Tokopedia, the popular Indonesian e-marketplace is one of the most promising start-ups in Asia. In its initial two years, the start-up failed to receive funding from investors. But that didn’t deter William Tanuwijaya and his team. They kept faith in the idea.
It was only until February 2009 that Tokopedia received its first funding from PT Indonusa Dwitama, and in the following August, their website was launched. Tokopedia grew and attracted more investors’ interest. On March 2010, William and team got their second funding from Singapore-based Venture Capital firm, East Ventures.
Their journey continues… So what’s their next move? Find out below as Co-founder Tanuwijaya shares his story and strategy with us.
1) Hi William, thanks for your time. What inspired you and your team to create Tokopedia?
The idea first came up in 2007. At that time, there was no proper online marketplace Indonesia. Instead, everyone used website like online forums, social networking sites and even blogs as platforms to buy and sell stuff online. Those websites then became what is known as a classified-ads e-commerce model in Indonesia.
However, those websites weren’t created specifically for e-commerce purpose. We saw two problems:
a. Scalability
Some difficulties might occur in managing product catalog and order monitoring for serious sellers with a lot of item classifications. The platform back isn’t build for long term growth.
b. Security
Indonesia didn’t have a good online payment system that processes the transaction only after the buyers had made their payment. On the other hand, it is also highly possible that sellers won’t process the order, even after the buyers made their payments.
Both issues are apparent problems in the online marketplace. Tokopedia is now the solution. We hold the payments made by the buyers, and only transfer them to the sellers only after the buyers receive their items.
2) So, what are the statistics now? How many users, traffic and profit?
Right now we have more than 7,800 active shops and 75,000 registered members. We are visited by 700,000-800,000 unique visitors per month. Our monthly transactions in January reached IDR 2.6 Billion (291,200 US dollars).
We’re currently fully focused on building our user base and product. The money is secondary, for now.
3) What are the three greatest obstacles in your Tokopedia journey?
a. Funding.
In the last decade, Indonesia has few success stories for the local websites. It’s very hard to convince local investors to fund our idea. Thankfully, we had our first funding at February last year. Our first after pitching since 2007.
b. Educating the Market
The market got used to the classified-ads model. So when Tokopedia was launched, users aren’t used to our system. But things are getting much better now.
c. Team building
I still remember, right after Tokopedia had its first appearance, I opened a booth in my campus’ Job Fair Event. Sadly, no one good was interested to join a start-up.
4) What is the turning point of Tokopedia?
The additional funding from East Ventures and also under the mentorship of Batara Eto. Batara’s experience ranges from building start-ups to getting listed on the stock exchange. He has given us a lot of pointers and led us to new opportunities.
5) What are the big plans for Tokopedia?
In 2011 we are entering the user-acquisition stage. Right now, the 75,000 registered members that we have is still considered very small as compared to some other Indonesian start-ups with millions of members.
Not only that, we are planning on scaling-up, in terms of our product, technology, service, and the company itself. We expect to be at the top of all minds for e-commerce platform in Indonesia.
6) Can you give us some advice for budding entrepreneurs?
Always take it to the next level! We always ask ourselves, “What’s next?” and work hard to reach the goals. That’s the spirit behind our team since beginning and it’s becoming a culture within our company.
Read more: Indonesia, the Rising Tech Start-up Nation
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As one of tokopedia sellers, somehow I find out that they still need to increase their traffic.
nice post, i sell some stuff too at tokopedia