Jakob Rost is the Founder and CEO of Ayoconnect, an Indonesian open finance startup. They just raised a $15M Series B early this year!

👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I am the Founder and CEO of Ayoconnect, Southeast Asia's largest open finance API platform.

My company is building critical infrastructure to help solve a number of financial challenges inherent in Indonesia, namely high financial exclusion, weak financial infrastructure (because of the country's complex geography) and the fact that consumer-facing businesses still lack the digital financial solutions with which to manage their financial affairs and to serve their customers.

Our solutions are making it easier and faster for businesses of all shapes and sizes to launch new financial products and services, and, in turn, helping to drive financial inclusion and greater access to innovative digital finance products.

🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I often wake up at 4:30 AM, so I have 2-3 hours I can dedicate to thinking and reading.

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

The fact that Ayoconnect still has the original founding team — myself, Chiragh Kirpalani and Adi Vora — six years on in spite of our ups and downs and our different personalities. And we are all still very much invested in building our business and achieving the vision we set for ourselves when we started out.

🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

The impact and potential that technology partnerships are having on Indonesian startups who are increasingly seeking out "ready to go" or "plug and play" type solutions - be it embedded finance, cloud-based security or communication tools - to help them to build use cases and in turn to build their businesses faster and better than they would have been able to previously.

💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry?

Talk to as many founders and VCs as possible during the idea stage.

🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours?

Startups!

🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show?

Inception

🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Spaghetti ice cream. It's a very popular German ice cream dish made to look like spaghetti with vanilla "spaghetti," fresh strawberry "tomato sauce," and white chocolate or coconut "parmesan cheese."