Tag: women entrepreneur

Farina Situmorang: Managing Partner at Catalyst Strategy

Posted on | by angin

Tell me a bit about yourself.

My name is Farina Situmorang. Five years ago I moved back to Indonesia and started a services company called Catalyst Strategy. We focus a lot on marketing and digital strategy, helping companies and even political clients in creating campaigns. In the last five years of my journey, I dabbled in a lot of other companies; by dabble, I mean starting three other companies. Right now, I’m only focusing on Catalyst and am on the board of a beauty company. Catalyst provides consulting services for marketing, communications, and crisis strategy. We take on a lot of interesting projects, including those involving Blockchain technology.

How did I get here? Well, I started my career in Indonesia, and I’ve always been working for technology companies, in marketing and sales roles. I started in IBM, Microsoft. Then I went to the United States for business school. After that, I moved to a company that you might still know, Blackberry in Canada, doing their strategy at corporate headquarters in Waterloo, Canada. Then I moved to San Francisco, where I worked for a small marketing automation startup. Following that, I worked for WhatsApp (acquired by Facebook). Now I’m here.

Such a diverse journey! What made you want to get into the tech entrepreneurship scene in the first place?

Part of it is wanting to prove yourself and show that you can succeed in front of others. You kind of also believe in an idea. When I was in San Francisco, I was fired (this is before WhatsApp) and I thought to myself, “What am I going to do next?” I’ve always wanted to do entrepreneurship for some reason; I think it runs in my family, so it was kind of like, “Oh maybe it’s time to do it.” Because at that point, what’s there to lose? I was sleeping on a couch already.

The only idea I had at the time was to take a lot of the strategies, techniques, and tools that I’ve learned through my technology marketing experiences and use them in a more socially impactful project. At the time, I thought this would be the presidential election. So that was it, actually. I thought, “Okay, I’m gonna come back home and I’m gonna run the digital campaign for a presidential candidate.” I came back to do just that and convinced my two partners to leave their full-time jobs to do it, too. They’re still my partners today. We basically all came together for that particular idea, which in the end we managed to do a year later, but not without blood, sweat, and tears. We got rejected so many times and we thought we failed so many times. But fortunately for us we were rejected by the right people and we got OK’d by the right ones, too.

How do you motivate yourself to keep going in the face of rejection? What’s your strategy to cope with it?

I’m not gonna lie, it always sucks. I think most entrepreneurs, or even investors or founders, we try to kid ourselves and think that “Oh, failures are so important and being rejected is part of success, and you will only learn when you make mistakes.” But at the end of the day, it doesn’t feel good. We have this idea of romanticizing failure, but in the end we still don’t like it. And I don’t like it. But it’s reality. You get rejected all the time. I still do.

To add to that, it’s actually quite easy to be rejected by others that you don’t necessarily care so much about. But when it comes to receiving feedback from people you are closest to – say your partner or your spouse or your parents – that’s a different level of hearing your mistakes or listening to your failures, so to speak, as they’re being put in front of you by people you care so much about. And you want their approval so much.

How I deal with it is not taking it too personally and realizing that a lot of things are not under my control, understanding how I can do better next time, and asking myself, “is this for me, is this not?” Just having that self awareness, that’s how I deal with it. And how I cultivate self awareness is through meditation and self reflection. I actually do it religiously every morning – it’s how I start my day. It’s something you kind of have to build.

As a side note, my husband keeps on telling me I’m really bad at receiving feedback. But it is what it is. I said, “Well, there’s content and then there’s delivery. And your delivery sucked!” (laughs)

Have you faced any challenges as a female entrepreneur and CEO?

I get invited a lot to panels on women in technology or girls in tech or whatnot. You know, sometimes I question it. Like, this is 2018 and we’re still calling female CEOs, “female CEOs” instead of just CEOs. The term is not a “boss”, it’s a “boss lady”. Things like that.

In terms of gender-specific challenges…I realize that we tend to be very permissive. I was asked this question a while back and I was like, “Honestly I don’t feel any differences being a woman in the tech space or running my own company. I don’t think I’ve ever felt discriminated.” Until you know, there was a time last year when all these women founders came out and they named a few VCs that were treating them inappropriately. And all these stories came out. I actually had an interaction with one of those VCs. He lingered in my hotel during a business trip out of town. Yet, at the time, I didn’t think there was anything wrong about it.

You know, how permissive women can be…it’s mind-boggling. I tend to let it go, let it slide. It’s almost expected of them to do that to me or other women. As if it is okay for some men to allude to you being pretty or beautiful or whatever in a business setting. And when they do these things and you’re kind of just like, “Ugh whatever, it happens all the time, right?” So that was like a realization moment for me, to be honest. I didn’t know what to do in that situation, and I still don’t know.

Another example: I was in a restaurant for a meeting only a few days ago, actually. And the ratio of males to females…I was the only female. There were 14 other CEOs and investors, and they were all male. I was the only woman there. And the only question they asked me was, “Are you married?”

That was probably one of the very first times that I had to command a presence in a room, versus people already gravitating towards me or asking me questions. If I didn’t ask enough questions, I don’t think they would’ve seen me there. The environment was aggressive. This is just another anecdotal example.

But the truth of the matter is that 80% of the time, I don’t feel any differences. But there’s always that 20%. I don’t really like to play the victim or the woman card because I don’t feel victimized and I don’t feel like I’m not given the same chance. But maybe I should be speaking out more.

It’s a known fact that an all-female founder team doesn’t get as much investment in the VC game. There are VCs out there that blatantly would just say no to female founders. And they say it very openly. These cases are not ok. I think I probably also need to educate myself on how best to deal with that.

How do we get more girls to be CEOs, managers, partners of firms?

For one, when it comes to choices and options, anyone – regardless of gender, sexual orientation – should have options and choices. And once you have the option, the choice, people should be free to do whatever they want to do.

I dont think it’s a question of should or should they not want to be leaders? Is being a CEO a good thing? I don’t think it’s good or bad. I think it’s just a choice. If those women want to take this choice or exercise this option, then yes I think the ecosystem and industry should be nurturing anyone – not just these girls – who wants to achieve these positions. I could say the same about people coming from outside elite universities, or people coming outside of Java island. These people also don’t have enough opportunities, for example. I think that the conversation should be a lot more broader.

Do you have any advice for first-time entrepreneurs who want to embark on their entrepreneurship journey?

I think first and foremost, you really have to understand why – why do you want to do this? Because you know, if your excuse or your reason to start a company is to make money, there are easier ways to make money. Starting your own company might be one of the riskiest ways you could possibly take. Ask yourself over and over, “Why am I doing this?”

Then, there’s what kind of entrepreneur you want to become. Our company did really well in the beginning doing services. It’s when we decided to stray from our path – what we’re supposed to do – and tried to dabble here and there… that’s when we didn’t do so well. There are going to be investors and other entrepreneurs and other founders that will ask you why you’re doing the things that you’re doing. They’ll ask, “Don’t you want to achieve bigger and better things?” and you’ll want to believe that it’s true. People will come to you if they see you as somewhat capable and they’ll want you to push your boundaries. You have to decide whether you want to be that kind of entrepreneur or not.

Nowadays, people think the only way you can do a startup is to look up to these big companies and aspire to be like them – the Grabs of the world, or Uber, GO-JEK, Facebook. You have to realize how many people actually become that, what it takes to get there, and whether or not that’s for you. I think that was a very painful learning for me over the last five years. Because your ego says you want it and you can do it, and probably you can if you persevere and go through that, but is that actually something you want? And are you willing to give up the things you need to give up to get there?

How about advice for current entrepreneurs?

Asking these really hard, truthful questions is very important. Why? For me, the elegance of the consulting process is something I love. Not everybody is so passionate about that. If that is what I love to do, then why do I want to do all these other things that comes with being the CEO of something like GO-JEK or Traveloka? There’s a lot of operations and routine, which is not what I do best. So knowing yourself is very important for entrepreneurs. Self awareness is so key, and the ability to question that all the time, to ask if that’s something that you want.

Also important is knowing that you probably won’t be great at everything. Knowing that will help you decide who to partner with, who to found the company with. If you don’t know that, you should know that. As I said, I’m much more strategic. I actually don’t really like looking into details. I would make a really terrible CFO. That’s just not me. So you need to partner with people like that and surround yourself with people who are better than you are at doing all these things that you can’t do.

When is the right moment to pivot? To scale? And when do you decide to stick your ground?

The notion of growth and scale and expansion can be tricky. Like why? Are you not happy with being very premier and boutique and just good at what you do? Or do you really need to scale up? You need to ask yourself how much money you need to make at the end of each month. And then your business decision, your business model should reflect that.

It really all comes back to business fundamentals. Will there be a market for what you’re building? Will people pay for it? How hard is it to sell to other people? If it’s so hard, you have to question whether or not you’re doing the right thing. It’s like a test. When things are moving in the right direction, it will still be hard. None of this is easy, but it’s not going to feel like you’re swimming against a current. When it comes to building something that doesn’t have a market and the business fundamentals aren’t there, you’re going to get questioned so much more. 10x, 100x more the usual amount. Swimming against the current is not fun. You’re not going to be moving anywhere. So I would question that.

What is one tangible step to achieving success?

On a lot more practical level, my advice is to seek mentorship. I think what a lot of younger people tend to take for granted are the opportunities to be mentored and coached. They tend to want to go through things on their own. They don’t seek enough advice.

I didn’t get here on my own. I have a lot of mentors and advisors and coaches that have helped me get to where I am. It’d be impossible without them. Nobody can open your perspective more than those who’ve done it before. If you want to be a CEO, then you need to start talking to CEOs. Because they’ve been there, they’ve done it. It’s very important to surround yourself with people who you aspire to become.

In my company, there’s a lot of younger employees. They tend to stick to their own classmates from university or high school. You need your peers of course, but at the same time you need to be talking to people who are older. People who have been out there in the world doing many other things. If you’re not doing that, then your perspective isn’t really open. If you’re aspiring to be a CMO or COO or founder, then you need to be talking to them. I don’t think that’s being taught enough at local universities. In business school, I was told to reach out to as many alumni as possible. That mindset is not being talked about enough here.

Do you have any mentors or role models that you constantly look up to?

Yes. And they come in different forms. You kind of realize that people are not perfect, and you take what you can from different folks. For example I look up to this one CEO and he always gives me very pragmatic feedback on my business decisions, for example. But that’s the only advice I would get from him. I wouldn’t ask him for any personal stuff.

I very much look up to a group of my girl friends. I seek advice from my friends who are investors, other CEOs, and my own husband. He’s my constant coach and mentor. I look up to my grandmother very much. She is probably one of the most successful entrepreneurs I know but has also failed multiple times. She was a widow at 28 with five children; my mom grew up without ever seeing her father. One day she started a textile factory on her own and ended up becoming worth tens of millions of dollars. Her story is fascinating and means a lot to me.

 

Namira Puspandari of Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting Standards (FIHRRST)

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Namira Puspandari. I am a program coordinator at an international NGO called Foundation for International Human Rights Reporting Standards (FIHRRST), founded by some human rights celebrities in Indonesia: Marzuki Darusman, Makarim Wibisono, H.S. Dillon and James Kallman. As program coordinator, I handle human rights issues such as religious tolerance, minority rights, and the death penalty in Indonesia. I’m also in charge of the development of our work in our Brussels office.

The story of how I got this job is actually pretty funny. In Jakarta, I attended a business and human rights conference. One of the speakers was my would-be boss. I was very interested in his speech; after he was done, I went up to him and asked him some questions. I was like, “Oh yeah, your speech was amazing, I had no knowledge about business and human rights. I learned about it in school but not as in-depth as in your speech. And by the way, are you recruiting?” The next thing I knew he was like, “Oh you should come to our office!” And then a few weeks after that, I started working at FIHRRST.

So that’s how you do networking!

Yes (laughs). I’ve actually never gotten a job from a website or something. It’s never worked out for me. I always have to do it some other way. Even my previous job I got from LinkedIn. I was still in the Netherlands back then, desperately unemployed (again) after finishing my contract with an NGO in The Hague. And my would-be boss sent an InMail and told me he read my research and was interested in the possibility of working together.

What projects or initiatives have you spearheaded within your NGO?

The ones that are under my supervision right now are the prison reform project funded by the Tifa Foundation, an Open Society network and the one that I recently finished is a human rights short course for senior students at a pesantren (traditional Islamic boarding school) in Jombang, East Java, which is funded by the Canadian government through the Canadian Embassy in Jakarta.

How do you empower women through your projects?

The prison reform project implementation is in a women’s prison in Tangerang. We want to improve the psychological wellbeing of the prisoners and help reintegrate them into society. Basically, women that have just been released from prison usually face discrimination; they feel that they cannot engage even with their own families or feel like they cannot be good role models to their children. Those kinds of feelings can lead them to commit the same mistake. So we want to help them out, but at the same time we want to reduce the rate of recidivism. Women in prison fall into the category of vulnerable group. This is a way to empower them so that they will be ready when they have to reintegrate back into their communities.

And then regarding the short course – the focus is more on introducing or trying to advance the concept of freedom of religion to traditional Islamic school students. The idea is also about introducing equality and challenging them in thought. At first the women participants were a bit shy, but we always encourage them to participate in discussion and engage. At some point, they were as enthusiastic as the male participants. In the end they even showed more interest. When I was delivering my presentation, they asked me a lot of stuff: “Hey, can we do this, what do you think about women’s rights, can we voice our opinions?” It was a very remarkable experience, I would say.

What’s the situation when it comes to women in indonesia and employment opportunities?

I wouldn’t like to say that it is all equal. Because we know that it’s not yet there. Compared to our parents’ generation, though, it is so much better now. The concept of women working in Indonesia, I think it’s quite accepted and normalized. We can find more and more opportunities to develop ourselves and to work. Even if you travel to remote areas in Indonesia, women who have skills are running businesses. They run shops by themselves. When you go to a warteg (small local restaurant), you see those women, they cook by themselves and manage the store by themselves.

But there’s still a lot of homework to do.

Maybe we don’t really feel the discrimination because to us it’s slight. But it affects women from lower household incomes the most. I think the main reason why these women cannot find a proper job is due to lack of information They don’t know where to find a job or how: for instance, if I want to land a good job, where do I start?

Maybe it is also about education – it’s so important, the level of education. I think for people like us, we are quite privileged, right? If we wanted to get the same benefit or same salary as a man, we can always fight for it. But it’s not the same for women of lower household income. They don’t know how to do it, that’s the thing. And in most cases they don’t have the same access to information of how to find a good, proper job. There’s also women in the informal sector; a lot of women feel like they’re not workers. Because they’re not registered. Probably your housemaid at home doesn’t have an official labor contract. I’m pretty sure because mine doesn’t have one either. And as a result, they are prone to have their rights violated because they aren’t legally protected. It’s simply because they don’t know how to voice their rights, and that what they do is still regarded as part of the informal sector.

So how do we empower women from going beyond opening a small warteg to opening a chain of them? How do we unlock the leadership potential of women?

We need a greater number of facilities to develop potential so that more women can hold those strategic positions. Employers should also acknowledge that we have the same capabilities as our male counterparts, that’s the most important thing. But we should also acknowledge that we have different needs.

In most cases that I’ve seen, when you are married and you have a kid, you feel like you have to choose between your family and your career. Currently, the perception is that if I hire this woman and she is recently married, then she will leave this office soon because she is on maternity leave. That will probably reduce the chance of that woman getting hired. A possible solution is applying the approach of Scandinavian countries and other European countries by giving paternity leave. This would be more fair. Employers would realize that not only women take leave upon having children, but also men. And it would also give women the chance to get back to work faster because the male partner would share in child-rearing responsibilities. This would also break the belief that only women who should have the main responsibility to take care of their children – it’s clearly a shared responsibility.

In the case of empowering former women convicts: How did they fall into that position in the first place? What made them resort to crime? What challenges do they face integrating back into society?

The biggest reason is financial. These women want to provide for their families. And that’s the the amazing thing about women: they would do anything, anything at all – even risking their lives – for their families. And that’s how they end up in prison. It’s not because they want to be a drug trafficker or something in the first place. It’s just the only way they know how to provide for their family. Again, it’s the lack of information on how to find proper job opportunities. They don’t know where to find the proper job and how.

And once these women try to get back to society, it is difficult for them to find a job due to the stigma against them. If you know this person is a former prisoner, there’s probably something in your mind, like a stigma that you cannot help. Of course you don’t want to discriminate against that person, but there’s something in your mind that says, “Oh she committed a crime against the law.”

So that’s difficult for them, even if they want to find a proper job. Even before they start working, if their prospective employee finds out they’re ex-prisoners, it’s over for them.

It’s a whole cycle.

Have you yourself faced any challenges being a working woman?

At work, I don’t really find any significant challenges based on my gender. I mean, it’s a human rights NGO, so we should all respect each other or there’s something wrong there (laughs). But from society, I do find challenges…some resistance, like from relatives who don’t understand the nature of my work. They think what I do is trying to implement a western agenda, trying to alter our culture while it’s not the case at all. When you talk about morality or religion, those two concepts already recognize human rights – they acknowledge other people’s’ rights. It’s basically respecting each other and not hurting each other and being a good citizen.

The challenge I’ve found the most is trying to explain the nature of my work. Whenever I mention I work at an NGO, people ask, “What are you doing?” Even some say that women’s rights is part of a western agenda trying to destroy Indonesian women. That it is trying to alter the morals of women in our culture.

Do you have any advice for girls who want to assume leadership roles?

If you’re sure this is what you want to do, just do it. For me, I’m still exploring my approach, too. I don’t know the best formula of how to succeed. But I’m pretty sure this is what I want to do, so I keep on going. If you asked me for the magic formula on how to be the best in this field, I don’t really have the answer. But because this is what I want to do and I want to deliver the best – I’m doing it.

In terms of taking leadership – don’t you want to prove to yourself that you’re capable of taking bigger responsibility? I always want to challenge myself. I don’t want to prove something to everyone; I just want to prove to myself that I can always push my limit. If, in the end, it leads you to a leadership position, that’s a plus from you being fearless.

 

[UPCOMING] Shinta Kamdani to speak at the Cartier Women's Initiative Awards

We are proud to announce that our very own Shinta Kamdani will be a speaker at the Cartier Women’s Initiative Awards Ceremony due to take place on April 26 at Capella, in Singapore.
Founded in 2006 with INSEAD business school and McKinsey & Company, the Cartier Awards select each year six talented women entrepreneurs, one from every region of the world. The competition aims to support creative, financially sustainable and responsible women-led businesses in all countries and across all industries. Here is a presentation video to give you a glimpse of who they are and what they do.
This year, for the first time, Cartier is partnering with TED to celebrate women and bold ideas.
We have no doubt that Shinta’s business achievements and personal journey will help inspire a new community of women entrepreneurs. ANGIN continues to support empowering women in their entrepreneurial and career journeys, and hopes that this event will help catalyze more women to exhibit qualities of leadership, strength, and resilience.

Elsye Yolanda: Operation Chief of GnB Accelerator

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Elsye Yolanda and I’m the Operation Chief of GnB Accelerator.

What’s your story?

Working at a startup accelerator is something that I never thought about doing, because it’s something new for me. I used to work for big corporations in Indonesia. Then I studied overseas because I wanted to have a better job; I did CSR studies in my university, because I wanted to help people while doing my job. I think CSR is very suitable because in corporations, they have money, they help people around them with their programmes. And that’s why it was suitable for me. But when I came back to Indonesia, the reality was different: CSR in Indonesia has a different philosophy. It’s something that you have to do because of the regulations, not because the companies want to do it for the sake of their own responsibility.

At GnB, I get to help small startups at a very early stage. We give them funding and help them through our program. That’s interesting for me; it’s helping people through helping startups.

It took me about 6 months to realize what exactly it is that I’m doing. I went to a conference in Malaysia about changing CSR to CER. CER is “corporate entrepreneurship responsibility,” which is something measured more easily, compared to CSR. It’s helping the startup. The way I see it, the way CSR can help startups is similar to the work of incubators and accelerators.

But of course there is a business in it.

Can you give more context to what CSR is like in Indonesia, and what areas can be improved?

Indonesian CSR…some good companies do it very well, following the true meaning of CSR. But not all companies are like that. Some companies do CSR because of the regulations. The regulation states that some percentage of company profits should be put into a CSR program. And all companies that do something with natural resources, they have to do CSR. The regulation is not very specific, but it makes companies at least have a CSR program. The regulation is also not really in line with the exact meaning of CSR. CSR should be something that comes from the responsibility of a company. Something that companies think that they should do for the sake of people around them, and the loyalty of their employees – because it’s related to the employees as well.

That’s the thing. They are doing CSR only due to government regulation, or somehow, they do it for marketing purposes.

What we can improve? I believe that every company should have their own CSR department, where they really understand what it is and how to implement it.

I interviewed one corporation about their CSR program and asked them, “What is the sustainable CSR program that you run?” and they told me, “Yeah we have a blood donor program as a sustainable program.” They don’t know what constitutes as sustainable and what does not. That’s why I think someone must be responsible to make sure the program and its intended impact are properly thought out. It’s really important.

How does GnB measure the impact of helping other entrepreneurs and supporting them along their journeys?

For startups themselves, because we have just started in 2016, I cannot yet see the whole impact. But when we help startups, we can find how they benefit from the program itself. For instance, they find that their business improved after participating in the program. It’s an impact. It’s a small one, but it matters a lot for the entrepreneurs.

We are helping the startups through investments, of course. But we want to help them scale up, to be excellent in the future. If they can possibly IPO or reach an exit, we want to help them. This is the way we can help in this industry. For me, this is CSR for the startup ecosystem.

As someone overseeing an accelerator program, how do you see the women entrepreneurs compared to the male ones? Is there any difference? Do they struggle with different things?

There are certainly unique challenges for women in the industry. Most of the founders in Indonesia are men. Women have kids but still have to take care of their company – they have a lot of tasks to do.  But I can see that women entrepreneurs in Indonesia are doing it very well. Some of my friends are startup founders, and it seems like that they can balance raising children while running a startup perfectly. I have several women entrepreneur friends, and they are very supportive of each other; the community of women entrepreneurs is strong. Women entrepreneurs face challenges, but they tackle the obstacles together as a community.

I think on the investment side, it’s a bit challenging as well. It takes time to fundraise, it takes more effort to get investors, and somehow you have to meet an all-male investor team. In Indonesia, there is the perception, too, that women are more comfortable if someone is physically accompanying them. On the investment side, it’s not something that you can do, right? You have to pitch in front of men, in a public area, where it’s not your husband. It’s weird for some people. Being a female entrepreneur is challenging because of the culture in Indonesia.

In terms of ecosystem, as ecosystem builder, what things can be implemented for better supporting women in their journey?

In our portfolio and alumni list, we don’t have a lot of women entrepreneurs so far. But I know outside, there are a lot. In the future, we might think about having a program specially targeting women. We won’t give investments yet, as it’s very difficult to source startups for the current ones, let alone for women-only startups. I believe women also look for mentors and connection to investors. It would also help to have more women investors, because women understand women.

Have you faced any challenges as a women in the startup space? Startup space is very male-dominated. How do you navigate that?

They call me mom, somehow (laughs). Like bunda, bunda! Accelerators need more women as well. We are more detail-oriented than men, I can say. The way we negotiate with startups, it has a more personal touch. We do one-on-one sessions, where I ask founders personally what their needs are. It’s very important to have women in accelerator programs, because I cannot imagine if accelerators were run by an all-male team.

Being a woman in this ecosystem is also challenging in terms of networking sessions. For myself — as you know, I’m wearing hijab. When we go to places like clubs (for networking parties with startups), someone might think that I’m not a good Muslim.

Do you have any personal women heroes or role models?

I do! Her name is Monthida McCoole; she’s from Singapore, a former manager at muru-D. She’s now on the investment side, where there are not so many women investors. She understands what I’m doing, and I really adore her. She’s also one of our mentors at GnB. At the beginning when I started working at GnB, she helped me a lot.

Do you have a message you want to share with women or girls looking into the startup space but who are unsure of themselves?

The startup ecosystem is a very open space; they generally never categorize you as a man or a woman (although some do). It’s a good place to start building your own idea; you can do things your way and better in the startup ecosystem. I believe that programs like mine – accelerators and incubators – can help startups and women entrepreneurs. And of course, there are a lot of communities that can help  support women. Don’t be afraid to start. There’s a place for women everywhere, in any business.

 

Elsa Dewi Santika: Co-Founder of Luminocean

Posted on | by angin

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Elsa Dewi Santika. I’m working for an organization called Luminocean. It is an educational ecotourism organization based in Banda Neira, Maluku that I set up with my business partner – Mareike Huhn from Germany. We started it in November 2014; it’s been 3 ½ years of a journey for us.

Can you talk more about Luminocean? How did you get started? What was your inspiration behind it?

Well, it started when I was in Banda Neira, in September 2013. I had come to Banda Neira to do humanitarian activities, bringing donations from Jakarta, Singapore, and Malaysia and distributing it to remote islands in Indonesia. When I arrived in Banda Neira, I came across a dive center owned by a German, who was also a dive instructor. I learned diving from him and fell in love with the place. When I found out that they have an NGO set up by a few Germans in marine conservation, I signed up as a volunteer to work at the NGO and stay in Banda starting from Feb 2014 until October 2014.

While I was there, I had this idea: Why not start a self-sustaining organization, rather than an NGO which relies on donations? An entity that has its own business model. I was inspired by Blue Ventures in Madagascar, which provides a scuba diving internship for the purpose of conserving the environment in Madagascar. I brought this idea to my friend Mareike. She agreed and said “I also have the same idea – why not do it together?” It was actually born as Sea Ventures, but we changed it to Luminocean in 2017. So yeah. After some brainstorming, Luminocean was born.

Can you describe what social impact Luminocean seeks to achieve and how you go about achieving it?

So I think there are a few types of impact. First, we want to create environmental awareness for the people, especially for the local people. In Banda, the Bandanese – they live from the sea. However, they do not know how to take care of the creatures living in the sea such as coral reefs and the fish there. There’s so much plastic trash in the ocean in the Banda Sea. And every year there are certain religious traditions where plastic ends up being thrown away – into the sea, into the water. We want to help educate locals in Banda to not throw the plastic waste into the ocean.

In addition, we want to create environmental awareness for the international community. There are a lot of scuba divers – tourists from Europe that come to Banda. However they just dive for fun without thinking much about the environment. So we want to create another product, where diving is not only for fun but meaningful as well. For instance, you can learn about the coral reefs. You can participate in scientific research. We work together with some universities –  one from Germany, another from Australia, and local universities in Indonesia. We bring scientists and projects to Banda and we offer these projects as part of a package of scientific diving to these international divers. That way, they can come to Banda not only for recreational diving but also for environmental and scientific diving. The revenue that we get, we channel it to environmental education as well as English and computer literacy to the Bandanese people.

You mentioned that your passion is in environment and education. How can the private sector go about addressing education and making a difference in people’s lives?

Basically, education in Indonesia is already established, you know. The mainstream education. However, the private sector can contribute on top of mainstream education in terms of more practical education. For example, the voluntourists we bring to Banda can interact with the local kids. Kids can learn in terms of practicing their English with the tourists, or other skills like computers. At the same time, these children can also learn diving. In the future, these kids – upon graduation – can work in the diving or tourism industries.

More and more tourists are coming to Indonesia and to Banda Neira every year, and I want this next generation to be prepared and to be equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills, and therefore be independent and self-sustaining. In remote islands because of the lack of jobs and opportunities, they might just want to be a civil servant or teacher when they graduate. Or maybe those who lack opportunities, they think they can only be fishermen or do some labor work, which only gives them a very minimum amount of salary. But in the tourism industry, there is a huge chance to earn more than just being a fisherman or laborer.

Based on your experience, have you noticed any difference working with girls in education? Are there different issues?

From my experience, girls are more motivated than the boys (laughs). I ran this English course – 3 girls 2 boys. The girls were much more motivated than the boys – the boys were still playing.

The challenge for Banda is that it’s still quite a traditional society. Girls are expected to behave in a certain way – it’s not liberating. It’s not good for the independent kind of thinking that we want the girls to have. We want the girls to be educated and to be independent, not to only think, “Oh I want to get married after I graduate,” because of obligation, but to postpone the marriage and to do something that they want first, to be something that they want first before finding a spouse and having a family.

How do you kind of go around that traditional mindset? How do you convince girls or their families that they can pursue their goals rather than immediately start a family?

At the moment we cannot force people to change their mindsets, especially in the short term. What we can do is work with others who are more open-minded. Some people allow their daughters and children to work with us. Some people do not. So we choose to work with people who allow their daughters to work with us. However, we hope that in the future we can bring some changes – we can open the mindset of the people and show them that working with outsiders – foreigners including me (in the Bandanese point of view, I am a foreigner even though i’m Indonesian) – is fine and can bring benefits as well.

What challenges have you faced, being a woman in the startup ecosystem?

Well, I mostly faced challenges from my own parents. They have these expectations of me working in big cities – in Jakarta, or…because I used to study and work in Singapore, they expected me to be more oriented towards more “developed” countries or cities. However, me choosing to work in more remote islands was pretty challenging because they didn’t really agree with my idea. I think that was the biggest challenge I faced at the time.

What are some tips you can give women entrepreneurs going into a room full of investors, who are often all-male?

Just be confident. As long as you know what you’re doing, it doesn’t matter if you’re male or female. Even if you’re male – if you don’t portray that self confidence, people will sense you don’t know what you’re doing. Investors will have that sense as well. But if you’re sure and full of self confidence, people will feel that. Know what you’re doing.

Any advice for other women entrepreneurs who might want to start up a venture?

My advice is just do it. Sometimes we think too much – you see there is this thing called analysis paralysis. We think too much, about how we can earn money from a startup, how we can survive. I didn’t think about any of that at the time of starting Luminocean. I was pretty naïve (laughs). Looking back, I probably would have thought if over 2-3 times more. But I think if you’re passionate about something enough, you should just do it. And everything will fall into place if you just do it.

What’s your advice for overcoming doubts or doubters – for example parents, a spouse, or other naysayers?

Starting from where you are is also a good idea — not making a big change, because people – parents, spouses, children – might not react well to sudden change. Starting where you are is so good.

However, if there is a calling in which you have to go somewhere else, where you have to make big changes – I think it is important to have a support system. Maybe a group of people who also have the same ideas who share the same passions. If there are two or three or more people who can walk with you, it is more fun and more bearable. It becomes easier to brush off those negative voices that come your way.

 

Fany Okthalia of Wonderlabs Academy

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Tell me a bit about yourselves.

My name is Okthalia. I’m a business major student. Aside from being a student, I’m also involved with female empowerment. I inspire to be a changemaker, no matter what others say. I’m really concerned about women’s rights and how women are usually misjudged in society. Maybe that’s what inspired me to do something and be the voice for women to be heard.

My name is Isthofany Irfana Azkiya (or Fany for short) and I am a female software engineer. I always wonder why people hold the stereotype that women cannot be skilled in tech? Why they can’t be prominent in the tech industry? Actually, women can make it as programmers. My goal is to change the perception of women in the tech industry, to show that women can be programmers, too.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the inequalities you’ve noticed in the tech industry and society in general? What stories out there have inspire you to do this?

Okthalia: Actually if you ask it like that, I’m afraid it will be out of scope of our concern in Wonderlabs Academy. but I’m just going to say what I feel. In Indonesia, some people  – whether we like it or not – some people think women still belong in the kitchen, or are born to be housewives, cooking and taking care of kids. And when a woman has a higher status than a man, nobody wants to approach her because men certainly want to be higher in status than women, right?

There’s something that really bothers me a lot — how religion is mistakenly correlated with culture. For instance – I’m a Muslim, and Islamic tradition does not promote disrespecting women. But somehow in [Indonesia] we still believe that women are not capable of leading. It’s,  you know, the belief that women just belong in the kitchen and need to have kids and everything. It is true that women have emotions and might be more empathetic than men, but that doesn’t mean that the degree of a woman is worth less than that of a man.

So in starting Wonderlabs Academy, what challenges have you faced? How do you make yourselves keep going?

Fany: We just started the pilot project, so this is the first batch, the first cohort. The enthusiasm is good. We got 78 applicants, but we could only accept 8 due to limited resources. We luckily have had no hate comments or objections or anything like that.

Okthalia: The challenges we face are actually general challenges. It’s a challenge people face in running a school, such as how to convince the participants that what they’re learning matters, and teaching the participants effectively. Another challenge is in finding resources to teach them.

What’s your vision? Your long-term goal for Wonderlabs Academy?

Fany: I hope there will be more women in technology. Women are good – we are better than men in some ways (laughs). Just kidding. But we have to be confident. We can do it.

Okthalia: Actually, the tech sector is really interesting and it really brings benefits to women. We understand that women want to take care of their children. Actually, you can do that in the tech industry – you can work from home.

What are some tech trends or news that excite you?

Fany: We want to support our government program – 1000 Startup Digital. 1000 Startup Digital is a government program in which the government wants to support and create 1000 startups. It’s something that is new for Indonesia, but startups are rapidly growing here. For example, GO-JEK, Grab, Kitabisa, Bukalapak, Traveloka, etc.

What is one thing you want to tell girls out there who want to be developers but are unsure about themselves?

Fany: We have to be brave and believe that we can do it. If we are really patient and really want to learn, we can be good programmers.

Okthalia: For me, for the developer, it’s that yeah, I think it’s pretty much like Steve Job’s message: If you want to succeed in a goal, you have to be curious and dig deep to find the insights you need to get there.

 

Kartini Igirisa: Founder of UD Kartini Cakalang

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Kartini Igirisa. I am the founder of UD Kartini Cakalang. I started my business in 2008, producing processed fish products such as a variety of sambal (chili sauce).

What was your background previously and how did you come to establishing your own business?

At that time, in 2010, I was going through family problems. I split from my husband and the household, so needed to start earning an income. I have been running my business as a single parent up until now. When I started, we only had one product which was abon cakalang (fish floss). Now there are approximately 7 products, including sambal tuna, sambal teri and various other sambal varieties.

So far, what sorts of challenges do you face in managing your business?

There are competitors who sell their products below the market rate which is worrying for me. We aim to ensure that the quality of our products is not compromised, which means that the price is is raised accordingly. Naturally, when new players enter the market, they automatically look for price competitiveness. All our processing is still done manually.

How do you fundraise?

Until now, I’ve relied on bank loans entirely as the interest rates are very low. However, I only borrow as much as I need.

Can you share any of your experiences as a women entrepreneur?

Firstly, the opportunities are definitely limited living outside of the city. Not having a spouse makes things a bit harder as a single parent, but that’s okay. It does not limit my career. I am still confident, and continue to keep trying because I have to make a living and provide for my children.

I employ 3 women who work on processing, who are all single parents. My vision is to empower women within my community who need an income. Looking for work these day is also difficult, as many employers requires a minimum, level of schooling. So for people who do not have an education, it’s hard to provide daily food for the family. By hiring these people we are helping them achieve financial stability. I am particularly passionate in helping them because I know how hard it is being a single parent.

Why is the issue of women’s empowerment important to you?

I think women should have their own financial freedom, and be able to produce something that can earn themselves an income. I try to promote positive thinking for my female friends who are hoping to open their own business.

In the long term, what do you hope for your business?

I hope that my products can reach the wider domestic Indonesian market, and be in shops all over the archipelago. The goal is to one day have my own factory in Manado.

 

Lientje H.K. Mamahit: Founder of UD Makaarwen

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

I am Lientje H.K. Mamahit and I am the owner of Eufraino. We produce a variety of plant products that are processed to be used as traditional medicine for health. I am also coincidentally the Chairwoman of the Association of Traditional Medicine in North Sulawesi. Our products come in the form of instant powdered drinks made from ginger, temu lawak, and turmeric, which are considered natural herbal remedies. We combine these ingredients with fruits and vegetables such as mangosteen, soursop, and carrot, among others to enhance the flavors. My latest product is a 3-in-1 variety consisting of mangosteen combined temu lawak and ginger, which I recommend for people who work a lot, people who tend to eat an oily, fatty diet, and for detoxing in general. The reason why I made these into instant powder was because it turns out that after multiple test trials, that these fruits and vegetables produce higher levels of vitamins when dried and grounded.

What motivated you to start your business?

In the 1990s, I was working as a pastor at a hospital in North Sulawesi when I suddenly became sick. The doctors gave me a drug injection, after which I fainted. It was from there that I realized that my body could not take in chemical drugs, and that’s when I discovered herbal medicine.

Then in 2000, I began to build my own business. I started with only 1 kilogram of ginger, temu lawak and turmeric. For every kilogram, I was able to make 30 sachets of herbal drink. After receiving so much positive feedback and orders from friends and family, I had the confidence to grow the business. Now there are 10 instant drink products under Eufraino which have been distributed to most supermarkets in Manado, as well as stores in Tomohon and Tondano including Transmart Carrefour. My current production per year is 30,000 sachets. At the moment, I am starting to develop green tea, which has become somewhat a global trend. Green tea in powdered form is generally considered higher in antioxidants.

What sorts of challenges have you experienced in developing this business?

This business is not without its challenges. In terms of finding capital, I relied on bank loans. However we have been lucky enough to get support from the Ministry of Agriculture to develop our product. Business growth now has reached 10% every year. The Ministry of Cooperatives has also provided us with mentoring and coaching.

Can you share some of the other initiatives you have been involved in?

In 2011 I was also given a community award by the Ministry of Agriculture called the LM3 (Lembaga Mandiri yang Mengakar di Masyarakat) for outstanding achievement in agribusiness. Those who received the LM3 were directly recruited by the Ministry to work as coaches at the Rural Agricultural Training Center. Because a lot of agricultural output is sold unprocessed, its value is remains low. For example, rice farmers generally directly sell their harvest in its unprocessed form for around Rp.10.000 per kilo of rice. But when the rice is processed into flour, companies like Rose Brand sell bags of 100g for a lot more than the unprocessed rice itself. This is the value added from processing that we aim to promote to agribusinesses.

I have also visited various cities in Indonesia and abroad because of invitations to attend seminars and symposiums on herbal medicine. So my knowledge increases after attending each training session, seminar and symposium.

What do you hope for Eufraino going forward?

Our product is ready for export, especially our 3-in-1 drink consisting of mangosteen, temu lawak and red ginger. With the global health trend at the moment, there is definitely a market for it – particularly with its  great health benefits.

 

Reita Annur: Dompet Dhuafa

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Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Reita Annur. I am from Dompet Dhuafa, a humanitarian NGO and a Lembaga Amil Zakat (LAZ) — a national organization that has been recognized by the state. We collect funding from the Muslims community, specifically from the ZISWAF (Zakat, Infaq, Alms and Wakaf) community which is channeled to the dhuafa people or the needy. The reason why we follow this is because we are a unique NGO that receives funding but also provides funding for beneficiaries in accordance with the provisions of Muslims. As for Islamic funding, it is a requirement to have eight beneficiaries that come from Zakat. Whereas for Infaq and Wakaf, Wakaf can be more general idea – you do not have to be extremely dhuafa or ‘in need’. But we also receive investment funding from CSR companies for instance, because in addition to channeling finance for dhuafa community, we are also running a social enterprise which attracts investors. The profits from these investment will of course, return to the dhuafa community.

What kinds of women’s empowerment initiatives is Dompet Dhuafa running?

We run a variety of programs. One is the called Warung Perwira or Entrepreneurial Women which aims to empower women. Why did we choose to target women? Because in a lot of households, the husband’s income is often insufficient and not stable enough to sustain the family household. So educating women on how to be able to survive if anything undesirable happens, so they can be independent economically,  foster a household and also be a role model for their children.

What are the challenges in obtaining funding?

We are indeed facing challenges with fundraising outside of Indonesia. However, for the domestic NGO inshallah we already have the trust from the people of Indonesia. In terms of scaling up fundraising to go international, we are still lacking. In fact, we already know the theory of fundraising, it’s just that we are still not confident about the application and execution of it. The language barrier in making a proposal is also an obstacle.

What challenges have you faced in building this enterprise?

We strive to empower the people in need, or dhuafa. So the challenge is how to educate these people, improve their welfare and income at the Provincial Minimum Wage (UMP) level. However, in the implementation sometimes we collide with the characters that we help, because as a channel of Islamic funds, we give grants rather than stocks or loans. This character is sometimes a bit difficult to be formed so the success of a program that we run in area differs depending on the character of the receiver. With some programs in Central Java, we are very successful and even able to scale up the industry – for example, initially we built 10 dairy farmers and it is now almost a village, with the main income coming from milk dairy cows. We provided 10 cows initially, which has now reached nearly 200 dairy cows. However, when we conduct the same program in other areas, sometime we get different results. So, there are conditions – conditions on the ground that are sometimes out of our control. That is our challenge.

How can we help to minimize the fundraising gap?

At the moment, we need the skills and knowledge on how to scale projects up. We have been able to empower farmers and breeders which has resulted in the scaling up of production. Now we are looking to scale up both in terms of financing and skill. Hopefully this can be achieved soon.

Hasria Sarianto: Founder of Poklasar

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ANGIN Women’s Spotlight series seeks to showcase a diverse array of inspiring women leaders and their stories and experiences in order to shed light on the unique experiences of women in business. We hope that both men and women can gain from these shared experiences, that these stories can inspire change, and that other young girls are motivated to become leaders as well.

Tell us a bit about yourself.

My name is Hasria Sarianto. I run a food processing business called Poklasar, which stands for Kelompok Pengolahan Pemasar.  We process fish for consumption and sell to outside the area. I am also a women’s activist; I often look after women who have problems in their families. Through this work, I noticed that many women were treated badly – largely because they are dependent on the husband. Thus, some friends and I initiated Poklasar to empower housewives and give them economic independence. In fact, they are helping their husbands earn extra income. Poklasar not only received an award from the government but is also now a legal chapter recognized by the government.

What are some challenges you have faced in business?

Our business started in 2015, but we have encountered many obstacles including a lack of tools. For example, we don’t have enough equipment available to make our processed fish balls, nuggets, and makasang products.  We still chop the fish manually, which limits our production capacity despite the abundance of fish available.  Furthermore, people usually use tenggiri fish to make meatballs, but we use another type of fish for economic reasons.

If the first issue is about tools procurement, the second issue is obtaining funding to buy proper machineries needed to develop and grow the business. We crafted proposals to a government agency – DINAS – but they have to serve so many others that they certainly cannot contribute to our business group. As such, our business goes as usual and remains small.  

For marketing, we need help: creating better packaging to be more interesting. We also need to understand better about water content so that our products can last longer.  We need to hire professionals and need to learn more. Our processes are done the traditional way with very limited tools.

Is your business mostly women?

We only have one group consisting of 10 people who all play their respective roles. There are some housewives who make meatballs. The other group handles marketing. Most are housewives from the village and do not have the skills to work outside home. Hence, they did not have much to do other than maintaining the household and cooking. Now they no longer dependent on their husbands, since they can earn their own living. That’s the main purpose – we cans achieve gender equality through economic independence.

Are there still negative stereotypes about women in Manado?

Yes, particularly in the rural areas and in the coastal areas. The coastal area is about 2 hours away from Manado. Activists should also care about the coastal areas so that women will also be aware of their rights. Sometimes when people are deprived, they act differently.  But when they are empowered, they will believe that they can do anything.

Is the awareness of this issue better now?

It has gotten better as the the old cultures that limited women are finally relaxed as well. Women have a lot of potential, but they have never been given the opportunity or enough money.  

What was your previous job?

I am a housewife and started as a housewife as well. But I do social work because I actually got involved in many women’s organizations.

Why did you start this business?

I am a female activist. Many women came complaining because their husbands control the money and they felt powerless.  Later, many women became victims of domestic violence because they had no bargaining power with the men. Based on this, I believed that these women should be given space and opportunities to be independent and make their own money so that it would not be so easy to be harmed, beaten or cheated. I want all the women I can reach to feel that they are entitled to independence.

What challenges did you experience in obtaining funding?

Once, we requested support from the government because at the time, the government promised that the tools we needed would be prepared. But then the procurement did not match what we asked for and did not meet our needs. The goods ended up being stored and not used.

Are there still many women who do not dare to ask the bank for a loan?

Now it’s easy to get a loan. In our system, when one is married, it is surely the husband applying for a loan. In our country, it should be the head of the family, except if the wife is a single parent.

What are your thoughts about the future of this group?

There is a lot of potential; these women hope to make new development and change for a better future. I think this group will need to grow as well. But it it is constrained due to budget and funding, as it has been self-financed for a long time. Fundraising is still in dire need because my aspirations for the group are to actually have better results both internally and externally from the group.