Measuring success through the currency of positive impact

Ivana is the CEO and Founder of Venopi, and a front-end focused Javascript lover. A coder at heart and writer during leisure time. In 1987, I was born in a small village called Tulungagung, East Java, Indonesia. I remember vividly that my childhood was fun and active - swimming in the river, play barefoot soccer with friends, eating fresh fruits from the trees, dancing in the rain. Everything was great! Or so I thought, but later on, I realised that my parents were poor. My mom told me that when I was a baby, she couldn't afford to feed me with milk, so she kept feeding me with sweet tea to make sure that I wouldn't go weak. She still blames herself today for my shortness and later on, for my "slow learning". I beg to differ, I don’t think I am that short or that stupid.Fast forward, in 2004, I had this urge to see the world. I don't even understand why this urge was so strong - I blame it on Hollywood. Since I was raised as a Christian, I prayed to God and begged to see one country other than Indonesia. Just one. And I won't ask anything more. My dream was going to Canada because I thought Hollywood was in "CA" hence Canada, but later on, I realise that "CA" is California. Duh. But my parents couldn't afford to send me anywhere. So my only option was to get a scholarship. Problem is, I was a mediocre student. The single good grade I regularly got was physics - everything else was a gamble for me.But the universe listened to my prayers and I successfully got a scholarship to the Netherlands. This is proof that I am not that stupid, but there was still one problem. My parents needed to transfer €8000 for my subsidised tuition and living. Their financial situation was better at that time, but they surely wouldn't afford €8000 for years after. So I made a deal with them, if they could provide me with the first €8000, I will never ask anything more and would take care of the rest. I remember my dad asked me why I wanted to major in music. He said that all of the success stories I heard about people going abroad had less than 1% chance of happening. So I said, why can't I be that 1%?So tired of arguing, they let me go, and I survived 4 years of school, working 7 days per week at 6 different locations with €5 monthly expense for food for years. I even managed to go to California for an internship for six months in 2008, which got expanded for a year because they ended up hiring me. During my time in L.A., I was introduced to coding because I was handling some artists' MySpace pages, so I started playing around with HTML and CSS. One day, an artist asked, "Can you make a website for me?" Desperate for money, I said, "Of course I can!" I couldn't. All I knew was HTML and CSS for MySpace headers, but I thought I will figure it out. So I did, thanks to GitHub (I read a crazy amount of people's code and studied it), and I fell in love with writing code ever since. When I came back to the Netherlands in 2009, it became clear to me that writing code is something that I love doing. So I started looking for a job as a junior developer/designer. Several companies didn't want to hire me because I had no background in programming, but eventually, someone believed in me, and I got my first job as a developer in Amsterdam. I was lucky to be surrounded by so many amazing, talented, and helpful developers throughout my career. I worked at a start-up, medium to large sized companies, and later on, decided to be a freelancer to be able to finance my start-up called Venopi. Starting in July 2019, I decided to focus 100% on Venopi and left my freelance projects behind.Sometimes people asked, why did I choose to burn all of my money for a start-up which might not work? As a freelancer, I could have lived comfortably and even bought a bigger house with a garden.The truth is, when I was 25, I bought my first apartment in Amsterdam. When I was 27, I bought my second apartment in the city centre. Things looked good, but soon after I got depressed. I started to feel empty because I realised that I only made my life better, my impact was mostly affecting me. Not others. I came from poverty and I understand that I am lucky to be where I am today. There are many people out there struggling twice or three times harder than the people with better education and better finances. I dream of contributing to society and the environment, especially to children's education in Indonesia, and I am doing my best to make it a reality. My start-up is a part of my plan to make my dreams come true. It's a big gamble. There’s a chance I will lose everything. But I am determined and persistent. Also, I am a pretty lucky person. I asked the universe to give me a chance to see one country other than Indonesia, and I have been to so many countries that I stopped counting. When I was studying in the Netherlands, I could only afford to rent a small room. Owning anything was beyond my wildest imagination. Yet, I am lucky enough to have two apartments in Amsterdam. I just want to be useful and to create something that would help a massive amount of people. That's why I do what I do, and I hope this post would motivate other people out there to try and do something they think is impossible. Nothing is. You just have to keep on growing. I believe the world would be a better place if we would start measuring “success” through currency other than money and power and instead focus on the positive impact in others’ lives. I don’t think it’s hard; we all have the capability to do it; all we need to do is to start caring.

Measuring success through the currency of positive impactFeatured

Measuring success through the currency of positive impactFeatured