Life

My personal life stories.

Is This Failure?

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Yes, I have been rejected, yet again, as I have wrote in this blog I was going to Stanford pending the visa approval. I have gotten the sponsor which is no other than a place I worked at, East Ventures, but unfortunately United States Embassy in Jakarta didn’t approve my application for a B1/B2 Visa.

It was such a depressing experience, especially the first application which took place at March 9, 2012. I was so confident of getting a visa that I only bring the letter from Stanford other than the other necessary document. Apparently I got the most cynical and hardest interviewer. The grim reaper, so to speak, put a long pause after I told him that I’m travelling alone. The fact that I am 19 and graduating next year puts another dent to my chances.

The second time, I bring all the necessary documents, whether from East Ventures, TechinAsia, or even from my married cousin who already had a U.S. Passport there. Yet, i was being rejected for the second time. This time, the interviewer looks really convincing that he’s going to accept me, but I think the fact that I was rejected not too long ago made me unavailable for the visa.

Yes, rejection is always painful, especially when it’s something you have been waiting for, and got through a lot of things from the application to the Stanford itself, then rejected from the scholarship by the Embassy, I got two sponsor offers, which I accepted one of it, yet the only step that I thought was the easier turns against me and brings me back to earth.

No, this is not the ending. I believe it was just another lesson learned, it was just a chance that I missed, there will be many more that will come, maybe this year, or next year, or even the year after. One thing I know is that when I set an eye to a dream, I will never let that dream go. I’m very thankful for a very supportive friends, colleagues and everyone that has given me support. Hopefully in the coming months I can link back to this post and happily said that I just repeated the rejected experience.

I Love February

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This month is suppose to be the month of love. Well, although I’m single, I do feel the warmth of love by seeing my family and of course, God as He opens up more and more opportunities for me in this month.

  • The Startup Asia Singapore 2012 was a success.  Yes, there was a glitch of course, there is no perfect event but we did quite great for our first event!
  • Celebrated Valentine by surprising my sister for her birthday (yes, her birthday is on Valentine which is why her name is Michele Valencia)
  • Covered Angry Birds Facebook launch in Jakarta
  • Met with Nadiem Makarim, the co-founder of Gojek Indonesia, a Harvard Business School graduate, honored that he is able to meet me and spend his precious time answering my questions. (We arranged quite a few meetings but the schedule was never matched)
  • B2ST Beautiful Show in Jakarta was announced and I bought my Ticket at Tiket.com and had a review over at Penn Olson. Looking forward to March 17! (I’m accompanying my friends who are girls!)
  • Had quite a brawl regarding my post of Makemac acquisition by Apps Foundry which resulted in a post here.
  • Got rejected by U.S. Embassy regarding the Stanford scholarship then I posted this on my blog. Resulted in two meetings and yes, I will be going to Stanford pending the Visa approval!
  • Spent the second half of the month doing ground work for a huge upcoming event, exciting! Will talk more about it when I can.

 

Although the list is maybe shorter than January, I believe that February is a fun lovely month and March is going to be important leading to a probably best month of the year which is April. (yeah, it’s my birthday month!)

Hey January

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A great, hectic, busy but still great first month of the great year ahead. Summing up what happened over the past month:

  • Celebrated the New Year together with my family at my uncle’s house around Ancol area so the fireworks are really close and pretty because we did climb up to the rooftop. (Don’t do this at home, except if you actually have one that you can comfortably came up to)
  • Minor project defended. Lecturer fucked us up. Got C as a result of weeks of all-nighter. FML, right? That is one of the reason I don’t really care much about grades anymore.
  • Held the third Jakarta Ventures Night which is JVN 2012. Had some fun as we hosted 30-40 Japanese investors, entrepreneurs and delegates from a total of 100+ invite-only guests. Hired Police Riders to open the road for the bus to go through which was a great experience for them. Over 10+ start-ups pitched and held the East Ventures Alpha graduation day as well here.
  • Went to Purwokerto for the first time as part of the Telkomsel Smart Camp for TSC – spoke in front of 300 high school students and most of them were questioning how can I worked for two companies in Singapore while still studying. Answered with “Do 200% of great work, and people will pay attention to you. Money follows great work, always.”
  • Attended Boost Conference (Jan 17th-18th) which have founding team of YouTube and Kiva on stage. As well some big names such as Aki Sano (Founder of CookPad – IPOed in Japan), Ariawan (Co-Founder of FlutterScape), Jameson Hsu(Co-Founder Mochi Media) and more. Props to Ryu Kawano and the organizing team for this first event by them.
  • Came to Jogjakarta for the first time for Gamelan4th meetup. It was an eye-opening experience as I met some great game developers that is still very raw and saw so much potential. Presented East Ventures Alpha second batch program as well there.  Ate Gudeg, but unfortunately didn’t get to Candi Borobudur/Candi Prambanan. Oh yeah, it was also my first time going outside the city through the 3rd Terminal of Soekarno-Hatta.
  • Had such a great Finnish to the month(pun intended) as I attended launch of Blaast, Nokia Asha and had a private lunch with the Rovio CMO – Peter Vesterbacka himself which resulted the best scoop/post on my whole career as a tech blogger.
  • Flown to Singapore for Startup Asia Singapore 2012!

Although I missed a service in January, and the blog isn’t updated as much as I wanted to, but I think I have shown some improvement. Hopefully I will have an even more lovely February!

The Year of Water Dragon

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I think it can be the best Monday, or at least, one of the best Monday in 2012. Is there any better way to start your week with going to your relatives’ home, eating best homemade foods(pork ftw!), seeing and chatting with your uncles, aunties and the best thing is? Collecting red envelopes!

This year has definitely a different feeling from the previous years, the family is starting to shrink because of my grandmother’s death and then there are few families living abroad now so it’s not as big as it used to be when I’m in childhood. What struck me is that I have a cousin who diagnosed with cancer and his mother got hit by a stroke just few weeks ago. I felt really sad and like, being super thankful that God has always protect my parents and my sisters.

The Year of Water Dragon. Dragon always being symbolized as power and wealth. The baby boom in China. I think, even though I wrote 2011 is my best year yet, I can safely say this year is gonna be a prosperous, healthy and wealthy one. Even this month, is already a hectic one and if you compare it to last year, my activities are totally different. I felt like I’m living my passion and chasing my dream right now. I sure hope that you are too! Happy Chinese New Year!

2012 Resolutions

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With a great year as a foundation of this year, of course there’s gonna be expectations and wishes upon this year. One thing for sure, we’re gonna celebrate Christmas and New Year while laughing at the Mayans and John Cusack’s 2012. So here goes my 2012 resolutions:

Write more, Read more and then Write even more.

It hasn’t really going well, my blog that is. It logged only 10 posts over the 2011 and I’m quite confused why I didn’t write more while I experienced so much things! I guess it’s different when I’m writing for Penn Olson, there I have an objective and a specific topics to discuss about, but here, it’s too general and sometimes a blank sheet of paper a blank page of post made us a bit harder to start. To boost my posts here, I’m setting a goal for myself to post at least 3 times a week so next year when I’m making 2012, My Best Year Yet post I can see at least 160 posts here! As for my blogging gig I’m hoping for 75 posts per half of the year, so it’d make my post at the end of the year 230 posts over at Penn Olson! (P.S: Willis, if you’re reading, see my enthusiasm! :p).

Reading has been a way for me to write new vocabularies, adapt new style of writing, getting new point of views and definitely it improves my English as a whole. I read a variety of things from newspapers & magazines(regularly reading The Jakarta Globe and Glove Asia) – thanks to Times Bookstore, I’m able to read BusinessWeek, The Economist, TIME, Fortune, Forbes Asia, Forbes Indonesia for free! – and of course Books! In 2011, I’ve finally continued the Artemis Fowl series with Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception. Started The Girl With a Dragon Tattoo & Delivering Happiness as well! And there’s the Steve Jobs biography that I have bought that I haven’t read yet. Another resolution goes here: Read at least 10 books this year!

Be healthy physically and spiritually!

At the end of last year, my father, me and two of my younger sisters registered for a membership over at PIKFIT(at Pantai Indah Kapuk, North Jakarta). It was a health club membership that covers you to be able to swim, sauna, and pull some weight over at the fitness area. At the first few weeks we were there quite often, but as the year closes, laziness got to us and we barely came. This year, I want to be able to swim at least 3 times a week – each at least for 1KM.

Ever since I’m baptized (Joshua is the name I got from Him) going to the church isn’t something that my parents have to told me to do so. Church has became a place where, at least for 2 hours and a half, I feel relieved & blessed. A place where I don’t have to worry about anything but to praise Him and thanking Him for what a great life He has given us. Yet, at times, there’s something that can get in between my schedule to go to church. So, I’m promising Him that I’ll be coming to 52 services in 2012, if I didn’t come to the Sunday service then I have to come to either Tuesdays or Fridays.  It’s not an obligation or that I’m being forced but it’s my right to do so!

Getting even closer to graduation with great grades

2012 is going to be THE YEAR of my whole university years. I’m gonna defense my minor project(a bit easier than thesis but still.. 800 pages to defense) in a few days, and then on the first half of this year I will know the result(GPA) for the 5th and 6th semester, then after the summer holiday I’m gonna start working on my thesis. My resolution? Of course getting the maximum possible GPA(4.0) for both semester and acing my minor also my thesis. Expected graduation ceremony: June/July 2013. A year to go!

Eat, Pray, Love!

Like the movie we all knew of I wish this year I can eat more but it doesn’t mean eating a repetitive foods or just to make myself full but more of enjoying the food we ate and eating varieties of foods that I never ate before. Travelling has always been my favorite part of my childhood. Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand,  and South Korea – Bali & Lombok has been graced by me but I spent more than 3-4 years on a travel hiatus because of financial turbulence experienced by my parents(and not to mention their divorce). Last year, I get to travel to Singapore and Manado. I hope this year I can travel to at least 3 countries(please oh please, Stanford, accept my application!) and 5 cities – saving up for South Korea is also my priority next year!.  Singapore is gonna be my second country, and even more so next year – Startup Asia is coming (if you’re doing start-up, register now!) Not the least part of this paragraph, is love, well for most parts of the year love has been out of the question but nevertheless as a young adult I get to think of it. Here’s to 2012, I hope to fall in love yet again :-)

Personal projects, start-up, community

Being around and about in start-up community(s) has an effect that will definitely get to you. It’s the urge to start something, to realize your ideas and actually taking the first step into the cold hard damned world of entrepreneurship(yes, it’s hard and lonely path – contrary to the belief). Yes, of course, I have lots of ideas, who doesn’t? It’s cheap and worth absolutely nothing unless I do something about it. This year, if opportunity arises, I will take that first step not only in realizing my ideas about start-up but also starting/helping to start a community to help educate and instill the entrepreneurship culture into the now and future generation. Amen!

To close this post, a verse that I got from my church to guide me this year: Galatians 6:9

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.

Happy New Year 2012, may we have an even greater year, and fulfill our potentials and to chase our passion!

2011, My Best Year Yet!

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2011 is really the best year ever in my life, yet. A lot of things, I mean great things, have happened. Met a lot of inspiring people, make a lot of new friends, all because of the Internet and social network specifically. I love my job and I’m passionate about what I do. So here’s the breakdown of things that happened to me in 2012 2011(thank you Ivana for correcting me!) (well, at least of what I remembered, will try to add more if I suddenly remembered something important. And yeah, thank you Facebook Timeline!)

January – March 2011:

  •  I’m finally done with the Forum Member Event 2011 for HIMSISFO which took a toll on me and made me take a rash decision to cut my hair into a bob style! Yeah, i’m doing the impossible and brave things!
  • Celebrated the New Year over at my cousin’s place in Ancol, which is a great thing because his rooftop is the highest among all the houses, saw a lot of fireworks!
  • Starting to come to #StartupLokal meetup after failed to do so in November and December. Attended the iMULAI workshop by Microsoft Indonesia too.
  • Chosen as #StartupLokal 1st Birthday Project Manager (which is the turning point of my career & year)
  • Got into Applied ERP (in Bina Nusantara University, you have to choose a specialization if you’re majoring in Information System. Applied ERP(SAP) and Applied Database(Oracle) is both the ones that has limited class(90 people each out of 1k students)
  • Got the 4.0 GPA for the first time (WOOHOO!)
  • All of the hollywood movies are banned from showing in the movie theatre (OMG right? There goes our weekend)
  • Started writing for Penn Olson at the end of March.
  • Met Valentcia Trifonia for the first time! Whom will be one of my bestest friend over the year.
  • Watched 2PM for the first time in Blackberry Live n’ Rockin (with Lius Steven, Fredy Jingga, Valentcia Trifonia and Amelia)

April – June 2011:

July – September 2011:

  • AKSI 2011 (Acara Kebersamaan Sistem Informasi) – basically an event where we welcome new Information System students, attended by more than 500 people.
  • East Ventures finally has an office in Jakarta and it’s renovated! Ready to move in!
  • IDBYTE held with Bubu Awards inside of it. Penn Olson writers in Jakarta finally had a dinner together with Willis Wee and Minghao!
  • East Ventures Alpha launched! and incubated 6 companies for its first batch.
  • Summer holiday fulfilled with tech events and meetups (Investor Idol – Ramadhan – Female Founders)
  • Blackberry 9900 and Torch 9810 launched (I have the 9900 as my second Blackberry now, yeaaaa!)
  • Starting my ‘adventure’ with Minor Project (Minor Project is sort of a preparation for the final project but has quite similar characteristics, you have to analyze a business’ workflow, provide analysis report in Microsoft Visio, and code an App to help the business at the very end you will be ‘judged’ by a lecturer)
  • Had a first date with JOSENT! (Joshua – Sevian – Valentcia)

October – December 2011:

  • LDKK – Leadership, Togetherness and Competence training for the newly accepted HIMSISFO members (freshmens!) – for days I yelled quite a lot, burnt my skin and at the very end had a lot of laughter!
  • Second date with my JOSENT (polaroids ftw! and say no to Han Gang!)
  • Watched 2PM’s full concert on 11.11.11 – totally worth the wait(4 hours!) and they performed even better live! Accompanying Monica Corina and Diana Citra (Thank you for Diana’s sister we’re able to stroll around for hours before queue-ing)
  • Bought So Nyuh Shi Dae – Girls Generation Asia Tour Concert tickets (Thank you Kevin Kho!)
  • Travelled to Singapore on 8th December 2011, Joash (Community Manager for e27) kindly provided me a place to crash for a few days. Had a great time flying with Jetstar, on the 9th came to Singapore Indoor Stadium queued from 11AM to get the tag, ended up queing all the way until the concert started(9 hours!) – but it was totally worth it! Seeing the 9 girls live and upclose(second man from the stage) and getting HD fancams :-)
  • On the 10th, I spent it visiting my uncle(in Busan) who’s working there so his family is all there. Quite surprised of their eating habit(they eat quite a lot!) and at the end of the visit got a pocket money for the Chinese New Year(thanks uncle!) – and then spent the entire day left shopping around 313 Somerset and ION Orchard(UNIQLO and Topman being the top contributor of emptying my wallet) and in the night meeting up Sabrina after 6 months(been missing you, party girl!)
  • 11th December 2011 – doing nothing except lying back at Starbucks chair reading Artemis Fowl – The Opal Deception and at the afternoon Joash introduced me to his girlfriend Dung Nguyen – talked a lot about kpop and k-drama and to sum it up I had a plane to catch at 6AM in the morning so I woke up on 4 and then grab a taxi :|
  • RIM launched Bold 9790 and Curve 9380 (and everyone attended the launch got the Bold for free, thanks RIM!)
  • An all-time busy month because of the Minor Project, visited Starbucks even more regularly to meet up with the team and pulling a couple all-nighter, barely finished all of it (more than 800+ pages) and we will have our judgement day on 7th January 2012!
  • Telkomsel through its program Telkomsel School Community Smart Camp invited #StartupLokal to speak in 10 cities, this month I got Manado as a destination. It was quite good in terms of how enthusiastic the students are, how they adopted the technology already and overall it was a fun trip! (too bad I didn’t get to go to Bunaken)

So there goes 1,000 words to sum up what a humbling, fantastic and simply mind-blowing year. I really hope for more of the same, getting to meet more inspiring entrepreneurs, travel more, and learn more. And of course, to finally start-up my own company. Thank you 2011, Thank You God for Your blessing all year. 2012 is gonna be even better!

Reject. Rejection. Rejected.

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In life, we face rejection from people. Even we, ourselves, reject some things that we don’t like, or what we think are not good for us. Rejecting something/someone is easy most of the time, but at the other end of the table, being rejected is tough.

Being rejected is like being shot down, whether it’s your ideas, your proposal, your dream. All we can do is really try our best again, again and again. Because success came to those who tried the hardest. I’d like to share my experience myself. Graduating from senior high school, I always wanted to go to overseas to study for my degree. Most of my friends already applied to Malaysia, Singapore, Australia or even United States of America. Honestly? I’m full of envy.

My parents already told me it’s quite expensive, and we might or might not afford it, because at the same time my sister is also graduating from junior high school and he’s going to the best high school in town which is SMAK1 BPK PENABUR, Jakarta. I applied anyway, and I did get in, but in the end my parents said it’d be better if i don’t go to abroad. If i want to do postgraduate degree then i can go.

Filled with disappointment i applied to Bina Nusantara University. Always told myself that i despise private universities in Indonesia because of their lack of quality(my own opinion though). Basically because they don’t really put much quality and focusing on quantity.

And where does it got me? If i was at Malaysia right now, I’d be studying right now and knew nothing about startups. I wouldn’t be #StartupLokal apprentice, I wouldn’t be knowing all these great guys from Indonesian startups scene who inspired me day by day.

Another rejection? I applied for an ‘internship’ in a local news site months ago. BOOM! I was rejected. Days later, Willis Wee from Penn Olson mentioned me on Twitter said that a position for a writer there is available and he wanted me to fill it. Yup, and until right now I’m still writing for them and I’m happy that i have such a great mentor/editor/boss/friend in Willis. From then on, I am also appointed as Associate at East Ventures.

As people said, rejection is probably a God’s way of saying that it’s not great enough for you to have, I have a better plan for you. Keep going, and you’ll find your way!

Inspiration. Inspiring. Inspire.

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Everyone can be an inspiration, well why don’t we inspire people? With inspiring one,two,seven,one-hundred, to thousands of people – we can actually make a change to people’s lives. How?

Imagine your idols, the person you look up to, or the person you want to be. What they are like? They are enjoying what they do. They are doing their passion every single second of their life. They are smiling, maybe you thing it’s because they got paid a lot, but no, money doesn’t actually give you much satisfaction once you get to the top.

So, how can we do it you say? Start from small steps, start by finding things you love to do, what you are passionate at. For me, I love being an entrepreneur, I love the startups scene, I love reading & writing hence the reason I joined the local startups community #StartupLokal (an Apprentice now) and East Ventures(as an Associate) also a contributor for Penn Olson(one of EV’s portfolio)

I believe when you’re doing what you do, even if people are dissing you or you kept finding dead-ends, in the end you will get out of it and fulfill your dream. Money will and are going to follow great works. Believe it.

April, April, APRIL!

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It has been three months since I updated my blog. Yes, I know I have promised to update this blog regularly, hey, I even promised myself I would update it at least three times a week. Well, life caught up with me and so am I, but now I’m back and this time hopefully will be different. Once a week, at least.

So, what has been going on with my life?

  • I’m 19! I’m getting older, and hopefully more mature. A little bit different this year though, I didn’t blew my candle with my own family but my second family. Which is my friends! Here’s one of the picture(thank you Jeanette Jusuf, Fenny Natalia and Valentcia Trifonia !) :

Me and My beloved ‘sisters’

  • Academically, last semester which is the third semester i got the 4.0 GPA which is quite a surprise to me as I felt like it was going to be my worst semester to date. Yet, life surprises you! This semester, I’m in the Applied ERP class which is full of people that are far more dilligent than me, and now I’m having such a difficulty to catch up!
  • Profesionally, it is super great! Ever since I said yes to be the Project Manager of the #StartupLokal birthday, I get to meet the initiators quite regularly more than the others, which is a privilege to learn more from the four inspiring people. Then, i get to the point where Sanny Gaddafi, one of the initiators asked me to manage startuplokal.org because of my work at Inageek, and so I did, and people are quite satisfied with it. Time goes by and Willis Wee from Penn Olson approached me to write for them, and again so I did. Recently, Penn Olson got an investment from East Ventures and so I get to meet Willson Cuaca of EV a couple of  time and we got something in the motion!

So, these are what i can compile in the last 3 months. It supposed to be a lot more than this but hey, I probably can make a book out of it! Talking about a book, I do co-curated a book with Rhein Mahatma – #StartupLokal Kita. Do visit the site and buy it! See you all on the next update! :)

Resolutions? Let’s evaluate!

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We’re near the end of January, and how do you think the first month of the year went? Great? So-so? or ‘let’s just move to the next month right now!’? For me it went fast! So fast that i could not keep up with the pace of everything’s going on.

Most of my resolutions didn’t even going so good, for example i’ve made a resolution to be a regular attendee of the Sunday service at my church. Yet i have missed once, twice if you count the new year’s day service.

My blog(this one) haven’t been updated as regularly as i want either, it takes time to make a writing and sometimes i don’t have or perhaps, i don’t care to write.

So what can we do to boost our mood and get going again for our goals and resolutions? Here are some tips that i know of.

  • Workout!

You already know that exercise is the way to a better body, but it has terrific mood- and energy-boosting benefits as well. For instance, both aerobic exercise and weightlifting have been found to produce endorphins, the body’s natural feel-good chemicals.

  • Eat!

Starting your day with a healthy and great breakfast with protein, complex carbs and fiber not only fuels your morning, it helps keep your blood sugar steady all day. Or if you couldn’t eat breakfast, eat a bowl of cereal+milk. You can also go out and eat your favourite food, either it’s steak or even a burrito it will boost your mood definitely and for the quickest mood booster? Chocolate!

  • Sleep

Getting not too much sleep can have a considerable influence on your mood and your ability to concentrate on the day. You can be both sensitive and anxious. Sleeping after you get into a bad mood is the immediate healing to your mood, but not your problem though.

I hope with these mood booster how-to can help us get back on track and yes, keep enjoying 2011! It will be a long, great year ahead!