Location, Location, Location

Adrianto and I spent a considerable amount of time during our working session last week discussing which neighborhood in Jakarta would be the right one to launch our venture.  In considering the commuting patterns of motorcyclist in Jakarta Adrianto identified two neighborhoods, Bekasi to the east and Depok to the south, that are the primary neighborhoods for many low income motorcyclist.  The residents in these neighborhoods cannot afford a car and therefore must rely on the motorcycle as their only form of transportation.  This is exactly who we want to target. 

Next we looked at the main streets connecting Depok and Bekasi to the center of Jakarta to get a feel for the number of motorcycle shops on each street.  Turns out the commute length from both neighborhoods into Jakarta is about the same (~7km) and both routes are comprised of ~100-125 bike shops.  Based on our sales targets for year 1 it became apparent that we would only have enough rain suit supply to support distribution in one of these neighborhoods.  Seeing that the potential market size on each route appeared to be about the same I asked Adrianto if he had any preference.  Around Depok is the area that Adrianto is more familiar with so it looks like this will be the perfect area to launch our rain suit in Jakarta.  We of course also wonder why not launch in both neighborhoods?  This is something we are still considering however starting small in the interest of learning as much as we can for as cheap a possible (an idea popularized in The Lean Startup) is import to us.