Q&A app Infonesia scored 500 Startups deal before even launching a product

Indonesian Q&A platform Infonesia raised seed funding from 500 Startups. The startup broke the news on its Instagram account today.

What’s unique about this investment: Infonesia hadn’t even launched a product when it got a term sheet.

The app’s out now. It launched on the Play Store on May 16. It’s a social network doing Q&A with a twist, sampling from sites like Quora and live streaming apps.

Pay to eavesdrop

Infonesia lets users ask each other questions. You can direct them at celebrities, public figures, or friends. If you pick up a question, you answer it by posting a picture and attaching a voice message.

Actress Prilly Latuconsina is one of the local celebs on Infonesia. Users answer by snapping a picture and attaching an audio file. Prilly’s answers are free and everyone can eavesdrop.

The kicker: you can make the recipient pay to unlock your answer, for a price you set yourself.

On top of that, others can also pay to unlock the answer – this is called “eavesdropping.” It costs only IDR1,000, less than US$0.10. Payments from eavesdroppers are split evenly between the person who asked and the person who answered.

Everyone loves gossip

Infonesia is the brainchild of a former intern at Uber Indonesia, Ihsan Fadhlur Rahman. In 2015, he was part of the team that helped Uber expand to new cities in the archipelago. Then he completed his MBA in Chicago and Barcelona.

Even though the startup was established last year, app development only began in March 2017.

“Between August 2016 and January 2017 I interviewed about 60 developers to find the right person to build this app,” Rahman tells Tech in Asia.

The idea formed when Rahman and a fellow MBA student were discussing the Instagram account Lambe Turah, an Indonesian gossip account with more than 2.6 million followers.

They thought it would be nice to have a platform that lets people ask those who are being gossiped about directly.

At launch, the app already has a handful of celebrities on board as “Hot Shot Respondents” – a concept similar to official accounts on Instagram and Twitter.