A Musician Orchestrating Synergies Across Small Merchants: TJ Tham of tjufoo

Our latest Indo Tekno podcast guest, TJ Tham, comes from the relatively unorthodox background of a formally trained musician. TJ feels he is able to apply the more "right-brained" traditions of a musical upbringing across a number of facets in his role as co-founder of tjufoo, one of Indonesia's most successful "brand aggregators". Success in both roles depends upon a number of similar skills in TJ's mind. For instance, "music involves a lot of patterns." Similarly, identifying successful small Indonesian merchants requires a "keen eye for pattern recognition." A brand aggregator team like tjufoo commonly invests in or acquires small merchants, and then applies specific expertise to multiply the merchant's growth. tjufoo's favorite sectors are currently consumer electronics, home & living and FMCG (consumables). Although some of tjufoo's global brand aggregator peers have gone bankrupt of recent, the company's leadership team feels it has struck a more sustainable business model, not by solving a succession of discrete problems, but by introducing the "processes (and) the frameworks to help small merchants grow sustainably in the long term."