Happy to represent #StartupLokal initiators as one of judges of Echelon 2011 Indonesia Satellite event, sharing table with some big names in Indonesia & Singapore Technology world, such as Aulia Masna (Daily Social), Aaron Tan Wei Cheng (SingTel Innov8), Shinta Dhanuwardoyo (Bubu.com), Danny Oei Wirianto (Kaskus Networks), Andi Boediman (IDS Education), Irving Hutagalung (Microsoft Indonesia), Satya Witoelar (Yahoo! Koprol), & Martin Hartono (GDP Ventures).

We were judging 10 startups (each 5 of us judge 5 startups): Sixreps.com, Rockto.com, Tasterous.com, Goorme.com, Pricearea.com, Ngaturduit.com, Wooz.in, Rserve.me, Infoll.mobi and Bouncity.com. The best 3 of them will go to Singapore for final pitch & to showcase their startups.

Most of the startups founders are my friends. And I know their startups from the very early stage. 2 things I always want to see in their startups are: usability and how they make money.

Quoting Leo Babauta from Zen Habits: the only kind of marketing you need is an amazing product. If it’s good, people will spread the word for you. That’s why my questions to the startups always about how well people going to understand your products, how awesome your product would be for them, how can your products solve their problem and how you make a difference.

About how startups making money is also my concern. Business model. How sustain would it be and how’s the prospect of scaling the business. Quoting Scott Gerber, the founder of Sizzle It!: No revenue, no business. Period. Build a sustainable business for yourself, and not one based on hypothetical acquisitions or imaginary investment capital. Bottom line: Stop thinking about many tomorrows from now, and focus on today. Cash flow, or die.

All the 10 startups have seen opportunities in the problem they see around them and turned it into, not only a concept, but also a great solution: creating a creative startup.

I’d like to say good luck to you, you’re all inspirations for others to build their own startups. Hopefully together we can nurture the ecosystem and soon to have our own version of Sillicon Valley 😉

Thank you @joonian  for giving me the opportunity to judge in Echelon 2011. See you in Singapore! 🙂