Super apps · Product case study · Indonesia
gojek: One driver, many jobs.
Gojek is an Indonesian super app that began in 2010 as a call centre for about 20 motorcycle taxi drivers. This case study explains what Gojek is, how one idea, keeping a driver busy all day, grew into rides, food, parcels and payments, and what the results look like inside GoTo today.
Fill a driver’s day ↓Independent educational analysis by PMcademy. Figures are from Gojek and GoTo company pages, GoTo’s published results, or the other sources listed at the end. The driver’s day model and the practice scenario are fictional teaching material. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.
What Gojek is
An ojek is a motorcycle taxi, the quickest way through Jakarta’s traffic. Gojek organised them. It began as a phone line, became an app in 2015, and kept adding things the same drivers could do: carry a parcel, collect a meal, run to a shop.
- 20
- drivers at the start, 2010
- 2 million+
- registered driver-partners, 2019
- 18
- services by May 2018
- 190 million
- app downloads by 2020
Drivers were waiting. Riders were searching.
Ojek drivers spent much of the day parked at street corners, waiting for a fare. A few streets away, someone was walking around looking for a driver. Both sides wanted the same trade and could not find each other.
Gojek’s first product was a match, made by phone. The lasting idea was bigger: a driver’s empty hours are inventory. Anything that fills them is worth building. Compare Urban Company, which organised home service professionals the same way.
From a phone line to a listed group
- A call centre in Jakarta connects customers with about 20 ojek drivers.
- The app launches with four services: GoRide, GoSend, GoShop and GoFood.
- Gojek buys three payments companies, Kartuku, Midtrans and Mapan, to build out its wallet.
- 18 services, more than 1 million drivers and 125,000 food merchants.
- The founder leaves to join the government. More than 2 million registered driver-partners.
- Gojek merges with the marketplace Tokopedia to form GoTo.
- GoTo lists on the Indonesia Stock Exchange.
Fill a driver’s day
People want rides at the commute and food at mealtimes. Parcels and shopping fall in between. Start with rides only, then switch the other services on and watch the empty hours fill.
The most one driver can do in an hour: 3 jobs. Bars above the line are jobs nobody is free to take.
- Hours with no jobs
- 7 of 16
- Jobs done in the day
- 19
Illustrative model: a fictional demand pattern and a driver who can do three jobs an hour. Not Gojek’s data.
One wallet for every service
Many services in one app only feel like one product if paying is the same everywhere. In 2017 Gojek bought three payments companies to strengthen its wallet, rather than build each piece itself.
- Kartuku
- Midtrans
- Mapan
By the third quarter of 2025, GoTo’s fintech arm had 24.2 million monthly transacting users and handled more than 500 million transactions in September alone. The wallet had become a business of its own, much as advertising did for Zepto.
How many people use it
61.1m
people in Indonesia transacted with GoTo in a year, about 30% of the country’s adults.
What it looks like inside GoTo
Gojek merged with Tokopedia in 2021 and reports as part of GoTo. The group’s results for July to September 2025 show which jobs carry the most money.
Value of on-demand orders, third quarter 2025
Gross transaction value, in trillions of rupiah.
The company that began with rides now moves more money in deliveries.
GoTo group, third quarter 2025
As reported on 29 October 2025.
- Net revenue
- Rp4.74tnup 21% on a year earlier
- Adjusted EBITDA
- Rp516bn
- Adjusted pre-tax profit
- Rp62bnthe group’s first
- Net loss
- Rp255bnRp1,693bn a year earlier
Indonesia’s food delivery market was worth about $6.4 billion in 2025, the largest in Southeast Asia, according to Momentum Works figures reported by The Jakarta Post. For a different way to win food delivery, see Swiggy’s ten-minute Bolt.
The driver is a customer too
The model depends on millions of people who are partners, not employees. Wikipedia’s history of the company records driver protests in four separate years.
- 2015
- 2018
- 2021
- 2024
Every change to pricing, incentives or commission is a product launch for drivers. Treat it like one: research it, test it and explain it.
Each service made the others cheaper
A driver with more jobs per day earns more, so more drivers join. More drivers mean shorter waits, so more customers order. More customers bring more merchants. And every order runs through the same wallet.
This is a loop, and it only turns if the first service is already good. Gojek had rides working before it added food. Learn to tell a loop from a funnel.
What to take from Gojek
Start from supply that is sitting idle
Gojek did not invent the motorcycle taxi. It noticed drivers waiting while riders searched. Look for capacity that already exists and is badly matched.
Add what your supply can already deliver
A driver who carries a person can carry a meal or a parcel. Each new service reused the same bike, rider and app.
Payments hold a super app together
One wallet across every service removes a step from each order and gives people a reason to keep a balance in the app.
The supply side is a user too
Drivers have protested more than once. A marketplace that only studies its customers will be surprised by the people who do the work.
Your turn: the quiet hours
Your fictional app books bicycle couriers to carry documents between offices. Couriers are busy until 11am and after 4pm, and idle in between. You can try one thing this quarter. Pick one, then open it to see the trade-off.
Add lunch delivery from nearby cafes
Gojek’s move: a new kind of job at the hours the old one is quiet. The couriers and bikes are the same. You now need restaurants, menus and a way to keep food warm, so start with one neighbourhood.
Cut prices between 11am and 4pm
Cheap to try and easy to measure. It only works if the demand exists and is price-sensitive. If offices simply do not send documents at lunch, a discount moves nothing.
Sign up fewer couriers
Each courier earns more per hour, and you spend less on recruiting. The morning peak gets slower, so check whether your customers chose you for speed.
Map your options with the opportunity tree template, then plan a test with the experiment brief.
Questions people ask about Gojek
What is Gojek?
Gojek is an Indonesian super app. It started with motorcycle taxi rides and added food delivery, parcels, shopping and payments. Since 2021 it has been part of GoTo, the group formed by its merger with Tokopedia.
Who founded Gojek?
Nadiem Makarim founded Gojek in 2010 as a call centre that connected customers with about 20 motorcycle taxi drivers in Jakarta. He left in October 2019 to become Indonesia’s education minister.
What does ojek mean?
An ojek is a motorcycle taxi, a common way to get through traffic in Indonesian cities. The name Gojek comes from it.
What is a super app?
A super app puts many services in one app with one account and one wallet. In Gojek’s case that means rides, food, parcels, shopping and payments, with the same drivers serving several of them.
Is Gojek profitable?
Its parent, GoTo, reported its first adjusted pre-tax profit, of Rp62 billion, for the third quarter of 2025. It still recorded a net loss of Rp255 billion for the quarter, down from Rp1,693 billion a year earlier.
How many people use Gojek?
GoTo reported 61.1 million annual transacting users in Indonesia in its third quarter 2025 results, about 30% of the country’s adults. Its fintech arm had 24.2 million monthly transacting users.
Sources
- Gojek: About usThe company’s own account of how it started and what it offers.
- GoTo: GoTo’s growth storyThe group’s history: the founding, the app, the payments acquisitions, the merger and the listing.
- GoTo: third quarter 2025 resultsRevenue, profit measures, transaction value by segment and user numbers. 29 October 2025.
- The Jakarta Post: Indonesia logs $1 billion food delivery growthThe size of Indonesia’s food delivery market in 2025, from Momentum Works. 28 January 2026.
- Wikipedia: GojekService counts, driver and merchant numbers by year, downloads and the record of driver protests, used where no company page gave the figure.
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