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Episode 1:
On today’s episode, Amanda speaks with Ronald Ishak, the co-founder and CEO of Hacktiv8, a coding bootcamp that teaches Indonesians how to code and helps them get hired as web developers. He started out in the Indonesian tech scene in 2008 when he was in his early 20s. Now, after nearly 15 years in the tech scene as a founder, CEO and CTO, he’s been able to launch, fail and grow multiple startups.
Learn about the accidents, the unexpected, what he learned and what success now means to him. How did he get into the tech scene in the first place? What did he suck at as a founder early on? What helped keep him going in the toughest times? What is life like now?
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✍🏼 TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Ronald: And then so when we built the app, we realized we need to figure out a way to make people download this. I don't know why I thought about this back then, but I was like, "Let's make this into like a trading app that James Bond would have in his pocket," or something like that. I'm usually the person that like, know what, when we have a new toy, I'd like to break it apart and actually try to put it together. So I like tinkering and I'm curious that way. Today, I look at myself like, "Ronald, you know, child of God," and then really, that's it. That's probably the most important thing for me.
[00:00:40] Amanda: Hi, I'm Amanda Cua, and this is One More Scoop. Here, we're sitting down with Southeast Asia's top founders, executives, and investors to have honest conversations about their personal journeys and find out what really happens behind the scenes.
[00:01:06] Amanda: Today, I'm speaking with Ronald Ishak. He's a co-founder and CEO of Hacktiv8, a coding boot camp that teaches Indonesians how to code and helps them get hired as web developers. He's been involved in the Indonesian tech scene since 2008 as a founder and CTO of multiple startups. From an app for BlackBerry phones, yes, BlackBerry, to where he is today with Hacktiva8.
[00:01:35] Amanda: Hi, Ron, so nice to speak with you today.
[00:01:39] Ronald: Hi Amanda.
[00:01:40] Amanda: So I was super curious to get to speak with you because you've been involved in Indonesia's startup scene for such a long time and it's much earlier stages, and now the sort of post-pandemic stage. So I'm sure there's been a lot of interesting experiences that you've had throughout all those years. But I think the one question I actually wanted to ask you the most was what were the experiences, I guess, in your early life that made you go into the entrepreneurial journey? I think, early in your career, you probably never thought about that, but I guess, looking back, what do you think influenced you to take this path?
[00:02:17] Ronald: Yeah, I didn't know I would end up here, but I knew as a kid, growing up that I'd like to tinker a lot. I'm usually the person that when we get a new toy, I'd like to break it apart and actually try to put it together. So I like tinkering and I'm curious that way. But everything after that sort of happened almost accidentally, right? There was a time when I was a kid that I would try to set up like a little stationery shop inside my room and only have my parents buy things. Really just small things like that. I think in college is really when I still started to get the entrepreneurial bug, but maybe take a step back as well. Both my parents are entrepreneurs, so my mother runs her own business, my dad runs his own business.
[00:03:10] Ronald: So growing up, I've sort of seen two entrepreneurs going back and forth, seeing their own struggles as well and sort of understanding what things are going on. There are dinner table talks. A lot of times are about business as well. So I've gotten exposure that way. Sometimes I don't understand a thing, a single thing that they're talking about, but then to be able to relate with them over time, I sort of understood, got to understand where they're concerned, things like that.
[00:03:37] Ronald: But really, for me, it started in college. And so, there was a time in, I guess, in the mid 2000s, maybe 2005 ish where Nintendo DS, you know, that portable game console was launching. And then I had an idea of like, "What if I can get as many of these and start to sell it on eBay?" And at that time, I don't think scalping was overly big in the US as well. And then I was able to go and every store put a bunch of different names to get multiple devices, have my friends pick up devices and tell them like, "I'll help you sell it."
[00:04:16] Ronald: And around that season, I had sold, I think, over 80 Nintendo's, and then basically all the money I'd get, I poured it back in. And then I had the record of the highest priced Nintendo DS sold on eBay. And in that year, when they launched it, I sold it four days before Christmas, something like that. And it was just insane, it was a big rush. And for me, after that, I was like, "All right, I'm set. I know I want to do something like this in the future." So it started there.
[00:04:44] Amanda: So you had a Nintendo sort of agent network buying and selling all these Nintendo devices?
[00:04:51] Ronald: Absolutely. And I thought there was nothing for this, right? I mean, there was a point where I remember we had bought this thing or Halo, the video game Halo. And then I had 20 units of it at one point just from all my friends, and it didn't sell. But then the crazy part is, in the US, you can just return things within 30 days. So once we knew that this isn't selling, we just went back to the store and said, "Sorry, we got to return everything."
[00:05:16] Amanda: And you return all the Nintendo?
[00:05:21] Ronald: This is for Nintendo, it worked, right? For the Halo stuff, it didn't work.
[00:05:21] Amanda: How with Halo?
[00:05:22] Ronald: And so, it was like a no risk thing for me like if it didn't work, we could just return it, right? So it was just a cool, fun, learning experience for me. And, yeah, it just started from there, and it just kept growing.
[00:05:33] Amanda: Did you do this throughout the year as a student, or would you only do this during the break and then on and off? When did you start and when did you stop?
[00:05:42] Ronald: I did this during... specifically, during Christmas time, because I had figured that a lot of parents might have wanted to get this for their kids, because I've been that kid in the past where I wanted to have a Nintendo during Christmas time. You couldn't get it because it was just sold out. So I figured that there must be other parents going through this as well, right? And so I figured around that time to just give it a shot, try it over Christmas. It worked really well. And then after that, I stopped right after New Year's. I didn't keep going, but I knew I had it in the back of my head---
[00:06:13] Amanda: Why didn't you keep going?
[00:06:14] Ronald: Yeah. Next Christmas, I'll do something similar. And then by next Christmas they actually added all these restrictions. I can't buy more than one, so like, "All right, this is done for us, so we can't do that anymore."
[00:06:27] Amanda: Did he end up starting another one the next Christmas or?
[00:06:30] Ronald: No, I tried to do other things, but then, I quickly realized there might be a... but at that point, I decided to learn more about being an entrepreneur. It's not all about flipping, right? There are so many other parts of it.
[00:06:42] Ronald: So it just started this whole journey of trying to figure out what it looks like to even build a team and all that. And I started... actually, my first ever startup also in college, which is kind of my first big failure as well. So I started a college blogging network. So it was basically a lot of students blogging, writing a blog post and then we just posted and then it would be shedding around a lot of the college students and it was doing quite well, actually. But once the exam started, none of the articles came out because nobody was writing, the traffic dropped and we're like, "Okay, this is probably not going to work, not sustainable." And so even back then we decided to like, "All right, let's pivot and do something else." But that was my first ever thing.
[00:07:28] Amanda: Right. So user-generated content this time?
[00:07:31] Ronald: Yeah, user generated content, college students.
[00:07:34] Amanda: So you're doing this in the US. And then maybe it would start from your campus and then it would naturally recruit more people to write? Your friends would invite each other, things like that?
[00:07:45] Ronald: And people were trying to build a portfolio for themselves. So we try to make it like as if you're writing for an important newspaper or something. But essentially, what it was is just to get a lot of content. And I was trying to figure out how to work those Google Ads to make AdSense, I think. To make sure that we kept getting paid for every view, but then we didn't know how to really do it. So for me it was just a learning experience at the end of the day.
[00:08:09] Amanda: Was this your last college startup or did you start another one?
[00:08:13] Ronald: No. After that, not long after that, I had decided to drop out of grad school at that time and then just figured it out. After that, I wanted to go back to Indonesia and get some experience working. Just to see what the other side is. Just to learn from other business leaders or just being mentored by somebody. It's just like a young kid trying to figure out things. And then I ended up moving back to Indonesia and then building an app. And then that's where my app development journey sort of started.
[00:08:45] Amanda: So you dropped out of grad school. What made you actually want to drop out? I'm sure you didn't just wake up one day and say like, "Okay, I'm going to drop out of grad school today." Was there any tipping point?
[00:08:55] Ronald: I think at that time, I was just going through a bit of a depressive state. I would say this is going to sound corny now, but I had broken up with my first ever girlfriend, and I was so heartbroken that I decided like, "If I stay here, it's going to be so toxic. I need a new, fresh start." So by the end of December, I decided to like, "That's it. It's going to be a new year." I don't know, I got so–
[00:09:23] Amanda: New year, new me.
[00:09:24] Ronald: Yeah. New year, new me. And then I was like, "Look, I can put my studies on hold." They gave me seven years to finish it, so I could technically drop out for a semester or two and then come back and continue it if I wanted to. But then by the time I moved to Indonesia, I was having so much fun like working and meeting people. It was just an exciting time. And then I ended up dating a girl that ended up becoming my wife. So I never ended up finishing my grad school studies.
[00:09:52] Amanda: Yeah. So secret blessing in disguise.
[00:09:55] Ronald: Yeah. Secret blessing in disguise. Yeah, for sure.
[00:09:57] Amanda: I was going to ask you why you didn't go back to the US. But I think that explains everything. I think it's pretty common for people to stay in the US after graduating or go back to their home country, work a few years, and they go back to the US, eventually, at least. I've been seeing that pattern in my generation. But now, I think the story has sold itself.
[00:09:55] Ronald: Yes.
[00:10:20] Amanda: So I think I read a bit about you, and then I saw that you did build another app when you came back to Indonesia. I think you mentioned that and you said it was a BlackBerry app?
[00:10:31] Ronald: Yeah.
[00:10:32] Amanda: And so how did it work?
[00:10:33] Ronald: You know, honestly, at that time, I was working for a stock broker, and then they wanted to build an online trading app on the BlackBerry. And then we put that into motion. We built the app, but then we realized nobody wanted to download this because at that time in Indonesia, a lot of times when people were trying to trade stuff, they would call their broker, they would just like, call, "What's the price of this?" And then execute the order on a phone over a phone call.
[00:10:59] Ronald: And then when we built the app, we realized we need to figure out a way to make people download this. And then so... I don't know why I thought about this back then, but I was like, "Let's make this into a trading app that James Bond would have in his pocket," or something like that. And then we ended up adding everything from a restaurant directory, the gym schedule for when the next spending class starts in Jakarta.
[00:11:25] Ronald: What else do we put in there? We put in, of course, the stock prices. We had a news aggregator. And then somewhere along the line, we decided, "Let's build a Twitter client just because we can, and it'll say like, "Tweeted from Domikado." We thought that was pretty cool.
[00:11:39] Ronald: And we had built all this stuff and then we had given it to a few friends to try it out. Tell me where the bugs are. Because at that time, I still felt like the UX sucked. I need to get some feedback---
[00:11:50] Amanda: Yeah. So beta testers.
[00:11:53] Ronald: Yeah. And just share it with some friends or something. And then, I don't know, Amanda, were you using the BlackBerry back then or?
[00:11:58] Amanda: I remember my mom had a BlackBerry and I really wanted one and she never bought me one because she was like, "This is too advanced for you."
[00:12:07] Ronald: So there's a feature. It was like the BBM blast. So you'd have a message and then you can blast it to everybody in your contact list. And then what happens? We have shared our little message and people have forwarded it. And then I remember by the late, I think late night 7:00 to 08:00 PM, our server crashed and we were wondering what's going on? And then we checked the database. There's like 5000 BlackBerry pins on the server and like, "How did we get that far?"
[00:12:36] Ronald: So I guess, we accidentally launched the app in a way. And we weren't prepared because we didn't have auto scaling, all those cool things that we expect of startups nowadays. We didn't set up any of that. So we just died. The server just went into the next--
[00:12:50] Amanda: Yeah. Had like 5000 users?
[00:12:52] Ronald: 5000, yeah. And we were already confused what was going on. I thought it was just me and a group of friends and probably my aunts and uncles like, "Let's just try it out. We give feedback."
[00:13:04] Amanda: Right. For like family.
[00:13:06] Ronald: Yeah. So for a while, it was just like, "Oh gosh. It was not the best way to launch something, but it was cool." We had an app that was barely working, but then we also had the local newspaper and all these folks trying to reach out like, 'Who is this app? Who made it and why did you make it?" And so, we're like, "I guess we have to ride the wave." But the app doesn't really work. So while the app was sort of going on, we had to just fix things in the background and then, gosh, there are just so many things that we now take for granted that we couldn't do back then.
[00:13:39] Ronald: For example, we had to maintain multiple versions of the app because not a lot of people actually click the update button. Nowadays, it's like you launched auto updates.
[00:13:48] Amanda: An auto update, right?
[00:13:49] Ronald: Auto updates, right. Yeah. Back then, it wasn't anything like that. And so we had to figure out how do we have multiple versions still running as we introduce new versions? So it was such a pain in the butt, but it was fun.
[00:14:01] Amanda: But what does that look like? I mean, you get 5000 users in a matter of hours. Did you guys celebrate or did you guys go into panic mode because the server shut down and I don't know if you guys knew how to fix it. I don't know what state technology was in back then. I'm not an engineer myself, so I'm curious.
[00:14:19] Ronald: I mean, we did the normal thing that everybody would try to do, which is like turn the server off and turn it back on and then they would just continue to die again. So we had to figure out how to scale it. We were happy. I mean, we were celebrating a bit. Celebrating but panicking at the same time. But it was memorable because I never experienced anything like that. To suddenly have the local news agency, come in with a video crew to our office to sort of interview us. And this is only like a week after we accidentally launched. So it was an exciting time. I got into all these cool magazines and we didn't plan for any of this. We didn't have a marketing budget, we didn't have a marketing team.
[00:15:00] Ronald: And so, over time, actually, the app became known as this lifestyle app versus a BlackBerry trade stock trading app. And so our investors weren't so happy either. But we had it, I think, at its peak, 170,000 users without any marketing budget. And so it was purely BlackBerry Messenger Blast and then a lot of people using it. We didn't know how to monetize it either because back then, a lot of people were just like, "We'll give you some money to have it on the spot for an x amount of days." But then it didn't really matter if you had two users or 50,000 users because that model wasn't really developed yet in Asia. It was a fun learning experience. It was too early for its time, I think, that we quickly killed it off just because we couldn't make a lot of money on it.
[00:15:48] Amanda: I mean, it sounds like the OG super app before any super apps came up.
[00:15:52] Ronald: Yeah.
[00:15:54] Amanda: The early days.
[00:15:55] Ronald: Yeah, it was too early. There was no VCs back then either. I remember around the same time there was the East Ventures guys. Actually, before Willson started East Ventures, he had his own app that did similar things.
[00:16:09] Amanda: Oh.
[00:16:09] Ronald: Yeah. And then so--
[00:16:10] Amanda: At the same time period?
[00:16:12] Ronald: Yeah. And then we became friends that way. It's like, "Oh, you're that guy. So he started East Ventures, which is now even better, even cooler. So I think it was just an interesting time. I think I joke with Willson once in a while. "My app didn't kill your app, maybe there's no East Ventures."
[00:16:29] Amanda: Yeah.
[00:16:32] Ronald: So we meet each other.
[00:16:34] Amanda: But you mentioned you had investors, but you said there were no VCs back then. So who invested in your very early cover up? Yeah.
[00:16:41] Ronald: It was basically like being...I wouldn't say investors. I would say they were the company that was doing the stock trading app. So they were brokers and they basically invested money into developing an app and then gave me freedom.
[00:16:55] Amanda: Got it. And they were like the sole investor.
[00:16:59] Ronald: Yeah, they were the sole investor.
[00:17:00] Amanda: Yeah. I understand now why they wouldn't be so happy.
[00:17:04] Ronald: Yeah. But it was fun. Definitely an experience.
[00:17:07] Amanda: And what was it called?
[00:17:09] Ronald: It was called Domikado.
[00:17:10] Amanda: And does that mean anything in Indonesia? Does that mean like trade stocks easy? I don't know.
[00:17:16] Ronald: You are right. It was like a childhood game. And I thought the name was quite catchy. And then we found that we can register the .com so we just named the app after that. Not thinking that it would get that far anyway. Yeah, so I thought it was something playful and fun.
[00:17:33] Amanda: They just have a name.
[00:17:34] Ronald: Yeah, have a name. And people can easily remember it because it's a childhood like…. thing.
[00:17:41] Amanda: And how did you decide to wind it down like were there lots of discussions or was it something very difficult to think about? Because you guys got a bit popular, right, for such an early win. And then I think it's hard to let anything go. How do you know when to give up? And then when I find another way to monetize.
[00:18:00] Ronald: So it's really interesting because I look back at that time and what I really tell myself is what did I learn from that? It was basically... It's important to have the right advisors or the right people talk to you about the business that you want to build. And so at that time, the people that I had surrounded me, there was not a lot of tech people that had that perspective of grow it first, monetize it later. Back then, a lot of the business leaders were sort of very conventional business leaders. How much money can you make? How much money does it cost to run? It's very conventional thinking. It's not thinking that moonshot, leapfrog type of thing where you kind of grow the user base and then make it valuable and monetize down the road.
[00:18:44] Ronald: So I remember thinking about that like, "Gosh, it was a good time for me to learn about discernment," trying to figure out who do you really listen to and if you just take everybody's advice at face value, it might not even get it any further. There was a time when they were saying kill all the other features that doesn't have to do with the stock trading app. And then that would have been really the wrong advice. because it would kill what users sort of came for and just having users on the app checking it all the time is already very available in itself. But not a lot of people had that perspective, especially back then.
[00:19:18] Ronald: We decided to wind it down at the end of the day just because the investors or the people that funded it were saying, "Look, it's costing us too much money." And by the way, it's too much money back then with only a few thousand dollars a month.
[00:19:30] Amanda: Yeah.
[00:19:31] Ronald: Yeah. And then for us, we weren't making any money or anything significant money and they were saying it might not be the right target customers and all these different things so let's just quickly get rid of it. It was such a job, I was pretty sad about it, but I figured, "Yeah, I guess if these business people know what they're doing, they've already built this empire, maybe I should listen to them. What do I do in college." So I killed it.
[00:19:54] Amanda: How old were you at the time? Maybe 20, 22?
[00:19:57] Ronald: Yeah, 22, exactly.
[00:20:00] Amanda: So what was it like to actually build a set up in Indonesia back then? I think you touched a bit on that. There were not a lot of people that you could really look up to. Even though it's, I guess, a very different sort of business. It's a very tech business, totally different platform, slowly different way of building. So what are the biggest challenges like building a startup back then in Indonesia? Plus you were so young, I guess you weren't really a savvy business person at the time you're still learning as you were going.
[00:20:24] Ronald: Yeah, again, there's not a lot of resources, really. So I think you would have this idea of like, "Oh, it might work in the US, it's not going to work in this part of the world." And so, we just don't have the resources like we have today. It's like everybody and just go to YouTube and find all these cool stories, there's all these YC (Y Combinator) videos you can watch. It's just so different back then. And it was because of the limitations of having the right people that had to know what to do or give you the right advice. It crumbled pretty quickly and that's why it's so important to get really good advisors surrounding you. And you're building like a startup, you've got to have the right people with the right mindset to sort of help you grow and look at things in different perspectives.
[00:21:09] Amanda: Who are the most helpful people in your journey? Was that sort of different people throughout every stage or throughout every type of business that you had? Or whether people were actually constant throughout the years, throughout the ventures, and throughout the different stages.
[00:21:24] Ronald: So I have to say, not long after Domikado had to shut down that app. There was this guy that influenced Indonesia that wanted to start a VC firm and it was the group of guys from the US, Sovereign's Capital. And it was the guy, Henry Kaestner, that actually where I did the podcast prior with the maker of an entrepreneur. So he was actually the guy that gave me that other perspective about how do you build a company because at that point, he had already built a company, sold it and went IPO in the US and Nasdaq, he had a breadth of experience and then so I had to really have him really tell me what about the first types of hires that I do? What do I have to do here? Who do I listen to?
[00:22:14] Ronald: And a lot of times, it's a lot of getting advice from him along the way, even though it was sort of not too easy to reach out to him. It would be emails or just like when he's in town and probably once every other year. So it wasn't as easy. But then I think it sort of set me on the right path to think about not just building an app for profit, but also purposefully building things, looking at things differently, really.
[00:22:38] Amanda: What are some of the early mistakes that you made? Because I think for me, as I build my own startup, I think that I had similar challenges like how do you pick the right person as your first hire? How do you even think about XYZ things? What are some of the early mistakes that you made?
[00:22:54] Ronald: Oh gosh, I feel like I made so many mistakes. Can't keep track. But then, I think, looking back and I feel like I've been doing startups since 2008, and looking back, I think it's really number one, it's really not taking people for granted. I think there's a lot of people that have crossed paths and there's times that I've been as an early founder that was probably quite emotional in the beginning. I did things like get mad at people really badly and then said things that hurtful. And looking back, I really regret those things.
[00:23:33] Ronald: And I think maintaining a good relationship with the people that work for you, seeing them not as tools, but as co-creators together, building things together and just like everybody's on a journey and just really appreciating their time that they give to you. I think those come back to me as being the most important, the relationships. Because now, when I look back, a lot of the co-workers that I had, they've built successful apps, they've built successful companies as well.
[00:24:02] Ronald: And it's pretty crazy to sort of think like, "Wow, we all started in that small little apartment, all crammed up together, working late nights, trying to build something that works." And I look back, it's really about the people. The first ten hires is so crucial about building the next culture, about building the culture in your company. It's going to determine who you're going to continue to hire next, especially nowadays with the Gen Z millennials, before they want to work at your company, they'll look at who's working there already. They go through LinkedIn, everything.
[00:24:35] Ronald: And I think it's so important exactly why you need to figure out culture first, right? And that's going to really help your company grow. The people you empower, the people that you give trust to, all these different things. But if there was a single, big learning lesson, I think it's not investing enough into people. And I remind myself all the time about that. And so now, I think I'm doing a much, much better job.
[00:25:03] Amanda: I did a bit of research on Hacktiv8, what you're building now, the coding bootcamp, and I think you are investing a lot into people there because while it looks like a coding bootcamp, I saw that you have a lot of work on the personal side. I think you employ a lot of psychologists. I also listened to another podcast where you mentioned that you tried to teach them yoga at some point. Is that one way you feel like you're sort of investing in people? Or is that more of another approach like maybe how you view some people should be learning about coding and how they should balance certain things?
[00:25:35] Ronald: No, I think absolutely in terms of us and Hacktiv8, it's so awesome that we get to play that small part in somebody's life. From them being so vulnerable, from going through that admissions interview, not feeling so confident about their career, to seeing them graduate and then thrive and then be successful at their jobs. I think that's so awesome. And then I keep getting today, like LinkedIn messages from a bunch of different students to thank me about introducing all those key pivotal moments in their learning journey, from engineering, empathy, helping them write a letter to their future self, for example, and then putting it into an envelope and only opening it after several years later.
[00:26:15] Ronald: All these different things really help people, sort of I don't know, it helped put them on a path, I would say, that helped them really grow at the end of the day. How do we deal with adversity? How do we think under pressure? How do you touch your inner critic? All these different concepts I think were very helpful in building a coding boot camp.
[00:26:36] Ronald: In terms of the people that we work together with, I think there's a lot of importance today to really empower people. There's times like when I was a leader in some of my earlier startups, that I was a micromanager, I'd like to try to get every syncing detail correct. Pixel perfect, make sure like the right---
[00:26:56] Amanda: The colors, even the things like that...
[00:26:58] Ronald: Yes. Have to be the curve of some of the squares, things like that. I feel pretty crazy about that. And what ended up happening was that there was a culture of like, “Okay let's build it but then after that, let's have Ronald review it first.” And I became a bottleneck for my own thing that I was trying to build.
[00:27:17] Ronald: So I learned really quickly, we've got to really help other people make a lot of mistakes that they learn. So nowadays, it's really about how can I empower others to really make those decisions so that I don't become a bottleneck? And so, eventually, that's what I learn about scaling an organization. It's really about empowering your leaders so that they can also empower their leaders too. And then after that, the organization will move in ways that, when I look back, "Wow, I can't believe we pulled that off."
[00:27:43] Ronald: And I didn't even initiate that whole thing, but sort of with the culmination of everybody making decisions that are sort of going to the right direction, as long as we can stay like this is the end goal that we're trying to achieve. There's many ways to get there and then allowing people to figure out what's the best way to get there. I think it's just so awesome to see now.
[00:28:04] Amanda: How did you go from being a micromanager to somebody who started empowering his teams? Did that change when you started working as a CTO in another company, or did that just change throughout your entrepreneurial journey as you founded more startups? When did you change your approach and why?
[00:28:23] Ronald: Yeah, it really came down to the mentors and the advisors that I had surrounding me at that point. It's really being brave enough to meet people and just asking that type of question. What worked for you and what didn't work for you, and what advice do you have for me if you could talk to yourself ten years ago type of questions.
[00:28:40] Ronald: And that became really the quickest way to learn from other people's own mistakes as well. And then seeing it from their vantage point, which for me maybe I'm looking from back then, a 20 year old saying, “Okay, that sounds pretty bad, but let's try it.” And then as sort of to see the fruits of doing things differently that way. I think it was just experimenting and realizing. “Okay, this is a better approach. And I think this is a more scalable approach.” And it makes sense if I'm the bottleneck and if I'm out sick for two weeks that nothing gets done. That doesn't sound like a good company or a company that would be investigate.
[00:29:15] Amanda: Yeah, and I think you also mentioned… they could Hacktiv8 vulnerabilities important being with your students at that time and helping them sort of speak to their own inner critic and deal with that. Were those challenges that you had on your own? Because I think there are lots of coding boot camps there all over the world, but not a lot of people have the same approach as you guys with this aspect, the personal and more vulnerable side.
[00:29:39] Ronald: So I've always had this inkling and even like talking so maybe even a step back. So Hacktiv8 itself was actually inspired by another business called Dev Bootcamp. And they were the first coding boot camps to ever start. They invented this whole thing. And as the industry grew, competitors started popping up and then their focus sort of slowly changed. But what was exciting for me is that I was able to go to Dev Bootcamp to learn from the original team. Meaning, I became a student, just experienced the whole thing. And then I had the opportunity to meet with the founders and understand their thinking when they built all this.
[00:30:19] Ronald: And it all started with Dev Bootcamp. The original founders of the coding bootcamp space and seeing how they did it and then their intentions and their seeing their ideas and what they wanted to build. And so a lot of that came from there. They had a big thing about engineering empathy. How do we create people that are smart but also relatable not just like coders that are so hard to difficult to talk with and things like that.
[00:30:49] Ronald: And so they had this whole thing about you have to approach learning with a lot of empathy because what makes great students great are really great teachers that can empathize with the students as they go through the difficult parts of the learning journey. And that just clicked for me. It was like the idea that we're not going to have these, just video based learning courses where people just watch videos and expect them to become job ready workers in the future. It requires a lot of empathy, it requires a lot of peer to peer learning as well, meaning, from their peers as you're going through something really difficult and trying to solve things together and improve projects, that's when the real learning really happened.
[00:31:28] Ronald: And so I took a lot of the values that they had built out from there, over time. Dev Bootcamp was acquired by Kaplan, and I think a lot of the things that made them really great slowly disappeared like the coaching or the counselors they would have on the team, they would be replaced by apps. And so, slowly and slowly, it just started to not to work and eventually, they ended up closing down the business. But then to see it from an outsider's perspective and knowing like, “Okay, this is something awesome and this needs to be something that can happen out here in Indonesia. [It was] Sort of the breeding ground of why all of this started, really.”
[00:32:11] Amanda: I think, you know, a lot of people say entrepreneurship is such a lonely journey. It’s all the more hard in an environment where the market is really early. So Indonesia was very early at the time and you [were] also very young, so what were the unseen challenges for you on the personal side?
[00:32:27] Ronald: Yeah, no. I think there were times where I'd really beat myself up when I didn't get what I wanted in terms of why aren't things working? Why are things always crashing? Did I hire the wrong team? All these things that end up becoming like a downward spiral of just things going wrong. I think what really helped me, a big part of it is my faith. I think the [entrepreneurial] journey really helped me be closer to my faith and how I can now surrender things when things are just so difficult.
[00:33:04] Ronald: But another thing that really helped me was actually journaling. And I think that's probably one of the best overseen things as well. Journaling helped me pour out everything in my head and slow down, and I make sure it's a paper journal. So it forces me to slow down and write things up as frustrated as I would be. Sometimes it would be like 02:00 AM journals, 03:00 AM journals where I couldn't sleep because I'm stressed about something or beating up myself about something else and being able to pour that out and sort of thinking about, "You know what, we'll revisit this in the future or let me just pour it out."
[00:33:42] Ronald: Basically, after I finish writing it, I can sleep. Basically, it helped me take it out of my head and put in a piece of paper and go to sleep. Sometimes I don't read the journal again, but then, even just that piece alone really helped me. And then in my own journey of getting to where my faith comes into play, it's really awesome to sort of go back to journal maybe a few years back and sort of see like, "Oh, you know, when this happened, I really believed that it was meant for something else.” And so it was a good thing that it went that way.
[00:34:11] Ronald: But at that time, I couldn't see it that way because I wanted something so badly. I couldn't see any other possible good outcome if it wasn't that path. But it turns out that certain things are blessings in disguise and we just don't see it. And only after we passed several years down the road look back and like, 'Wow, it was actually a blessing." I sort of see it that way.
[00:34:35] Ronald: But man, there's so many things to be insecure about, Amanda. Here I am, becoming a tech entrepreneur. I have never raised a Series A in my life, 14 years. I mean, sometimes I look at all these younger entrepreneurs like, "Wow, they're so accomplished. They've already raised their Series A, Series B from all these crazy cool investors, how come I'm not there yet?" And then I go to this whole comparison game and oh gosh, it can get so toxic. And that's why it's so important to have really good advisors and people that surround you sort of can tell you to look at things in different perspectives. So yeah, I think that's what I can say about that.
[00:35:12] Amanda: Yeah, I mean, now with all of the investors coming to Southeast Asia as well, I think in the past few years you've had startups that became a unicorn in just like less than five years and they're way, way younger than you. And I think it's really tough, especially being in the market for so long because people also look up to you. Do you feel like when people ask you for advice, does it (them asking you for advice) also open you up to, I guess, times of insecurity as well?
[00:35:35] Ronald: No, absolutely. I think the way I'm able to do things now is help people go through that difficult time of life when they're insecure about the same things I might have gone through before. Like getting the investor that I wanted or basically getting a term sheet pulled or all these different things that sort of put my identity as a CEO that has raised x amount of dollars. And it's not the right perspective, right? It's really all these vanity metrics of, "Why am I not in the Forbes list?" Or something like that. All these different things that actually are things that don't really matter.
[00:36:12] Ronald: And sometimes it adds so much stress to a founder, whereas there are so many with a different perspective, you can see like they're actually doing something really awesome and changing the world in their unique way. But then sometimes, the perspective is just not in the right place so I find myself becoming that. Especially now as an investor as well, I get to work with a lot of founders, helping them align to what should be the things that are important, how do we prioritize the right things, how do we overcome this anxiety and things like that?
[00:36:47] Amanda: How do you measure success now, or what do you say matters to you now? You know, looking back at the business and how the landscape has changed and how that's affected you personally?
[00:36:58] Ronald: Nowadays? I don't know if this is appropriate [for the podcast], but it's going to be a very faith based answer for me because I really now take my faith so seriously. And for me, that success metric is really knowing where God wants me to be and being right there. And for me, that just gives me so much peace.
[00:37:18] Ronald: Over the pandemic, I had learned things like what does surrender look like? Because I really believe that there's a higher power that's over, that's taking care of us, looking out for us, and what does surrender look like? And so when I go through anxiety and sort of be able to surrender those things to a higher power, it just takes away all the burden for me and it helps me get through the day. Or get through that situation. But yeah, for me, success is really knowing where God wants me to be and being right there and doing work in a way that's blessing other people. I find so much satisfaction in what I do now.
[00:37:56] Ronald: It's not really about the profits anymore. It's really about seeing people's lives really get changed through an opportunity that we're able to build up, make it simpler for people to get an education, pay for an education, be successful in their jobs, and just being a small part in all that.
[00:38:10] Amanda: Do you think that your struggles in your entrepreneurial journey brought you closer to your faith or you think you've always been this faithful?
[00:38:18] Ronald: I think the journey of becoming an entrepreneur really helps you become closer to God, because being an entrepreneur, a lot of times, it’s really working with a lot of unknown, not knowing what the future holds, not knowing what your customers will think or what your partners will think. And all these things can just go unknown in unknown ways. And so, faith has sort of helped me surrender all the anxiety and helped me keep going. I think that was probably the most important part for me throughout the journey.
[00:38:49] Amanda: And it's also a very personal journey on your end. Are there ways that you felt like entrepreneurship really changed you as a person? I know there's a lot growing up there, from 22 up until now, but I think they're also sort of pivotal moments where you feel like [you changed], I guess if entrepreneurship changed you and you look back, do you think there are certain aspects about yourself that were influenced by your journey by a great means? Maybe there was a very pivotal moment? Or maybe there was a really tough experience.
[00:39:18] Ronald: You know, a lot of times, like becoming an entrepreneur, you get all these cool articles written about you, and then sometimes you make that as the identity of Ronald the entrepreneur. And I think it was a really hard learning journey for me to unlearn all that.
[00:39:36] Ronald: Today, I look at myself like Ronald, Child of God. And then really, that's it. That's probably the most important thing for me. It's not about the flashy articles and all these wonderful things that the press can write about you, or the public perception, what people have read and think about all these different things.
[00:39:56] Ronald: A lot of times our identity can be at the wrong place. And that really strikes me out a lot. Very much so. I guess I'm not a successful entrepreneur if I'm not this or if I'm not that. And yeah, it just takes it into the wrong place, I think.
[00:40:11] Amanda: I think you're absolutely right. There were times, I think earlier in my journey, so I started back like a little over a year ago. I think around the 6th month, I was starting to get to that point where it wasn't so easy to get a lot of new users. Obviously, when you're just starting, it's easy to get 300% week on week growth. That's really easy.
[00:40:30] Amanda: But there was a time where it was really hard for me and I had to change my approach and how did I get more readers, how do I get more subscribers? And there was this one month where I felt like if the numbers are going down, I was having a terrible day. And if there was this one day where I got five more subscribers than the last day or ten more, it would be like the best day ever. It was constant up and downs based on my growth metric.
[00:40:52] Ronald: Absolutely. And I think I'm sure that kept you up at night thinking, "What can I do better? What can I do now? What can I do at this very moment?" Whereas sometimes the best thing you can do is just go to sleep and deal with it tomorrow.
[00:41:05] Ronald: Absolutely. I think it's a journey. And then I think at the end of day, you'll learn something out of it. You know how that famous saying, ‘"Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted?’’ And then this is definitely an experience for you. And you're going to be talking about those days when I started this startup. And that's what's going to make it so awesome. It's this season where there's so many things we can just learn from just being at where we are at the moment and just taking time to reflect.
[00:41:30] Amanda: Yeah. I think the reason I ask you so many questions, like what was your experience, especially because you were young is because I feel like it's also very tough when you're young. For me, I realized that coming right out of school, I think for you, you came right from college. Being like an entrepreneur sort of forces you to go through this, I guess, point where you have to tell yourself, "Okay, I have to stop letting what everybody else thinks affect me, I have to stop letting the numbers affect me."
[00:41:56] Amanda: When you're coming from a context like school, it's like a place where everybody's opinions matter so much, right? But when you go through that journey of working for a long time before you start your own company, you learn how to not let that public perception, your co-workers' perceptions, other people's perceptions affect you [before the entrepreneurial journey] . And I feel like it's such an underrated part of what you should learn as a young entrepreneur. Because I think now there's such a big hype around how you should start a startup, you should start a business. But I think it's true, it is infinitely harder when you're young as well and would you agree?
[00:42:31] Ronald: Yeah, absolutely. No, I think a lot of times what the world sort of puts out there becoming a startup, it looks so awesome but nobody really talks about the anxiety that goes through becoming a startup. The sleep that you lose about being an entrepreneur, the people that leave your business or just being in positions where you might not be able to have enough money to pay your employees, right? Those are the parts that are not as highlighted as like the glamorous things on getting covered by TechCrunch or invested by all these great VCs and all these different things. I think it's so important that when somebody decides to jump into this journey that they also know that there's a lot of other important things that's worth considering.
[00:43:16] Amanda: Since you run a coding bootcamp, are there any people who graduate from the course who speak and say like, "Hey, maybe I want to start my own startup?" Have you ever had that kind of experience and what kind of conversation did you have?
[00:43:29] Ronald: A lot of time, actually.
[00:43:30] Amanda: Oh, really?
[00:43:31] Ronald: And then these people sort of in a way give their, like “have a look at this business plan…” and think as if I have a crystal ball that tells the future,
[00:43:42] Amanda: Yeah, like I'm going to be successful or I'm not going to be successful based on what my boss says or what Ronald says.
[00:43:48] Ronald: Yeah. And then again, always the question I ask is how comfortable are you with the unknown? Because a lot of people need processes, a lot of people feel good when they’re like, "Oh, I can step by step do it this way." Right? But then a lot of times with entrepreneurship it's like you have to figure it out. You run experiments, you read the numbers, you see if it's working or not, you double down or you pivot.
[00:44:10] Ronald: And a lot of times, that brings so much anxiety to people, and then when they're unable to deal with that anxiety, it makes them unable to move. And then suddenly, it was a lot from the whole thing, right? Or it's just really hard.
[00:44:24] Ronald: But a lot of times students do come, and especially early graduates, they have this wonderful idea. They want to do all these things, and I just tell them, “Go ahead and do it. You'll learn something from it. Even if it succeeds, awesome, great. But if it doesn't succeed, don't beat yourself up, because there's just so many learnings that can come out from all that”. It's probably the most underrated thing that people need to know.
[00:44:51] Amanda: Because I think there are lots of great ideas, right? But it's also really a lot of asking yourself are you ready? I guess, personally, for the entrepreneurial journey, are you ready to face the fact that maybe one day you'll wake up and you realize, "Hey, it's not working." And then maybe you have your own expenses, you have a family to feed, or you have all these other things that are factored into that.
[00:45:13] Ronald: Yeah, absolutely.
[00:45:14] Amanda: Has it been hard for you also to run a business, especially as Indonesia's startup landscape changed and also as your personal life changed? I think you're a father as well, and you have to juggle so many things. A rapid change in your business with the startup landscape, plus COVID, and plus you have your own personal life. How has it been like? I mean, juggling all of that?
[00:45:37] Ronald: I would definitely say, the amount of risk taking that happened changes over time. As an early 20-year old, I didn't really have so many responsibilities of thinking about kids or being, "Okay, I'm going to move to this country for this many months and try to work there." The responsibilities are not as overly big or not going to lock you down. But nowadays, for me, I have two kids now. I do think about like, "Okay, I want to end my meetings earlier so I can spend time with my kids." I make sure I block out my calendar that way. I don't suddenly try to go to every networking event that happens on a weekday and go drinking every day. Those are things that I end up just having to say no to so I can say yes to other things that I find more important. Yeah, I think things like that.
[00:46:26] Amanda: And I guess before we close, there's just one question that I want to ask, and this is something I'll be asking everybody for every One More Scoop Podcast, which is outside of work, what's one thing you want to accomplish with your personal life? And this doesn't have to be something that happens next week or by the end of the year. But what's one thing you do want to accomplish with your personal life?
[00:46:47] Ronald: Gosh, that's a big one. Hold on. Let me see. Looking back, I just think that there's things that I used to think to be so important that are not so important anymore. I used to think that I want to become a gazillionaire or raise tons of money, but then, I just realized that I just want to be in a happy place where I can make sure that my kids grow up in a happy environment. And just honestly, I just want to be in a place where I can have a lot of peace, really.
[00:47:21] Ronald: I think I know it's probably not the answer that most people are thinking about, but I think having just so much peace is just such an underrated thing. I want to be able to sleep well at night. I want to be able to know that I'm doing the right things that's making a difference. And for me, it really comes down to that. And just really enjoying where I am at this moment in the season and just taking a day at a time. I don't have one super big thing I want to accomplish anymore. I feel like I'm just really enjoying going through every season a day at a time.
[00:47:54] Amanda: So I think going back to your previous response you don't want to go to sleep and then realize you can't fall asleep and you have to journal because you're thinking of so many things and you don't want to worry about, "Oh, am I running out of runaway? Are the people I work with happy with me? Or am I doing the right thing? Or the students not happy with the course?" Is that what you mean? Not having those kinds of thoughts anymore?
[00:48:15] Ronald: Well, I'm sure those types of thoughts will always come by. But I think I don't want to be in a position where I can't send my kids to school because I sort of through all of my personal runway or I don't want to be in a position where I have to do something that will put me in a place where I don't want to be, basically. It's taking more calculated risks nowadays and really just optimizing for that peace part.
[00:48:42] Amanda: And I guess because of that, is there any regret on your end? For example, is there something that you wanted to change? And actually, no. Let me take out that question. Just thinking of how do we close this properly.
[00:48:58] Ronald: No, actually one thing that really that puts me in a state where I'm overthinking is I go through this season of going, “What if this… what if that. I should have done this, I should have done that,” and sort of thinking what are all the alternative paths that I've gone through? If I made that decision back then.
[00:49:17] Ronald: But the thing is, there's nothing I can do about it. Meaning maybe those seasons at the time, it's already changed, the opportunities might be different now. And so, if we think about the path too much where it ends up coming like a lot of regrets, it's hard to move forward sometimes. But I'm sure that there's always lessons that we can always think about, "Okay, maybe I should have done this better next time," and that's productive. But then when it comes time to like, "Oh, I should have taken this money from this investor," even though it was like this and that, it's not really going to help us get too far, I think.
[00:49:53] Amanda: Yeah. So not having those negative what if’s is what peace looks like to you.
[00:49:57] Ronald: Yeah, I think so.
[00:49:58] Amanda: Well, thank you so much for your time, Ronald. I actually liked this conversation.
[00:50:03] Ronald: Thank you so much Amanda, This is fun. Yeah.
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