Tips on How Startups Collaborate

Collaboration is a strategic step to strengthen business, both with fellow startups, SMEs, corporations, and government institutions. Before a startup decides to collaborate, there are several steps that should be considered, so that collaboration does not stagnate and is actually detrimental to both parties.

DailySocial trying to summarize the experiences of several startups when deciding to collaborate. eFishery CEO Gibran Hufaizah, Akseleran CEO Ivan Tambunan, Lemonilo Co-Founder Shinta Nurfauzia, and Kiddo CEO Analia Tan shared their experiences.

Expanding company capabilities

The main reason for most collaborations is to expand the capabilities of the company's business. For startups that are still young, this step can be an effective way to strengthen posting company and improve awareness to the target user.

For eFishery who are active enough to launch collaboration, this step must be done smartly. This means that partners who offer collaboration are quite relevant to the needs of today's startups.

On the other hand, as a startup with a niche business model, Gibran Hufaizah sees eFishery's efforts to fully collaborate to developcater needs of fish and shrimp farmers in the country.

"We always listen to the needs of farmers before collaborating. Whether in the form of finance, marketing to technology. If we can still help internally, we will help. But if it is outside our business, collaboration is the best way to do it," said Gibran.

Meanwhile, according to Ivan Tambunan, collaboration needs to be done because every business actor has their own advantages. By collaborating, business actors can create synergies. As a fintech service, Akseleran is a platform that has great opportunities to collaborate with startups in different sectors.

"Factors that determine collaboration [..] must be synergistic and mutually beneficial to each other," said Ivan.

The same thing was expressed by Shinta Nurfauzia. In the end, it must be clear whether the collaboration can produce positive results for each startup. Make sure end result can be win-win solution.

"Lemonilo has often collaborated between startups. One of them is with fashion brands. The main reason we collaborate with these different sectors is to introduce our products to their market and vice versa," said Shinta.

As the business grew, Lemonilo began to enter into segment mass market. The target market is getting wider. This is also triggered by the presence of Lemonilo instant noodles as a product that is considered suitable for the healthy lifestyle of the Indonesian people.

While for the platform EdTech for Kiddo children, the collaboration must be supported by targets or achievements. So far, Kiddo has collaborated with several platforms. One of them with GogoKids from Malaysia.

"The collaboration that we do must have a target that directly or indirectly supports the company's objectives. How (how) may vary, but the reason (why) must be clear from the start," said Analia.

Strengthen positioning company

Regarding when is the right time to collaborate, startup activists say that it cannot be determined with certainty. What needs to be considered is that the startup business foundation must be strong and have more offerings, so that the partners needed are ogled.

For eFishery itself, the strategic collaboration that has been launched is with Gojek. after receiving funding from Go Ventures and Northstar some time ago. Gibran said there would be massive integration between ecosystems Gojek a giant with its own eFishery ecosystem.

"Investment talks and strategic collaboration between eFishery and Gojek we've been talking about for quite a long time. Each party sees that if collaboration is carried out it can help each ecosystem to grow and develop wider and faster," said Gibran.

Meanwhile, according to Ivan, collaboration can be done from the start. In this case, startups can be smarter and wiser in seeing opportunities, both related to internal and external conditions. However, if the collaboration is successful, the effect will be good for the company, consumers and partners.

"Kiddo itself is a platform that has collaborated since day one: collaboration with children's activity providers [merchant]. Apart from merchant, we also quite often collaborate with other companies such as banking, startups retail, brand targeting children and families, the mother's community, and more. We believe that the right collaboration will benefit both parties," said Analia.

In the end, the collaboration carried out must have an impact on the needs. Don't give up impact and a positive value for the future of the startup.

"if the startup is confident enough, it is supported by basis strong, and [have] positioning promising, collaboration with startups that already have big names and better offers can be carried out immediately," said Shinta.