Asian Metropolis

Is Jakarta On it’s way to becoming a Silicon Valley Clone?

originally posted on Medium

In the past couple of years, the world has seen an infinite number of startups pop up. Be it mobile applications, web services or even tools for helping you find what you’re looking for in life, the startup scene is booming. More specifically, the technology scene. It comes as no surprise that the highest number of job vacancies and placements in the last year were in the tech sector, in the United States that is, with more countries following closely behind. Technology is thriving and at its peak, internet usage has hit an all-time high. After years entirely new markets have opened up, even those previously unheard of and businesses are looking to cash in.

In order to take advantage of, or should I say keep up with the cutting edge of technology, companies are using various methods to try and tempt the talent that they seek, including; paying them exorbitant salaries, giving them paid vacations, free food all year round, cutting edge workplaces and offices and even the wilder things like supporting a deceased employee’s family for 10 years. All this competition to find and attract talent fuel what we call ‘Startup Culture’.

You may have heard of startups, they’re far from regular businesses. Stories have been told of people coming to work in their robes, working from 5-9 instead of 9-5, having hammocks instead of desks and what not. This idea or way of living has become synonymous with life in the Silicon Valley. The heart of Technology, Silicon Valley is where it all began, from Apple to Google, if there’s an app you use or a tech company you’ve heard of, there is an 86% chance that it started in Silicon Valley. Over the years many cities have followed suit, notably New York, Washington and London. All these places are becoming breeding grounds for geeks, places where programmers can strut their fingers and at every other coffee shop you’ll hear of someone who thinks they have “the next big thing”.

Now you must be confused, everything above about the Silicon Valley sounds nothing like Jakarta, how is it going to be the next Silicon Valley? Jakarta’s tech scene is booming, we have the highest number of twitter users in the world and we are one of the largest populations of Facebook users in the world. The highest percentage of malware comes from Indonesia*. There are many factors as to why a company would choose to start up here in Jakarta instead of say Singapore or Hong Kong, cities that are more notable for their Tech Prowess.

The first answer you’ll get if you ask someone why they chose Jakarta is, it’s cheap. A fact that cannot be disputed, the cost of starting up a business, from the hiring of workforce to the rent of office space and even the purchase of office supplies is considerably lower than competing nations. The average monthly salary of a programmer in Singapore is S$7400, about Rp. 68 Million (source: money.usnews.com) compared to an average of Rp. 7 million a month here in Jakarta. That’s a pretty huge gap even when you take living and other miscellaneous costs into consideration. One of the reasons to this statistic is that developers in cities like Singapore know what they’re worth. They have fancy degrees from the highest ranked institutions to back their claim. As someone who spent some time working for a startup here in Jakarta, it surprised me that a large majority of programmers here never really went to university. They learned how to code on the internet over a semester and just started freelancing from there, slowly gaining enough experience to land them a job, where their skills were further enhanced. People who under the right guidance are able to put out high quality work, comparable to those of any other renowned developers.

That’s what makes Jakarta so alluring, not just because they can reduce their costs but also because, in the case of monetized companies, they can charge less for their products and services and disrupt an entire market overseas, coming in at a fraction of the cost and stealing away market share and user base. Slowly people are starting to realize this and it won’t be long before Jakarta will be as known for technology as Los Angeles is known for movies. There are a few factors holding back Jakarta’s growth, startup culture hasn’t really ignited here and startups here feel more like traditional business than geek havens, but it’ll be soon before long that com

Jakarta’s tech scene is bound to thrive, with events coming up such as TechInAsia’s Startup Jakarta and more to come along and some other high profile events, Jakarta will be put on the map and it will catch the eye of a few.panies here realize what they must do to retain the talent that they have.

UPDATE: Startup Jakarta took place already and showcased quite a few promising Asian startups, a couple of them based out of Jakarta such as game development firm Touchten and many others, more details can be found at TechInAsia.