How he left Silicon Valley to become Go-Jek’s logistics head

Peter Choi, VP of logistics at Go-Jek

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with Asia VC Cast hosted by Daniel Song where we publish the revised transcripts from the podcast’s interviews with inspiring entrepreneurs and experienced VCs. This is heavily revised from the show’s original transcript. For the full interview, go here.

Peter Choi is the vice president of logistics at Go-Jek. He’s responsible for product, business development, data analytics, and operations at the Indonesian ride-hailing giant. Previously, Choi was working in the US at Salesforce and State Street.

He shares about his journey from Silicon Valley to Jakarta and his experience at Go-Jek.

Tell us about your move from Silicon Valley to Go-Jek.

I’ve been with Go-Jek for about a year and a half now. I support the logistics primarily for Go-Send and Go-Box. It’s quite interesting where it all started, so I’ll boil it down to two takeaways.

First, stay flexible in your career. When I started mine, I was heavily involved in finance, aspiring to become a portfolio manager. I did some investment consulting and transitioned to asset management. But being in the Bay Area, I saw this whole tech revolution taking place in my own backyard, and I realized more and more that I wanted to become an integral part of it. That realization led me to work at Salesforce. But despite experiencing an innovative culture there, I wanted something that was more entrepreneurial.

So, my second advice is to always do networking. I had two friends who moved to Go-Jek a year before I did. As they completed their first year, they asked if anybody wanted to move over. Through video calls, I learned more about the company and everything that it’s trying to accomplish. I became infatuated, and that’s what drove me to come over.

How was the transition from working in a corporate to working at a startup?

I kind of knew what I was getting myself into, and it was actually what I was looking for. I wanted an international experience. I wanted to work for a smaller unit where I could have more responsibility.

I think one of the challenges is learning about a different market: what it stands for, the nuisances around it, and the problems it has vs the problems companies in The Valley are trying to solve.

Generally, startups in The Valley focus on one value proposition or distribution channel to begin with and scale along toward the path of profitability. Go-Jek, especially after receiving Chinese funding, took a more global mindset, seeing what the application of a platform would be, which is similar to China’s WeChat. And this allowed us to secure a wide user base, provide as many jobs as possible, and ensure customer retention.

Tell us about Go-Box and Go-Send.

Go-Box is an on-demand point-to-point delivery using trucks. The primary use case is moving large items when you move into a new place. We have drivers and other features that would help you along the process.

Go-Send uses the core network of 900,000 bikes that we currently have to deliver any goods. We find that about half of our order volume comes from our regular users. That would be someone like myself who forgets their laptop charger at home and needs a driver to go pick it up. The other half comes from SMEs.

How does Go-Jek address the logistic challenges in Jakarta?

Jakarta is notoriously known to have one of the worst traffic congestion in the world, and it’s pervasive. It’s all around town. You can also see it throughout the day and not just during the rush hour. So, trying to navigate through that using bikes is something that has allowed us to be successful. But at the same time, it’s also about leveraging on the cultural foundation of ojek and incorporating technology into it.

Another thing is that Indonesia is the largest archipelago in the world, spread out over 17,000 islands. Trying to bridge all of those with transportation, logistics, and food delivery has been an interesting problem to solve. How can we crack middle mile?

How does Go-Jek decide which business to expand into?

What did you learn being in Indonesia/Go-Jek for a year and a half?