US Big Tech to Indonesian Startup — Learnings So Far

For the past three months, I’ve had the opportunity to work at Kargo Technologies as a Product Manager Alter Fellow. Alter Global is a VC focused on catalyzing emerging tech ecosystems, providing access to capital, networks, and talent. The Alter Fellowship is one way of providing this talent, by connecting ex-consultants, product managers, and engineers to work with ventures in emerging tech cities in a six-month fellowship program. I’m now a bit more than halfway through my fellowship, and it’s been a great experience so far.

Previously, I worked at Microsoft as a Software Engineer and then as a Product Manager. I lived in both Seattle, WA, and San Francisco, CA, two US tech hubs with slightly different cultures as Seattle revolves around giants like Amazon and Microsoft, while San Francisco is steeped in the start-up culture of Silicon Valley. Jakarta, where Kargo is based and where I’ve been living for the past three months, has become a premier tech hub of Southeast Asia, as the base of companies like GoTo (Gojek and Tokopedia), Traveloka, and Shopee, as well as branches of tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon. After living and working in the US for my whole life, it’s exciting to be immersed in tech culture in other countries, as I now take Gojeks every day (on the back of a motorbike instead of an Uber car), book travel through Traveloka, and use e-commerce apps like Astro to get groceries delivered in twenty minutes.

My team at Kargo!

Working at Kargo has been an interesting ride so far, with highs and lows punctuated by the “tech winter” that has driven business decisions and a work-culture very different from the cash-flush, high-growth environments that many of us pre-Covid tech workers have been accustomed to. Since I’ve been here, there have been reorgs, layoffs, and large shifts in business direction. I’ve been able to see how Kargo has responded to the market, re-prioritized, and made challenging business decisions.

Visiting a Transporter’s office.

As a Product Manager, I’ve been surprised by both how familiar and how different the work culture has been. Much of my work as a PM is the same — setting vision via PRFAQs, working on roadmaps and communicating these out to stakeholders, scoping product requirements and writing PRDs, collaborating with design and engineering teams to execute product deliverables.

But much is also different — after a couple years of working fully remotely, I’m now fully in-person, sitting with my tech team, communicating in two languages, and in a completely new industry. Additionally, although both Kargo and my team at Microsoft are both working on B2B products, the customer relationships are very different.

At Microsoft, many of our customers were large enterprises with very close relationships with the product team, and they were very active in bringing us problems to solve, testing out new features, and providing feedback. At Kargo, although we have some big customers, many others are small companies that are new to adopting technology, and require more of a proactive approach. At Microsoft, where the technology was more mature, a large part of our feature set was solving problems for customers who were already using Microsoft in some way, allowing us to incrementally onboard them to new features. However at Kargo, we have to convince customers to adopt our technology, requiring us to focus on targeting specific pain points and providing enough value that the barriers to adoption are worth it.

Visiting a Transporter’s office — one of our users.

Here are some other key takeaways from working as a PM at Kargo so far:

1. Product-driven development. A business like Kargo is hugely operations-heavy, with people on the ground working directly with our shippers and transporters, overseeing the process from customer acquisition, to pre-shipment onboarding and verification, to assigning and managing shipments, to post-shipment payment and accounting. In order to scale our business, whether through expanding our reach to new areas in Indonesia, or supporting new business lines like Last Mile delivery, our product must serve the needs of both our customers and our internal operations teams.
   However, this must be done while building a scalable, adaptable product, which requires a challenging balance between solving for the business needs of today, and creating product and tech infrastructure that supports the needs of tomorrow. In the Indonesian logistics industry where tech adoption is still nascent, I’m reminded of an early lesson from Henry Ford: “If I had asked my customers what they wanted they would have said a faster horse.” A challenging part of my PM experience so far has been finding that balance between solving for immediate needs and building longer term solutions to truly solve customer problems.
2. Over-communication. Communication itself has been an intriguing part of working in Jakarta. Some learnings:
   - Most of my colleagues are able to speak English well, but prefer to talk with each other in Bahasa Indonesian. I’ve learned it’s okay to not be a part of some conversations, as long as I can ask the right questions to be filled in on the context I need.
   - When problems arise, I’ve seen that it’s better to write them down and bring the correct people in a room to discuss together, rather than trying to figure it out in silos.
   - Whether it’s communicating horizontally to make sure the whole team (designers, engineers, product) are on the same page, or communicating vertically to stakeholders or to users, bringing people in early raises considerations quickly and allows stakeholders to become invested early on.
   - I’ve also found great value in talking to many people across the company, even those I don’t directly work with, as every conversation broadens my perspective and understanding.
3. Humility while onboarding. It’s been a while since I’ve started a new job, and though it was made easy through the kind, welcoming nature of my colleagues (and most Indonesians, I’ve found), the following three traits also helped me along:
   - Open-mindedness — saying yes to things that come my way, whether it’s new product asks or new lunch spots.
   - Adaptability — being flexible, listening, and being willing to change decisions based on feedback. Being okay with not being part of some conversations. And being able to roll with quickly changing business priorities, align those with product goals, and communicate them to my team.
   - Humility — everyone starting a new job has an urge to prove themselves. An easy way to do this is by questioning why some flaws exist (and every company has flaws). When I felt myself start to do this, I would try to pause and listen to the reasoning and considerations that led to a certain outcome. Putting ego aside and asking questions to understand why things are the way they are helped me get a better grasp on what’s important, how things work, and why certain decisions were made.

Weekend hike to Sentul Hill! (An hour drive from Jakarta depending on traffic)

I’m continuing to learn from Kargo, Jakarta, and Indonesia, and am looking forward to the challenges and experiences that arise during the rest of my time here. In addition to work, I’ve been having fun learning Bahasa Indonesian on Duolingo, picking up Indonesian culture like playing badminton (the #1 sport here), trying new foods (bakmi is a new favourite), and traveling around Asia (currently in Japan!). I’m excited to keep exploring, meeting new people, and expanding my perspectives as I learn more about the world. I’m definitely grateful to be here, and am grateful to share it with you. If you have any questions about Kargo, Alter, or life abroad, please don’t hesitate to reach out! Terima kasih (thank you) for reading.