Frans Yuwono pitching at the GIST Startup Boot Camp Indonesia 2014
Frans Setio Yuwono, 33, would describe himself as a community minded individual. He speaks four languages fluently and has been immersed in both eastern and western cultures. He has a degree in computer science and has recently started his first tech startup, Wakuwakuw.
The idea came during his tenure as President of the Surabaya Rotary club where he attempted to improve community public relations, fundraising, and collaboration. Wakuwakuw is a platform he developed to empower communities with promotion and management tools such as personalized webpages, community sharing, collaboration channel, event planning, regular meetups, newsletter and fundraising. Ultimately, he hopes it will become a one-stop-shop solution for all community organizers.
Under his management, the club was elected as the best Rotary Club in the World by Rotary International in 2012 (in the 10-25 members category), competing against 12,000 Rotary Clubs worldwide. It was awarded a prestigious President Citation by Rotary International. Although he no longer acts as the club’s President, the Surabaya Rotary chapter continues to utilize Wakuwakuw’s services regularly.
Frans aims to take 10% of the $120 million per year in market potential to Indonesia within the next five years. He said that at first, Wakuwakuw’s biggest challenge was product differentiation with existing Facebook groups and large community management services like Meetup.com.
Frans and his startup received an honorable mention at the 2014 GIST Startup Boot Camp in Jakarta, Indonesia. Before he attended GIST, he was only thinking about expanding into the Indonesian market, but the competition changed his outlook. “GIST has taught me to think more about global customers,” he said, “and how to reanalyze our product and what is important when building a startup”.
