Gojek, Tokopedia, Traveloka and Bukalapak – these 4 startup unicorns1 from Indonesia are a testament to the burgeoning and dynamic startup ecosystem in Indonesia. Last September, 18 SUSS students took up the challenge to understand Jakarta and attempt to solve some of the pain points found in the city.
Working closely with their counterparts from National High School and University of Indonesia, the students broke through the language barrier and navigate through heavy traffic to conduct interviews with the locals and gather feedback on their ideas. Besides learning some frameworks and tools, the students also got to hear first-hand from some of the local entrepreneurs on their startup journey.
Chua Zong Rong Desmond, Bachelor of Science in Marketing, shared: “I enjoyed the fact that we were pushed to our limits and not fed answers. This helps us to learn by experience.”
At the end of six days, iNi miNi, whose mission is to offer beauty regime in one go-to convenient pack to reduce environmental pollution caused by plastic packaging, emerged as winners.
The team identified several pain points of users of skin care products, including lack of awareness in storage, uncertainty over quantity to apply and inability to track and remember the expiry dates. It was not an easy journey for the team, who pivoted their idea a number of times before arriving at their winning idea. Having received validation, they pitched the idea of a packaging service for skincare users to bundle their beauty regime which won over the hearts of the judges.
Do you have a new idea that you wish to validate? Share your interest by joining our Impact Startup Challenges here.
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1 A startup company with a valuation of US$1 billion or more