From left to right: Fahary, Brian, Amar, Reza, Natali. The moderator is our own blogger, Josh.
After a couple of ‘coffee chats’ here at our Startup Asia Jakarta event, it’s time for the first discussion panel, on the subject of “Startup Communities in Indonesia.” Here are the seasoned Indonesian entrepreneurs providing their insights:
- Fachry Bafadal (Bancakan 2.0, which is a gathering for all Jogjakarta startups)
- Natali Ardianto (StartupLokal, which also runs the Project Eden incubator)
- Reza Prabowo, (FOWAB is for any techies or creative types, and is based in Bandung)
- Amar Alphabet (Stasion, running meet-ups in Malang in east Java)
- Brian Arfi (SuWec, which is a community for web industry folks in Surabaya)
The five men represent the country’s top cities, giving different views of the various startup scenes.
#12:08: Reza gives a shout out to Bandung, saying that the tech-oriented city has all the advantages of Jakarta but without the awful traffic. Plus, it’s home to the famous university that’s now producing so many entrepreneurs and software developers.
#12:09: Amar depends his native Malang too in terms of education and entrepreneurship. He wants Stasion to be at the forefront of this.
#12:11: SuWec’s Brian says that startups don’t need to move to Jakarta, and Fahary agrees. A partner in Jakarta could be useful, he admits, but for development “working outside of Jakarta is more interesting,” and many companies have reps in other parts of the country, such as in Surabaya where his community is based. Reza points out that Bandung is so close to Jakarta, there’s no need to move. “It’s more creative to be outside” of the capital he says, and so maybe base your developers wherever they live, and just put one or two biz dev folks in the capital.
#12:14: StartupLokal’s Natali notes that Silicon Valley area will often feature daily meet-ups, which can be useful. At least his community, and the others represented onstage. help push this forward with weekly or monthly meets. On a more urgent note, Natali says that 2015 is a major deadline for startups in Indonesia, prior to the next major ASEAN meeting, where local teams need to be stronger of they’re not going to lose out to startups from Singapore and across the region.
#12:16: Fahary: “We still need our Jakarta startup rockstar” to serve as an inspiration and a focal point for the country.
#12:17: Brian admits that his region might not be Indonesia’s Silicon Valley, and that the best contender would be close to Jakarta. He gives props to the educational strength of Bandung, and picks that as the best choice to be the nation’s tech leader.
#12:20: Natali says that they have a different culture and “need to go with the flow” to make a community and startup ecosystem that fits the region. “We need the people to keep the community strong.”
#12:21: How about the business of their communities? Brian admits that SuWec is indeed a business, and it pays its staff, but that it still is helping to grow the community from its own pocket. That in turn should help it survive going forward. Natali says he uses sponsorship to maintain StartupLokal.
This is a part of our coverage of Startup Asia Jakarta 2012, our startup event running on June 8 and 9. You can follow along on Twitter at @startupasia, on our Facebook page, on Google Plus, or via RSS.