How To Build Autonomy And Validate Products While Scaling A Startup Fast

Traveloka’s five-year hypergrowth from a flight metasearch to a lifestyle superapp shows that team autonomy and user-centered product validation matter more than paid marketing spend. A former product manager there argues founders should copy its culture of hiring problem solvers and balancing website discovery with app engagement.

Muhammad Ilman Akbar, former product manager and head of SEO at Traveloka, spent five years inside that scaling machine. He shares what employees on the ground learned when a startup grows faster than its middle management can adapt.

How did Traveloka scale from metasearch to lifestyle superapp?

Traveloka started in 2012 as a metasearch engine for flight tickets. It pulled prices from other sites but sent buyers to those sites to purchase.

In 2013, user feedback pushed the company to become an online travel agent. It built airline partnerships and raised Series A funding to begin scaling.

The expansion timeline shows the product breadth added each year:

• 2014: launched hotels and began Southeast Asia expansion.
• 2015: entered Thailand and Malaysia, then Vietnam and Philippines.
• 2016: added train tickets and started lifestyle services.
• 2017: hypergrowth phase, opening new units like experiences and pulse top-up.
• 2018: launched pay-later and food vouchers.
• 2019: expanded to Australia and added insurance.
• 2020: COVID-19 hit travel demand.

Ilman joined in October 2014 as SEO coordinator. He witnessed the shift from a small search tool to a superapp handling many daily needs.

The lesson for founders is that scaling is not just adding features. Each new unit required new teams and clearer alignment.

Why move from SEO to product management inside a scaling startup?

Ilman began owning SEO and online marketing projects. He built the technical foundation and coordinated with product and engineering.

In 2017 he felt stuck because the website was neglected after the app became the main focus. He saw social media teammates reporting only to the CMO and running well.

"I offered the CMO, 'Can I handle that team, because SEO and social media are similar, both are organic marketing not paid.'"

He became interim lead for social media and owned blog, SEO, and social channels. Later, in 2018, he faced a quarter-life crisis wanting new learning.

Internal mobility let him interview into the platform team as a product manager. His mission was clear:

"Make Travel Web Great Again, like Trump's joke: Make Travel Webgrade Again."

He launched Traveloka Light, a slim app version, because the web had been sidelined since 2015. The move shows a founder should let curious employees rotate to where the product gap is.

When should a startup use a website instead of an app?

Ilman argues an app is for highly engaging products used daily with smooth notifications. A website is for discovery because its URL is easy to copy and share.

He uses a relationship analogy:

"First acquaintance, don't ask for commitment to install a big app, get to know each other first, then give bigger commitment."

If a service is not used often, users on storage-limited phones will uninstall the app. Build a web page instead of a heavy app.

Steps to decide channel:

1. Map how often the user will touch the product.
2. If daily and interactive, build an app.
3. If occasional or shareable, build a website.
4. Use the website to lead users to install the app only after they like the value.

This prevents high entry barriers from eating quota and phone space.

Why balance organic and paid marketing for survival?

Traveloka invested in organic channels: SEO, blog, social media. Ilman notes many companies push paid ads for growth and ignore organic.

When COVID dropped revenue, paid marketing budgets were cut and those companies had no fallback. He says:

"If you invest in building organic, you can survive."

He now consults startups to lower marketing cost because paid channels get expensive. The balance is like Avatar’s balance of the world.

Founders should treat organic as an asset that compounds. Paid is a tap you close when money stops.

Bulleted criteria for balance:

• Allocate steady effort to SEO and owned media.
• Use paid only to accelerate proven demand.
• Measure cost per acquisition across both.
• Keep organic team even during downturns.

How to build team autonomy that retains employees for years?

Ilman stayed five and a half years because of people, culture, and environment. Traveloka gave autonomy, hired the best, and paid top market rates.

He quotes a team value:

"Not where to where you go, but with whom you travel with."

A solid team can self-correct when the path changes. Managers set destination and constraints, then trust the team.

The TED talk by Dan Brown he references lists three motivators:

1. Autonomy – own the work.
2. Mastery – chance to learn and improve.
3. Purpose – personal reason to show up.

Traveloka gave autonomy and mastery. Purpose was individual, like family.

A manager’s job is to align on goal and boundary, then step back:

"You must go there. Agree, ready commander. But the boundary is set: within one quarter, with this budget, talk to these people."

After that, the team figures out how. This avoids micromanagement and builds pride in outcome.

What hiring criteria separate problem solvers from others?

Not everyone thrives under autonomy. Some given freedom become confused about what to do.

Traveloka hired problem solvers who would not stall. Criteria to probe in interview:

• Does the candidate see work as a series of problems to solve?
• Can they propose a path when given only a constraint?
• Do they show past ownership of ambiguous tasks?
• Will they ask why instead of waiting for orders?

Ilman admits a wrong hire cost him: a team member could not catch up and resigned. He says next time improve the questions.

Founders should treat interview as finding people who fit autonomy, not just skills.

How to validate a product with users before coding?

Startups often build first then hope users adopt. Ilman teaches reverse order.

Steps for problem-solution fit:

1. State hypothesis that user has a problem.
2. Talk to real target users, not guess.
3. Show a prototype or drawing to a housewife, friend, or wife.
4. Ask if the product feels easy and useful.
5. Only code after pattern repeats.

He explains a real feature: showing cheapest flight dates on a calendar came from user research, then UX flow, then UI, then engineering.

Validation methods split two ways:

• Qualitative: interview a few users, stop when pattern repeats at 3 answers.
• Quantitative: surveys, heatmaps, error rates with large samples.

A failed two-quarter research with no outcome taught him to pick one goal, prove it, then learn.

How to share knowledge without micromanaging new hires?

At Traveloka, documentation lived in a public wiki like Confluence. Any project was open for reading.

A new hire would get a list of stakeholders A, B, C, D and told to reach out alone. Ilman says:

"I just tell A B C D, please get to know them yourself and learn directly from them."

At his new company Glin, they use OKR intensely so anyone can see what other teams do and offer help.

The principle is autonomy even in onboarding. Spoon-feeding wastes the hire’s time and the mentor’s.

Founders should build a document culture early. It scales when team count doubles every year.

Key Takeaways

n- Hire problem solvers who act under autonomy; interview for ownership of ambiguous tasks.

• Use website for discovery and app for daily engagement; don't force app install early.
• Invest in organic marketing so a revenue drop doesn't kill reach.
• Validate product with user interviews and prototypes before writing code.
• Set team destination and constraints, then let them self-correct and share knowledge openly.