Capital Ladder

Guest Lecture
Tuesday, 10 Oct 2012.

Guest Lecture today presented Antony Liem, one of the founder of Merah Putih Incubator. He shared a lot of things about e-commerce in Indonesia. He was also one of the founder of famous socialite site kaskus.

The conclusion of his lecture is one:

Do not start e-commerce business now!

Indonesian people, culture, law, system are not ready yet. Instead, run business which are the supporting business of e-commerce. There are 4 types of supporting business of e-commerce:
1. Logistic Solution
2. Payment Solution
3. Price Comparison
4. Affiliate sales or Marketing
Those four are great opportunies following the rapid growth of internet penetration in Indonesia static or mobile.

One thing which captured my attention was his theory about Capital Ladder. It is a step of capital funding trust from different sources.

According to the lectures there are seven (7) sources people can get their capital. The higher the level, the more trustable and valuable business you have.

1. Sweat.
The very basic human capital. Our force is our modal.

2. Personal Money/Loan/Deposit
The very basic way people start their business is using their own money. Either it is their saving, loan or every personal liquid assets.

3. Angel Investor
Is a first kind of investation. But the investation is not to the business, but personal to the person. Usually comes from family, friend or mentor who believe in us. This type of investation required no fullback payment. Sometimes doesn't need to be paid back. That's why it is called Angel Investor.

4. Incubator
Incubator term here is taken from the same term of baby incubator. The new born "baby" company is guided by an incubator company to start its business. The incubator help not just the fund but also the skills and tips needed for that particular business. Merah-Putih is one of the example of incubator company in Indonesia.

5. Venture Capital
A venture capital agent will collect fund from fund holders all over the world. And then analyze it, calculate it, so that the fund which collected can be allocated to special business been analyzed. (I think one my friend work in this area. Finally I know what is he really doing. Haha)

6. Bank Loan
In this particular step, means that our business is actually worth a value to a Bank. A very trustworthy organization for business recogniztion.

7. IPO
The last funding step is IPO.

Sinetron v.s. Serial Film

Sinetron (Sinema Elektronik), Indonesian opera soap are rapidly fulfilling every hours of television slot nowadays. Mainly about love, family matters and stuff.

I just notice this, the main difference between Sinetron and Serial Film (which happens I watch in cable TV all the time) is:

Sinetron lacks of creativity

Sinetron comes up with problem-solving plot in a week time frame. So, the creativity will last for a week or two. Compare to serial film, which happens each episode brings new fresh idea PLUS the running stories (like in Sinetron), it is the winner of the creativity.

So, the question is:

Why we lack of creativity?

What makes Indonesian producers trapped in this kind of situation. Well, I think they are not. They must have a bunch of fresh ideas. The problem must be in commercial side. Commercial, in my opinion, kills ideas.

Back to business ethics, not everything should be commercially counted. An honest and trutful motivation for doing show, I believe will lead to greater impact. Even revenues.

Is Cutting Cost Effective?

I have a big question in mind right now.

Is cutting cost the right way to do?

As lectures, practicians and much people absorb that belief to cutting cost, I kinda against that opinion.

The main reason of cutting cost is:

Competition

Yes, competition. We can not do anything with our selling price, our revenue, because competition already set the price.

In my opinion, we can! As long as we give our customer additional value. Best deliverable quality for example. Customer nowadays is smart customer. They will choose to spend more for trustable quality right now. People are tired with cheap-easy-broken products.

It is the time for quality now. 

We can sell that quality and gain more revenue from it.

So, back to the question, is cutting cost the right thing to do? No, controlling cost for creating high quality products and services is the right thing to do now.

The moment of cost is over. It's the very moment of revenue now.

Character Propotional to Age?

One of my friend ask a question during a CEO Speaks event. He is quite young. He spelled his question with round-and-round-and-round-and-round preamble. The result, that CEO didn't know to answer, because the CEO didn't understand the question.

I noticed that situation. I spoke to my self, I see my self in that young fellow. Proud and silly. Very shallow but super arrogant. I did even worse. In a class presentation held by my friends, I asked a question and I answered it myself. (My God, if I remember that stupid experience, I feel so ashame. To ashame that I could throw my self to the sea right now).

So, the question is:

Will that young fellow will understand this in the future?

Does aging really matters to the character growth?

Well, my answer is yes. God faces us with so many experiences. The reason is one: so we can be more like Him. Wise is one of God's character.

What makes it different is:

How much a man want to learn from each experiences. 

A man who is humble enough to always learn from everything, everyone, everytime is the winner. While on the other hand, the one who refuse to learn and let the wind blows will gain a little percentage of this opportunities.

So yes, age does matter to character. But, what really matters is the humble heart to always learn. 

That makes a young fellow, can even more mature than an old childish man.

CEO Speaks, Bari Hamami, PT Trakindo Utama

JWW, October 4th 2012

CEO Speaks presenting Bari Hamami, CEO of PT Trakindo Utama, son of the Founder of Trakindo itself, AHK Hamami. Trakindo is the authorized dealer in Indonesia of Caterpillar products.

One that quite interesting is, I asked him a question during the Q&A session:

"Has or will Trakindo build its own machine?"

A quite simple question, but I'm sure I was representing the absolute dream of fellow Indonesian

He answered: 

"Yes we did! And it was super cool!! Back in 1983 Trakindo was trying to build a small tracktor with all of its Indonesian engineers resources. We build it and we sold it. But customer never cameback. We failed to create aftersell services, spareparts and those kind of things. Don't ever dream to build and sell your own product if the environment is not allowed you to. Especially when GOVERNMENT is not supporting you. Well, we still have that tracktor in our factory in Pulogadung. We keep it there. Not as a reminder of our failure, but as a spirit that one day we will get there."

I fully support his answer. I am thinking about companies like Huawei or ZTE, Chinese Telecommunication Vendor, which happen have a lot of support from their Government. They are rapidly growing! Seriously! Even beat the mature western companies. 

I also thinking about my former company, which a local Telecommuniation vendor. We were hit so bad because Government at that time promise to publish policy that require every companies in Indonesia to use more percentage of local made products. But the policy was never published, and many local companies were in pain. Only several could survive. 

Government play important role in local industries. Honestly, very important! I wonder about Mahatma Gandhi phylosophy to made-use-utilize India's own-country products. I believe that's what happens in USA. They are livin the Gandhi's phylosophy since long long time ago. They produce for themselves, and they consume for themselves. And they export the innovations to the world. 

Well, Indonesia should do the same thing. At least starts with me. My beautiful brain is rest too much. It's time for learn, invent and be creative. So help me God.