Hi there! I'm Bradian, an Indonesian alumni from SJI International (Class of 2010) and a graduate of UCLA Business Economics (Class of 2015). I started my professional career with several summer analyst positions in finance, from private equity in L Catterton (Formerly L Capital, LVMH Group's private equity fund) to investment banking in J.P. Morgan.

Early on, I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur. As one who is more risk-inclined and rather impatient, I'd explore emerging instead of mature sectors because I believed one could be a subject-matter- expert in one year with the former instead of ten years with the latter. I became a startup founder straight out of my undergraduate degree. I co-founded Indonesia's largest influencer marketing platform in 2016 and sold it to a Southeast Asian publicly listed company in 2019. Subsequently, I built a B2B data analytics software company that transformed into a proprietary trading & and investment fund and separately launched a cryptocurrency analytics company.

My three years at SJI International etched into me the idea of "taking the road less travelled," which, in my modern interpretation, meant "making big (calculated) bets in contrarian entrepreneurial opportunities." In three short stories, I will share three contrarian roads I took from SJI International to where I am today.
 

The first road less travelled

From LVMH Group's and J.P. Morgan's corporate world, I learnt that one is never prepared for entrepreneurship and should take the plunge. Fresh out of UCLA, I returned to Singapore & Jakarta with a cofounder to experiment with ideas ranging from online groceries to e-commerce logistics. One day, we decided to prototype an internal tool to boost the productivity of our marketing team and automate influencer marketing campaigns, which was a nascent industry back then. Without commercial intentions, we shared the prototype with our work neighbour, Indonesia's largest e-commerce company, Lazada. Coincidentally, Lazada planned to launch Southeast Asia's first Single's Day campaign, with the most significant influencer marketing campaign to mark the occasion. Within the day, Lazada asked whether they could use the prototype analytics tool to launch a campaign with 1,000+ influencers on 11.11. We had come to a crossroads because the resources required to pull off such a project would mean we could only focus on one business: our existing e-commerce ventures or this monumental campaign for a single client. It was a risky and calculated move, but we decided to shut down our existing business to bet on a new one, which we reasonably thought could have more significant potential but was unproven.

We scrambled to recruit, speedrun learnings, and pull all-nighters to launch a record-breaking event. One month later, we pulled it off and became known as IconReel. This influencer marketing technology company launched the most extensive record-breaking influencer campaign in Southeast Asia, which was a massive success for Lazada in 2016 and probably played a part in paving the eventual complete acquisition of Lazada by Alibaba in early 2017. The rest was history. We grew to a team of 35+, had clients lined up at the door, were profitable from Day 1, and eventually got acquired by a Southeast Asian publicly-listed company in 2019.
 

The second road less travelled

Dating back to my SJI International days, my close friends knew me for being physically and mentally restless. I can't stand still without pacing around when I think, nor can I sit still without spinning a pen or a book. Likewise, in business, I could not keep still after an exit and not kickstart my next venture. This time, I wanted to build something with global reach, not just in Southeast Asia. I wanted to make a bigger asymmetric bet. Based on learnings from my previous venture, I started a B2B Software-as-a-service (SaaS) analytics business, which could operate with a lean team in one country but serve clients globally. Again, we turned down inbound venture capital deals because we quickly became a profitable venture with business clients of all sizes from 50+ countries.

Over time, I learnt that not all data is created equal: from e-commerce data, social data, healthcare data, or financial data, everything can be harnessed in different valuable applications to help people make intelligent, well-informed decisions. This was when I became increasingly curious about cryptocurrency, whereby, given the open-source nature of public blockchains, it was a treasure trove of untapped data. Despite the sector's rapid growth, cryptocurrency is often opaque and misunderstood, and that was when I realised there might be some value to applying our data analytics methods to cryptocurrency. I'm not a fan of rocking the boat or revamping businesses unnecessarily, but I needed another 180-degree flip to capture a more significant opportunity by transitioning from B2B data analytics to cryptocurrency analytics - we made another calculated bet on a less travelled road.

Fast forward a few short years, we quadrupled our revenue compared to our "legacy" business, with orders of magnitude more room for growth. This trajectory has also allowed me to set up a proprietary fund to invest in, you guessed it, contrarian bets ranging from cryptocurrency to venture capital, and my most recent obsession: climate mitigation projects

that tackle global warming via forest-based carbon capture. As a starting point, we are eyeing investments in Indonesian forests the size of Singapore to protect and reforest for carbon capture and credit issuance. This is where I am today as we enter 2025.

Before we talk about our last "road", I'd like to mention that taking the road less travelled also meant a lot of dead ends: ventures that never came to fruition, ventures that came to fruition but never took off, customer complaints, partnership disagreements, and many more. But hey, it's all part of the game - no pain, no gain. Be unapologetic, and keep moving forward.
 

The third road less travelled

Now, let's rewind to where it all started: SJI International. My journey began as a timid 15-year-old from a small city in Indonesia called Medan. I went overseas to study for the first time in a Lasallian international school, so freshly set up, I could smell white paint on the building walls. I stayed in the scholars' dorm, although I wasn't a scholar. I was a student photographer who one day took a shot at running for senior student council, pitching a short, unscripted speech in the Glass Hall to an 80-person Grade 11 student body: "I've been capturing moments, but now I want to make a change in those moments", and surprisingly got elected as Senior Council President.

Despite being active in extra-curriculars, my academics suffered, especially for IB Mathematics HL. The thought of being the only council president in SJI International's history to fail IB did cross my mind, and this is where I have endless gratitude to my teachers and peers who took a chance and believed in my potential more than I did. Shoutout to John Ooi, my housemate, and a huge special thanks to Mr Renato Rainone, my math teacher who, despite his busy schedule, was willing to (very efficiently) work overtime 1-on-1 to help me with math after school hours.

Although I have much to look forward to in my journey ahead, I look back to appreciate where I am today. I am here because of the people who took a chance on me. My hope for SJI International and my fellow graduates is that we continue to take a chance on one another and lift each other. Go far in your respective life journeys, but don't forget to look back and give back.