Create at Scale: Great products are built by good listeners
How do you improve the lives of 1 million+ GOJEK driver partners? You listen to them…
When Arlinda Juwitasari walked into the GOJEK office for the first time in January 2016, she had one big question on her mind. How can a startup like GOJEK make its driver partners proud to be associated with it?
Arlinda understood early on her most important customers are GOJEK’s driver partners. One of her favourite projects was to build a system to facilitate easy fund withdrawals for them.
How do we make this better?
Back then, our driver partners could only withdraw money on business days between 9AM-6PM. For this, they had to wait for two to three hours before the money was transferred to their bank accounts. This long waiting period caused anxiety to many, so her team decided to put it on their priority list.
Arlinda’s team developed a new feature that made it easier for everyone to withdraw money without any time restrictions.
The process took time and patience. The biggest tasks involved creating bank accounts for GOJEK’s 1 million+ driver partner fleet — many of whom had never had an account before. Then came the task of teaching them basic features: how to set up a PIN and withdraw money from an ATM.
Now, it was possible to get money in their account in a matter of seconds. Fund liquidity was no longer an issue. It was a simple move, but one that captured the imagination of millions of our driver partners. Above all, it showed how much we cared in what we do.
“Maybe changing the time taken to withdraw money from 2–3 hours to near real time is not a big difference, but for driver partners, it’s a game changer.”
However, Arlinda’s team was not out of the woods yet. When issues cropped up, they had to freeze the system. This led to driver partners being unable to withdraw money during the troubleshooting process. One driver partner expressed his hope that the issues could be resolved soon, as he had to buy milk for his child. “That kind of moment makes us realise that everything we do might directly touch someone’s life”
Why we do what we do
As she learned how to solve people’s problems, Arlinda realised that it also changed her mindset. For her, the priority now is no longer the coolest innovation she can build, but the next problem she can solve. One thing she always keeps in mind while designing products at GOJEK is how it directly impacts lives.
Speed, Innovation, and Social Impact. They are our pillars, and always will be.
The excitement of seeing how her work makes lives easier is something she would never want to trade for anything else.
“We never stop challenging ourselves to do more, to solve more problems, to make more impact. Together with 250+ engineers across Jakarta-Bangalore-Singapore, we are on the way to solve other real world problems.”
Tackling tough problems is part of our DNA. To do great work that has tangible real world effects (and offers immense personal satisfaction ❤️), visit gomakeimpact.com and join us. It’ll be a wild ride, and totally worth it.
