Indo Tekno Podcast

In our first episode of Season 3, leading Southeast tech reporter for Reuters, Fanny Potkin, shares with us a number of fascinating anecdotes from her career covering the tech scene in Indonesia, from interviews of social media "buzzers" who leverage technology to influence election outcomes, to local entrepreneurs' humorous comparisons of Alibaba to a "nagging mother" and Tencent to a "passive father". Fanny's biggest prediction for 2022 is that significant new regulation is on the horizon for Indonesia's tech ecosystem. 

Alex Rusli is Cofounder of Digiasia Bios. The company offers the broadest portfolio of fintech licenses and solutions across Indonesia's start-up scene. Alex is amongst a small minority of start-up founders with previous big tech leadership experience, having served as CEO of telco giant Indosat before going "full-on founder". Our conversation ranges widely, from the challenges of fintech adoption to the benefits of martial arts amidst the demands of start-up life.
(Podcast Website)

The three lead authors of the annual e-Conomy SEA report join the Indo Tekno podcast to share further color on this seminal report on the state of the Southeast Asian internet economy. Stephanie Davis of Google offers fascinating insights around Indonesia's more aggressive embrace of payments compared to the region, and much higher internet participation from non-metro areas. Rohit Sipahimalani from Temasek delves into drivers behind near all-time high fundraising levels in the region while offering a deeper dive into healthtech, edtech and online investment management segments. Florian Hoppe of Bain discusses factors underpinning the report's significant increases in 2025 forecasts for e-commerce, while discussing candidly what might jeopardize the region's strong growth.
(Transkrip Bahasa Indonesia | Podcast Website)

Indonesia, an ecommerce market with an estimated 14 million online merchants, will likely grow to about USD80-90b in GMV by 2025. Opportunities thus abound for expert teams to acquire and partner with smaller merchants, in order to drive greater and greater operational efficiencies. Jeff Yuwono, Founder & CEO of "brand aggregator" Open Labs, discusses this massive roll-up opportunity, and how it differs in Indonesia from similar models around the globe.

Asian Development Bank research suggests that half of Indonesia's workforce of 135m is "underqualified for their jobs". Rohan Monga, CEO of leading online education platform Zenius, sees this skills crisis as being rooted in the K12 education system of 45m students. Zenius is helping drive the transformation of Indonesian pedagogy from rote knowledge-based instruction to a focus on greater critical thinking and scientific knowledge.

In this episode, we discuss startup "cross pollination" between local entrepreneurs and their sea turtle (or "pulkam") cofounders returning to Indo from overseas work or study. "Indonesia Only" VC firm Intudo Ventures uniquely operates with founding general partners Eddy Chan and Patrick Yip sitting on opposite sides of the earth; one in Silicon Valley and the other in Indonesia. The goal is to encourage in each investee company an amalgam of top-flight overseas-inspired start-up experience, with critical on-the-ground connectivity and expertise.
(Podcast Website)

Cofounder of leading podcast platform Noice, Rado Ardian, estimates that the pandemic contributed to 3x growth in listenership in 2020. Noice's 3 top shows are comedy-oriented, an interesting reflection of the market's unique tastes. Intense "hyper-localization" of content will be crucial in driving up to 5x growth next year, as Noice strives to offer unique content to Indonesia's many heterogeneous communities. Rado pointed to Noice's extensive use of local "vernacular" programming as key to accessing listeners through their many languages and dialects.

In Indonesia, the Digital Divide remains a stubborn problem. While Indonesians spend around 6 hrs a day online, sadly "almost half of the adult population is still without internet access," a July World Bank report reveals. Barrett Comiskey and Dan Connor, Migo CEO and Indo Country Lead, respectively, reflect on the company's inroads to connecting all parts of the pyramid to internet content through its increasingly ubiquitous "Warung Migo" solution.

COVID-19 has seriously rattled the already inefficient Indonesian blue collar sector, sending unemployment levels to an eight-year high. Leading end-to-end workforce management platform MyRobin targets a 74m large blue collar market which has suffered from monthly churn of 20%. Company cofounder Siddharth Kumar believes that the company has "cracked the code," not by herding workers onto a new purpose-built app, but by meeting them on the social platforms that they already use. MyRobin is thus able to offer a massive "top-of-funnel" of 2.6m candidates to their target employers in logistics, FMCG and other verticals.

(Transkrip Bahasa Indonesia | Podcast Website)

Cybercrime is predicted to inflict damages totalling $6 trillion globally in 2021. If measured as a country,  it would be the world's third largest economy. Niki Luhur, Exec Chairman of VIDA, discusses the profound dangers of failing to implement more robust solutions around digital identity, privacy and cyber security. Niki argues that with emerging market economies digitizing at breakneck speeds, individuals need the ability to  control their most valuable information: their data and identity.