 "Running on less than $1 million in funding, Tiket is Indonesia’s bootstrap rockstar")
Launched in 2011, travel booking site Tiket is a dinosaur in Indonesia’s young start-up scene. It lets you book flights, hotels, train tickets, and event tickets. What makes it stand out among its Indonesian start-up peers is that, so far, Tiket has never touched venture capital.
It’s built entirely on an initial angel investment of ‘under $1 million’, according to co-founder and CTO Natali Ardianto. In 2012, it won $25,000 in a start-up competition. Everything else comes from carefully balancing revenues and expenditures. And focusing on core things like good tech, solid financial planning, proper legal documents. “For us, it’s about the fundamentals,” he explains.
“We designed Tiket to be very corporate,” Natali adds. “It may not be the Silicon Valley way, but we want to show that our way can work in Indonesia.”
Tiket is simply not in a rush. “For us, it’s a marathon, not a sprint,” says Natali. The company realised there were many more opportunities in Indonesia it hasn’t yet explored. And its profitability isn’t yet as stable as he’d like it to be.
“Since early 2013, our net revenues surpass our operational costs,” Natali says. “But to be honest with you, it’s an up and down until now.”
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The key to getting there lies in optimisation and automation, Natali believes. His obsession with the topic has won the site a conversion rate of 6%, which is better than the average ecommerce site manages.
