Freelancer teaches Indonesians how to hack through early marketing costs

Growth hacking seminar held at Creo House in Jakarta

On September 18, Freelancer.co.id – the Indonesian regional website of Freelancer.com – held its fourth SESI CERDAS seminar (Translation: Intelligence Session) titled “Game of Growth: A Brief on Growth Hacking for Your Startup.” The overall thesis of the session was to show that modern business development is no longer people-centric, but rather, API-centric.

The event was co-organized by the Indonesia Freelancers Association. It was supported by StartupBisnis, a local news portal for entrepreneurship, and hosted by Creo House, a co-working space and coffee shop for freelancers and start-ups in Jakarta’s Kemang district.

Freelancer loosely defines growth hacking as a method to grow one’s business without spending a lot of money. It relies primarily on a one-man marketing team and the internet to tap potential customers. Growth hackers use any means possible to promote the business, but focus heavily on low-cost techniques that include social media campaigns and viral content.

See: How to Start a Business Without Any Money

The event highlighted growth hacking strategies gleaned from real-life experiences. Speakers included Freelancer.com’s vice president of growth and data science Willix Halim (the man credited with building Freelancer’s user base to 13 million users worldwide), who presented via live video feed from Sydney. Achmad Zaky, co-founder and CEO of Indonesia’s ecommerce giant Bukalapak, also spoke.

“At the end of the day, it’s all about growth, [and] then revenue,” explains Halim. “In Freelancer.com, I run the growth team […] The team is very technical and multi-disciplinary consisting of data scientists, engineers, mathematicians, statisticians, physicists, and product managers.”

Zaky claims Bukalapak now has one million listings, more than 120,000 sellers, two million page views, and 300,000 visitors per day, thanks to the help of growth hacking techniques. He says, “I’m not saying this is easy […] There’s no textbook on how to do the best growth hacking tactics. You need to do a lot of experiments just like what Bukalapak has done.”

Freelancer claims internet usage in Indonesia is projected to reach 149 million people by 2015, with 76 percent of mobile users active on social media. Freelancer’s Indonesia country manager Helma Kusuma says this data spells a huge opportunity for startups looking to grow quickly in the archipelago.