GoJek Xcelerate presents Simona Accelerator APAC Women Founders Batch 2 — Madurai to Indonesia

Padmapriya R
Nov 8 · 10 min read

One day my husband forwarded me an email which was regarding Simona Ventures program. I applied for the accelerator program for our startup JioVio Healthcare Pvt.Ltd. After two weeks, I received an email that our startup got selected for the next level. I had given two levels of online Interview with Simno ventures, Digitaraya team and with GoJek team.

After a week, I received a Congratulations email that we got selected for the One week long accelerator program in Indonesia.

Totally 10 startups across Asia pacific region. I am very happy that from India two teams got selected for the program. One is our Startup JioVio Healthcare Pvt.Ltd and another one is Pixylz.

The program started on Oct 28th, 2019 to Nov 1st, 2019. So I had to be in Jakarta on Oct 27th. But In India, Diwali was on Oct 27th,2019. I and my husband really don’t want to miss our “Thalai Diwali” which means we are going to celebrate our first diwali after marriage. So we celebrated Diwali during day time and we started to Jakarta at 7PM IST from India. The travel was little hectic and hurry burry. So, the Journey for one week bootcamp started here!

Day 1:

First day bootcamp held at GoJek headoffice in Jakarta. I and My husband directly reached the office from Airport. I was so tired of 6 hours journey already. But Still I don’t want to miss the session on First day. My husband dropped me in the office and he started to HongKong for official purpose. This is the first time I am in the country alone for a week. I was very confused, felt hard to be alone in another country and to be mingled with 10 amazing women founders came for the program. Because, I was not good at networking (till before attending this program).

I didn’t get a chance to give introduction about me and our company as I missed the welcoming session and joined from the First session. The day was very useful.

Motivation session given by Aristiwidya Bramantika, Gojek was awesome. It given me the idea of As a leader, how to manage the team members — sounds interesting right!

She shared some of her real time examples like how she showed her anger/disappointment towards her team members (without scolding them) thru her tone of voice.

Aristiwidya Bramantika, Gojek — Motivation Session
Aristiwidya Bramantika, Gojek — Motivation Session

Introduction to OKR by Jowynne Khor, Google

As per my understanding from the session, OKR is a management strategy to set goal for our organisation. Google company is following OKR. The purpose of maintaining OKR is to connect the team’s goal with organisation goal and to measure result. Importantly It is not used to measure the employee effort. It is mainly used to align the company goal with team’s goal.

Got a chance to implement it practically for our startup. And Jowynee is very humble to help and motivate everyone :)

Group Sharing Session by Simona Ventures & Digitaraya

At Evening, we had a group sharing session. It is sort of ice breaking session which was helped me to mingle with other founders. The thing I liked was, I learnt Germany (1 sentence), Chinese (2 sentence) taught by Wen she is a founder of Elevait (HongKong/China). Also I taught Tamil to Wen. It was fun :D

After the session, we went to Hotel. This was about key things on Day 1 which I like to share.

PS: If you are a vegan, it is very hard to travel to another country. You shouldn’t care about taste. You should see the food by thinking like it has protein, carbohydrate,etc. Lesson learnt :P

Day 2:

We started to Digitaraya for Day 2 bootcamp at 8:30 AM. On Day 2, From Morning to afternoon is more on Raising Capital for Startup and Conducting Business in Indonesia from a Legal Perspective. Sessions was useful to know about Indonesia to start the company legally.

After the lunch break!

Crafting a Winning Pitch Deck by Karin Del Ray, McKinsey & Company

Karin is very inspirational and such a confident person. I wondered by her confidence level. She said she never have stage fear from her childhood. I learnt a lot from her. Karin interacted with us on How to present our product with impact story by showing real examples of Mrs. Micheal Obama talk and Ms.Emma Watson talk. And she asked us to present our idea on the spot.

Pitch Deck Presentation Coaching by Jowynne Khor, Google

After Karin session, we had another session on What are the important things needs to be there in our pitching slides and we had practice pitch on the stage. After the practice pitching, Jownyee gave feedback on slides and how to convey the story in just 4 mins. For me, it took 5 mins to convey the problem and solution that we are solving including business plan, Market opportunity and team. They took video of our practice pitch which was helpful for correction wherever needed during the presentation.

After the session, we went back to Hotel.

Day 3:

Even though Day 1 and Day 2 was good, I was having low confidence on those two days. Yes, I have attended lots of conferences, meetups in India. But It was my first time attending bootcamp out of India. So, It was little challenging for me to go on their flow while other founders were talking as their ascent was different. I studied in Tamil medium. First two days, I could able to understand them partially. I had to be very focused on what they are telling. I felt bad on first 2 days! I motivated myself on Day 2(after returning to Hotel). I must thank to my husband, my friends as they called me and they reminded me my confident level.

Day 3 starts with positivity! Started to GoJek office.

When we waiting for the session to start, they introduced two judges involved in the selection process. They sat next to me. I started talking with them. I explained our product. They were very impressed and appreciated. It boosted my confident level.

And session started!

Women In Tech by Crystal Widjaja, Gojek

Crystal shared the technical stuffs of GoJek applications. She is such a techie! Got to know many technical tools and how they are organising data of the customers which improves their future plan and offers. It was surprised to know their strategies!

After few sessions, we had panel discussion on 1:1 Tech Problem Solving by GoJek team

What are the technical challenges we are facing for our product, we can get an idea from them to solve it. It was quite useful to know the best tools, languages that GoJek using.

After the whole day session, we had Networking with Dinner!

We reached the Restaurant GIOI, for networking with Dinner. I must say this, the networking session was really useful for me. I had interacted and attended few networking sessions in Bangalore conferences and events. Those experience, the purpose and the value of networking helped me here. As soon as we entered into the hotel, I had a chance to connect with a founder in Indonesia who was invited for networking dinner. I was having conversation with her. I wondered, other women founders are not initiated talking with invited investors, founders specially for networking dinner. Multiple times the organisation asked them to talk with them. Afterwards they started talking with them.

I asked the organising team to connect with the invited people to have conversation. I explained the problems and solutions we are solving in our startup. Everyone were stunned to see our product and they themselves gave their visiting card to contact them whenever we need help! I had so many contact after the networking dinner.

Before we came for dinner, the organising team showed us the demo day event hall where we have to present our idea in front of 200 people.

After seeing this, I was scared of presentation and excited as well :)

I met Karin during the networking dinner. She motivated me a lot to give a best presentation and also she shared some useful inputs for presentation.

Networking dinner started at 6:30PM and we reached back to the hotel at 10:30 PM.

Day 4:

The Day 4 with Google team who specially came for us to mentor on Marketing our products using Google service like Google Ads, Analytics, etc. We had One to One discussion with them. It was useful to know the services available for Marketing our product.

After the few sessions on How to be a Successful Woman Leader by Melanie Masriel, L’Oreal Indonesia and Recruiting the Best Talents for Your Startup by Ken Ratri Iswari, Geekhunter, I went back to the Hotel.

PS: Melanie gave us lots of Makeup sets :P

And, In hotel I did lots of practice for the Demo day. Finally ready for the Demo.

Day 5:

On Day 5 morning, when I woke up I never knew the surprise waiting for me! We all went to GoJek office for Demo day. This was my first time, I am presenting our product in front of 100+ people including Judges, Investors. I was bit nervous. We did practice demo morning before the event starts. It didn’t went well. I couldn’t finish my presentation in 4 mins. Then I did practice. I wanted to present it well. Because I am representing my company, my team and my country. I felt, it is a high responsibility.

At 2 PM, the demo day starts. We had 2 panel discussion with GoJek leads, Chair persons. After the fruitful discussion, the moment came.

They announced, We are inviting our next startup JioVio Healthcare Pvt.Ltd from India. I went to the mark and presented. I am very surprised to see myself. I could complete the presentation in 4 mins with clear explanation of problem, solution, business model and market opportunity. Judges asked only 2 questions from business model. I answered them.

After the presentation, Judges decided the winners. This time 2 winners announced by them. Yes, JioVio won the pitch :D and another winner was Anna Melissa Nava from 1Export.

Then we had graduation for successfully completing the bootcamp.

After winning the pitch, everyone appreciated me. Many told me that my presentation was so good. My presentation was not like first time I am presented. It was like already I had done so many pitching. It meant a lot to me! All the amazing other 9 women founders are very encouraging people. Encouraged each other to present well.

On the final day, I found myself that I could able to understand everyone without putting so much effort on focusing on what they are telling, while they were talking! I could able to understand their ascent and I could catch their words in their speed talking nature. I felt very happy. Hereafter, I don’t need to turn on captions while watching videos in YouTube :P

Overall I had a great learning experience. This winning moments always an encouragement to move forward with confidence. They taught us how to think as a founder to scale the startup and to structure the organisation. And Also the opportunities available to use for our products. This is what I learnt from the bootcamp. Yes, pitching also :P

As a personal learning, what I learnt was, expressing thoughts matters a lot. We don’t need to think like what others think if I did this, If I say this, If I express this. We have to be clear with the points that we are going to talk/discuss and What comes to your mind convey the thoughts beautifully without hurting others with assertiveness! Be a role model into someone’s life :)

Please check out www.jiovio.com Or http://www.savemom.in/

PS: I could see improvement from the Day 1 to Day 5 :) Picture speaks a lot than words ;)

Day 1:

Day 2:

Day 3:

Day 4:

Day 5:

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