The wave of the dot com boom around the period of 1995-2001 inevitably made IT businessmen at that time adrenaline driven. Imagine, almost every day we hear success stories from young people who easily make millions of dollars with only a modest office capital, in fact, the most frequently exposed are: from the garage of the house. Starting the widespread use of the internet at that time made almost every IT agent think that the revolution had arrived, and everything could be "e-commerce" right. I remember that at that time various business magazines contained young faces with smiling faces, succeeding in becoming a new dollar millionaire because the dot com company was successfully listed on NASDAQ.
I and my friends in Jakarta at that time also had the same passion. Moreover, the company I worked for at that time had just been acquired by a new IT company from Australia, led by a very young CEO. We are amazed. Thanks to the foresight of the CEO to enter the Australian stock exchange, the new company was instantly able to buy IT companies in Asia Pacific to expand its network. It's time for young people !, it's time for a new economy! that was the spirit we felt at that time, along with the political reforms that were taking place at that time.
There was a friend of mine who was inspired by the dot-com wave in the United States, to imitate what happened there by remodeling the garage of his house into an office! Luckily his wife agreed. Even though the house is big and there are lots of rooms inside. A group of programmers every day at night hang out in the garage to create web-based applications. Well, it's a bit messy ... because the garage is air conditioned. Honestly, I also wanted to do the same thing at the time, but unfortunately ... my house at that time had no garage.
As we all know, the dot com (first) wave in the US then became the "dot com bubble" which finally exploded, due to the large number of listed companies which later collapsed because the value was not real. The Australian IT company that I told about the shares collapsed, the young CEO who was in front of me, my friend's "Garage company" also didn't last long.
The first lesson I can learn from the less successful "business from the garage" was that we often forget the essence of the business phenomenon. The internet has facilitated us to do business interactions easily, quickly and in bulk. So that the working location becomes very flexible. You can work and collaborate with coworkers whenever you want. Anywhere you want. But that does not mean having to go from the garage. If you have an air-conditioned room or in front of your house there is an air-conditioned cafe that provides cold bottled tea, so there's no need to bother working in the garage. The point is the flexibility of time and place. Not the garage.
Garages in the IT business are "symbols", not essences. Many of my colleagues are trapped in business "symbols", not their essence. So that to start doing IT business they are even more dizzy about their office (must be cool), the equipment (must be sophisticated), the vehicle (must be new), the secretary (must be beautiful), etc. Until you forget to create sales! Even though in business using the internet, they can be very minimal face to face. For example, for efficiency, I often do training or webinars using Webex or LiveMeeting. I can stay in my comfortable home in Bogor, my colleagues in Jakarta and Singapore, and the instructors can be from the US or UK. Be thankful there is an internet that frees you from work.
Then, the second lesson I can take, that the "me-too" attitude seems very dangerous. And this had become a strong trend among Indonesian businessmen. Remember the Indonesian banking boom? When there was a businessman who established a bank, all the big businessmen were busy building banks. Finally, the bankruptcy was crowded. Likewise the booming property. If those who do this are "old" generation entrepreneurs I still understand. But if young people do, I am a little surprised. Remember the "tent cafe" boom? Believe me, the "me-too" business climate is not sustainable. Likewise in the IT business.
"Me-too" is fine, but with the spirit of innovation to offer different, and better. Google makes search engines that are different and better than others. Reading a book about Google's success, I can feel the spirit of Larry Page and Sergey Brin to create something new. It is indeed a search engine, but with the results ranking, unlike the search engines that have already been. And they succeeded.
So if you are going to start an IT business, whether from a garage or from a dorm room, the question is, is there something new that you will offer?
