Magani unites tradition with the new; reimagining the traditional batik shirt for the needs of our contemporary society. We combine Indonesia’s rich cultural heritage with the latest innovation in performance wear material to build the ultimate durable and comfortable shirt for the modern Indonesian man who is constantly on the move.
As we celebrate Indonesia’s heritage, we also celebrate the individuals who are unintimidated by the sweat and hard work required to defy challenges, push boundaries, and move Indonesia forward.
Meet the #MaganiMen who have inspired us that with grit and endurance, there are no limits to what you can achieve. #NOSWEATNOLIMIT
---
#MaganiMen - Behind Relay, Tim Wijaya is reimagining how runners celebrate every mile. Inspired by his own passion for running, he built a photo-editing app that gives athletes more creative ways to capture, personalize, and share their journeys, turning every finish line into a story worth remembering. Today, Relay is used by runners in over 115 countries, partnering with running brands and communities to create designs that reflect their own culture. More than just an app, Relay represents Tim's belief that running isn't only about pace or performance, it's about creativity, connection, and celebrating the joy of movement.
---
Who is Timothy Sam Wijaya today, and what journey brought you here?
I'm a founder in Jakarta building consumer products for the whole world. I started out at Brown University, where I built and sold a job platform called Kerja.io — and now I'm building a photo-editing app with users in 115 countries.
What inspired you to build Kerja.io, and when did you realize Kerja.io was becoming something much bigger than an idea?
As a college student, I felt firsthand how hard it was to find internships back home — and I watched most of my friends struggle with the exact same thing. So I spent my sophomore summer building a job platform to make that easier. I started by reaching out to 100 companies to get them onto the platform, then landed partnerships with larger organizations to distribute it — and the rest is history.
What was the hardest challenge during Kerja.io's growth journey that people outside the startup world rarely see?
The hardest part is also the reason it was so exciting: you have to learn everything from scratch, with no work experience to lean on. I taught myself as I went — blogs, podcasts, a lot of grunt work — and we personally jumped on hundreds of calls with companies just to land them as customers. It was tedious, but that's exactly what taught me resilience, and it's why we ended up building the biggest internship portal in the country.
As a founder, how did your leadership style evolve from managing a small team to leading a company?
Early on I was the smartest person in a five-person room, so I did everything. That doesn't scale — it just makes you the bottleneck with a title. The real shift was learning to hire people better than me at their thing, then getting out of their way. Leadership went from having the answers to asking the right question and shutting up.
Kerja.io was eventually acquired by PINTAR. What did that experience teach you about building a company that is attractive for acquisition?
You can't build a company to be acquired — it reeks, and buyers smell it. PINTAR wanted us because we'd solved a real problem with clean metrics and something they couldn't easily rebuild themselves. The lesson: acquisitions are a byproduct of being genuinely valuable, not a strategy. Build something hard to replicate, and the offers find you.
The startup ecosystem often glorifies fundraising. Do you think founders today focus too much on raising capital and not enough on solving customer problems?
Wildly. We treat raising money like winning, when it's just borrowing against a promise you haven't kept yet. The founders I respect are quietly obsessed with customers, not their next round.
What common mistakes do first-time founders repeatedly make when launching their first startup?
They build for validation instead of customers — chasing applause instead of retention. They raise too early and inherit a boss before they've earned freedom. They copy what's already working elsewhere instead of noticing what's broken right in front of them. And they hire for pedigree when they should hire for hunger.
What inspired you to build Relay? And for someone hearing about Relay for the first time, how would you describe its mission?
I'm an avid runner, and I noticed that most of my running friends love to post their runs on social media — but they're all stuck on Strava, which only offers about three designs. I thought it would be far more exciting to give people more creative ways to express a run once they've finished it. So I built Relay. We now have over 150 designs, and we partner with running brands and communities to create custom ones that reflect their own run culture.
The mission is to help people celebrate their fitness. The running world is intensely performance- and metric-driven right now — everyone's obsessed with how far and how fast they ran — and it misses the more creative, joyful, intangible side: running simply to celebrate being active and healthy. Relay is a tool to express that.
You've already built and exited a successful company with Kerja.io. How was the experience of starting Relay different from starting your first startup, and how does this next chapter differ in terms of vision, execution, and ambition?
Relay started as an intellectual exercise: could I build a company entirely solo, using AI to help me do it? In every previous project I leaned on a CTO or a team of engineers to ship. This time I taught myself to code with AI and built the whole thing myself. So it feels much more like a solo, bootstrapped indie product than something built to be venture-backed. That changes the questions I ask: how do I reach profitability quickly, scale with as little marketing spend as possible, and stay disciplined? When you're a team of one, the real skill is thinking simply and maximizing what a single person can output.
What has been the most challenging part of building Relay so far?
Time. I need more than 24 hours in a day!
Do you think it's still necessary for Indonesian founders to "start local," or should they be building with a global mindset from the beginning?
My whole thesis is that this is a false choice. You can be rooted in Jakarta and build for the world from day one — I do. If anything, "start local" is often an excuse to avoid competing where the ARPU and payment infrastructure actually are. Be local in your soul, global in your market.
What opportunities do you think young founders in Southeast Asia are overlooking today?
That the internet already made "where you're based" almost irrelevant — most founders still build only for the customer they can physically see. We should be thinking bigger and building things people all over the world can use. In 2026, a founder who can build and tell the story has an unfair advantage most people leave on the table.
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Take it easy — you don't have it all figured out yet, even if you think you do.
What does Magani mean to you?
What surprised me most about Magani was the fabric. At first glance, it looks like a classic batik shirt, but the moment you put it on, it feels completely different. It's lightweight, comfortable, and easy to move in—something I don't usually associate with batik. As someone who's always on the go, I appreciate clothing that performs without sacrificing style. Magani strikes that balance really well. It feels modern, practical, and makes batik something I'd genuinely want to wear every day.