52. Building a Successful eCommerce Company in Indonesia | Muliadi Jeo, CTO at Sirclo

Karthik Chidambaram: Hello, everyone. Welcome to a brand new episode of the
DCKAP Driven podcast.

I'm really excited today because we're going to be talking to a friend. We
have with us Muliadi Jeo, an entrepreneur, a serial entrepreneur I would say,
the co-founder of iCube, and then he sold his company or merged his company
with Sirclo, and he's now the Chief Technology Officer of Sirclo.

Muliadi is a big name in the e-commerce industry, especially in Indonesia.
So, Muliadi, we are very excited to be chatting with you, and thanks for
joining DCKAP’s Driven Podcast. Welcome.

Muliadi Jeo: Thank you, Karthik. It's always my pleasure to chat with you.
It's always great.

Karthik Chidambaram: Thank you, Muliadi. Before we get started, you are the
Chief Technology Officer of Sirclo. So, why don't you tell us a little bit
about what Sirclo is, and what do you guys do as a company, and what is your
mission?

Muliadi Jeo: Thanks, Karthik. Sure. Sure. Sirclo is a startup company in
Indonesia. I don't know if we qualify to call ourselves a startup anymore
because we already- like this is our 11 years now, this year, as a company.
But it started as a platform e commerce platform company. The founder, my
co- CEO, Brian, created a company for creating something like Shopify, like
an e-commerce platform for Indonesia.

Yeah. And then another company basically evolved. Currently, our main focus,
really, we call ourselves Omnichannel Enabler. What does that mean? It's
really we’re helping brands and principals, multi Indonesia brands, even
international brands as well. To do business online in Indonesia and we help
them end-to-end, from the merchandising, the customer service, all the way
down to the fulfillment.

We have warehouses, so we can ship the items for them to the customer, to
the end customer. So it's the end-to-end services that we provide in every
channel possible online for the brands. And at the other side of the company
which is part of my company before, which is we're still doing the
technology implementation for brands and principle if they want to go
omnichannel and invest in the e-commerce.

So, still that part of the business still continues within surplus. So the
clients have both choices, whether when they engage with us in post service
or technology only, at this point.

Karthik Chidambaram: Very interesting. So you do both e-commerce platform
with Sirclo. You provide an e-commerce platform for merchants or businesses
in Indonesia.

And then you also provide technology services through your company, iCube,
which is now merged with Sirclo. So tell us about the Indonesian market. You
know, I'm very curious, you know, I've been there, a few times. Thanks for
inviting me. I really enjoyed my time in Jakarta and Asian market.

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, it's a very vibrant.

I think one thing about Indonesia, and it's generally through most of the
Southeast Asia- like Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines- is a wheel. It's very
driven by young populations, right? I think we, I think compared to any
other region, we have the most Millennial, Gen Y, Gen Z populations in the
country.

That's why we see that a lot of them creating, and a lot of the adoption
technology very fast. Like, for example, we skip over the entire computer
era. Everybody jumps straight to the mobile phone, which that's reflect as
well, the e-commerce. We’re still, I would say, still very early in the
e-commerce compared to, like, maybe like United States and much more mature.

But obviously, the pandemic last time create accelerations on building a lot
of the ecosystem around. So, people are much more receiving e-commerce well,
and I think the last survey already show that the customers already take
advantage of the e-commerce to bring convenience and all this access,
despite of the Indonesia with the archipelago, which is very, very difficult
to ship things.

Karthik Chidambaram: And you grew up in Indonesia, and then you also moved
to the US. How was it like growing up in Indonesia? Can you tell us about
your early years in Indonesia?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, I'm kind of probably on the odd case. I travel a
lot, even during my young age. I actually, I'm born in Indonesia. I stayed
until I was grade three, and I have a chance to move and have an education
in Hong Kong for kind of four years and then coming back.

But yeah, and then and then I went to the States. I lived in the States for
16 years and before I came back again in 2010 with my family, it's just a
culture shock. Even though I born here in Indonesia, for us after living
abroad so long in in the States for 16 years, I mean, coming back here is
like learning.

All together again, because, I mean, there's this always culture. I mean,
the nice thing about here, obviously, with a lot of the Asian country very
family oriented, very it's very close to each other, just, just warm in
general. But there's a lot of things that we have to kind of learning the
way the bureaucracy thinks and things.

It's not as accessible like in the states where we, whatever you wanna find,
it's always there. Right? But in here's, you just have to find your way and,
and basically relearn a lot of those culture things again in Indonesia.

Karthik Chidambaram: So when you were three years old, you moved to Hong
Kong, and how long did you live in Hong Kong for?

Muliadi Jeo: Actually, I was eight years old. I was grade three, primary
grade three. I was in Hong Kong for four years. So, I graduated primary
school in Hong Kong and coming back to Indonesia for the secondary school.

Karthik Chidambaram: And then after you finished your secondary school and
you moved to the U.S.?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, I went to U.S. for the college and the university. I
graduated in ‘94 from Cal State, Fullerton. And I just, and then lived there
since then. Until I came back to Indonesia.

Karthik Chidambaram: I'm not going to ask how old you are.

Muliadi Jeo: But then it probably shows from my gray hair. But yes,
this year, I'm 48 already. So, yeah, I'm up there.

Karthik Chidambaram: That's awesome. I mean, I'm very interested to learn a
little more about your travel, because I've seen you travel the world and I
vividly remember meeting you. I think I've seen you a few times, but when we
had a conversation, I think it was in Australia, in Sydney, where we were
crossing the signal, you know, there was a street and, you know, there was a
signal and we were crossing the signal and you and your wife, Uni were there
and we just had a conversation.

It was really awesome to know you and, you know, starting to learn about
iCube and all that. And you started this company, right? iCube with your
wife. Can you tell us about the early years of iCube? How did you end up
starting iCube? And how did you get on to an entrepreneurial journey?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, it's kind of been a very long journey.

I started iCube with my wife, actually way back when we were still in Los
Angeles at that time in U.S. It's just, spur of moment, we will say, well we
bring a few of gadgets. I love gadgets. So, and Asia has been very, I mean,
famous for all the unique stuff, like from the electronic gadgets from Japan
and stuff.

So we bring a few of them back in the States and then we see maybe I'll try
to sell it. We actually go to a lot of the trade fair in the States,
bringing all those devices and try to introduce them. So that's how we start
ICube as actually as a as a retail. Online. I built the website myself.

The first learning about e-commerce, building our own e-commerce. I mean,
from scratch. And we import a lot. A lot of those laptops from Japan, and we
sell it into government agency, even American company like Sony. They bought
from us because they don't have access to these Japanese items, even though
it's also coming from Sony Japan.

And we also supply a few into the Europe market. So, we did that probably
about three years until we finally- because the, just the industry itself
they change Japanese company that's no longer creating all these unique
devices, all become a commodity and then a net books comes up.

So everything's so commodities at that time. So we stopped doing that, but
we really learned a lot about the e-commerce. That's how we actually started
learning about e-commerce. Then obviously I take a pause, I move into an
agency in, in Marina del Rey. That's where I actually get a lot of the
experience of the e-commerce and working with Magento, knowing a lot of the
early days of the Magento teams.

So with that skill and that experience at, at that time, we have- it's the
family reason we have to go back to Indonesia. So obviously then using that
experience and using that connection we- at first, we only planning to go
here for a very short period. We never, we never think that we're going to
be living like this.

Actually, my wife's always teasing me that say, ‘Hey, I thought we're going
to do only two years in Indonesia. Then now we end up 13 years, almost 14
years now, actually living here.’ But yeah, originally we just plan to
create like a remote. A development team, right? I've been when I bet in
Marina, the company called guidance.

I managed a lot of the offshore. I mean, with India with Argentina with
Vietnam. So, it's been very much my day-to-day job. So, man, it's a lot of
this offshore team. So. Well, usually I'm thinking like creating a team in
Indonesia as part of the bigger guidance project, but yeah, I think faith
calling us differently.

I would say, it's a blessing in disguise, Indonesia, just starting up with a
lot of the e-commerce at that time. That's 2012. We see that this
opportunity that we can bring Magento. As a potential platform that can
really promote and very useful to a lot of the merchants in Indonesia.

I got a few projects calling me to, I was living in Bali at that time, so it
was never in my mind, going to Jakarta and working for Indonesia. So I was
enjoying my life in Bali for two years when we moved back. But then, yes,
and then projects are rolling in Jakarta. A lot of the starting big company
investing in e-commerce.

We were just in the right time, the right moment. We built the teams very
small in terms of probably about. Seven, eight of us, but we do quite a few
a big project in Jakarta and start introducing Magento more and more and
then building the ecosystem slowly, like with the payment partner and stuff
like that.

So, yeah, that's just like how it started. It's like, we never plan out, but
me and my wife just, you know, just do it. I guess when we hear, and that's,
ICube was born that way.

Karthik Chidambaram: Very interesting. But then in the U.S., you make money
in dollars? And then when you come to Indonesia, it's Rupiah, how is it?
Obviously, you charge your customers a lot more and how do you get used to
that?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, I mean, definitely, it's a big change. So, I
mean, here- I, we're always joking, right? Indonesia, we do project 1/10 of
the value, whatever we can do in US. Obviously, we have to adjust, I mean
our, the way to perceive the project and stuff like that, to what is a value
in Indonesia e-commerce is still starting.

So we make sure we deliver a good quality and focusing on bringing a magenta
project to retail clients in at that time. So yeah, but obviously, yeah, I
mean, we adjusting ourselves to Indonesia and obviously focusing on that
more, on local and charging on local market.

Karthik Chidambaram: A lot of people may not know ICube was a remote first
company, even prior to COVID, you had people lots of people working from
their homes and working from different locations.

And then you merged your company with Sirclo. How did that process come
about? And also, after the merger. Is Sirclo also a remote first company or
how do you ensure that the cultures are aligned?

Muliadi Jeo: Yes, that's very good questions. We were designed for remote
because, as I mentioned, we started as a remote developer for us, right?

I mean a lot of the U.S. projects. So everybody has to work late night. I
was like working at 11 at night until 7 am in the morning every day for the
first two years I was in Indonesia. And my team is also doing the same
thing. So, there's really no point of having an office. It doesn't make
sense.

So we all work from home. We adopt a lot of the culture, the tools that
we've been using in guidance. To make sure that teams can communicate really
well remotely wherever we are. So that culture has continued to be brought
until when we were only a few of us until when we hit like 150 people at
that time.

So that's the same culture that we continue to keep remote first. And even
we, we're teaching our clients to adopt that. A lot of the enterprise client
doesn't like that. They want face to face. But our team is never in the big
city, at least not in Jakarta. So naturally every project we force our
client to accept us as a remote team for them.

But then, yeah, I mean, the merger happened. I will say the timing worked
really well for us because we didn't plan it that way. We have the merger
conversations in December 2019. We actually finalized a lot of the
commercial around early 2020 January, February, and then pandemic happened.
So, there's like really no choice for Sirclo to change that.

And they have to adopt and then have to learn from our remote culture. So we
end up bringing a lot of our tools, a lot of our culture, a lot of the way
that we work into Sirclo, which at that time before the merging circle is
really work from office. Everybody in the office is very strict. So we
actually bring the influence and then, and then that's how we're able to
survive.

It's in the pandemic. The culture comes in from us on. And it's safe. Now,
after the pandemic, they see that it works, right? I mean, obviously, we
have to be selective. A certain division has to go to office. Obviously, we
have like the fulfillment warehouse full of people. Which completely have to
be work in the warehouse in the warehouse, but most of the like the tech
team, even some of the account teams, they don't have to be in the office
every day.

That doesn't make sense. We see the value that we can still, everybody, can
still deliver whatever need to be delivered in this culture with the right
make sure we keep the culture with the right tools and everybody being
accountable to each other.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, the pandemic did help make things easier for you.
So that's very interesting.

Muliadi Jeo: Yes, it definitely.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah. Your wife Uni is a big part of your success.
Where did you meet her? Or how do you guys get to know each other? I'm just
curious.

Muliadi Jeo: We are one of the couples that actually met on the Internet,
even though we are from the same high school, right? Uni is like two years
below me in high school. And then, but we never really get acquaintance to
each other. I mean, during that time. So, until we- I study in U.S. and she
study in Australia- until we are very far apart. And then we meet again
through the alumni dot net website. It's very casually.

We email each other. I think in that era, everybody have the websites. You
remember, personal website. So we will promote ourself from their website.

We talked from there and then we get acquaintance again. And yeah, yeah. And
until she graduated from school in Australia, I brought her to the States.
And yeah, and then we married afterwards.

Karthik Chidambaram: That's amazing. And how is it like? Working with your
wife, a lot of people have this question. Hey, you know, I mean, you work
together as co-founders or you work in the same company and then you meet
your spouse at home as well. What are some of the pros and cons with that?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, I mean, obviously- I will start with the cons first. The
con is like we really have to know the limit. I mean, because you will get
carried away that every conversation, 24-7, will we be talking about
business all the time, right? So that's the consequences that we work
together. So we just have to be really balancing ourselves, making sure that
we thought we have to be able to stop.

Okay, working. And now we're- Let's don't talk about work. Right? And then,
and that's happened a lot. 24-7’s. We just, because not only that we work
together, we are the business owner. So it's just in our mind, continue to
drive us that way. Right? The conversations thing, it’s, some even really
right now.

So, but the good thing is obviously then, since we are living together and
we know each other very well. And then since a lot of- so we’re able to find
the rhythm. It's like, okay, what I'm good at, what she's good at. And then
we divide our responsibility that way. Like in before Sirclo, she's always
been the one that taking care.

Everything's operational, internal and stuff like that, right, from how to
manage the employee, all the legal stuff, the finance stuff, all the things
that I usually don't like, I like more meeting people going out, building
business, the business development, sales, and meeting clients and stuff
like that.

So I'm more the external one, she's more the internal one. So we divide the
job quite well. When we run the company together.

Karthik Chidambaram: And let's say you have a bad day at work. Does that
reflect at home? What is the dynamic like?

Muliadi Jeo: Well, yes, obviously, that's where the break has to come in.
And when we have to stop, okay, have to separate, okay, this is a work
discussion.

Let's not carry over. We have to take a break. But it happens. I mean, even
though I think it's happened for any couples, right? I mean, it doesn't have
to be working together. But in working together, obviously, we have to
create that separation clear.

Karthik Chidambaram: Excellent. You know, get the boundaries right.

Muliadi Jeo: Yes, this is work and this is personal. Let's not combine that.

Karthik Chidambaram: One thing I really love about the work you do, Muliadi,
is the events you put together in Indonesia. It's one of its kind and for
anybody looking to explore Indonesia, At least for people like us, when we
think of e commerce, or when we think of Magento, I would say now, even e
commerce, you know, we think about Muliadi Jeo, hey, let's go ask him, what
is it like to do business in Indonesia, and you put together great events.

One thing I really love is you also invite your competitors. To the events
and you compete, but you also partner, how's it like, you know, to partner
and compete at the same time? And a lot of people have this question and I
think you do a great job at that.

Muliadi Jeo: Thank you. Thank you. I think I learned this from the
Europeans. All our friends in Europe, right, they created this Meet Magento
initially, and I learned a lot from them how they're really able to have an
event where everybody, their competitors and in ecosystems, and that's what
makes Magento so wonderful as far as community. So I take that. And when I
went back to Indonesia when we see the opportunity to actually grow Magento,
there's not many people that really know Magento.

There's probably a few developers or there's one of a handful, maybe two or
three a larger corporation. They're actually using Magento. But I think what
we feel like, okay, to be a platform to be success, right? I mean, to handle
this market, this big. I mean, there's always work for everybody.

I mean, I think the most important one is really establishing a very healthy
ecosystem when all the players able to bring the ecosystem up. It's a
win-win for everyone at that point. Right. Because that merchants feel like,
okay, I will be investing to a platform that has a lot of support rather
than just a platform that only one support or none.

So that's really the key the idea. That's why I created, I asked, to license
the mid Magento events and bring it to Indonesia. I was talking to all the
at that point in Magento and she's really supporting the idea. Magento
actually comes to Indonesia and we have our first event in 2015.

Our first event. It's like it's only about 100 of us. It's very small, but
we invite everybody from the player, competitors, payment ecosystems,
shipping ecosystems to show that they know what is Magento is, and help them
invest into the platform together. And we see a very good turnout.

I mean, we never think that that's going to be that many people comes. And
then that's just, we've just built upon them year after year. I think you
weren't there in the second year. We have it's already about 150 people or
maybe 200 already at that point. And then and yeah, we just continue to grow
that ecosystem and then we see that's how it should work basically.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, this is something distributors can learn from as
well. As you know, a lot of distributors in the U.S. are a part of large
associations, trade associations. They compete with each other, and there
are also opportunities for distributors to partner together. It's not just
about competition. You know, we can also each other.

I'm also curious to know about the B2B market in Indonesia or the
distribution market in Indonesia.

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, it's still very traditional way. That's one of the things
that at Sirclo, we actually try to influence a lot of our principal to have
a mindset of change, right? Maybe a real story that we have.

It's like, we're working with unilever right now. Obviously we help them to
sell all the unilever products through the online. And we've obviously,
initially it's the easiest way. It's just having all the items in our
warehouse, right? But that's not going to be efficient. You know the
challenge of e-commerce is always logistics.

It's one of the biggest challenges. If everything has to be shipped from our
warehouse, it's going to be very expensive and it's not going to be scaling.
And, and there there's no way that we will replace all the distributor
existing of Unilever. As well, the way it's just doesn't make sense.

I mean, there's they have built this network of distributor for a long time.
I think more than 10 years, maybe, or 20 years, even right. And it's already
established. So why do we have to recreate against something? I mean, just
the cost of time. It's just doesn't make sense. So, so we, we, we could try
to convince the principle in this case, Unilever, basically, hey, let's work
together and then let's.

Call out all the distributor that that willing to join basically, and we
make sure we provide the technology. We let the distributor to connect to us
so that now, actually, we we are piloting already with a few distributor and
we just we're very happy with to to collaborate together. So. The online
sale that happened on Unilever, we'll be able to leverage the, what we call
the local distributor closer to wherever the customers that buy the items.

So, so instead of coming from our warehouse, we just collaborate directly
with the distributor to, to distribute the, to ship the items to them. So I
think that's the way to go with Indonesia, right? Because that's how we're
going to able to tackle The whole archipelago problem and at the end of the
day, the goods has to be really close to the customers.

There has to be evictions. I mean, shipping is customer doesn't want to pay
shipping beyond like if they can just walk to the next street buying the
items, where do they have to pay the shipping? expensive shipping just to
get items. It doesn't make sense, right? So, so the, for the speed and for
the for the efficiency and the cost, obviously it would be better to
leveraging the existing ecosystem in this case, distributor or reseller
into, into the, the, the business.

Karthik Chidambaram: Unilever is a big name and you also work with a lot of
big names in Indonesia. How do you acquire a customer like Unilever? Give us
some sales advice.

Muliadi Jeo: Well, I mean, typically they found us, I would say. I mean for
Unilever, I have to credit to all my colleagues, my COO and my CEO that have
a relationship early with them.

My CEO has actually come from PNG as well. So he has a lot of connection in
that space. But even for us in the iCube before a lot of the retail just
find us so we, through the referral, a lot of friends, refer to friends in
the business. So it's, even though it's huge, Indonesia, but it's the very
close knit industry as well.

Right. So yeah, I mean, yeah, we're happy to work with a lot of this great
guy.

Karthik Chidambaram: Yeah, it's always easier when they come to you rather
than you trying to reach out to them. Oh, right. Let's say, you know,
there's a company out there looking to do business in Indonesia. Can you
tell us three things that they need to know about Indonesia to do business
there?

Muliadi Jeo: Well, let's talk about the Indonesian people in general, and I
think, obviously, in Indonesia, you experienced already coming to Indonesia,
they're all very friendly, they're very social, they like to gather
together, eat together, and stuff like that and, but this also have a very
bad side effect, which is they are very hard to say no and very hesitant to
do that.

So, comes with balance. But doing business here, though, I think the most
important is to understand market here. It will be better to work with some
local partner in here because I think a lot of you have to navigate a lot of
the uncertainty in Indonesia, right? I think it's much better.

I think I will say in the last 10 years that I'm here. It's a lot of
improvement. I mean from the government structure regulations, but it's
still a lot of movement that it will be better to have a local partner to
navigate together especially to tackling a lot of those logistic issues and
stuff like that but it's a very growing. It's very dynamic economically

It has opportunities there, but expectation has to be right. We are still,
economy wise, is we're not as high as India. So you have to adjust things
with all those factor in, so like I said, when I started the company, I have
to see what is the value translating to the local as far as like what the
company can afford and things like that.

So a lot of, like, I see a lot of foreign company come to Indonesia. They
just say, okay. This is the price. We do this globally. This is the same.
It's not going to work, right? In the especially in the e-commerce
technology where when you in the states, our average order value in the e
-ommerce is only one tenth of whatever it is in the states. So everything
has to be adjusted that way.

So yeah, that's always my recommendation is to always try to understand
adapt into the value and how things work here and go. And if you do that,
then you can get like huge market rather than doing small.

Karthik Chidambaram: So definitely, so that's it. Find a local partner.
That's great advice. And also a lot of clothes we have and wear come from
Indonesia, right? So yeah, you guys have a great export market as well.

So, Muliadi, the theme of this podcast is Driven, and you are a very driven
person. You travel the world. You work hard. You are aggressive. How are you
driven? And for people out there who are not so driven or who really want to
be driven, what advice would you give them?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah I will, I always love I love Simon Sinek. I think he
always puts it very nicely, saying ‘you have to know why you do things’
right. So, I think that's what’s always been my driver. I mean, I've been in
the e-commerce industry so long now. But I'm never at any point feeling that
this is bored or this is over, right?

I mean, because it's- so, there's always new things that drive you able to.
When I came back from States here, I mean, I thought that I have everything,
I know everything, but then that's everything changed, right? I mean, the
way it works, e-commerce works, is very different. So that those little
things keep me able to, to learn stuff and drive me to excel myself in this
space and continue to learn that way.

It's very dynamic. I mean, now we're facing a lot of this changing in the
customer behavior with all this younger generations. Retailers have
different challenges. I mean, when we came back 10 years ago, we only have
to deal with the mobile first. Now we're talking about video content for
events TikTok, short videos, stuff like that.

So, there's always exciting things in our space in e-commerce. I think
that's what makes me very much excited every day working in this space. And
at this, until now, this is still something that it's always my being my
passions in there.

Karthik Chidambaram: And what advice would you give for somebody who wants
to be driven, right? But then, hey. Sometimes you procrastinate. So what do
you do?

Muliadi Jeo: Well, I mean, you always have to come back- come back to
knowing that why you do stuff, right? I mean, I think when you have that,
that gives you that strength to push through a lot of stuff. I mean, I
obviously procrastinate something that it's always on us.

And, but the thing is- and when you know what you want, the wide, it gives
you that push, right? I mean, we never think when we want to come back to
Indonesia, it's taken us three years to come back. But then, yes, I come
back to that ‘driven’ again that will push us to, to take that steps and
don't be afraid to take that steps, right?

If you exactly know, I mean, the dangers is like, if you don't know what you
want and then that's become very, very hard.

Karthik Chidambaram: Oh, that's great. I'll start with why and always get
out of your comfort zone.

So, just reflecting back on your career. Is there anything you have done
differently? You think or what is something you've learned?

Muliadi Jeo: Yeah, I don't think I would think do anything different. See, I
personally believe that everything is that we've been through. It has been
very educating and making a big impact on whatever the next decision I do.
Right. I'm such a lucky- when I was back in, in the states, I worked with a
couple of companies that I can still work with.

Directly learn from the owner of the company. So, in some way, it always, it
almost feels like they are preparing me on that entrepreneur skills when I
needed, when I came back to Indonesia. So, I work with quite a few- Leon
Shawnik is my first boss in Atlanta Solutions.

So when I still in consulting, I mean, he's the owner and he's the mentor.
And then back in guidance, I learned a lot from John Provisor, also another
awesome mentor for me, how he moved his career owning guidance as part of
the partnering guidance. So, those steps has been really preparing to where
I am right now. Right.

So, there's nothing that we should regret. I think every experience, we just
have to embrace it and learn from that, and that's what makes you able to do
better.

Karthik Chidambaram: And you are a gadget geek. So what gadget are you
working on right now? And what's the gadget you're recently obsessed with?

Muliadi Jeo: Yes. I, because I like, I tell the story- I bring these gadgets
from Japan in the past. I do business on bringing all those microcomputers,
small computers. Obviously now it's become phones. I still following very,
very closely that industry. What will, what’s next in the mobile devices.

I mean, obviously I have this flip phone myself as my daily driver beside
all the Mac and all the device that I have here. But, yeah, I love those
because I see how much this gadgets, like you, it's almost like foretelling
what will people be doing with that. Because usually technology will make
the changes on the social behavior sand then that's back to my passion on
the retailers. I always try to connect the technology, the gadget I love
with that other passion as well. So, I closely watching the Apple Vision
Pro. I don't know if that's practical yet. I haven't made my decision to buy
yet for Indonesia. Maybe it's a bit farfetched.

I have, I have made a quest to sitting in my living room that I never use,
but I think AR VR is definitely something to, as I've been closely
monitoring the last couple of years, and see how practical that will be and
impacting us.

Karthik Chidambaram: So, you travel a lot. What's the most fun trip you've
ever done or the most exciting place you've ever been to?

Muliadi Jeo: Well, I love to eat. So I, there's always a few country that I
really enjoy going to back and back again. Hong Kong is one of it where I
grow there. But one of the things about the Hong Kong is it's very vibrant.
It's been a while. I didn't come back. But a lot of Hong Kong has been like
very vibrant, a lot of like a cultural mix with the good food on enjoying
the closeness in that city.

And it's a very like I have a lot of bucket list. I definitely want to try
out a lot of the Latin America, Spain, those places. But we have the chance
to go to Italy during the before pandemic on the mid Magento. I really love
the city. Me and my wife really love it. I think it's just really great to
be there in the middle of this historical city, all the historical
buildings, and it's really, enjoy walking around that in Rome and as well as
in Venice.

So, and we actually take the chance to rent a car and drive into, into, into
the city. Small city near Venice. So yeah.

Karthik Chidambaram: It's a privilege and definitely teaches you a lot of
things. So we interview a lot of leaders. And what's the question you would
like to ask? The next person we interview,

Muliadi Jeo: What question do you- Okay. I think, how- because you interview
a lot of leaders, right? I mean- How can there, sometimes in a leader, we
feel like there's, like we have nobody around us. Like, how can we keep
ourself to be always not feeling lonely as in that leader space. What do
they do typically do, to do that?

Karthik Chidambaram: That's a great question. We'll make sure to add it in
when we ask the speaker.

So I would like to end with this question. We usually end with this
question. What book are you reading right now?

Muliadi Jeo: All right. So exactly, I just bought it a few weeks ago.

There's a book called Filter World. I just started reading it. It's
basically, it's about how are we living in the world. Well, everything's
algorithms, and it's basically flattened the culture. I- the top, I mean,
the title is very intriguing. So I bought it. I just read a few chapters,
but there's always a few book that I'll always say. Keep reading.

I mentioned about Simon Sinek. I continue to always, time to time, come back
to that book and read again and read again and read again. There's a few
books of that. And then obviously the Built to Last, that's one of my
favorite books that I've been reading three times now in the last two years.
So yeah.

Karthik Chidambaram: No, that's a great recommendation. And yeah, I've read
Simon Sinek's ‘Start With Why’ I think that's a great read as well. And you
talk about. ‘Why are you really doing it?’ And that's a great treat. So let
me this is the book I am reading right now, actually. So it's actually a
Tamil book.

I'm just trying to get into, you know, the language I speak. So, this is
written by somebody called- it's written by a great poet. His name is
Kannadasan. So it talks about Hinduism and it's about 10 volumes, but very
small. So, I'm excited reading that.

Muliadi Jeo: Very nice.

Karthik Chidambaram: Right. I mean, you know, it's been a lot of fun
chatting with you as always. Thanks for inspiring us. And I think you're
also a great example of long-term thinking, you know, because a lot of
people really expect results. Hey, I want to do this today. And I want to
build a big company tomorrow, but that really doesn't work.

Like you said, our story is a great example of long-term thinking. You start
small and then you keep building on it and, you know, it's a journey So
thanks for inspiring us and thanks for joining the DCKAP’s Driven podcast
and thank you so much.

Muliadi Jeo: It's my pleasure. Thank you.