Introduction

I am Indonesian, and I am pursuing a Master’s in Venture Creation at the National University of Singapore. That choice was deliberate: I wanted a setting that treats venture building as a craft you can study and stress-test — not only ideation, but structure, markets, capital, and the repeated work of turning ambiguity into something that holds in the real world. Singapore sits at a useful distance from home — close enough to stay connected to Indonesia, open enough to collide with founders and operators from elsewhere. For me, the program is less about collecting credentials and more about sharpening how I build: clearer bets, cleaner execution, and a steadier hand when plans meet reality.

For almost six years I have been founder of Xerpihan. Six years is long enough to know that “startup” is not a mood; it is a sequence of seasons — some quiet, some brutal, some unexpectedly bright. I have shipped, pivoted, hired, apologized, and tried again. That experience has shaped a builder’s mindset that does not stop at the product screen: I care about how the business grows — unit economics, trust with customers, the health of the team, and the boring rituals that keep a company from drifting. Growth, to me, is not vanity metrics; it is durability. I still feel like a student of that discipline, which is partly why graduate school and operating a company live in the same chapter of my life rather than in neat separation.

Before entrepreneurship took centre stage, I studied chemical engineering at Universitas Gadjah Mada. People sometimes ask whether that path “matches” what I do now. I think it does, in a quieter way: you learn to respect constraints, to run processes with care, and to distrust answers that only work on paper. Engineering trained me to break big problems into steps you can measure — a habit that shows up in how I plan experiments, review numbers, and talk to people who will actually use what we build.

I am the youngest of five children. Being the last in line does not define my personality, but it shaped my vantage point: you learn early to listen across generations in one household, to negotiate space, and to find your voice without pretending you arrived first. That background stays with me when I lead — humility is not theatrics; it is remembering how much you learned by watching others carry responsibility before you did.

I also carry Minangkabau heritage, from the Chaniago name line. I do not lead with ethnicity in every room, but I do not leave it behind either. It is part of my sense of rootedness — a reminder that identity can be a compass, not a costume, and that respect for lineage and place can coexist with building something new in a different city and language.

If there is a thread through all of this, it is that I believe in the ups and downs of life — not as a slogan, but as experience. There are stretches where nothing moves fast enough, and weeks where everything demands a decision at once. I try to meet both with something like reverence: to stay patient when progress is slow, and to stay lucid when it is fast. I am not chasing constant acceleration; I am learning to work well inside the rhythm itself — to build, study, and grow without mistaking noise for momentum. That is the introduction I want on record today: unfinished, in motion, and still curious about what the next season will ask of me.