Ep216 – Chris Withers (Founder & CEO – Klikit) on lessons from Uber & Gojek, beating cancer & solving hard problems

My guest for Ep216 of The Startup Playbook Podcast was Chris Withers.

🎉 This week marks 9 years of The Startup Playbook Podcast.

What started as a side project in 2015 has now become a platform that’s shared the stories of 200+ founders, investors, and operators — and I’m so grateful to all of you who’ve tuned in, shared episodes, and supported the show along the way. 🙏

To mark the milestone, I couldn’t have asked for a better guest than Chris Withers, the Founder & CEO of Klikit, a platform helping merchants grow revenue, cut costs, and streamline operations through a powerful all-in-one operating system.

Before founding Klikit, Chris was part of the early Uber team in Australia & NZ, helped scale Uber Eats across Asia, and later became VP of Global Mobility at GoJek, giving him a front-row seat to some of the world’s most intense high-growth environments.

Chris is also someone I’ve personally backed through Playbook Ventures. Beyond the complexity of building in Southeast Asia, what’s inspired me most is his resilience, including his fight through a cancer diagnosis just months after raising capital as a solo founder.

In this episode, we dive into:

The high performance cultures at Uber and Gojek and what Chris took away from each
Why hard problems are worth solving
His battle with cancer and what it taught him about leadership, health, and grit
The realities and misconceptions about the Southeast Asian market
And much more!

Timestamps:

00:02:15 Chris’ background, accidental entry into Uber via a “mechanics yard” interview in Brisbane
00:04:26 Jumping to Uber Eats APAC: contrarian career move that paid off
00:07:10 Chris explains “second-order thinking” and calculated risk-taking
00:11:56 Lessons from Uber 1.0’s boundary-pushing culture of ownership
00:15:00 Inside Gojek: mission, patriotism and Nadiem Makarim’s “Pasti Ada Jalan” mantra
00:20:21 Genesis of klikit: running six virtual brands in one kitchen to test a thesis
00:24:58 Building the “pipes and rails” before the creator-commerce vision
00:29:51 Shipping fast and moving with speed
00:33:24 Going multi-region early; why Southeast Asia forces breadth and depth
00:38:26 Facing cancer diagnosis while running a venture backed startup
00:56:04 eFishery fraud fallout and Chris’s plea not to write off Asian tech

Our partners:

A big shout out to our long-term partners for the show:

Scendar

Scendar is the OG startup accounting firm in Australia catering to all stages of your business’ life. If you’re busy running your startup, you don’t have time to do your own books and forecast. Instead, fully outsource your finance function, giving you time and resources back to focus on what you do best in growing your business. Find out more at Scendar.com

Vanta

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Join over six thousand fast-growing companies that use Vanta to manage risk and prove security in real time.
The Startup Playbook Podcast listeners get access to an exclusive offer of USD$1000 off their plans. Head over to vanta.com/podcast to get access to this exclusive discount.

Links mentioned:

The Komo Club: The world’s first human accelerator

Chris’ links:

People mentioned:

Companies mentioned:

Feedback/connect/say hello:

Credits:

Music: Paycheck

Other channels:

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