Dayu Dara Permata, 36, is co-founder and CEO of Indonesian real estate trading platform Pinhome.
Provided by Pinhome
It is no secret that building a successful startup often involves risks, repetitions and failures. Dayu Dara Permata knows this very well.
The 36-year-old is co-founder and CEO of Indonesia’s real estate trading platform Pinhome. In about five years, she has raised more than $75 million so far, from bootstrapping her business from her garage, according to Pitchbook data and data.
“Entrepreneurship is really difficult. You don’t have to succeed immediately… you just need to be prepared to fail,” Permata told CNBC. “If you’re trying to avoid failure completely, then (after that) you’ll just delay it.”
“Maybe you’re not trying hard enough — so you didn’t see failure, but what it does is that it really hinders your growth,” she added.
A humble beginning
Born and raised in Indonesia, Permata has always been an over-achiever.
“I was born from a very simple family…we didn’t come from money, so I had to get everything I really wanted,” she said, adding that her parents are always strict and demanding.
“I was always expected to be number one to succeed academically,” she said. “I’ve always loved property because I live with very strict parents. That was my house, my house, my rule. So I wanted to own my own home, so I thought I could have my own rules,” Permata said.
She said she studied as a child, was competitive and “always focused on academics.” By the age of 23, she had already purchased some first investment properties.
Upon graduating from university, she pursued a corporate career spanning almost ten years, eventually acquiring the role of Senior Vice President on Southeast Asia’s on-demand services platform Gojek, and met Pinhome co-founder Ahmed Aljunied.
After working at Gojek for about four years, Permata said he felt ready to embark on his entrepreneurial journey.
“At the end of my time at Gojek, I think (the company) was operating in over 200 cities across Indonesia,” she said. “I worked with my CTO, Ahmed… (he) was always a very entrepreneur, and he had built a business before.
“Fast and learn quickly”
So in early 2019, the two began consolidating and building their business from the garage at Permata’s home. For about nine months, Permata said he invested around $150,000 in savings in his company’s bootstrap.
“My husband was my first employee. We had our first five team members working in our (garage). It was really like a nine month bootstrap,” she said. “I also worked full time at Gojek, and although it was still quite a long time (although I worked there), we managed to narrow it down in time (for the startup).”
Known from her own experience as a real estate investor, Permata wanted to address many of the problems with Indonesian real estate. She said the process of purchasing and maintaining the property was very “manual” and “fragmented.”
“All the pain of finding a home and connecting with an agent… (it’s A) a 6-9 month process, all on WhatsApp, you’re dealing with a complete stranger… and I thought.
Permata and her co-founders felt that Indonesia’s real estate sector was ripe for change.
Try to fail every day. But let’s learn from it… I think it will help your stamina in the long run. That’s because it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Dayu Dara Permata
Co-founder and CEO, Pinhome
“We tested a variety of business models… In the first business model, we were exploring real estate crowdfunding. In the second business model, we were exploring real estate management. And then the third time we were exploring co-ownership of real estate,” she said.
“We went through that iteration almost every two or three months,” she said.
After testing some failed ideas, Permata and Aljunied landed on the fourth idea. This ultimately became what Pinhome was today.
Pinhome was launched in January 2020 and serves more than 3.5 million monthly active users on its current website and mobile app.
“Fast and learn faster. That’s how you can get closer to success,” suggested Permata. “Make sure you fail every day. But then learn from it… I think it will help your stamina in the long run. Because it’s a marathon, not a sprint.”
“If you’re not managing your energy well, you might stop before you succeed,” she added.
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