What does it take to be a successful startup??

Some VCs (in silicone valley) said that they receive thousands of business plan daily. Some say that only 1 in 10 startups make it.

What makes a startup tick really intrigue me. I think it's the combination of team (not just founder!), product execution, market potential, timing and luck.

But this Startup Genome Report has compiled a study of 650+ web startups and analyzed the common characteristics of startups and trends among the startups that may imply to the general. I must say that I'm already agreeing to most of the key findings here:

1. Founders that learn are more successful: Startups that have helpful mentors, track metrics effectively, and learn from startup thought leaders raise 7x more money and have 3.5x better user growth.

2. Startups that pivot once or twice times raise 2.5x more money, have 3.6x better user growth, and are 52% less likely to scale prematurely than startups that pivot more than 2 times or not at all.

3. Many investors invest 2-3x more capital than necessary in startups that haven't reached problem solution fit yet. They also over-invest in solo founders and founding teams without technical cofounders despite indicators that show that these teams have a much lower probability of success.

4. Investors who provide hands-on help have little or no effect on the company's operational performance. But the right mentors significantly influence a company’s performance and ability to raise money. (However, this does not mean that investors don’t have a significant effect on valuations and M&A)

5. Solo founders take 3.6x longer to reach scale stage compared to a founding team of 2 and they are 2.3x less likely to pivot.

6. Business-heavy founding teams are 6.2x more likely to successfully scale with sales driven startups than with product centric startups.

7. Technical-heavy founding teams are 3.3x more likely to successfully scale with product-centric startups with no network effects than with product-centric startups that have network effects.

8. Balanced teams with one technical founder and one business founder raise 30% more money, have 2.9x more user growth and are 19% less likely to scale prematurely than technical or business-heavy founding teams.

9. Most successful founders are driven by impact rather than experience or money.

10. Founders overestimate the value of IP before product market fit by 255%.

11. Startups need 2-3 times longer to validate their market than most founders expect. This underestimation creates the pressure to scale prematurely.

12. Startups that haven't raised money over-estimate their market size by 100x and often misinterpret their market as new.

13. Premature scaling is the most common reason for startups to perform worse. They tend to lose the battle early on by getting ahead of themselves.

14. B2C vs. B2B is not a meaningful segmentation of Internet startups anymore because the Internet has changed the rules of business. We found 4 different major groups of startups that all have very different behavior regarding customer acquisition, time, product, market and team.

At least I'm glad that 1, 2, 6, 8 and 9 are true :p

Cant wait to read the whole report! Thank God it's free This is what I wrote in the field 'Why are you interested to read the report?':

Because I'm startup founder too and I want to know the characteristics of successful startups.
Thank you for the report!

Cap table

A prospect investor ask for a Capital Table / Capital Management Plan. So I googled for Capital Management Plan (cos it sounds more descriptive) but pretty surprised that I got very little sample of CMP, especially those related to fundraising from VCs / Start-ups fundraising tools. The ones I found are mostly about budget request descriptions for school facilities improvement. A bit weird but I worked on it anyway. I love playing with numbers and excel.

So I spent almost few days of work breaking down Urbanesia 2 year financial strategic plan. I was pretty happy with the result. Till just now. I just talked to one of my mentors explaining our progress in fundraising and prospect investors. I showed him the email of the investor who requested for the Capital Table / Capital Management Plan and wanted to get his opinion about my hardwork CPM. But when he saw the list he said, 'Oh they're asking for a Cap table!'

Turns out I have been working on the wrong Capital Table! (but i'll share this with them anyway since it gives a good view of what we're going to do with the money once we get them - I loved working on it, so fun imagining having lots of money! haha ^_^)

I googled Cap Table and there are so many resources talking about them. Like what I originally expected!
This is one of the description I get:
A capitalization (cap) table lists who owns what in a startup. It lists the company’s shareholders and their shares. by Venture Hacks

You can download one of the samples here.

Hope this will help you in fundraising!

Selina & Urbanesia (+Tista) on media

Was using this new search engine in Indonesia called caripi (http://www.googlid.com/)

Searched for Urbanesia and found this article on Penn-Olson by Willis Wee, interviewing me about Urbanesia

http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/02/23/urbanesia/
http://www.penn-olson.com/2011/03/02/urbanesia-indonesia-tech-start-up-scene/

That same article made it's way to Young UpStarts and Good News From Indonesia

Thank you for posting us on your media ^_^

How to unleash Innovation

Martin Zwilling summarized the book “Look at More: A Proven Approach to Innovation, Growth, and Change” by Andy Stefanovich down to 5 key principles in fostering creativity in an environment:

• Mood. Inspiration and creativity requires the right context of attitudes, feelings, and emotions. Every business leader who wants innovation must constantly monitor and set the proper mood for the environment. You can set the right mood by purposefully disrupting the status quo, initiating change, asking provocative questions, and listening.

• Mindset. This is the intellectual foundation of creativity, the baseline capacity each of us has for getting inspired, staying inspired, and thinking differently. Four thinking disciplines which produce a creative, inspired mindset include changing your perspective, taking risks, finding your passion, and challenging assumptions to embrace ambiguity.

• Mechanisms. These are the tools and processes of creativity that help you engineer inspiration into the way you work and empower your organization to embrace the kind of behavior that fosters innovation. Four key steps include building a context, generating ideas, filtering ideas, and building a blueprint for implementing the best ideas.

• Measurement. Even creativity needs guidance and critical feedback on the qualitative and quantitative performance of individuals and organizations. Measurements send a strong signal of what is important and where people should focus their passion and energy. In addition to measuring results, you need to measure mood, mindset, and the mechanisms above.

• Momentum. This is accomplished by the active championing and celebrating of inspiration and creativity that foster a self-reinforcing cycle for increasing innovation. Momentum is an organizational priority for inspired leaders who have a clear understanding of the other four M’s.

I want to keep these key points because it's not only about unleashing creativity but also keeping the creativity implementable. Maybe that's the difference between a creativity and innovation?

http://blogs.forbes.com/martinzwilling/2011/05/15/innovation-takes-real-effort-even-for-startups/

How to be a bad Founder and a Good Leader

I just can't get enough of this Martin Zwillings. This is his other posts I like:

Nine bad behaviors of struggling Start-up Founders

1. Failure to build trust and integrity. Poor executives often fail to build trust initially, or they erode trust during daily interactions and operations. Without trust, there can be little cooperation between team members. This results in little risk taking, diminished confidence among employees, and a loss of communication throughout the company.
2. Focus on things that don’t really matter. Executives who struggle spend too much time focused on things that don’t really matter. If it doesn’t fit into one of the Four Fundamentals: growing revenue, getting new customers, keeping the customers they already have, or eliminating costs, they should rethink what they are doing.
3. Shirk accountability and role model. Founders need to realize their behavior is in a “fishbowl” and thereby highly visible for the team to see and imitate. What the founder says and does in stressful situations sends a signal to imitate that behavior, even when they are not under stress. Poor performers thrive in an unaccountable work climate.
4. Fail to consistently reinforce what’s important. Managers often stress a particular message or a program for a couple of weeks, and then assume everyone gets it. When they change their message too often, team members become confused about what’s important. People perform best when what they hear is consistent and frequent.
5. Over-rely on consensus decisions. Some founders go too far to become consensus builders. This takes too much time in our super-competitive environment, and the result of a total buy-in is usually a watered-down version of the original decision or action they intended. Informed decision-making is not the same as consensus decision-making.
6. High priority on being popular. The first priority of a founder is to deliver results, rather than building friendships. Happy team members don’t necessarily bring you stellar results, although stellar results almost always bring you a happy team. Good managers don’t worry about shaking up the status quo, and realize that change is never initially popular.
7. Get caught up in their self-importance. Many founders fail because they get caught up in the “aura” of their position, and seek recognition and glamour for themselves. They love to give speeches to groups and in places that don’t really matter. These people seldom see what is causing their own demise in their attention to “all-about-me.”
8. Put their heads in the sand. Many founders struggle because they only want to hear good news. Team members quickly learn to report positives, while hiding problems. As a result, productivity suffers, employee morale decreases, and targeted results are missed. Encourage open, honest, direct, and specific communication always.
9. Fix problems, not causes. Don’t fix a problem without addressing the reason the problem occurred. The most common excuses given include lack of time to immediately address the cause, lack of resources to address the cause, or problem is outside of their control. Good managers always find the means to fix the cause

http://blogs.forbes.com/martinzwilling/2011/04/04/nine-bad-behaviors-of-struggling-startup-founders/

Nine habits that make contagious Start-up Leaders

1. Spotlight leadership acts of others. This is the habit of focusing attention, directly or indirectly, on leadership efforts and accomplishments of another team member or group. For managers and non-contagious leaders (contained leaders), the spotlight seems to always be on themselves.
2. Cultivate positive character qualities. Contagious leaders have a habit of highlighting effective choices about “how” things were accomplished, and not just “what” was accomplished. It’s not just about the numbers, but how character played a role, and who made the right decisions along the way.
3. Provide in-depth recognition. Don’t just articulate specific actions that deserve praise. Contagious leaders tell Harry why and how he did a good job, whereas managers and contained leaders just say “Good job, Harry.”
4. Emphasize strengths, leading to greatness. Conventional managers focus on people’s shortcomings and point them out as often as possible. Contagious leaders nurture the habit of recognizing others strengths, and help them extrapolate these to greatness.
5. Communicate often and effectively. The habit of constantly exchanging information, thoughts and feelings openly and honestly builds morale, enhances productivity, and fosters contagious leadership. Too many managers “tell ‘em only what they need to know and not a moment before they need to know it.”
6. Provide an unobstructed vision. Contagious leaders foster the habit of focusing actions on a clear and sensory-rich picture of the desired result. Managers tend to have only a vague picture of where the company is going, so they are unable to share a coherent vision with others.
7. Really touch people’s lives. Nurture the habit of truly knowing your most valuable asset – people. Managers avoid any real, deep involvement. Most don’t know if the people reporting to them are married or single, or anything about them. Contagious leaders know their people personally and do things for them, not because it’s good for business, but because they truly care.
8. Passionately support your people. Managers are always controlled, rather than being fully committed and willing to take a risk. Contagious leaders are quick to support their team, and always stick up for them, even in the face of adversity.
9. Mentor a permission mentality. Contagious leaders mentor their team to always assume they have permission to do things their way. They try to extend the concept of contagious leadership, rather than constrain it. Managers want a staff of imitators and followers. They want people to do what they want, and to do it their way.

http://blogs.forbes.com/martinzwilling/2011/03/17/nine-habits-that-make-contagious-startup-leaders/

Business Plan Don'ts!

Wow. It's been a while since I wrote my last post. Well to be honest I'm that good at writing :p
But there are many things I found in the internet I thought worth keeping and sharing to people who has the same mission as me: to be a kick-ass entrepreneur!

Well this morning I got a link about innovation and startups on Forbes blog. Turns out they have so many great stuff there!

This is one of my fave: Ten top investor turnoffs around business plans by Marty Zwilling
And very applicable to where I am now since I'm trying to raise money for Urbanesia and just planning to submit my business plan to Global Entrepreurship Program Indonesia hosted by Mekar.biz (More info go to http://gepi.mekar.biz)

The summary is here:

1. Tease or spam the investor.
2. Send the plan without a summary.
   
3. No plan in the Business Plan.
   
4. Embarrass your English teacher.
   
5. Fill the text with acronyms.
   
6. The base plan is a book.
   
7. It’s all in an appendix.
8. Don’t be negative.
9. Prototypes and demos attached.
   
10. Letters from your friends.
    

http://blogs.forbes.com/martinzwilling/2011/02/04/ten-top-investor-turnoffs-around-business-plans/

Citysearch and Twitter Collaboration

Hmmm... I wonder if we could implement the same thing on Urbanesia.com

Citysearch and Twitter Team Up to Offer Business Tools

By CLAIRE CAIN MILLER

A new partnership between Citysearch and Twitter offers some clues about what Twitter’s long-awaited paid accounts for businesses might look like.

Citysearch announced on Monday that it will provide the businesses on its site a few tools to help them make use of Twitter — and said that more tools would be coming soon, including some that sound a lot like what Twitter has repeatedly said it will offer businesses for a fee.

Businesses will be able to write tweets from their Citysearch page and create a Twitter account from Citysearch’s Web site, the first time it has been possible to sign up for Twitter without going to Twitter.com.

“We’re excited about it because it’s a step to demystify Twitter, to help small businesses get on from a site they’re comfortable with,” said Kara Nortman, senior vice president of publishing at Citysearch. Many of the types of businesses that appear on Citysearch have been using Twitter as a marketing tool.

Citysearch will also incorporate tweets about a business into its profile page, so people reading about a restaurant, for example, will be able to see what people have recently tweeted about it. Though people can review businesses on Citysearch, they generally do not do so as actively as they do on Yelp, Citysearch’s competitor, so this will be a way to bring more of the customer’s perspective onto Citysearch.

Citysearch wants to become a directory of social media listings, Ms. Nortman said, so that any time someone is looking for a business’s Twitter or Facebook page, for example, they can find it on Citysearch. That will also be useful on Citysearch’s mobile application, because people who want to tweet about a restaurant or bar while they are out can easily find the Twitter name of the business.

Perhaps more intriguing, Ms. Nortman said that Citysearch’s new offerings are the first step in a plan to offer small businesses a bunch of information to help them “understand when and how and where their business is being talked about across the Web.” This will include analysis of what people are saying and whether the sentiments are positive or negative.

That matches up with what Twitter’s co-founders have said Twitter will eventually do, and Ms. Nortman confirmed that the two companies have discussed doing this together. “Our conversations have involved that as a next stage in the partnership,” she said. “They’ll be offering corporate services through their partners.”

Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive, recently told me something similar, although he suggested that any partnerships wouldn’t be exclusive.

So far, when Twitter has released a new feature, like location-aware tweets or Lists, it has made the technology available to all third-party developers building Twitter applications through the API.

When Twitter unveils commercial accounts, it will do the same thing, Mr. Williams said.

“We don’t plan to do everything, and we plan to offer an API for everything we do,” he said. “It’s the same thing with anything commercial –- it will be a platform for other people to build upon and make money as well.”

Citysearch announcement on its blog

Auto racing and start-ups aren’t that different, really

Auto racing and start-ups aren’t that different, really

Reminder for start-ups out there: Focus on the long term (one or 2 years ahead) instead of trying to solve every other problem going on in your startups.
Love this article, especially since auto racing is used as an example, catchy!

FGD Expo 2009 and Pecha Kucha Jakarta

Sunday I went to FGD Expo and attended the Pecha Kucha workshop CreatiCity – Kreativitas para pekerja industri kreatif di ibukota. The speakers probably only get about 10 minutes, which was good since they had like 10 speakers and they really got their beliefs and points squeezed in pretty well.

I met Purwanto the owner of www.beoscope.com, Indonesian version of youtube. Hopefully we can work something out with them. Met many interesting people.

Nothing was interesting about the FGD though, mostly printing companies or companies selling printing machines. Sigh.. more waste. I like Paperina and its green theme, but I'm not sure if this means they are producing more recycled paper though.

IYEC First Offline Gathering

Saturday was IYEC first offline gathering. IYEC (Indonesian Young Executives Community) is a facebook group for young executives to learn and share with each other about being a young leader in a company. The group was started by Billy Boen and Antonny Liem, who was my ex-boss, this is how i know about the group.

I joined IYEC few months ago because I felt like i will learn a lot from the group. And another hidden agenda is to meet other young executives (read: a person high enough to make decision or influence a decision maker in a company hehe) and tell them about how Urbanesia can promote their companies with a 'low budget but high impact' effect. Plus, all the people there are Facebook users so a web like Urbanesia won't be too hard for them to use.

Pak Liem asked if Urbanesia wants to be the host of IYEC's next gathering. We would love to! I just need to work on prop to visualize Urbanesia and stuffs like business profile to people on a conversation though, it will make my life so much easier :p Not just for this event but for every selling opportunity!

Data Print won Top Brand Award 2009

Last night I just went to the Top Brand 2009 Award at Mulia Hotel. The Top Brand Award was initiated by Handy Irawan of the Frontier Consulting Group and supported by Majalah Marketing. It started in 2007 and identifies brand that has the highest combination of mind share, market share and commitment share compare to other brands in the same category.

The agenda of the event was pretty much dinner, performance by Caroline Zacharie (did i spell that right? hehe), a talk by Handy Irawan and the award presentation to Top Brand 2009 winners. Data Print won the Top Brand in the Refill Ink category.

Presentation by Handy Irawan was short but concise, he talked about myths in brand building and the new belief now. I like one of the beliefs that says a Brand does not need long time to be a top brand. He said that maybe in 5 years there will be many brands built by young people (like people who are building Urbanesia.com!) more well known than the incumbent, as long as we have the right IMC strategy (not just advertising! that's one of the beliefs as well). Can't wait for the time when Top Brand has an online media brand category! ;)

Quantcast

Today, my brother share me this cool marketing tool Quantcast that shows you the demographic of the people visiting the website. I tried Urbanesia but not enough data yet :p so i tried Detik. Turns out they are compiling the audience profile based on users in USA. Cool tool.. but would be more useful if they can present the demographic based on the world.. Probably too much too ask huh..
Here's a screen shot of the report. I'm not going to lie to you. The graphs are pretty. And I like graphs! I think most marketers like graphs :)

Goodbye Michael Jackson!

It's really sad that the world has to lose a philanthropist like him.. He took advantage of his talent and fame to change the world to be a better place. He donated so much that he broke the Guiness Record for the 39 charities he supported like alcohol and drug abuse, famine, hospitals, underpriviliged children and many more. I like this idea of giving back to the community. Like a legitimate Robin Hood :)

During the funeral, the reverend said to the his kids, "Your father is not strange, it was the things he had to deal with that was strange". He will always be remembered for the many lifes he touched and the positive influence he gave. RIP Michael!

My fave MJ song: Will you be there

PRJ 2009

Few days ago I went to PRJ, to be exact the day before Pemilihan Capres. Actually that was the first time I went to PRJ.. Actually I heard a lot of negative reviews about PRJ like it's hot in there, too crowded bla bla.. But the experience was far from what those reviews.. It wasn't hot (well i got there around 6 just about the time when sun set) and it wasn't too crowded too. I think they did a pretty good filtering by charging Rp.15.000 for the entry fee (for weekdays and Rp.20.000 for weekends). I thought it wasnt cheap, since most expos/trade shows in Jakarta usually cost about Rp.10.000 or cheaper to get in.

I quite enjoyed the experience, although it was a bit different from what I had expected since I thought it would be more like local arts and crafts products. It was more like a big promotion of Indonesian products, by big Indonesian manufacturers. The brands were creative in presenting their products and the product identities. The brand that was pretty good at doing this was Gudang Garam International. If the brand wanted to portray a manly, rugged and adventurous image, they did a good job. At the booth (and what I meant by booth is like a maxi booth, most big brands booths are at least 5mx5m i think) visitors can get tattoo imitation, chill at the lounge on the second floor, get a personal embroidery (the manly kind though!) for hats and jackets, and for a minimum purchase of 2 packs of cigarettes, visitors can play a offroad/race simulation on a large screen or wall climbing. Very tempting!


Other brands use this opportunity for sampling or introducing new products like this brand of sandals that were giving away make your own personalized flip flops. Look at the lines! We wanted to check out the booth because of the lines. And I think people enjoy making the sandals as well.


Esia's booth was one of my favorite, I don't know. The giant wheel is just so hard to miss. But Esia has always created attractive booths though. I also like their booth at the festival komputer last month. Their objectives I think mostly were sales.


Futami's booth was pretty fun as well.. I like the huge puzzle.. They also use their to booth to educate the consumers about the 17 beneficial ingredients in their signature drink.


Well going to PRJ opened my eyes.. (haha kasian yah). The point of me going there was to see if Urbanesia will benefit from participating and how Urbanesia should participate next year. Or maybe (hopefully!) collaborate with the organizers.

Dataprint Academy 2009

On the 5th of July I was lucky enough to attend Malam penobatan DataPrint Academy 2009, a week long learning camp for high school students to promote their communities. In order to be these community engines they were fed with workshops to flourish their entrepreneurship skills, creativity, leadership, information technology knowledge, digital graphic, photography and journalism. For more info click here.

On the last night of the 6 days workshop, the 30 students who were involved in the gave a performance to the DataPrint Board of Directors and managements executive and other sponsors of the event. These kids not only are very active (you should see the list of awards they've won) but talented and creative. They gave a spectacular performance only in a few days preparation. At the end of the night 3 of them was awarded money prize for their participation. Overall they really enjoyed the workshops, the experience and the making friends.

I'm glad companies like DataPrint are creating this kind of events to give back to the community. I kind of gave the suggestion that it should be narrow and focus on promoting the community using blogs (inspired by the theme of 2008 Pesta Blogger). I wish Urbanesia someday will be at a place to do something like this.

Here's the youtube link if you want to watch the summary of the event on a TV show broadcasted by TVone:
DataPrint Academy Part 1
DataPrint Academy Part 2
DataPrint Academy Part 3
DataPrint Academy Part 4

Business opportunity

Sometime in May my friend, Wulan bbm me in the middle of the night offering me a business opportunity. Being the opportunist that I am I couldn't resist but to follow through. Although she wouldn't give me any hint about the business until our meeting the next day. But being the positive person that I am, I was thinking what the hell, I might learn something new or better, might get something to improve www.urbanesia.com!

When we met the next day, it turns out she was trying to recruit me to join Faithnet Global which is the support company for Winalite International in Indonesia. Winalite is the company that produces lovemoon, a pricey feminine pads with anion strip that gives out free ion. Its famous pitch is the ion reduces the development of cyst or cervical cancer. I have been offered to market the product 3 times, first time in 2007. Although I never join, I was interested with the product because of several things:
1. I'm scared of cancer, and I think my lifestyle is not exactly cancer preventing
2. It's an eco-friendly product
3. It might reduce this crazy period cramp I get every month
4. The amount of money we can get from selling the product (or actually recruiting members, yes it has an MLM structure)
But I never join them because of money (the product itself is expensive and startup cost is quite a lot for an MLM) and bad timing, like I thought I would never got the time, I was going away on holiday, or I just simple forgot about it..

But Wulan got me to join in less than 24 hours! How?? This is what I would like to share... I'll continue on the next entry! Gotta get ready for work now!

A Shop Owner Dilemma

Besides doing Jakarta people a big favor by creating a make-all-of-our-lives-easier city directory, I’m a just merely an ordinary boutique owner in this boutique-packed city. All this started when my best friend from Los Angeles, Intan along with her big sister Dewi (she’s a superwoman who is directing a big MLM company and somehow managed to write 3 books, 2 are published and 1 is on the way but still found more time to own a boutique. Oh did I mention she’s a mother of 2 kids?) and Michelle, Dewi’s best friend since probably 15 years ago, asked me and my sister to join their start-up boutique. Well I like to dress up and shop for clothes, but I didn’t know a thing about starting up a boutique let alone managing one. Actually they didn’t need me, they need my sister because she was still living in LA and she could be the buyer for the boutique. I joined so that I know what’s going on in the boutique, being the connector to my sister. Well the money was coming out of the same pocket anyway... So there was I, being a silent partner for the newly formed Secret Wardrobe boutique (I was still working full time back then, so I couldn’t afford to be an active partner)

The boutique is tucked in a small ruko complex on Jl. Margaguna Raya (the road between Radio Dalem and Metro Pondok Indah). They presented me with a concept that our boutique is an active boutique meaning that we don’t rely on traffic like other boutiques in the malls, but we do proactive marketing such as events, newsletters, direct selling, and other relationship-based marketing. In addition we are trying to bring in Californian Chic and Hollywood Glamour style at a more affordable price. Trying to be different here, we are buying clothes from up and rising designers who have good workmanship but unknown enough to have a nice-to-look-at price tag. Well I keen on the concept because I thought it was something different and who needs a good location if we have great clothes with great price anyway right??

Well turns out I was wrong :p. There is a reason why the rent in the mall is much higher, because they generate more traffic. More traffic = More sales. But to be honest, I don’t think our boutique can afford a place in an A-class mall. The margin and the volume just don’t make sense. This is I what I call as the shop owner dilemma, especially owners of shops with niche products. I see many shops located as a standalone store sometimes in a busy road side, sometimes in a very quiet neighborhood. There were many times I was very tempted to stop-by, but chances are I was already late on my way to meet someone, in a mall! I believe many shops will get repeat transaction regardless their location or at least from the surrounding neighborhood, but do they get traffic at all?

I want to give shop owners the chance of first traffic. The rest is up to them, if they have good products and great service, I believe it’s easy for them to get repeat traffic and more sales from word of mouth recommendation. That’s why I started Urbanesia.com.

Adwords and Adsense

Sudah lama aku mau menulis posting ini. Tepatnya dari tanggal 14 Agustus, setelah seminarnya Google and Detik.com yang 'Memanfaatkan Internet Untuk Pengembangan Bisnis'. Salah satu bagian dari seminar ini adalah memperkenalkan Google Adwords. Jujur saja.. walaupun aku passionate di online marketing aku tidak pernah memperhatikan Adwords and Adsense, padahal 2 ini adalah Program Advertising Google yang sangat terkenal. Sering sih denger atau baca.. tetapi dari dulu tidak pernah merasa perlu, jadi lewat aja...

Bentuknya sih tahu..


Tetapi karena memang dari dulu sering dengarnya Adsense, aku selalu menganggap semua bentuk iklan seperti ini adalah Adsense.. Padahal bentuk iklan seperti ini mempunyai peranan yang berbeda dari sisi pengiklan (Advertisers), yang membayar untuk beriklan menggunakan Adwords atau sebagai pemilik website yang memilih untuk mengahsilkan uang menjadi pemasang iklan lewat Adsense (Publishers). Selain tersalur sabagai Adsense di website Publishers, Google mendapat pendapatan yang lebih besar lewat Adwords yang tampil di halaman hasil user search di Google atau website partner seperti Ask.com.

Ngomong2 aku ingin berbagi tentang Adwords dan Adsense karena pada seminar itu, saya mengalami kejadian yang memalukan. Pada saat saya bertanya kepada pembicara dari Google Asia, Derek Callow (di depan peserta yang lainnya...) saya menyebut Adwords sebagai Adsense terus sehingga membuat bingung si Derek. Seusai seminar tersebut saya malu sekali ketika mengaku pada Derek kalau saya sedang membuat web portal.. Sebetulnya saya mengerti kedua produk tersebut, cuma memang tidak pernah tahu kalau ternyata namanya berbeda karena mempunyai dual function.. Dan Derek menambahkan.. memang dalam soal branding Adsense lebih terkenal karena dampak positifnya yang membantu menghasilkan uang.. Dan saya langsung Ahaa.. berarti arahan portal web directory kami yang selama ini bertujuan untuk membantu orang meningkatkan penghasilan lebih confirmed! :)

Taking Action

Duuh malu nih.. Sebetulnya waktu mulai blog ini aku sudah menentukan target kalau harus buat post setiap 2 hari... hehe

Tetapi ada alasan yang reasonable kenapa bisa nggak ikut target loh... Karena aku sudah aktif menjalankan perusahaan yang akan membangun portal web directory ini. Jadi pas awal Agustus aku sudah mulai aktif merecruit orang. Kebetulan waktu ikut seminarnya Pak Nukman Luthfie yang Sharpening Your Online Strategy, ketemu teman lama yang ternyata mau resign dari tempat kerjanya. Jadi aku bisa lebih bebas consult dengan dia.. Karena walaupun memang aku passionate dengan online world... Kalau soal technical agak2 terbelakang... Jadi aku yang selama ini merasa terhambat dari sisi technical, lebih bisa banyak melakukan action dalam merealisasikan concept yang selama ini hanya diatas kertas (dan dalam kepala).

Pertengahan Agustus kebetulan aku menemukan ruko yang bisa dijadikan kantor sementara dan aku sudah cocok dengan seorang programmer yang dibantu interview oleh temanku itu. So feels like everything falls into place.

Jadi singkat kata.. I'm proud to say that I have started driving this web portal (although I still need a map! :p)

Ada pepatah yang selalu aku ingat yaitu:
Words can inspire, Thoughts may provoke, but only Action can bring you closer to your dreams. - Brad Sugar
Aku merasa kalau aku sudah satu langkah lebih dekat ke mimpiku untuk membantu warga Jakarta (dan nanti Indonesia) lewat portal web directory ini. Tanggung jawa memang besar. But I'm excited!

Directory untuk warga Jakarta

Ini adalah feature artikel pertamaku di Warta Kota (6 Juli 2008). Terima Kasih untuk Pak Heri sinamarata dari Warta Kota yang telah menulisnya dan untuk ActionCoach yang telah memperkenalkan aku dengan Pak Heri.

Tidak puas dengan bisnis butik, Selina Limman (26) mulai melirik usaha kreatif lainnya. Bedanya, kini alumni sekolah bisnis di Amerika Serikat ini lebih membidik usaha yang berbasis internet. Dia mau menggarap directory untuk membantu warga Jakarta mendapatkan barang dan jasa secara efisien. "Saya terinspirasi membuat directory karena banyak orang Jakarta yang kesulitan ketika mencari barang atau jasa yang dibutuhkan. Dari situ timbul ide, kenapa tidak membuat directory sendiri," ujar Selina Limman kepada Warta Kota, Kamis (3/7) lalu.
Gadis cantik ini pernah tinggal di Negeri Paman Sam untuk menimba ilmu. Disamping menyabet gelar master of business administration (MBA), Selina juga menyelesaikan sekolah di Food Science & Technology California Polytechnic, Pomona.
"Begitu selesai kuliah di Amerika, saya langsung pulang ke Indonesia. Nggak kebayang kalau harus bekerja di sana, meskipun pekerjaan untuk bidang food science di Amerika banyak," katanya.
Di Jakarta, Selina bekerja di sebuah perusahaan yang bergerak di bidang brand marketing communication. Dia pernah memperoleh pengalaman menarik saat menanggani promosi film layar lebar Quickie Express yang dibintangi Tora Sudiro.
Namun karena tujuannya bekerja untuk mencari pengalaman, setelah merasa cukup, Selina akhirnya memilih mengundurkan diri dari perusahaan tersebut. Dia mau meneguhkan komitmen awalnya untuk fokus mengembangkan bisnis baru.
"Ketika masih bekerja dulu, saya sudah mulai belajar bisnis. Saya diajak teman membuka butik. Ada empat orang pemiliknya. Di butik ini kita menjual baju-baju independen buatan Amerika. Model-modelnya bagus, nggak pasaran, feminin, rapi dan kita membidik pasar untuk orang yang berusia 20 sampai 30 tahun," ujar Selina.

Mudahkan warga
Dikatakan, di Amerika Serikat, directory ada banyak sehingga memudahkan orang mencari informasi. Sebaliknya, directory di Indonesia masih terbatas pada Yellow Page dan call center 108. Kekurangan itu mengakibatkan orang Jakarta kesulitan mencari informasi mengenai produk dan jasa. Kesulitan itu makin terasa ketika orang, misalnya, harus mencari restoran atau toko-toko baru.
"Saya sedang merintis pembuatan website berbahasa Indonesia yang salah satu fiturnya tentang directory. Rancananya, di sana saya akan memuat berbagai informasi yang dibutuhkan warga Jakarta, mulai dari restoran hingga toko-toko kecil yang menyediakan produk yang bagus dan unik. Juga tentang para pengusaha kecil menengah yang potensial. Termasuk informasi jasa, seperti tempat praktik dokter gigi, dokter anak, tukang jahit yang bagus dan sebagainya," tutur Selina.
Putri sulung dari keluarga Melsiana Tjahyadikarta dan Limman Nugroho ini melihat, banyak orang Jakarta terpaksa pergi jauh ketika harus membeli suatu produk dan jasa yang diperlukannya. Hal itu semata karena mereka tidak mengetahui tempat terdekat untuk memenuhi semua kebutuhan itu.
"Sering kan kita dengar, orang terpaksa pergi jauh-jauh hanya untuk membeli kue ulang tahun. Atau ketika mencari dokter gigi. Penyebabnya, karena mereka nggak tahu toko kue terdekat. Jadi, kalau ada directory yang lengkap, akurat dan datanya selalu up to date, warga Jakarta akan mendapat kemudahan luar biasa," tambah Selina yang betah ngabisin waktunya berselancar di internet.
Dilihat dari sisi pengusaha, kehadiran directory seperti itu akan membantu mempromosikan produk dan jasa mereka. Kondisi itu sangat menguntungkan karena pengusaha kecil mendapat kesempatan yang sama dengan pengusaha besar, khususnya dalam berpromosi.
Selina lalu menceritakan pengalamannya mengembangkan pasar butik yang digarap bersama tiga mitra bisnisnya. Dikatakan, butiknya yang berlokasi di sebuah ruko di kawasan Pondok Indah itu kesulitan mengembangkan pasar, karena perhatian orang Jakarta lebih terfokus ke mal-mal saat mencari produk-produk fesyen. Padahal secara kualitas, produknya bagus dan unik.
"Butik sekelas kita belum berani masuk Pondok Indah Mal karena biaya sewanya mahal sehingga nggak menguntungkan. Makanya, toko-toko kecil yang berada di luar mal perlu mendapat dukungan promosi agar mereka mendapat pasaran lebih luas. Kita harapkan nantinya pengusaha UKM yang dipromosikan lewat website kita dapat meningkatkan penjualannya," ujar Selina yang masih enggan menyebut nama website-nya.
Melihat manfaatnya yang sangat besar, Selina optimis bisnis website yang mengandalkan directory tersebut akan berkembang pesat. "Saat ini, saya masih mempersiapkan isinya. Saya sangat berharap pengusaha UKM memberikan dukungan dengan memberikan data-datanya kepada kami," ujar Selina yang berjanji akan meluncurkan website-nya bulan Agustus mendatang. (hes)

Mulai dari Nol

Meskipun orangtuanya pengusaha sukses, tapi Selina Limman tidak mau bekerja di perusahaan milik mereka. Beruntung, ibu dan ayahnya, Melsiana Tjahyadikarta dan Limman Nugroho, memberikan kebebasan kepadanya untuk mengembangkan potensi diri.
"Orangtua saya bukan tipe orang seperti itu (memaksan anaknya bekerja di perusahaan keluarga--Red). Mereka justru berpendirian, buat apa saya di sekolahkan jauh-jauh, kalau cuma mau ikut orangtua. Saya justru didukung untuk melakukan sesuatu yang baru," ujar Selina.
Sebaliknya, wanita pengusaha kelahiran tahun 1982 ini mengaku, dia orang yang tidak suka diatur. "Saya sukanya mengatur orang. Makanya, dari awal saya bercita-cita untuk membangun usaha sendiri dari nol. Rasanya bangga kalau bisa berprestasi dalam bidang bisnis," kata Selina yang mengaku kalau modalnya memang masih pinjaman dari orangtua.
Menurut dia, mengembangkan usaha butik merupakan kesempatan pertamanya terjun langsung dalam bisnis. Di situ Selina dapat bekerja dan belajar sekaligus. "Dari bisnis butik itu saya mendapat pelajaran, ternyata bisnis ini nggak sesederhana yang diduga sebelumnya. Tadinya, saya beranggapan, urusannya cuma membeli barang dari Amerika lalu dijual di sini. Ternyata, kita harus mempelajari selera pasarnya. Sebab, bisa jadi yang menurut kita bagus, bagi orang lain mungkin jelek," katanya.
Charles Botte Gunadi, pelatih bisnis dari ActionCoach mengatakan, dia salut dengan komitmen Selina. Meskipun sudah mendapat ilmu dari luar negeri, tapi dia masih mau belajar. "Biasanya anak yang baru belajar dari luar negeri egonya tinggi, menganggap sudah tahu semua sehingga nggak mau belajar lagi. Namun Selina berbeda. Dia masih mau belajar ilmu bisnis. Dia menganggap punya pelatih bisnis penting untuk mendukung pengembangan usahanya," ujar Botte.