When I was at Bukalapak back in 2013, the CEO and founder made us all watch “Crocodile in the Yangtze”, the movie that tells the story of the founding of Alibaba and Taobao, directed by Porter Erisman, one of the earlier VPs at the company.
Bukalapak was early in the years, about 3 years old, just secured its seed funding. I was the first product designer. There was no design or product team. Just a group of 20+ young people in their 20s eager to make a change, and pretty much inspired by the Alibaba story. How, then, Alibaba beat eBay the hell out of China and putting this mantra front and center: Nobody understands Chinese and China like the Chinese do.
I realised that day that Achmad Zaky, our CEO, wanted us to think the same way. We can win this game, because we are all Indonesians, and we understand Indonesians the most. Nobody, ever, in the future, who come to Indonesia from outside, could win us over — we have the advantage of being here since we were born here, and only us under…
