GajiGesa’s Vidit Agrawal wanted to offer employees access to their wages as they earn it, between traditional end-of-month pay cycles. That offers employees rather more liquidity and protects them from predatory lenders.
GajiGesa
Vidit Agrawal, co-founder of Indonesia-based startup GajiGesa, knows crazy growth is good. But endurance is best.
“Everyone seems to be talking about profitability nowadays. I hope it stays. Constructing a revenue-based or profitable business is something I actually have advocated over time,” Agrawal told CNBC Make It.
GajiGesa is within the “earned wage access” business, which suggests the firm makes it possible for employees to withdraw their earnings as they make them quite than waiting until the top of the month to receives a commission. Gaji means “salary” while “gesa” means “haste” in Bahasa Indonesia.
“Vidit is a unbelievable individual by way of at all times pushing the boundaries, at all times trying something recent to assist your entire ecosystem,” said Anuj Kumar Maheshwari, chief financial officer at retail distributor Kanmo Group, a client of GajiGesa.
“Our HR department is using [GajiGesa] as [a part of] employer branding, where we are able to attract talent [with the perk] of with the ability to withdraw [portions of their salaries] before month-end,” said Maheshwari.
It was a “visually crazy” scene — loan sharks circling on two sides of a factory in Semarang — that led Agrawal to found GajiGesa in 2020 along with his wife, Martyna Malinowska, who leads engineering and product.
“On one side, they were attempting to [lend] money to the employees. On the opposite side, they were attempting to collect money from the employees,” recounted Agrawal, who held leadership positions in Uber, Stripe and Carro for nearly 8 years.
“That is such a poor experience. The employees did not have a selection,” said Agrawal. A mean Indonesian employee earns about 2.9 million Indonesian rupiah ($192) a month and struggle to make ends meet.
A human resources manager of restaurant management PT. Inovasi Kuliner Indonesia said that they used to receive many phone calls from “yelling” loan sharks who had loaned their employees money.
“The phone calls stopped two or three months after we began using GajiGesa,” said Ria Al’amin.
I’m OK to offer up the 100% growth or 100x growth a yr if I can construct a revenue-based, sustainable business.
Vidit Agrawal
Co-founder, GajiGesa
Today, there are 42 different features – which include paying electricity bills, buying prepaid top ups or petrol vouchers – on the GajiGesa app.
GajiGesa partners with greater than 300 corporations and serves greater than 750,000 employees.
Agrawal claims that GajiGesa is the most important earned wage access player in Indonesia. “I do not just say that [myself]. Once you seek advice from the investors available in the market, who seek advice from all of the earned wage access players, they tell us that we’re the most important,” he said.
“At the identical time, we’ve never over-hired so it’s a blessing that we didn’t need to lay off people,” said Agrawal, as tech retrenchments proceed to mount in Southeast Asia.
The entrepreneur shared more on how he runs a business that lasts:
1. Sustainability first, growth second
Agrawal doesn’t imagine in using incentives to sustain user engagement, where “he has seen so many businesses” doing so. If a product doesn’t work, he’ll shut it down.
“If I actually have to pay $2 to make $1 revenue, that is not a business,” said Agrawal.
While they do give incentives after they onboard a recent company, they don’t proceed to incentivize existing users.
The hot button is to balance growth with sustainability.
We’ve never had fancy dinners. But we do not compromise on fun. We’ve done events within the office where we’ve catered food. The fee is low, but we’ve made sure people really enjoyed themselves.
Vidit Agrawal
Co-founder, GajiGesa
“I’m OK to offer up the 100% growth or 100x growth a yr if I can construct a revenue-based, sustainable business,” said Agrawal.
He said that at Malaysian used automotive marketplace Carro, where he was chief operating officer, they’ve a principle called frugality balanced with quality, which he applies to his startup today.
“We don’t desire to offer up on quality but we also wish to be frugal as an organization,” he said.
2. Cutting extra ‘fat on the bone’
He was so frugal to the purpose that his employees get irritated and call him “low cost.”
“We’ve never had fancy dinners. But we do not compromise on fun. We’ve done events within the office where we’ve catered food. The fee is low, but we’ve made sure people really enjoyed themselves,” said Agrawal.
He would also bargain for a 5% discount, regardless that the corporate has the cash to pay for it. “Wherever we see extra fat on the bone, we attempt to cut it out,” he added.
“When people join GajiGesa, they’re like: why is the CEO really caring about this $10 cost? Does he not have higher things to do? If I can eat the most cost effective but still healthy meals, or I can travel on budget, I need my team to see that.”
I personally take plenty of pride in constructing anyone’s profession because I actually have at all times had great managers at Stripe who helped construct my profession.
Vidit Agrawal
Co-founder, GajiGesa
They were already cutting costs for the primary two operating years despite having $9 million within the bank, he said.
GajiGesa raised a $2.5 million seed round in February 2021 and a $6.6 million pre-Series A in November 2021. Investors include January Capital, Northstar Group partner Patrick Walujo, European earned wage access company Wagestream and Next Billion Ventures.
But he emphasized that they spend on things which are critical for the business.
“We do not compromise on engineering. We do not compromise on tech tools. We do not compromise on commissions for our top performers,” said Agrawal.
3. Caring for employees
When he was at Stripe, he learned how you can care for people. “Stripe really treated you as a human being, not a number,” said Agrawal.
All full-time GajiGesa employees receive worker stock options.
“All of us need to pay our bills and care for the family. If the corporate does well and there may be a very good exit in any shape or form, the team gets real value out of it,” said Agrawal.
The GajiGesa team
GajiGesa
He also doesn’t hire people who find themselves already successful. “We hire individuals who can be very successful with the suitable guidance,” he said.
There was a young lad which turned out to be a very good hire, shared Agrawal. “He was raw, but he was smart. I knew that he may very well be there.”
Today, that very same young lad is the vp of partnerships at GajiGesa.
“I personally take plenty of pride in constructing anyone’s profession because I actually have at all times had great managers at Stripe who helped construct my profession,” said Agrawal.
Correction: This report has been updated to appropriately discover GajiGesa’s investors. Patrick Walujo is an investor, however the firm where he’s a partner will not be. An earlier version of this report incorrectly identified the firm as an investor.
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