Online Businesses in Bali

richierich

HI All,this is my first Thread and I'm new to the forum. Very excited!I have read many threads on Balipod but thought i would start raise more questions and answers around internet based businesses.I recently sold my internet business (based in sydney) which was a website selling men's and women's fashion brands in a unique business model. I just had a holiday in Bali and after speaking with many friends that live and work there i have a strong desire to start something similar in the land of the gods.My questions are:1. what are the work visa requirements for Bali? what Visa do i require?2. is it best to set-up an australian company working out of Bali or is that illegal? i.e. pay australian taxes but employ Balinese. or is it best to have an indonesian company? does anyone have the costs to set-up an Indonesian company?3. is there a market for internet businesses in Bali, and can you find good workers (programmers, designers, sales people)4. what are the key pitfalls with working from Bali, if any? :)Also if anyone is looking to set-up something similar i would definitely love to chat about opportunities.thanks for your timeR

mat

spicyayam

richierich

Are you planning to sell to the Indonesian market or export to Australia? I think there are some excellent ecommerce opportunities in Indonesia. There seems to be something of a startup community developing, probably more so in Jakarta. There are definitely plenty of expats operating internet based businesses in Bali, but I think few that are targetting Indonesia. From what I have seen so far on ecommerce sites here, most require you to make a bank transfer to make payment. Paypal is starting to become more common and there are other local payment processors available. There are local versions of Groupon and Livingsocial, but I am not sure how well they are doing.[/QUOTE]Hi Spicyayam,thank you for your response very valuable information. so from my understanding paypl is now possible to use in Bali whereas it seemed before the banks did not accept it?in terms of the consumer i aim to target south east asia, china and australia, so yes into will be included in that. these of course are only initial thoughts and by no means am i setting anything up until i have sent quality time in bali to suss out this is the direction i wish to take.The daily deals sites are interesting and I'm sure they will also the off as they have in western countries. not my cup of tea though :)

BaliMish

Roswen

Hi there,Yes you can have a market in here. For me, if you would like to sell your goods to Indonesia, then you need to setup an Indonesian company. Well, the cost to do that is vary, from 300US$ to 10,000US$ depends on what agent you are using. If i may suggest, if you would like to setup a PMA, then better to find some lawyers, I can provide you my retainer lawyer. And also you need to be specify of your agent/lawyer works, since many of them provide you cheap cost (around 2000-3000US$), but many licenses or other compliance are missed, so that the total of cost could be 7000-10000US$ or more (well that is my experience). However, as now the BKPM requires all PMA company to have an investment for minimum of US$1.200.000, then i think if you woul dlike to set up a company, you should consider this matter.About the paypal, right now paypal is already open in Indonesia, many of my friends (including me) has using our credit card and attached it to our paypal account. However, the debit card is still unacceptable. I believe you could have a benefit in starting a business in here.

gilbert de jong

as now the BKPM requires all PMA company to have an investment for minimum of US$1.200.000[/QUOTE]hahahaha, thanks for making me laugh

Roswen

hahahaha, thanks for making me laugh[/QUOTE]what is wrong with that? go search in other forum, it is a new provision set out by the BKPM regarding the investment matters.

gilbert de jong

Roswen

off-thread sorry y'all...@Roswen, instead of searching info in other forums and then posting them here as if it is 'fact'...I would suggest you go to the BKPM (Badan Koordinasi Penanaman Modal) and ask them if they only give licenses to PMA businesses that have a minumum of USD 1.2 million investment...[/QUOTE]May i know have you ever been to the BKPM this month? coz last week I have a meeting with them to start my new company, and the answer is the same. I think it is a common information. I said other forum, coz there you can find an official letter from the BKPM which stated that information.If and agan if you ever been to the BKPM and got answered differently, then I will be grateful for your updated information so that I could scold my lawyer and the BKPM officer, of course with an official proof. this is my last oot in this thread, if you want to discuss with me further, feel free to drop me a PM.

gilbert de jong

May i know have you ever been to the BKPM this month? coz last week I have a meeting with them to start my new company, and the answer is the same. I think it is a common information. I said other forum, coz there you can find an official letter from the BKPM which stated that information.If and agan if you ever been to the BKPM and got answered differently, then I will be grateful for your updated information so that I could scold my lawyer and the BKPM officer, of course with an official proof. this is my last oot in this thread, if you want to discuss with me further, feel free to drop me a PM.[/QUOTE]There is no discussion, I am telling you that you are bending over for your lawyer and some officer ate the BKPM office..What meeting?? there are no meetings involved when starting an PMA...fill out forms get your paperwork in order (well your lawyer should do that) and then heand that in, that's it. approval is pending depending on what the nature of your investmentfield is. izin sementara or izin tetep, same story my friend.do you have your temporarily izin?

Roswen

There is no discussion, I am telling you that you are bending over for your lawyer and some officer ate the BKPM office..What meeting?? there are no meetings involved when starting an PMA...fill out forms get your paperwork in order (well your lawyer should do that) and then heand that in, that's it. approval is pending depending on what the nature of your investmentfield is. izin sementara or izin tetep, same story my friend.do you have your temporarily izin?[/QUOTE]I am not saying that a meeting with BKPM is part of my process to obtain BKPM approval. I go there to have a confirmation about their new rule of thumb which require all PMA company to have US$1,200,000 as its total investment capital plan, which caused me to have US$300,000 for authorized capital and US$75,000 for issued and paid-up capital. And I have an official letter from them which same as the other forum provided in there. Thats why I asked, have you ever been to the BKPM lately? And do you have basis to said that there is no such requirement for US1,200,000.@Richierich, this is just not the case. A friend of mine recently set up a PMA with his business partner and they never had any requirement for such a fee. Be careful with any offers of 'help' from anyone. Do your own due diligence and make the call. As Gil said, there is no requirement for a 'meeting' of any kind. Make appointments to see agents to help you with the paperwork if needed, there are hundreds around. Check out a few and then make your selection. Simple as that. The only financial 'requirement' was that the company assets totaled in excess of $40k Costs to set up the PMA were about US$6k in his case.Cheers,Mark.[/QUOTE]May I know your friends contact? It will be very helpful if you could share with me and of course when is the exact month/year that "recently" you refers to? I have met with the Kabag of BKPM and he is confirm that the new requirements is not official yet, but it is an instruction from the BKPM. So, who should I trust?your friend or the Kabag of BKPM? I met him in the BKPM Jakarta, and in his meeting room. Do you think it is a fraud? I want to be careful like you said. really i do..

sakumabali

Roswen

Well I think Roswen has a point here...I opened a PMA like 2-3 years ago and I didn't have to show any proof of capital that time (this is not a fee!), now we want to change this and that and government wants now proof of minimum 250.000 USD (on your own bank account of course; 1.2 M $ is also correct), after you have a receive from your bank you show it to the BKPM, then you can take all the money again and do whatever you want with it....there are ways around it (maybe transfer 25.000 USD ten times and withdraw it each time) but nevertheless the rules getting tougher[/QUOTE]thanks for enlightened us, thats also what my lawyer told me to do, put the money in the bank, then withdraw all the money ( I think my lawyer called it as "retake capital") which is a common practice in here.@CanonThank you very much, I'll wait for your further information so that i could ask my lawyer and maybe scolded him.

Roswen

@canonNo, I won't, since i think they are good enough compared with high class firm and the price is as good as local agent..ok, i'll wait your news.

gilbert de jong

For your information, no I do not go to the BPKM..I just call him or contact him via BB messenger (him is in this case Mr. Ir. H.H. Rahman )off thread a bit : maybe not known, but the BPKM has foreseen a 30% increase in investments, how better to implement a growth that is not there--make a rule (wich as of now is NOT been approved by JKT yet, and likely not is going to be approved either), I obviously mean the rule that a new PMA needs to have a 1.2 million USD capital...instant growth/increase of investments, as foreseen by the BPKM...know what I mean? Anyways, bit late in the game, but as online/internet businesses can be based basically anywhere...why Bali, or Indonesia for that matter ?just as an example, Malaysia with their more then welcoming laws considering foreigners and their investments would be a more logical choice...

richierich

Hey Richierich How is your research progressing? I would love to hear an update as I am currently doing something similar and have researched a range of options.Feel free to send me a PM.CheersMichelle[/QUOTE]Hi Michelle,Apologies for the delayed response I just got back from a month in India. Amazing place!I gave not done any more research yet but I'm Inbali for the next two weeks so I will be looking into it all.I do now have good contacts for lawyers and the like, and even staff as I have friends whom have been here many years. The question now comes down to numbers: ie. is it feasible to ship to Australia as shipping is uber expensive (anyone have any thoughts on this?), costs to set up, what my margins will be( need to be high to allow for shipping costs), size of indo market to ship domestic etc etc etc.Of course tge other issue is traffic to the website- thisis harder than you think and if not done properly can cost thousands of dollars without the desired result. I want to suss out indo traffic providers/masters. Anyone know a great seo/sem person in Bali??So I have slot more to do but would love to chat to you- not sure if I can pm but I will try:)Richie

BKT

Bali isn't the best place to look for website building or seo work, you'd have more luck online. Most of the seo work is done by the web designer when he initially sets up the website. The rest is link building, a lot of web designers use filipino's for that.Try a website like freelancer.com or something similar

SHoggard

I haven't quite got my head around 'link building' - BKT do you have any good resources for dummies?

spicyayam

Google initially based its algorithm on links like citations in academic papers, so the more links you got, the more chance you had to rank for certain keywords. There are many more factors now, but links are still important. What is going to be more important now is the relevancy and authority of the sites linking to your site. SEO is changing all of the time as Google keeps trying to improve its search algorithms. It is not as simple as it once was, getting ranked for certain keywords. I would be inclined to find a company who can help with all facets of your online marketing. Just as an example up until very recently you could buy a domain like "seminyakvillasforrent.com" and in no time you could be ranking for those keywords - now that no longer works. There is some great information and tips in this thread: [url=http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4503834.htm]Next Generation SEO Google SEO News and Discussion forum at WebmasterWorld[/url]