Natasha Skincare: Divine success
Ardhian Novianto | January 03, 2012

Fredi Setyawan never expected that he would one day have a business network and a strong customer base all across the country. He credits not only perseverance and hard work for his success, but also the blessing of God.

Fredi Setyawan has always believed in working hard, but it hasn’t always brought success. “I have always been persistent, diligent and hard working,” he muses.

“During nine years as a doctor at a Puskesmas (public health center), I worked very hard and sometimes slept only one hour a day. I didn’t achieve much success, and instead developed liver problems.”

“I came to believe that without God’s blessing, no matter how hard we strive the results will still be only mediocre. When God's blessing does comes, He does it in his own time but the results occur as if it is the most natural thing in the world.”

For Fredi, success finally came in the form of his Natasha Skincare business. He began to experiment with skin lotions in frustration. As a Puskesmas doctor in Klaten, Central Java, from 1989 to 1999, he made very little money and was forced to operate a private practice in his ‘spare’ time. The graduate from Gadjah Mada University also felt discriminated against as an ethnic Chinese.

“Of course I was disappointed, I had worked hard, I studied every day and never forgot to pray. But the door was closed for me. In fact, my life as a civil servant was just mediocre,” recalls Fredi. There was a divine plan for him, however. When the door to further specialist training closed on him, another one started to open.

Working as a Puskesmas doctor represented a real personal sacrifice. Each day, around 100 patients would come to be treated. Each day, he would open his private practice from 5 am to 7 am before leaving for the health center, where he would work until 1 pm. Then he would spend two hours working at a private company, PT Intan Pariwar. In the afternoon, he would open the doors of his private practice, often seeing patients until 10 pm or even midnight.

Once he had finally closed the doors to his private practice, he applied himself to the study of skincare, his only alternative after being unable to become a specialist. He experimented making his own skin treatments.

He experimented with his balms and salves on his own skin. Often, he would end up with rashes or peeling skin. Finally he learned to mix the right ingredients in the right way. “Up until now, I always try all of my skincare products on my own skin,” says Fredi.  “I taught myself, as well as attending various courses on skin care in Singapore and even Oxford.”

His interest in cosmetic medicine began in 1998, when he drove his wife to Semarang to seek advice on her skin from a specialist. The consultation fee and medicine prescribed by the doctor cost Fredi Rp100,000. “In 1998, Rp100,000 was big money. I started to think about learning how to make my own cosmetic medicines.”

His perseverance and dedication as a public health doctor had also begun to produce dividends. He became the favorite of the Klaten regent. The regent’s wife, Ibu Suharjono, learned that Fredi was make medications for skincare, and offered the products to members of the women civil servants and wives group, Dharma Wanita. Immediately, his skin care products became widely known in Klaten district.

Growing out of disaster

During the depths of the financial crisis of 1998, two of Fredi’s older brothers experienced severe financial problems. “Their business went bankrupt and they were at the point where they did not have any money to buy even food,” he recalls. “I offered them the chance to sell my skincare medicine in the family hometown of Ponorogo.” 
His two brothers managed to drag themselves out of penury by selling the products door to door, eventually scraping together the money to start small skincare clinics in their homes. Before long, they found they were competing against each other, so Fredi suggested that they also set up shop in Madiun, across the border in East Java. 

Noting that his skincare business was starting to produce results, in 1999 Fredi resigned as a civil servant and opened the first Natasha Skincare clinic in Madiun. The following year, a clinic opened in Yogyakarta, which later became the headquarters of Natasha Skincare, the first of its kind in the city.

Since his treatments were not medicines in the real sense, they were classified as over-the-counter treatments, requiring no special licenses. Fredi coined the name cosmetical medicine, or cosmecutical, for his products.

The critical turning point for his business came in 2001. Fredi realized that he had already established a strong patient database, and decided to introduce hi-tech treatments using lasers. He invested Rp5 billion in laser tools.

“I went into the business of hair removal, collagen remodeling and anti-aging. It was the most comprehensive laser equipment, so it gave Natasha Skincare an immediate reputation as hi-tech,” recalls Fredi.
The number of patients doubled virtually every day. After all, his operation was the only one in the country apart from the Jakarta Skin Center. At just one branch in Yogyakarta, he was serving up to 800 patients every day. “I only stopped work to take a trip to the bathroom or to eat,” he laughs.

With that sort of demand and with people queuing up for treatments, he began to open more branches. Today, Natasha Skincare has 65 branches and 2,500 employees, including 250 doctors. Each clinic serves an average of between 100 and 200 patients every day.
Fredi remains the sole owner, including of the land the clinics stand on.  “I don’t think of buying land and buildings as an investment, I consider it saving,” he notes. 
Each Natasha clinic is equipped with a minimum of three laser machines, and the bigger branches may have as many as 10 different types of laser machines, which cost between Rp400 million and Rp1.5 billion apiece.

Natasha Skincare now has branches in almost all the main islands of Indonesia. The first Natasha Skincare clinic opens in Jayapura in Papua in January, becoming clinic number 66.

Fredi confesses that he doesn’t really have any business plan or performance targets. “When I started this business, I had no capital, but it just flowed in. I worked hard and persevered, and most importantly, I was blessed by God. That's all. Yet in this way, every year I have been able to open between six and 15 branches,” he says with a confident smile.  GA
 
 

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