AdaDiskon is one of the most popular websites to find deals in Indonesia. It has recently turned profitable and has impressive web stats with over 180,000 monthly unique visitors and 500,000 page views.
However, this is just the start of a successful start-up story. It isn’t complete and there is still a long way to go. We managed to speak to AdaDiskon’s founder, Aswin Utomo (second from right), to learn more about his start-up story, vision and experience.
1. What inspired you to form AdaDiskon?
I was inspired by a forum style website which featured deals and promotions back in the U.S. When I was still working in Los Angeles, my co-workers and I checked that website everyday, obsessively looking for best new deals to come along. When I came back to Indonesia in 2007, I noticed that there isn’t any website that allows us to learn what deals are around us. Being a bargain hunter myself, I want to recreate that feeling of discovering great deals for Indonesians.
2. What are the 3 biggest problems faced so far?
Sales: Convincing advertising agencies as well as brands to advertise is one. A lot of time, we are pitted against other well established online media which have far more superior visitors count and page views.
The biggest job for us is to be able to educate those agencies as well as brands that for some products, due to us having such a targeted audiences (mostly women & all are shoppers), advertising with us would be much more effective.
Talent Recruiting: Although we have a very strong team in AdaDiskon.com this year, talent recruiting is still one of the biggest problems. It is very tough to compete with big well known brands with big resources.
Limited Resources: I guess my family can be classified as AdaDiskon’s angel investor. AdaDiskon is still self funded right now. Having limited resources is frustrating at times. AdaDiskon couldn’t be as aggressive as I wanted it to be.
3. What’s the big vision?
I believe deals and promotions is a very wide and promising topic in Indonesia. All Indonesians loves bargain hunting. Being a media itself, AdaDiskon.com is strategically positioned to be at the center as well as the first step to be the leader of the deals and promotions space in Indonesia.
Leveraging on AdaDiskon’s established audience and community, my big vision is to build more profitable businesses around AdaDiskon.com. I have already thought about 5 to 6 more business model other than online advertising that I can implement in the next 2 to 3 years. I have two additional business model planned this year. In fact, one of them will be launching very soon and I am very excited about it.
4. Any tips for budding entrepreneurs?
I think being passionate, disciplined, and tough are very important. Starting a start-up is like a starting an emotional roller coaster ride that never ends. Being able to persevere at tough times when things seem to be falling apart is one. But being able to enjoy those happy moments for example, when your team just closed a big sale or won awards is really the key to make this roller coaster ride a very rewarding experience.
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