Breaking the Cycle of Poverty
In 2017, she was determined to get to Jakarta, leaving behind her village in Sumedang regency, West Java. Armed with her jengkol (dogfruit or ngapi nut) crackers, she joined a national entrepreneurship competition.
Imas Mintarsih is the daughter of a farmer. In 2017, she was determined to get to Jakarta, leaving behind her village in Sumedang regency, West Java. Armed with her jengkol (dogfruit or ngapi nut) crackers, she joined a national entrepreneurship competition.
In the beginning, Imas only helped sell jengkol crackers at the canteen at her school. After graduating, she distributed the crackers to different warung (food stalls).
"I was always ridiculed back then. ‘Don\'t play with Imas, she smells like jengkol!’" recalled Imas Mintarsih, now 28, at her house in Pamulihan village, Pamulihan district.
She also had other disappointing experiences, such as when she went with her mother to check on how the crackers had sold at the warung. Of the 10 crackers they had distributed to each warung, sometimes only one had sold and at other times, none had sold. Her peers continued to tease her, but she persisted.
It all changed when she saw a television program on e-commerce as an easy and fast retail option. Imas became interested immediately, and felt that she could sell more jengkol crackers through e-commerce than at the stalls near her home.
While she continued to run her informal cracker business, she attended several entrepreneurial courses, including the West Java New Entrepreneur course in Bandung. It took her several hours to travel from her village to attend the course, where she became acquainted with the speaker from Blibli.com and asked everything about online marketplaces. Shortly, she applied as a seller on the e-commerce platform and was approved.
Around that time was The Big Start Indonesia entrepreneurship competition. I was told that I was among the 100 finalists. After that, I made it to the 20 finalists and was invited to Jakarta.
She encountered some problems when she first started her online shop, such as the weak cellular phone network in her village, which continues to date, and her outdated phone, which made it difficult to run her online shop smoothly. She also did not receive orders immediately, and received her first order about six months after she had opened her shop. She continued to persevere with assistance from the Blibli.com personnel, until the orders started to trickle in. She then started upgrading the packaging of her jengkol crackers so they were more attractive.
"Around that time was The Big Start Indonesia entrepreneurship competition. I was told that I was among the 100 finalists. After that, I made it to the 20 finalists and was invited to Jakarta," Imas recalled.
She was both happy and confused. Taking along a backpack, she made her first trip to Jakarta and immediately felt inferior, because she came from a village and met so many impressive people.
Nevertheless, she remained determined.
Bumbling
She felt awkward when she was put up in a hotel and met many impressive people. During her month-long stay, she received entrepreneurial guidance from several mentors like Daniel Mananta, which helped her grow dramatically in both enthusiasm and business ideas.
Her interactions with the mentors produced results, such as the name of her product, which she renamed Oyoh De Kerupuk Jengkol after her mother, Yoyoh. She developed an attractive logo for placing on the packaging, and expanded the available flavors from one to three: original, spicy and barbecue. Her vision and enthusiasm for her business grew. Even so, she never thought she would win.
"I was surprised when it was announced that I was the third-place winner. Even my mentor was shocked. He told me before the announcement that it didn’t matter if I didn’t win. What was important was that I gained knowledge," said Imas.
The third-place prize was Rp 200 million, a very large amount of money for anyone in her village.
The prize charged Imas\'s entrepreneurial spirit, and she used it to expand her business. She bought land to build a cracker factory, bought equipment like a packaging machine, designed new packaging, designed cardboard shipping boxes and sent her crackers to a lab to test their nutritional content. She also set aside an amount to buy a sheep, and now has nine sheep. She now uses a laptop instead of a smartphone to manage her online shop, and also has a printer.
Today, she has retail agents in cities such as Surabaya, Medan, Semarang and Jakarta, and delivers her products to all regions in Indonesia.
Her Oyoh De Jengkol Crackers business has improved and is growing. The crackers look cleaner and have no chemical additives, have beautiful packaging and are shipped in attractive boxes. The business is also helping to empower local jengkol farmers. Today, she has retail agents in cities such as Surabaya, Medan, Semarang and Jakarta, and delivers her products to all regions in Indonesia.
Imas has succeeded in changing the image of jengkol crackers from a product sold at village stalls to a nationally distributed product. Her goal now is to turn jengkol crackers into an export product.
More importantly, the jengkol cracker business, with the help of digital technology, has helped break the cycle of rural poverty. Her business has also kept her from being tempted to marry at an early age. As a village girl, she admitted that she once thought about becoming a factory worker or a migrant worker, which was common among rural women.
"I thought about working as a migrant worker. It\'s scary to be a migrant worker," she said, recalling a few cases that involved migrant workers. Imas also realized that she was uninterested in working at the factory just a few kilometers from her house.
Today, her hard work is beginning to inspire her fellow villagers to become entrepreneurs.
Imas Mintarsih
Born: Sumedang, West Java, 25 March 1991
Family: Youngest of four children of Rukmana (dec.) and Yoyoh
Achievement: First place, Outstanding SME, Sumedang regency; Third place, The Big Start Indonesia Blibli.com entrepreneurship competition