Aulia Halimatussadiah, Co-founder & Chief Content Officer – Zetta Media Network
Out of university, when usually people are gung-ho about entering the corporate world and doing the best in their jobs, Aulia Halimatussadiah did something unusual. When she was 23 years old, she quit her job as a web developer to start her first business, an online bookstore. Ollie, as she is called by everyone, is a writer of 28 books and founder of tech startups. She is the currently the co-founder and Chief Content Officer of Zetta Media Network. Zetta Media is a digital media network focusing on building inspiring stories from real people for millenials in Indonesia.
Ollie took Information Technology in the university and worked as web developer for 2.5 years before she decided to enter the startup world with her online bookstore. Later she created NulisBuku.com, the first online self-publishing print on demand platform in Indonesia and helped to shape writing and publishing industry over there.
Currently, Ollie has initiated 2 non-profit organizations along with her partners. The first one is StartupLokal, it’s the biggest digital startup community in Indonesia. The other one is Girls in Tech Indonesia, where she aims to help women to understand more about the choices they have with technology so they can use it to help problems in the society through their business and eventually become the catalyst of their success
Ollie has won many awards, some of which are:
- 10 Successful Female Tech Startup Founders in Indonesia — Tech in Asia
- Kartini Next Generation Special Award 2013, Inspiring Woman in ICT — Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Republic Indonesia, April 2013
- Top 10 Woman in Indonesia IT World by InfoKomputer Magazine — April 2011
- 5 Geek Girls in Asia to Look out for by Girls in Tech (USA) — February 2012
- One of 50 Inspiring People by Intisari Magazine — August 2012
Ollie’s passion is in books and writing. She manages to make time to write daily journal and loves to travel and review spa destinations in her free time.
About your entrepreneurial journey
“I started my first startup in 2007 when I could not shop books properly at an online bookstore. Then I decided to make my own online bookstore with more complete features to solve that problem. At 23 years old, I quit my job to build my own business. While running business, I started writing books. When I tried to publish my 16th book, my script was rejected by the publisher. This is how I know, how limited the options are for Indonesian youth to express their mind through writing. There were only 2000 publishers serving 100 million Indonesian youth under 30 years old. So, to solve that problems, I co-founded Nulisbuku.com, the first online self-publishing print on demand platform in Indonesia. Now we have more than 150,000 writers and more than 6,000 books in our platform.
In 2015, we created a new platform under NulisBuku, we call it Storial.co to help writers write online, validate their writing and collaborate with other writers.
After NulisBuku and Storial have their own management team and running well, in 2016, I co-found Zetta Media, a digital media network that provide content platforms in several categories that allows community of writers to publish their articles to wider audiences. Now we have 10 portals under Zetta Media like Trivia.id, RockingMama.id, Kamantara.id and more.”
Most challenging assignment so far
“Building a business is one thing, but create a sustainable healthy growth is the challenge that I’m working on in any of my businesses.”
Experiences on being a woman entrepreneur
“A woman entrepreneur in Indonesia is highly celebrated. So it’s easier for me to get exposure from media for my brands.”
Challenges faced
“I don’t think I have faced any gender specific challenges so far. If anything, the challenge was coming from myself. That I was not confident enough for some years to take investments for my business.”
How do you believe in making dreams come true?
“I believe in making a concrete massive action and making small victories towards my dreams. Dreams should be big, it should scare you a bit, but you should be able to make it actionable and make it a gradual success.”
Setbacks and Lessons learnt
“I did have some moments of ‘setbacks’ but it’s only an opportunity to learn and grow. Like when you push a bowstring, the arrow is only going backward a bit to fly faster and precisely towards the target.”
Women are the better halves. What does it mean?
“Nobody is anyone’s halves. You have to be your own solid person, whether you’re a woman or a man.”