Tech Trends in Indonesia in 2013 (VIDEO)

From the left – Willis Wee (blogger at Tech in Asia), Andi S. Boediman (director of Ideosource), and Ryu Kawano (CEO of Veritrans Indonesia)

Last week we held our second Meetup in Jakarta to discuss the country’s tech trends in 2013. Moderated by Tech in Asia blogger Willis, Ideosource director Andi S. Boediman, and Veritrans Indonesia CEO Ryu Kawano all shared their perspectives on what’s going on in Indonesia’s mobile and e-commerce industries. The two speakers then talked about the country’s investment scene, prompted by a question from the audience of assembled entrepreneurs and investors.

Here are a few highlights (or jump to the video below) from the Jakarta Meetup:

• Willis set the scene with a summary of what happened in Indonesia’s tech scene in 2012. This included data on internet user numbers, credit card penetration, and pointed out that there was much more investment in the first half of 2012. This data came from Andy Zain, DailySocial, and Veritrans.

• Derived from his experience with portfolio company game developer Touchten, Andi recommended developers to build for the iOS platform so as to earn more money from users. But if the business model is about reaching the masses in cooperation with Indonesian brands, developers should build apps for Android instead.

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• Ryu believes in focusing his effort and business plan on the 22 million residents of Jakarta rather than the 250 million Indonesian population. That’s because these Jakarta folks represent the biggest market and money – but of course you will use the 250 million figure when speaking to investors.

• There was an interesting argument going on from the two speakers about whether the e-payment industry will be able to solve itself. Andi believes that if e-commerce companies have exceptional business advantages like having an exclusive product, then customers won’t mind taking more steps to pay for those products. Ryu however believes that those extra steps – eg: making ATM transfers being more hassle than paying by credit card – would drive away potential sales as customers would then have more thinking time about their impulsive buying decision.

• At the end of the Meetup, Andi said that the problem in the Indonesian startup scene isn’t one of investors, but the lack of quality in Indonesian startups. He suggested that bigger foreign investors should only make follow-up investments, while local, smaller investors like himself will take care of the early stage funding.

Of course there were lots more interesting points delivered during the Jakarta Meetup, which is why we made a video of the whole thing. This Jakarta Meetup was initially scheduled for January, but was postponed due to the major flood in the city. Here’s the video below.

Stay tuned for the highlights from our other Meetups soon!

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