I returned home from Silicon Valley and built a failed startup
I couldn&#x27;t imagine doing something like this in the Philippines, which I&#x27;m guessing is much like Indonesia.<p>Nobody has credit cards to buy anything online. Credit card alternatives haven&#x27;t gained traction. People use cheap alternatives to Western Union to send money.<p>Nobody surfs the web except at internet cafes. And at internet cafes it&#x27;s either FB or homework. Nobody aimlessly browses when they are dishing out money every hour.<p>Nobody uses apps. Even those with smart phones only use FB, Instagram, games and a handful of other messaging apps. Even if they did want to use apps, cheap smart phones are out of resources after installing FB and the rest of the above mentioned.<p>No matter the phone, everyone uses SMS.<p>The postal system is shady. I never order anything online. I don&#x27;t even have a proper address. I don&#x27;t know how the postal system is able to deliver anything.<p>There are exceptions to all of the above and these are likely your target market since they  likely have money. But this is a small percentage.<p>And speaking of money. Nobody has that either.<p>I noticed the post mentions there are tons of Instagram shops. I have no experience with this, but the number of shops seems irrelevant to me. Anyone can start an Instagram shop, post pictures once in a while and largely be invisible. It seems that much more important would be the above logistical issues which would also be important in Indonesia.<p>I imagine people selling through Instagram are much like the street vendors. They see no problem with being the 4th guy within an hour trying to sell you the exact same things as the 3 guys ahead of him while you are trying to eat a meal and drink some beers. They just don&#x27;t try very hard. But any money beyond whatever income they have is better than nothing.<p>A place like the Philippines is all about improvisation. I don&#x27;t see how you could improve much on the Instagram &#x2F; FB shop model. In the vast majority of cases, there is probably nothing there to improve because there is no activity. For those who do get it to work, it&#x27;s probably good enough.