Hanindia Narendrata: Telunjuk's Fortune Leads the Way towards Its Goal

In the late 2021, the Telunjuk price comparison platform was acquired by PT Diamond Food Indonesia Tbk. (Diamonds). Through the Company's subsidiary, PT Sukanda Djaya, they have signed a conditional share purchase agreement for the 81% ownership of the company. This is the company's new chapter after it was founded in 2012.

Telunjuk's CEO, Hanindia Narendrata said, Telunjuk's next mission is to develop Compass and maintain its first product, a price comparison platform.

Company's Journey

One of the company's milestones was its Series A funding from Venturer in 2015. Back then, Telunjuk was quite aggressive to channeling marketing actions, however, the strategy has changed to be more focused on profit.

"The thing is, if you only focus on branding, it will be just like make up, it's only on the surface but the value is not there. For me, value is when you can give positive results to stakeholders," Narendrata said.

Entering 2019, Telunjuk is working on the B2B segment. Instead of just being an ordinary price comparison platform, they use big data to process SKU in various marketplaces.

In the late 2020, Telunjuk introduced Compass, an e-commerce market insight dashboard to facilitate more online entrepreneurs to develop their businesses. In the platform, users can observe marketshare data summarized from four e-commerce players, including Tokopedia, Bukalapak, Shopee, and JD.id.

"Over the past three years we have experienced positive growth, even during the pandemic. Although Compas launching did not immediately get positive results, in the fourth quarter of 2020 we began to see new challenges," Narendrata said.

It all started with a client

Hanindia Narendrata and Compas team / Compas

Diamond is one of Compas debut clients. During the process, its subsidiary, PT Sukanda Djaya, was interested in a more intensive collaboration. As the company found similarities in mission, vision, and values, they were interested to acquire Telunjuk.

"Back then, at the same time, Telunjuk was approached by two different companies, to provide investments and make acquisitions as well. However, we prefer PT Sukanda Djaya," Narendrata said.

Narendrata also mentioned, it was a big dream for him and Telunjuk to join an experienced company.

The sense of acceptance and kinship by Diamond is said to align with Telunjuk's working culture. The sense of trust and comfort between the two parties convinced Narendrata and team to accept this acquisition.

"There were some obstacles during the acquisition process, however, all of them could be resolved together. I also saw how they made plans, implemented corporate governance while executing them pretty well. I think these are attractive things," Narendrata said.

Although most of the company's shares have been taken by PT Sukanda Djaya, Narendrata emphasized on Telunjuk's business and future plans will not be changed whatsoever. He still acts as the Director of PT Telunjuk Komputasi Indonesia.

"In the future, the data [managed by Telunjuk] will be used for further monetization of Diamond's [business process]. It is not only useful for the benefit of the company, but also for the FMCG [industry] as a whole," he added.

Mentor for the new generation

Narendrata also emphasized that they will be focused on developing Telunjuk in  the long term. He wants to use his experience in running a startup business to help the next generation of startups--whether as a mentor or access to information and consulting.

"I feel so lucky that the startup community helped a lot in the beginning. I personally want to focus here for the long term. There are no plans to launch my own product and I'm not interested in being an angel investor. In the future, I'm more open to being a mentor and want to pursue new dreams," he said.

He also suggested for startups who want to develop their business to an advanced stage to conduct extensive collaboration early on. "Never be afraid to be more open and transparent, because in tough times collaboration helps businesses survive."

"I was among those who realized this concept quite late. Startups generally have limited funding. [..] Usually [they] can build a trustworthy business and work together if there are friends who can support them. The point is to be more open," he said.

-Original article is in Indonesian, translated by Kristin Siagian