Super

My conviction to build Super came when I was a kid. I grew up in my family’s retail business, which served tier 2 cities up to rural areas. I learned that life was unfair in the rural areas compared to the capital city where I grew up. The GDP per capita is over two times higher in the capital city than in the rural areas; however, the prices of goods are two to three times more expensive than in Jakarta (BPS, 2022). The experience of witnessing this injustice in the rural areas compelled me to build Super. Our vision at Super is to democratize the pricing of goods in over 500 tier 2 and tier 3 cities and rural Indonesia. This ensures that rural consumers have access to affordable prices similar to those enjoyed by consumers in Jakarta. As a social commerce platform, Super has made a significant impact in rural Indonesia. We empower agents, including “warung” (micro SMEs) and individual resellers in rural areas, enabling them to become the Walmart of their community by providing affordable prices for their neighbors. Our commitment extends to contributing to technological disruption and fostering economic growth in tier 2 and tier 3 cities and across rural Indonesia. To achieve this, we are dedicated to building our business and core team in the rural areas of Indonesia.  First, unlike the norm for start-ups in Indonesia, we established our headquarters (HQ) in East Java in 2018. The first generation of consumer-to-consumer (C2C) e-commerce juggernauts have operated in Indonesia for over a decade, and investors have poured billions of dollars into their balance sheets. However, they could only capture 7–10% of the offline retail market. In parallel, Indonesia has over 500 second and third-tier cities and rural areas with a much bigger untapped market potential. So, we took a different approach by growing our presence with social commerce online to offline models in ~50 cities across East Java and South Sulawesi. What sets us apart is that we empower community leaders to act as agents, leveraging their social capital and providing technology to sell basic necessities to their friends, allowing them to benefit from the more affordable prices. In the next few years, we will penetrate 450 more tier 2 and tier 3 cities and rural areas in Indonesia. Secondly, the first generation of e-commerce players relies on team members from our capital city, Jakarta. At Super, 95% of our full-time employees are based in rural areas, encompassing key team members across operations, supply chain, business development, and technology. We believe that the hands and minds of rural people can create a unique product experience for rural users, and thus, we trust them to become the backbone of our operations. In addition, we actively promote gender equality in alignment with SDGs. Over the past few years, female team members have grown substantially, resulting in a nearly equal gender composition.

In college, I knew my dream was to become an entrepreneur, so I have heard about YC since college. At first, I frequently listened to the YC podcast on how to start a company and manage the growing pain in blitzscaling ventures, and I was impressed with how YC can help founders find PMF and scale. Back then, I decided that if I started a company right after I graduated, I would apply for YC.My experience was unbelievable. Back then, it was still rare for YC to invest in Indonesian companies. I had the opportunity to meet Gustaf during YC's visit to Indonesia, where he conducted a roadshow seminar introducing YC to the local startup community. Following the workshop, I approached him and shared my business idea. To my surprise, he said I should give it a try. I didn’t expect much then because it was like shooting for the stars. Surprisingly, the YC process was very straightforward. After the written application, I traveled to Mountain View for the interview, and it was the most intense 10-minute interview I’ve ever had. Post-interview, Gustaf continued with additional questions, and we finally made it into YC.As expected, going through the batch has been one of my life’s highlights. YC taught us how to measure PMF through data and provided the unique opportunity for one-on-one office hours with esteemed CEOs like Steve Huffman from Reddit, Paul Bucheit, Brian Chesky from AirBnB, and more. It was beyond my expectation that YC helped us build a robust PMF and shaped founders from day one to be resilient and give the best fight in building a startup.After three months of the program, we finally had to fundraise during demo day. Michael Seibel and Gustaf have been very helpful in guiding us in preparing for the presentation, managing the data room, and navigating the offers on the table. Amidst the frenzy of offers, we successfully achieved our fundraising goal.YC was one of the best decisions I have made, and it has played a vital role in the company’s success. If I had to restart my startup companies, I would willingly do it all over again.