Indo Tekno Podcast

Brankas leads Indonesia's nascent "Open Banking" movement. It seeks to address friction in digital banking, collapse costly layers of middlemen, and change business models on payments, credit scoring and more. Brankas CEO Todd Schweitzer and CPO Mike Dickinson share views on Indonesia's banking and payments systems today, and offer some predictions on the future of Indonesian Open Banking.

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Kevin Aluwi, co-founder and co-CEO of Gojek, offers a candid, brick-by-brick account of the company's most formative early successes and challenges; from the insights that informed the creation of GoFood, to touch-and-go moments in fund-raising. Join us as Kevin offers his own definition of "super-app", reflects on the complexities of creating a successful development team, and discusses valuable synergies with partners Google and Tencent.

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"50% of our borrowers are non-Muslim", states Dima Djani, CEO of leading Sharia finance platform ALAMI. Sharia banking's broad appeal to millennials with its "transparency, social impact, and prudent and responsible qualities" should raise its weighting in Indonesia's banking sector from 6% currently to a government target of 15% by 2023. Join us as Dima outlines ALAMI's plans to triple business in 2022 in pursuit of dominance in financial technology across the broader Muslim world.

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We are in the midst of an impact investing boom. Guest Dondi Hananto of Patamar Capital dispels many misconceptions around impact investing. He argues that intensive measurement of both "bottom lines" (Financial/Operational and Impact) can deliver outsized returns and do social & environmental good at the same time. Dondi shares powerful stories of mission-based portfolio companies mClinica & Mapan/Ruma; and anecdotes of successful female-led businesses Danacita & Sayurbox.

Gabriel Frans, Cofounder & CEO of CrediBook, discusses how his company seeks to modernize traditional cash management amongst Indonesia's 56m SME's. Gabriel describes the benefits of building joint solutions with long time associate Hendra Kwik of PayFazz. He also explains the mystique of his alma mater, leading engineering school ITB. A man of many talents, Gabriel created this week's musical soundtrack.

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Few internet platforms have the ability to affect change on such a massive scale as Google. The company has trained 1.7m Indonesian business owners (500,000 female), and seeks to support 45m students with their distance learning needs. Randy Jusuf, MD for Google Indonesia, walks us through the company's massive efforts to bring more Indonesians online, support 22,000 school teachers in their educational mission, help industries evolve digitally through the pandemic, and reinvigorate the jobs market.

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In our first podcast of 2021, Sabrina and Sarah Soewatdy, co-founders of leading Indonesia co-living platform Rukita, discuss how they have revolutionized Indonesia's traditional "kost" model. They also reflect on how COVID led to dramatic yet successful shifts in Rukita's customer focus, the blatant honesty between sister/co-founders, and the digital demands of Indonesia's millennial university student and young professional.

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"I would expect Indonesian IPO's in 2021 and 2022," states Delano Musafer, Head of Asia-Pacific Capital Markets for the NYSE (New York Stock Exchange). Delano is joined in the third episode of our “From Warung to Wall Street” series by his colleague Jennie Dong, Head of SPAC’s at the NYSE. Jennie’s insights are very timely, given recent news that Peter Thiel’s Bridgetown SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) may seek to merge with Indonesia e-commerce stalwart Tokopedia in a ~USD10b deal. 

 As a follow-on to our October 6th Indo Tekno episode on “The SPAC Opportunity” with Andy Tai of Goldman Sachs, Jennie explains the massive expansion in SPAC's in 2020. SPAC fund-raisings stand at roughly 4X last year levels, and they have moreover raised more than traditional IPO alternative in 2020. Jennie expects SPAC’s to “serve the same purpose in emerging markets” such as Indonesia as they have in the US, “allowing high quality companies to go public through a SPAC business combination.” Jennie views the greater certainty around pricing and valuation that comes with early pricing negotiations, and the opportunity to capture additional financing through a PIPE, as some of the many benefits that have driven a resurgence in attraction to the SPAC by entrepreneurs and investors.

 The world's largest stock market with USD28 trillion in market cap and USD150b in turnover, the NYSE is the listing venue of 130 Asia-domiciled companies. Yet only two Indonesian companies are currently listed on the NYSE. Delano is optimistic that some of today’s leading Indonesian technology companies will find their way to the NYSE. His most important advice to the aspiring Indo entrepreneur in preparing to list on the NYSE: "Choose good advisors!"  

As this is the last Indo Tekno episode of the year 2020, we wish you all a fantastic year-end and a prosperous New Year! Selamat berlibur, semoga tetap aman dan sehat.  Selamat tahun baru! Thank you for listening!

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A November Ernst and Young report reveals that nearly a third of those without a car surveyed intend to buy a car in the next six months.  They cite the COVID-19 pandemic, originally blamed for a near paralysis in car-buying earlier in 2022, as one of the top reasons for the planned surge in purchase activity. Aaron Tan and Aditya Lesmana, cofounders of Carro, Southeast Asia's largest automotive marketplace, join us to discuss this recovery, the application of AI to the online car industry, and the company's massive growth and diversification plans through 2023.

Digitally native millennials will be the main driver of this recovery in buying behaviors, thus playing well into Carro's online marketplace model. The company however also realises that maintaining offline services such as repair and maintenance will be critical to owning the entire stack of services. 

The shorter term 2021 plan is focused on accelerating B2C transactions, growing Carro's wholesale business by 3-4X and expanding gross profit. Aaron meanwhile feels that Carro's "AI-driven retail buying experience" most prominently differentiates it from other online automotive marketplaces. 

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"Talent Shortage" is far-and-away the biggest challenge cited by Indonesian tech employers in this year's RGF HR report. Our guest Antonio Mazza, co-founder of leading Indonesia-based recruitment firm WeNetwork, reveals that 80% of hiring managers claim that the shortage of tech talent is so severe that it has negatively impacted speed of product development.

Not surprisingly, Product and Engineering roles are the most common recruiting mandates amongst WeNetwork's clientele. Antonio on the podcast delineates the Top 10 coding skills in greatest demand. On the executive placement side, WeNetwork deals most with leadership mandates in Software Engineering, People, Strategy and Product.

Much of Antonio's prescription to founders seeking to insulate their teams from being "cherry picked" by the decacorns is straighforward: HR teams should overhaul comp packages. Many existing benefits are in fact never even used.  While most everyone is expanding their comp architecture from base salary to include more long term incentives, those companies boasting the best retention rates "work for their employees" he says, offering valuable training, mentorship and internal mobility opportunities.

"Virtual hiring and remote working are here to stay" post-COVID, states Antonio. The key is to determine "when virtual is best, and when in-person is more appropriate."