Our potential team member profile

So far, our venture's "masterminds" are Dan and me. We develop the entire feasibility plan that includes product descriptions, distribution arrangement, pricing strategy, and a promotion plan. However, we will also need other people as I believe many facets of a new venture requires people from different backgrounds, posses relevant skills and have the same vision. Dan and I have different personal qualities that may not be perfectly complementary and thus need other people to fill in the "gap." I will describe the important qualities that we are looking from our potential team members: good distribution, design and production process knowledge.

The raincoat market in Indonesia doesn't need sophisticated technology and is a well established market, but its huge informal distribution channel in the form of street vendors (we estimate to be around 4,000-6,000 sellers only in Jakarta) poses a unique challenge to our product. First, we may not establish a cooperation with them as they don't operate according to the regulations and thus enforcing a contract with them would be very difficult. Second, they only sell low-end raincoats, that selling our products through them will only damage our premium image. Thus, our options might be very limited. We need a person who understands the distribution channels of motorcycle accessories in Indonesia and is able to maintain a good relationship with our distributors.

Furthermore, as a premium product, our raincoat will need a good designer. We will need a person who is able to articulate our product requirements into a well-designed rain suit. I think a combination of adequate design skills and knowledge of different clothing materials is important because we are targeting a relatively low price range that careful considerations on the cost of materials used is crucial. In Jakarta, Bandung and Yogyakarta, small clothing companies are prevalent (we call them distros). They usually have a part-time designer who is also a graphic design student. I believe pursuing these people is worthwhile as we might be able to find a formally educated designer with adequate knowledge in the clothing industry.

Finally, I think an efficient production process is also important to keep our costs low. We probably don't need a technology guy, but we certainly need the one that really understands the clothing production process. I am not familiar with the process in Indonesia, but I suspect that the clothing factories there are low-tech and labor intensive. Having a person who understands a more efficient rain suit production process will be a big advantage as we will be able to produce a higher quality product with the same price. Thus, it is likely that we will also need a person who has deep knowledge in the garment industry.