Sidedoor Podcast

Many times, early employees don’t get the same name recognition as the founders. But their contributions are no less significant. Today I’m talking to Felicia Kawilarang, VP of Marketing and Communications for Halodoc. Felicia was the telemedicine app’s first senior marketing hire and has seen the company grow from 40 employees to its nearly 600 employees today.

This is a feat in itself, as we’ve discussed before on the podcast, the employee traits from 1-10 differ from employees 50-100, and then again at 500+. To be able to scale your own skills as the company grows is impressive.

Felicia and I discuss her journey to Halodoc, how her role has evolved with the company, and Halodoc’s growth in the midst of a global pandemic.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/felicia-kawilarang-6417a258/

https://www.instagram.com/felicialuwi/

https://www.halodoc.com/

[email protected]

In Season 1 of Sidedoor, I interviewed all founders. I love founder stories because they’re just different. But founders are not alone in this journey. If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together. Founders need a strong team. What that team looks like will change over time. So I wanted to start Season 2 by talking to key employees at fast growing startups and understanding what building a startup is like from their perspective and how it differs from a founder and how it’s similar.

Ruangguru is a fast growing startup in Indonesia. While Go-Jek gets a lot of the attention, Ruangguru raised $150 million over a year ago and has more than 4,000 employees. Today’s guest is Ritchie Goenawan, VP of Business Ops, Product, and Content at Ruangguru, an education tech startup in Indonesia. While he didn’t join the company in the early stages, he joined at a really critical time for many startups…the scaling stage.

In my discussion with Ritchie, we cover what his role of "scaler" entails, how people should assess startup opportunities as an employee, and how a company can stay true to their "Day 1" mentality as they grow quickly. 

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritchiegoenawan/

https://www.ruangguru.com/

The final guest of Season 1 is Gita Sjahrir. She’s the co-founder and CEO of R Fitness, a growing health and wellness startup, focused on helping improve the lives of all Indonesians.

Our conversation transcends the R Fitness story. Gita is a polymath. You can tell that Gita is a deep thinker and connecting many different dots. While building R Fitness is at the core of our discussion, we touch on the philosophy of life, unconscious biases and their role in business, and why mental health is such an important issue to tackle.

https://www.rfitness.com/

https://www.instagram.com/rfitnessofficial

http://instagram.com/gitasees

https://www.linkedin.com/in/gita-sjahrir-17861818

Today’s guest is Pangeran Siahaan, co-founder and CEO of Asumsi.co. Asumsi is a leading millennial media publication. Founded in 2017, the site has been bootstrapped until recently, when they raised a seed round from East Ventures.

Bootstrapping a media company is a battle, getting any kind of traction is a success. But getting the 10 million monthly views Asumsi has is quite a feat. Pangeran and I discuss what type of content was needed in Indonesia, why brand is so valuable to media companies, and what the future business model of media companies looks like.

https://asumsi.co

https://twitter.com/pangeransiahaan

https://www.instagram.com/pangeransiahaan/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pangeran-siahaan-57625248/

Covid-19 has crushed businesses around the world. Especially those in the food, travel, and live events space. Today my guest is Ilya Kravtsov, co-founder and CEO of PouchNATION.

PouchNATION is an event-based, crowd management, wearables company. They offer event-goers bands that track admission, facilitates contactless payments, and other analytics to event organisers. As you might be thinking, this business must have been hit hard by Covid-19. Which it was. But Covid-19 didn’t mean the end for PouchNATION.

Today we talk about PouchNATION’s core business and technology, how they grew the company right up until Covid-19, and then how they quickly adapted to the realities of Covid-19.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilya-kravtsov-0108124/

https://pouchnation.com/

Today's guest is Melia Winata, co-founder and CMO of Du Anyam. Du Anyam is a social enterprise that works with female communities to create wicker products. They were the official merchandise of the 2018 Asian Games and their products have won awards like the Inacraft Awards in 2018.

Du Anyam is a purpose driven brand who has three core pillars: Empower Women, Promote Culture, and Improve Livelihood. In Episode 2 of Sidedoor, Charlotte Kowara’s advice was to “build purposeful products” and Du Anyam is an excellent example of this philosophy.

In this episode we discuss Melia’s journey with Du Anyam, how they work with the women of Flores, and what growth obstacles they face, like any other business.

https://duanyam.com/

https://www.tokopedia.com/duanyam

https://shopee.co.id/duanyam_official

https://www.instagram.com/duanyam/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/melia-winata-098ba665/

Today’s guest is Nicole Yap, the Managing Director of Digitaraya, a startup accelerator in Jakarta. Nicole has seen Indonesia’s entrepreneurial landscape change dramatically since she first visited Indonesia in 2013. Now, she’s part of the dedicated core that’s helping build out Indonesia’s tech ecosystem and transform it into the crown jewel of Southeast Asia.

Nicole and I chat about the changes she’s witnessed in Indonesian tech, what Digitaraya does, how it fits into the local ecosystem and how she’s helping transform the way young entrepreneurs think.

https://digitaraya.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/digitaraya/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicoleyap/

https://www.instagram.com/nicolelingyap/

From the outside, being a tech founder seems like a sexy job. But the reality is far different. It’s lonely and a constant struggle.

Today my guest is Tiger Fang, co-founder and CEO of Kargo, a digital logistics company in Indonesia. Prior to Kargo, Tiger worked at e-commerce giant Lazada and then became a country launcher for Uber. Lazada is the Amazon of SE Asia and Uber was arguably the fastest growing startup ever. Between these two positions, Tiger has a plethora of experience when it comes to growth, management, and the intangibles that make a startup go.

This episode is a masterclass in startups and storytelling. A must listen for any aspiring entrepreneur.

Find Tiger online:

https://kargo.tech

https://twitter.com/letigreNYC

TV has romanticized lawyers with shows like Suits, The Practice, and the Good Wife. But the reality is, legal advice is expensive and overwhelming, especially for small to medium sized businesses. In the US, companies like LegalZoom have made getting access to legal documents easier. In Indonesia, the practice of using lawyers the old fashioned way is still prevalent.

Irma Surya is the founder and CEO of Plato, a legal platform in Indonesia. Irma and I discuss the genesis of Plato, how the platform works, and the challenges growing a legal platform in Indonesia.

https://www.plato.co.id/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/irma-surya-plato/

Plastic waste is a huge problem in Indonesia. It’s the second largest polluter globally at 3.22 metric tons a year. Today on the podcast we have two very ambitious women, both looking to make a dent in Indonesia’s plastic waste.

Lyonda Huwaidi is the co-founder and CEO of Water Hub, a startup focused on reducing plastic waste through filtered water stations.

Ovy Sabrina is the co-founder and COO of Rebricks, a company that turns plastic waste into bricks that can be used in landscape architecture.

While their products are different, both are tackling the plastic problem in their own way. We discuss the evolution of their companies and how they’re approaching reducing plastic waste.

Lyonda Huwaidi:

www.waterhub.id

@waterhub.id

Ovy Sabrina

www.rebricks.id

@rebricks.id