Christian Suwarna is the co-founder of Diri Care, a leading digital health platform that helps millions of consumers be more confident through better personal health and well-being.

The Indonesia-based startup raised a $4.3M seed last year. 

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👋🏼 How would you explain your job to someone outside tech?

We're building Diri Care, a digital health platform to help everyday folks get high-quality yet affordable solutions for various health, beauty, and well-being concerns like chronic acne, premature aging, skin discoloration, hair fall, men balding, Alopecia Areata, etc.

In our platform, users rapidly connect to our doctors who will help them accurately understand their case and provide treatment recommendations that are personalized for him/her. Our pharmacy will then prepare and ship the products directly to their doorstep. 

The entire end-to-end process is designed to be seamless and digital-first to meet the needs of today's mobile, busy modern consumers. 

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🧐 What's something about you or your job that would surprise us?

People often ask what got me into this sector. To be fully candid, aside from its massive potential, it's actually quite personal to myself and my co-founders.

Around 2 years ago, I started to experience quite a hair loss. I tried to downplay it, but deep down my confidence was shaken. Thankfully I met Dr. Devi who is now my co-founder. She opened my eyes to the world of non-gimmicky, science-based clinical treatment. The custom hair serum she prepared for me worked wonders, and I knew I needed to make this solution accessible to many more in similar situations as me.

Both Dr. Devi and Armand, my co-founders, are actually chronic acne sufferers too. They've struggled with it since their teenage years, to now. All of us know firsthand how it feels to be insecure. All of us know too, that it doesn't always have to end up that way.

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🏆 What has been the biggest highlight of your career so far?

Building Diri Care is definitely one of them. After around 15 years of working as a professional with Apple, BCG, and Traveloka, I thought I was somewhat ready for entrepreneurship. Boy, little did I know then...

Building a startup is like a spiritual journey of extremities. The highs are high, the lows are low. One day you think you've cracked it, the next day what you thought was working suddenly took a turn. 

Whatever twists are thrown, to us the greatest high is when you see the actual photos, screaming grateful comments from your patients who saw transformative change they never thought was possible.

When you know you've helped someone and made a meaningful impact in their lives, that is one heck of an energy. I think we're very privileged to be part of their stories.

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🔍 What's a startup trend or space you're watching this year?‍

Obviously, all kinds of innovations in healthcare, beauty, and wellness space excite me. Be it services, products, or others, I'm just excited to see how technology can be infused to create a more advanced consumer health experience for everyone.

I'm also carefully looking at marketplace/commerce innovations that have been changing the shopping behavior for many, like livestreams or micro/mobile retail footprints. One of the core pillars of SEA economy is our large domestic consumer demand, and hopefully, we can be part of revolutionizing that too.

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💼 What advice would you give someone starting out in your industry? 

I'm also still quite new in this, so take this just as a sharing rather than advice.

I recognize that everyone desires to be (materially) successful and it's indeed a great catapult to start a process, e.g building a startup. 

But I think more than that, pick something/a topic that piques your sense of purpose. The journey is long and we need more than just the initial inertia to get going. 

More importantly, we need fuel that keeps the fire burning. I find that sectors that align with your inner purpose have a bigger chance of providing the necessary sustenance for the adventure.

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🗣 What's one thing you can keep talking about for hours? 

My two little daughters, who are 8 and 6, because they can't seem to stop talking. Jokes aside, being a girl dad is probably the best job in the world!

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🎥 What's your favorite movie/TV show? 

 Saving Private Ryan, The Godfather, Remember the Titans.

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🍨 What's your go-to ice cream flavor?‍

Dark chocolate.

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FYI. We've edited this interview for clarity.