The virtual talk show was organized by the collaboration between ITB Career Center’s Entrepreneurial Student Program (PMW) and Technopreneurship Orientation Program from the Institute for Innovation Development and Entrepreneurship (LPIK).

The invited speaker who works as a micro-banking cluster manager of Mandiri Bank, Arizky Iriawansyah, stated that the essential aspects of building a startup are patience and tenacity. “It all starts with one’s vision, which is applied to its innovation and mission. Lastly, the outcome has to be consistent with what they had applied.”

In terms of venture capital, entrepreneurs can request their financing from banks; however, they must be knowledgeable about their products that are about to be sold and own a clear company financial report. Arizky suggested not to mix the company’s fund with private properties. Moreover, corporations must know the appropriate moment to obtain huge profits and divert them to develop their business.

“Because of that, everyone must be able to design products that are implementable daily. If the design is currently lacking, it simply means that we must innovate further,” he added.

The next speaker was Terry Djony, founder of Chatbiz, a B2B chatbot startup service via Whatsapp. In 2016, he was formerly a physics engineering student in ITB who studied informatics and business management due to his high curiosity and eagerness to seek new challenges. He claimed that information must be searched as much as possible to validate our ideas before their realization.

“Creating a startup is best done from personal problems or those from our team, families, or relatives. Besides product deployment, the necessary action to take is to utilize analytics to understand its data measurements, such as the daily active users' count, monthly recurring revenue, and so on,” he continued.

Additionally, he recounted that the first Chatbiz user is one of his mentors from Greaterhub SBM ITB. Hence, he emphasizes networking so that people can meet others with similar mindsets.

“There are many good, supportive people in Indonesia and the world. Therefore, do not stop hustling and searching for various opportunities,” he advised.

Another interesting anecdote was delivered by the CEO of Indismart, Ardyka Perdana Putra. His IT-based company had experienced loss for two consecutive years in 2018-2019. After changing its business strategy, Indismart was back into operation and persevered until it achieved profit in 2020 during the pandemic. He mentioned that the vital qualities to be in the company's present state are clear visions, commitment, solid teamwork, and healthy work culture.

“Do not allow the ongoing market and technology trends distract us from our main goal. The temptation will always be there, thus we need to stay focused, keep our spirit high and let God guide the way,” Ardyka encouraged the audience before closing his sharing session.

Reporter: Ristania Putri Wahyudi (Matematika, 2019)
Translator: Ruth Nathania (Teknik Lingkungan, 2019)