Jakarta –
Who doesn’t know Tokopedia? This green online shopping application is one of the main choices of Indonesian people for buying and selling online.
Tokopedia has become one of the giant companies in Indonesia. Especially after the company merged with the ride hailing application Gojek and formed a new name, GoTo. However, what you should know is that behind Tokopedia’s success, there is the success story of William Tanuwijaya who managed the company.
On one occasion, this man who was born in Pematang Siantar told of his struggle to make Tokopedia become what it is today. In fact, the initial idea for Tokopedia was very simple, the initial idea arose because William had difficulty buying books in his hometown since he was a child. Starting from that problem, he directed Tokopedia.
“In 2007, when Tokopedia was born, access to goods was limited. Books in Medan were more expensive than Jakarta. It was almost impossible for Indonesia to build infrastructure evenly from Sabang to Merauke,” he said at the DBS Asian Insights Conference which took place at the Mulia Hotel, Jakarta in 2019. .
William Tanuwijaya, who at that time was only a high school graduate, tried to have a better life than his family. He believes a good life starts with a good education.
In the 1999 period, one year after the monetary crisis, many people avoided coming to Jakarta. However, at that time he chose to migrate and live in Jakarta.
At that time there were no online travel agents, so to get to Jakarta William Tanuwijaya used a ship for four days and three nights from Belawan to Tanjung Priok. Then he studied at a private university in Jakarta.
In the second semester the father was sick. At that time he had a choice, if he wanted to stay in college, he had to earn his own living or go back to his hometown.
Had time to guard the internet cafe
In the end he chose to stay in Jakarta, but due to his lack of experience there was not much he could do. Until finally William Tanuwijaya became an internet cafe guard.
It turns out that his job as an internet cafe guard opened William’s way of thinking even more. Since then he has become acquainted with the internet, which he calls an endless library.
“I tried to apply to be an internet cafe operator from 9 pm to 9 am. There I could enjoy free internet when the internet was still expensive. I started to fall in love with the internet, the internet is an endless library for me,” explained William.
William also worked on online buying and selling forums. At that time he often received many complaints from users who experienced fraudulent transactions. Finally the idea arose to create a trusted place for online buying and selling.
Even though he had doubts because he had no business background, Wiliam was still determined to make his wish come true. Finally, on February 6 2009, he and Leon founded Tokopedia, and on August 17 2009, e-commerce was officially launched.
In its first month of existence, Tokopedia succeeded in attracting 509 merchants with 4,560 members. The number of transactions recorded was only IDR 33 million.
Within a year of being founded, Tokopedia experienced significant development. They succeeded in collaborating with 4,659 merchants with 44,785 members. Transactions recorded reached IDR 5.9 billion.
Although initially Wiliam admitted that it was difficult to get an injection of funds, thanks to a number of Tokopedia achievements, a number of investors began to arrive. Listed among them are East Venture, CyberAgent Ventures, and Softbank.
After getting very large capital, Tokopedia ran even faster. Currently, Tokopedia has become one of the largest online marketplaces in Indonesia.
(hal/fdl)
2023-12-05 01:20:12
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