East Ventures' Strategy as an Investor

As a major investor in Indonesia, East Ventures has its own approach to the startups it funds. In Indonesia, it uses a method suited to local conditions. That is because conditions in Indonesia, or in Jakarta in particular, are a worst scenario, unlike in Singapore or Japan. Problems in Jakarta always need to be anticipated and resolved in advance. Much of the work in Indonesia is still inefficient, so the firm helps make those processes more efficient. When it comes to startups in Indonesia, it has its own strategies, such as: Choosing Founders with Real Talent According to East Ventures, choosing founders with real talent is one of the first steps toward finding a promising startup. If a founder is skilled, smart, and sharp, the product they build is bound to be good. Early Mentorship Support East Ventures also runs a community and hosts mentorship for its founders. Its approach is to give a little guidance on what to do, with a focus on avoiding mistakes that have happened before. That way, founders can develop their ideas without depending on investors, and minimize errors so their companies reach success faster. Read also: Startups Backed by East Ventures Product/Market Fit East Ventures specializes in product/market fit, which means building an idea and developing it into a product that reaches the Indonesian market. The firm is an early-stage seed capital investor, guiding founders all the way to building a product. Once a product grows, it passes to growth-stage startup investors. Some investors also take companies through an initial public offering (IPO). Focusing Upstream East Ventures, however, focuses upstream, at the very earliest stage. It helps startups figure out how to make their products fit the market. One of the ways it does this is through mentorship. After receiving mentorship, CEOs can grow their businesses in their own way, while still being guided from behind by the investing firm. The firm's success ratio is quite high, with a failure ratio of 20%. Of every 5 startups it invests in, only 1 dies. In its view, the higher the failure ratio, the better, because it signals that the investor is taking on high risk. As Silicon Valley experienced, when it invested in 10 companies, 9 of them died. This is considered a good sign, since it means those investors were willing to take high-risk bets. The strategies used by East Ventures set it apart from other investors. It has 70 CEOs, portfolio companies, and many case studies, which makes it more skilled at handling and avoiding problems within startups. It can also tell which businesses are promising for the future and which will stall. A smart founder is the key to a successful startup, because their intelligence helps when the company runs into difficulty. They will almost always have simple but very useful solutions that help the company get back on its feet.