Freelancer Indonesia Looks to Inspire Entrepreneurship with Local Contest

Since setting its eye on Indonesia in October, Australia-based global outsourcing online marketplace Freelancer now has more than 100,000 Indonesian users. Besides business, Indonesia country manager Helma Kusuma told us that Freelancer also has the noble goal of spurring entrepreneurship growth through the act of doing freelance jobs. And to help inspire more Indonesians to take part in the freelancing and entrepreneurship industries, the company is holding a contest which lets Indonesian people share their inspirational stories about the two professions.

The competition’s name is “I Am Brave. I Am Free. I Am Freelancer.co.id.” To participate in the contest, you must be a Freelancer member as well as a fan and follower of the company’s Indonesian social pages. Participants need to write their stories on a blog, and then put the story link as well as their Freelancer username on the competition’s photo page here. The competition promises an iPad Mini for the main winner and IDR 1 million (US$103) for each of the two other finalists.

The deadline for entries is March 10th. You can find more information about the competition here.

Inspiring entrepreneurship in Indonesia

So what’s the relationship between freelancing and entrepreneurship? A lot, says Helma. As a former fellow freelancer and entrepreneur herself, she believes that the habit of taking freelance jobs will encourage people to open their own businesses some day. She said that taking a freelance job introduces the idea of being “free” when doing a job. This idea includes having the luxury to choose which clients you want to take, and what working time suits you best. And when you’ve tasted that freedom, you want to taste it again.

Helma said that around 90 percent of the job offers on Freelancer come from developed countries – the UK, the US, and Australia are the top three employer countries. Most of the freelancers come from developing countries like the Philippines and Bangladesh. Hence, the money offered for the listed jobs there is quite significant for people living in Indonesia.

She then explained that these people will eventually start seeing more income from their side jobs, and start to think that they could actually freelance more often to make a living.Eventually they will receive so many freelance jobs that they can transition into starting their own company and give those jobs to their subordinates. This has happened to a lot of Freelancer users over the years.

And even if not so many people have come so far as opening their own businesses, a lot of them have felt the benefits of working freelance jobs anyway. Helma shared the story of one Indonesian Freelancer member who needed extra income for marriage. The guy found the answer by taking jobs from Freelancer and from there, he managed to earn enough money to stage his dream marriage. Helma also told us about a guy with four children ridden with huge debts. In desperation, the guy started to look for freelance jobs and in the end managed to pay back all the debt. Both of them may not have started their own companies, but their stories have touched and inspired a lot of people to start taking freelance jobs too.

Standing Out from the Herd

Credit: jephmaystruck.com