From the tech boom until tech winter, TYTIA

I was two weeks pregnant when I joined Tech in Asia Indonesia (TIA ID) back in 2019. I remember Mas Iqbal, Editor-in-Chief of TIA ID, called me on my honeymoon in Pulau Seribu, and offered me the job after we had connected on LinkedIn several weeks before.

I then came to the Menteng office for my second interview. I asked him, "Are you sure you still want to offer me this job? I am two weeks pregnant, meaning I'll take maternity leave even before reaching my one-year work anniversary." He nodded, "Yes, why not? You are the perfect fit for the job, and we will comply with the regulations”.

I also told him my plan to pursue a graduate degree. I was really eager to continue my studies. I failed the LPDP and Chevening scholarships in two consecutive years. I already got the LoA (Letter of Acceptance) from Glasgow and Leeds University. I even got a letter of recommendation from Pak Basoeki Hadimoeljono (Pak Bas), former minister of public infrastructure (I still have the recommendation letter saved). But still, I failed.

I was exhausted from the scholarship hunting, it cost me money just to renew my IELTS and administration tasks. I was desperate, I didn't get any younger and I planned to get married. So I decided to pursue a graduate degree in UI with my own money.

Mas Iqbal then assured me that I could work and study. I could do both, as long as I did the job right. So I gladly took the job.

The Birth of ID+ Subscription

It was a senior tech journalist role. My job was to write a long-form premium article for the ID+, a new journalism product that relies on subscriptions. My KPI was to write premium articles to convert subscribers.

It wasn’t much different from my previous role as tech journalist in Bisnis Indonesia. I was already familiar with the tech and the startup ecosystem. It was the tech boom moment when I witnessed companies like Bukalapak, Gojek, Traveloka, flooded with huge amounts of money from the investors, Venture Capital (VC firms).

TIA’s main flagship event, TIA Conference, hit a record-breaking number of visitors in 2019. As a journalist, I have attended many conferences about various topics, but nothing beat the energy, the enthusiasm, and the passion of the crowd at TIA Conference 2019.

Everyone seemed so curious about the startup ecosystem at that time. Startup factory booths were never empty, visitors tried, and tested the product. The startup demos. The founder's aura. The insightful discussion panel.

The momentum was right for the birth of the ID+. The workflow in the editorial team shifted as we focused on the subscription business. I even wrote a paper regarding this topic for my study. The title was “The Transformation of Tech in Asia Indonesia into Subscription Based Digital Media amid The Covid-19 Pandemic”.

The momentum was also right for me to start a new ètape of my life. I was a newlywed, pregnant, and took a new job, while starting my graduate degree. Crazy, I know. But as one famous founder says, “just experiment the hell out of everything you do.” LOL

One thing that struck me most while working at TIA ID was the culture, how much they value transparency and the work-life balance. Every month, Willis, our founder, held a monthly town hall where he explained the company's financial situations, the P/Ls, and our expansion plan. It was something new for me, I mean, TIA was and still is not a public company. He had no obligation to disclose the company's financial situation to the employees. But he chose transparency.

Additionally, it was the work-life balance that struck me most. As a journalist, I was often trained to “work under the flexible long hours”-- the propaganda that was taught to me from the college days until I became a part of the media industry. Oh, how we used to glorify the hustle culture and the so-called “heroism” of journalism, a high-risk profession with a low salary– in comparison with other industries.

But TIA ID was an anomaly. No, not an anomaly as in tung tung sahur, or ballerina capuccina. LOL. But more of an antithesis to the mainstream media. The KPI was only 1 premium article per week, which was very low in comparison to what I did in my previous company. I used to write at least two feature/in-depth stories and five hard news articles per day. Was I really getting paid more for a lower KPI (in terms of quantity)? In fact, I was.

But the thing is even slow journalism needs subscribers to survive. I didn’t have any difficulty in writing one premium per week, but the problem was my articles didn’t always succeed in getting subscribers.

There was a time when I wrote an in-depth article for two weeks, I thought I wrote a nice and very insightful one. I did, but it didn’t convert any subscribers. In the following weeks, I wrote a simple listicle which didn’t require interviews, but turned out it converted many subscribers. Finding the product-market fit for a subscription media business was a tough game.

The Black Swan Effect

I joined TIA ID at its very prime time, thanks to the tech boom and the successful TIA Conference event. For the very first time, we held a company outing at Bandung. We had a bonus for the employees.

Until the COVID-19 hit. The economy worsened. Job losses everywhere. Mass layoffs. Startup funding decreased exponentially. Efficiency.

I gave birth to my baby during the pandemic. I planned to do it at the hospital where I usually did the monthly check up. But the pandemic urged doctors to perform C-section for every pregnancy. It was a new procedure since we hadn't discovered any vaccines at that time.

My pregnancy was long overdue (almost 42 weeks!), but I insisted on delivering my baby normally. So we chose a midwife clinic near my parent’s house at Bekasi. The name was Bidan Jojor. She was about to perform an induction on my pregnancy because my amniotic fluid started to change.

But thank God my baby had her own plan. It was the fasting month. I had my contraction in the predawn just after I had a suhoor with my family. My husband sang the song “Gugur Bunga”. I didn’t even remember why he sang the song. But my baby seemed to dislike it so much she decided to be born into the world right away. LOL

We went to Bidan Jojor at 06.00 am. I gave birth to my baby at exactly 7.00 am. She was such a blessing. My pandemic baby.

The pandemic made us work from home. Not only me, but my husband as well. I also continued my graduate degree from home. It was such a bizarre moment. We could barely move outside home, but at the same time I juggled between being a new mom, work, and studies.

I had a pay cut from my company. Thank God we didn't take out a mortgage at that time. So all was good. I felt grateful we could survive the pandemic healthily and still got our job.

We then moved to Bandung from Bekasi when my baby was six months old. We rented a house in Ujung Berung. The rent was so cheap that we could save up for a house someday.

I continued to work from home. It was the time for me to write my thesis. At the same time, my baby was having a GTM (Gerakan Tutup Mulut). My articles did not convert subscribers. I was burnt out from work, study, and parenthood. It was just too much.

“I was exhausted! I need some time alone. I need to finish this thesis but I can not focus at home,” I yelled at my husband, crying while cooking dinner for them.

My husband then allowed me to go. So I rushed to the salon, getting my hair coloured while finishing up my thesis. I spent six hours at the salon, but it was something I needed so badly. I never knew having time for myself was so important.

I managed to finish my thesis and submitted it before the deadline. But I struggled at work. I underperformed, didn’t hit my KPI (numbers of subscribers). So I was put on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan) program. I was challenged to hit a new target. But thank God somehow I managed it. I thought there must be other factors beside the quality of the articles that made readers willing to pay, which later be the idea of my thesis, “The Effect of Satisfaction, Intensity of Media Use and Sociodemography in Willingness to Pay for Subscription News.”

When the COVID-19 ended, the demand for events increased. TIA held its second outing at Bali. We flew everyone from Singapore and Jakarta to the office gathering. Fancy hotels, restaurants. We hiked Gunung Batur together. Fun times.

The Refreshing Time with the Studios team

For some time, I felt stuck at my job. No progress. I was aiming for the editor position, but I did not see any opportunity. So when there was an opportunity to write a B2B report for a client, I volunteered to do it.

Maybe there was something new I could learn. It was a long project. I still did the interview, data analysis, data visualization, and of course still writing, but longer pieces. One research project took me around 3-6 months to finish. It was almost like a thesis writing lol. It was quite some time, but once I finished it, it felt rewarding. I felt like I unlocked some new skill in me.

Due to B2B report projects, I then moved to the Studios team. I joined the creative team, along with the copywriter, graphic designers, illustrators, and videographer/editors.

I then not only wrote a report, but also learned copywriting for content marketing purposes. I learned how to write content partnership articles, newsletters, social media contents, comic-strips (Umar-Amir). I even learned to do voice-overs and became a video talent. It was such a refreshing time.

I also helped the studios team with the events, mainly moderating panel discussions. I have moderated some panels before I had joined TIA, but the frequency of my moderating duties increased significantly during my time at TIA; including the Product Development Conference (PDC), Tech in Asia Conference, and some of our clients' events. I am very grateful for the trust and opportunity from the team.

Some of the events are held in Bahasa Indonesia, others are held in English. I felt those opportunities had helped me increase my confidence and public speaking skills. Those events became my portfolio, and who knows, moderating events became one of my side hustles.

The Acquisition

The big news came at the start of 2024. SPH Media acquired Tech in Asia. I did not see it coming. Willis announced at the end of 2023, that every employee would get a cash out from their ESOP (Employee Stock Options Program).

It was such a relief that TIA has found its way to exit, joining into a bigger ecosystem, when other media outlets were struggling. We no longer calculate our runway, Willis said we did not need it because we have a parent company that could back us up. Such a relief.

I was finally able to buy a house in Bogor with that ESOP. I used that along with my five- year savings for the down payment. I took the courage to take out a mortgage with a 15 year tenor. I felt like TIA has become a mature company that offers stability and job security.

I could sense that the M&A had brought a new vibe to TIA. We explored and invested so much in AI. We expanded the team. We had the “Indomie Project” where TIA Indonesia planned to cover not only startup and technology news, but basically all economic news like the mainstream media.

My old colleagues joined the team. The vibe became more vibrant with the new members. I could sense passion with the new direction. That led me to rejoin the editorial team. I still did the research, not only for B2B purposes, but also for the editorial purpose where I write and publish startup funding reports quarterly. This time, I also did news editing. Just like what I desired several years ago. Yeay!

The Tech Winter Has Finally Hit Home

When I rejoined the editorial team, we had the most members during my time at TIA ID. We did not only work on the premium articles, we also experimented with data articles, whitepapers/reports, opinion pieces/editorials from thought leaders, follow-up articles, and so on.

The growth of subscribers had its own ups and downs. But from January to May 2025, user growth approached 200%, and we hit over 1.000 paying subscribers. As Willis Wee said, these are significant milestones.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep the business sustainable. As geopolitical tension arose, the buying power of the middle class decreased, brands held their budget, the government also cut its budget, the startup funding froze, and the tech winter had finally hit home.

The company has made the difficult decision to sunset Tech in Asia Indonesia on 15 July 2025, as announced on the website. Tech in Asia is not pulling out of Indonesia, though. It is still fully committed to covering and supporting Indonesia’s vibrant tech ecosystem, and it will maintain its operations and team members in Indonesia to support this, including hosting our annual events.

As Willis wrote before, there was no such thing as a perfect layoff. I was shocked, devastated, and grieving, but now I can say it was a bittersweet and liberating time. This was just the end of one of my life’s chapters, and I am very grateful to have it. The rest of my life’s chapter is still unwritten (at least not that I know of), but as long as I believe that He’s the one who’s holding the pen, I’ll be okay.

Deandra Syarizka is signing out..

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