AGEN/GERAI TIKI 034 KELAPA GADING

Dear all....

I just wanna thanks God because my TIKI agent, which I have been operating for one year, gets better. Although it takes a long time to have TIKI license, more than two years, I am very proud to be part of TIKI 'Big Family'. I have been operating this agent since June 2008 at Jl. Kelapa Hibrida Blok RA 3 No. 12, Kelapa Gading, North Jakarta. In addition, I also have been running Perdana Copy Center in the same place since 2005.

I feel great because I can increase sales and income from my TIKI agent business while maintaining and increasing my copy center business, too. It needs hard work, of course. I highly believe in 'No Pain, No Gain' words. I have to struggle to make these happen.

I remembered long ago when I dream to run a copy center. How can I succeed while I have slightly experience in photocopying field? The only experience I have in this area is when I worked as a typist in 1995s. Sometimes, when I have spare time, I assisted my boss, who also run copy center, to operate copyer.

One who continually encourages me to realize my dream is Giyatno, my lovely cousin. I called him 'the Master of Photocopy' because of his extensive experience in operating and in overhauling copyers. By the time, he was trusted by someone to manage a copy center.

From the support given by my cousin, I finally invested almost all of my money into copy center business. My idea is: I have to diversify my business. One year before, I managed a typing and printing center, named Wahana Computer, at Atma Jaya University. I realized that running a business in a campus, without any connection, is risky. Beside seasonal pattern of campus activities, meaning that there are times where the business is iddle, there is no guarantee that I can sustain my business due to university regulation. That is why I must prepare myself to take another opportunity, that is by running Perdana Copy center. With some failure I experienced long before I started my own business, I hope that this time I will be more careful in facing challenges. Fortunately, my past experiences does not discourage me; rather, they spur me to get better and better.

I practiced the following from time to time to be myself now:
Dare to dream

An entrepreneur should dare to dream. Dream, especially the big one, will lead our path to be success in the future. Dream, as I regard as our blue print, will have positive impact on our thought. Dream is free; it does not require anything from us. Unfortunately, there are some people who are afraid to have dream. This is because there are some old myths around us that blocked people to dream. Some people said that success in everything needs good education background. I don’t. Some other said that to start a new venture, someone should have money first. I don’t. Still other said that they are afraid to fail. I am not. I did not finish my diploma, I left the campus in third semester. I almost don’t have enough money to start my own business. I failed several times before finally succeed. What about Bill Gates? What about Bob Sadino? What about James Watt? Good education and money are important. But they are not the only condition to be success. Everyone can dream everything, no matter who he/she is. Dream what you want to dream; go where you want to go; be what you want to be; because we have only one life and one chance to do all the things we want to do.

Take action!

Dream is not more than a dream until we take action from it. Taking action needs courageousness, passion, enthusiasm, positive thinking, and measurable risk taking. Don’t be afraid to fail. Failure is part of success entrepreneur. The important thing is how we take lesson from our past failure to improve ourselves in the future. The brightest future will always be based on a forgotten past, we can't go on well in life until we let go of our past failures. Beside that, we learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do by finding out what will not do, and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery. Thinking out of the box is another critical thing. Many people are afraid to start their own business because they felt comfortable with their current position.

Be optimistic!

This part significantly correlates with our dream. Our dream should be realized with optimism. Without it, it is hard, if not impossible, to make our dream a reality. Not only this attitude will and must influence our venture, but the rest of our life. It is not hard to cope with any problems facing us when we are optimistic.