The key to Majoo’s 800% growth during the pandemic
Published on August 26, 2022
According to the World Bank, around 94 million adults in Indonesia in 2019 did not have access to the internet on mobile devices, with most of them (around 80%) residing in rural areas. In the last few years, there has been a dramatic surge in the digitization of Indonesia’s MSMEs but the digital divide still remains a burning challenge.
Addressing this problem is exactly what startups like Majoo are striving for.
Majoo aims to help the country’s millions of MSMEs by providing a full suite of digital tools, offering an end-to-end platform that runs everything from point of sale to business management, payroll, and more.
It also recently launched what it refers to as “Shopify for offline stores,” seeking to help MSMEs grow their revenues by enabling merchants to easily set up online stores connect to established e-marketplaces.
To date, the proof of Majoo’s product-market fit in Indonesia is visible in its traction. The startup emerged from the pandemic having grown by more than 800%. It recently raised a US$10 million series A funding round led by an undisclosed global fintech-focused growth equity investor, with participation from existing backers AC Ventures, Quona Capital, BRI Ventures, and Xendit.
On a recent episode of the Indonesia Digital Deconstructed hosted by Adrian Li of AC Ventures, Majoo founder and CEO Adi Wahyu Rahadi explained how a holistic set of digital tools and solutions can propel Indonesia’s MSME industry into a new era. He also shared what Majoo is doing differently to stand out in a hypercompetitive market.
How Majoo acquired merchants during Covid-19
Adi comes with 20 years of experience in the IT arena of the telecoms world. He has held multiple strategic and executive positions and has led high-profile mobile money initiatives targetting MSMEs.
When asked what Majoo did differently to survive, and in fact scale, during the pandemic in such a hypercompetitive landscape, Adi said that soon after the startup’s launch in 2019, when the pandemic hit, the team quickly adopted a unique business model with a keen focus on maintaining a low customer acquisition cost.
“In our industry, the customer acquisition cost is actually one of the main concerns and key determinants of profit and success. As such, we leaned toward a business partner model approach in that we incorporated a performance-based compensation system. Plus, we built our own CRM tools for the sales team so they were able to be more productive with leads,” he explained.
“It was quite simple; a combination of a few things – a solid product value proposition, offering almost complete features at a single pricing, increased digital campaigns, and sales appreciation,” said Adi.
Since its inception, Majoo has acquired over 25,000 active merchants while maintaining strong user retention. It saw a 250% growth midway through the pandemic, which demonstrated the market’s appetite for MSME SaaS. This encouraged Adi and his team to double down on their strategy. To date, the startup has processed over 100 million transactions worth more than US$600 million for MSMEs in over 600 cities in Indonesia. Majoo serves a diverse range of businesses from micro F&B players to laundromats, convenience stores, and more.
Enjoy the full episode on Spotify, Google, and Apple.
Indonesian MSME enabler majoo raises US$10M, emerges from pandemic with 8x growth spurt
See also: Majoo bags US$4M to accelerate instant store development for MSMEs
