Rumah, Tabloid Kompas TV. Edisi Oktober 2015

Hunian Idaman, Kompas TV (KTV)

This was shot at the beginning of my first semester, at first i was a little hesitant about hosting a TV show where i had to talk alone to a camera. I thought it is always better to be interviewed or have another person in-frame for me to chat with so i don't look awkward, but the crew convinced me that i would do just fine. So here i am, presenting my little home, this time with a different format. I think i did pretty well for a first timer, or at least i'd like to think that way :)

Thank you Kompas TV for the opportunity!

Our "Rumah Mungil' for IDEA Magazine

247 COTTONINK MAGAZINE

Tabloid NOVA, March 2015

#LLCREATIVESERIES

Me and Inda from the @thebridedept was asked to share about how we started our own brands to our dear blogger friends at @livinglovingnet Nike & Miranti whom i knew since two years ago, in fact the first time @chicanddarling was ever featured was by these lovely ladies. So happy we get to cross path again now. Nike gave me a copy of the article that was well written so i could also re-post it in my personal blog, if you prefer to read the original article you can go directly to www.livinglovingnet.com. 

I hope this little article inspire more women to move and make their own way up because girls should empower other girls. Happy reading and feel free to share it with others!

CREATIVEPRENEUR SERIES

PART ONE: START YOUR OWN BRAND

Setiap tahun saat datang melihat event bazaar seperti Brightspot, Market & Museum, atau On Market Go kemarin saya selalu terkesan dengan semakin banyaknya anak muda yang memulai merintis bisnis sendiri. Being an entrepreneur is such a possible option these days. Baik di bidang kuliner, interior, aksesori, atau fashion, semakin banyak brand baru bermunculan. Terpikir untuk memulai usaha sendiri? Coba simak cerita teman-teman kami yang memutuskan menjadi entrepreneur berikut ini.

Kami ngobrol-ngobrol dengan Kania dari Chic and Darling dan Inda dari The Bride Dept untuk mencaritahu pengalaman mereka menjadi entrepreneur. Keke, panggilan Kania sempat bekerja sebagai creative producer di stasiun TV selama lebih dari 10 tahun. Tiga tahun lalu setelah menjadi ibu Keke sempat merasa stres karena lelah mengurus rumah. Keke merasa perlu creative output agar bisa mengurangi stres. Akhirnya mulai berprakarya dengan bahan-bahan yang ada dirumah. Tujuannya memang cuma pengen mempercantik rumah sendiri tanpa keluar biaya. Tapi ternyata kreasinya mendapat respon bagus dari orang-orang akhirnya dia memutuskan untuk serius dan menjadikannya lapangan pekerjaan

Sementara Inda dan partnernya, Friska memulai startup digital karena bisa memberikan kebebasan kreativitas, aktivitas, dan finansial. Pengalaman Inda saat magang di Sonia Kashuk, brand make up berbasis di New York, menjadi awal pemicu ide menjadi entrepreneur. Sonia memulai brand make upnya yang berpartner dengan Target agar memungkinkan dia untuk menjadi entrepreneur yang tidak harus keliling dunia untuk pekerjaannya dan juga bisa tetap merawat anak. Inda yang memang suka menulis akhirnya memutuskan menjadi creativepreneur karena menurutnya bidang kreatif itu sangat challenging karena memaksa kita terus berinovasi.

1. Salah satu hal utama saat memutuskan menjadi entrepreneur adalah soal modal. Menurut kalian seberapa penting besar kecilnya modal awal untuk memulai usaha?

Inda:
Alhamdulillah dari segi financial keluargaku memberi dukungan penuh. Tapi ini juga bukan tanpa usaha lho! Untuk meyakinkan orang tua ku, aku harus presentasi ke mereka seperti ke venture capitalist juga! Selain itu aku juga punya partner, Friska, yang mengerti bahwa modal membuat startup digital itu tidak sedikit dan dia juga willing untuk berkontribusi demi membangun bisnis ini. Jadi menurutku punya partner yang solid juga penting banget. Tapi untuk yang kesulitan dalam mencari modal, sebenarnya sekarang juga sudah banyak incubator bisnis seperti GEPI atau venture capital yang bisa membantu kita dalam mendapatkan modal.

Keke:
Dari pengalamanku sendiri, besar kecilnya modal tidak menentukan kesuksesan bisnis either short or long term. Yang paling penting diinget bahwa modal utama kita adalah knowing ourself dulu, what do we like? what are we passionate about. Lalu start with where you are and what you have. Aku justru juga terinspirasi oleh orang2 yang memulai usaha/bisnis yang tanpa modal besar sama sekali bahkan ada yang tanpa modal. Kalau aku boleh jujur, waktu itu modal ku cuma akses internet dirumah :)

2. Waktu awal mulai, gimana cara mengenalkan brand ke publik?

Inda:
Aku percaya bahwa content is the king dan social media is the easiest, fastest and cheapest way to introduce your brand. Jadi dari awal, aku dan Friska selalu memastikan konten yang kita keluarkan selalu berkualitas, baik dari sisi visual maupun informasi. Kita juga hanya fokus di 2 social media yaitu facebook dan instagram. Jadi dengan fokus ini konten yang dikeluarkan bisa lebih berkualitas.

Keke:
Karena pada saat itu aku punya keterbatasan mobilitas alias tidak bisa kemana2 setiap hari, jadi akses internet dirumah satu-satunya alat aku untuk bisa komunikasi ke publik. Waktu itu aku masih baru banget di dunia soc-med, bahkan tidak tau apa yang sedang tren atau apa lagibooming jd tidak punya benchmark whether my stuff is going to sell or not. But because i had no choice, i only had social media (blog/instagram/fb/twitter) to market my products, akhirnya aku coba saja. Eh ternyata the market’s enthusiasm was truly overwhelming.

3. Untuk Keke, Chic and Darling sudah berusia 2 tahun dan sudah beberapa kali mengeluarkan seri produk baru. Darimana saja ide desain produknya datang?

Kebetulan dari kecil aku suka barang-barang yang punya nilai seni. Aku juga seneng travelling, collecting books and magazine. Sebagian besar produk yang aku buat memang ter-motivasi sama kebutuhan di rumahku sendiri. Seiring berjalannya waktu, aku ter-inspirasi untuk membuat produk yang fungsional namun tetap punya nilai estetika. Setiap membuat desain atau produk, i would ask myself first: would i buy and use the products i make or not?

4. Untuk Inda, kesulitan saja yang dialami saat memutuskan memilih startup digital?

Kesulitannya mungkin dari sisi IT nya. Jadi aku dan Friska nggak punya latar belakang IT sama sekali dan itu membuat kita meraba-raba banget. Bahkan pernah ditipu web developer! Jadi salah satu tips dari kita mungkin adalah cari partner yang memang jago dibidang teknologi kalau ingin fokus di startup digital! (Psst..kami juga sedang mencari partner lho…ada yang tertarik? ;D)

5. Saat setahun pertama, sebaiknya perlu rekrut SDM untuk bagian apa saja?

Inda:
Sebenarnya sih tergantung dari bisnis dan keahlian kamu apa. Kalau contoh dari kita, kita memang kurang di bagian IT dan client acquisition. Jadi hal pertama yang kita cari adalah orang-orang yang bisa membantu kita dalam mengisi kekurangan tersebut.

Keke:
Kalau bisnismu mulai berkembang dengan baik, cobalah berinvestasi dengan menyewa seorang administrator yang baik dan bisa multitasking. Tapi walau punya karyawan tetap, bukan berarti bisa lepas tangan. Kita tetap harus turun dan semua harus tetap di perhatikan, because a business is like your baby. You would want to make sure your baby is well taken care of right?

6. Saat ini industri kreatif di Indonesia sudah semakin maju. Banyak startup bermunculan dan banyak orang yang memulai bisnis sendiri. Gimana trik kalian untuk bisa survive di tengah persaingan dengan kompetitor?

Inda:
Susah banget memang! Jadi memang produk yang kita tawarkan harus unggul. Kebetulan kan memang yang ditawarkan TBD adalah content. Jadi fokus kita adalah untuk terus memberikan content yang berkualitas.

Keke:
Sejujurnya aku nggak pernah merasakan adanya spesifik persaingan dengan siapapun, mungkin karena dari awal aku memulai  bukan karena alasan keuangan. Walau sekarang kenyataannya banyak yang meng-copy atau memulai sesuatu yang mirip dengan bisnisku, aku melihatnya sebagai sesuatu yang positif. It means my marketing strategy is working and the industry is growing. Mungkin hal hal kecil seperti how my products are made ethically dan bagaimana kita mengkomunikasikan setiap produk ke publik juga bisa jadi daya tarik sendiri. Saya juga berkolaborasi dengan teman-teman seniman/pengusaha yang punya kesamaan visi misi. So i guess the trick is you just keep going, don’t get busy looking at what others are doing.

7. Apa ada tips bagi pembaca yang masih ragu untuk memulai usaha sendiri?

Inda:
Ada salah satu quote yang memang kita suka sekali dari Seth Godin yaitu “The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something“. Kita setuju sekali dengan Seth Godin kalau memang kamu punya ide dan ingin mewujudkan nya, just do it! Yang terpenting adalah kita memang memiliki business plan yang jelas dan juga terukur. Make sure you are taking calculated risk and not just gambling.

Keke:
Intinya sih kalau kamu masih ragu, you will never start anything. Karena waktu terus berjalan, dan bisa jadi orang lain yang mulai duluan dengan ide kamu itu. So, get to know yourself first, set your mind into it, focus and work hard to make it happen.

Pheww..post super-panjang untuk kali ini. Tapi kami harap apa yang di-share oleh Keke dan Inda bisa membantu kalian yang sedang menimbang untuk memulai bisnis sendiri. Thank you for sharing, Keke and Inda!

photo credit:  Living room image and photo used for feature image are courtesy of Chic and Darling. 

AT THE WHEEL, Bloomberg TV Indonesia.

In early may 2015 i had a wonderful opportunity on being exclusively interviewed for Bloomberg TV Indonesia. When the producer first contacted me, i thought it was some kind of a prank and that i didn't responded right away. Turned out he was serious and said they were interested in interviewing me for one of their prime show called AT THE WHEEL. I knew that program because i watched a lot of it and no kidding their guests are all big names like Nadya Hutagalung, Jerry Aurum, Top CEO's and inspiring profiles i admire in this country. And i kid you not, they wanted to interview me! I feel embarrassed, blessed and grateful all the same time.

I thank God for all the wonderful opportunities he has given me in this life and thank you to the AT THE WHEEL awesome crew and host Tommy Tjokro which was super lovely. If you are interested in watching the videos of my interview please click the link below.

Video 1. AT THE WHEEL, Bloomberg TV Indonesia eps Kania Annisa Anggiani
Video 2. AT THE WHEEL, Bloomberg TV Indonesia eps Kania Annisa Anggiani
Video 3. AT THE WHEEL, Bloomberg TV Indonesia eps Kania Annisa Anggiani

ELLE DECORATION Anniversary issue May 2015

Such an honor to be featured in this special issue. Congrats ELLE DECOR!

A conversation on husband & wife.

The conversation

So i was always taught to speak about my thoughts and be honest about them, especially being in a relationship where it involves two people, two minds, two hearts. My mother always say, the only way to make anything work is communication and a good manner. So i know, if i want or need something, i should say it, in a kind and polite way. Now allow me to go back in time to when my husband asked me to marry him. After 2 years of us dating on and off, i started a conversation where i pour my heart out about my dreams, about how i visualised a marriage life would be, and that it is my ultimate dream to have a partner and not just a husband. I told him, if he let me work, let me grow, if he can let me chase my dreams, give me personal space to allow myself have my own precious time, and especially if he can change diapers, feeds and put a baby to sleep, don't mind waking up in the middle of the night to attend a crying baby without being asked, cooks and clean together, then i would be considering his proposition. I was very firmed, if he can promise me that we will contribute equally based on our capacity and grow together, i would agree to marry him.

Was this too much to asked? of course not. I was being logical. I knew i didn't want a man to just sweep me of my feet and save me because i didn't need to be saved, i needed a partner-in-crime, i wanted a best friend. I always believed the power of mind and have envisioned what i wanted my whole life so if i didn't speak my heart and mind about it, i would miss out a whole lifetime of happiness. Now i know you would probably wonder "how would you know for sure that he will keep his promises because people can change?", believe me i wondered the same thing four years ago, but i knew that a real man always keeps his words and if the universe conspires for us to marry, hopefully he is the man for me.

I know some people will bring up religious norms, how in Islam that wives main duties is to be obedient, to respect and follow the husband and all that sort of stuff, now that concept somehow never quite get to me. Why has it rarely discussed about the other way around? why every time we talk about marriage in islam, the word "respect" always refers only to the husband? Are we really that small?. I was even clear about this from the start with my husband that if he only wish for me to be completely obedient to him giving no space for intellectual discussions or if he want me to do all the cooking cleaning raising the kids myself, then he can look somewhere else because i can't be that woman. 

I don't believe my religion that is based on 'love and peace' is actually telling me to do nothing when my husband is doing something wrong, i don't believe my religion is teaching me to accept my destiny if life tries to bring me down, i don't believe my religion is trying to devalued women, i never believed my religion is allowing men to use the term "respect" as their permission to oppress women's rights to feel equally appreciated, to abuse physically in order to "educate women" and what's most worst a permission to do polygamy. It seems that what most people understand is my religion makes it okay if a woman feels small and insecure. It's not okay. it's never okay. I'm sorry but i don't believe all that.

I must say i am probably a few of the lucky ones that my parents taught about my worth. What i am worth of; I am worthy of love, affection, respect and freedom. I grew up knowing my worth and that's why looking back, i started that pre-marital conversation with my husband, because i always knew my worth and i am worthy of the highest bargaining position. If you are thinking that this post is also about feminism? damn right you are.

So based on that conversation we had before the wedding, we decided to write a vow for each other that we would read aloud in front of the audience on our wedding day. I know, at that time, it was not something regular in any islamic wedding run-downs, but it was my wedding and i will do it in anyway i pleased. After the ijab-kabul, before we exchanged our rings, we both stood up facing each other and read aloud our vows with tears in our eyes (sorry for getting sentimental here). After we exchanged our rings, as usual the headman of the wedding would 'command' the bride to kiss the groom's hand, in which earlier i firmly requested to my wedding organizer to skip this part, but he may have slipped and i almost flipped!, before making a weird scene so i put aside my ego, follow the lead and kiss my husband's hand. And to my surprise, he kissed mine back, so lovingly. He achieved to impress all the guest since you wouldn't see that kind of scene on any regular traditional weddings, so he managed to make me feel like a queen and my dream wedding came very true.

My childhood = my future

Maybe i should share a little bit of my background and why i always had all this critical thinking. My mother came from a rich and respected family, while my father came from a very modest family his father was a teacher. When my mother married my father, he practically had nothing but a small deposit in bank and a new job, while my rich grand father was ready to offer them a new house, a new car and everything my dad couldn't afford. My parents the newlyweds at that time, refused to take that tantalising offer and my mother decided to start a whole new life, the life that her husband could afford. So he rented a small house. In that house, me and my brother was born, we came home to that house.

What my mother taught from that sacrifice, was grace. She chose my father because she believed in him and he gave my mother the freedom to grow. Both my parents worked very hard from the beginning of their marriage, and they both grew together as they grew us. A few years later my father had the opportunity to receive an MBA scholarship to Virginia, US. So we all left Jakarta and happily lived in the states for 3,5 consecutive years. Obviously we had no maid, no helper. I was only 3 years old and my brother was practically a baby. Although i was only very little and had very little consciousness but apparently it implanted in my head the everyday scene of our life, how amazing of a team my parents were. My father in the midst of his endless projects and assignments, he still made time to do most of the hard cleaning of the house, like scrubbing the bathroom floor, scrubbing the kitchen, washing the car to polishing the shoes we would use to school. My mother would do most of the cooking, prepping up our lunch boxes and without a doubt, my father would wash the dishes. It's as if he knew his main role, as what every man in the house should be like.

They always split chores and get us kids to help them, at that time we already learned that house chores is part of our daily routine. That's how we learned about responsibility. My mother always put us to bed at 8pm every night without fail, at 6.30pm after dinner, we would go to the bathroom, wash ourselves, drink our milk, brush our teeth, slip in our pyjamas, say good night and get inside our room. When we sleep at night, that's the time my father would focus on his papers, my mother would continue to clean up or help my father to have an intellectual discussion, mostly a time of their own as a couple. These routine taught us balance and discipline. My mother always told us since little, evenings are for adult. Now I continue this ritual with my own husband.

Thank's to my parents, I had a beautiful memorable childhood. But most of all, it shaped me. Every little things that my parents did together stuck in my head, it grew in me until i entered my youth, until i figured out that life is not perfect but i knew what was ideal for me. I clearly remembered how well my father served my mother as well as my mother served him. And without a doubt, behind all my father's success and glory there's an amazing woman next to him, let me repeat, not behind but next to him. They both have an amazing inspiring career. They were each others wing-man and still is until today, may God always bless these beautiful souls with long happy meaningful lives. I wanted what my parents had, i wanted that kind of relationship. I dreamed to be like them, a power couple. 

My parents were the reason i started that conversation, a conversation i still continue to have with my husband until today. The mind is a powerful tool, but our actions also determines our future. It's not just about being lucky, it's more like a powerful attraction. If you share a positive energy you will eventually find that same level of energy in another person. To put it simpler, you get what you truly deserve. I guess that's how soulmate meets. Now how do i know if we will stay together forever and ever? how do i know if we won't fall out of love? how do i know if we will stay faithful to each other? my answer is, i don't know. I don't know what tomorrow will bring and life can't guarantee me anything. But one thing i know, our marriage will always be a work in progress and with God's will we both are willing to work very hard to make it work. It is ever changing, ever moving, ever growing. No matter what life brings, we are ready to go through our highs and lows. Together we will conquer the world.

Ruben & Kania, 23 July 2011.

This blogpost is dedicated to mama & papah.

Our home on Dulux "Let's Color" - METRO TV

This come to me by surprise, since we just did a shoot for NET TV not too long ago. METRO TV contacted me soon after and said they are interested to feature our little nest on one of their interior programs by DULUX. It felt overwhelmed that we suddenly got all the attention from the media, but overall we had fun and the presenters Anisa & Novandito were absolutely a pleasure to be with! Thank you METRO TV for covering our home as one of your favorite episodes. 

Click here to watch my home:

BEHIND THE SCENES

Our home featured in D'SIGN, NET TV.

In late 2014, i was contacted by a lovely girl from NET TV who said to be interested in featuring my home in one of their programs called D'sign. I was humbled but a little unsure whether i was comfortable enough to show off my most private life to public (i don't know how those celebrities does it hahaha) and wondering if this little nest of mine is interesting enough for their audience. I thought there is nothing fancy nor extravagance about it so i took my time, not giving certainty to the crew on when they could really come to visit. 

After months of them being persistence, i finally said yes and we arranged a shooting date on mid march 2015 at home. So here's a few pictures from behind-the-scenes of the shooting day. It turned out not so bad, the presenter was very lovely, i liked her, her name is Ghina and the crew was lovely and quite helpful. So this was literally the first experience that our little house being featured on a national television show. Thank you NET TV for the opportunity!

Watch my home episode "Hunian Eklektik - D'SIGN NET TV" here, tell me what you think!

BEHIND THE SCENES

Featured in Style & Decor, January 2015.

I received this in the mail the other day. Such a great kick start of the year! Was a pleasure to have the Style & Decor team invading our little studio workshop in early December 2014. The interview felt personal and the photo shoot was taken in my own personal home/ studio workshop. It's always wonderful if people genuinely appreciate your work. Thank you Style & Decor for such a lovely article!

My little journey and business philosophy shared in Jakarta Globe