Crowdfunding, Wujudkan and Their Future in Indonesia

Collective fund raising for a project - be it for creative or social related, can take a lot of time to do in Indonesia. Bringing it online is a whole different matter. Crowdfunding, as it commonly known as, is a new way to collect fund to meet the goal. The fund needed for a project can be announced on this kind of website along with the deadline of the fundraising. As a reward, donator is promised something from the product of the project after it’s finished or something related to the project’s result.

Crowdfunding scheme in the United States is already legal. Crowdfunding Act is realized in this era of Barack Obama to allow businessmen raising fund up to USD1 million each year through crowdfunding portal registered on the SEC (U.S Securities and Exchange Commission). How about crowdfunding and its future in Indonesia?

We talk to Mandy Marahimin, co-founder of Wujudkan which is one of Jakarta Founder Institute’s alumni, via email. Wujudkan is one of the leading crowdfunding sites, widely known because of its success in raising fund for “Atambua 39° Celsius” movie project which required more than IDR300 million. The movie is a project of famous movie makers, Riri Riza and Mira Lesmana. 102 donators were needed to achieve this goal.

We are highlighting on the success of crowdfunding project in Indonesia. As far we know, among many projects registered to Wujudkan, there are only two which managed to meet the deadline. The same thing happened on similar websites, failure is still greater than the success. Mandy says that the main problem is the trust to do financial transaction online. The crowdfunding itself is not a problem because collecting money/fund is something common for Indonesian.

As reported on Markplus Insight 2011 data – and quoted by Mandy, online banking user is only 25% of total internet user (in Indonesia). So far, Mandy has confirmed that only 10% of the transaction in Wujudkan is done with online banking. It means that the rest is done via ATM. However, Mandy is optimist that this can change along with Indonesian getting used and become more comfortable doing online financial transaction.

Honestly, this is new for us. Not about the trust of the financial transaction but our initial thought that the problem with crowdfunding in Indonesia lies with the trust to the project owner. However, we think that Wujudkan has done strict selection of each project owner so Wujudkan’s credibility (and crowdfunding service in general) is at stake if someday there’s a project owner who misuse the fund.

Wujudkan is aware about the fact of many local projects trying their luck on Kickstarter. However, trying to register to Kickstarter is not easy. It requires ownership of Amazon Payment account – with Social Security Number, U.S address and bank account as well as debit card or credit card issued by U.S. bank are required.

This is to make it easier to demand responsibility on the funding raised through crowdfunding portal. When a project (done in) Indonesia appears there, most likely one of the owners has a U.S citizenship.

Lastly, about the issue if crowdfunding utilization as additional mean to raise fund – project will still running regardless its success in crowdfunding, Mandy says that Wujudkan will never judge them because this is solely project owner’s right.

Those who share similar concern for crowdfunding will surely be invited and considered as partner in the campaign of the utilization of crowdfunding. On the other hand, there is no limitation if one only wishes to raise fund in Wujudkan. As long as the project meets every requirement, it will be displayed on Wujudkan.