LIF Global case study: Anisa Azizah

Overview

Based in Indonesia, Anisa Azizah is the Founder and CEO of Tech Prom Lab, a research-based start-up that focuses on material building innovation. Anisa comes from a university and research background, and had experienced that the entrepreneurial journey can be more challenging for those with a research-based mindset. Because of this, she wanted to join the LIF Global 2022 programme to learn how to strategically commercialise a research-based product and to find others who are doing similar things.

Case study details

Country: Indonesia

Cohort: LIF Global 2022

Sustainable Development Goal 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities

Learnings and benefits

By participating in the LIF Global 2022 programme, Anisa feels she learnt a lot about business development and being a true entrepreneur. “The training is different to what I’ve experienced before – this programme emphasised what is important for me and acknowledged that many of us on the programme are research-based. It had a real focus on things we may miss as researchers.” Learning about the Design Thinking Framework was particularly useful. “As a researcher, I would match a customer’s need to the product I have. The LIF programme provides a framework that has several steps in before this. They acknowledge that we already have the product, but first we need to think about what problem we want to solve, who the stakeholders are and what the big question is. From there, we have an idea of who our potential customers are and dig deeper into their problems.”

Another key learning for Anisa is the next step; after brainstorming the product you need to test the assumptions. “Market research seems like a difficult thing that only a business professional does, but LIF simplified it, so it made sense. Business research is like any other research, we have hypotheses, and we need to test them. LIF made it sound less scary.”

“My increase in confidence and self-awareness helped me to trust myself – I felt more able to take the chance and go for it. I don’t need to keep asking people for reassurance because I realised, I’ve got this!”

Anisa Azizah, Founder and CEO of Tech Prom Lab

Highlights and challenges

The highlight of the LIF Global 2022 programme was the networking opportunities and the connections Anisa has now made – and how she can learn from them. “I’ve met people who are more developed than me in running their business. They told me during the UK residential about experiments and strategies that I’ve never thought of before so it will help me to implement new ideas.” Anisa continues to say, “Particularly after meeting [fellow LIF innovators] during the UK residential, I really feel I can count on them. I made many cool connections and I feel closer to them. We are connected on social media, and we still talk now. It feels more than colleagues from a programme – now we are friends that will last a lifetime.”

Although Anisa felt that it may have been challenging to come from a research-based background, she was reassured by the people she met on the LIF Global 2022 programme: “Most people on LIF were researchers to start with – it inspires me that research is really changing lives, so I want to keep going and commercialise my research. I’ve even met an innovator on the programme who is mentoring me – I never thought I’d make such strong connections!”