Old but gold: How Snapy hustled

Image: Snapy co-working space

For Jakartans, Snapy might have become a word that would casually pop up when one thinks about printing. This might be because they grow up together with this brand or the fact that Snapy nailed its branding since the late 90’s. To be fair, Snapy is the very first of its kind here, in Indonesia.

“At that time, we saw the opportunity as we noticed everyone was going for 24-hour services. Back then, there was no place like Snapy, and we thought it must need business support. Thus, Snapy was born,” Vetty Hartawan, the co-founder of Snapy, recounted.

Snapy’s first store was opened in Gandaria in the lobby of an advertising agency called Adlink. Making use of the space, the founders of this decades-old company decided to make a convenient printing store. At first, they were about to start America’s Kinko’s franchise, but the monetary crisis in 1997 chased businesses away from the country. Not only that, employees were falling like ninepins.

This turned out to be a blessing in disguise for the company. Being the very first printing store with a business-center model, Snapy was soon full of people making use of the working space. However, they did not stop there. 

“In the early 2000s, we evolved as we realised that there are many types of printing needs. “Back then, if you want to make any design, you need to hire an agency and it wasn’t cheap. So, Snapy came up with retail creative design services that charge an hourly rate,” Vetty said.

It added more value to their business and grew exponentially in its field. Even after more than two decades and more than 60 stores in Greater Jakarta, they never stop developing their business.

Snapy is still ambitiously expanding their business. They have expanded as far as creating Printerior, where they print designs on a diverse set of interior and furniture surfaces, and iTenun, where they print designs on textiles. The creative team is conducting at least 10 R&D projects a week to find more surfaces to print on. Wallpapers? Check. Tote bags? Absolutely. Sofa, baby blankets, sandals, tumblers? Just name it, really.

“Pak Dede, the founder, said that we have to be paranoid. We have to keep changing. Anything you can print, you print.”

Image: Snapy x Cosmonauts

Adapting to changes is Snapy’s key to maintain its leadership position in the industry through decades and the rise and the fall of their services. This principle is shown in the appointment of Dinda Aisyah Soemakno as the head of Snapy’s creative team, as well as in the integration of the millennial perspective into the development of the considerably mature company.

Admittedly, the challenge for Dinda and her team mostly lies in the number of projects and deadlines they have to fulfill every single week. Even so, it didn’t deter her to aim even further in developing the company.

“We want to re-enter the digital world. We would like to be our own agency, to have our own photographers, videographers, copywriters, and to create our content ourselves,” Dinda concluded.

Having to deal with decades-old company, Dinda didn’t find it to be much of a problem either. If anything, she finds the already settled internal management system to be a comfortable environment to work in. “Yusuf said that Snapy’s employees are too old now, but I don’t think that it’s necessarily a bad thing. There is this sense of stability and loyalty in our employees I don’t see in recent startups.”

Yusuf Hantata Raszanov, Dinda’s partner both in marriage and in the creative team, also explained their current aim to collaborate with talents and entrepreneurs. “Now we have a new tagline: ‘Mencetak Sukses Anda’ (‘Print Your Success’). At present, we aim to engage with and cater to young artists and new entrepreneurs who want to start their own business.”

Yusuf is in charge of seeking local artists who would like to sell prints at reseller’s price. This form of collaboration is one of Snapy’s ways to evolve and adapt to the challenges in the business right now. While they are at it, they would like to cater to these creative workers to let them do what they are best at: creating art, and leave the production to Snapy.