Around 150 students who are part of the KMMI Acceleration Bootcamp program participated in a mentoring session on accelerating start-up growth on Friday (24/9/2021). Accompanied by mentors from reputable start-ups, such as kolaborasi.co, Skilvul, ZAPPS, and SIAP, Bootcamp participants seized the opportunity to discuss and ask about establishing start-ups and how to encounter problems that might arise along the way.
Divided into eight classes with different mentors, the session was conducted by engaging the participants to share their experiences and opinions. The laid-back atmosphere made the participants feel comfortable to ask questions and dig many insights & know-how from their mentors.
One of the topics the participant raised was whether a start-up is worth building. Co-founder of kolaborasi.co, Moon Marva, believed that it depends on the perceived essence of the start-up itself. “People tend to think of start-ups as a tech company, but it is just a business that is still developing and searching for its business model (not a conventional model),” she stated.
Another co-founder of kolaborasi.co, Sutansyah Marahakim, shared the same view. “Start-up doesn’t have to be tech, application, or flying cars, but it has to have five factors: innovative, disruptive, problem-solving, fast-growing, and scalable,” he said.
He also suggests participants not be so fixated on the concept of a start-up. He opened a content development studio and not a start-up either.
Sutansyah also touched on the topic of choosing a business to establish, whether it should be something that we like or something that has a demand, and he chose the former.
“Business it’s not only for 1-2 years, and it’ll take a while. If you don’t like it, you’ll get sick of it. Not even two years, you’ll be fed up even within the first three months,” he said.
However, he also said that everything comes with a price. He concluded by saying that in the end, it depends on the company goals, whether they wanted to pursue profit or passion.
Related to choosing the business field, the Managing Director of Social Innovation Acceleration Program (SIAP), Aghnia Banat, encouraged the participants to tap into the social enterprise field and solve real problems in our society. Meanwhile, the Managing Partner of Social Innovation Acceleration Program (SIAP) and Co-founder Skilvul, William Hendrajaja, suggested another field: edu-tech. He believed that the edu-tech field is attractive with much room for newcomers as long as they choose the right value-offering.
Lastly, the Chief Executive Officer of ZAPPS, Galaxy Ruzhar, advised how to treat a business. “Treat them according to their phases. Firstly, the baby phase, and then the children phase. When they are grown up, only then you can accelerate it. Don’t take a big leap right away because business takes time. Especially branding,” he said.
The session was then concluded with Adryan Hafizh advising the participants interested in joining kolaborasi.co to try applying for The Greater Hub first, noting that it is more fitting for the starter to build a strong foundation. He also mentioned that he was one of the early graduates of The Greater Hub. The next session of KMMI Acceleration Bootcamp, a collaboration of The Greater Hub SBM ITB and LPIK ITB, and Ditmawa ITB as one of the Indonesian Student Micro-Credentials programs, will be on October 6, 2021.