Today many Indonesian entrepreneurs have sprung up, one of them is Nadiem Makarim. It must be admitted that Indonesia does not have young entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg who founded Facebook or Drew Houstin who founded DropBox.
However, with the presence of Nadiem Makarim, he can represent successful Indonesian entrepreneurs with creative business models. Nadiem is the founder of GoJek, which is an online motorcycle taxi application that is currently spread in almost all regions in Indonesia. Even GoJek currently operates in several countries such as Thailand and the Philippines.
Nadiem Makarim was born on July 4, 1984, and had studied high school in Singapore. Then continued his undergraduate education at International Relations at Brown University in the United States. He obtained his master’s education at Harvard Business School.
Before founding GoJek, Nadiem had also worked at Mckinsey & Company consultants, Managing Editor at Zalora Indonesia, and Chief Innovation Officer at Kartuku. From that experience Nadiem finally founded GoJek.
The reason for building GoJek was because Nadiem was one of the people who used ojek services. According to him, the problem that is often experienced by motorcycle taxi drivers is an unproductive time because they wait for long time passengers in one place.
If in a big city many people prefer to use a taxi because it’s easier to find it. Based on his experience, Nadiem got the idea to innovate how to connect motorcycle taxi drivers with prospective passengers. The best solution is to use a cellphone.
GoJek was pioneered in 2011 with a simple system, namely via SMS or telephone. GoJek is now able to be easily downloaded via Google Play and the App Store easily. Users can log in and use the application for free. Users will be charged motorcycle taxi fees according to the distance traveled.
Nadiem Makarim’s hope, the company can help serve all Indonesian people wherever they are.
