In a geek

If there is someone you would pick for tech startup’s question, you would pick no other than Aulia Masna – Managing Editor of E27.sg (@e27sg) – you can follow him on his twitter , @aulia .

Let’s start with the questions, have fun reading it!

There has been more and more startups popping up here and there, your opinion?

To me this means more people are confident about their chances in executing their ideas and going out on their own rather than working for someone else and being just another employee. It also means growth in entrepreneurial spirit and drive among Indonesians but don’t forget that startups don’t always mean technology or web-based companies.

Has #StartUpLokal meetups helped this growth? or just simply giving them recognition and publication?

Startuplokal meet ups (by this I mean the monthly seminars, not the smaller events) don’t actually raise recognition for individual startups that well. It gets people to think about what they should do with their ideas or startups but it doesn’t necessarily network people very well and it’s not meant to be a full on networking event.

It does however provide information and knowledge to entrepreneurs on what they should do with their projects. Having these would actually push potential entrepreneurs to decide whether they should go ahead or take a step back and reevaluate.

A regularly organized event does help grow of the industry. It creates a hub and raises the visibility of the industry which in turn will generate interest especially among those who are looking into entering the industry. The post-event drinks would actually help them in getting known better, provided they’re willing to join in and stay out until late.

Those brand new or as-yet announced startups would have better chances at being noticed when they get coverage on blogs like e27, teknojournal, and dailysocial.

StartupLokal mailing list is also another place where people can introduce their startups to the rest of the group. It’s relatively private but with a rather large membership. Private in the sense that the members tend to be founders and employees of various startups or those interested in the scene, not so much outside of the group.

Groupon clones are countless these days, do you think they would be able to withstand the real Groupon when it came? and why do you think there has been so many clones?

No. When Groupon officially makes its way into the country, there’s not gonna be space for too many companies doing the same thing. There isn’t now but everyone is jostling to be the top contenders for when the time comes. Some of the current deals sites will remain but there will be a lot of consolidation or shut downs once the market sets in.

Daily deals and group purchases aren’t yet part of the local commerce culture. There’s a lot of hurdles to overcome, primarily electronic payment. As long as local banks are reluctant to cooperate and there’s no commonly agreed upon payment system that accommodates this, electronic commerce isn’t going to fly.

I say this because the percentage of conversion, as in those who say they’ll buy a product at a certain price and those who actually go ahead with buying them is still small and it’s far from being common, unlike in the US. What I’m saying is, when you buy these deals, you’re supposed to pay them up front when the limit has been reached and they’ll give you the coupon or necessary information for you to redeem the deal. This isn’t happening a lot. People often fail to pay when they’re supposed to because there’s no easy way to do it, ATM transfers and Klik BCA are lousy ways to pay.

There’s so many Groupon clones because they all think it’s a great idea and they all think they better come in to the market early and see what happens. Maybe they’ll get bought, maybe they’l get funded, maybe they’ll get successful but there’s never any guarantee any of that will happen. Look at Fanesia for example.

Some of the local startups are clones of Silicon Valley companies, what is your opinion about cloning a startup? Would it be better to startup with a new ideas?

Let me point you to an article by gantibaju.com CEO Aria Rajasa on e27 on why cloning an existing startup does not necessarily have to be an issue.

A clone with a different market or execution may work as long as the market sees value in it. If a service fails to address a particular market, that market may create its own if it wants to have it badly enough.

Whether the clone will survive or even triumph if the original ever comes to town, that remains to be seen. Look at J.Co Donuts for example. It took the Starbucks concept (and looks) and applied it to selling donuts. Wildly successful. Krispy Kreme came to town with the same idea. Blown out of the park. Why? it’s a matter of taste.

Geo-location is going to have a great 2011 said most of the tech media, do you agree with this? And how do you think Koprol can handle Facebook Places once they go viral in this country?

Everyone’s excited about geo, everyone wants to be in the geo market. In the US. I’m not keen. As far as I’m concerned the check-in business is dead in the water or in a coma. It’s going to take a significant innovation, hype, or marketing push to make check-in interesting again. There’s plenty of growth and Foursquare for example has more than 3 million users now with more than 10 thousand new users every day, but as far as Indonesia’s concerned, it’s not going anywhere yet.

In its current form, checking-in serves little in terms of personal or collective benefit aside from game components in Foursquare. It may be beneficial for users in the US where those companies are based in and are able to create relevant benefits but no one has actually hit the right formula to make it work globally. We’ll see how Facebook fares with Places.

The event badges and nearby deals that drive Foursquare adoption and user retention aren’t being applied internationally, we only get the generic ones. Very few businesses here have adopted Foursquare and those who do aren’t seeing significant enough results.

Foursquare and Gowalla are both still very much US-centric in their operations and Gowalla is fading out, becoming just another Foursquare app, despite being the better product. They need to innovate better to remain in the game.

I haven’t seen anything that will drive adoption of Facebook Places but if it goes viral and Koprol wants to protect its turf then Koprol needs to figure out how to expand quicker and become an irreplaceable part of its users’ daily internet activities.

What do you think 2011 will be for our local scene of startups?

There’s gonna be more of them, that’s for sure, but more will also realize a startup can’t just be an idea, it needs to have a business idea, a way to be relevant and a way to make money. We’re already seeing local investors making themselves known so hopefully there will be more of them to support the startups. I see a lot of evaluations coming on, both by founders and potential investors. It’s a fast-moving industry.

Last but not least, Facebook has received an investment based on $50b valuation, your opinion?

Great for Facebook.

That sums up our long-but-worth-it interview with Aulia Masna, once again you can read all of his articles on local or even international tech startup news here.

(PS: the image wasn’t mine – credit : #startuplokal mailing list)

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