Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Taxi mafias, cash vaults, and 100% MoM growth: The story behind Southeast Asia’s biggest startup | Kevin Aluwi (Gojek)

March 26, 2023

AI Summary

5 min read

Kevin Aluwi, co-founder and former CEO of Gojek, recounts building Southeast Asia's largest startup from a scrappy motorcycle taxi service in Indonesia into a super app with 2.7 million drivers, 3 billion annual orders, and Indonesia's biggest IPO. He shares operating decisions around ops intensity, brand-building, product expansion limits, and execution in an under-resourced market.

Handling Resistance and Early Operations

Gojek faced violent pushback from motorcycle taxi mafias who assaulted drivers with bricks, knives, and machetes. Instead of treating drivers as mere contractors, Aluwi's team hired private security firms for rapid response patrols in hotspots, running this operation for years to ensure safety and build driver loyalty. Early ops also included physical cash vaults for payouts to tens of thousands of drivers lacking digital payments, and renting a stadium to distribute phones, prioritizing immediate service over scalable tech.

Continue reading the full summary in the app — free to try.

Read Full Summary →

Free • No credit card required

Listen to Audio Summary Open in App

What you'll learn

1 **(00:02:04) Gojek Origins and Massive Scale**
2 **(00:09:54) Critique of Super App Strategy**
3 **(00:15:28) Building Brand as Core Differentiator**
4 **(00:26:53) Early Scrappy Operations**
5 **(00:33:41) Doing Hard Things Over Moats**
6 **(00:39:38) Founder Multi-Roles for Empathy and Hiring**
7 **(00:44:18) Background and Non-SV Building Advice**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Brought to you by Coda—Meet the evolution of docs | Rows—The spreadsheet where data comes to life | Lenny’s Job Board—Hire the best product people. Find the best product gigs.

—

Kevin Aluwi is the co-founder and former CEO of Gojek. With over 2.7 million drivers and over 3 billion orders completed, Gojek is the biggest startup in Indonesia and all of Southeast Asia. In today’s podcast, Kevin shares the story of how Gojek overcame endless obstacles—including being underfunded, being unable to send drivers payment, and the local motorcycle mafia coming after their drivers. We cover the importance of brand, the value of doing the hard things, how to be super-scrappy, and helpful tips on building a tech company outside of Silicon Valley.

Find the full transcript at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/taxi-mafias-cash-vaults-and-100-mom

Where to find Kevin Aluwi:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/kaluwi

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kaluwi/

Where to find Lenny:

• Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lennysan

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/

Referenced:

• Gojek: https://www.gojek.com/en-id/

• WeChat: https://www.wechat.com/

• Sequoia: https://www.sequoiacap.com/