Late in 2019 I shut down my data consultancy, packed my house into long-term storage, and flew from Miami to Bali to try my hand at the life of a digital nomad.
Before the ink was dry on my six-month visa, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I was stranded on Bali, and I had to make a choice: stay and ride it out, or return to the United States.
I chose to stay, and in the past five years my life has changed dramatically.
Instead of showing up at a different asset manager every two weeks wearing one of the same twelve suits to solve the exact same set of problems, I cherry-pick the most interesting problems I can find and solve them for customers I can say with no embarrassment that I love.
I’m around twice the age of the typical digital nomad, so it isn’t hard to find me in a crowd. But if anything else sets me apart, it’s this: while the kids were out surfing and carousing, I was studying Bahasa Indonesia and getting to know the community of young professionals who come from all over Indonesia to find opportunities on Bali.
What I learned blew my mind:
Young, smart, techie Indonesian professionals are the most undervalued natural resource in Indonesia!
It’s astonishing: these kids are tech-savvy natural linguists and instinctive team players with a work ethic that would make a Japanese salaryman blush. And an entry-level US salary would easily place any one of them into the top 10% of Indonesian earners.
I smelled an opportunity and posted a blurb on LinkedIn… and within a week we had our first customer!
Leadership
President & Founder
Jason is a former U.S. Marine and Navy Surface Warfare Officer turned startup enabler and software engineer. Jason is hard to find in this picture but the other guy says he’s the the ugly one.
Chief Executive Officer
Ayu studied English at Universitas Halu Oleo in Kendari, Sulawesi. She made a career of VIP customer service in the Bali luxury hotel industry before switching to business.