No overnight success

Past the first anniversary of this little venture I have invested my whole life into, Sarjana.co.id, I am scared to death. Scared that it stays little, or that keeping it running would be like feeding a person in a comma with a tube. Sometimes it feels like I am doing everything that I can, but it is still not enough. Some nights, after a full day of "conventional" work, I would stay up re-assessing all the strategies I have implemented and then working on the one that I felt most effective on that night. Waking up the next morning, I knew I had overdone it. 

So all this hard work, that I know will pay off, is really about my too high of expectation for market buy-in. I always thought of Sarjana as a trailblazer that would go out to meet clients where they are and offer services at a very, VERY affordable rates to help them advance in achieving their mission. But of course, my being away from the market for years, with a touch of idealism, has not helped me. Sarjana's good intentions are met with skepticism. 

When I drew a sketch of the business model, I was meeting a huge gap in the market and many unmet needs. These needs as it turns out are not something that the market players realize, and therefore, it has taken us much, much investment in educating the market that the needs exist and that investing in meeting these unrealized needs is crucial not only for themselves, but the future of the market. There are also many reasons why the market gap has persisted for so long; one of them is that it is the education sector, the one sector is that probably the most resistant to change. This sector, in my experience, has always looked back at what has been done and presumably worked.  So buy-in is no child's play!

I found this new journal called Build, 'The Catalog of Ideas', and it's a new fascinating, honest, sharp resource for me. Reality check:

"To achieve even a mere 2 percent market penetration, it typically takes more than five years. .... In Japan, the mean time to takeoff is 5.4 years. In the United States, it's 6.2 years. In China, it's 13.9 years. ..."

Now these figures are for consumer goods. But who am I trying to defy gravity and expect Sarjana to come out on top just in the beginning of year 2?

So the lessons of this reflection are patience (which really means bootstrapping longer) and that "entrepreneurship is not for sissies!". 

Was I ready for this when I started? No way! But this "jadedness" is the fuel for year 2, hopefully through to year 3, during which there will be no overnight success.  

Obama’s College Aid Plan: Trailblazer or Disaster?, Part 1

Obama’s college aid plan has been stalking me for the past week. I don’t know yet whether I feel optimistic about it, though I won’t be affected personally. But behind it there is a great intention, in my opinion. Obama is trying to fix college education from the supply side, that is becoming more and more unaffordable, yet more and more important at the same time. I always said it’s the ticket to taking a few steps up the socioeconomic ladder.

Experiencing U.S. colleges is what brought me to start Sarjana.co.id, as I wanted to go outside of the box and get the best value of education with what I have. Sarjana.co.id is a reflection of both what I wish I had (guidance and critical information for selecting colleges) and what was available for me only because I was looking in the United States where information is abundant. But I realized feeding information to high school dreamers is one thing; talking to them about how they are going to pay for college is another. I also think that passing out information about scholarships is no way near enough, noting that college scholarships are scarce in Indonesia.

There has been a crisis in the UK in the last year in college enrolment. Though poor students benefit from significantly lower tuition fees or full exemption, enrolment this year dropped by 40 percent after tuition fee cap was raised from a little over £3,000 in 2010/11 to £9,000 in 2012/2013.[1][2]

Now, tuition fees at the two colleges where I have been to truly have shown the fact that they work against students. The University of Texas system, in 2013, is budgeted to spend around 21.8% on faculty members, as opposed to only 3% on scholarships and fellowships. American University in DC consistently increases their faculty and staff salaries by 7%, 9%, and 4% per year between 2011 and 2014; with insignificant increases for adjunct faculty and part-time staff. Though increases in financial aid exceed these figures, it is obvious that the increases in financial aid are to cover faculty salary increases that are passed on to students. Plus, in AU’s case, faculty salaries only (excluding adjunct faculty) constitute over 30% of the annual expenditure budget.

Of course, one can say that an organization’s greatest asset is people. But when the increase in their salary is way over the inflation rate and then it is passed on to the students, only universities can get away with that. Tuition hikes are accepted by students and parents because education is perceived as private and public good, which has been easily ‘commoditized’ with the ever increasing demand for it as the majority of the world are moving up into the middle and upper class.

So Obama’s plan is trying to tackle this by holding accountable the suppliers of higher education which have thrived, thanks to financial aid, the involvement of wealthy individuals, foundations and corporations. Higher education is an important building block to bridging the widening social divide in the United States, especially with the peril of primary and secondary education, and elsewhere.

But of course with partisan politics and the objection from the defendants in question, there are criticisms:

1.      Fed just administers aid, hence should not regulate it.[3]

Politicians have lashed out and accuse the plan as unconstitutional. There are also worries around how inexperience will lead to failures.

My comment is simple. Why can’t the administrator of a massive fund like federal aid regulate the distribution?

2.      Hindering universities’ growth and innovation

“This is a slippery slope, and one that ends with the private sector inevitably giving up more of its freedom to innovate and take risks,” said Marco Rubio.[4]

This is, to me, just another elitist comment similar to criticism that higher taxes will hinder growth and innovation in the private sector. Universities will not stop receiving gifts from alumni and generous individuals or corporations who need research capacity. Obama’s plan does not imply the reduction of financial aid overall; it is just redistribution. If a college’s net tuition is not suppressed, that is, the annual increase of a given year is high, a portion of its previous financial aid will go to others. It sounds very sensible to me, because the high increase should finance what the increases in their spending (except of course colleges want increasing net return). And to my knowledge, the academic world is the most risk-averse sector: the most resistant to change.

3.      College ranking will widen gap

I see the devil in the details of ranking universities. The plan so far is very result-oriented.

With graduation rate one of the main factors in the soon-to-be-invented college ranking system as grounds for aid distribution, universities are expected to take less poor students, because their academic capabilities would risk their graduation rate. “Students at top-performing colleges could receive larger federal grants and more affordable student loans.”[5]

This is food for thought for Part 2.

But so far, I do not buy the political criticisms against this plan. It’s attacking the root of the problem: ever-rising tuition fees. Everyday I see user after user signing up on Sarjana.co.id, and I cannot help but imagine where each of them falls into, whether the small box of those who can afford college (less than 25 percent) or the big box of those who will be excluded by tuition fees.

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[1] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2265027/Rise-tuition-fees-leads-40-drop-university-admissions.html

[2] http://www.theguardian.com/education/2011/may/17/university-guide-2010-tuition-fees

[3] http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/16395-obama-targets-colleges-for-more-federal-control

[4] http://www.nyacknewsandviews.com/2013/08/mcea_obamacollegecosts/

[5] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323665504579028911262193186.html

Motive, in the Eye of the Beholder

This past Wednesday two British girls were attacked with acid in Zanzibar, when they were on their way home from a nursery where they had been working as volunteers. Altruism of these two 18-year-old girls were somehow a threat to a certain group inspired by Sheikh Issa Ponda who recently got arrested by the local police. 'Good intentions' are not enough. Something I had to learn from two years spent at the School of International Service at American University with other do-gooders with global, ambitious goals.

We live in such a complex, political world that involves countless evolving perspectives, including judgments that can be forceful and oppressive. Intention can only be truly valid for the person possessing it, and otherwise, it is fully subject to other perspectives that may validate or invalidate it.

Your entry as a altruistic volunteers, non-profit organization, CSR program or a social enterprise into a community is like meeting with the 'future' in-laws for the first time. As in-laws question the potential new member of the family during a dinner and try to influence their son/daughter, a community meets with you and decides whether you are a blessing or a threat, regardless of your bringing in 'goodness'. The community, like the in-laws, will perceive you based on what is familiar to them--their previous experiences and personal worldviews.

Sarjana.co.id enters the community in Indonesia as a breakthrough internet technology that collects admissions information from universities locally and makes it available to Indonesian youth for free. Plain, simple and no harm done, I thought. Surely, I was proven wrong. When soliciting for data, some universities found us untrustworthy (possibly misusing their data) and forcing undesirable transparency (allowing users to compare one university with others). Some others welcome us with open hands and understand that we offer some service (sincerely) for free. And the rest lost our 'invitation' in their own bureaucracy.

Then, we go to those who benefit from our services but not from our mission directly, and they are potential advertisers. We have very few people, out of almost a hundred that we have contacted, who took a leap of faith in us and sponsored our media. Very few, also, took the effort to praise our mission; the rest just saw us as a regular business.

Explaining a social mission and the impact, in an environment where trust is lacking and motive is always questioned, is often obsolete. "What's in it for you?" and "what's in it for me?" are the questions asked silently. Many say that do-gooders have to always be ready for abundant uncertainties, and I say,  they should not let the blaze of passion rip through the passage into the community but be let the community be participating audience of your work. If some community members refuse to participate, excuse yourself and move on to talk to others, without proactively burning bridges.

Because if we do good for ourselves, it often becomes obvious, like 'parenting' the beneficiaries by forcing ideas on the basis of good intentions or not listening to them to identify the real needs, yet coming up with the silver bullet to social problems.

If our work draws resistance or even violence, like girls in Afghanistan who get harassed for insisting to go to school (inspired by international NGOs), we need to stand back and weigh the collateral damage. Our motive should only go so far, not beyond the will of the beneficiaries. Our good intentions are only as good as perceived by the eye of the beholder.    

Humanize Social Media Marketing!

What the media prefers flashes of things than to go deep. Flash news, flashes of singing and dancing in music videos, and of course 'flash' ads. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, too, offer flashes.

Gaming, that I recently picked up, can be a frustrating experience. Gaming apps that get funded by ads increasingly become annoying when images of products or other games (that I have no interest in) pop up at random moments.

This is also true for online shopping. Being a frugal 26-year-old, I thrive on daily newsletters sent by online merchants selling discount 'anything'. Every day between 10 and 11AM, I get 'flashes' of clothing, furniture, or pet supplies, which a few months ago I finally started to get rid of religiously without unsubscribing, thinking that I will eventually need them again. And when I do, my shopping experience is based on what I see, things that often look better in edited pictures; it's more like taking a leap of faith for spending and saving at the same time (what a paradox!) rather than shopping with confidence. Sometimes browsing these 'flashes' would get so overwhelming that my 'appetite' would fade. No purchase, maybe next time.

Overwhelmed? Yes. Can deal with it again? Sure. Will I pass on the message to others? Most likely not. Is it the only way of marketing? I hope not!

Continuum wrote an article about how “With Technology, Shopping is More Stressful Than Ever.”[1] Retailers are constantly badgering us with 'flashes', discounts, and alerts. The more we are connected on the communications industry, the more doors they can knock.

So reading just the beginning part of Content to Commerce by Avi Savar, I realize I have believed in badgering consumers with information when I create strategies for social media marketing. 4-5 posts a day on both Twitter and Facebook, with eye-catching or funny images. Will this change in the short run? Likely not!

But two things that I want to slowly learn and implement around social media strategies are:
1.Publish content with ’substance’ in the least intrusive way as possible

‘Substance’, in the case of Sarjana.co.id, would be things that empower users to dream about college and use the features on Sarjana’s website. It would also be brief explanation about a social media post or about why users should use the features we offer.

‘Least intrusive’ is a tricky one. The conventional wisdom is that the more we flash our brand to consumers, the more they will remember. But the risk is the more annoyed they get and the more meaningless the ‘flashes’ become. I think product placement has been effectively used in movies or TV shows, where products become part of a story line. A hairdresser once chatted me up about how ads should be made in the form of skits like those of SNL to engage the attention of consumers with increasing level of attention deficit. 

2. Brand advocacy with incentives

How does a good word about a product gets passed on? Content to Commerce talks about brand advocates who are more than willing to promote a brand without any compensation. I would love to experiment on structures that can convert Facebook fans and Twitter followers to be advocates. But in my experience, advocacy does not come consistently (or not at all) without rewards. Does good product quality justify the effort of rating? Not always (at least I don't bother rating apps mostly, unless someone who works on it that I know asks me to).  What if product rating comes with rewards like discounts, prizes or even money? Remember 'multi-level marketing'? What if the reward is multiplied charitable donation or a recognition (not just as a loyal consumer, but as marketer)?

My intention to post this is to challenge myself humanize some consumers like myself who refuse to be treated like spending robots or mindless, impulsive clickers. Of course, there will always be those who respond to ‘flashes’, but retention, I believe, costs more than ‘flashes’.


[1] Brian Gillespie. “Retail Therapy? Not Anymore… With Technology, Shopping is More Stressful Than Ever.” http://bit.ly/1cHZyNi

Ambiguity and Patience

Ambiguity is factual. Patience is a skill.

And practice truly makes a skill perfect.

Sarjana.co.id is an example of an initiative initiated in an environment saturated with ambiguities. In this context, ambiguites take several forms: unreliability, indirectness, confusion, inconsistency, etc. It would be very easy for me to link them with the local culture and pass on the blame, especially when the culture is my own. Being away from this culture for so long has helped me see them more clearly, for better or worse.

For better, I have been so committed to giving back to the land where I was born. Carved in my adolescent mind: nationalism, rebellion, idealism. My life experience keeps me grounded. The most memorable moments I went through as a young adventurous lad which shaped me were being away from home to get educated. The privileges I had, I think, are worth sharing with others. What was missing in those moments, I wish I had, is what I am building to give back. Justifiable, I think.

For worse, I often forget that idealism will be broken again and again. This idealistic initiative with a glamorous title attached to it, 'Sarjana', does not seem to thrive as well as I thought. Not forgetting that it's trying to change a whole industry and stubborn mindsets, it is lacking a firm support system.

Sarjana.co.id faces potential clients that do not return your calls or respond to your email, vendors that do not communicate when they deliver their work, potential hires that don't show up to interviews. Potential partners get confused with our vision and activities, and they are skeptical about our motive. Bookkeeping can never be 100% honest. What we can hold on to, for most of the time, is positive feedback from users, most of whom are not very generous. So it does take a lot of patience for progress (I don't dare to use the word 'success'). 

The reason why I write this post is frustration at myself for not anticipating ambiguities. I do and should feel that these ambiguities are familiar. I am flaky at times, but have had the privilege being trained not to be. Business and leadership books are best sellers when they talk about it. So patience is what I am depending on.

While the song 'Blurred Lines' are at the top of the charts, I need to find ways to take advantage of the 'pleasurable' ambiguities: bargain more, be a visionary that projects certainties, train your management skills, be polite but clever. But I can only hope that the amount of patience required will be ... tolerable.       

'Strategic execution'

A buzzword that scares me. I fear it because I take a million stabs at it unknowingly; all the while, I accuse it for being a jargon that gives people six-figure salaries.

Taking a class on strategic execution at Georgetown University, I thought, was going to be about spending a sum of 19.5 hours in a nice glass building. Yet I was surprised by how speaking in generalities, my way of classifying the teaching of soft skills, still helps my mind wander about what I have done and what I can do with mu ventures.

One night, toward the end of class when my brain can pay no more tribute to knowledge, I came up with the idea to encourage the youngest staff member at Sarjana.co.id, after hammering into my head a concept 'People are assets of the highest value.' She has been facing what others would consider a failure, and yet still has fire for her work interacting with Indonesian youth through social media. How dumb was I to forget giving her praises for successfully executing my social media "strategy"? Well, pretty dumb, as I concluded that night.

People are just people. Without values, we are mammals seeking survival. And Sarjana.co.id is a real battle ground for me to test my values and train my ability to project and transfer these values through my collaboration with my passionate colleagues. For example, we are dedicated to persistence and endurance. With the amount of silent rejection that we have to face everyday, we find consolation in the integrity of our team. We joke around about old cheesy songs or our own frustration. It is easy to blame our surroundings, and though easier said than done, it is our responsibility to maintain our values intact: resilience, along with honesty, patience, and trust.

Though money is always the issue, it is often not. Incentives come in many forms. Project clear incentives for the success (and failures) in carrying out such complex tasks defined in the description of each job (and some more, for lean start-ups). 'Clear' means involving commitment, paid when owed, and open  for discussion. Sarjana.co.id has been committed not to withhold financial compensation in exchange for performance, not stingy about encouragement and gratitude. Incentives move people; personal and collective incentives, that is. Emphasis only on personal incentives will create unhealthy internal competition. Emphasis only on the collective would not allow for individual recognitions or merit-based promotion. And we seek to strike a balance.

Two more class sessions to go. So I thought I've learned enough, we shall see.

Data for Self-Scrutiny and Critical Thinking

This past weekend was evidence that I am "always working", a direct quote from my roommate. 

I am simply glad I got through Datakind DC Datadive #data4good experience, feeling very uncomfortable being surrounded by 'real' data analysts and programmers. I told a few people how rusty my quantitative and programming skills were, even after Jake Porway tried to collectively convince us that someone like me was still welcome. I was lucky not to encounter intimidation, first meeting a science journalist from the Huffington Post who traveled from New York to satisfy his hunger for data immersion. He has a degree in history and taught himself programming. Though people tend to group with their own peeps in this event, there were many strangers who made connections and accomplished a few projects with impressive findings. Who knew Evgeny and I ended up looking at (and web scraping) changes in rice prices in Indonesia over time through a retailer's website? I then said confidently in writing:

- Between Aug 2010 and today, prices of rice at the retail store increased more drastically than world prices. 

- Today, consumers pay almost four times the price of world's rice commodity price at the retail store (middle-class grocery store). Curious case!

- We found some news articles as early as December 2012 where the president of Indonesia ordered BULOG (the National Logistical Supply Organization) to stabilize the price of rice, along with soybeans and sugar. This confirmed that our findings are a national concern in Indonesia at the moment.   

Small victories, indeed! Putting myself in discomfort that would typically threaten my confidence and finding myself satisfied with another opportunity to connect the dots (my buried love for numbers and chart with analyzing 'big data' to help ourselves better understand complexities).

Of course, I cannot help but link it to my venture, Sarjana.co.id. Questions started popping up in my mind: Does one meta-site really change students' decisions in pursuing higher education?
Do students really invest in "scraping" for information which determines their future?
How many more times will they visit Sarjana.co.id after our first visit at their schools?
What does increasing Twitter followers and Facebook fans mean?
Would universities see any value in working with Sarjana.co.id, based on the answers to the above?

These questions were the same 'kind' of questions people at the Datadive were asking themselves at the World Bank that weekend. It was self-scrutiny. The World Bank provided data and allowed data divers analyze, for example, overhead costs in the monstrous multilateral structure and their relation to projects' budgets.  

Scrutiny is seen as putting people down, but if you watch Shark Tank, scrutiny is reality and it does build you up (depending on how you see it). For starters and movers out there, self-scrutiny is taking scrutiny to the next level, where we question our motives and steps, not because we lose ourselves, tangled in problems or complexities, but because we strive for something. Striving for addressing problems at a societal level, instead of imposing solutions that we think are appropriate. We have to many of those who impose things like laws and educational curriculum that don't ultimately affect them. 

Self-scrutiny is definitely a path to critical thinking. Education is a sector full of 'pretty, cheery' things, where all good things added up seem to be good -- scholarships, online education, foreign professors, international curriculum. Sarjana.co.id is really taking a position in the midst of an education system that is nearly 'obsolete' (thanks to Sugata Mitra's definition of education's obsolescence, http://www.ted.com/pages/sole_challenge). If Sarjana.co.id does not take the unpopular path of critical thinking, it's going to be cheering for the wrong team: the reluctant, yet defensive bunch in the hijacked system.

So how should Sarjana.co.id hack the system?  

If goodwill is an asset, humility should be, too

"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." What a punch in the gut by Einstein.

This is revealed to me by Stacey Edgar, the mind and heart behind Global Girlfriend, one of the largest U.S.-based fair trade importers of apparel and handicrafts. The chapter that begins with this quote is titled "Believe." This core of this chapter is the story of Global Girlfriend's entry to Whole Foods.

I spoke to Stacey by phone for an interview when I was writing a study on U.S. jewelry market, and hers was one of the most comforting and humble (thus inspiring) voices that I've ever listened to.

Nancy, who now comforts me through crises and uncertainties, tirelessly reminds me that my modesty combined with other qualities that she claims I have will get me far in life. Truth be told, this is tough for me to hear. Humility is one quality that you cannot claim you have; once you do, it fades a little.

Kate and I talked about humility over wine, and about how entrepreneurs, along with hubris, struggle with humility when they expose their ideas to others. We think that trust is a key supporter to this particular process. When an entrepreneur takes the stage to share her idea to a panel of investors or a group of colleagues, humility is tested. When she does it to get feedback, she needs to trust that the audience have her best interest, regardless whether or not the assumption is valid; otherwise, feedback meets defensive comments. With my inexperience, I am not sure if speaking to a panel of investors is simply and solely about defending your idea. Is there room for vulnerability? Should one think that there may be an investor (or two) who sees character over ideas or prospects?

Perhaps it takes humility to believe in miracles, in job creation or youth empowerment. If one was to monetize humility in my venture, I wish to put it as the most valuable asset on my venture's balance sheet. This gets me to think about the humility of my team, who practically are my co-founders. Logically, companies should grow their assets and generate returns with them. How I should live my life should be how my venture should grow. Because I believe, 'will' replaces 'should'.

Back in writing business

Committing to writing about start-ups is as easy as committing to having children. It will pan out, and make sense much later, but it takes a while to convince myself. I guess if everything fails, I can make a living out of talking about my failures: speaking engagements and book deals.

Since summer 2012, there was one trip to Indonesia, hiring of two employees and solidifying the direction for  Sarjana.co.id. [I realize I haven't been clear about my venture(s) previously on this blog, but I will rely on your research skills.] Sarjana.co.id has indeed built credibility and awareness in East Java, among students, high schools, and universities. We've joined hands with large universities in their events (competitions and admission testing).

Looking back, the crew of Sarjana.co.id survived so many uncertainties.

Hiring was not easy! As a start-up we've been lucky to have hired a few who really believe in the vision and prospects of Sarjana.co.id. We had quite many no-shows, people who turned down offers or bailed in the last minute before their first day of work. Job creation seems like Cinderella's dream; it happens smoothly only with miracles. Thanks to public figures who convinced me to believe in it.

I learned how to sell the vision of the venture like selling to a potential client or investor. Hires do take risks when joining a start-up like mine, with big altruistic dreams, and they spend their time and energy not knowing how their work will be perceived by our target market or other employers in the future. Now that I have a few retained, I need to be religiously reading about human resource and talent management, on top of ... (no, I shouldn't go there).

The direction that Sarjana.co.id is now taking, after quite the uncertain times, is a collective challenge for the team. It's finally grounded, where we have subtracted from the multitude of ideas that I have had to a few. We specialize in serving member universities and using the network we are building to provide marketing-related services. Focus is scary, because it may be make-it-or-break-it, but that's what is prescribed for many, many good reasons. I have yet shared the whole picture with the crew, which is probably not a good practice, but what's on our plates now is enough to keep all of us occupied.

The big question that I should try hard to answer is, what do I want to get out of investing in blogging?

Everybody is now talking about 'big data'. Well, the words on my blog posts will be 'big data' somebody. One can analyze how I loved and dreaded different parts of growing my ventures.

My mind wanders, my mood affects decision making, and my ambition doesn't help me focus. So I can probably and hopefully keep myself in check by writing about the paths that I take, which at this point affect Sarjana.co.id users' perception and the jobs  that have been created out of my ideas.