As the CEO and country head of Groupon Indonesia, Indrasto Budisantoso had an enviable job which he loved, but something bothered him – something that he has since turned into a unique and promising fintech startup.
He had the same experience in his previous job as a management consultant with the Boston Consulting Group. He recalled spending hours on administrative tasks that were immeasurably “boring”, specifically sorting and working through “piles and piles" of reimbursement notes and receipts, not rarely for hours. Even as he rose in position at Groupon, the reimbursement paperwork continued to haunt him, stacks and stacks of them awaiting his signature of approval.
“I felt unproductive, handling expense claims and administrative tasks when I was at these companies,” recalled Budisantoso, who goes by “Asto” in the office.
There had to be another way – a better way – to do this, he decided.
By April 2015, Budisantoso had resigned from Groupon and was planting the seeds of what would become his startup, Jojonomic, an automated expense reimbursement solution that eliminates the need to keep and recapitulate receipts manually. The startup's name was coined by Budisantoso, who combined the word, “Jojo,” which is meant to evoke something “playful, easy, simple, and friendly” and “nomic,” which is extracted from “economic.”
The startup has been growing strongly since. Last year, Jojonomic processed more than IDR 600bn worth purchasing orders and over IDR 60bn of bank transfers. It also settled more than more than IDR 250 bn worth of reimbursement and cash advances, and connected its API to Indonesian banks, which the company declines to name.
Pivoting to grow quickly
Backed by a core team also comprising Chief Technical Officer Abdul Qifli Sangadji, Chief Operating Officer Samiaji Prasetya Adisasmito, Chief Information Officer Yogi Marsal and Chief Marketing Officer Indra Sutanto, .Jojonomic didn't take long to set its wheels in motion.
The first version of its app was completed within seven months. By October, the startup had secured seed funding of an undisclosed amount from Indonesia-based, early-stage venture capital firm East Ventures, thanks to the combination of Budisantoso's network and strong reputation alongside Jojonomic's concept as the first major mobile application for expense reimbursement and personal finance in Indonesia.
It was not all smooth sailing though. Notwithstanding Budisantoso's vision of a mobile reimbursement platform, Jojonomic initially took a more general, personal finance approach. After all, this was a novel concept for 2015, explained Jojonomic's Chief Marketing Officer Indra Sutanto.
For a few months, this approach worked very well, with almost 1m downloads of the app by local users. It didn't last, however, and the company found that users would stop using the platform after one or two months. “The (customer) retention just didn't last,” Sutanto recalled.
So by 2016, the company pivoted to re-focus on Budisantoso's initial concept of reimbursement and expense management – only now they were working with a bigger picture.
Aside from the company's main platform, Jojo Expense, which handles reimbursement, there is also JojoTimes, which manages employee attendance even if they work remotely, and JojoPayroll, which focuses on salary payments. Newer products that have been rolled out include JojoBiztrip, which handles employees' travel expenses, JojoCashCard, a type of company credit card, and JojoFlow, which offers an all-in-one solution for managing office documents and legal papers. All of these services can be bought as one package with the Jojonomic Pro app.
From SaaS to PaaS
“We've built an ecosystem,” said Sutanto proudly, adding that the company has shown the market validity of its app as well as strong subscription numbers from small-to-medium and large companies. As such, Jojonomic has been able to attract notable investors. In September 2016, the company received US$1.5m in a round of Series A funding from Maloekoe Ventures, Golden Gate Ventures, Fenox Venture Capital and East Ventures.
Besides Jojonomics' strong early performance, Sutanto said its investors “like that we never stop innovating when it comes to our products."
Indeed, the company has slowly moved from offering Software as a Service (SaaS) to Platform as a Service (PaaS). This means more cross-sales with other tech companies that would benefit all. The key thinking is that it is better to collaborate than to compete, said Sutanto.
One notable example is Jojonomic's collaboration with Traveloka, the Indonesian unicorn that focuses on airline ticketing and hotel booking services online. Companies that book flights and hotels via Traveloka's platform can use the Jojonomic app to handle and approve details of its employees' business trips, including travel expenses and the subsequent reimbursement, in an easily-managed and accountable manner.
“There's no point in us trying to create the same ticket-selling service (as Traveloka), so why not collaborate instead and create a win-win solution for both parties with this seamless and streamlined process,” said Sutanto.
Big-name customers
One of Jojonomic's major selling point for companies is its ability to detect fraud. In 2018 alone, the platform detected more than 20,000 fraudulent reimbursement claims, seeing through and flagging attempts to submit fake receipts or fake attendance – the latter is possible as the JojoTimes app detects employees' location using GPS. Managers can also use Jojonomic to check whether employees are on-track or falling behind on their assigned tasks.
Sutanto explained: “Managers can schedule their employees work and the allocated time to hand in a report, for instance.” On the other hand, the company's JojoPayroll also helps ensure employees receive credit for working extra hours or performing above expectations in the form of overtime pay and bonuses for the time spent producing outstanding work.
Jojonomic's client list has grown, and today, includes notable companies like Pertamina Patra Niaga, Lee Cooper, Lazada, Tokopedia, Gojek, MatahariMall, Veritrans and Kudo. Banks are also taking notice. In March this year, Jojonomic worked with Bank Negara Indonesia for its new cashless feature, JojoCashCard.
Currently, Jojonomics offers three different subscription-price tiers: IDR 54,000 (team), IDR 81,000 (business), and IDR 135,000 (corporate). The IDR 135,000 (corporate) subscription-price tier applies only if there are at least 1,000 users. Given that many of its customers are massive companies with thousands of employees, the business has seen a solid growth, said Sutanto, noting “it turns out that large enterprises need this kind of automation for their businesses.”
Pertamina Patra Niaga is pleased with the Cash Advance Disbursement Solution it's set up with Jojonomic. Its Corporate Controller division head Eko Cahyadi said: “We've been relentlessly supported in terms of time management, cost efficiency, geographical distance, all in real time with no more delayed reports due to the time needed to verify hardcopy [paperwork and receipts]."
For Tokopedia's Finance and Tax Specialist Debbhy Novinati, “the cost of subscription makes a lot of sense when comparing it to the financial loss from reimbursement fraud by employees.”
This drive by companies to push forward with a tech-enabled administrative system benefits Jojonomic's business, and most of it stems from a major shift in the way Indonesian business are led and run.
“Many [large] businesses are now being handed down from the second generation to the third generation,” Susanto said, noting that the children of business owners returning to Indonesia after studying abroad are now playing catch-up in leading their companies. “They are finding that their businesses need to accelerate, and we are fulfilling that need."
Looking abroad, looking ahead
In the past three months, Jojonomic's market has also begun to expand beyond their main market of Jakarta. Their clients now include big companies in Medan Semarang, Bali and Balikpapan. In Southeast Asia, the company also opened up up a representative office in Singapore in September 2016, followed by another in Thailand in March 2017. They also have sales representatives in Malaysia. Their clients in those countries include the Siam Semen Group in Thailand, and Kadence in Singapore.
As such, it only made sense that Jojonomic started this year strong with another round of funding, this time from European venture Finch Capital for an undisclosed amount.
Things are looking up and the core team couldn't be more excited. Budisantoso says that he feels confident in what the future will bring, with the people he has around him.
“I trusted the universe in hooking me up with these people – people who I needed to meet, as long as I had pure intention for the greater good, which was helping the world and humanity vibrate better,” he said. “We felt like we had the same intentions and we just clicked, [we] became a solid team and things just worked out complementing each other.”
