Sanja Milosavljevic: Good people of the world, my name is Sanja Milosavljevic and I’m going to be your host today. Today, my guest comes from Jakarta, from Indonesia and her name is Poonam. And I read her biography and it’s amazing, but I will leave her to tell you the most important things from her life so far. This whole project is supported by the US embassy in Serbia, in Belgrade and the main goal of this podcast is to share stories of successful women all over the world and how they are dealing with this new situation that hit us all. So I hope you’re going to enjoy our conversation. Hi, Poonam, how are you?

Poonam Sagar: Hi Sanja, lovely to speak to you, thank you for this opportunity. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: No, thank you and thank you for actually accepting this invitation and sharing your free time with us. As I said in the introduction, I read your CV, I read your biography and it’s amazing. Yes, because we are part of the IWEC group, so- 

Poonam Sagar: Yes, yes.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah, yeah, so from time to time you share some articles or something like that, but I never thought you had such a wide experience and so many things in your life. So can you tell us something about yourself like what is your educational background and how you develop- how you became what you are today?

Poonam Sagar: Yeah, thank you. So I was born and brought up in India. My father was a doctor in the armed forces, so we traveled around. Every two years he was forced into a new city and I had a- as children we had the opportunity to go to a new school every few years. We had a new set of friends and we learned to adjust. So we learned to- not always looking forward to it. The first day was always scary, you know, the first day of school, but we slowly made new friends and learned the new language of that region and also it was a great learning experience. Now in retrospect I think it taught me so much. And I got married very young. After I got married I did my Masters degrees. I have three Masters degrees so the first one I did in Biochemistry, then I did Management and then Computer Science. And then we moved to Indonesia. So my husband moved to Indonesia to set up his own IT company here. And over time I joined him, after doing my Masters in Computer Science.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So- sorry, but did this Master in Computer Science help you to participate in your husband’s business? 

Poonam Sagar: Yes. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: What sort of Master was it? Was it something like Project Management in IT or coding and programming, what sort of Masters did you do?

Poonam Sagar: This was computer applications and CA. Masters in computer applications. And with my previous experience and education in Business Administration I think it just kind of helped me. So I didn’t start off by being a developer or coder, I started off as being- managing a team to do certain projects. And then I moved to Indonesia. This was a huge new world because I didn’t know the language in Indonesia. Everybody was new, everything was new and it was a big- it was like a splash of cold water, you know, a reality check like yes, now we need to step up and learn new things, do new things. And that’s when I started my first online community called indoindians.com. Which was a community to aggregate information about Indonesia which is often addressed to Indians in Indonesia. So that is my very niche community portal, it’s an information portal and it connects people. It connects Indians in Indonesia as well as people in Indonesia who are interested in India. And you’ll be surprised that there are a lot of people who are interested in Indian culture, Indian movies and that is a growing community. So it is a very dynamic and interesting place to be in. In addition to that- sorry. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Sorry, sorry, continue, sorry.

Poonam Sagar: So in addition to that, as I mentioned I’m part of the IT company. I did many, many projects. In fact, I took ownership of the web division and we did a lot of interesting e-commerce projects. As well as- these were starting out and these were revolutionary because when we were just starting out with e-commerce we started with e-commerce and we did very large and successful e-commerce sites and that gave me a lot of insight and a lot of understanding about how e-commerce works. And that- some of the big clients we had were the likes of Starbucks and Dominos, these have been our clients. So we really work with some of the best brands.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice. I like Dominos. When I was in India we were eating for the first two or three days before we adjusted to the food we only ate in Dominos pizzas, so… yes. So how do you grow community? What time did it take to grow a community? Or was it just easy, like using- I don’t know- were there any social media at that time? How did you grow your community? 

Poonam Sagar: So when we started in the year 2000 the only thing available to us was email. At that time. So we only used email and word of mouth. And people used search engines to find information because it was very limited information. So what we used to do was give the url of our website and say go visit and we just sent emails. That was- there was no Facebook, there was no Instagram, even WhatsApp. So the only channel of communication was emails and we had a phone number and people could call us.

Sanja Milosavljevic: But how did you- how did you build your email list?

Poonam Sagar: Yes, that was a- it is still growing and it is always a process. It’s a process where people who are interested will give you their email ID and you can add it. So it was a very organic thing, we were very organic, the community is very, very organic, it is still growing. I will not say it is done. It’s been 20 years and we are still growing and we do different things every year. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: Like what?

Poonam Sagar: Like any community. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, during this pandemic period, did your community grow, did it stagnate, did it- what happened? Now that people cannot travel, now that people cannot meet in person.

Poonam Sagar: In fact the pandemic gave us the opportunity to pivot. Where we were doing- we had started doing a lot of large offline events, meetings with our community members. With the pandemic there was suddenly this need to connect online. And technology has played a really beneficial part in this growth. We started moving all our events online. So we started doing many informational events online. You know, health-related events, online. We also started doing events like meditation, wellbeing, parenting, anything- and even we did artwork shops online. Anything that could connect and help people get over this hump. Because during the pandemic people felt very lonely in a sense. Because they were all confined to their own homes. So this was I think a great learning curve. We also started many groups, WhatsApp groups for community communication and special interest groups. And just technology helped us grow. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: How- I agree that we have to use technology to help us grow. And I think that’s the best way to use technology. So, what is the- why is technology so good? How can technology help us in everyday lives?

Poonam Sagar: It’s just a channel of communication, technology. It powers a lot of things that you want it to do. It has a million benefits, but it cannot replace human interaction. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: I agree. 

Poonam Sagar: We miss that. We miss that. You know, it’s so lovely to speak to you across thousands kilometers of space virtually, we are speaking to each other in real time. And that’s a big thing, but can you imagine if people were in the same room together, it would have a different dimension altogether.  

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, I know. I actually miss the contact with people because during this past year I was only seeing a certain circle of people and- live. I’ve seen many people through Zoom, through Skype, through some other channels, but in person I’ve only seen one limited circle of people and I really miss that. I really miss going out, going to restaurants, travelling or whatever. It would be perfect if we could do this interview face to face. Like I come to Jakarta or you come to Belgrade, whatever. So I read one thing that is really, really interesting for me. That you are a social entrepreneur. Can you tell us something more about that?

Poonam Sagar: So, when we talk about being a social entrepreneur, our investment is in terms of time and our results in term of the social impact we make in the world around us. And I have been on this journey for a long time and it started off with the understanding that I have to grow from being- looking at just me, myself, to looking at a bigger picture as a worldview. So what can I do for my community, or how can I look outwards? And it started off by initially starting off the community portal, and then I got very interested in how I can help the environment around me. So we started a company called 1 million trees. And we planted a million trees in Indonesia. Mostly near Jakarta. And this was a very grassroots driven approach where we worked with small schools in the villages to actually grow the saplings. With the help of the schoolchildren. Because the trees to be planted have to be of a specific kind and we decided which kind of trees we wanted to plant, which had the greatest environmental advantage. So we wanted to plant like jackfruit trees and we wanted to plant some other hardy trees that were useful to not only livestock but to people.  So a very simple example- I said jackfruit trees. The jackfruit tree has a very deep taproot system. So it holds the soil very well. Its leaves are very thick and they provide good nutrition to livestock, and the fruit, we all love the jackfruit. We like it raw, we like it ripe. And the wood from the tree can be used only after the tree is 20 years old. So the tree’s in the ground for at least 20 years. So those are the- you know, we did a lot of research into which trees we wanted to plant. And then the children were encouraged to bring in jackfruit seeds and plant them. So every child- and we rewarded the school by setting up their computer labs for the number of saplings that they gave us. So it started because we had to plant a million trees and we wanted a million saplings and to get to a million trees we needed far more than a million saplings. So it was a very interesting project, we got in touch with so many schools, so many schoolchildren, we tried to do their libraries, computer labs, it was really a very big grassroot effort and a lot of people were rewarded. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: And did- who helped you? I mean planting one million trees is- as you said it’s a huge project. Who was involved? You said schools, you said local community, but did you have help from the government or-

Poonam Sagar: No.

Sanja Milosavljevic: …from governmental organizations? No?

Poonam Sagar: It was all individually funded. Everybody paid for trees. So we said plant a tree, so everybody could pay for a single tree, we had planting days, people could come and plant their own trees or they could just pay for trees and we would plant it for them.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s- that is amazing. Do you plan any similar projects in the future? Is this project still running or is it…

Poonam Sagar: No, after we planted a million trees, it was a lot of effort and a lot of the main stakeholders they kind of moved from Jakarta and it became very difficult to continue. The biggest challenge we found was finding land where to find the trees. Because the trees have to be in the ground for 20 years. So where do we find the land to plant those trees? That was our biggest challenge. It’s easy to cut down a tree, it’s very difficult to plant and take care of one. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: No, yeah, I know, I know. Do you plan to make any similar projects in the future?

Poonam Sagar: I would love to, if there was the opportunity, I’d be the person standing right in front to do it. A lot of people reach out to me and say can we do a small tree planting event and I say do you have land? If you have land we can do it. It is a challenge.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Interesting. I would love to have some similar initiative in Serbia because we definitely need more trees. We have a part in Serbia that was- I don’t know how to translate it, but it actually means “Wood” or a “Forest” and now when you travel through that part of Serbia you can’t see that many trees or forests. Okay. Can you tell us something about your engagement with IWEC foundation?

Poonam Sagar: I really like the IWEC foundation. I have been attached to IWEC since 2009. And that’s when they- I was an awardee in New Delhi. And it was a wonderful- I was totally amazed at the number of women I met, all of them doing such wonderful and so inspirational. And they were from the US, from South Africa, they were from Portugal, from Spain and it was an amazing experience to meet up with them and hear their stories. And be very, very inspired. And then I met them again in South Africa where they had the next IWEC awards. When I had the good fortune to be able to nominate somebody from Indonesia to be awarded. And I have been connected to IWEC ever since. What really amazes me is that there are all these wonderful, outstanding achievers and to be connected to them is in a sense to be a part of their story. And be able to learn from them. And one other testament to that is this very moment that I’m able to talk to you. And this is only because of the IWEC network. And over the last whole year with the pandemic I think the WhatsApp group has really worked to make us feel even closer than ever before. So it’s a wonderful network. I really, really enjoy it. I feel that as  women we should each support and build each other up. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, I agree. I’ve been to the IWEC foundation in New York when I was in the States and I was amazed. I was just sitting in the corner and just listening to the ladies. I didn’t even want to- you know like raise my hand and ask a question, I wanted to leave them to finish their stories and then after that just ask them something. I was really, really amazed. They are successful, but they are just regular, normal, healthy persons. You know, you can talk to them. There is no barrier between them and between me. I’m a small-scale, I’m an owner of a small-scale business, I’m not that successful or whatever, I don’t have achievements or accomplishments and they are all with achievements and accomplishments, but they are treating and they are talking to us like we are the same- like we’re on the same levels. I was really amazed, it was one of my greatest experiences in the States. Can you tell us something about the pandemic in Indonesia, in Jakarta, what is happening? How are you dealing with that, how did that change your life and your business?

Poonam Sagar: Yes, it has. It has been a great change. In March last year, we all went in lockdown. And that was when suddenly- and most of the businesses in Indonesia were not geared to work from home. People were- you know, we have been for years now, the only meaning of work was to get to a workplace, sit in front of your computer and do your work. That is doing work. At home is when you are disconnected from work and you do everything but work. And now suddenly everything has changed. You had to work from home and do everything from home. And it really affected productivity. One because how can you access all your data which is at your workplace. At your work computer. And that was a big challenge. The other challenge was how to be able to effectively communicate with your team members and give them the right data or the right guidance on how to do their jobs properly. And there was also this big change about working from home where earlier you used to sit at your chair in your cabin and do your work and now you were at home with your family, with your children and with all the other baggage that comes with being at home. So it was a big, big change. And I think you might have also gone through it. I think everybody might understand what I’m talking about, each of us has gone through it. But I think over time, in June when everything reopened, the first things that most businesses including ours did was what needed to set those systems into place. So that we got our project management tools in place, we got our communication tools in place, the standard operating procedures in place so that everybody was- although they were working from home, there was no disruption in doing their work. So that was a very big thing to move forward and that really, really helped. And it has continued because the restrictions have continued. Even now there are some restrictions in place so we can have only 50% of employees at the office. So because of those tools and procedures that we have set in place, people can still continue working. I’m still not used to this whole thing. It’s nice to be able to work from home, but it’s not the same. It’s not the same experience for me. When I come back and sit in my office, I feel like I can do more.  

Sanja Milosavljevic: Why do you think is that? Like my husband is sitting for a year now at home, working and he said the similar thing I think last month. He said when I go to work, I’m more productive. He actually works maybe 12-14 hours a day and he said he could finish the same job in maybe 7 hours when he’s at his office. Even though he has colleagues, he goes to coffee, to have lunch, so he has some breaks there, but he’s more productive. Why? Why do you think is that?

Poonam Sagar: I think it’s the lack of distractions. There’s so many things to distract you at home. And at the office you- I think it’s more about the mindset. Some people have set up their home offices where they set up a room which is their office. They close the door and they are in the office and they just do their work. And maybe if this thing continues we might all start to do that.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Well maybe it’s easier when you’re in the tech industry. So how did the pandemic affect your- not just your productivity, some processes and communication with your employees, but how did it affect your business in terms of revenue, in terms of communication with clients and such.

Poonam Sagar: Yeah, in the perfect world if you listen to the news and you listen to the media, they say that tech is booming and the hospitality is affected, travel is affected, tech is not affected. But in my experience, tech is also affected. Especially if you’re working for clients and if your clients happen to be in the hospitality space and if you are providing them tech services. Then yes, we were affected. Even companies like media companies were affected because ad revenue went down. Everybody kind of decided to delay their projects to next year or delay payments, or sometimes just delay projects. So because of that yes, tech companies with service clients from these sectors were all affected. And that is the reality and we understand what’s happening around us and it has been quite tough for some of our project teams. It has also been tough for some of our employees because even some of our staff members, if they get in touch with- if they get sick then obviously they’re away from the office for a long period of time.

Sanja Milosavljevic: And how do you overcome this hinder, this obstacle, this problem, this challenge? How, if you can call it differently?

Poonam Sagar: Yes, we can call it an opportunity to relook, to recalibrate and what we did is we spent a lot of time developing our own software product which we have kept on the back bench for so long because we were always so busy trying to fulfill our clients’ commitments, but now suddenly we have that level space where we can now focus on our own, what we wanted to develop. So we have spent this time trying to enhance our own software products, to develop some new products and also to find new avenues and new bases to do business. So that is what we are doing at this moment.

Sanja Milosavljevic: What will be the new ways of doing business?

Poonam Sagar: So, it’s also looking at finding new- like you mentioned that you are now trying to teach the women social media marketing where earlier we used to have notified client communication or prospect hunting in person, now we are trying to do a lot of it online. We are trying to do a lot of digital marketing. We are also trying to reach people on Zoom and actually do events online, tech events so we can share what we know with a larger group of people and hopefully that will translate into some business. But yes, again, the tech tool is help because if we were to do a tech event otherwise in the normal world, then we would end up spending huge amounts for venues, for food, all of that. Now it’s just about setting it up and getting people to attend.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So, can you tell us something about the state of entrepreneurship in Indonesia and especially with focus on women running their businesses?

Poonam Sagar: It has been boom time, for entrepreneurship. Everybody- I am amazed at how people have taken this so positively and gone ahead and done everything they had thought about earlier, they have taken this opportunity to do. There’s so many new entrepreneurs, especially into the food space. Every second person, every second woman I knew is now doing some kind of home-based food business, they are making things, selling things and they are doing it very well. They are spot on and with some of the basic infrastructure like transportation in Indonesia they have Gojek. It’s a ride sharing service which also helps to deliver goods. So that has really helped the entrepreneurs to grow their home-based businesses and they are doing very well.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I’m so pleased to hear that. So is it actually common for women to start their own businesses? Is it something natural and normal? Or do they have some problems or challenges in running their own businesses?

Poonam Sagar: No. So, earlier they either they did not have the time or the right motivation, but now with all the restaurants closed, people looking to eat new kinds of things, people willing to try new kinds of things, I think this was the perfect opportunity to start.

Sanja Milosavljevic: I know, something similar happened here in Serbia, but I think something similar happened almost everywhere in the world because we’re all in a similar situation.

Poonam Sagar: Correct, correct.

Sanja Milosavljevic: So do you have any kind of grants or micro-financing institutions that can help women start their own businesses? Because sometimes, especially if you’re- like I’m in the food production, you need some capital to start your business. So do you have any kind of help from your government or from other institutions? 

Poonam Sagar: So, I’m sure there might be some such facility available to small- to micro entrepreneurs, I’m sure there’s facility available. Most entrepreneurs usually start with their own savings or friends help them initially and that is how most of the home-based businesses have started at this moment. Everybody is strapped for cash, many people have lost jobs, so this was a way to step forward and make money to have a revenue generating option. 

Sanja Milosvljevic: And do you as a company offer them some kind of platform, ecommerce platform to sell them? Do you have some kind of package like I can have huge clients and you have projects doing with them, but do you have any part of your business that can help the small scale businesses or entrepreneurs to sell their products through ecommerce.

Poonam Sagar: Yeah. In fact what we started as a part of last year, just before Diwali, we started an online marketplace. We just connected to our community portal indoindians, so it’s an online marketplace called indoindianshop.com where people can actually have their own shops. They can sign up as a vendor and they can upload their products and sell it. At this moment we have a large number of products which people have- there are many artists and in fact there’s an online art gallery with over 100 artworks, all unique artworks. We also have people selling food, they’re selling their own unique handicrafts, and there’s a whole lot of stuff they’re selling online. So yes, we do provide that facility for people to be able to sign up and payment gateways provided all the seller dashboard is provided, so what we are trying to do is we use what we know to be able to empower other vendors.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Nice, nice. So this whole thing is going to end at some point. What are your plans for the future?

Poonam Sagar: I wish it ended ASAP. (laughter) Once it ends like, now the vaccines are coming in, people will be feeling much safer to travel out and hopefully things will open up. Once things have opened up – travel, hospitality, etc. everything should be jump started back to normal, hopefully. But a lot of the lessons learned during this last one year or will continue for example online tools for collaboration, for working, for doing a lot of digital marketing, all these things- project management, even, all the things we’ve been using so far. I think they have made a huge impression on all of us and we might continue using them, going forward. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: What is- how is it like to be a woman in a tech world? In Serbia, we have ladies running their tech businesses or girls that are learning how to code and how to program, but you are at a high position in a company, how is it like to be a woman in the world that is predominantly a man’s world?

Poonam Sagar: So what I like about the tech world is that there is no overt prejudice against women in the tech world. If you can do your work, if you are capable at your work, you are perfectly suited to doing it. More or less it’s a desk job, you’re not out on the- you’re not doing any physically demanding work, it is more mental than physical. That is one big thing, another thing is it allows you to express your creativity in the tech world, that is a big, big thing. If you’re creative and you’re focused and at times women are more dependable and they are more focused at the work at hand, so they are able to do really well in the tech world. In fact, just to share with you, my daughter is also a data analyst. And she’s working as a data analyst and she really enjoys it and she wants to learn more about analytics and do more of tech jobs and it just shows that more and more women are moving forward in this scene because this is very suited to the way we think. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: That’s interesting, I’ve never heard an explanation like you just gave us and I agree. Do you think that there are any kind of differences between styles of running businesses between women and men? Like you said we are creative, we have some different set of skills than men. But-

Poonam Sagar: Yeah, we are multitaskers. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: By nature. We are multitaskers by nature, yes. So, can you just- do you see any differences basically? Because in Serbia we have that term ‘women entrepreneurship’. We have entrepreneurship and then the subset women entrepreneurship. So do you make any difference between these two terms, or these two styles of running business?

Poonam Sagar: Well I think entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship. I don’t see a difference between- how you could call it women entrepreneurship. It’s just starting a new enterprise and doing something new and that’s entrepreneurship and anybody could do it. So that is my take on entrepreneurship. As far as what is the leadership style of women and men, I think women are more inclusive and they are more caring about the people they look after. And the people who are under- with whom they’re moving forward. So there’s this new term called the servant leadership concept, or the leader that empowers the people who are with them, I think women tend to do that, because it’s a natural thing. It’s a natural thing with our caring and taking people with your forward. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: And I would like to return to social entrepreneurship. I strongly believe that the social entrepreneurship or the basics of social entrepreneurship is entrepreneurship for the future. Because if you don’t include that social feature of business, then it will- okay, it can succeed, it can grow, but it’s not community based, it’s not open to the community. So what is your opinion about that?  

Poonam Sagar: I totally agree with you. If social entrepreneurship is about playing a bigger game in life. It’s not just about how many profits you are making, it’s about the impact you are making. It’s about the legacy you want to leave behind, such that the world is in a better place because of your actions and efforts and that is actually social entrepreneurship.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yes, the baseline of social entrepreneurship is what you said. Okay, so can you- can you share something with us? Because we reached almost the end of our conversation. What will be your message to the world?

Poonam Sagar: So, one that you live only once, so you should make the most of it. Do all that you can, don’t feel limited. Everything is possible. If you just make- take the right step forward. Then, moving forward is not the absence of fear, but moving forward knowing that you have the courage to overcome your fears. 

Sanja Milosavljevic: So what helps you to overcome challenges? What do you- do you read, do you meditate, do you walk, what do you do to just free yourself from the anxiety of staying at home all the time?

Poonam Sagar: So I like to say that there are three things that determine everything. One is your intention, your action and the result. So, intention comes from you, the action comes from you, but the results you leave to the universe. So if you stop worrying about the result and just focus on your intention and action, I think two out of three is good enough.

Sanja Milosavljevic: That is really a good point. So, Poonam thank you once again. I actually- this scarf is from India, I bought it-

Poonam Sagar: Yes I can see that!

Sanja Milosavljevic: So I brought it today just to be, I don’t know, more connected.

Poonam Sagar: Yes, thank you. And you’re wearing the same green as well.

Sanja Milosavljevic: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So thank you once again, thank you for your time, thank you for your kind words and thank you for actually accepting to participate in this project. Good people of the world, we were- you were- and me together with you were listening to Poonam from Jakarta, Indonesia. If you like, you can always follow us on Facebook and Instagram and you can always subscribe to our channel just type #mondopreneur and you’re going to find us. So stay good, stay in good health and see you in a week.