What started out as a simple call-center business matching an initial 20 drivers with passengers quickly evolved into a multi-service app boasting a workforce of more than a million people.
While much of that success is down to “good timing,” according to Makarim — Go-Jek, like others, has ridden the wave of the growing sharing economy — he also credits what he described as the company’s “counter-intuitive” business approach.
“When we began, everyone told us that you have to be only good at one thing, because if you’re not super good then no one will use your product or other people will come and circumvent you with better technology, more money etc.” Makarim recalled.
Contrary to conventional advice, Go-Jek decided to move quickly from pure ride-hailing to food delivery, on-call beauty services, entertainment booking and even e-payments, with the aim of becoming a full-service “platform that fixes things.” That was something Makarim felt was especially needed in Asia, where mobile adoption is growing and consumers have shown a preference for “one-stop shop” platforms.
“I think the mindset that we had in the beginning is that a customer is not a ride-hailing customer, a customer is not a food delivery customer, a customer is not an e-payment or an e-wallet customer, a customer is just a customer,” Makarim told CNBC’s Christine Tan.
“He or she is a human being with day-to-day problems, and we built a product around the frictions that an average person experiences in their day to day life.”
It’s a strategy Makarim hopes will continue to pay off as Go-Jek expands across Southeast Asian in its efforts to compete with — and surpass — its closest competitors in the ride-hailing space.
Currently, Go-Jek is only active in Indonesia but, from next month, it will launch in Vietnam and Thailand. The company is also expected to soon enter Singapore to fill the void left by Uber, which saw its regional operations bought out in May.
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