Learn From Daniel Tumiwa's Career Journey

Daniel Tumiwa has a series of stories about his career in the technology industry. The thing that attracted the most attention was when he led OLX Indonesia (OLX). In a time when digital business is growing rapidly, OLX with the concept of classified ads has been widely known by the public. Two years later, in the middle of 2017, Daniel decided to back off from the position of CEO and subsequently founded the adtech startup Adsvokat.

To DailySocial, Daniel admitted that the decision to establish Adsvokat was not the main reason he left OLX. After leaving the CEO position of the classifieds company, Daniel did several things, including running a business coaching, plunged into the world of politics, while at the same time creating an advocate.

"I saw Adsvokat's idea more closely and relevant at that time, because I had previously run several startups and they were very too advanced from his time and this Advocate more part, said Daniel.

Behind the lid Advocate

Adsvokat was founded in 2018. The concept offered is quite unique. Utilizing traditional media such as car stickers, helmets, t-shirts, luggage tags, behind laptops, and even on the back of smartphones as advertising media. They try to encourage young people to promote brand liked with reward additional income.

"The biggest failure of advocate is timings. Too fast. The second does not take into account the game cash flow."

He claims the user registration process is not a problem, usage is no problem, tracking and measurement did not encounter any problems. This solution was already accepted and utilized by several early clients. The problems that arise are due to inappropriate financial cycles. Users or agents need regular fees at the end of the month, while agencies get payments that are always spaced out. This wrong cycle is what finally forced Advocates out of business.

"The capital has to be large in order to [be able to] turn the money around and keep the cycle going," Daniel said.

Nevertheless, Daniel does not regret anything about the Advocate. He admitted that from the beginning this startup was designed quite well with transparency. In fact, he claims to always display the company's balance in an open space so that everyone knows the company's financial condition. When the situation is critical he can say, "Guys, time to find a job!".

Now Advocates are history. For Daniel, there is always a plan to revive Advokat. The business model he was running at that time was still being discussed behind the scenes with several parties. This business model is claimed to be able to plug n play in several companies that want to explore new marketing strategies, although there has been no realization until now.

From professional CEO to startup founder

Daniel's experience is quite complete. In the last 5 years he has dived into two jobs that have different challenges, as CEO of a technology company and founder of a startup.

In terms of responsibilities or workload, a professional CEO must be obedient and obedient to the KPIs or goals set by the company or group, for example pursuing growth, revenue, user acquisition and such. While the founder must be fully responsible for any aspects related to the smooth operation of the company.

"On OLX pressureit's different. reporting line different and I feel that the excitement is different. It's a job if as CEO at OLX. Adsvokat belongs to me and I choose to develop it," explained Daniel.

For Daniel, a professional CEO has a system in place and a well-organized dashboard. Usually the focus is the achievement of KPIs. Temporary founder have to think about more basic things, such as maintaining the sustainability of the company.

"As founder, the learning is in cash flow [company finance]. [Besides] You have to be the magnet [to attract talented talent]. Don't have value or the skill of being a magnet will be a tough thing," Daniel said.

Daniel closed the interview with a piece of advice for anyone aspiring to start a startup.

"If you have a strong intention and feeling to become a founder, I think you should stop, because your objective to create a startup is wrong. [You should] look deeper and start looking at things that should be more efficient and ultimately help a lot ." "If that's the beginning, you'll enjoy the journey, because the journey as a founder it's heavy. If you really expect this startup to be a job and earn money, then just stop. Because sadly at the beginning we had to invest a lot of money and spend, unless we had backup the good one."