Recently, the Indonesian internet scene has been buzzing with debate over a motivational video featuring a 9-year-old boy known as Ryu Kintaro. This young boy is in fact not just a typical Indonesian child, Ryu Kintaro—the son of Makko Group’s CEO—is said to have earned an income of 1 billion and managed to become a runner-up in this year’s Southeast Asia Young Entrepreneur Awards.
Ryu’s video about “starting a business from scratch” garnered mixed reactions from Indonesian netizens. Some find his mindset inspirational, while others think that his remarks are irrelevant to most people given his silver spoon background.
Get to know more about Ryu Kintaro
As mentioned in Orami and Solobalapan.com, Ryu Kintaro is the son of Christoper Sebastian, the founder and CEO of Makko Group which is a renowned automotive company. Besides running a business in the automotive field, Ryu Kintaro’s father also owns a number of other notable businesses in different sectors, such as a family spa, noodle, bubble tea, and herbal drink business.
With his family’s success in business, Ryu was introduced to entrepreneurship at an early age. At the age of 7, Ryu already had hands-on experience in business by selling crispy chicken and fresh milk on the streets using his family’s luxurious Lexus car as a mobile stand. Then, at the age of 9, Ryu started another business by selling herbal Indonesian beverages or “jamu”. This herbal drink business named “Tjap Nona Kaya” is estimated to generate about 1 billion rupiah of annual revenue.
In addition, Ryu is also active as content creator, captivating audiences on TikTok and YouTube by making educational and inspirational contents as well as behind-the-scenes videos showing glimpses of his business and daily life. Having a wide influence on the internet, currently, Ryu’s YouTube channel has hit 1 million subscribers, while his TikTok platform reached 2.5 million followers. Prior to his recent viral motivational video, at the beginning of the year, Ryu gained attention due to his lunar new year red envelope unboxing video, where he reveals that he got 77,5 million rupiah, including two iPhone 16 Pro Max devices.
Ryu Kintaro’s sensational motivational content
One of Ryu Kintaro’s videos that went viral among Indonesians was his “motivational” video about his thoughts of living life as a pioneer who started a business from scratch. In the 39-second video uploaded on Ryu’s Instagram page, Ryu shares his thoughts by saying that being a pioneer is “fun” because no one tells you what to do and there is no guarantee of success, which makes it interesting. Furthermore, Ryu added that running a business as a pioneer is indeed not easy, but eventually a pioneer can make history by paving the way for others.
Ryu’s statement stirred up various reactions from Indonesian netizens across social media. Most netizens found his perspective hard to relate to when in reality, not everyone has the same financial condition as Ryu—who established his business at a young age with strong backing of his wealthy entrepreneur family.
This gap leads to heated discussions regarding the reality of entrepreneurship versus the privilege of having such solid support behind the scenes. So, what are your thoughts about this Indonesian child entrepreneur?
