According to Indonesia’s Central Bureau of Statistics, there were around 42 million active SMEs in the archipelago during 2014. However, the nation’s failure rate for these kinds of businesses sits at around 35 percent. That’s where local entrepreneur Markus Rahardja wants to come in.
Rahardja is the co-founder of Votinc, an Indonesian site that provides “crowdvoting” to help guide newbie startups through the tough decisions of their entrepreneurial journeys. Votinc showcased itself at Startup Asia Jakarta 2014, alongside two of its fellow local compeitors, one of which Tech in Asia wrote about this week.
“Looking at the Southeast Asian market, especially Indonesia, there are a few competitors doing a similar yet different approach as us, such as GudPoin and JakPat,” explains Rahardja. “But Votinc is unique because we do it in a social media way.”
See: 5 interesting startups we spotted at Bootstrap Alley
When Rahardja says “social media way,” he means that Votinc users can share their surveys on Facebook and Twitter as direct links (giving the questionnaires a potentially viral element) not unlike the world-famous company Survey Monkey, which Rahardja also cites as one of Votinc’s indirect competitors.
Similar to JakPat in Indonesia, Votinc plans to monetize via a freemium business model. Potential customers are able to use a free version of Votinc that features survey creation and social media sharing, while the premium version will offer broader data analytics and full summary reports. Rahardja plans to charge between US$49 and US$99 annually for the paid service. Votinc also plans to offer a “featured post” option, which will allow users to pay for a boost to their survey’s reach on select social media channels, making the questionnaires visible to a larger audience.
Votinc aims to acquire users who are willing to be polled by offering a point system where completed surveys equate to points. If executed correctly, Rahardja hopes the points can be converted into rewards provided by the entrepreneurs. Rahardja did not mention what those rewards could be or if any of the participating entrepreneurs have agreed to the system.
Currently, Votinc is fully bootstrapped, with Rahardja and his three co-founders having put in about US$10,000 already. Rahardja and his team launched the beta version of Votinc nearly four weeks ago, and according to him, the site already has a small number of users. While Rahardja concedes that the numbers are still microscopic at this early stage, he remains optimistic about Votinc’s business concept. He projects the startup can garner 6 million users and generate US$1 million in revenue in five years’ time. He hopes Votinc will come out of beta in February.
Votinc provides quick but informed decisions for entrepreneurs,” says Rahardja. “We hope the decision-making process will be improved by our product.”
This post Votinc wants to incorporate social media into Indonesia’s entrepreneurial decisions appeared first on Tech in Asia.
Votinc wants to incorporate social media into Indonesia’s entrepreneurial decisions
No comments:
Post a Comment