Gerakan Bawah Tanah - Mr. GBT

Want to know something hot in the Indonesia's start-up domain? It's Go-Jek . It's the Uber of Indonesia. What is Go-Jek ? It's an application to search for " ojek ". Ojek is a motorcycle transportation for public done by individuals. Or a motorcycle taxi. It's an Indonesian - or, I should say, Asian - thing. Many places in Indonesia are easier reached by motorcycle; streets are narrow. Motorcycles are much cheaper compared to cars. Everybody owns motorcycle here. And, if there are traffic jams, ojek is your best friend. It can get you there faster. Ojek is not regulated in Indonesia. Everybody can become an ojek operator (driver), while if you run a business using cars you have to get a license. It's a grey area. In any case, if think Uber can be illegal in Indonesia. Ojek is perfectly legal. You can also transport goods using ojek. It's a threat to courier business. By the way, this is yet another reason why you should be in Indonesia. T...

I hate it when people comment on my blog, but they don't actually want to comment. What they want to do is to put their link(s) into the comment so that they generate traffic and backlink to their site. It's one of those SEO thingy. Yes, I notice some of you are doing this in this blog. One thing I notice is that they don't actually read the posting (article). They just post their comments blindly. I suspect, some of them are also using some sort of tools to do it. Thus, it doesn't matter if I say this bluntly or not. They'll never read it anyway. If you do read this post, don't put comments unless you mean it.

I just got back from  InnovFest 2014 reception (dinner). One of the frequently questions I got was if I were from a business incubator. I said I am not. I am just a technopreneur and a mentor for several startups. Then, I keep on thinking, do we really need a business incubator? Business incubators are similar to incubators used for premature babies. They are used to give those babies fighting chance against the world. The same thing for business incubators. They help startups. If you have a baby, would you dream to have your baby going through incubator? Probably not. You want your baby to be healthy and can face the world. But, I have a feeling that if somebody (you) starts a start-up, he (you) would like to get into an incubator. Strange. What do you think?

Culture is so fascinating. It is also important if you want to market a product (or service) to the people in that culture. To understand the culture, you have to be there - sort of speak. It baffles me that many IT-related companies are not in Indonesia to understand our culture :) This morning, I found this survey site that surveys the best football clubs according to their fans. (Here football means soccer in the North American term :)) The result is ... Persib is number one. Persib even beats Barca. ha ha ha. I guess most people - outside Indonesians - will find that strange. I don't. What/who is Persib? It's our city's (Bandung) football club. Indonesian football fans are maniacs. Just like UK's hooligans. The number of internet users in Indonesia is around 60 millions (according to Association of Indonesian ISPs). The number of cellphone users is easily doubles that. (The number of prepaid cell numbers already more than 200 millions.) You just add both of the...

I have just read a job opening for RIM. The target market is Indonesia, but the job is in Singapore. I just don't understand this. Why don't the open the job in Indonesia ? I have mentioned this over and over again. You have to be in the place to smell the coffee. You can't be form far afar. (Why there's no Starbucks in Italy, eh?) For example, go to BEC (in Bandung) or Roxy (in Jakarta) to see what's going on. If you don't know those two names, then you know diddly. My point exactly.

Earlier I wrote that Indonesians are switching from Facebook to Twitter. Many - mostly folks from Facebook - don't believe me. Well, what can I say. (I was right in predicting things since late 80s or early 90s.) Here's a newer statistics about twitter. The number one place of active twitter users in the world is ... Jakarta, our capital city. My city, Bandung, is "just" number 6 (six) on the list. Can you imagine this? Oh, you cannot since you're not here. Ha. Like I said, you guys (Facebook, Twitter, and all those internet tech companies) should have an office here. Just to smell the coffee and find out the trend for yourselves. Oh, coffee here is also good! :)

By accident I saw BlackBerry ads in Indonesia TV channels. I don't watch Indonesia TV channels that much, by the way. To me, these ads are way off the target. First, there is this ads about socialites using genuine BBs. The focus is on the genuine BBs. First of all, I don't think Indonesians buy BBs because of wanting to be the same as elite or socialites. It (maybe) used to be like that, but it is not like that. BBs are not the hottest things. Second, trying to convice us of genuine? Come on. You know us better than that :) Then, there's this ads about must using BB for accessing Facebook. Well, Facebook is still popular in Indonesia but many younger users are moving more towards twitter. (I've been saying this, but those decision makers at Facebook and RIM would not listen. Fine. It's their loss.) So, advertising more towards twitter as oppose to facebook is more logical. What should be done? Facebook was the only service to provide easy upload of photos, ...

Last time I wrote about the demise of BlackBerry (BB) in Indonesia and no one believed me. As you can see, BB's share is getting smaller and smaller. Android is getting all the attention. This time, I'll write my take on Facebook vs. Twitter. Indonesians love to talk. We don't write, but talk. It's just our culture. That's why the number of written publication in Indonesia is very small. Our culture translates well into Facebook. We love to tell people about our family and stuff. We love to show our photos. We love (class) reunions. Have a reunion, take pictures, upload them right away. Tell the world. Let's not go into taking photos of our food. That's another "strange" behaviors. Privacy? Well, that's not an issue to us. We don't really care. Ha! Seriously. Originally, Facebook is only accessible through web or computers. Access to computers are still limitted in Indonesia compared to cellphone. Thus, only a small number of people j...

Not long ago, whenever I meet somebody, I was asked for my BlackBerry (BB) pin. These days I rarely got this question. Mobile phone number was asked instead. Facebook notifications also mentioned that many of my friends are starting to use Facebook for Android application. It means that they are switching from BB to Android-based phone. Recent status from a friend also showed this trend. What does all of this mean? It means that Android is replacing BlackBerry in Indonesia. We used to be a big market for BB, but now it is declining. Long time ago I urged BB to open a research center in Indonesia. To investigate our behavior, why we loved BB. You cannot do this from remote. It has to be here, in Indonesia. BB was nice at one point. Its price packaging was great at that time. You can send as many messages as you like with BBM. At that time we have to pay for SMS. Very small amount of money, but still in our mind we have to pay while BBM is "free". We forgot that there i...

I am watching "maicih" twitter account. Interesting. Here's an example of an Indonesian entrepreneur, selling hot (potato?) chips, using twitter. The chips are popular and very hot. They scales to measure the hotness. They have moving vehicles (cars) and selling those hot popular chips in various streets in Bandung (and now other cities). If you want to buy their chips, all you have to do is look at (or follow) their twitter account. You'll know where they are. As for me, the chips are to hot for my stomach. I'll pass.

There has been a new development in tech start-up companies in Indonesia. Online media companies are taken by big companies. The recent take over is detik.com by Chairul Tanjung. Wow! (Some people think that this might be related to politics; as preparation of Indonesian election. Electronic media is important in Indonesia!) The investor scene is also buzzing. Here's an example of Indonesian tech investors . When I have more time, I'll write more on these. In the mean time, let's get the party going on. Woohoo ...