The boss: Makaroni Ngehe owner and founder Ali Muharam poses in front of one of his outlets.

Arriving in Jakarta with only a high school certificate, Ali’s is one of those rare zero to hero stories.

During Ali’s early days in the highly competitive megalopolis and concrete jungle of Jakarta, he worked various odd jobs like selling sandals, washing dishes, being an office boy, serving at a warteg (Tegal food stall) and scriptwriting. He was even homeless for some time, but none of these deterred the young Ali from his conviction that he would eventually make it big.

“I didn’t know how I would get there [...] but I knew exactly who I was going to be,” Ali said.

With such a conviction and self belief, Ali mustered up the courage to borrow Rp 20 million (US$1,430) from a friend to open his first outlet for a snack he branded as Makaroni Ngehe in 2013.

The origin of the snack brand came from Ali’s own hardship experience during his early struggles in Jakarta. The word “ngehe” is Indonesian slang often used to convey annoyance and mostly used to refer to a person or occurrence. An English equivalent would be something like “suck”.

Ali admitted there were multiple times a co-worker or a superior had flung hurtful words at him when he was still a small time hustler. He also said he often felt his life journey was quite ngehe.

Makaroni Ngehe was a full time one-man business in its early days. Ali bought and hauled the sacks of macaroni himself, prepped the food and cleaned the floors. He even slept inside the outlet for the first month.

Fast forward to 2019, Ali now employs over 350 people in 33 Makaroni Ngehe outlets across Java, making hundreds of millions of rupiah in sales each day. He has also expanded his business portfolio by opening a restaurant, a guesthouse and a cireng (traditional fried dough made of tapioca flour) production company.

Ali’s philosophy in business and life was simple, yet it was what set him apart from many others. He understood that a lot of people desired success for their own sake.

For Ali, he was only successful if he could bring happiness to those around him. All he ever wanted was to be helpful to at least one other person, even if this meant something as simple as taking someone out of unemployment by giving them a job.

At only 33 years old, Ali was undoubtedly an inspiration to aspiring young entrepreneurs and businessmen. However, Ali explained that his real passion had always been writing.

Although he had a goal of achieving financial freedom and flexible hours, what truly motivated him was the idea of being able to freely nurture his passion for writing.

When Ali realized that writing alone could not give him the life he wanted, he decided to start his own business. Now, he is finally able to focus on writing and he chronicles his journey in a book aptly titled Ngehe.

For Ali, Ngehe marks his first step of fulfilling his lifelong dream as a full time writer. This book, which took Ali 13 months to write, is also the realization of his desire to be useful to other people.

Ngehe feels more like a novel than a biography. It portrays Ali’s life as if he was the protagonist.

The book follows Ali’s journey, thus the reader lives the stories of his childhood and early years in Jakarta. He also described the success of his macaroni business.

Ngehe was also an homage to his deceased mother, who died in January 2013, two months before Ali started working on his Makaroni Ngehe business.

“All I’ve ever wanted was to make her proud and give her all that she couldn’t buy,” Ali said about his mother.

Ali admitted that he and his mother had an incredibly strong bond. It was her who had taught him all of his life values.

In a way, Ali’s macaroni business was also a nod to her mother’s legacy.

Since 1993, Ali’s mother had been making and serving fried macaroni snacks in their neighborhood. Many came to love her mother’s crispy snack. Ali said this emotional attachment gave him the utmost determination to make his business work.

The chapter about his mother’s death was one of the hardest to write, he said. He admitted to putting it off multiple times as the tears and emotions would always consume him.

“I couldn’t find the words that would portray exactly how I’d felt,” said Ali.

Upon the success of Makaroni Ngehe and the release of his first book, Ali’s next step was to continue writing. He had also written some drafts and outlines for fictional books.

“This is just the beginning,” said Ali, who was already considering a second installment of his autobiography.

 “I will write more and more books.” (hdt)

— The writer is an intern at The Jakarta Post.

— Photos courtesy of Ali Muharam

Popular

Is Indonesia really ready to embrace dual citizenship?

Palm oil plantation-less mills lead to increase deforestation

Prabowo inaugurates construction of Majapahit palace replica