eChai Showcase - BantuMu.com
Today we are introducing Indonesian startup - BantuMu.com - a kind of Linkedin alternative for programmers which lets programmers or developers showcase their working and freelance experience along side their sample of codes (over Github) to get more opportunities or get connected with networks. It's a better way to connect great programmers with the best programming jobs.
Here is the eChai with Wawan B. Setyawan, Founder, BantuMu.com. Join the convesation to ask any specific question to Wawan. You can give your feedback and suggestions as well - it will certainly help Wawan improve his product and get encouragement to do even better.
How did you come up with the idea of 'BantuMu' ?
I am working for Codemi.co.id as their Head of Engineering team, where I was also in charge to recruit an additional Software Engineer to add to our growing engineering team. Looking for passionate programmer who can fit in to our company culture wasn't that easy to find. Even though there is Linkedin which provides amazing info about professionals, but I felt something was lacking specially when you want to hire a programmer in Indonesia. I was looking for a programmer with experience and tons of sample of works or projects they have done before and someone who can lead our product development and be part of our engineering culture. Then I come up with this idea to build the Linkedin alternative to find programmers in Indonesia.
What problem are you solving?
BantuMu solves a problem that many tech-companies face. To find a great programmers to lead or develop their great products/services. And BantuMu also aims to educate tech-companies about how they should connect to the great talent through the talent's REAL skill-set, not just long-list resume which has no relation to their company vision.
How does BantuMu work?
BantuMu helps programmers to have their real Programmer-Online-Resume with their GitHub repository list, the top three programming language that they are very good at and a timeline of working, freelance or personal project's experience as well. Every time there's a job for any programming language that they are expert in posted by tech-companies, they get a notification email with link to the job listed on BantuMu.
What is your target market?
Our target customers are seasoned programmers that want to represent their programming resume online and tech companies who are looking for the quality talent. Recently The Bureau of Labour Statistics, Indonesia mentioned that there will be nearly 140,000 new software development jobs created before 2022 in Indonesia, We're very optimistic that there will be more individuals who'll later on find BantuMu very useful.
What is your competitive advantage?
Unlike any other professional networks, BantuMu is very much focused on programmers niche instead of all the professions, BantuMu helps programmers make their resume stand out in the crowd.
For a small, medium or even big tech-company they now have an online database of programmers for later recruitment.
And for startups, they have a reference if they're looking for any technical co-founder.
How much time did it take you from conceptualization of 'BantuMu' to actually launching it in the market ?
Five days. Yeah sounds ridiculous, but we are not really aiming to be billion dollar business or something like that. I just like to help people, especially other programmers who need a better job and a team leader who need to find a great person to join their team. So, I haven't yet wasted my time to do a market research, etc. :-)
Tell us more about your team?
Currently, apart from me there is no other team. Still looking for a co-founder or two. I keep saying 'We' or 'Our', that mean me and BantuMu :-)
What is your technology stack?
Nothing impressive, We just using a cheap hosting plan with just PHP-MySQL and Javascript.
How do you plan to market your product? What are your customer acquisition strategies?
We plan to acquire our users through community engagement at local conferences, startups events, programmers meet-ups, incubators, accelerators, etc. We also plan to acquire overseas customers via social media outreach.
What is the revenue model of 'BantuMu' ?
Now we're in beta, and it's all free. But we're in a development for a subscription features in our next full version from where we are expected to make revenues from.
What do you want to achieve from this? What is your larger goal or vision?
BantuMu's number one goal is to connect great programmers with the best programming jobs. Then since sometimes the best programming jobs for great programmer are not always there in their local area. We will expand our service globally and cooperate with a lot of people or companies worldwide to achieve that.
What sort of support and feedback are you looking from the community?
Getting Word of mouth is the most expensive support nowadays, So we really appreciate any helps from the community to spread our mission to their local programmers and tech companies. Or maybe team up as a global team with us :-)
Programmer profile page on BantuMu.com :
