A Brand Builder Now Enabling an Entrepreneurial Ecosystem: James Prananto of Kopi Kenangan

Indo Tekno Podcast

James Prananto joins the Indo Tekno podcast to discuss the origins of his collaboration with fellow Kopi Kenangan cofounder Edward Tirtanata. "We wanted to prove that our model works...but the malls and landlords only wanted to deal with the big brands" in the early days. The pair's eventual success in raising high quality VC money helped solve this and other problems, raising Kopi Kenangan's profile and legitimacy. James and associates Fandy Cendrajaya and Christian Sutardi more recently founded Kopital Ventures to leverage their expertise and networks of contacts for the latest generation of Indonesian entrepreneurs. "It also allows me to give back to the community by growing the Indonesian startup ecosystem." The most defining value-add that Kopital offers its investee founders is "the amount of time that we spend with the founders." While James has found the latest crop of Indonesian entrepreneurs much more daring than their predecessors, he urges the country's younger founders to "dream bigger".