Founder’s Diary Episode 6 – Startup Perspective: B2C vs B2B vs B2G

SIAR.Com, Jakarta — You are reading a part of Founder’s Diary Sixth Episode Documentation. In this documentation, we are highlighting our speakers perspective in serving B2C, B2B and B2G clients.

Speaker and Company Introduction

In case you missed it, in our sixth episode, we were joined by two special speakers, RaMa Raditya, Founder and CEO of Qlue and Clarissa Leung, Co-Founder and CEO of Seekmi.

Rama Raditya (Rama) is the Founder and CEO of Qlue. He was inspired to establish Qlue as there was no effective platform for citizens to report social and environmental problems directly to the government. He started Qlue to be a communication platform between the government and its citizens, and encouraged the governments to be more communicative, transparent, and inclusive to respond to the citizens’ complaints or feedback.

Qlue itself is now a comprehensive smart city provider in Indonesia. With a broader mission than when it first started, Qlue now aims to accelerate positive changes worldwide and has developed various cutting-edge solutions based on AI, IoT, and mobile workforce technology to help both government and private companies to be more effective and efficient in running their business and operations.

While Clarissa Leung is a Canadian Electrical & Computer Engineer. After her MBA at Queen’s University in Ontario and after two successful tech start-ups in Canada, Clarissa ventured to Indonesia in 2014. Clarissa founded the company after facing a major dilemma in 2014: “Who do I call when my AC breaks?” and within one year after that question, she founded and built Seekmi.

Seekmi is now considered as the leading on-demand platform in Indonesia, specializing in on-demand home and office services, delivered straight to the customer’s doorsteps. With over 20,000+ Seekmi certified technicians that are required to pass the Seekmi Academy training and certification program, made in collaboration with national and international technical associations, Seekmi centers itself on quality, striving to ensure that each and every order is completed to the highest standards.

Qlue’s  Perspective: B2B vs B2G

The conversation started when RaMa mentioned that Qlue are mostly serving Government clients during the pandemic era.

“During the pandemic, we feel like there are so many opportunities for us to bring a greater social impact to our clients which in this case are the government bodies.  I think in general, the advantage to serve B2G clients is they have their budget allocated already. There are a lot of rumours saying that B2G is uncertain, I am not sure how people end up with that conclusion but for us, we learned that for sure the payment will be disbursed once we have done our part in delivering our project,” shared RaMa.

“However, there is also a down side in working with governments as the project should be perpetual but it can’t be recurring and requires tenders every year. On the B2B side, recurring and sustainability are the advantages. But on downside, B2B tends to be a bit tough in terms of payment especially in an environment like today,” added RaMa.

“If you are fundraising, B2G model can be questioned a lot as investors might see it unpredictable and unsustainable. Although it normally brings a bigger project with bigger money, building B2B pipelines to achieve sustainability is a good balance to do,” shared RaMa.

Seekmi’s Perspective: B2C vs B2B

“Seekmi started with a B2C approach where we aim to help individual household. After gaining the knowledge and credibility for having a very high standard of services, we gain the recognition from the industry. This recognition then gives us a better control on the pricing and managing the vendors,” explained Clarissa when asked about how the journey was for Seekmi in starting as a B2C company and then expanding to also cater B2B segment.

When asked about which one that she prefers between B2C or B2B approach, she mentioned, “I think both models are good. With B2C approach, we own the brand. Once it is recognized, it is easier to diversify the offers and the brand. B2B on the other hand is more stable as they have recurring needs. There are a lot more opportunities but there is a cost to lose the branding as we sometimes have to work under different brands,” shared Clarissa.

“If you find yourself enjoying analytics to monitor the customers, doing digital marketing, I think you will enjoy B2C. B2C requires a lot more budget to acquire and retain customers and also good and strong customer service,” Clarissa shared about B2C perspective.

“B2B requires building a strong customer pipeline and relationship and ability to persuade. In B2B approach, you can deliver the best service but without a strong relationship, you can be replaced anytime. This is where I enjoy the B2B approach as it requires human interaction. Therefore, I think whether to go B2C or B2B really depends on the founder’s preference.  You should also consider the financial and fundraising environment when deciding where to go,” added her.

Aside from choosing which segment a founder should aim, both speakers agreed that it is important for a company to have different types of customers with different kind of needs. “Diversifying clients from the beginning is very important; try to classify your customer segments and prioritize. This approach will help you to be ready and thrive in any kind of situation. At Qlue, we have different team for different type of clients or products,” shared RaMa to close the conversation about customer segmenting. (Natashia)

As mentioned earlier, if you want to read our other documentations, please visit: Founder’s Diary Episode 6 – Covid-19, The Catalyst of Smart-City Visions and Founder’s Diary Episode 6 – Seekmi Highlight: How Seekmi Sees Competition also Founder’s Diary Episode 6 – Qlue Highlight: From Jakarta Smart City to the Next Level

Foto : Logiwa