Kominfo Launches "Startup Studio" to Support Early-Stage Startup Business Acceleration

The Ministry of Communication and Information strives to complete the variant of digital startup empowerment programs in Indonesia. After the previous "National 1000 Startup Digital Movement" for founders for the ideation stage and "Next Indonesia Unicorn" for later-stage startups, Kominfo now presents a "Startup Studio" program for startups in the middle of the two stages. It is for early-stage startups starting to accelerate their business scale.

Startup Studio Indonesia aims to facilitate business growth through a variety of supports. It is focused on five things, product and team acceleration, validation of fundraising strategies, validation of growth marketing strategies, support for technology development, and sharpening business capabilities.

Director General of Kominfo Informatics Applications, Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan said to DailySocial, his team will select 20 startups for the first stage of Startup Studio. Overall, this program targets to gather around 300 startups by 2024.

In the curation process, Kominfo involved several parties. "Startup Studio Indonesia has formed a professional curatorial board consisting of various stakeholders in the tech startup ecosystem. Indeed, the decision of the curator board is absolute, without any intervention from anywhere."

More brainstorming, less classes

Regarding its unique values, Semuel said "More brainstorming, less classes. Seeing the many sources of information about startups on the internet, we reduce the portion for the class format and prioritize two-way brainstorming with coaches."

Each selected startup founder will be matched with a mentor according to the pain points they face in developing their business. "We believe founders need to have two-way discussions with experts in various fields, such as products, fundraising, growth hacking, people and culture, and others," Semuel added.

In the practice, pitching sessions to investors will be held periodically for 4 weeks and on a one-on-one basis. Every week, the startup will be pitching with at least 2 investors. It is expected to strengthen the network between startups and potential investors.

Mechanism and criteria

The Startup Studio Indonesia program runs intensively for 3 months. It consists of three main lines, Founder's Camp, 1-on-1 Mentoring, and Networking. The first event, Founder's Camp, is a series of mentoring or brainstorming with industry players, discussing the practical knowledge that founders should master to expand their business scale.

Next, 1-on-1 Mentoring is a private session per startup to get consultation and execution supervision with the experts. Finally, Networking, an effort to expand the network to dozens of venture capitalists and leaders in related industries.

The agenda is scheduled as follows:

Startup Studio 2020 timeline / Kominfo

In general, the startups' criteria are those who have reached a product-market fit, as proven by traction. This includes getting angel, pre-seed, seed, or maximum pre-series A funding. Although this is open to all landscapes, Kominfo prioritizes startups in the fields of education, health, maritime, agriculture, tourism, and logistics.

Kominfo also emphasized that this program is open to anyone, not only for the alumni of the 1000 Startup program that has been previously implemented.

"We open up opportunities for all early-stage startups that are in line with the listed participant criteria. If the registrant startup is a graduate of 1000 Startups, of course this is a plus point for us. However, this does not guarantee that the registrant startup has a special portion," he said. Semuel.

For more information and registration, visit: https://startupstudio.id/.

– Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian