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I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

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Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know about these "stats" online, but would love to hear what someone living in the actual country says.

My friend who lives in Manila says $1,000/month for call center manager, $2,000/month for programmer, $3,000/month for eng. manager. Any of those people can afford to buy an iPhone, car and house in a few years, and they use Uber and ecommerce like a digital native.

This seems about right. The tech industry is one of the few industries where you can break out of the ceiling of the local economy.

Otherwise, what might be (or once was) considered a solid middle wage job back in the U.S. is probably closer to what the call center manager is making.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#62
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Average monthly wage is around ~$200-$300 [2014]. http://www.dumblittleman.com/2014/05/what-is-the-average-sal...

I know about these "stats" online, but would love to hear what someone living in the actual country says.

As somebody who previously was in charge of a large (tens of thousands of staff) finance company's Asia Pacific IT workforce, I looked at dozens of Filipino CVs for new remote hires (we were moving away from India).

The salary the worker was expecting was often written in the resume directly ("Expecting no less than 40,000 peso a month"). All of the figures were higher than what they would net, because of the overhead of the remote office in Manila that acted as local HR and a place to work).

Only one resume I looked at didn't have a photo insert on the front page. Only a few didn't mention religion and hobbies. These are asides. Salary was $400 US per month for programmers working full time (we paid $1200 including the "HR/seat/office fee" - we were to look at coworking spaces in the future).

All the staff travelled roughly 70-95 minutes each way - we offered remote (at-home) work if their conditions were ok, but most didn't have a decent computer, had no aircon, had noise issues and couldn't guarantee an unoccupied room for six hours per day at least, so the risk was too high, given that we were tipped off that any worker could eventually try to incorporate something else on the side [part-time remote job] and do both at once, appearing present on IM but half-assing two jobs). We decided that an office with a roaming/snooping manager was a necessity in our early testing stages.

From speaking with many people in that country, average wage is definitely lower than you might even think. Management is the way to earn better money over there in IT. Salaries, if they exist, for non-corporate staff are probably abysmal all over Manila. There will always be somebody willing to work for less, fresh out of university.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#63
post #20

I couldn't imagine doing something like this in the Philippines, which I'm guessing is much like Indonesia. Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit card alternatives haven't gained traction. People use cheap alternatives to Western Union to send money. Nobody surfs the web except at internet cafes. And at internet cafes it's either FB or homework. Nobody aimlessly browses when they are dishing out mone…

> Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit cards may or may not be relatively hard to get for most people, but anyone who wants a debit card can simply open a bank account, with an ID and maybe a few hundred pesos. If you don't want to open a bank account, you can get a Smart Money card: http://smart.com.ph/Money/ If you don't want a Smart Money card, you can use Gcash: http://www.globe.com.ph/gcash If…

You are right that prepaid debit cards are relatively easy to get. My region is still mostly cash though, so you don't use the cards much locally. Bank accounts are less common because of minimums to start one (though I haven't checked this lately.) Credit cards are even less common.

My earlier statement still stands. You would still probably be targeting people who could get a credit card or a card from a bank account. Most of the rest is a difficult market to run an e-commerce platform funded by outside investors.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#64
post #20

I couldn't imagine doing something like this in the Philippines, which I'm guessing is much like Indonesia. Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit card alternatives haven't gained traction. People use cheap alternatives to Western Union to send money. Nobody surfs the web except at internet cafes. And at internet cafes it's either FB or homework. Nobody aimlessly browses when they are dishing out mone…

> Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit cards may or may not be relatively hard to get for most people, but anyone who wants a debit card can simply open a bank account, with an ID and maybe a few hundred pesos. If you don't want to open a bank account, you can get a Smart Money card: http://smart.com.ph/Money/ If you don't want a Smart Money card, you can use Gcash: http://www.globe.com.ph/gcash If…

You are right that prepaid debit cards are relatively easy to get. My region is still mostly cash though, so you don't use the cards much locally. Bank accounts are less common because of minimums to start one (though I haven't checked this lately.) Credit cards are even less common.

My earlier statement still stands. You would still probably be targeting people who could get a credit card or a card from a bank account. Most of the rest is a difficult market to run an e-commerce platform funded by outside investors.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#65

Is he being ironic > I really hate to say this, but I am quite disappointed with the startup scene in Indonesia. In Silicon Valley, you compete fairly with each other through creating better products and services. People highly respect good products and services. In Indonesia, you compete with each other through $$$. The one who has the most cash in their bank will most possibly win the competition. All the hypergrow…

Indeed, I remember the 90s being an era of random free shit for consumers, and I'm sure the cost of customer acquisition was high. Its not like that era was known for it's sound and stable business practices.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they hire their own couriers who go out, deliver and take cash at the door Yeah, that's what people in the US did before everyone had credit cards. Cash on delivery. Growing up, I remember hearing ads on TV that said "no COD" when that service was being phased out. More and more people were using credit cards. You're right, many countries could use trusted couriers in order to spur local markets and economic growth…

> You're right, many countries could use trusted > couriers in order to spur local markets and > economic growth. Ok, so that seems like the next startup right? You don't really want couriers that are carrying boxes of cash back to headquarters but it sounds like reducing friction in payment would achieve good results. Where is the SMS payment system equivalent? Have the courier bring the item, send the SMS payment,…

An SMS payment system doesn't seem possible. Just end-to-end encryption for SMS will be much be bigger than a Facebook app. Without encryption consumers will be conducting wire transfers over cleartext to the merchant.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#67
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit cards may or may not be relatively hard to get for most people, but anyone who wants a debit card can simply open a bank account, with an ID and maybe a few hundred pesos. If you don't want to open a bank account, you can get a Smart Money card: http://smart.com.ph/Money/ If you don't want a Smart Money card, you can use Gcash: http://www.globe.com.ph/gcash If…

You are right that prepaid debit cards are relatively easy to get. My region is still mostly cash though, so you don't use the cards much locally. Bank accounts are less common because of minimums to start one (though I haven't checked this lately.) Credit cards are even less common. My earlier statement still stands. You would still probably be targeting people who could get a credit card or a card from a bank accou…

Why would you specifically target a relatively low number of people who have credit cards, when you can accept credit cards, debit cards, Gcash, Smart Money, Paypal, cash on delivery, payment via ATM or bank deposit or online transfer, or even through pawn shops; methods that online stores are using already.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#68
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The math is grim. The math is grim for the poorest people in any country. > That's it. That's the economy. The economy of one of the biggest consumer markets in Asia is people earning $3/day and blowing $2 of it on transport, SMS and internet?

Not far off if you throw lunch in there as well. It's growing fast though. The area I'm living in went from relatively quiet with few cars on the road to serious traffic problems in probably 5 years (pulling from memory). Some of that might be increased shopping options in the city pulling in regional shoppers who previously didn't have as much of a need to be in the city. It's hard to say without real numbers though…

If you're living in an area where having a fridge and TV is rare or unusual, if I understand you correctly, then I'd say you're living in a very poor area, not a 'typical' or even average place.

Re: I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup

#70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did raise funding it was around $100k-$500k (not going to disclose the real amount). We realized that we needed some boost to test the market overall, but after 1.5 year of using that money and got to 30-40k UV per day, the path of profitability from that point seems far away, numbers just don't add up. It gets worse as I stated in the article that new startups in the same area are raising behemoth amount of fundi…

I sense a lot of naive optimism in your approach. You understand the goal of any business, especially an internet business, is to become a monopoly right? Look at Amazon, Google, FB, etc. They only became profitable once they became monopolies, and thus could set their own prices based on whatever metrics they chose. The reason startups take outside funding is so that they can become a monopoly in a given market, and…

I would have to disagree with the goal of any business is to be a monopoly.

There are lots of examples of successful business out there who did not monopoly the market.

I'd also have to disagree that startups sell mostly crap they don't need or want. Uber & AirBnB definitely provides something valuable that most humans would appreciate of.

If you're talking about products such as Snapchat or Instagram, that's a different genre of product. It's a vitamin type of product not a pain killer.

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