Indo Tekno Podcast

In Part III of our "Hari-Hari Awal" or "Early Days" series, we interview Ajey Gore , Gojek's former Group CTO. Now an Operating Partner at Sequoia Capital , Ajey describes as "largely unplanned" his career progression from his early days in Bangalore to Indonesia's most important engineering leadership position. He instead followed this progression much like...

While many players in Indonesia's hospitality industry were paralysed by the 70-90% declines in occupancy that COVID brought about, leading tech-enabled hotel player Bobobox immediately began to deep dive into behavioural shifts amongst its largely Millenial customer base. In addition to acting on obvious insights such as improved cleanliness and hygiene, the Bobobox team also seized on the g...

Indonesia's long tail "fragmented trade" of mom & pop's, warungs etc. can be 50-80% of sales for big CPG companies like Unilever & P&G. However, reliable insights into the "sell-out" of a product to the ultimate customer are nearly impossible to achieve, given the labyrinthine distribution networks and low levels of digitization at the retail end-points. P...

Tessa Wijaya , Cofounder and COO of leading payments firm Xendit , details the dramatic shift in payments use cases during the COVID era, away from the embattled online travel segment; and toward other payments scenarios such as crypto exchanges, gaming and edtech. Indonesia's first graduating start-up from the Y-Combinator program, Xendit continues to integrate with leading BNPL providers, S...

Some 18 out of Silicon Valley's 20 largest unicorns have used venture debt in order to reduce shareholding dilution, extend their runway, and accelerate growth with limited cost to the business. Chin Chao and Paul Ong of regional venture debt leader Innoven Capital offer a primer for Indonesian entrepreneurs on this rapidly growing form of fund-raising. Positioned as a "synergistic partn...

Originally formed to address the sad fact that air pollution takes 5+ years off the life of the average Jakarta resident, sister companies nafas & aria have achieved renown in Indonesia's tech community with their pioneering work in air monitoring and purification. Cofounder Piotr Jakubowski and team are now aggressively adding features such as a virus risk index for both enterprise and r...

"At the end of the day, somebody needs to aggregate neighbourhood demand" in order to become the dominant solutions provider to Indonesia's massive small retailer segment, states Ula Founder and CEO Nipun Mehra . Ula is founded on the provocative assumption that "the traditional store actually has a massive advantage over modern retail formats." The successful model will p...

Indonesia has become a crucible for tremendous amounts of experimentation in ecommerce business models. Steven Wongsoredjo , Cofounder and CEO of Super , has combined both the group-buying elements of global category leaders such as China's Pinduoduo , along with several uniquely Indonesian aspects such as agent-based sales. Shirking the "Jabodetabek" focus of most other ecommerce p...

Neneng Goenadi , Country Managing Director for Grab , is one of the Indonesian tech world's most accomplished and charismatic female business leaders. Neneng discusses the company's aggressive expansion into new, lower tier markets and multiple other initiatives to help spur economic recovery from the pandemic. She attributes Grab's leadership in part to having built its own in-hous...

China e-commerce GMV totalled a massive RMB11.3 trn in 2020, or 12% of the country’s GDP. Indonesia e-commerce GMV of USD40b meanwhile was less than 2% of GDP, suggesting massive long-term upside on its way to 12% and beyond. Today’s guests, Brian Marshal and Andreas Thamrin , are cofounders of SIRCLO . SIRCLO’s sole purpose is to help small, mid-sized, and enterprise brands to sell online. SIRCLO...

Jeth Soetoyo , Founder of Pintu , joins us to examine the widening application of blockchain and crypto-assets in Indonesia. Jeth cuts through the hype to make an easy-to-grasp and persuasive case for the steady growth of adoption of crypto-assets such as Pintu's own Rupiah Token . He describes Indonesia as very "forward looking" in terms of crypto asset regulation. Jeth sees in blo...

AC Ventures Founder Adrian Li reflects on some of the dramatic changes that have set in to Indonesia's start-up scene since he began VC investing in 2013, from the significant improvement in founder pedigree to the steady rise of Fintech as his favorite sector. He also opines on where a comparison with China can inform successful venture building in Indo, and where it can mislead. Adrian also...

Visinema Founder Angga Sasongko is the director of some of Indonesia's most celebrated films, such as " Hari untuk Amanda " and " Filosofi Kopi ". Angga reflects on a range of topics, from the necessary balance between technology and the humanities in Indonesia's educational system, to the impact of the smartphone on film & entertainment, to collaboration with lea...

The Indonesian Logistics Association recently reported that logistics volumes fell 60-70% from before the onset of COVID-19. e-commerce logistics enablers however grew 40%+ in 2020. Leading Indonesian logistics start-up Shipper delivered a stunning 6X growth last year. Shipper Co-founder Phil Opamuratawongse walks listeners through the company's success in onboarding e-commerce merchants to i...

Indonesians spend an astounding nine hours daily on their smartphones. Country Director for Facebook in Indonesia Pieter Lydian joins us to share insights into the 98% of Indonesia's online population that consultant PWC claims interact with its Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp platforms. He also profiles the company's broad-based push to super-charge the country's warungs and MSME&...

A stunning 90% of S&P 500 Index companies in the US published sustainability reports in 2019, up from 20% in 2011, according to G&A. Gojek Head of Sustainability Tanah Sullivan summarizes the company's own recently released sustainability report and makes many extremely persuasive arguments why all companies need to articulate increased focus on environmental, social and governance (E...

By November, 2020, around 550,000 Indonesian hotel employees, or ~78.5% of the entire industry, had been furloughed or laid off , according to PHRI. RedDoorz Founder Amit Saberwal reflects deeply on the importance of decisiveness, a culture of transparency with employees & hotel partners, and steadfastness amidst crisis. These factors emboldened RedDoorz not only to navigate COVID, but moreove...

According to Hootsuite, 62% of Indonesia is connected to social media. Of this, 64% are on Twitter. Dwi Adriansah , Country Head of Twitter Indonesia , shares with us a range of unique use cases that his compatriots have come up with during the pandemic. Entertainment reigns supreme as the biggest category, and has become ever more popular as users yearn for content during the pandemic. Dwi also o...

Founded at the very beginning of the pandemic, BukuWarung 's meteoric rise to serve more than 5m SME merchants suggests that Indonesia's warungs have accelerated their embrace of digital solutions during COVID. Founder Chinmay Chauhan explains how the company plans to grow 10X this year by expanding from current bookkeeping, payments and ecommerce enablement to a growing menu of MSME fin...

Levi Sani of Nalagenetics represents a new generation of entrepreneurs seeking to apply innovations to Indonesia's beleaguered healthcare sector. A champion of the rapidly emerging "pharmacogenomics" field (the study of how genes affect a person's response to drugs), Nalagenetics has also leveraged its focus on Southeast Asian populations to roll out a number of critical diagno...

In our 3rd instalment on Special Purpose Acquisition Companies, we survey 20 leading Indonesian entrepreneurs for their most pressing questions around this increasingly popular vehicle to public listing. Jim Perry & Udhay Furtado of Citigroup , the world's most prolific underwriter of SPAC's, and Abhay Singh , founder of one of the region's first announced SPAC mergers ( VMAC ),...

Roughly half of Indonesians between the ages of 13-30 are “gamers” of some sort. Jonathan Yuwono , GM of Rebellion Esports , along with Team Manager & eSports influencer Claudia “ ClauPaw ” Theodora, navigate us through the gruelling daily regimen of a top-notch esports athlete. While Indonesia has fared poorly in most major traditional sports, Jonathan sees tremendous opportunity amongst the...

While the pandemic has turned nearly all aspects of life upside-down, online Home & Living in Indonesia has seen steady and robust growth, explains Dekoruma Founder Dimas Priawan . In its mission to digitize the entire supply chain of Home & Living, Dekoruma grew 3X in 2020. With offline interaction all but impossible; customers, suppliers, contractors and designers have accelerated their...

Veteran emerging markets fund manager David Halpert , Founder of Prince Street Capital , reflects on his history of deep involvement in Indonesia, including key early investments in national champions such as Gojek . Indonesia is a key component of Prince Street's unique " digital decolonization " strategy, which David describes in detail. He also discusses important tech-related in...

Indonesia unemployment last year surged to its highest level since 2011. GajiGesa Cofounder Vidit Agrawal discusses the concept of Earned Wage Access, and how employers use the technology to address employee financial stress, which otherwise can drive lost productivity and absenteeism. EWA positively impacts retention and the employee experience, and is proving a valuable tool in teaching financia...