Fostering Indonesia's next generation of CEOs and investors: On Call with Ajaib CPO and co-founder Yada Piyajomkwan

On Call with Insignia Ventures

We began Season 2 of On Call with Insignia with the aim of showcasing more startup founders and leaders from Southeast Asia, specifically those in non-CEO roles, to shed light on their perspectives on growth and their respective industries. Over the course of the past 16 episodes, we’ve had the pleasure of featuring CMOs, COOs, CPOs, heads of marketing and strategy, and CTOs alongside our usual lineup of CEO founders.

For our final interview this season, we rang up Yada Piyajomkwan, co-founder and CPO of Ajaib, Indonesia’s leading digital investment platform -- Indonesia’s own Robinhood. The reason we’ve called Yada on the show is because of Ajaib’s stellar growth in the last six months as it drove product adoption of its digital stock brokerage -- a first in the country -- to become fourth-largest in terms of trades, just below incumbents Mirae Asset, Mandiri, and Indo Premier (as of our call on 12 Jan 2021). Who better to talk to about the product and marketing approach behind this milestone than the woman behind the product herself?

Transcript

Timestamps

02:17 How Yada co-founded Ajaib and took on product and marketing leadership;

04:02 Lessons from launching Indonesia's first digital stock brokerage to becoming the fourth largest in terms of trades in 6 months;

07:30 Linking company culture and product development at Ajaib

09:42 Trends in investor behavior in Indonesia's public markets;

10:51 Product-first marketing at Ajaib;

12:29 Misconceptions about retail investment in Indonesia;

14:24 Thought process behind signing on Korean actor Kim Seon Ho as Ajaib's first ambassador;

15:50 Misconceptions about Indonesia's stock markets and tech ecosystem;

18:29 Ajaib in 2021 from the product perspective;

19:13 Rapid Fire Round: Yada's top 3 CPO skills, learnings from YC, leader she looks up to, etc.

About our guest

Yada is currently the Chief Product Officer at Ajaib (YC S'18), where she also leads up the company's marketing efforts. Prior to co-founding Ajaib during her Stanford MBA, she has worked on financial inclusion with various governments in Southeast Asia, did brand management at Unilever, and consulting at McKinsey. She was recently included in the Forbes Asia 30 under 30 list alongside her co-founder Anderson Sumarli. She's hiring for various roles at Ajaib and also accepts product feedback at [e-mail].

Music

Business As Usual by Causmic

Broken Purpose by Jukedeck (2019)

The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.

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