TipTip, Indonesia's Original Digital Platform With Hyperlocal Strategy

TipTip helps content creators build their communities. (photo: Dinda Buana Putri/VOI)

JAKARTA - There are many talented people on this earth. Like chefs and musicians, in Southeast Asia can make money through their online work. However, according to the founder of TipTip, Albert Lucius, many of them do not have the influence of social media to attract advertisers.

TipTip wants to help them build followers in their community using offline/online strategies, and make money selling content instead of relying on ad algorithms. The Indonesian-based startup today announced it had raised IDR 203 billion in Series A funding, just eight months after IDR 156 billion in Series A in March.

The final round was led by East Ventures, with the participation of investors like Vertex, SMDV and BIG Ventures.

TipTip was founded in October 2021 by Albert Lucius, whose previous startup Kudo was acquired by Grab in 2017. The app serves as a market for creators to connect with fans, and monetize content such as videos and documents by selling them to their followers, or hosting video streaming.

The platform launched in July, and said its revenue had grown 20 times since October, with content creators averaged more than IDR 3 million within 30 days of being active on TipTip.

TipTip currently has 2,500 content creators and more than 30,000 users. The goal is to recruit more than 30,000 content creators and 300,000 users as of early next year. They are currently still focused on Indonesia, and are present in 40 cities.

TipTip created for local chefs, musicians, and painters, who still have few followers, is necessary to build their audience. To allow them to scale and monetize, TipTip uses hyperlocal strategies in big and small cities in Indonesia, which helps them organize events and activities tailored to their communities.

Lucius said the TipTip team saw that many people became accustomed to the idea of making money virtually after COVID hit, as interest in consuming digital content also increased. Based on research they got from Research and Markets, Digital Journal, and Statista, they found that the creator economy in Southeast Asia had CAGR projections of around 10% to 30%.

But Lucius said many Southeast Asian creators could not make money with tools on social media platforms, such as YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, or Patreon, which are more suitable for top creators who already have a lot of followers and views, and can attract advertisers.

Lucius said TipTip is different from social media platforms with end-to-end solutions for content creators that include digital content management and distribution, live streaming services, one-on-one interactions, and direct tipping. The platform also helps creators with administrative problems, such as audience management, recognizing your customers (KYC), payment systems, and scheduling.

There are many already established players as industry leaders in this field respectively. We view it as a necessity and complement to our services. In fact, we rely on our creators/promotors to continue using external platforms to engage their audiences, post updates, advertise their free offerings there, and provide links back to TipTip to monetize their premium content," said Lucius.

Instead of advertising, TipTip provides a live monetization channel through tips and direct purchases, and they take a cut of each sale on its platform.

Examples of content shared on TipTip include edutainment in categories such as music. Musicians use this platform to share tips on how to make better songs, and sometimes accompany them with live shows.

Another example is a creator who makes multi-segment courses on how to become a better public speaker, including direct workshops.

TipTip also has a promoter network to help content creators sell their content. Lucius said promoters served as affiliates or retailers, often for their own small communities, and took commissions from each sale.

"The analogy is like Uber Eats helping restaurants sell more food," said Lucius. In our case, promoters help content creators sell their digital content.

To create a channel for creators, TipTip uses its awareness program in partnership with its top makers, uses above-line marketing campaigns and carries out hyperlocal strategies to find major opinion leaders (KOL), or top influence providers, in each community.

Part of the TipTip funding round will be used to recruit more content creators, promoters, and supporters. It will also create more product offerings, such as podcasts, branding deals, and personalized demand, so creators have more potential revenue channels, and expand offline/online presence to 250 major and small cities across Indonesia by the middle of next year.

In a statement regarding the funding, East Ventures co-founder and managing partner Willson Weather is optimistic about the development of TipTip.

We strongly believe in Albert's leadership at TipTip. His past experience in building and running Kudo before being acquired by Grab in 2017 continues to be very important in navigating a volatile economy as we enter 2023. We hope that TipTip can continue its exponential growth trajectory behind its hyperlocal strategy that adapts very well to changes in creator and customer behavior in the post-COVID era," Willson said.