Wow my second trip to Bancakan, Jogja was full of positivity, optimism and of course knowledge. The trip was 2 days 1 night but the experience I absorbed was well beyond the quantity. The theme for the Bancakan event was Wordpresspreneur. Startups and entrepreneurs as speakers came from Bandung and in and around Jogja. The lineup was very enlightening to say the least :)
From Jakarta, I went with Sagad (@sagad) and Ollie (@salsabeela) by train. We arrived at 6 AM Friday and was welcomed by Fachry (@fachrybafadal). Stayed at Hotel Maharani with the gang from Bandung which are Agus (@agoes82) of GantiBaju.com, Anggi (@icreativelabs), Valent of WordcampID (@ValentMustamin) and Bima.
It so happens that our hotel’s location is supposedly where most tourists stayed in Jogja but due to the natural disaster of Merapi, the area was quiet and only saw a couple of tourists coming from overseas. Let’s all pray that this condition is temporary, Jogja has shown the world how great they were handling crisis. They unite as one and they recover as one, hopefully this sets an example for all of us that by uniting we are stronger than ever before when we need to right now.
As a nation with a multitude of diversity, we are rich in creativity and innovation. This is not a theory, the speakers at Bancakan showed how well they use this opportunity to their benefit. Make it great, make it free and make premiums. It sells, the top earners in Wordpress theming are Indonesians. Now we can see how great a nation we are!
I was up to present about @lokalID. People ask me how it’s gonna protect the ecosystem, simply by uniting that’s enough, LokalID is a first step, the next steps are entirely in the community discretion. Plant the idea in each of our minds that we are the biggest Internet market by traffic and that’s only 10% of the population. Everyone from in and around the world are of course eyeing their interest to our market, each one of you is the owner of your own startups, make that count big or small. LokalID is non-profit and non-commercial, LokalID is not just me or just you, it’s the whole ecosystem, a community of startups from Indonesia uniting as one and support one another. Make that a reality with execution, let’s make Indonesia a nation deservedly as innovators, we are great, get used to it!
After the event, exactly like a few months ago, we went to Gudeg Batas Kota to eat Gudeg, what else lol. I ate Gudeg 4 times that day and had no regrets! Not everyday I got the chance to enjoy it and wasn’t missing the opportunity :) We were exhausted that night and the gang from Jakarta parted early including me to rest. After a while, Agus and the Bandung gang retired to the hotel. All the guys took turn to shower because once we’re all done, access to the bathroom was restricted until morning time :pAll the guys were already asleep when me and Agus continued our afternoon conversation about Git and what it can do for you. So I followed a tutorial by him, as with any versioning system, it helped a lot with collaborating source codes, it’s back to the coders to discipline themselves with the codes and have a firm grasp of the versioning system used. Anyways the conversation grew longer while we were exploring ideas and practical implementations of them, I surrendered that night, was very tired.
The next day, it was full of laughters, jokes, optimisms and geekness :p Fachry and Didiet (@lynxluna) joined us and we went around Malioboro to “accompany” Ollie with her shopping intentions. Well you know what, it turns out that Ollie was accompanying the boys shopping instead lol. We stopped at 2 things, FOOD and souvenirs. Where else can you eat such crispy and tender Lumpia than in Jogja? Here’s a video of a new startup we all are joking about.
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When night falls, we were determined to eat Sate Kambing Klathak. It was a long drive from our hotel to Bantul. We waited for at least an hour for the Klathak to come. Each portion only have 2 sticks and it was a pain waiting that long so when the first batch of portions came, we ordered another round lol. I must tell you that you haven’t ate any Sate Kambing until you taste a Klathak. You’d forget the long wait and the overly expensive taxi ride for a taste of Klathak!So anyways, we went to @OneBitMedia afterwards and another video was recorded about Ollie and The Cat. Watch it below:
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After a full night of Jogja experience, we went back to the hotel to rest. Our train was leaving early in the morning. In the morning, we hurried up and went to train station altogether. Sadly for Agus and Anggi, they refused to bring GantiBotol’s premier product which forces Agus to change his clothing to compensate for the hot air :p We met with Mas Irwan (@IrwanKarta), one of the organizing committee of Bancakan while we were there. Yeah he was going to Oslo with the Pramex train, yeay Jogja :)When we boarded the train I told Sagad and Ollie how boring 8 hours can be so why not make a startup from zero and deliver an alpha before arriving at Gambir. And so we did! We brainstormed a concept based on an earlier concept Ollie and me were talking about earlier and Sagad guided us with a Business Model Canvas. I’m sure any startup would want to know about. Either creating a startup or a feature, I’m sure it’ll be useful.
Ollie designed the whole look and feel and she coded everything for me to implement it. It’s amazing how passion fueled 8 hours of our lives on that trip. We couldn’t care less about anything and were very focused in what we are doing at the moment. It’s not just about the product nor the startup, it’s about each one of us sharing the same passion and the same purpose. The very foundation of LokalID. We proved to ourselves that all 3 of us were from different startups and yet we spawned another one only in 8 hours. It’s about perspective, guts and being ourselves. We are who we are, GEEKS! As Didiet say it, THAT’S A COMPLIMENT!
Every one of us is able to achieve more from your current selves right now! We deservedly have the rights and obligations to be on the top of the food chain, we need an ecosystem supporting this idea and each one of you counts. Make yourself significant and appreciated as an Indonesian Startup, we all deserve it, we are a great nation and most definitely, YOU ARE GREAT!
PS: We finished the #GOATChallenge before reaching Gambir while the train was stopping at Jatinegara station. Plain proof that passion encompasses differences = Bhinneka Tunggal Ika.