Nov 6, 2019
This episode is co-hosted by Dimitra Taslim. Dimi is on the
investment team at GGV Capital.
In this episode, we have William Tanuwijaya and Patrick Cao from
Tokopedia. Tokopedia is an Indonesian technology company with the
largest online marketplace business and its mission is to
democratize commerce through technology. The name 'Tokopedia' is a
combination of Toko (shop) and encyclopedia.
It was founded in 2009 by William Tanuwijaya and his best friend
Leontinus Alpha Edison. According to the company, the firm’s annual
run-rate GMV has reached 222 trillion IDR (15.8 billion in USD),
which would be equivalent to 1.5% of Indonesia's GDP. It has
significantly impacted the fate of many small-scale entrepreneurs
since its launch 10 years ago. 89% of sellers on Tokopedia do not
own a physical store and 86% of merchants are first-time
entrepreneurs.
In this hour-long conversation, we covered William's founding
journey from working in the internet cafe to meeting Daniel Zhang
and Joe Tsai from Alibaba, how to get a great executive team as an
Indonesian company, Tokopedia's ambition for the next 10 years, and
what it means to achieve work-life harmony while running a big
company.
William Tanuwijaya is the founder and CEO of Tokopedia. He was
born and raised in Pematangsiantar, North Sumatera. William has a
bachelor's degree in Information Technology from Bina Nusantara
University, during which period he worked as an internet café
keeper and saw the potential of technology.
Patrick Cao is the President of Tokopedia, Indonesia's largest
online marketplace, a position he has held since October 2016.
Previously, Patrick worked at Formation 8 in Singapore and UBS
Investment Bank in Indonesia, specializing in M&A and capital
markets advisory in the TMT, consumer and industrials sectors. He
received a B.S. in Business Administration from Carnegie Mellon
University and currently doing his MBA program at Tsinghua
University.
For the full transcript of the show, go
to nextbn.ggvc.com
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