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William Tanuwijaya : The Founder of First Indonesian Unicorn Startup Tokopedia

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

There are many rags to rich stories that have been inspiring us. The story of this Indonesian entrepreneur, William Tanuwijaya, is kind of similar to those stories, expect it was not entirely based on good luck, but included lots and lots of hard work. Being born in a middle-class family, and having faced many struggles in life, Tanujania wanted to achieve something better in life, and he knew that without hard work, achieving his goals was impossible.

Early Life

Tanuwijaya was born on 11 November 1981, in Pematang Siantar, North Sumatra. He belonged to a middle-class family. He completed his school education from a local public school.

For his further education, he applied in the Universitas Bina Nusantara (Binus) Jakarta and later, got accepted for the degree course in Informatics. As he belonged to a family with an average income, he decided to work as a part-timer to support his education. He even did a 9 pm to 9 am job, at Warnet, to earn extra money. He graduated from the University as a software engineer in 2003.

Career

William
Image Source: tokyo.slush.org

Being a software engineer, like any other IT graduate, Tanuwijaya also wanted to work with big companies like Google. But since there was no Google branch in Jakarta, he started off his career as a software developer with a medium scale software company in Jakarta. He worked in the same profile with companies like TelkomSigma and Sqiva Sistem.

Gained much experience as a software developer, he shifted his interest in video games development and started working with Bolehnet. Later, in 2006, he joined Indocom Mediatama as the IT and Business Development Manager.

Founding Tokopedia

With an experience of over four years, Tanuwijaya gained enough confidence to start a new business for himself. In 2007, he started working on Tokopedia and called up his friend Leontinus Alpha Edison to work on the same, who later, became the co-founder of the company. The concept behind the startup was to create a platform, where Indonesian buyers and sellers could connect for free.

The basic plan to build this eCommerce platform was ready, but there were no investors who could help the startup to be launched immediately. At the time there were no IT-specific investors in Jakarta. So Tanuwijaya started pitching his plan in front of local investors. At the same time, his father was diagnosed with Cancer, so his plan of launching the platform in 2007, got delayed coming next two years, as the sole responsibility of his family had come on to his shoulders.

The first person Tanuwijaya approached for the funding was his boss from his previous company. His boss liked the idea and helped him to approach more people. Since Tanuwijaya did not belong to a business family, many of the people doubted his ability to handle such a big idea.

It took him two years to raise the required funding to start his business, and finally, on February 6, 2009, he launched Tokopedia. Tokopedia received its initial seed funding worth IDR 2.5 billion from PT Indonusa Dwitama. In the following three years, the company was able to get funding from global venture capitals like East Ventures, CyberAgent Ventures, NetPrice, and SoftBank Ventures Korea, etc.

In 2014, Tokopedia became the first technology company to receive a US$100 million investment from Sequoia Capital and SoftBank, in Southeast Asia.

Tokopedia is Indonesia’s first company that has grown too fast. In 2015, the company reported having more than 4.9 million active product listings, and in 2018, it recorded over 80 million monthly active users and over 4 million merchants registered on the platform.

The company also received a USD $1.1 Billion in funding from Alibaba Group in 2017. In the same year, the company became a Unicorn startup having a valuation above 1 billion US dollars.

Personal Life

William got married to Felicia H.W. on November 28, 2015. Currently, Tanuwijaya is heading the company as the CEO. Establishing Tokopedia as the biggest marketplace in Indonesia, he has become one of the richest people of Indonesia, having an estimated worth of 130 million US Dollars.

Mona Ataya : The Woman Who Revamped a Mother’s World And her Babies

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

What is the toughest job on the planet? If you ask me, I would say a mother’s job is the toughest that stands today. Bringing up a human with qualities and personality is certainly difficult. Besides, every mother in the world wants the best for her little devil, be it outfits, education or anything else.

Shopping for kids is enervating these days. Considering the prices and the choices in the market, it is very difficult to pick out the best, for your little one. One has to look for the quality, the pricing and the service that is being provided to them. Well, put these three together, and you’ve got Mumzworld.

Mumzworld is an online site for baby shopping. Yes! A whole internet site that caters only baby needs. And the mastermind behind this, Mona Ataya, shares an inspiring story out with the world.

Mona Ataya
Image Source: arabianbusiness.com

Mona, the CEO and founder of Mumzworld, launched the startup site after taking into account the daily troubles and needs of mothers, that were being ignored by the market. She stepped up and launched the site, which is now the 1st and the largest online shopping site in the Middle East for mothers and their babies.

Mumzworld services in countries like UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, Jordan, Lebanon, and ships their products all over the world. Mumzworld has got everything related to babies and children. From diapers to clothes, feeding to toys, bathing needs to books and what not! It has also got a wide range of more than 1600 brands with big names such as Lego, Pampers, Fischer Price and Johnson&Johnson. Mumzworld promises the best price guarantee, free speedy delivery, easy returns and flexible payment options.

“A baby is the light of a mother’s eyes, and we at Mumzworld understand that every mum wants the best for her precious angel. In a remarkable breakthrough in online baby shopping, we present before you the most extensive range of baby and kids products that you could find in one place,” says the official site.

Mona started her career at Procter and Gamble (P&G) in the USA. Working there, she was involved in the soap sector. Then, after some time, she moved back to the Middle East and joined Johnson&Johnson. During her work period at Johnson’s, she launched many brands like Greiter Skin Care, ph5.5, Clean and Clear, and also, Johnson’s Suncare. She also relaunched some of the brands like Suncare and Piz Buin in Europe. In 2000, she left Johnson&Johnson and teamed up with her brother Rabea Ataya and co-founded Bayt (bayt.com), which today, is the leading job site in the Middle East and provides services all over the world to help people find the perfect jobs for them.

After becoming a mother to three boys, she turned to a full-time mother job. But this period brought difficulties for her. Soon, she began to discover gaps in the market, which could not satisfy the needs of a mother for her baby. But she wanted to tear down this inconvenience. So, in 2011 she came up with her 2nd startup, Mumzworld. She wanted to revolutionize the way mothers shop for their babies. Mumzworld had every indispensable for the need of a mother, which was also cost-effective. Since then, the site has been growing at a rapid pace. The site won many awards like ‘Small Business of The Year (2013)’, ‘Most Admired Online Retailer (2014)’, and ‘Customer Service Excellence Award’.

Mona, too, won many awards. She was listed in the ‘100 Most Powerful Arab Women’ in 2014 and 2015. She also got mentioned in ‘100 Most Powerful Arabs, next generation’.

“Endeavors have been fantastic. It has allowed us to meet and get support from super-super smart minds” quoted Mona, when enquired about the network of startups and businesses. She tips for new entrepreneurs, that in business world one has to keep on going and fundamentally believe their vision and what they are trying to achieve. ‘Being an entrepreneur is more of a mindset’ she says.

Mona says that her vision was and is to create a necessary online extension to a mother’s world. Mumzworld also keeps on enrolling itself into social initiatives, like giving out free meal vouchers and providing impoverished mothers with baby essentials.

She shares her daily routine as a typical work mom. Starting from taking her kids to school, then working in her office until her kids get free from school, and then ending it by putting all her kids to sleep by herself. She refers that the hardest job is of a full-time mother, and also that this fact cannot be denied. When asked about her inspiration, she said that her challenges were her inspirations alongside her children. Her challenges gave her the ultimate idea for success.

So, the CEO and founder of Mumzworld, Mona Ataya clearly gives us the light that even the hardships and challenges in our day-to-day life can leave life-changing impressions on us which leads our pathway to success. Mona undoubtedly is a role model and a great mentor to be followed.

Amazon Opens its First Pint-sized Cashier-free Amazon Go Store in Seattle

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There is nothing, which the biggest retailer, Amazon, does not want to try its hands in. After building the largest empire of online business, Amazon has also entered into the bricks-and-mortar world, with its large Amazon Go cashier-less stores, operating successfully in Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle.

amazongo
Image source: pymnts.com

This time, Amazon has launched the tiny version of its Amazon Go stores in Seattle- the eighth cashier-less store. The store is located on the sixth floor of the Macy’s building in downtown, Seattle. It is this first store of the chain of small stores, Amazon intends to launch for airports, office lobbies, and hospitals. This tiny store is quarter the size of the other big Amazon stores, almost about the size of a 450-square-foot New York City studio apartment.

Unlike the other Amazon Go stores, the small store does not have any checkout lanes. The buyers need to scan an in-app code, through the Amazon Go app, on the entrance of the store, and the cameras will take care of whatever they pick from the shelves. As the store is also a cashier-less one, for the checkouts, the customers will make the payments through their Amazon accounts.

The store is isolated with glass walls and an enclosed ceiling, with all the cameras and sensors attached to it. Amazon has built those stores, especially for its employees. The stores contain a wider variety of pre-made food, grocery, salads and snacks, etc., so that the customers can buy the items on the go.

Gianna Puerini, vice president of Amazon Go, said, “We wanted something from a design perspective that would fit nicely into open spaces. You can bring it in pieces and assemble it on site.”

There were news making rounds, in September this year, that Amazon is planning to build over 3000 such stores across the world. However, there has been no confirmation on the topic from the company.

Alec Oxenford : Co-founder & Former CEO of OLX

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Alec Oxenford, born and brought up in Argentina, is an entrepreneur and a technology enthusiast, who has the credits for the establishing the foundation of some multi-billion projects. The native of Argentina, Oxenford completed his graduation in Business Administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina, and later, joined Harvard University to pursue a master’s degree in the same stream.

Career

As soon as Oxenford completed his education, he started working at Boston Consulting Group. After working for six long years with the same company, Oxenford gained more skills and experience and founded DeRemate, an online consumer-to-consumer trading platform in Latin America, that was later acquired by eBay in 2005.

The time he was successfully running DeRemate, he also co-founded DineroMail.com, a popular payment platform in Latin America, in March 2003 and was associated with the same till December 2010.

Founding OLX

In 2006, Oxenford joined his hands with a French native and angel investor, Fabrice Grinda, to co-found another internet-based platform, as a Craigslist alternative for the world outside of the United States, OLX, a free classified for advertisements. Both were assigned the position of the CEO of the company. The idea was new, and there were not many supporters for the same. But, Oxenford and his partner were quite confident about it. The two came to the conclusion that first, they must test their portal in a native place or a developing country, to properly endorse its services. Hence, they first launched OLX for the people of Argentina, and then in a country overseas, i.e., India.

alec oxenford
Image Source : fortune.com

With good marketing techniques, it became popular in India in no time as a platform to online sell the second-hand items, and the goods that were no more required. Currently, OLX operates in 45 countries, with 330 million users and 60 million listings a month, becoming the largest online classified ads company.

In 2006, OLX acquired Mundoanuncio.com, another classified site to target the Hispanic market, and also invested in a Chinese classifieds site Edeng.cn, in 2007. It also started a partnership with Friendster, in 2008, and social network Hi5, in 2009. The website was modified with the social network widgets, improved search, Ajax-based editors, interactive maps, and mobile versions, with the addition of Web 2.0″ features to it, in 2008.

In 2010, the South African group Naspers acquired OLX, Oxenford remaining CEO through 2014, and Grinda remaining CEO until 2013.

In 2014, Oxenford left OLX and started working on his next project. In 2015, he co-founded another online buying and selling platform, this time especially for the mobile marketplace, named letgo. In the year 2017, the annual revenue of letgo was $375 million and confirmed for the first time that the company had a $1 billion valuation.

Personal Life

Oxenford has been an art lover and has collected various art pieces from around the world. He is also in writing and has spoken at Jóvenes Líderes in 2010, the Web 2.0 Conference in 2015, Red Innova in the years 2014, 2015, and 2016, Art Basel in 2016, and ArteBa in 2017. He was elected as the Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum (2006-2011) and also received the CNN Internet Leader Award in 2001 and the Entrepreneur Award in 2003.

Walmart to Replace Apple as No. 3 Online Retailer in the U.S. by the End of 2018

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According to a report released on Friday, Walmart has overtaken Apple as America’s third-largest online retailer. Last year, Apple was at the third position, after Amazon and eBay in the list of the top retailers of the U.S. with 3.8% share in the total online sale (2017). Due to a decrease in the sales of Apple’s smartphones and electronic devices this year, Walmart was successful in surpassing Apple and taking over its position on the list.

walmart
Image Source: pymnts.com

The eMarketers had estimated a boost in the sales of Walmart that it will have approximately 3.7% of the share in the online sales in the U.S., but as the Walmart’s online business is growing quickly, its share in the total online sales of the U.S., raised to 4 per cent. Apple managed to get only a per cent rise in its online sales from the previous year, i.e., 3.9 per cent. It is expected that the growth in the sales of Walmart would grow by 39.4 per cent, just behind the sales growth of Wayfair, that is expected to be 40.1 per cent, by the end of 2018.

The latest prediction by the eMarketers shows that by the end of the year Walmart will capture $20.91 billion online retail spending this year. Walmart, itself, had also reported its third-quarter profits with revenue of $124.9 billion, 1.4 per cent up from a year ago. The company has seen a rapid growth in its sales due to its efforts through every means.

Wallmart has adopted the right technology to ensure a better customer experience, providing them with an omnichannel platform to use all its services. The app provided by Wallmart helps in easy shopping as well as let them track their orders and locate the items in the store using digital maps. In the holiday season, it has also got rid of the $35 fees for its two-day delivery and has offered no-delivery charges for other delivery options. After Wallmart, the two-day delivery service has also been adopted by Amazon for its festive-season sales.

Walmart U.S. CEO Greg Foran said, “We can provide a much better customer experience because we are in stock of the right item, at the right time at the same time it is going to help us be much more precise.”

The tech giant, along with its online retail business, is also planning to raise outlook of its physical stores to increase up to 3 per cent share in its sales for the fiscal year 2019, targeting the same years earning up to $4.65 to $4.80 a share.

Alibaba Smashes its own Last Year’s Single’s Day Sales Record

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Amazon and Flipkart broke their own previous records of sales in the past festive season sales held before Diwali. But, with the 10th annual Chinese shopping bonanza Singles’ Day, the Chinese internet business giant Alibaba group has made e-commerce history, after it generated a record $30.7 billion in only 24 hours.

Alibaba
Image Source: foshansourcing.com

The biggest sales day of China celebrated on 11/11, recorded a 1 billion sale in the first 1 minute and 25 seconds. Alibaba’s Single’s day sale aka the double 11, is the biggest e-commerce sale in the world. On the 11th of November, as soon as the sale started, at midnight, people were buying things from milk powder to iPhones on the website.

Alibaba.com is the biggest dominating e-commerce marketplace, in China, and it is also planning to expand to other countries as well. The Single’s sale is a month-long event that peaks on November 11, and this year it has surpassed its own record of last year’s sale. Last year, it had earned $24 billion in just short of 16 hours. Despite the highest sale this year, the growth rate fell from 39 per cent to 27 per cent, by the end of the day.

Almost ten years ago, the Alibaba group started the Single’s Day sale as a novelty student holiday to celebrate being single and treat themselves through retail therapy. But, in the past ten years, it has become China’s biggest shopping festive season sale. Although most of the Chinese public did not show much interest in the 2018’s Single’s Day sale, Alibaba was still able to surpass the total earnings of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales (2017) combined.

In 2015, Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba Group had shown an interest in making the Single’s Day sale open at a global level, and also, organised the first non-Chinese Single’s Day in Russia, tiny Hong Kong and the US, last year. The sale mostly included the purchase of mobile phones, wool coats and knitted sweaters. This year, the sale was also organised in South Korea, U.S. and Japan, where the purchase of the same items has been recorded.