Achmad Alkatiri is the founder and CEO of Hypefast, the leading tech-based house of brands in Indonesia. 

Hypefast believes in the potential of building the homegrown next generation of Unilever/P&G group of brands

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👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

I lead a company with the ambition of building a house of tech-based homegrown brands in Indonesia and growing it as the next generation of Unilever/P&G.

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🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

I grew up on a small island in East Indonesia called Maluku. 

[I was] born and raised there until I graduated high school, including the 1999 conflict (think it like the war you saw on Game of Thrones). Our family house got burned down, so I lived in a refugee camp for a few months. 

Life quality was so bad there, so no one was expected to make something out of that life. Education was at the worst level, we studied things Jakartans learned one year before. 

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Quit my high-paying salary job as the youngest C-level in SEA's largest e-commerce company to start founder life and achieved $43M net revenue in 2.5 years and group-level profitability. 

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🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

• Space: Natural personal care products/brands.
• Trend: Like everyone else, the profitability journey of startups.

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💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry? 

You need to build a resilient mindset and be antifragile. 

This industry, on top of being extremely fast-paced, requires you to be highly adaptable since changes, big or small, come so frequently. 

You have to be prepared to make drastic changes and take action before you have all the answers, and just take a leap of faith. If you’re not adaptable, you’d be left behind and lose traction in a matter of weeks if not days.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours? 

How much potential Indonesia has as a brand country, not just the country named on the label of your clothes. 

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

The Office.

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Vanilla.

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FYI. We've edited this interview for clarity.