When landing in Indonesia we were just not expecting this.
What we knew were the basics. Bali, good food, the heat, and an inner voice from those classes at university reminding that it was the most populated country in the South East of Asia.
PRIME – our B2B flowers start up – has been operational mainly in China where our main office is located and a culture that we understand more. Indonesia was completely new in its business style, personalities, and simply the fact that there was no record of Colombian exports to this country.
Well…the day came. The day that we feared as entrepreneurs: Understanding that China was going to take longer to become into the huge market we were forecasting. Understanding, accepting that reality was painful since the journey was going to be longer than what we thought. This was changing the plans, the timeline.
The reason for the China’s growth was based in one fundamental we did not pay enough attention to when starting the business: China is simply the largest flowers grower in the world. The market is huge for local flowers and small for imported ones. It will grow, it will become interesting but not the way we dreamed of.
So, accepting this was frustrating but it brought a big lesson: understand the market before you go in, be realistic and acid with its expectations. R E A L I S T I C.
The process of understanding that reality was carrying with it the decision of what else could be done to accelerate PRIME’s growth. And here, the vision of one person was key, Jay (PRIME’s co founder and current GM). He simply put it on the desk and said let’s go abroad and try it. The idea got mixed with a stronger and more accurate analysis of potential markets in the region. We saw this country in the map, the Asian Nigeria, the emerging economy and the mystic place, Indonesia. A couple of weeks later: make the suitcase and fly to Jakarta in low budget, being conservative but with a single purpose of finding at least one client.
This trip got mixed with the COVID beginnings in China so Jay stayed three months in the South East of Asia visiting and talking to clients.
It is a story to remain in our book. Indonesia in less than a year became into our third largest market and we are flying flowers twice a week to Jakarta, the capital of a market of 280 million people. We still can not predict its evolution but till today, it’s been a surprise.
Lessons: be acid with numbers, give a chance to the adventure and have a clear purpose so you do not lose the north.
David Perez 