Yayasan Prima Unggul (YPU) is committed to building new entrepreneurs from orphanages. Because of that, several business activities have been carried out to support the building of the capacities of the orphans. Some of the business units that have been formed are Home Industry Business Unit (making cakes, macaroni, fried banana etc.), Motorcycle washing Business Unit, Phone Credits Sales Unit and Ticket and Hotel Reservations Unit.
The students share the experience of “doing business”, in a series of stories and experiences, to you.
“Never Give Up!”
In the beginning, we were given our capital by our business coach, Coach Cynthia, in the form of Rp. 50,000 ($5.5 USD). We were divided in 10 groups, with 2 students in one group. From that capital, we were given the task of multiplying what we had.
Our Group (Group 4) suffered initial losses when other groups progressed smoothly
The way we tried to increase our capital was to sell food items such as fried banana and macaroni. In the process, we learned that life poses many challenges for us. We also experienced many up and downs, with or capital rising and fall. But we were enthusiastic and kept our “never give up” spirit.
From the initial 10 groups, we were selected as the leading four. From the leading four, we were then divided again into 4 groups. Our group had a capital of Rp. 341,500 (USD $37). This capital had been combined from the initial groups that was formed by Coach Cynthia. In our new group, the initial plan was to sell cassava and banana chips in housing areas and also at roadside stalls and schools.
A few days after we planned this, we tried to use banana and cassave to make chips. However, the results did not align with our expectations and we suffered a loss. But our efforts did not stop there.
In order to make up for the loss, we decided to sell fried bananas. However, it was not enough to cover the loss from the making of cassava and banana chips. Thus, we decided to sell macaroni chips in schools because we feel school children enjoy snacking. Besides selling it to schools, roadside stalls also sold our goods in a commission basis.
Our groups worked hard to sell. It all didn’t come easy. We had the experience where we tried to sell our goods by yelling in order to attract attention, but not a single person heeded us. In fact, a few people even laughed at us. However, we didn’t give up and with collective agreement, we began to focus on selling fried banana. Slowly, we recovered the loss that we suffered and we will continue to sell until we hit the target profit for our group. (Group 4: Desy/Andreas/Andhika/Mardi/Dwi)
