Adi Kusma: Reading Hidden Opportunities

DESPITE his relatively young age, his forward-looking spirit and vision deserve kudos. He is Adi Kusma, president director of PT Supra Primatama Nusantara, better know as Biznet Networks. Biznet is a company providing Internet-related services, namely Network, Internet, Hosting and Voice.  

Born in Jakarta on June 19, 1976, Adi has demonstrated determination in building his career. In his opinion, age is no barrier to high achievers. He illustrates this with Biznet, a company he established eight years ago that has become quite strong. He says a person must have the courage to accept any challenge, a belief that has taken him to the top of his profession.  

Traveling overseas to study and work for an international company in the U.S., while earning just enough to cover his expenses was the first indication of how much courage he had. Later, he took the brave step of setting up a company that required quite a lot of capital and had a high level of risk. The result is a company that has been moving fast and has penetrated the market.  

Around 1994, he finished senior high school and continued his studies at Oregon State University, U.S. majoring in industrial engineering. Adi was more interested in information technology (IT), but his parents expected one of their three children to one day take over the family business. And so Adi had to forget his love for IT.

His father ran a factory in Jakarta making iron wire and another in Padang producing corrugated iron roofs. Therefore, Adi has been acquainted with factory activities since he was a small boy, and is fond of observing the working process in a factory.  

However, his destiny determined a different road for him. During his school days, he liked playing computer games, which led to him becoming familiar with websites and encouraged him to learn more about software. When he was in the U.S., he did an Internet course and earned a certificate from Microsoft (Microsoft Certified System Engineer, or MCSE).

“I learned everything about networking, operating systems, programing, web servers and database servers from scratch. I passed eight tests from Microsoft and earned the certificate,” Adi said.  

He was lucky as in 1998 he got a job as a systems programmer at Software House International (www.shi.com) in Somerset, New Jersey, the U.S. His salary was not very high, but he gained a lot of experience in this job and further improved his IT skills. Two years later, Adi returned to Indonesia and founded Biznet.  

Adi did not set up Biznet without a plan. At that time he was well aware that this line of business would be very promising. When he returned home, he gradually became acquainted with the country’s Internet business mapping, particularly regarding Internet Service Providers (ISPs).

“The way I saw it, at that time ISPs had only a maximum of 40,000 to 50,000 members while America On Line (AOL) in the U.S. had up to 40 million members. It struck me then that this was a good opportunity to tap in Indonesia,” Adi said.