Tag: idea

[Simply Business] Stay Away From the Idea Guy

I think we have all seen the likes of ‘the idea guy’, the one with a million great idea and no skill, value or intention to back it up. I like to call ‘the idea guy’ for what he/she truly is: the bullshiter. You see, the idea guy always starts with something like this:

“Hey I got a brilliant idea, let’s make facebook for little people and we’ll be rich! You code and I will get 80% of the share because it’s my idea”

If the guy cannot provide any other value aside from the idea, STAY AWAY AS FAR AS YOU CAN. Idea is cheap, it provides no value without the execution to follow. Of course it is not the case if the person can actually provide you with added value like capital, connections or technical skills. Let’s look at these values in details.

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What Problem is Your Startup Trying to Solve?

It's difficult to be this excited about local startups

Pownce, Convore, and Grove founder Leah Culver shared her story about living using cloud services and doing away with the traditional sense of ownership. Of course, being in the US it’s ridiculously easy to do this whereas for us in Southeast Asia, it’s the stuff dreams are made of.

We can’t have a cab company like Uber because it’s against the law, at least in some countries (maybe all). AirBNB can’t yet operate properly due to the high amount of trust required by both parties (and also the law). Grocery deliveries are still unreliable. Dropbox requires a reliable, widespread 3G connection. We can’t buy books on Kindle or iBookstore, no Rdio, Spotify, not even iTunes Store.

Living in a third world country is a bitch, but you know what, that means there’s plenty of opportunities to figure out how to come up with services and products that solve these problems. That’s the challenge in living in this part of the world. People get preoccupied with first world entitlements that some of the more basic needs in this region gets forgotten. This is where local entrepreneurs should step up, identify those problems and come up with workable solutions.

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Tak Ada yang Peduli Tentang Ide Anda, Bahkan Ibu Anda Sendiri

Aria Rajasa adalah CEO dari GantiBaju.com, startup di bidang busana yang mirip dengan Threadless tetapi dengan sentuhan lokal Indonesia, GantiBaju juga memiliki komunitas desain yang sangat kuat. Semangat Aria di dunia wirausaha membuatnya mendirikan beberapa perusahaan setelah lulus kuliah.

Ok, bisa jadi Ibu Anda hanya bersikap baik mengenai ide yang Anda utarakan, padahal bisa jadi dia tidak mengerti apa yang Anda katakan. Ide itu murah, saya selalu mengatakan hal ini kepada siapapun, dan ketika mengatakannya saya benar-benar bermaksud demikian. Hanya karena saya punya ide untuk mengembangkan Facebook, itu tidak berarti sama harganya dengan valuasi Facebook (diestimasikan dalam kisaran US $75 – $100 miliar). Ide itu murah, ia tidak berharga atas dirinya sendiri. Eksekusi adalah yang terpenting. Jika Anda tidak menjalankan ide Anda maka itu tidak akan berarti apa-apa. Tidak berarti apapun.

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Nobody cares about your idea, not even your mom

Aria Rajasa is the CEO of gantibaju.com, a clothing startup not dissimilar to Threadless but with a touch of Indonesia and a very strong design community. His passion in entrepreneurship has gotten him to start a number of companies since leaving university and is now rumored to be starting another one.

Yeah I know your mom said it’s nice, but chances are she doesn’t even know what you’re talking about. Idea is cheap, I always said that to everybody and I meant every word of it. Just because I have the idea of building Facebook, it doesn’t mean that it’s worth even a penny of Facebook’s $100 billion valuation. Idea is cheap, it’s worthless on its own. Execution is what matters. If you don’t act out on your idea then it will remain as it is: nothing.

What’s even more funny is that a lot of people think that their ideas is so precious that they keep it to themselves, refining it for months and maybe years and later on realizing that the idea actually suck. Keeping an idea is dangerous, you as the owner of the idea will be bias towards your own creation. You will always think the idea is great and nothing can go wrong. So do yourself a favor and challenge your idea by telling one, two or a hundred of your friends about your idea.

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Apa Ide Besar Anda?

Saya akan mengatakannya tanpa basa-basi. Secara garis besar, prospek tentang startup di bidang teknologi di Indonesia cukup suram. Saya mengatakannya karena kebanyakan startup Indonesia belum dapat mengidentifikasi solusi atas masalah nyata yang ada. Banyak di antara para wirausahawan yang berpikir mereka bisa dengan mudah memberi valuasi jutaan dolar pada perusahaan mereka ketika sebagian dari mereka bahkan tidak memiliki ukuran basis pengguna atau jenis produk yang menjamin tingkat valuasi yang tinggi tersebut. Tapi masih ada harapan. Beberapa pendiri startup memiliki ide yang benar-benar praktis dan berguna, dan yang mereka butuhkan adalah pelatihan bisnis yang kuat untuk melengkapi pengetahuan teknis mereka.

Sejumlah investor yang berbincang dengan saya mengungkapkan kekecewaan yang sama. Mereka mengatakan bahwa banyak yang telah datang kepada mereka meminta angka yang seolah-olah menunjukkan kalau uang itu tumbuh di pohon. Well, bahan baku uang mungkin memang berasal dari pohon, tetapi uang tidak tumbuh di sana. Investor yang saya temui bukanlah investor baru. Beberapa dari mereka telah terlibat lebih dari satu dekada dalam industri ini dan telah melihat berbagai perusahaan bangkrut karena tidak memiliki produk yang bisa bertahan lama.

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Hey Entrepreneurs, What’s Your Big Idea?

Let me just say it outright. The general outlook on Indonesian technology startups is grim. I say it’s grim because most local startups fail to identify solutions for real problems and these startups think they are easily valued at millions of dollars when most of them don’t even have the size of user base or the kind of product that warrants that level of valuation. But there’s hope. A small number of founders have ideas that are actually practical and useful and all they need is some strong business coaching to pair up with their technical knowledge.

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Investor-Incubator-Accelerator Should Help for Innovation

Some days ago, I read an article on Businessweek Indonesia magazine 15-21st September 2011 edition about Steve Perlman and his business incubator, Rearden.

Steve, Rearden founder, is developing DIDO (distributed-input-distributed-output). It is explained on the magazine, DIDO a wireless technology that is expected to be the solution for the network traffic and disturbed phone calls.

The article is interesting for me because it is not only the story of Steve and DIDO, but more about Steve Perlman mentality who always gives innovation to all the things he developed. He even criticizes the Silicon Valley mentality that is not that cool as it used to be in which people dare to take risk and focus on innovation.

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[Guest Post] Enthusiasm, Idealism, and Culture: University’s Main Asset to Trigger Innovation

Editorial: This article is the continuation theme about Silicon Valley, University in Indonesia and their relations with innovations and entrepreneurship. Sigit Purnomo as a lecturer surely has an interesting view about this theme. This article was written by Sigit Purnomo as a guest post.

This article tried to continue the trilogy of Angelina Veni about Silicon Valley, Rama Mamuaya with Universities in Indonesia Must be a Trigger for Innovation, and Wiku Baskoro withChoosing to Establish – Work in Startup or Work in a Large Company? In those trilogies there are similar topics of discussion, which is how university and industry collaborate in harmony to make a beautiful symphony called “Silicon Valley”. In this article I would like to talk over what have been said by Angelina Veni: “Silicon Valley is more than just a building, company, and universities – there is enthusiasm here, idealism, and culture.” Enthusiasm, idealism, and culture, my opinion is that these three things is very important for University in Indonesia to trigger an innovation.

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