Olsera's Journey Towards "Superapp" for MSMEs

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) play an important role in advancing the country's economy. The pandemic that occurred in 2020 hit this sector. But on the other hand, it also encourages digitalization in it. Based on the data collected MSME Empowerment Report 2022, there are 83,8% of MSME actors who digitize or utilize technology to support their business operations.

This figure is a very large market for MSME digitalization service providers, one of them Olsera. It starts with providing services Point of Sales for MSMEs, Olsera (formerly OlseraPOS) has now developed to provide solutions end-to-end for business in Indonesia.

Established in 2015, Olsera's objective is to provide the resources that MSMEs need to grow and increase their productivity.

In an exclusive interview with DailySocial.id, Co-Founder Olsera Ali Tjin tells the story of how the startup was founded. At that time, MSMEs had begun to mushroom, but their business operations were still inefficient.

"To be able to adopt technology requires quite a lot of funds. At that time we wanted to develop POS services, but the equipment was mostly expensive."

Even so, technological developments have given birth to sophisticated tools such as smartphones, tablets, and others that are more affordable for business people. Starting from there, they tried to develop technology that could facilitate business management with solutions that were more flexible and available on the devices they used every day.

Olsera Co-Founder & CEO Novendy Chen, who was also present in this virtual interview, added that when establishing Olsera, his team looked at the needs of MSMEs. As more MSMEs grow, their demands to be more productive and efficient also become higher.

"On the other hand, we see that technological advances can help a lot for this goal. However, most of us are only consumers of technology. This is also an inspiration. Why are there sophisticated tools but they are not used optimally? At that time we started from POS ," he said.

Develop as partners grow

As the business grows, Olsera's services increasingly expand into business management all-in-one that supports every operational aspect. This system allows MSMEs to streamline and maximize efficiency to accelerate their business. Olsera also revealed his ambition to become super app for Indonesian MSMEs.

Novendy added, "we have a philosophy to grow with MSMEs. The success of our business is measured by how many MSMEs we have helped. Without them there is no us. The key word is to serve MSMEs,"

This philosophy is also stated in the Olsera logo, which is a hot air balloon. "We want to be able to help MSMEs to elevate their business. We also have core values that customer-centric. What we develop, it is in accordance with feedback partner. The solutions we provide also focus on encouraging business people to be more productive, competitive and efficient in terms of time and costs. Apart from that, it is also more effective in marketing," he added.

If POS becomes pintu digitalization gateway MSMEs, as their business grows, their needs also increase, such as inventory management and Accounting. Olsera itself also doesn't want to focus on POS services.

When the pandemic hit, many businesses were forced to close shop and start taking orders online. For this condition, Olsera presents a solution omnichannel.

Some of the main features offered include inventory and supply chain management, marketing solutions, employee management, stores courses solution  omnichannel, as well as loyalty programs. Apart from that, Olsera also continues to add payment methods on its platform. Currently there are 11 payment methods, including ShopeePay, OVO, DANA, GOPAY, DOKU, Akulaku, Kredivo, and others.

For target market segmentation, Olsera admitted that he looked at each business's own unique operational-his own. Although mostly merchant coming from retail and F&B, they admit that they are lucky to be able to develop services that are quite flexible and capable tap in in businesses that are services or products in nature. Not long ago, the company has also entered the corporate realm.

Merchant Olsera comes from various business lines such as F&B, retail, wellness, fashion & beauty, service (barbershop and laundry), and others. For corporate clients who have collaborated, including TMII (Taman Mini Indonesia Indah), Ciputra Group, and Martha Tillaar. For ticketing, Olsera has collaborated with PRSU (North Sumatra Fair).

"So our segmentation is now getting wider and it is becoming integrated, a number of brand well-known companies or corporations that own an area, including retail, service businesses, hospitality"We can digitalize simultaneously using our ecosystem," added Novendy.

Regarding monetization, Olsera offers a subscription business model in 3 tiers, namely Basic (Rp. 158 thousand/month), Premium (Rp. 248 thousand/month), and Pro (Rp. 328 thousand/month). In some special cases, Olsera also takes fairy/transaction. To date, the company claims to have successfully processed transactions of IDR 2,5 trillion per month.

At the start of its development, Olsera's business was based in Batam. After several months of operation, the team saw that demand from outside Batam was increasing. In its second year of operation, this service already has representation in several large cities on the island of Java, such as Jakarta, Bandung and Surabaya.

"Batam, like other cities, continues to develop in terms of technology. Likewise, technology adoption is increasingly high. However, at that time, higher demand came from Jabodetabek. Apart from that, we also want to reach areas that are ready and have awareness or awareness towards the use of similar technology in more productive ways. "To date, we are present in 500 cities in Indonesia," said Novendy.

Business escalation is the next focus

The uncertainty of economic conditions during the pandemic which continues to this day has triggered awareness of the importance of building strong fundamentals in business. Olsera himself admitted that he was aware of this before they started the business.

"Since 2015 we have been quite efficient in business operations. In the first 6 months we were still bleeding. However, fortunately the team remained solid. Entering the 7th month, we can record positive financial reports. This makes us feel satisfied with cash flow which existed until Covid-19 hit Indonesia."

Novendy admitted that at that time his team did not know how long this condition would last. Externally, they try to deal with this issue by giving concessions to merchant whose business was forced to close in the future lockdown. Olsera also launched new services such as dine-in and takeaway to help merchantF&B can still sell.

Internally, of course we cannot escape the potential for efficiency, but management tries not to go down that route. Sales-wise, the company realized there wasn't much it could do. Therefore, they focus in-touch to maintain satisfaction and loyalty merchant On the other hand, we are also developing new services to remain optimistic.

"At that time, we started thinking about external funding. We started exploring potential funding with investors. Until January 2022, we decided to receive funding from Kejora Capital. "Until now, they are the only investors in Olsera," explained Novendy.

Post-funding, Olsera started exploring new ideas. "Some are successful, some are not. We focus on what is successful. Our breath at Olsera is when we do the business, we want to do it right. Before sustainability startups are an issue, we already have them path to profitability. So in year 2, we are back on the path to profit. Next quarter "We will return to record profits," he stressed.

The company also admitted that it would immediately plan further funding. However, Novendy revealed that the objective would be different from the previous one.

"Our next fundraising goal not talking about closing operations. It's not just about the cash, but for scale-up our business. The future fund raisewill be purely to speed up our development roadmap and subsequent acceleration of acquisitions, not because of our conditions bleeding. "So we can focus on creative and productive things, not busy putting out fires," he concluded.

For future targets, Olsera, through the data they have, also wants to help influence and give insights for the merchant so that it can develop further. "We will focus more on utilize the data. We will also enter the realm machine learning and AI but still in line with needs merchant We. We'll stay focused on core business," added Ali.

"Besides that, the next big thing what we're going to do is bring in new customers for the merchants, including bridging them with brands/corporations that have the same vision/mission so that MSME businesses can grow even better. On the roadmap back to how we are going to improve efficiency and productivity from partners," he concluded.