BOOST Conference Brings Silicon Valley and Japanese Start-Up Expertise to Indonesia

The BOOST Conference, which aims to help existing local start-ups grow and mature as scalable companies in the future, is heading to Indonesia, bringing Silicon Valley and Japanese expertise to entrepreneurs in the country. The conference, which will be held on January 17th to 18th, 2012, at the InterContinental Jakarta MidPlaza, will bring speakers such as Dave McClure (500 startups), Tetsuya Mizuguchi (ex-producer of Sega Rally), Brent Hurley (YouTube co-founder), Nils Johnson (Y Combinator), Jameson Hsu (Mochi Meida), Jia Shen (RockYou Asia), and Steven Goh (mig33).

At the BOOST event, Indonesian entrepreneurs will be nurtured and given advice directly from the people who have built global tech brands such as YouTube, PayPal, Sega Rally, and more. It’s also a golden opportunity to connect with investors; and as a whole, this is such a great chance for the local start-up ecosystem.

BOOST, which is run by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs and by investors for investors, will include panel topics such as:

• Financing start-ups – Listen to entrepreneurs and VCs as they discuss start-up valuation and financing from both sides of the table.
• Running incubators – Look behind the scenes of the world’s top incubator programs as they describe different incubation models.
• Start-up life-cycle – Successful entrepreneurs will share their up and down experience while founding and growing their start-up.

The conference will also work closely with tech organizations such as SparxUp, Founders Institute, Project Eden, and many more, to select the BOOST 50, its list of high potential start-ups based on revenue, user-base and investment to date.

One of the lead organizers of this event, Ryu Kawano, said to me through email:

I read your article titled “Where Are The Start-up Founders In Indonesia?” and I think you raise a critical point about developing the start-up ecosystem in Indonesia. When I compare Indonesia to other tech communities around the world, what is missing in Indonesia are strong mentors who can guide the younger start-ups.

That’s why we have tried to bring established entrepreneurs from overseas to Indonesia. BOOST is about creating a forum to allow younger entrepreneurs to interact with their more established peers overseas. We’ve focused on bringing people who’ve done it before in the Valley and Japan.

With incubators such as East Ventures Alpha, Project Eden, Batavia Incubator, Ideosource and now the BOOST Conference itself, making it possible for Valley and Japanese entrepreneurs to come and mentor the local entrepreneurs, hopefully we’ll see an even stronger pool of local products to write about next year.

BOOST attendance numbers in Jakarta are limited so as to provide an opportunity for small group mentoring sessions with the speakers. To participate, interested entrepreneurs can submit an application form and the business plan pitch to the BOOST website.