Q&A with Aldi Haryopratomo: From GoPay CEO to Startup Investor and Mentor

The French poet Victor Hugo once said, "A wise man is he who knows when and how to stop." This quote applies to many leaders in the business world who decide to leave their companies while at the top—Aldi Haryopratomo is one of them. He is stepping down from his CEO position at GoPay, the fintech division Gojek, in January 2021, after being in charge for more than three years.

The reason for his departure sounded simple. “We [at GoPay] have changed the financial industry, and I think this is the right time for me to move and make changes in other sectors,” he told KrASIA.

Prior to GoPay, Aldi had founded a fintech application called Mapan in 2009. This platform allows online payments to occur in various physical locations in Indonesia but its appeal grew when it started offering features social commerce called Mapan Arisan in 2015. This feature is basically a lottery club digital—an informal form of rotating savings and loan that is common in Indonesia, especially among women.

This startup acquired by Gojek in 2017, together with two other fintech startups—payment gateway Kartuku and Midtrans—to form GoPay. Mapan still operates as a separate app and currently has 3 million users, said Aldi.

Aldi is currently enjoying time off with his wife and three children. “Leading a high-growth technology company can be exhausting, and as a human being, I need a break. So I took some time off before starting a new business,” said the former CEO.

However, taking a break doesn't mean just lazing around and doing nothing at home. A strong believer in the law of guidance and reciprocity, Aldi is now helping other entrepreneurs grow their businesses. Shortly after leaving GoPay, he was appointed to commissioner at aquaculture startup e-Fishery. He also joined the advisory board at health technology company Halodoc in March. Not long ago, Aldi invested in a funding round Series A BukuWarung worth USD 60 million.

"I wouldn't be here without the good people who have helped me, so I want to replicate this to other entrepreneurs looking to solve the right problem," he said.

KrASIA recently spoke with Aldi about his journey and entrepreneurial life after resigning from GoPay.

Co-CEO Gojek, Kevin Aluwi (far left) with Aldi Haryopratomo (red mask on the right) at the vaccination center Halodoc Jakarta. Documentation by Halodoc

KrASIA (Kr): How did your interest in fintech start? What was the process of finding the idea to build Mapan like in 2009, when fintech still didn't exist in Indonesia?

Aldi Haryopratomo (AH): Mapan was the first company I founded, but my fintech career started when I joined Kiva in 2006. Kiva is a lending platform peer-to-peer which provides loans to microfinance banks around the world. At Kiva, I was instrumental in finding microfinance banks in Southeast Asia, so I spent a lot of time in rural areas of Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia. My crash course in the fintech industry happened while doing due diligence in more than 1.000 banks for Kiva.

After Kiva, I worked for the Boston Consulting Group, where I visited many rural areas across India and Pakistan. I was very challenged to be able to solve more problems in the village, and felt that loans alone were not enough, so I decided to build Mapan to continue working with community leaders in villages in Indonesia, promoting the digital version of arisan, which is also a form of finance. micro.

Kr: What's the story behind the acquisition Gojek top Established in 2018?

oh: Me and Nadiem Makarim [co-founder Gojek] both attended Harvard Business School, he did an internship at Mapan in the summer of 2010. Nadiem is very good at selling, so he helped me complete a funding round. I think he got the idea to Gojek around that time. We founded our respective companies right after graduation. We even rented a house and turned it into a shared office. Being a startup founder back then was a lonely journey, we would get together to share our frustrations every week.

In November 2016, one of the community leaders in Mapan asked me for help because they needed extra income. I spoke to Nadiem, he also helped make him a driver Gojek. From there we said, “Hey, how about we do a pilot project where female Mapan leaders can recruit their husbands into Gojek.” We did our first project in Yogyakarta, and we saw how the families we recruited could increase their income.

Nadiem is very excited because he always has a big vision to have one app for all. Fintech is an important part of that vision, and he's humble enough to understand that he doesn't have the experience to do it himself. Mapan already had a P2P lending license at the time, so we decided to combine the two.

Kr: What adjustments do I have to make during the Establishment to Gojek, a division with the ecosystem Gojek which already has millions of drivers, merchants and users?

oh: The biggest adjustment is integrating all three startups, as each company was built by a different founder and has different capabilities. They also have a different culture. Lucky for us, we all have an amazing team who are very humble and willing to learn from each other.

Another big difference is scale and speed. When you're trying to change the industry and have tough competition, you have to move very quickly. When we started GoPay, there were only a few thousand transactions outside of transportation and food delivery services Gojek. We had to figure out how to grow those deals quickly, which meant making big bets and decisions, some of which we weren't entirely sure about at the time.

Kr: What is the most memorable milestone while being a part of GoPay?

oh: There were three moments: When we started in 2018, we realized that SMEs could not easily adopt digital payments due to the high cost of Electronic Data Capture machines. Therefore, we believe that the contribution of QR codes is very important. While our competition focuses on devices and phone numbers, we have already started moving to QR codes. That's the first thing we did. Over the next six months, we increased QR transactions by 1.000x and reached one million transactions a day in December 2018.

The second moment was when I met many merchants who said that Gojek and GoPay brought real changes in their lives; they could buy a house, send their children to college, and go on pilgrimage to Mecca. It is very valuable for us.

Then, every time we close a funding round with a global tech giant, it's always memorable, because validation from these global investors is very important to us.

Kr: You joined e-Fishery and Halodoc after leaving GoPay. What is the reason behind this decision?

oh: I met Gibran [Huzaifah, CEO of e-Fishery] five years ago when we participated in the World Economic Forum as a global youth leader and global youth builder. He approached me and said that he wanted to help fish farmers in rural areas by building a smart feeding system that can detect fish when they are hungry so that fish farmers can feed more efficiently. I'm impressed because it's a very unique issue and not many people care enough. Every month, we talk about the startup, and GoVentures is finally investing in e-Fishery, so our union becomes more formal. When I left GoPay, Gibran and I wanted to work even more closely. I'm currently helping him with business and scalability strategies, as well as fundraising strategies.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Sudharta's flashback [CEO Halodoc] and I—we met in high school. We discussed a lot about Halodoc and its mission to make healthcare accessible to everyone. I also have interest in health technology. In business school, I created three business plans for a competition: a health-tech startup connecting doctors with rural communities, a hydroelectric company, and Mapan, which won the competition. Gojek also invest in Halodoc, so I've been working with the team Halodoc for a while and see how that company can grow and bring together all the pharmacies and thousands of doctors into one platform. I am happy to be a part of this growth.

As a commissioner, Aldi (left) helps the CEO of eFishery, Gibran Huzaifah (next to him) to grow the business. Documentation by eFishery

Kr: Recently you also invested in BukuWarung. Is this the first time? Is it that important to work with other entrepreneurs?

oh: I've invested in ten startups, including BukuWarung, Crewdable, Green Spot, and Beehive Drones. As an entrepreneur, your experience and lessons can be limited to the company you build. However, by mentoring other companies, you can see if your industry experience and knowledge can work in other sectors. I recommend that every entrepreneur be a mentor because there is more to learn as a mentor than a mentee. For example, Gibran taught me a lot about fish farming, and I learned about health from Jonathan.

I believe in good karma, and angel investing is all about giving back. The hardest part of an early stage startup is finding early backers who believe in your mission. Mapan's first investor was Muhammad Yunus of Grameen Bank. It's amazing that someone like Yunus believes in someone like me, and I want to do the same for other entrepreneurs.

Cr: Then, what will be the next step? What do you want to do going forward?

oh: The most important thing about sabbaticals is that they really are sabbaticals. Today, I'm learning many different things: how to be a better father, a better mentor, and a better investor. I hope that by learning many different things, I can find problems in the industry that need my help. I am entrepreneurial and love building companies and developing teams, so I will continue to do my best at that.

-This article was first released by KRASIA. Re-released in Indonesian as part of the collaboration with DailySocial