, if you're an investor or work for a VC company and you haven't seen this opportunity then i feel sorry for you, but i will gladly show you the power (and the money) of Indonesian startups.
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  • A New Hope. Whatever.

    • 24 Apr 2010
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    So i finally hook up this Posterous account of mine with a domain name rampok.net. This will be my secondary playground where i can blog in English, my first priority being -of course- DailySocial.net. I've decided to use Posterous instead of Wordpress because now i can post blog entries much easier via email, very helpful since i really don't have much time in front of my laptop to blog.

    Here, you can expect blog posts about tech scene in Indonesia, i love startups and I'm building my own startup so definitely gonna talk obsessively about web and tech startups. That's basically all the things that i know, so that's all the thing I'm gonna write about. If you're looking for gadgets, politics and in-depth economy review, you might as well get the hell out of here.

    Nevertheless, i bought a domain name simply to commit to myself that i will blog regularly (meaning once every two weeks or so). Hopefully this one won't end like rampok.org, vanish and forgotten.
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  • Indonesian Web Startup : The Investment

    • 6 Apr 2010
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    Indonesia, frankly, is a bit fucked up country. The corruption and political menace is still dominating, you can smell it in the air. 

    But beside all that crappy things, we still have another thing that we can be proud about. Technology adoption rate is high, and it's only getting bigger. Since early 2003, Indonesian internet user has been one of the most active user on Friendster. It went viral and since then Friendster still see Indonesia as an important market. 

    Today, Indonesia have 21 million users on Facebook. That's HUGE. Twitter is basically the same, we have a significant number of users on Twitter. In short, i can say that Indonesian people LOVE to stay connected with their friends via the internet. The basic culture of Indonesian people is commune, having a good relationship with friends and even strangers. The internet facilitate this behavior, giving it more capability and also minimizing the cost for doing so.

    In the future, local startups are growing and these entrepreneur are the people who understand the internet culture in Indonesia with all it's potential. These entrepreneurs grow their business in an ecosystem where no one back them up, no VC, no governmental funding nothing, nada, zip!  But they survived by bootstrapping (self-funding) their startups. Which is one reason why VCs are very welcome to come and invest in these local startups. 

    Some startups are lucky to have investors to back them up with seed funding, like Adandu and Tokopedia. They have sufficient fund until they can come up with a solid product and business plan. Most startups don't have such privilege, although their ideas is just as innovative.

    On my latest post, i stressed out how Indonesian entrepreneur have the same level of innovation and idea creation just like startups from Silicon Valley. This power of creativity and innovation combined with a semi-mature market (lots of them) ready to try out anything interesting on the internet is an insane synergy. 

    Innovative Idea + Solid Team + Sufficient Funding + Huge Market = Fucking Awesome

    East Ventures, a Singapore-based VC company with 2 Indonesians on board (CMIIW) recently enter the Indonesian startup scene by investing in Tokopedia (round A funding). And i keep hearing this rumor that some of the angels and larger VC company from the US are now heading for Indonesia. And some of them are pretty successful in Silicon Valley.

    We'll be (anxiously) waiting for you guys.

    For you who's interested to see what Indonesian startups can do, meet some of us at Echelon 2010 Singapore this June. A couple of startups will be pitching and exhibiting their products and services there. I will also be there, and would really love to talk to you guys who's curious about the tech-startup scene in Indonesia! 

    If you're coming, ping me. If you don't, you should.
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  • Creative Ideas Are Cheap

    • 4 Apr 2010
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    This morning, i was watching a video post on Techcrunch about startups valuation featuring Ron Conway, Marc Andressen and David Hornik. In that post, i saw Blippy.com. A startup which i've never heard about before, so i give Blippy a visit just to see what's the fuss about it. Apparently, it's very similar to Twitter. It's basically a microblogging service for buyers. So, if Twitter ask you "What's Happening?", Blippy would ask you "What Are You Buying? And How Much?".

    To make it even more intriguing, i was once involved in a web project very similar to Blippy. I don't think i can mention the website, but i was involved half the way before it was finally cancelled due to a some crucial problems. When i think of it, the idea was really awesome and was well-planned. Creative side was very cool, and they even have a business model. But some issue (i'm guessing lack funding to be one of the problems) forced the project to freeze until today. I was involved since over a year ago.

    This proves that Indonesian creative thinkers are still in the same level (innovation and idea wise) as any other creative thinker around the globe. In 2005 Indonesian entrepreneur sold Moodmill.com to a US company. Moodmill is a microblogging service, they haven't even invented the term "microblogging" back in the days. This is how good we are. 

    So, what is holding us from creating a world-changing services?

    Funding is a serious issue, especially for small entrepreneur that doesn't have access to  investors. And the irony is lots of investors doesn't know what startups to invest to. This gap has been lingering (and haunting) Indonesian creative thinkers, leaving them penniless to develop their idea into a solid product and service. 

    Fantastic ideas are important, but you can't execute your ideas without a few crucial things : good funding and a solid team. Ideas are cheap, but executing your idea, converting your idea into a real product is expensive.
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  • About

    A Tech Blogger, Startup Advisor, Consultant, and Social Media Enthusiast.

    Blogging at DailySocial.net, writes about Indonesia's web-startup scene, investments and basically anything related to the web and internet.

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