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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

#41

Post by tonydiv »

AznHisoka wrote: post #40
gexla wrote: 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…

Just curious, what is consider a high-end monthly salary (in pesos or USD) in the Philippines?

Average monthly wage is around ~$200-$300 [2014].

http://www.dumblittleman.com/2014/05/what-is-the-average-sal...

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

#42

Post by cookiecaper »

wtvanhest wrote: post #7

> This just sounds so wrong to me. If you have a good product and it brings value, then others should be able to value it by paying you back for your product or services. Period. I completely understand this philosophy, but an attempt at building a two-sided market place is very likely going to require outside investors. This opinion that you need to be profitable from day one has been proven wrong repeatedly and whi…

Bootstrapping is often the only practical way to run a business for numerous reasons. I think anyone who's been an entrepreneur can appreciate the good a few hundred thousand would do, but finding investors and keeping control of the operation after you have them are frequently intractable problems.

Taking startup investment begins to be impractical with something as simple as being older than 21 and thus, having external obligations, whether monetary or chronic. Anyone who is NOT your typical college kid willing to work 90 hours per week for $25k/yr usually can't get investors to look unless the business is already running and turning profit.

One day, it's my hope to open investment opportunities to the mature professionals that are capable of building our next generation of transformative software but are almost always overlooked merely because they've been doing something more prudent with their lives than pulling the lever on the startup slot machine.

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

#43

Post by hartpuff »

gexla wrote: 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 don't want Gcash you can use Paypal.

If you don't want Paypal you can pay cash on delivery.

> Nobody surfs the web except at internet cafes.

Surfing the web in internet cafes is about as dated as the term surfing the web; your proverbial "nobody" does it. Internet cafes are for gaming or getting stuff printed or photocopied.

"Everyone" has at least one mobile phone, often a smartphone, and that is how they 'surf the web', or at home, with an overpriced internet connection or pocket WiFi, or at "PisoNet" cabinets.

> Nobody aimlessly browses when they are dishing out money every hour.

Who anywhere aimlessly browses in an internet cafe? And "money" in this case is about 30 US cents (per hour).

> Even those with smart phones only use FB, Instagram, games and a handful of other messaging apps.

Isn't this most people, everywhere?

> I don't even have a proper address.

Why not?

>I don't know how the postal system is able to deliver anything.

Don't most countries use courier services for delivering packages, rather than the standard postal service? So presumably products are delivered using the likes of LBC, Air21, DHL, UPS.

>And speaking of money. Nobody has that either.

And yet "everyone" has the usual brand name products and gadgets and packed shopping malls are everywhere.

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

#44

Post by AznHisoka »

tonydiv wrote: post #41
AznHisoka wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what is consider a high-end monthly salary (in pesos or USD) in the Philippines?

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.

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

#45

Post by educar »

Loved the article. I do not agree with the assessment that Silicon valley startups compete based on better products. In fact, it's quite the opposite. All the popular ones you have heard of have taken large amounts of money and subsidize their products a great amount. If you are a less funded startup, it is impossible to complete in such a scenario. In fact, you absolutely have to get lots of funding first, you have no choice.

So yeah, you have the same problem everywhere and not just indonesia. At the end of the day, all is fair in love, war and business.

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

#46

Post by edwinnathaniel »

To the author: I really respect you for building a startup back home but this article feels more like a rant all over the place though.

It also sounds like you don't really know the market in Indonesia and you're trying to replicate what you know about US/Silicon Valley market back home as-is and didn't achieve the result you were hoping for (I haven't seen anyone done that and be successful either).

I know an owner/co-founder of a startup in Indonesia and they have diverse channels.

Having said that, I wish you more success down the line.

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

#47

Post by PKop »

james-watson wrote: post #33
aherlambang wrote: post #15

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…

Startups just make a few people very, very rich at the expense of their customers by selling them mostly crap they don't need or want.

This is laughably false for at least two of the examples (Amazon, Google) you've mentioned in your own post.

Millions of people use these services everyday to make their lives better. Thousands of employees work for good pay at these companies. Is it all scam? Of course not.

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

#48

Post by dkarapetyan »

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 hypergrowth startups are burning piles of cash with almost no sustainable way out.

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

#49

Post by studentrob »

melvinmt wrote: post #23
gexla wrote: 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…

It's definitely super hard, but not impossible. You should read [1] how Rocket Internet expands in developing countries: they hire their own couriers who go out, deliver and take cash at the door. This way they solve both the distribution and the payment problem. This is similar to how many of China's biggest ecommerce players operate, they all have their own distribution/payments systems. If the infrastructure doesn…

> 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.

Here in Taiwan you can have something sent to 7-11 or Family Mart and pay for it there. There are tons of these shops everywhere, and with the receipts lottery, the government guarantees it gets enough taxes even in a cash-based society. It's a pretty cool system and often feels funny how convenient 7-11s are here. In the US they're just a snack shop. Here you can have packages sent, do laundry, pay bills, ...

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

#50

Post by kaitai »

aherlambang wrote: post #18
kaitai wrote: post #11

I am a bit surprised that the article doesn't have any introspection about knowing the market (or not). It seems like the reasoning was: we want some money; women have money; women buy clothes; let's do fashion. It doesn't seem like there was much of a value proposition for the customer. Maybe the customer likes browsing Instagram. Maybe the customer asks all these questions (stupid questions as well as clarifying qu…

The one I wrote was an over simplification. There are of course more than that. The value proposition to the seller were clear, we wanted to give them more exposure outside of Instagram, make their store be discovered by style/trends. The value proposition to the buyer is what I think is lacking. We tried to generate sort of a board as a form of style inspirations, but it seemed the market doesn't really care about t…

Thanks for the further discussion. Definitely makes sense for the seller.
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