Building a startup is rarely a straight line to success—and Dayu Dara Permata, the 36-year-old Indonesian startup founder behind property platform Pinhome, knows this firsthand. In just five years, she’s gone from bootstrapping her business out of her garage to raising over $75 million in funding, according to PitchBook and company representatives.
“There’s no such thing as instant success in entrepreneurship,” Permata said in an interview with CNBC Make It. “You have to be willing to fail—and fail often—if you want to grow.”
Raised in a modest household in Indonesia, Permata’s journey began with the kind of self-discipline many entrepreneurs credit as their foundation. Her parents were demanding, instilling in her a relentless drive to succeed academically. “We didn’t come from money, so I had to earn everything I wanted,” she explained.
That mindset carried her far: by age 23, she had already purchased her first investment property. Real estate fascinated her, partly because of her upbringing. “Living with strict parents, I thought—one day I’ll own a house so I can make the rules,” she said.
After graduating from university, Permata launched a corporate career that eventually led her to Gojek, Southeast Asia’s on-demand tech giant, where she rose to the role of Senior Vice President. It was there she met her future Pinhome co-founder, Ahmed Aljunied.
Bootstrapping While Working Full-Time
By early 2019, Permata was ready to branch out on her own. She and Aljunied began prototyping ideas in her home garage, all while she continued working full-time at Gojek. Within nine months, she had invested $150,000 of her own savings, and her husband joined as the first employee.
“We had five people working out of our garage. It was real bootstrapping,” she said. “We worked long hours, but we believed in what we were building.”
That belief was rooted in her own frustrations as a property investor. She found Indonesia’s real estate market disorganized and outdated. “Everything was done on WhatsApp, through strangers. It was a six to nine-month ordeal just to buy a house,” she said. “It made no sense that tech hadn’t transformed the sector yet.”
From the start, Permata and Aljunied embraced rapid experimentation. “We tested different models: real estate crowdfunding, property management, co-ownership. None of those worked—but each failure taught us something.”
By their fourth pivot, they struck gold. In January 2020, Pinhome officially launched as an end-to-end property transaction platform, combining real estate brokerage, mortgage services, and home maintenance. Today, the platform serves over 3.5 million monthly active users across its website and app.
Permata credits their success to their willingness to fail—and to learn fast. “Every failure brought us one step closer to the right solution,” she said.
A Marathon, not a Sprint
For Permata, startup life is all about resilience. “Try to fail every day, but learn from it,” she advised. “That will build your stamina—because this journey isn’t a sprint, it’s a marathon.”
She believes managing energy is just as important as managing operations. “If you burn out early, you’ll quit before you ever reach success,” she added.
As one of Indonesia’s most dynamic female tech leaders, Dayu Dara Permata’s story is proof that grit, iteration, and vision can transform humble beginnings into a high-growth venture.
