Indonesia's e-Commerce Successful Businessman

William Tanuwijaya is an entrepreneur from Indonesia. He is best known for being the co-founder of Tokopedia, which is an Indonesian e-commerce tech company that is highly pervasive among consumers in the country. A milestone in his career culminated in 2019 when he received the Medal of Honour award (called Satyalancana Wira Karya) from the President of the Republic of Indonesia for his stunning contribution to technology and economic growth in Indonesia.

Born in Pematang Siantar at North Sumatra, Indonesia, in 1981, Tanuwijaya came from a family with a middle income background. From his humble beginnings, he was educated at Harvard Kennedy School. His internet entrepreneurial activities came from his work background with accumulated various IT-related experiences, ranging from software and game developer roles to IT and Business Development Manager role in the 2000s. But his biggest break in internet entrepreneurship began in 2007 when he and his friend, Leontinus Edison, started building Tokopedia, as an e-commerce startup to connect buyers and sellers in Indonesia at no costs. This marketplace startup went on to rule the consumer e-commerce in the huge nation of a population size of 270 million.

Tokopedia started off by getting its funding from Softbank and Sequoia Capital and it was the first Indonesian marketplace to achieve this. These financial companies were crucial behind the success stories of Facebook and Alibaba earlier on. With the funding of $100 million secured from them, Tanuwijaya would change the marketplace scene in Indonesia forever.

How Tokopedia started

Tanuwijaya was often asked about making an online store website when he was a student. He was being tasked to uploading photos and responding to customer chat on websites. This idea sparked his inspiration of creating an online marketplace to be free, simple and reliable. Tanuwijaya and Edison persevered even in the face of adversity, when Tanuwijaya's father was diagnosed with cancer.

Tanuwijaya had to be the family's sole breadwinner because his father could no longer work, and he had to keep working. For him, time was not the only constraint. Tokopedia's early production was also hampered by a lack of resources. Despite the challenges he faced, he made time for Tokopedia because he was dedicated to his dream company. Following that, he was introduced to the funders. After several presentation setbacks, he was finally able to obtain his first funding for the company in 2009. Before his dream was realised at the first level, he had to go through 11 pitches.

Tokopedia's initial funding success proved to be worthwhile. The investment sum increased with each passing year. Tokopedia expanded from 4 employees to 300 employees in less than half a decade, in 2014. Sequoia Capital and Softbank's investments paid off handsomely.

Tokopedia's company

Tokopedia also offers a free C2C business forum for buyers and sellers in addition to the marketplace. To conduct their B2C service, well-known brands also have official online stores. Credit, utility payments, travel tickets, concert event tickets, credit cards, and many other digital items are available. Financial technology (Fin Tech) products and services were introduced to Tokopedia in 2016 and sold via the Mitra Tokopedia framework. Digital wallets, virtual credit cards, and lending services are among them. They aimed to make these financial products accessible to Indonesians in a simple and affordable manner.

Deals Products from the most common beauty and travel categories are released a year later, in 2017. Its aim was to assist users in finding the best offers. Deals Products can also be used by offline companies to expand their online presence.

Tokopedia raised US$1.1 billion in funding in each of the years 2017 and 2018. By November 2019, Tokopedia will have over 7 million merchants and 200 million items under Tanuwijaya's leadership. BTS and Blackpink, two Korean K-pop artists, have been appointed official ambassadors to Tokopedia.

To help its marketplace operation, the company built an integrated fulfilment and logistics system. Customers may choose their desired shipment arrival time, which is also convenient for logistics providers, by using this service. During the peak of the global coronavirus pandemic in 2020, this service had reached nearly every district in Indonesia.