The Startup That Makes My Life Easier

You may (or may not) know Go-Jek, the hottest startup in Indonesia.

Its latest funding amount is $1.2 billion from Google. Rakuten, Sequoia Capital, JD.com, and Tencent also trust their money in the startup.

For me

Gojek is making my life possible. Every single day.

Prior to this, when I was still a high school student, I was afraid and shy to go anywhere by myself. In Indonesia, we don’t have a decent and safe public transportation. We only have angkot, ojek, some bajaj, lame buses and great but crowded trains.

Photo by Israel Sundseth on Unsplash

I relied on my car to go everywhere. It’s the safest and most convenient way to go around the city.

Maybe I have to describe Jakarta and its road first. Jakarta is famous for its traffic. Over-populated, filled with middle class people (like me) who have cars. And motorcycles. Lots of them. You have to ride one if you want to arrive at your destination on time. They are great at beating traffic.

Like any other problems, Indonesians found the opportunity to make money out of it. Since I was born, maybe long before it, there are people who work as motorcycle taxi drivers. Just like taxi drivers, but on a motorcycle. They (the motorcycle taxis) are called ojek.

Not my choice of transportation, though. I don’t feel very safe riding an ojek, since the drivers are usually low-educated people and catcallers.

So when GO-JEK appeared to the public in around 2015, I became one of its (loyal) customers. It really is making my life easier. I used it to get to campus, and now I use it everyday to get to work. I also use it to get food (on lazy weekends).

Why is it successful?

Things that I admire about Gojek:

1. It solves many (uniquely Indonesian) problems. It reduces unemployment rate by giving more than 300,000 people jobs without higher education criteria. It eliminates the need to haggle with ojek drivers. It’s a lifesaver for people like me.
2. Like other startups, they are open about their work culture. They are everywhere. On Youtube, Medium, Facebook. They feature the drivers and their stories, making them the main star of their ads. They even send us the statistics of our individual application usage last year. How many rides I had, minutes I had saved from using the app, points I’ve acquired.
3. They are fun. They have a mini game in their application, where you get a token to spin every time you complete a ride. You can get anywhere from 5–40 points from a spin. These points then can be exchanged for a free ride, or free services, or free drink/souvenirs/discount from third parties.
4. It makes new opportunities. There are lots of stalls and homemade foods that become famous because of Gojek. They usually don’t have an outlet, but they’re the top food/restaurant on Gojek app.

I think Gojek is very much Indonesian. You can’t get any more Indonesian than this. They primarily use motorcycles and employ hundreds of thousands of people.

If you want to know more about Gojek, just go to their website here.

Hi, I’m Fike. I am an Indonesian girl living in Jakarta. Currently an Information Systems student and an intern. I love reading, writing, and learning.