After previously reporting that WeYap was close to shut its services, we found out that the startup just confirmed that it will relaunch its services, although probably in the near future. This scheme will be accompanied by the introduction of the Executive Board that will lead the directory business platform.

Mountain Kejora Ventures (MKV)’ VP of Portfolio & Investment Andreas Surya, WeYap’s main investor, told DailySocial that there was inevitable issue that hindered WeYap’s operations.

One of WeYap’s founders, Teresa Lin, had to move abroad, allowing MKV to step over her position and part of WeYap’s shares, so that the service may re-launch again. Lin will still be around as a business consultant.

Surya told us via e-mail:

We saw that WeYap had been progressing steadily, though unfortunately due to an unavoidable situation, Teresa Lin, the founder/CEO of WeYap is required to leave Indonesia for family and personal reasons, as her husband has a new assignment abroad.

As a result, we, MKV, have taken back a portion of ownership and assets of WeYap and may re-launch it again after we form a new executive team. Teresa Lin retains an ownership interest in the company, and in the event of any such re-launch, she will play a part in ongoing consulting and leadership.

Further, he explained that WeYap’s new team and another WeYap’s Co-founder, Kelly Octavian, have now separated their ways. He denied that the issue was about money, as he claimed that MKV was even ready to invest more. Octavian has now been an integral part to Qraved’s team.

As for WeYap’s business model, the MKV team are now assessingn the situation to determine which to keep and which not to keep, particularly after relaunching the service.

Sooner or later, Indonesia is predicted to be a potential market for the growth of FinTech (Financial Technology) industry. This is strongly related to the people’s openness to tech development, market size, and ecosystem maturity available in Indonesia.

To some people, the FinTech term might sound strange, especially those in developing markets. However, FinTech is proven to provide new and fresh solutions and innovations for consumers in many developed countries that it even disrupts the dominance of well-established financial industries.

It’s about time to have the tech mushrooming in developing countries like Indonesia. Before that happens, it’s better for related parties to prepare themselves. As for the players in local FinTech industry, they should notice every single related trend that comes and goes.

Commenting on this development, Wharthon FinTech’s VP Cameron Peake stated that there are three trends that FinTech players should anticipate next year.

The use of data analytics to reach new consumers

In developing countries like Indonesia, there are still plenty of rooms in various industries, including tech and finance, for their players to grow. In Indonesia, this can be seen from the amount of unbanked people and those who are connected to internet. That being said, the role of the big data analytics would be to assist banks and FinTech players to reach wider scope of consumers.

Peake explained that numerous entrepreneurs out there have found the way to differentiate between customers who own a bank account and those who don’t using a new type of data. This allows banks and other financial institutions to offer loans or interests that reflect the real level of risks. Lenddo and Revolution Credit are ones of examples to this.

The increasing e-commerce trend in developing countries

In developed countries, the culture of online shopping has been a common experience. However, people in developing countries just started getting used to the culture, Peake said. The challenges would revolve around payment method, logistic, and regulation.

Peake believes that there would be even more companies that offer solution to those challenges, especially to those with no credit card. Mobile wallet services like Dompetku, T-Cash, and XL Tunai are ones of those services in Indonesia.

The improving cash-in and cash-out experience

One of financial challenges in digital era like today is to digitalize the very mean of transaction. This has yet been common in many developing countries like Indonesia. However, there have been services like GloboKasNet and PayNearMe that handle this matter.

According to Peake, FinTech players should anticipate those three trends during these 12 months.

One of pre-owned phones marketplaces Laku6 recently closed a funding from Golden Gate Ventures. The funding will  be allocated to develop the team, build inventory, and improve its promotion and marketing activities.

There has yet been any information about the funding amount, but we do know that Golden Gate Ventures’ Founding Partner Jeffrey Paine will be one of Laku6’s Board Members.

“Laku6 is set to grow in developing countries in which more and more people look to upgrade their first smartphone to something else better, and purchasing a pre-owned smartphone is a affordable solution,” Paine stated.

Within this funding round, Mountain SEA Ventures’ Managing Director Andy Zain gets involved as one of angel investors. This funding indicates that the potential of marketplace segment is really promising in Indonesia. Moreover, there are more and more niche marketplaces arise, signaling that anyone can disrupt the dominance of giant marketplaces in Indonesia.

Laku6 is a place where users can find high quality pre-owned smartphone. Laku6 offers “certificate” to guarantee that the items it sells is of high quality. In fact, the items displayed on the site has to pass through 40 certification phases. In addition, Laku6 also provides 30 days insurance for each item it offers.

A couple of months ago, Laku6’s CEO Alvin Yap stated that Indonesia has the potential to be the biggest tech industry in Southeast Asia. This indicates that when a business succeed in Indonesia, it will be easier for it to succeed in other countries.

“If you can be the best in Indonesia, in terms of size and volume … Then I bet you can be the best in Thailand, Malaysia, and other Southeast Asian countries,” Yap concluded.

In response to technical problems it often faces, Go-Jek has reportedly acquire an Indian-based tech company which will act as the startup’s tech division. After partnering with the Indian tech company for a while, Go-Jek finally decided to fully own the company. According to the info we received, this tech company is a portfolio of Sequoia Capital India, Go-Jek’s investor.

Go-Jek also reportedly had numerous visits to Silicon Valley to meet Indonesian descendants who are working there. Go-Jek seems to be interested in bringing them home and start their career with Go-Jek, as the startup has successfully convinced some of them. As we know, Go-Jek is spearheaded by Indonesian youngsters who once learned and worked at the U.S.

The lack of talents indeed is one of significant issue in Indonesia, and for vast-growing startups like Go-Jek, this can be problematic since they don’t have the time to wait for these local talents to mature and meet their qualification.

We’ve asked for Go-Jek’s confirmation regarding this matter. Unfortunately, the startups has yet given any responses. We’ll surely update this article once we receive any confirmation from the team.

A couple of days ago, an article posted in Tempo triggered countless debates. The article contains a statement by a member of Committee on Improving the Use of Local Production at Kadin Handito Joewono, the article creates controversies among tech startups. In our opinion, some points in the article indeed need further elaboration.

“Unincorporated Startup”

First, Joewono didn’t mention “unincorporated” term even once, at least that’s what is stated in the article. Therefore, we’d like to question whether Joewono really spit that term out or it’s the journalist’s mistake for not having the basic understanding on startup’s business model, which is build-to-sell.

As far as we know, the term is fair for businesses that can’t be responsible to their investor. In case of tech startup, investors really understand about a startup’s business line and model, the risks, the  founders, and and business goals.

If a startups fails to survive, which is just normal as 9 out of 10 actually hold that label since the very beginning, the risks will only be wielded by the founder and its investors (that come during closed funding round). There has yet been any startup, as long as I know, which has gone IPO and reduced the possibilities of wider public loss.

What about the startup’s employees, then? First, startup is not a factory, where hundreds of employees with no specific skill gather.If the company is shut, startups employees tend to find a new job easily. Second, they already know the risks of working at startups. That’s why startups usually offer early employees a portion of their shares, so that they may be more encouraged to build the startup together.

High growth is not similar to no “real value”

Joewono stated:

“There are two common points to decide whether it generates economic growth or not. First, the very vast growth especially in member recruitment or number of users. Second, the business model doesn’t result real money. Only recruiting members without tangible revenue. Investors take more role, but they’re limited to some points.

This is dangerous, it looks big, the transaction seems unimportant, and the company gets finally sold.”

With all respect, we think that there’s nothing wrong with startup’s build-to-sell business objective. This practice is common in the U.S, especially in tech, and has resulted many serial entrepreneurs. They are actually economic catalysts, as high profile merger and acquisition show market’s trust towards a country’s economic condition.

Build-to-sell entrepreneurs are those who are determined to build something but don’t want to involve themselves in the business for too long once the business has been well-established. They tend to find new challenges to keep sharpening their business institution.

Tokopedia or Go-Jek, for instance, still rely on investors for their operational costs since they are still based on subsidy. But isn’t there any real economic value once they get bigger? From partnering drivers to SME entrepreneurs and advertising agencies get indirect effect from the services. They’re all real for economy.

We believe that worries are normal, given the fact that some unicorn startups in the U.S are declining due to their inability to find additional funding and generate more profit and more innovation as well as lie about their product quality. But that doesn’t justify any limitation towards infant local services.

Instead of growing their company and services, e-commerce and other startups get too busy with binding regulation. It’s normal to have 90% of startups dead. Do we still need to be suspicious towards the rest 10%?

The competition in premium car transportation is on. Five months ago, Uber officially launched Supercar which allows users to ride Aston Martin in certain areas in Jakarta. Using the same strategy, GrabTaxi Indonesia also offers similar experience by allowing users riding a Lamborghini.

GrabTaxi calls the service as GrabSpeed. It will be offered only for limited time, which is October 24, 25 and 31, and November 1, 2015.

However, the service will only be available around Senayan City. During those aforementioned dates, GrabSpeed will operate from 14.00 to 17.00 WIB.

If you’re interested with the service, you may click this link.

A couple of times ago, President of Indonesia Joko Widodo visited the U.S to negotiate with several global tech giants. One of the agenda was to meet Google’s Head to discuss about internet distribution within remote areas in Indonesia. The main idea was to launch Google’s Project Loon.

However, it appears that PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia (Telkom) is against the plan. Telkom’s Director of Innovation and Strategic Portfolio Indra Utoyo stated that the plan will harm local telecommunication industry, since Google will bypass the local connectivity in the area. Moreover, the program is still in research phase right now, making it even riskier to implement.

Utoyo added that Telkom, along with other players of the industry, are currently working hand in hand to build their network all over Indonesia. However, he stated that Telkom will still support the Project Loon program, as long as it’s well-targeted, which is to reach remote areas which broadband can’t touch so far. The implementation should involve national operators as well.

On the contrary, the plan is music to XL Axiata’s ears. According to XL’s CEO Dian Siswarini, this is a good plan to reach remore areas. Shen even suggested that it’s better to learn about the program’s business model before finally implementing it. He believed that once the economic motive is well-understood, there wouldn’t be any excuse made for not implementing the program.

In Australia, Google partners with local operator Telstra to launch the Project Loon program. Google didn’t purchase nor rent any frequency while doing that, as Telstra allows it to access the BTS network using its frequency to be distributed to users through Wi-Fi connectivity. This strategy is considered replicable in Indonesia.

Before commenting to this issue, it’s better for us to learn about what exactly challenge the connectivity distribution in Indonesia. It’s Indonesia’s unique geographical condition, as the country is practically an archipelago. Google’s modern technology users air as the media, while the broadband network is focusing on underwater network. The President might have different opinion, as he looks to accelerate the realization of equal fast internet distribution all over Indonesia.

As Dian Siswarini said, it’s important to be open to new tech and innovation. We should judge Google’s innovation by its benefits for the people. If it can accelerate the connectivity distribution, then why not?

World’s giant mobile game developer Gameloft officially introduced a new ads format with various targeting criteria (20/10). Gameloft Advertising Solutions, which claims to have 2,2 million active users, promises 100% of visibility. BNI and Indosat are some of the company’s clients in Indonesia.

“We have vast number of users in Indonesia. We’re able to run targeted digital ads campaigns here, with highly visible, secure, and relevant content,” Gameloft Indonesia’s Country Manager Samuel Lim stated.

People certainly don’t need to question Gameloft’s portfolio, which is full with flagship games such as Asphalt, Modern Combat, Iron Man 3, and many other top quality products. Around 350 thousand users of various background access the company’s games on daily basis in Indonesia. The team claim that they may reach to wide range of user demography.

“Gameloft’s main priority is user experience. This is reflected from our partnership, which is not randomly formed. We choose and curate our partners selectively to make sure that our games and ads are relevant to users,” Lim added.

The platform offers Display, Rich Media, and Native. There are three formats for Display, namely intersitial, banner, and video. Meanwhile, Rich Media offers minigame, form, and micro-site. Format Native offers incentivized video and sponsored event.

Those formats, which are built based on features like geo-location, use the data of smartphone usage to determine specific user profile (tourists, online buyers, movie freaks, and many other). Lim convinced brands that the context of displayed ads is well-structured. Transparancy is the most important thing in building relationship with advertisers.

“We optimally run campaigns and have dedicated our Account Manager to make sure that no budget is left unused,” Lim concluded.

It seems that Sony is really serious to make Indonesia its new potential market. After sealing the partnership with Telkom for NFC-based smart card last week, the company now collaborates with Indosat to use FeliCa tech to enable e-money function on smartphones.

Within this collaboration, Sony supports Indosat’s D-Tap e-money, which will be launched this coming November. This tech is claimed to be the first smartphone e-money ever to be planted directly in the SIM card.

The partnership allows Indosat to sell FeliCa-based  SIM cards. This way, users may access the e-money service as soon as they put the SIM card into NFC-based smartphone. A standalone app will then assist users to track transactions and access balance information.

Prior partnering with Telkom, Sony had closed a collaboration with PT KAI Commuter Jabodetabek. The partnership, which was sealed last February, covers the use of card and bracelets as media of e-money transaction.

FeliCa is Sony’s technology which takes form of a special chip that is installed on devices. To accelerate its global expansion, Sony attempts to integrate the tech with SIM cards so that the company may improve the production process.

Ansvia’s CEO Abang Edwin Syarif Agustin is still DScussion’s guest for this episode. He explained that Ansvia pivoted last year from solely focusing on MindTalk to developing modular products using Digaku, the engine behind MindTalk. What are Ansvia’s plans for next year? Watch our discussion in the video below.

–
Translated and transcribed by Rifki Aria Nugraha