How Indonesian Startups Get One Million Users

There are things that have been bothering me quite a bit in the past 4 years, amount startup Indonesia is growing rapidly and produces hundreds of consumer based companies every year, but hardly any of these reach one million users. At most it reaches hundreds of thousands of users, but still less than a million. Why does this happen? Has no one been able to crack the code to achieve it yet?

Most startup People I meet always think that they should focus on solving problems, building great products and making money from those products. What many people don't think about is the fact that they need users of the products they produce. How to get people to register themselves on your site and become a member of your service and get lots of benefits from it. The problem is, not enough platform which can help you reach one million users.

Let's explore.

For a global site (assuming you have a world-class product) you can use Twitter or Facebook as platform to grow your user base. But in Indonesia, we don't have platform like this in large numbers. Of course there is Kaskus with 4 million users but that they themselves find it difficult to monetize their community. Indonesia has several other sites like Detik or Vivanews, but in reality they have their own agenda and may align with startup mostly (Compass, maybe).

As far as I have noticed, startup Indonesia only has two options: telecommunications operator and cell phone manufacturers. You want to get millions of users, go to them. And so far there are not many alternatives to choose from other than those two.

Of course it's not as easy as it looks, but today's telecom operators desperately need content. They run out of time to get income from data packages, since voice/sms are no longer a reliable business for them. Operators need content, local content. We can't ignore that one of the reasons why startup refusing to cooperate with operators is an unfair profit sharing, but I think this will change soon. Looking at the current conditions, telecommunication operators and local content providers need each other. Yes, operators are in a higher position because they own the users, but they can't deny the fact that they also need local content.

The same is true for cell phone manufacturers, whether it's RIM, Samsung, HTC, Nexian, etc. They also need high quality content, something that belongs to startup. And they - these people have done a great thing in maintaining the developer ecosystem in Indonesia.

Foreign companies such as Blast, Phonetwish, TMG Games, Bubble Motion know very well what they are doing when they decide to enter the Indonesian market and they follow the same strategy: strategic partnerships with local telecommunications operators. And a number ofstartuplocal have also done the same. And if they do good partnerships with foreign content providers, I think both - carriers and phone manufacturers - will be able to provide a better deal for local content.

Reaching one million users will not be easy, and it will be even more difficult to maintain. Maybe it's time for startup Indonesia to realize that they need telecommunications operators and mobile phone manufacturers more than they think, and also for telecommunications operators and mobile phone manufacturers to realize that they need local content more than they think.

Always aim for a win-win position.