What's In My Bag: Startup Edition

Due to the newness of the tech startup industry, many are allured to the idea of working in a startup. The question is how does the ecosystem actually look like. Is the reality similar to what is portrayed in Hollywood Series such as "Sillicon Valley" and other TV series that portray the life of working in the startup.

In order to understand what it is like to work in the Indonesian startup ecosystem, we decided to start a new segment in our blog called "What's in My Bag: Startup Edition." In this segment, we will ask random employees in our co-working space about what they bring to work everyday and explain some of the interesting things we found in their bag.

Our first victim of this segment is our IT Project Manager. The following image contains the belongings found in his bag.

[Disclaimer: All individuals featured in this segment have agreed to show their belongings and acknowledge the fact that the article will be published to the public through our Kejora Blog.]

When we first look at our IT Program Manager's things, we can see that basics for employees for a tech-based company. We have our high-processing laptop, earphones, external hard drive and all other tech-related items. Then we have the necessities, wallet, handphone, house keys, and KlikBCA gadget for e-banking purposes.

The notebook and pen might be a normal thing to bring to office, however what makes them special is the fact that it's free. Notebook was given as a promotional item from one of the startup (Etobee) in our venture capital's portfolio. The pens were from a hotel that he recently visited. The notebook and pens weren't the only thing free in his bag either. We found some coupons and other deal banners in his bag. Funny thing is that this is a common thing we see in our co-working space.

Next interesting thing in our IT program manager's bag is his medicines and black gloves. Although his asthma spray is logical, the amount of medicines in his bag was far more than normal. As a matter of fact, due to aesthetic reasons, we only showed some of his medicine from his bag. Apparently he believes that the office can be extremely cold at times so he needs his medicines to prevent him from catching a cold or other sickness. Due to his time spent looking at the laptop screen, he would often find his eyes dry or occasionally with a headache.

Seems like the startup lifestyle can be quite harsh! However when we asked our IT program manager to comment about it, he replied that he is fine with it as he enjoys what he's doing so it's quite worth it. So after comparing it to your workspace, do you find any similarities?

Find out more about working in a startup ecosystem through our "What's in Our Bag" series as we introduce you to the employees from different startups and departments through the things inside their bag.