Speaking with Freelancer about its Biggest Investment Ever, Indonesia [Interview]

Recently Freelancer.com launced its Indonesian version at Freelancer.co.id. The company now provides Indonesian language support, a local customer service team, a concierge team, and local currency support. Freelancer is targeting 100,000 users in the country by the end of this year, and 400,000 by next year. For now, Indonesian users still just comprise 1.5 percent of the four million Freelancer.com users worldwide. The primary reason for this has been the lack of Indonesian language support – but that’s now available.

We chatted with the vice president of growth for Freelancer, Willix Halim, to learn more about the company’s expansion in Indonesia. Since we also saw some complaints from Freelancer.com users about suspended accounts and money withdrawals, we asked him to clarify this issue as well.

Do you think not having Indonesian language until now was really be an obstacle to aspiring Freelancer users?

Willix: For any Indonesian graduates, they should be very fluent in English already. We have 70,000 freelancers in Indonesia, and none of them are having trouble in speaking English. I think Indonesian language support is for entrepreneurs, in case they don’t know how to speak English. [For example] if they are in textile industry and doesn’t really speak English, that’s why we provide this for them. But for freelancers, i’m sure everyone would be able to speak English.

Are the job postings to be made in Indonesian?

Willix: So there are two job post [areas] in Freelancer.co.id: one is in Indonesian, one is in English. So people from Indonesia can still bid on projects in English. Apart from local job postings, there are also job posts from around the world giving more opportunities for freelancers to bid.

Do you have an office in Indonesia yet?

Willix: Unfortunately, we don’t have a physical address here. In the upcoming months, we definitely will have one. We really want to expand here. I’m a big believer in Indonesia. I was born in Indonesia and big things are definitely happening here. Facebook is coming to Indonesia, Rocket Internet and even Rakuten is. So yeah, this is where the tech boom is going to be.

How are you going to develop the payment system in Indonesia?

Willix: So now you can deposit in rupiah through credit cards. Unfortunately, PayPal services don’t support the rupiah. You can do wire banking via HSBC to send money to banks anywhere within the country. We looking to essentially contact local banks – Permata, Bank Mandiri, KlikBCA. We can have a partnership with them, and withdrawal and deposits could be very easy.

Indonesia is the biggest investment that we’ve made. We have ten other languages now, including Tagalog in the Philippines, along with Spanish, German, and more. Turkey as well, we’re launching in Turkey next month.

What do you think are the most promising jobs that freelancers could do here in Indonesia?

Willix: I would imagine it is website building, sem, e-commerce. I believe that there are definitely a lot of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) here, as I said that 99.9 percent of all firms established in 2009 to 2010 are SMEs and most of them probably don’t know how to make a website.