Tackling on-ground difficulties, solving user problems: Grab CEO Anthony Tan on how he built the super app

From collapsing in a Walmart between investor meetings to having a customer turn up at the office to shout at the team, Mr Anthony Tan’s early days building

Grab

were a rollercoaster, to say the least. 

The firm’s series A funding round in 2014 was particularly gruelling. 

“It was very painful,” says Mr Tan, who co-founded Grab in 2012 and currently serves as its chief executive officer (CEO).

Watch the video below to find out how co-founder and CEO Anthony Tan built the Grab super app from ground-up.

This experience is just one of the many topics he talks about in the company’s latest podcast special. In conversation with Ms Cheryl Goh, Grab’s group head of marketing, sustainability, loyalty and support, Mr Tan revisits his journey, reflecting on the 13 years – and counting – he has spent at the firm’s helm.   

The podcast, titled

Inside Grab with Anthony Tan

, unpacks the early chaos at Grab. It also delves into his personal anecdotes and insights, giving the tech community a candid view into what it took to build South-east Asia’s leading super app. 

Here is a preview of the insights and stories Mr Tan shares in the podcast.

Anchor everyone to your core purpose

A founder can often be pulled in many directions. Everybody has their own ideas about what to do with the business – but how to cut through the noise?

According to Mr Tan, it is crucial to ensure that everyone is anchored to a core purpose and calling for the company. 

“People think it’s only for your employee base, but actually it’s just as important, if not even more important… for the board to be anchored,” he says. 

As the highest decision-making body, board members need to understand what the company wants to achieve. They must be able to connect the big decisions being made to what is happening in real life and on the ground. 

This is why, at Grab, board meetings are held in cities where it has operations.

“We could conveniently do it all via Zoom, but we do it [in-person] because we want our board to see the livelihoods we impact,” Mr Tan explains. “They meet drivers, they talk to them, they understand their problems… that’s the best way to anchor them to this philosophy and value system.”

He then recalls one such meeting held in Manila, where the board witnessed Grab team members working late into the night to onboard a long line of motorcycle taxi riders onto the platform. 

“Our people were working the night shift until like 1.30am or 2am to sign up [these drivers],” Mr Tan shares. “When the board saw that for themselves, you could see a different appreciation after that.” 

Right investors, right opportunities

Fund-raising will be a huge part of the life as a young founder. In the current climate, it can be tempting to take money where it can be found – but it is incredibly important to make sure the right people are on board. 

When identifying whether a specific investor is the right choice at a specific point in time, the founder needs to consider a few things. 

“I don’t think it’s an ideological game,” Mr Tan says. “You need to think of it as what’s available, right? There’s the pragmatic lens. Then which one suits your values.”

“When you have options… then we wanted to go with who could give us the highest probability of success,” he adds.

Moreover, it’s important to ensure the investors share your start-up’s vision – instead of just accepting investments from anyone. 

“There were some [investors] that I would say gladly, in hindsight, I’m glad we bombed,” Mr Tan says. “They wanted to put in money, but just to sell us to… Uber or Didi, or whoever else it may have been, who are much bigger than us – it was just about flipping, versus ‘I’m in it with you to grow the business.’” 

Having the right investors unlocks new opportunities for a company. In Grab’s case, its series A backer, Vertex Ventures, did more than just provide funding – it offered connections and resources, including office space, to get Grab off the ground. 

The venture capital firm also opened doors for the then-fledgling start-up. 

“Our series A investor helped us get our series B investor, who introduced us to our series C [investor],” Mr Tan recalls. “Then that investor introduced us to Ming Maa and Masayoshi Son at Softbank, and then you saw the big headlines.”

“That’s the beauty of getting the right investor at the right time, who then introduced us to many other great investors that really helped us on our journey,” he adds. 

Go where the problems are 

Founders often feel pressured to have a clear, defined roadmap for their companies. It can be daunting but solving users’ problems is a good way to start. 

Grab started as a taxi company, but it has since expanded into a variety of other verticals.

“[This expansion] was accidental because customers led us to it – it was problem-linked, or problem-founded,” shares Mr Tan. 

In fact, Grab’s fintech solutions emerged from its eagerness to address user problems. In the early 2010s, taxi rides were paid for in cash, which made drivers prime targets for robbers. 

“What we did was we created a driver wallet that a passenger couldn’t take cash from,” Mr Tan shares. “And that was how GrabPay was founded.” 

GrabFood, meanwhile, was made to help drivers and riders maximise earnings by delivering food when demand for transport services was low.

“They would send people to work, and then after that, wait until [the] evening for people to leave work, but in between they had so much spare time,” Mr Tan says. “We created GrabFood … so that they didn’t have to sit there and just wait and do nothing.”

The ability to develop valuable solutions to meet real user needs is rooted in Grab’s belief in understanding what is happening on the ground. 

As part of the company’s expansion into Indonesia, Mr Tan moved his family from Singapore to Jakarta, immersing himself in the local environment to understand the pains of users in the country.

“We knew that the only way was to … live there and have our kids go to school there, and live life as a daily resident,” he says. “You need to go down, experience the pain yourself, and talk to those that we’ve affected and then learn and build a solution for [these users].” 

Inside Grab with Anthony Tan

takes a look back on what it took to build Grab. It aims to unpack the early chaos, dive into the lessons no one saw coming, and share stories you would not hear anywhere else. 

This article was first published in Tech In Asia.