Engineering Founders

Google form MVPs, Leveraging Maslow’s Hierarchy in product, & customer acquisition strategies w/ Tri Ahmad Irfan

Episode Summary

Tri Ahmad Irfan, Co-Founder & CTO @ Lumina, discusses his journey identifying large-scale problems in the SE Asian market and how they went from a Google form MVP to 1 million+ users! Additionally, we cover how to formulate / test / prove hypotheses about product-market fit, how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs informs product strategy, determining a potential customer’s willingness to pay, resources for researching consumer acquisition strategies, and his favorite lessons for early-stage founders.

Episode Notes

Tri Ahmad Irfan, Co-Founder & CTO @ Lumina, discusses his journey identifying large-scale problems in the SE Asian market and how they went from a Google form MVP to 1 million+ users! Additionally, we cover how to formulate / test / prove hypotheses about product-market fit, how Maslow’s hierarchy of needs informs product strategy, determining a potential customer’s willingness to pay, resources for researching consumer acquisition strategies, and his favorite lessons for early-stage founders.

ABOUT TRI AHMAD IRFAN

Tri Ahmad Irfan (@irfan3) is the co-founder and CTO of Lumina, a community platform that helps underserved workers in Southeast Asia to upskill and secure better jobs. Launched in early 2022, Lumina has served over a million job seekers and is funded by Y Combinator, and Monk's Hill Ventures.

Before Lumina, Irfan built out the engineering teams at fast-growth startups in Southeast Asia such as GudangAda, a wholesale marketplace, and STOQO, a B2B platform for food and beverage businesses. In college, Irfan interned at Twitter in San Francisco and spent some time doing competitive programming.

"I started with building a Google form and sending it out to a lot of people I know and I met and in return, I received like 10,000 profiles into this Google form. That's when I realized, ‘Okay, this can be something big.’ The app itself only launched six months ago and we have around 1 million users now.”

- Tri Ahmad Irfan   

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SHOW NOTES:

• How Tri’s background inspired him to start Lumina (2:03)
• The motivation behind jumping into Lumina full-time (3:17)
• Challenges faced building the product up from an MVP (7:36)
• Using Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to inform product strategy (10:16)
• Frameworks as a founder for identifying a large-scale problem & creating a solution (12:46)
• How Tri formulated & tested his hypotheses about product-market fit (14:00)
• Questions to determine a potential customer’s willingness to pay (17:18)
• How Lumina transitioned from a Google form MVP to its current platform (19:54)
• The market strategy to reach 1 million users & how it shifts to attract the next phase of the business (22:24)
• Tri’s favorite resources for researching consumer acquisition strategies (26:21)
• What happens when you discover a hypothesis isn’t true (27:29)
• Lessons for early-stage founders that Tri learned from past experiences (28:57)
• Who were Lumina’s early key hires to scale up operations (30:59)
• Rapid fire questions (32:33)

LINKS AND RESOURCES

• https://irfan.blog/ - Tri’s personal website
• Talent - Renowned economist Tyler Cowen and venture capitalist and entrepreneur Daniel Gross set out to study the art and science of finding talent at the highest level: the people with the creativity, drive, and insight to transform an organization and make everyone around them better.
• The Witcher - In the Witcher saga, Andrzej Sapkowski introduces his hero, Geralt of Rivia, a witcher. He’s an itinerant mercenary. He kills monsters for money. His strange physique, with white hair and cat-like eyes, distinguishes him from other people, who reject him because of it. He’s an exceptionally powerful mutant who occasionally resorts to magic. Both feared and scorned by the powerless as well as the powerful, who see him as someone dangerous and impossible to retain. His honor code forbids him from killing if he can avoid it, and not to attack monsters unless they pose a real threat. He’s got a strong character, but he still has a human side: he doesn't always emerge from battle unscathed. Set in an imaginary medieval world enhanced with magic and monsters, the Witcher saga will surprise you: the monster isn’t always who you think it is!
• Y Combinator - One of Tri’s favorite founder resources that works intensively with companies for three months, to get them into the best possible shape and refine their pitch to investors.

This episode wouldn’t have been possible without the help of our incredible production team:

Patrick Gallagher - Producer & Co-Host

Jerry Li - Co-Host

Noah Olberding - Associate Producer, Audio & Video Editor https://www.linkedin.com/in/noah-olberding/

Dan Overheim - Audio Engineer, Dan’s also an avid 3D printer - https://www.bnd3d.com/

Ellie Coggins Angus - Copywriter, Check out her other work at https://elliecoggins.com/about/