Category: Reflection

For the last fifteen years, value stocks have been underperforming growth stocks. As such, many investors think that either value investing is dead or reversion to the mean is imminent.

With the brewing inflation as the catalyst, we are of the view that second scenario is more likely. We are of the view that the return of the glory days of value investing are near and its outperformance will begin with the closing of the unprecedented relative valuation gap between growth and value stocks.

Growth stocks have outperformed value stocks over the last fifteen years

Value investing had worked well in the past, such as in the post-dot-com bubble era. However, for more than adecade, value has underperformed growth and the valuation gap has been widening instead of narrowing.

As of February 2021, value stocks valuation multiple gaps relative to growth stocks is nearly as high as during the dot-com bubble. MSCI Growth Index P/B multiple is at 240% premium to value P/B multiple. This is compared to around 60% premium a decade ago.

The rising inflation expectations and yields could be the potential catalyst for a reversal in growth-value performance

During the high CPI inflation era in the U.S in the 1970s, with CPI registered at around 7.25% per annum, value stocks significantly outperformed growth stocks by 9 percentage points per annum. Value stocks had earned 6.6%, meanwhile, growth stocks had lost 2.4% annually in real terms (i.e adjusted for inflation rate). Compounded annually, it translated to a 136% cumulative real return difference for the decade. How could such outperformance be explained?

In the previous blog, we have discussed the brewing inflation and its driving factors as US April 2021 CPI inflation hit 4.2% YoY. Inflation causes real asset value to decline. As a result, investors will demand a higher yield on their investment to compensate for this. Hence, the (expectations of a) rising inflation rate will create an upward pressure on interest rates.

The inflationary force and rising interest rates explain how value stocks could outperform growth stocks:

A bird in the hand worth two in the bush – The rise of nominal interest rates hurts high-multiple growth stocks more than value stocks. It reduces the present value of projected future cash flows. The more distant the cash flow is, the more severe the impacts will be. This means that growth stocks, which have a higher cashflow duration than value stocks, will experience stronger downward pressure on valuations as result of rising interest rates.

 

 

Being asset-heavy comes in handy given the operating leverage impact – Value stocks tend to be more asset-heavy. As such, during a period of high inflation, their cost structure is less volatile. A big component of their cost is fixed, so less sensitive to inflation. This trait is the opposite of growth stocks.

 

 

Investors should consider adding value stocks DNA to their portfolio

Inflation is the kryptonite for growth stocks. Therefore, investors should consider owning value stocks. The brewing inflation favours the out-of-favour value stocks in general.

In the context of today’s inflationary environment, value-commodity stocks would be on the top of the list. Inflation enhances their earning power and they are currently trading at low multiples of book value. Furthermore, some forces drive commodity prices to sustain at higher prices or to push them even higher.

What forces would that be? Stay tuned to our blog.

“Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river“

-Lao Tzu-

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“There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.”

-Vladimir Lenin-

 

 

Yesterday, the market was surprised with higher-than-expected US’ April CPI inflation data of 4.2% YoY and 0.9% MoM, hitting 13-year high. This is far higher than the consensus of 3.6% YoY and 0.3% MoM. Moreover, the CPI inflation surge was more than just a base line effect. The cumulative CPI Inflation from 2019 would be 3.36%, negating 0.8% YoY deflation last year. Such level is higher than the Fed and 5Y breakeven inflation expectation of 2.4% and 2.7% respectively.

Some may take comfort in the Fed’s Jerome Powell and the US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen statement that inflation would be transitory. Also, the historical reality that suggests the post-GFC QE has failed to produce in inflation in the traditional CPI sense.

Still in the spirit of applying a growth mindset, we do not want to rule out the possibility of inflation to be more structural. Instead, we rather ask ourselves, what could be different this time?

The recent money printing is structurally different.

The non-existent CPI inflation of post-GFC was due to the design of QE that benefits the upper class. The surging wealth effect did not lead to higher consumption but was reinvested by the rich. There is a lot of inflation if you look at the asset prices.

This time around, the stimulus checks directly target low-medium income groups who have a much higher propensity to consume. They spend the money rather than to reinvest it. Furthermore, now we have a credit guarantee scheme that spurs commercial banks’ money creation process along with the fusion of fiscal and monetary policy by modern monetary theory.

In 2020, the FED Balance Sheet registered an expansion that matched the previous entire decade of expansion. The US budget deficit in 2020 was 16% of GDP, only comparable to those experienced during World War II.

Such actions have led to two achievements: (1) 24.6% of the global U.S dollars printed last year and (2) the U.S won the most significant worldwide increase in YoY money supply by a landslide. The greenback simply becomes the U.S greatest export commodity as the result of modern monetary theory.

The advent of Modern Monetary Theory to push more money creation

In early March 2021, the U.S government has passed the American Rescue Plan Act, a stimulus bill of USD 1.9 Tn. Now, the Biden administration also proposing another USD 3 Tn green energy infrastructure plan and USD 1.8 Tn American Families Plan. All of these initiatives would be equal to 35% of the U.S 2019 GDP.

U.S monetary policy side also suggests that the Fed shows no sign to stop pouring liquidity into the financial market. Year-to-May 2021, the Fed balance sheet has expanded about 6%, USD 230 Bn from USD 7.3 Tn in December 2020. That is equal to an 18.2% annualised growth rate. After such a massive expansion in 2020, U.S M2 is now growing at the annualised pace of 12%.

This habit of printing money seems to be addictive and the word trillions have become more frequently mentioned these days. What is the point of working hard and financially responsible to save and not invest your money recklessly?

Commodity prices are going through the roof

Food, energy, and raw material commodities are soaring. With surging commodity prices, production costs are destined to rise. As people now have money in their hands, the inflationary forces are spiralling from the demand and supply side. Most of the commodities experienced a shortage from agriculture to base metals as shown by backwardation on their future contracts. As direct costs are rising, prices have to rise. Will people demand salary rise too?

We will discuss more on the factors behind the rally in the future, stay tuned.

Neo-protectionism, escalating geopolitical tension might further escalate commodity prices

 

The way we look at it, Biden’s Made in America is just a flattering version of Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again (MAGA). Made in America will likely result in an increase in prices as companies face diseconomies of scale. It reverses the efficiency obtained through the specialisation of free-trade.

Surging geopolitical contests also could cause commodity prices to go ballistic. Two-centuries worth of data suggest that every major war and geopolitical contest have been associated with high-level commodity prices and inflation rates. We see no cool-down on U.S-China tension. In fact, the strain in the South China Sea has escalated even further.

Financial repression has induced the hunt for yield

A manifestation of early inflationary era is higher risk investment appetite in the search for yield. At the moment, the market has been digesting two things: (1) expected inflation of 2.7% for the next 5 year, higher than Fed target of 2.4%, and (2) negative real yield climate whereas 5Y expected inflation of 2.7% is only compensated by 0.78% of 5Y U.S treasury bond yield, implying -1.92% expected real yield for the next five years. Of course the negative real yield is even lower if we compare it to the recent inflation of 4.2%.

As such, the Fed’s commitment to continue buying government bonds could be translated as a quasi-price cap at a higher price level. Price cannot fall to adjust the demanded market yield that compensates inflation. It is an attempt of global asset price fixing and causing dislocation of asset price and allocation. A yield cap in an inflationary environment is essentially a form of financial repression. The outcome is that the hunt for yield has now begun.

To shelter from a highly inflationary environment, investors buy assets. Cash becomes trash. The higher risk appetite as the result of yield hunt has been reflected on various asset prices. We are not surprised with how risk-loving the current market is given the S&P500 dividend yield of 1.8% is even higher than the US 10Y bond yield of 1.6%.

Several notable asset price movements:

Junk bond spread is at an all-time low. No incentives to be financially prudent (?)

U.S home prices continued to skyrocket. +12% as of Feb’21 since Dec’19

Stock markets are around record high level – it is all in the news.

Cryptocurrencies, a joke-intended crypto that was made in a Sunday afternoon (Read: DogeCoin) in early May’21 market capitalisation reached USD 87 Bn, bigger than British Petroleum, General Motors, FedEx, BASF, Sinopec, and Conoco Phillips. Now, the total market capitalisation of cryptocurrencies reached USD 2.1 Tn. To put it into context, this is twice the size of Indonesia’s GDP in 2019.

One can always be prepared.

In the early stage of inflation, equities have always been a beneficiary. Such companies would be: (1) superior companies with moat and unquestionable pricing power, (2) commodity producers, or (3) companies whose business model is designed to pass on the cost to the consumer. Another thing for sure, cash or bond is not the place we want to be.

However, the story could be different in galloping inflation or hyperinflation time. Nowhere is safe, since social and political unrest might rise and causing economic instability. Companies’ pricing power might be maxed out. As printing money is not the answer, taming inflation will cost GDP to decline. Asset prices then will start to deflate.

Since early signs of inflation is already here, the next question to ask is what should we do in the case of inflation spiralling upwards in a more persistent manner?

Well, it has something to do with value stocks but that’s a story for another day.

As a side note, in case the world is going to see hyperinflation, our team has spent a considerable amount of time and energy to study about the Weimar Era Inflation and differences between QE and MMT. Read our 2Q20 report.

“After the printing press, comes the guillotine.”

-French Revolution Anecdote-

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Most of the world greatest investors such as Phillip Fisher, Warren Buffett, and Peter Lynch have stressed the importance of thinking independently and recommended investors to take a solitude path of their own.

For example, Peter Lynch, ex-fund manager of Magellan Fund, once said “If no great book or symphony was ever written by committee, no great portfolio has ever been selected by one, either”. Hmm, is there any good reason to work as a group then?

Groups could outperform experts

Evidence suggests that with the right structures and culture in place, group and team decision-making can be far better than that of even the wisest and most expert individual.

Case in point, Psychologist Tetlock and Gardner (2015) compared how teams performed in forecasting tournaments in comparison to individuals. The teams which got some training in teamwork where on average 23% more accurate than individuals.  This means there is a lot to gain by getting it right.

Conflict-avoidance culture instills groupthink

It is not working as a group that becomes a problem, groupthink is. As human beings, we have desire to live in harmony. This preference however tends to cause irrational decisions when we work in a group. We tend to compromise decision outcomes for the sake of peace.

The danger of groupthink lures in any organisation. While groupthink is an international phenomenon, we feel we are especially vulnerable to this given many of our team members are from Indonesia.

The Indonesian culture is very conducive to groupthink as relationships, harmony, and hierarchy play a large role in Indonesian business culture.

For example, subordinates may feel uncomfortable to speak up and bring bad news or true information. In such culture, when leadership claims that the sky is green, his subordinates may concur. This obviously limits the potential to improve investment decisions by aggregating many views.

We try to mitigate this by hiring analysts who dare to speak up, but this does not solve the problem entirely. We are still exploring how we can best improve on this. However, we have several potential solutions as explained below.

Ways to prevent Groupthink in investment decision

So, what steps can we take to “de-bias” our (investment) team’s decision-making? Psychologists Cass R. Sunstein and Reid Hastie (2014) propose various ways to make “dumb groups smarter”.  Here are some of them:

Silence the leader – When leaders refrain from expressing their views at the outset, team members are less inclined to self-censor contradicting views and information.

“Prime” critical thinking – When people are given a “getting along” task, they shut up. When given a “critical thinking” task, they are far more likely to disclose what they know. The key is for the leader to promote disclosure of all information, critical thinking, and thoughtful disagreement.

Appoint a devil’s advocate or a “red team” – ask some group members to defend a position that is contrary to the group’s inclination (the devil’s advocate) to discipline and strengthen collective reasoning.

Or take it to the next level by creating a red team whose job is to construct the strongest possible case against a proposal or a plan. Such team should sincerely try to find mistakes and exploit vulnerabilities and be given clear incentives to do so.

The Delphi method – This approach involves several rounds of unanimous estimates (or votes) followed by group discussions until the participants converge on an estimate. The anonymity insulates group members from reputational pressures and thus reduces the problem of self-silencing.

Two other ways we came across were promoted by Psychologist Gary Klein and fund manager Ray Dalio:

Premortem – Psychologist Gary Klein proposes to conduct a premortem. This is an exercise in which team members purposefully imagine that the project they are planning just failed and then generate plausible reasons of its demise. The very structure of a premortem makes it safe for team members to identify problems.

Weighted decision making – Ray Dalio shows in his book Principles that he goes to great lengths to prevent Groupthink. He believes that thoughtful disagreement by independent thinkers can be converted into believability-weighted decision-making that is better than the sum of its parts. For this purpose, they use an app in meetings that provides a polling interface and a back-end system of believability weighting. This allows the team to make decisions based on voting results – both on equal-weighted and believability-weighted scores.

Combining the best of us in the group

Groupthink handicaps any group’s decision-making process and outcome. Therefore, acknowledging it is our first step to improve our group performance. We could significantly take our organisation’s performance to the next level just by avoiding its pitfalls. Creating a conducive environment that encourages thoughtful and respectful discussion may unleash critical thinking and spurs the best of us in the group.

After all, what is the point of a discussion if there is only one man allowed to speak?

”If everybody is thinking alike then somebody isn’t thinking” – George S. Patton Jr.

 

References:

Dalio, R. (2017). Principles: life and work. New York: Simon and Schuster.

Klein, Gary. (2007). Performing a Project Premortem. Harvard Business Review.

Sunstein, C.R., & Hastie, R. (2014). Making Dumb Groups Smarter. Harvard Business Review.

Tetlock, P. E., & Gardner, D. (2015). Superforecasting: The art and science of prediction.  Random House.

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We are what we believe we are

After decades of research, Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck discovered a simple but ground-breaking idea: the power of mindset.

In her classic book “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success”, she showed how success can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents and abilities.

Dweck summarised, “Individuals who believe their talents can be developed (through hard work, good strategies, and input from others) have a growth mindset. They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset, i.e., those who believe their talents are innate gifts. This is because they worry less about looking smart and they put more energy into learning.”

According to Dweck, believing that your qualities are carved in stone — fixed mindset — creates an urgency to prove yourself over and over. The fixed mindset makes you concerned with how you will be judged; the growth mindset makes you concerned with improving.

The good news is that we can change our mindset.

For example, a study in the United States showed that a short (less than one hour!), online growth mindset course improved grades among lower-achieving high school students (Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M. et al., 2019). This is great because having a growth mindset can also improve investment success.

Growth mindset unlocks investment success

Adopting a growth mindset can improve our lives in many aspects, such as becoming better partners in a relationship, better parents, better managers and of course, better investors.

We found there are at least three reasons why growth mindset is an important concept for investors:

Improve our stock picking – companies with growth-mindset leadership perform better. Thus, recognising such leadership in companies can improve our stock-picking game and improve our investment outcomes.

For instance, a five-year study by Jim Collins in 2001 suggests that the stock returns of companies run by growth-mindset leaders were more likely to rise than those of rival companies.

Improve our forecasting skills – research has revealed that the best forecasters have growth mindset. For instance, in the book “Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction”, the authors conclude from analysing forecasting tournaments that the strongest predictor of becoming an exceptional forecaster is the degree to which one is committed to belief-updating and self-improvement.

Improve our team’s decisions – when our own (analyst) team operates in growth mindset, forecasting performance will improve dramatically.  For instance, in Superforecasting, it was found that the so called “superteams” do well by avoiding the extremes of groupthink and by fostering mini cultures that encouraged people to challenge each other respectfully, admit ignorance, and request help.

Adopting a growth mindset is especially important for us at our organization. Such mindset guides us in how we should change, how we should look at new areas and finetune our investment strategy.

You don’t get growth mindset by proclamation. You move toward it by taking a journey.

In the wake of Dweck’s findings and the success of her book, “growth mindset” has become a buzzword among educators and business leaders, even working its way into mission statements.

However, after publishing her book, Dweck discovered that people often confuse growth mindset with being flexible or open-minded or having a positive outlook — qualities they believe they’ve simply always had.

She calls this a ‘false growth mindset’. The point is that your “process” needs to be tied to learning and progress. It’s also false in the sense that nobody has a growth mindset in everything all the time.

Dweck clarifies that everyone is a mixture of fixed and growth mindsets: sometimes we’re in a growth mindset, and sometimes we’re triggered into a fixed mindset by what we perceive as threats.

These can be challenges, mistakes, failures, or criticisms that threaten our sense of our abilities. As such, a “pure” growth mindset doesn’t exist; it is a lifelong journey. Below is the summary of the journey that Dweck proposes.

The journey to a (true) growth mindset:

1. Embrace our fixed mindset – We need to acknowledge that we are a mixture of both mindsets. Even though we have to accept that some fixed mindset dwells within us, we do not have to accept how often it shows up, and how much havoc it can wreak when it does.

2. Become aware of our fixed-mindset triggers – Understand in what situations your fixed-mindset “persona” makes its appearance. As we come to understand our triggers and get to know our persona, don’t judge it. Just observe it.

3. Give our fixed-mindset persona a name. Yes, a name. Perhaps we might give it a name we don’t like, to remind us that the persona is not the person we want to be.

4. Educate our fixed-mindset persona. The more we become aware of our fixed-mindset triggers, the more we can be on the lookout for the arrival of our persona. Don’t suppress it or ban it. Just let it do its thing. When it settles down a bit, talk to it about how we plan to learn from the setback and go forward. Take it on the journey with us.

We feel that Dweck’s emphasis on the journey, instead of solely on the outcome, is a key point.

The more we learn the more we earn

Knowing the advantage of growth mindset could spark our lives, the choice to implement it is now in our hands. Anyone can develop a growth mindset and get ahead in their lives or fields of work. It is simply a treasure that everyone can possess through a perpetual journey. By applying growth mindset in investing, there are more opportunities we can seize and more vicissitudes we can evade.

“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines.” – Charlie Munger

References:

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Random House.

Yeager, D.S., Hanselman, P., Walton, G.M. et al. A national experiment reveals where a growth mindset improves achievement. Nature 573, 364–369 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1466-y

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As we find ourselves at a critical juncture, where economic and political systems can be overturned, we turned to nature  for inspiration and learned what “species” of investors are most likely to thrive in this rapidly changing environment.

Lessons from nature

From: Essentials of Ecology, 5e, G. Tyler Millers and Scott E. Spoolman. (Brooks/Cole)

Scientists use the niches (pattern of living) of species to classify them broadly as generalists or specialists.

Generalist species have broad niches. They can live in many different places, eat a variety of foods, and often tolerate a wide range of environmental conditions. For example, mice, rats, and raccoons are generalist species. In contrast, specialist species occupy narrow niches. They may be able to live in only one type of habitat, use one or a few types of food, or tolerate a narrow range of climatic and other environmental conditions. This makes specialists more prone to extinction when environmental conditions change.

For example, tiger salamanders breed only in fishless ponds where their larvae will not be eaten. China’s giant panda is highly endangered because of a combination of habitat loss, low birth rate, and its specialised diet consisting mostly of bamboo.

Is it better to be a generalist or a specialist? It depends. When environmental conditions are fairly constant, as in a tropical rain forest, specialists have an advantage because they have fewer competitors. However, under rapidly changing environmental conditions, the generalist usually is better off than the specialist.

Kung Fu Panda vs. Rocket Raccoon
Double trouble: not only does Kung Fu panda Po belong to a specialist species at the brink of extinction, he is also a fanatic follower of a closed-minded martial art doctrine. Rocket Raccoon on the other hand is a fine example of a generalist survivor. The message? Don’t be like Po…
Source: Kapanlagi.com, Greenscene.co.id

How to invest? Diversify while maintaining flexibility
Just as generalist species are better able to adapt to sudden changes in their environment due to their diversified diet, we figure that generalist investors with a diversified investment diet should also be better positioned to adapt and thrive in the current socio-economic climate – as compared to their specialised counterparts.

For us, this means that diversification is now more important than ever. Second key success factor – in our opinion – is flexibility. The flexibility to move “habitats”, i.e., update your investment strategy if it is no longer working.

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What makes a better forecaster of future events? Well, if somebody can answer that question, it is Professor Philip Tetlock of the University of Pennsylvania.

Tetlock co-created The Good Judgement Project (GJP) which participated in a forecasting tournament held by IARPA, a U.S. government organisation.

IARPA supports research that has the potential to revolutionise intelligence analysis. The GJP won the tournament and its forecasters were 30% better than intelligence officers with access to classified info.

In his book “Superforecasting: the art and science of prediction”, he describes the portrait and methods of those top forecasters.

Besides concluding that foresight is real, Tetlock found that the key to forecasting is not what we think, but how we think:

• Foresight demands thinking that is open-minded, careful, curious, and—above all—self-critical;
• Good forecasters show a high degree of active open-mindedness, meaning that they are not merely open to reasons why a favoured possibility might be wrong but also actively look for them;
• The strongest predictor of rising into the ranks of forecasters is the degree to which one is committed to belief updating and self-improvement.

Factors most associated with foresight

• Belief updating
• Intelligence
• Knowledge
• Deliberation time
• Actively open minded
• Teams
• Training

Interestingly, Tetlock also noted in an earlier study that “subject matter expertise does not give a big boost to performance” and that “we reach the point of diminishing marginal predictive returns for knowledge disconcertingly quickly”. Investors can improve their forecasting skills by being actively open-minded and committed to self-improvement.

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Most of us are surprisingly wrong about the world. We must have a correct world view in order to make a judgment about where the world is headed. Unfortunately, this is where most of us already go wrong.

We are wrong! This, we found out while reading the eye-opening book Factfullness, in which author Hans Rosling exposes that when we are asked simple questions about global trends e.g., “where does the majority of the world population live?”, we systematically get the answers wrong.

So wrong that chimps choosing answers at random would consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. In particular: 12 multiple-choice questions with three options were asked to around 12,000 people in 14 countries. The results? About 80% scored worse than chimps would have.

Only 10% scored better. Rosling writes that most people think they are getting it kind of right – until they get tested (click here to test yourself). However, the contrary is true. In respect of some matters, it even seems that the more educated you are, the more ignorant you are.

 

Why? Rosling points to 10 human instincts (like fear and generalisation) that impact our “information filter” and judgement to explain why we are so ignorant.

At the same time, the media is exacerbating matters by painting a distorted and dramatised picture as their coverage is dominated by the negative and the exceptional. As such, positive changes don’t find you. You need to find them (in statistics or by traveling, for example).

To see the world as it is, we need to refresh our knowledge more regularly and change our attitude.

Rosling closes his book with some suggestions to obtain a more fact-based world view which have much to do with our attitude:

1. be humble enough to recognise that (1) knowledge does not have an unlimited shelf-life and needs to be updated regularly, (2) our instincts impact our information filter and judgement, (3) we should be prepared to change our opinion, and

2. be curious enough to (1) be open to new information and actively seek it out, (2) embrace facts that do not fit our world view and (3) let our mistakes trigger curiosity instead of embarrassment.

In short, by being actively open-minded and committed to self-improvement, investors will have a more factual view of the world, which will help them make better decisions.

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With the growing global internet penetration rate, the proliferation of smart devices, and the democratisation of knowledge, long-established barriers to business are lowering across industries around the globe. This is especially prevalent in developing markets, like Indonesia, where access to knowledge, skills, markets and funding have been limited. Let’s dive deeper into how this has improved.

Access to Knowledge

Technology has significantly improved the accessibility and affordability of information through (free) online content, ranging from simple how-to video’s on YouTube to courses on advanced topics like Machine Learning on platforms like Coursera, Audacity and Edx. Companies are opening up, too, with some sharing their learnings both online and offline, and even contribute to the coding community by publishing coding projects on online platforms like GitHub.

Indonesian ride-hailing firm Go-Jek publishes numerous videos on Youtube, covering a variety of topics from learning data science to surviving in the workplace.

Access to Talent

The rise of gig platforms like Upwork and GetCraft provide entrepreneurs access to highly skilled talents that may otherwise not be available to them locally, or for which they would not have a budget to hire on a full-time basis.

Large share of freelance work through platforms comprises higher-level skills
Source: BCG Future of Work 2018 worker survey.

Access to Markets Across the Globe

Tech has also levelled the playing field for small businesses by giving access to markets through online sales channels. Not only does online direct access to consumers reduce the dependency on distributors and retailers, but it also allows the seller to retain significantly higher margins.

Having an online presence has become very cheap nowadays – if not for free. Shopify, for instance, enables merchants to set-up and run their own customisable e-commerce platforms for only US$29 per month with no coding skills required.

Access to Business Infrastructure Without Capital

Major online marketplaces are evolving their ecosystems towards infrastructure-as-a-service, offering additional business services to their merchants such as logistics, fulfilment, payment and financial services. Examples are China’s Alibaba and Indonesia’s Tokopedia. These services cover areas that are normally capital intensive to perform in-house, lowering the barriers to doing business for many entrepreneurs.

Alibaba’s long-term vision is not to increase the number of merchants, but to make them more profitable.

Access to Funding

Limited access to funding has also been a critical barrier to growth for small businesses. In Indonesia for example there are estimates that about 51% of the adult population has now access to bank credit, resulting in a huge SME funding gap of $165 billion, according to SME Finance Forum.

But things are changing thanks to fintech ventures offering options for funding. Currently, Indonesia’s fintech industry has 88 registered platforms. In 2018, total loans allocated by Indonesia’s fintech industry in 2018 reached US$ 1.6 billion according to Indonesian Financial Services Authority.  It’s a small, but fast-growing number.

Welcome to the golden era of entrepreneurship

We at Heyokha are convinced that due to technology, we now live in a golden era of entrepreneurship. A time where anybody has the chance to pursue an idea and challenge the status quo. We can’t wait to see this creative potential be unleashed and are convinced that this Zeitgeist of entrepreneurship will drastically speed up innovation, especially in developing countries like Indonesia.

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Influenced by watching the tv-show Shark Tank every day, we have recently been writing a lot about “tech enabled” entrepreneurship and how we believe tech is lowering the barriers to doing business. However, we did not really substantiate the importance that entrepreneurship has. In this article we dig deeper.

Academics see entrepreneurs as the innovators, driving productivity and economic growth
Economic studies from around the world have linked entrepreneurship with rapid job creation, GDP growth, and long-term productivity increases. Indeed, in the academic explanation of modern growth – the period in which the per capita wealth generation went ballistic in the West after the 1700s – much weight is placed on the innovating role of the entrepreneur as the agent of “creative destruction” and “organiser” of capital and labour.

Many academics believe that such innovation on the back of entrepreneurship becomes especially more important as economies move from being resource-intensive to knowledge-intensive – a stage many developing markets currently find themselves in.

SME’s as vessel of entrepreneurial activity, play a major role in employment and productivity
In the study of economic development, SMEs are seen as the vessels for entrepreneurship. While their label may not signify great magnitude or prestige, one cannot overemphasize the importance that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) play in the global economy.

They contribute up to 60% of total employment and up to 40% of national income (GDP) in emerging economies, according the World Bank. Seeing the essential role of SMEs in a nation’s development, the World Bank approved more than US$ 10 billion in SME support programmes over the period of 1998-2003.

The above stresses the important role entrepreneurs play in contributing to employment and adding to the greater well-being of society, especially in developing countries.

Emerging Markets Leapfrogging into the Future
In the book Why Nations Fail, the M.I.T. economist Daron Acemoglu and the Harvard political scientist James A. Robinson make a strong case for entrepreneurship. However, they also argue that in many developing countries, entry barriers are playing a crucial role for aspiring entrepreneurs. Powerful groups often stand against economic progress, in fear that their economic privileges will be lost.

With their history characterized by authoritarianism and cronyism, developing countries can benefit enormously from the equalizing power of entrepreneurship.

These nations are in an advantageous position to innovate. For example, leapfrogging – using the lack of existing infrastructure as an opportunity to adopt the most advanced methods – has been an effective approach for developing markets. Instead of developing their own technology from scratch, they can adopt technologies created elsewhere.

Often used examples are how low-income countries that never established a telecommunications landline infrastructure or a retail banking system, bypassed those development stages with the use of mobile phones and the innovative financial services now made readily available.
Some examples of technologies that are expected to be used in emerging markets to leapfrog are blockchain, cloud computing, and solar power.

Empower the entrepreneurs
History has shown that countries that allow the whole entrepreneurship process to happen – from having an idea, starting a firm, and getting a loan – tend to see more rapid growth. Emerging markets are well positioned to let technology drive their economies forward. In Indonesia we see things are starting to take off. We are excited to see how things will play out.

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The rise of ride-hailing applications has transformed the commuting habits of millions of citizens around the world. But its effects have been greater felt in developing countries where the amount of traffic has been increasing at an alarming rate; public transportation has become inefficient, inadequate, or too expensive; and populations continue to grow but public infrastructures remain lacking.

In Indonesia, ride-hailing company Go-Jek has partnered up with over a million of drivers. To compare, Astra International, the biggest Indonesian conglomerate, only has 226 thousand people working full time across its 226 subsidiaries. Within just a few years, the Go-Jek has created a super app with enormous economies of scope, offering numerous services such as food and parcel delivery, cleaning services, repair & maintenance services, etc.

The company’s digital wallet, Go-Pay is widely considered to be the biggest e-wallet in the country and is expected to play an important role in providing credit to Indonesia’s unbanked population.  The economic and social impact that Go-Jek is having in Indonesia is immense.

Looking at the success story of Go-Jek in Indonesia, we saw opportunities in ride-hailing apps in African countries and Bangladesh. These countries have similarities to Indonesia: such as cogested traffic, high population density, and an attractive economic backdrop.

Being Safe(boda) in Uganda

Safeboda started out in Kampala, the capital of Uganda, which has 1.4 million people and is plagued by heavy traffic. The city has 10 fatalities per day due to road traffic accidents – the highest level in East Africa. The solution for its heavy traffic, like Jakarta, exists in conventional motorcycle taxis called Boda-boda. According to Uber Africa’s General Manager Alon Lits, there are nearly 2 million weekly motorcycle taxi trips happening in Kampala per week.

Ricky Rapa Thomson, one of the co-founder of Safeboda who used to make a living as a motorcycle taxi driver.
Source: PC Tech Magazine

However, conventional motorcycle taxis are often unsafe, require the client to negotiate prices and drivers often (claim to) have no change. The emergence of digital ride-hailing services has created a massive opportunity in the city.

Safeboda started in 2018 with only 1,000 drivers. By end of the year, they had more than 8,000 drivers registering over 1 million rides a month. They’ve also expanded to neighbouring country Kenya, with plans to expand to East Africa.

Carving a Path(ao) in Bangladesh

Meanwhile, Bangladesh, home to 165 million people and the fifth largest mobile market globally, is another attractive market for a ride-hailing platform. In the past decade, the Bangladesh economy has consistently grown and beat most regional peers; their GDP growth averaged at 6.6% and is expected to record an impressive 7.8% growth in 2018.

Ride-hailing Pathao has had the first mover advantage in this area and has financial backing from a strong strategic partner.

Started by three graduates from a local university in 2015, Pathao’s journey wasn’t easy considering that before the company began, Bangladesh had no culture of motorcycle taxis. They went on the ground and pushed this concept to the market. Eventually, they found success.

Hussain M Elius, co-founder of Pathao spoke at TED. Click here to watch (left), Pathao’s drivers (right)
Source: tedxdhaka.com.bd, Thedailystar.net

In November 2017, Go-jek participated in their series A round which helped them expand to multiple services such as Pathao Food and Pathao Cars. According to Techcrunch, Pathao is valued at over US$ 100 million based on their pre-series B US$10 million round led by Go-Jek.

Aside from being in a good position to become the leading ride-hailing platform in the country, the company, has provided opportunities for millions of Bangladeshis. According to its founder and CEO, drivers on its platform are able to make more than twice the average salary in Bangladesh.

Jumping on the ride-hailing wagon

We wonder whether Pathao and Safeboda can change South Asia and Africa the way Go-Jek and Grab have changed Southeast Asia. So far things seems to be on the right track.

 

 

 

 

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