Groupon Indonesia Founders Leave to Focus on E-Commerce Startups

The other day we reported the launch of Bilna, an e-commerce site that sells baby products. The people behind the web site? Ferry Tenka and Jason Lamuda, both of whom are the co-founders of Disdus which became Groupon Indonesia. Lamuda himself had been an advisor at a fashion e-commerce site called BerryBenka, co-founded by his wife and her friend back in August 2011. With the two co-founders of Groupon Indonesia focusing on their own companies, the obvious question is, "what's happening with Groupon Indonesia?".

We talked to Tenka, former co-CEO of Groupon Indonesia (FYI, both Tenka and Lamuda had been co-CEOs of Groupon Indonesia) about the situation with the the company. To start with, Tenka seems very optimistic about the daily deals space that he thinks it's still exciting. "Lots of potential and room for improvement", said Tenka a few weeks ago.

As for Groupon Indonesia, the company is currently being led by sales director Yogen Suganda and operational director Haryo Suryo Putro, as Tenka and Lamuda both relinquish their formal positions at the company although remaining as advisors.

Tenka pointed out that they're currently preparing someone to be the company's managing director and an announcement can be expected around early next year although Tenka didn't say exactly when. The two directors will take over Tenka's and Lamuda's decision-making roles at Groupon/Disdus until they secure the managing director seat who is more likely to be decided by Groupon International.

As far as business goes for Groupon Indonesia, Tenka said that, "although the Q3 earnings report was not pretty, Groupon ID's performance has been quite different. Q3 had been the best quarter so far for us in terms of revenue and we are seeing another significant growth in Q4. Specifically in Q4, most of the growth is actually driven by Groupon Goods (or we used to call it Groupon Products in Indonesia)".

Tenka also noted that for coupon sales, food and beverages category still dominates Groupon Indonesia's sales with beauty products gaining significantly. "As for Groupon Goods, the most popular categories are beauty products (cosmetics, slimming, etc) and fashion, especially female. Lots of improvement has also been seen in the Home Improvement category", he said in what may well have been his last interview as CEO of Groupon Indonesia.

Aside from running Bilna, Tenka will also be advising BerryBenka which is run by Lamuda's wife Claudia Wijaya. When asked about what differentiates BerryBenka from other fashion e-commerce sites, Tenka said, "the differentiating factor would be our product selection, which is hand-picked carefully by our merchandising team". Tenka claims BerryBenka only sells fashionable female products that match their customers' profile, which is young professionals.

BerryBenka now ships 200 products on a daily basis, which is pretty good for an Indonesian e-commerce site that's been around for just over  a year . "In terms of marketing, we will still focus most on online marketing, which I believe currently, is still the most effective way to acquire customers", Tenka explains its recipe for a steady 30% monthly growth.