BLOCK71 x Talkabot.id

Interview with Distra Vantari, CEO and Founder 

In this particular series of the Founder’s Story, BLOCK71 Bandung had an interesting chat with Distra Vantari, the CEO and founder of Talkabot.id. Talkabot.id, as the name suggests, is a chatbot platform that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to engage with clients. Besides its ability to serve thousands of clients at once, the Talkabot.id chat platform allows for human take-over features and contains a customizable inventory management system. This aspect of the chat platform is revolutionary as it allows users to design their own way of communication with their clients. 

Distra’s inspiration to create Talkabot.id stems from his personal experience with his friends who often create their own brands and promote their products on social media like Facebook and Instagram. He realized that while people can successfully promote goods online using e-commerce, it is challenging for them to engage effectively with their clients as their brands grow. Often, these expanding brands find themselves in situations where they are unable to cope with an overwhelming influx of queries from their clients. This perennial problem then sparked the idea for Distra to combine AI and the chatbot platform to create Talkabot.id.

Like many other businesses, the founder and CEO of Talkabot.id have concrete plans for further expansion. When asked about the goals for Talkabot.id, Distra replied confidently ‘by the end of this year, I want to be able to reach about 500 brands’. Beyond his business goals, one of Distra’s personal goals is also to transform the skeptical mindsets of Indonesian brands towards technology. At present, many Indonesian brands are reluctant to incorporate technology as part of their operations as there is a misconception that it would be a hindrance to their businesses. Distra hopes that with his chatbot system, brands will start to understand that technology can benefit their operations immensely.

Despite Talkabot.id’s stable progress now, the journey has not always been smooth for Distra and the Talkabot.id team. When asked about his journey of creating Talkabot.id, Distra described the journey as ‘fun and hard at the same time’. In fact, the hardest part of Distra’s journey happened just last year in December when the company incurred a debt of over IDR 200 million. The company almost stopped all operations. Despite almost giving up and going back to an office job, Distra persevered and found a way to bounce back into the business. His strategy lies in proper job designation and selecting the right people for the job. While the Talkabot.id founder focused his energy on fundraising, he entrusted the operations and sales component to the rest of his team. The company also restructures fast to avoid making mistakes. Today, Talkabot.id has continuously received funding twice in a row from Kemenristekdikti, an accomplishment that not many start-ups can claim. 

Distra takes his motivation in his entrepreneurial journey from the most game-changing businesses in Indonesia, including Go-Jek, Bukalapak, and Tokopedia. He hopes that with Talkabot.id, he can make a similar impact on the Indonesian landscape like his predecessors. His desire to create a product that can make a positive impact on society was also one of the reasons why Distra persevered through the company’s lowest phase. 

Finally, Distra leaves budding entrepreneurs with 2 main advice to avoid pitfalls:

1. Always think of the ‘why’ when you create your product

2. Don’t make assumptions without validating it!

Cliche as it sounds, but when creating a product, it is important to constantly remind yourself why you started out in the first place, instead of focusing on the profits. It’s ok to make assumptions too, but market validation is crucial to test the amount of truth in those assumptions. 

Find Talkabot.id on Instagram: @talkabot.id

BLOCK71 x Mycotech

Interview with Adi Reza, CEO and Co-founder

BLOCK71 Bandung brings back our second feature of the Founder’s Story! In this story, we follow Adi Reza, CEO and Co-founder of Mycotech as he brings us along his journey of creating a more sustainable vision of the world by harnessing mushrooms. Mycotech started out in 2012 when the team discovered the potential of mushrooms in creating eco-friendly materials in a humble kitchen. Since then, Mycotech’s access to production labs has expanded across the globe. 

The motivation to establish Mycotech comes from Adi and the Mycotech’s team love for the environment, as well as concern over the sustainability of producing leather. Cow-based leather production is unsustainable in terms of production and procession as the chemical treatment can heavily pollute water bodies if not done properly. In addition, Adi added that rearing cows make up the third largest contributor of global emissions. This calls for a new solution for leather replacement that is not only sustainable, but also affordable. And this is exactly what Mycotech is about - creating bio-based materials that can positively impact the environment. 

Besides the environmental aspect, Mycotech has also been making social change by empowering mushroom farmers. The CEO and founder of Mycotech highlights that there are as much as 43,000 mushroom farmers across Indonesia. By partnering up with these farmers to obtain their initial materials, Mycotech not only provides them with additional income, the company itself also saves on investment cost. 

The journey of Mycotech has been an extremely interesting one. It is also an unexpected story of discovery and learning. Mycotech started out as a food gourmet company that sells mushrooms as snacks. However, with the discovery of mycelium technology, the co-founders decided to save the profits from the gourmet business and invest them into research. A year of testing in Adi’s mom’s pantry did not work out as smoothly as they had planned. However, like many successful entrepreneurs, Adi and team learnt from their mistakes fast. Access to international labs, as well as joint research projects helped greatly in expediting the technology improvement process. 

When asked about his biggest inspiration, Adi pointed to his wife as the biggest influence in his care for sustainability. Her eco-consciousness encouraged Adi and the Mycotech team to solve environmental problems using technology. Seeing his clients share the same vision of wanting to make a positive environmental impact is also a huge source of motivation for him. 

Now, Mycotech’s technology is spreading quickly across the region. Just recently, Mycotech exhibited at the SG Innovfest Unbound 2019, where more than 100+ startups, brands, entrepreneurs, investors and corporates met for an exchange of ideas. As Mycotech propels onto the global platform, BLOCK71 is excited to follow their journey ahead. 

Find Mycotech on Instagram at: @mycotech

Website: https://www.mycote.ch/

BLOCK71 Bandung launches it very first Startup Showcase! University students from all around Bandung were invited to attend this event. The Bandung Startup Showcase aims to introduce undergraduates to the startup ecosystem and inspire students to pursue their startup dreams. Featuring BLOCK71’s signature event, the Kopichat, founders and CEOs from 4 startups shared useful and interesting insights about their experiences. Approximately 40 students attended the event and got the chance to network with the startup founders. 

In this series, Mr Alvin Junianto Lan from EcoMatcher, Mr Distra Vantari from Talkabot, Mr Gerryadi Agusta from KAABA, and Mr Hendra Araji from Everidea shared their entrepreneurial journey in an honest conversation. Ranging from the sustainability to virtual reality, the attendees got the chance to delve deeper into the challenges and joys of working in a startup across different industries. As the event came to a close, enthusiastic students lingered behind to networking with the 4 startup founders.

We hope that this has been a fruitful and inspiring session for everyone!

As a startup founder, have you ever struggled with understanding and creating legal documents for your company? Have you ever experienced confusion over the required legal documents to be fulfilled and what the functions are? Have you got involved in a legal dispute between partners or co-founders and did not know how to solve the issue?

Those things can possibly happen if you are lacking legal skills and do not adhere to the required legal documents for your business. It has been a common perception that legal skills and documents are challenging to comprehend. However, it is very crucial for a startup to have at least a basic and essential knowledge of binding law and regulations before problems arise.

To overcome this perception and to provide legal skill development for you all, IF Academy x Legalku will hold a series of six comprehensive workshops about Legal Essentials for Startup. So what are you going to learn in this series?

1. Understanding Legal Documents in A Flash 

   Tuesday, June 9th 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

Did you know that 30% of the tasks that need to be fulfilled in the early stage of our startup involves legal documents such as legal agreements, minutes of meeting, letters, pitch deck with non-disclosure agreements, and related company deeds? 

Legal document administration and comprehension skills are very crucial in all kinds of businesses. The lack of understanding in essential functions of legal documents will cost us a lot of time and increase financial risks once the business is established and running. However, it is a common perspective that comprehending and creating legal documents is very challenging to learn, which led the founders to ignore or procrastinate those skills until it is way too late.

In order to help you to easier learn your legal skills and handle documents, Innovation Factory and Legalku will deliver “Understanding Legal Documents in A Flash '' to facilitate you all, no matter what kind of background you have, to understand and make legal documents faster but also effective and thorough. 

In this class, you will learn about:

• Identifying legal documents based on the business needs
• Understanding the main clause and the general clause in an agreement
• Analyzing risk fast in an agreement
• Taking a faster decision on whether a document can be signed or not

After this class, you will be able to do:

• Legal Document Identification
• Fast Review of Legal Document
• Legal Clause Screening
• Risk Clustering for Management

2. The Correct Way to Make Founders Agreement 

Thursday, June 11th 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

Have you ever heard about the case between Facebook founder, Mark Zuckerberg and Winklevoss? This conflict over idea and code ownership of UConnect is a classic example of why it is crucial to create a founders’ agreement in startups. Also, did you know that 70% of businesses experience disputes or split in between its founders? This can affect negatively on the business. Founders’ are the voice of reason in a startup and disputes among them will likely end up in conflict over brand, products, employee, or business ownership. 

This is why Founders’ Agreement is needed, even in the very early stages of the startup. This agreement has a significant effect on the commitment of the founders and to avoid conflict if a split happens. This agreement will contain essential points to ensure all the founders play based on their roles and responsibilities, so the conflict between them can be minimized. 

With that in mind, Innovation Factory and Legalku will deliver “The Correct Way to Make The Founders’ Agreement '' for you all startup founders to optimize the role in the business and minimize the risk of conflict. 

In this class, you will learn about:

• Analyzing the expectations of the founders
• Deciding cooperation stages and steps between founders
• Identifying clauses that need to cooperate in the agreement
• Implementing example of clauses based on real-life cases
• Analyzing functions of every founder to be involved in the agreement

After this class, you will be able to do:

• Basic Contract Drafting
• Risk Mitigation
• Negotiation
• People Management

3. Understanding Legal on Investment

Tuesday, June 16th 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

Did you know that 8 out of 10 entrepreneurs faced a struggle in the phase of handling investors? It is usually due to their lack of experience and information about how to negotiate and decide the portions for the investor and for them. When this happens, a founder can potentially lose a huge portion of share of the company. This is of course not the result that we want to achieve after getting an investment, isn’t it?

Before finding an investment, a startup founder needs to prepare the required documents such as pitch deck, market research, and many kinds of legal documents. Legal aspect is one of the most important factors of consideration for investors before investing in a startup. This shows the level of responsibility, determination, and discipline of its founders that certainly will affect their performance in doing business. 

To prepare legal aspects before getting investment, it is important to involve a lawyer or someone who understands legal. However, it is also advised to the founders to understand it so they wont be making risky decisions too easily. Therefore, IF Academy X Legalku will have a session about “Understanding Legal on Investment”.

In this class, you will learn about:

• Categorizing Investors
• Creating an investment timeline
• Categorizing investment sources
• Identifying requirements that have to be fulfilled and prepared before finding an investor
• Identifying the steps that have to be taken by a company to get the investment. 

After this class, you will be able to do:

• Investment Planning
• Due Diligence Preparation
• Negotiation
• Non-Disclosure Agreement Drafting
• Investment Agreement Drafting

4. How to Have A Safe Collaboration Agreement

Thursday, June 18th, 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

Collaboration and cooperation is a very significant determining factor in the growth of a business. Many startups face problems and even fail because they are unable to identify the right partner and positioning in the cooperation. When that happens, there is always a possibility that a partner will become a competitor in the future, even hijacking our best employees down to the point when our business has nothing left. 

To avoid this from happening, a startup needs a special strategy to choose collaboration partners, create limitations and authority regulations, and joint operation clauses. These aspects have to follow the rules of ethics and binding law. This is something that needs to be understood by startup founders before doing any strategic partnership or collaboration. 

With that being said, IF Academy x Legalku will bring you a session about “How to Have A Safe Collaboration Agreement”. 

In this class, you will learn about:

• Categorizing the right collaboration partners before making an agreement
• Conducting risk assessments and mitigation between us and partner in the collaboration agreement
• Measuring the performance of collaboration and
• Breaking up the agreement with a partner safely

After this class, you will be able to do:

• Partnership Clustering
• Collaboration Agreement Drafting
• Negotiation
• Dispute Resolution

5. Smart Layoff Strategy

Tuesday, June 23rd 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

As a business owner, laying off the employee is never an easy task. Especially in this time of crisis, there are a lot of companies laying off employees due to financial reasons. In contrast with firing, laying off is not caused by bad performance, fraud, or attitude problems of the employee. A layoff can be temporary or permanent, and because there is a possibility of it becoming permanent, there are things to be considered before conducting it such as protecting the company secrets, assignment handover, and compensation mechanism. 

To handle this matter effectively, a company needs an effective strategy about conducting layoff. There is a need to consider many factors such as ethical code and regulations. These aspects are going to be talked about in IF Academy x Legalku session, “Smart Layoff Strategy”. 

In this class, you will learn about:

• Identifying regulations about laying off employees
• Creating a timeline and strategies before laying off employees
• Identifying the rights of laid-off employees
• Identifying legal documents that are needed before conducting a layoff

After this class, you will be able to do:

• People Management
• Human Capital Strategy
• Manpower Dispute Resolution
• Layoff Documentation

6. How to Win A Negotiation

Thursday, June 25th 2020, 2-4 PM (GMT+7)

The most popular and significant negotiation process in developing a startup is in the time of investment pitching and share acquisition. The lack of this acumen can cause founders to lose trust from partners or get an undesired amount of share in their business. Negotiations take an ability to convey our point clearly, to discuss at the same level, and to get win-win solutions for everyone involved. But there is also a competitive negotiation that absolutely requires one party to take all. These models are certainly different one and another in terms of implementation. 

Negotiation skill is not something that can be mastered by everybody. Theoretical comprehension, experience, and strategy can affect the whole process of negotiation. To enhance the skill of negotiation, it takes technique and tactics, confidence to convince, and problem-solving. These skills are going to be learned in our session “How to Win A Negotiation.”

In this class, you will learn about:

• Understanding negotiation steps (pre-negotiation, on-negotiation, binding final agreement, and implementation of the end goals)
• Delivering effective reasoning to conduct the negotiation
• Conducting negotiation simulations with the instructor and other participants

After this class, you will be able to do:

• Negotiation
• Background Research
• Body Language on Negotiation
• Win and Lose Conceptual

So why do you HAVE to join this workshop?

You are going to get comprehensive study materials, a certificate, tests to measure your comprehension and a free one-on-one session with legal experts from @Legalku. You also will be provided with drafts and templates to explore at home!

You can choose one of the six workshops based on your needs, or join the full series and get a very special price!

Click HERE for registration and get a special discount by using voucher code LegalBLOCK71.

Limited seat! Grab it fast!

With the prolonged pandemic that has been occurring these past months, offline concerts are one of many things everybody is longing for; singing along with the squad, family, or beloved ones. Since we have been implementing physical distancing in the past few months, everything has gone online. So does the concert. Unfortunately, despite many virtual concerts being held, there are many deficiencies in the concept and the concert itself so that the experience aspect doesn't feel qualified. Seeing opportunities in people who miss watching a concert, Modular comes to fulfill their needs using AR Performance. 

What is AR? 

AR or Augmented Reality combines the real world into a virtual world through a video, image, or even 3D animation. According to Modular, AR is a growing technology as it is forecasted to hit some big numbers globally in 2023.

Let’s get back to the concert!

Pandemic and social distancing have changed our behavior. With the absence of offline concerts, something surely has been missing, especially for those who enjoy offline performances. Eventually, since music is a part of many people’s lives, online concerts came up as a solution. They usually use Zoom, Youtube, and any other streaming platform to create an online concert. However, the experience offered by these platforms can sometimes be insufficient. This kind of barrier has created a huge impact on the creative industry ecosystem. 

Answering that problem, "Modular" is born so that we can enjoy concerts or any other entertainment performance in one application using Augmented Reality.

How does Modular work?

• You can download Modular on iOS or Google Play
• Jump into the app and sign up.
• Scan and point your camera at a flat surface so that the stage will pop up.
• You absolutely can pinch and zoom the stage. This is called Interactive AR Performance. 
• You can also record and share your experience using Modular to your Social Media. 

What is the value that Modular really wanna share?

• The immersive experience of enjoying music concerts or any other performance (soon). Where else can we enjoy a music concert in only one app? Modular is the answer to that. 
• Positive Vibes. They know that this pandemic has been a hard time for all of us. The pandemic is challenging. They hope that modular can help you get through it. 
• Creating a new revenue stream for the musicians and other entertainers.

However, one thing to point out here is that Modular comes not to give you the same exact experience you get when you watch a regular offline concert. With unlimited options and concepts offered by its augmented reality technology, Modular wants you to feel more imaginative and immersive with your online performance experience. 

So, what do you think? Are you ready to explore and have more fun with this AR platform? Share your thoughts through our social media here!

When we're talking about Google, we talk about how genius the platform is. From the research that has been done by Bain and Company, Google is the integrated platform that is currently most widely used by major brands because it can further increase customer engagement by offering relevant customer experiences. So many things you can do with this platform. You can increase digital presence with ads, measure and analyze your ads performance using analytics, and even optimize your website with their A/B testing tools. 

Google also pays attention to us as their customer. They provide us with some online training which we can join for free. For example, Google Skillshop and Digital Garage. 

Google Skillshop is free online training to develop your skills for Google workplace tools. If you have no idea what their tools are, how can you use them, you can go to Google Skillshop and they will teach you how. Besides free, you can also get a certification if you have completed the training. Different from Google Skillshop, Digital Garage is a free digital training where you can get new skills for a digital world. It helps you discover tools to make your business succeed and prepare for the career you want, especially in digital.

Speaking of career, Holy Theodore as Account Strategist of Google shares us a step by step how to start your career in digital marketing!

1. You have to find the right company. If you're sure that digital marketing is the thing you wanna explore, then you have to find a company that will help you to learn about that. Please focus on how they will help you develop your digital marketing skill, not on the position or money. So, what are the criteria? The company that has a growth mindset! Means, they're not only wanna grow 1,2,3, or 4 times. But they wanna grow until 10 times! And they will figure out how to scale up to that level. 
2. Seize the opportunity. Find the company that has room for us to experiment with. If they give us the opportunity, we can freely explore the digital marketing strategies that we wanna implement. Don't forget to prove to your employee that the experimental opportunities you get will provide useful insights for the company. And last but not least;
3. A company that focuses on digital. Find the company that starts its campaigns on a digital platform. If you wanna be the expert, then don't find a company that still focuses on conventional and don't seem like moving into digital. And don't forget that the world of digital marketing is moving fast, so try not to start in a company whose bureaucracy is too long and convoluted.

It's kinda normal if people mostly like to learn more about digital. If you ever wonder, conventional marketing has cost us a bunch of money, indeed.  You pay millions for one way ads communication that we don't even know what exactly the feedback is. If we can compare to marketing nowadays or so-called digital marketing, this would be so much more effective. Everyone is using it, who doesn't?

But first, we wanna break the stereotype that said, Digital Marketing is kinda like a money machine. You just have to put your ads on the internet, and BOOM! Your business will grow and you'll get a lot of profit. We're sorry to say that it's not that simple. If your product is bad, no matter how much money you spend on ads, nobody would come back for more. 

Well, Digital marketing could be the money machine if you already find the sweet spot of your product. Where to find it? It's between the 4P of marketing strategies. It's between Price, Product, Promotion, and Place. You have to make sure that the four of them are optimal, so then you can have your money machine!

Any other things you wanna discuss with us? Click here to contact us through social media!

On August 26th, these two great people with different backgrounds were invited by BLOCK71 to have a chat about things that many startups definitely will question. It's Agustiadi as Program Director of Innovation Factory and Agung as CEO of Warung Pintar, talking about the business model of a startup.

Have you ever heard of a unicorn startup? The unicorn that give an impact on many people, the unicorn that has a high revenue. Well, building a startup that will turn out to become a unicorn isn't that easy. Some startups still prioritize their growth without having a plan on how to build a sustainable business. Whereas, the founder needs to pay attention to how their business model is going to be.

So, how important is the business model?

Many people say that "every time we invest in a startup, we invest in people." Initially, if you want to invest, the first thing you have to focus on is the founder itself. Is the founder good? Does the founder care about the problem and the value they wanna give? Because as Agus said, he believes that a good startup founder will grow up with the right business model. If you have a good business model but the founder isn't as good as it is, it will end up nothing. 

While the founder is something that definitely will come first, the business model is still important in the startup journey. But it's not important to figure out the right business model in the beginning. A few things you have to focus on are those who are passionate about the problem they're trying to solve; those that are trying to provide value in whatever they're trying to do; and along the way, it's important to figure out the right business model so then you can build a sustainable venture. 

And speaking of value, it's the most important thing when you first start to build a business. You have to build the value based on the problem! What's the market's problem? What's the value we wanna bring? and of course, how can you make money from that? 

For Agung who still runs Warung Pintar for about 3 years, finding the right tune of the business model is hard. It happens iteratively. They still have to find out and turn in their business model. As he said that a startup by definition is a company that grows very fast, and again if the business model is stagnant or it can't follow the market, then we do it wrong. And at the end of the day, how you create value and how you make money from the value that you created matters the most. A business model is not something static. A business model that might work today, might not work in 1,2, or 3 years later. So then again, it's something that you have to fully pay attention to. What's the market needed, is what we're gonna bring them into.