FRIDAYPRENEURSHIP : Building a Sustainable and Successful Company

By Hafshah Najma Ashrawi

Editor Hafshah Najma Ashrawi

BANDUNG, itb.ac.id - The enterpreneurship major of School of Business and Management (SBM) ITB once again conducted the Fridaypreneruship on Friday (06/12/13) in SBM auditorium. It was the second edition of Fridaypreneurship which was launched in November as a monthly program. In this edition, Fridaypreneurship was attended by Arief Widhiyasa as the speaker.

Arief Widhyasa is the founder of Agate Studio, the biggest game company in Indonesia which has produced hundreds of games. Motivated by his passion in game,  Arief and seventeen of his friends had an idea to build a game company. And then they rented a house as their office and Agate Studio's adventure began in Bandung.

Arief told the participant how Agate Studio fell and rose as a game company. Game company in Indonesia was regarded as an unpromising business, but he believed he could make a succesful game company in Indonesia. The unbalanced proportion of programmer and artist was one of the problems faced by the Agate Studio in their business development. However, with their mission to bring the happiness in world with games, they still struggled to produce games until they eventually got dozens of clients which are famous companies. Moreover, Agate Studio has successfully made the partnership with a Japanese famous games company, Square Enix.

Agate studio currently has about eighty employees and has become the biggest games company in Indonesia. It has received ICT Awards and Indigo Fellowship as its proof of success. Arief told how a company can be successful and sustainable. Agate Studio itself has a vision to become a sustainable company - built to a long last organization. The most important things to achieve those points are inlining the vision of the crews, building a memorable culture, and also building a positive mentality. He also emphasized the importance of pro-active ecosystem development to run a business. Then, he motivated the participant to have the mindset of an entrepreneur, which started an idea with the question "Why?" in their mind.

By bringing young and successful entrepreneurs, Fridaypreneurship aims to grow enterpreneurship's soul in ITB students heart. This seminar also aims to introduce the new enterpreneurship major which has just been established.