Lean and Profitable Startup Presented by M Fajrin Rasyid (CEO of Suitmedia)

Do you know...

Source: HBR

Among 10-20 startups...

...only 1 succeeds?

Main reasons why they fail?

Premature Scaling!

Sounds familiar?

• Hire big team very fast because tons of

plans you want to do

• High burning rate for unproven and undone

business model

• Put a lot of marketing effort to gain strong

user base with questionable ARPU

Why premature scaling cause failure?

Use up your cash

Difficult to change

Now what do successful online

companies have? Either ...

Big capital

First comer

Costless

Source: A survey in Japan

Key 1: They are Lean

Key 2: They are

profitable

Key 3 : Sometimes, they do Pivoting

Examples? • 1995, Started with Web

Development, 8 people, 800K

USD revenue

• 1997, Pivoted to Magazine,

Collapse

• 1998, Pivoted to online portal

only with 3 reporters since then

• 2011, Detik.com has 200

people with IDR 100 billion

revenue and IDR 30 billion

profit

Examples?

• Started with 3 people

• Almost no cost from 2000

to 2008

• Profitable since 2008

• Largest Indonesia internet

web with IDR 48 billion

revenue

Examples?

• Dinar (4.25 grams gold

based coin) commerce

• Daily transactions ~600

dinars (IDR 1.2 Bn)

• Daily profit IDR 50 Mn

(with 4% margin)

• Operational? Only 4

employees

Examples?

• Started in last

Ramadan and it’s

profitable since its first

month

• Having thousands of

loyal and repeat

customers

• Operational: 3 people

Thank You

• Be lean, always pursue

profitability, and never fear to

pivot