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 are...

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 higher greater and greater operational efficiencies. Jeff Yuwono, Founder & CEO of "brand aggregator" Open Labs, discusses this massive r...

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...

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 Ind...

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 Ind...

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 ...

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 herdi...

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 digit...

Bukalapak in August became Indonesia's first ever locally listed tech unicorn. Its robust revenue growth in its first reported quarter as a public company offers a compelling alternative narrative to characterizations of destructive hyper-competition across the country's e-commerce industry. Company President Teddy Oetomo points out that tier 2-4 cities, where its "Mitra B...

Indonesia has soared from relative obscurity just a few years ago to represent more than 40% of Southeast Asia's mobile games market by revenues. It developmental ecosystem however lags far behind. The country has a mere 1,200 games developers (China has 200,000). Founder of the country's largest game studio Agaté, Arief Widhiyasa, profiles many of the company's initiative...