Chindoscore.com is my first viral product.
Inspired by the infamous Rice Purity Test, it boasted a series of funny, stereotypical Chinese-Indonesian traits and activities. You complete the checklist of questions, then you get a score that shows ‘How Chindo You Are’.
On launch day, I texted the link to some friends and had a couple of meme accounts post about it on Instagram.
Then I took a little nap.
I woke up an hour later to 650 users. By 4 pm, local celebrities/influencers took the test and shared it with millions of followers.
We reached 10,000 users within 12 hours, 30,000 in 36 hours, and 75,000 in 4 days. My little quiz, which I built in two hours, was a viral hit.
A week after Chindoscore launched, I went to a Christmas dinner where someone asked me how it felt to go viral.
I couldn’t help but chuckle. Of course it felt good. I wouldn’t deny that a bit of clout tickled the more vain side of me. But deep down, the success of Chindoscore meant a lot more to me.
Nested in my backpack is a navy blue notebook packed with a laundry list of startup ideas. Most remain as ideas, forever caged between pages, destined to never see the light of day. Some of them made it into early designs and prototypes. A few were developed into actual MVPs with real users.
None of them took off. So when Chindoscore did, it did not feel like ‘luck’. It was a testament to the skills I’ve developed and a reminder that my efforts were never in vain.
You might not notice it, but Chindoscore is filled with carefully engineered product and design decisions. Everything - from the fonts and colors I used to the order of the questions - was carefully coordinated to maximize virality.
I wouldn’t know how to make these decisions if I hadn’t spent the last few years learning and building. Every failed project, every scrapped idea, every long night spent chasing an outcome that didn’t happen—it adds up. Each one taught me something, and eventually, all those lessons came together.
Chindoscore might’ve only taken me two hours to build, but it was years in the making.
I’m still searching for my breakthrough idea. It’s part of the process. But I know this: I’ll keep building, experimenting, and learning. Because, in the end, that’s what great founders do.
