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Stories of successful startups often send me into a tizzy. ”You mean Jack Ma started Alibaba from his cramped apartment?” They remind me that bumpy beginnings aren’t an excuse to give up but fuel to keep going. Indonesia’s unicorns are no exception: They’ve got fascinating founding stories, though not all startups are as lucky.
Today we look at:
- How Gojek and Bukalapak turned rejection on its head
- A graph analytics startup’s US$105m win
- Other newsy highlights such as Shopee’s logistics services expansion in Malaysia, and Prosus Ventures’ possible US$200m backing in Pharmeasy
PREMIUM SUMMARY
How Gojek and Bukalapak became the lucky ones
What does it take to build a successful company? We look at how Bukalapak and Gojek grew into unicorns in Indonesia, and why another startup failed despite its best efforts.
- Before Bukalapak became an ecommerce giant, founder Achmad Zaky had faced skepticism from retailers and potential investors, given that there was no successful internet-based business in Indonesia at the time. That was when Zaky decided to focus his marketing efforts on cyclists and built what would later be pitched to investors as the largest bicycle marketplace in Indonesia.
- Gojek may be a decacorn today, but the multiservice tech giant started as a call center service in a Jakarta garage – with the team manually matching driver-partners to customers using a spreadsheet. With a lack of funding, co-founder Nadiem Makarim had to borrow money from friends and family to tide the company through to success.
- Not all startups are so lucky, though – and YEC.co.id was one of them. Founder An’imna Husna’s plans to build an online bus ticketing platform in 2014 were thwarted by two things: fleet owners’ dependence on agents, who typically look after traffic tickets or road accidents, and the low margin from bus ticket sales. Upon seeing that his idea wouldn’t reach the economies of scale and reap profits, Husna wound up YEC.co.id before things had even really begun.
Read more: How Gojek and Bukalapak found the initial spark that turned them into giants
STARTUP SPOTLIGHT
TigerGraph’s US$105 million win
TigerGraph, a graph database and analytics company, has scored a cool US$105 million in its series C funding round led by investment firm Tiger Global, bringing its total funding raised to date to US$170 million.
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