Blockchain bus<\/a> was my own startup. It was a venture incubated within the walls of our own company. Unfortunately, we had to shut it down because it was getting too expensive.<\/span><\/p>\nFrom a technical perspective, we had a small team and a limited budget, yet we were still able to pull it off while building everything from scratch including our own hardware.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nHaving a proof concept versus a production state environment (with industry-grade tech) is a huge step, but we proved it could be done. From a technical perspective, it’s feasible.<\/span><\/p>\nHowever, the full migration of your company to an open system takes time and a lot of money.<\/span><\/p>\nIt’s also a political issue: the philosophy was that moving around the planet should be done in a way that the profits for companies are logical. I wasn\u2019t very keen on the current exportation model for how people moved. Take Uber, for example, they took their position in the taxi industry, and if you\u2019re an Uber driver, you\u2019re just barely making a living.<\/span><\/p>\nIn my perspective, it wasn\u2019t fair, so our mission was to create an open, backend network in which anyone could build their own application.<\/span><\/p>\nIt’s a radically different approach so naturally, the transition to get there will take a while. Ethically people were interested, but the actual implementation is a different story.<\/span><\/p>\nThat\u2019s why I\u2019m excited to be in Indonesia. Countries like this have the potential to leapfrog from old systems to a completely different, more efficient system.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Digitalization is out of control, which is in our favor.<\/span><\/p>\nWe have another blockchain venture MelX, and under there we\u2019re building a game and a peer-to-peer marketplace for electric vehicles in Indonesia. It\u2019s super interesting from a technical perspective and an ethical one.<\/span><\/p>\nIt\u2019s a technology that gives power to the people. It\u2019ll be cool to look back 30 years from now and think \u2018wow, we were really at the beginning of something. Like the internet all over again.\u2019<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cCountries like this have the potential to leapfrog from old systems to a completely different, more efficient system. Digitalization is out of control, which is in our favor.\u201d<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\nWhat is one major challenge to mobility you currently see? How do you think this can be solved with tech?<\/b><\/p>\n
The first thing is <\/span>technical collaboration. <\/b>The purpose of mobility technology is for you as a user to be able to use any type of mobility system seamlessly\u2014one app for everything. That means, businesses need to agree to collaborate and spend their money on it. From there, you must build out the connections. For example, we made an app integration for a local bike company but the process takes a long time. Although in theory, a fully connected mobility network seems desirable, in reality, there\u2019s a lot of effort and careful deliberation that goes into connecting all these different types of workflows.<\/span><\/p>\nThe second thing is the<\/span> attempts to standardize.<\/b> For example, an attempt to standardize the API structure for mobility companies is a highly political topic, which causes the standard to change all the time. If it keeps changing, it\u2019s not a standard.<\/span><\/p>\nYour client list includes enormous companies like Shell and Heineken and SMEs. What are some of the logistical differences you find between working with smaller vs. bigger companies?<\/b><\/p>\n
There\u2019s a huge bureaucracy behind big companies and everything takes more time. For example, you go through a design phase, and everything has been agreed upon. Then, without your knowledge, the designs end up with someone at a higher position within the hierarchy and they don’t agree on aspects of the design meaning we have to start all over again. These processes can have way too many iterations and it’s not improving the outcome. Everyone wants to be politically correct which means everyone needs to agree before a decision is made.<\/span><\/p>\nIt is way more interesting working with smaller companies. These companies have professional teams that know what they\u2019re doing but are small enough to move quickly. It allows for more speedy, synchronous, and creative workflows.<\/span><\/p>\nDo you have any philosophies on facilitating a healthy work culture within your teams?<\/b><\/p>\n
We have relatively autonomous teams that deal with challenges in their own way. We support cross-team collaborations and believe that sharing and being transparent about our processes is important. For example, we\u2019ve recently had a meetup organized by the blockchain engineers. They explained what they were working on to everyone, regardless of what their position is. We never really had a concrete philosophy except that my co-founder and I really wanted a company in which the value of your argument matters, irrelevant of your position. We desire to have a relaxed and down-to-earth culture. \u201cLeave your ego at the door.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\nThe culture also has a lot to do with the mentality of people in Indonesia. I was surprised by how easygoing people were. When I had my company in the Netherlands I had to spend way more time managing people, their expectations, and dealing with their egos (not that egos are negative, we all have one). People in Indonesia expect from you a very high-quality organization in which everything is going super smoothly, but when that is there, people collaborate in a really easygoing, harmonious fashion.<\/span><\/p>\nI don\u2019t ascribe to the top-down model. I think if every decision is from the top-down, you as a leader will be extremely busy which will result in more mistakes. I learned this the hard way\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nThe first thing we did with Itsavirus was to pick an organizational framework that can be used when the company is small but one that also works when we\u2019re scaling.<\/span><\/p>\nWhat does success mean to you?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Success equates to happiness. <\/b>I\u2019m very happy coming into the office and seeing everyone laughing and working on what they\u2019re passionate or skilled at. It\u2019s rewarding to know that we\u2019ve enabled them to be creative and live a good life. We pay good salaries and offer many additional benefits.<\/span><\/p>\nAnother thing I\u2019m grateful for is the ability to balance my personal and work life. I exercise once or twice a day, and I can take care of my kids and family.\u00a0 Being healthy, strong, and having the capabilities to take care of the people close to you is very important.<\/span><\/p>\nI\u2019m not too concerned about finances but it\u2019s nice to have peace of mind. I remember selling my first company and having that number in my bank account that I\u2019ve always dreamed about. But when I woke up that morning and saw the balance, I almost felt a sense of disappointment. All I really wanted to do was to get back to work, be around bright people, and tackle unique challenges together. I had no desire to buy a boat or a Porsche.<\/span><\/p>\nIncreasingly Skilled Talent Pools and Leadership Providing Viable Solutions to Mobility<\/span><\/h2>\n\u00a0Interoperability, capital, and time remain to be integral challenges to building strong, interconnected mobility networks around the world, but with an increasingly skilled pool of global talent, the solutions to these problems start to become more feasible and realized.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nItsavirus is a prime example of a tech company that\u2019s attempting to alter the entire landscape across these \u2018blank slate\u2019 countries with tech and an abundance of creativity and adept leadership capabilities. The power resides in building brilliant teams, which then deliver exceptional innovations to counter these persisting mobility challenges.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s hard to fathom that a mere 100 years ago, transportation was not universal. Fast forward to 2022, innovation has transported us from an era of horse-drawn carriages to supercars that run up to 300 kilometers an hour. Because of the vast growing types of mobility networks, globalization became reality. However, the downside of this: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5086,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"Revolutionizing Mobility: From Horse-Drawn Carriages to Supercars and Beyond","_seopress_titles_desc":"Discover how technological advancements in mobility can tackle rising emissions, open new opportunities, and transform societies in Asia and Europe. Learn about the challenges and benefits of implementing these solutions worldwide.","_seopress_robots_index":"","tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1040,1003],"tags":[1005,1179,1178],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5085"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5085"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5147,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5085\/revisions\/5147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businessner.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}