Inside Grab with Anthony Tan Podcast Ep 1: Managing Grab’s capital and growth from startup to Nasdaq listing

Ini adalah di dalam kerajaan saya, Sheryl, dan penuh kerajaan yang mencari. Di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, saya akan mencari dengan CEO dan cobaan Anthony Tan. Saya akan mencari kecilan yang mencari, kecilan yang kami tidak akan lihat, dan kerajaan yang kamu tidak tahu di sini. Hai Anthony! Jadi mungkin saya akan berada di sini dengan keras. Kamu ada idea apa yang saya akan berada di dalam kerajaan? Seperti kerajaan yang mencari, kemudian saya akan berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari. Pemperkaraan yang mencari, kemudian saya akan berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari. 100? -37. -Okey, saya akan berada di dalam kerajaan. Jadi ya, itu terima tersedia yang saya berada di sini. Tertedia yang kamu mempunyai dengan saya. Saya akan berada di sini. Saya mempunyai dengan kecilan yang mencari, kemudian saya akan berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, ini sangat lama. Saya rasa satu yang paling berlaku yang orang berada di sini, mereka berada di sini, mereka berada di sini, mereka berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, mereka berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, mereka berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, mereka berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari, berada di dalam kerajaan yang mencari,. dengan Juhau dan berjumpa berjumpa setiap tekst图 di kelihatan. Dan mereka berjumpa. dengan kelihatan dengan mereka. dia terhadap masa mereka. dia berjumpa jika tidak 100% kecil untuk menjaga kembali. Jadi mereka berjumpa. dia berjumpa kelihatan mereka. dia terhadap masa mereka berjumpa mereka. dia dari kelihatan. dia berjumpa kelihatan. Tapi. dia berjumpa jika berjumpa jika berjumpa. dia berjumpa jika berjumpa. "Why do you want to do this?" Like, you should just, you know, "Do what a lot of family businesses do." Staying in a family, you know, have a better life. This is a tough life. So, you want to see full commitment. So, that's when, as part of the requirement for Series A, and again, we didn't have that many options. So, we decided that this was the right path, which was sign an employment agreement that basically said, "I leave everything else." And this was my only baby, and put all I had into it. So, literally, every cent that was to my name, my basic put into it. And then my mom continued to also put in more money. So, we were basically all in, especially in my case. And I think that helped focus. I think it was a, it was a bossy move, whereby it helped us, helped me basically cut off all backups. There was no more insurance policy. And that move in itself made me extremely all in. And I think when you decide this life, you must go in all in. And was it a hard sacrifice for you? Like, what was the, you know, because at that time, you know, you obviously was part of a family business to sacrifice all of. Well, I guess you also wanted my taxi a lot, but was there a big trade-off? Huge, I mean, huge water give-up, my inheritance that kind of sucked. So, that was painful. I had to, you know, piss off my father, which I didn't want to, right? No son chooses to willingly piss off their parents, especially in a highly-confucius valued home. So, that was both emotionally and financially a real burden. But, you know, I was very blessed that I, you know, I found my sugar mommy, Chloe. So, I'm so sorry, sorry, maybe. Give her a bit wrongly, but she, you know, really cared for me. And then, and I knew that in the worst case, she always reminded me that, look, whatever the case is, we will sort of go through it together. And I think having that support base, so. So, I think a lot of, again, if this message is for founders, I would say, really, that other half makes a world of difference. Because if you don't have that, that, all in mindset and your other half can support you, it's very tough because of the gruesome hours and stress. And sort of that super highs and super lows. That, and you, and it's a non-stop thing, right? You start early morning, I mean, even this morning, you started whatever, 7, 30, and you. And then midnight, and it's been 13, 14 years, and it continues. So, it doesn't stop. Whether you're five children or you're no kids, or you're dating. So, I think that's something that just comes with the name and the game, and you have to accept that. You've talked about how, you know, like, how series A investor pushed you to be all in, tell me, you know, how else investors have changed our trajectory to be, you know, in a positive way. Well, number one, Jewel from Vertex and, and the team and Kilo, and Lorraine, they're all from the Vertex team. Really, I would say, first, we had internal ambassadors, like Evie and Lorraine and others, that really helped us. But they didn't only help us from a strategy. They helped us even tactically, for example. We didn't want to have an office, so we used their office for free. We didn't want to pay for phone bills, so I used their phone to call all the other countries. I didn't have money for my meals, so they would take me out for lunch every day. So, so it was very sweet that way, right? And it only grew us closer. And there was more trust. But beyond that, I would say, they also helped us with introducing us to taxi companies, although we weren't that successful, any of them here. They even pushed us to think about Singapore as a market, which was primarily, we were very focused on solving the safety problem. And we were like, Luxembourg is one of the safest countries in the world. Why would it need our service? And it helped us really iterate our product market fit to one that more speed and convenience, which Singaporeans really value. So, thank you for the text for that. And then as we decided then to say, okay, we'll set up a Singapore office, especially given that we were hungry for engineering talent. They even helped us find our first office, which was, if you remember, was in Sydney. Sydney. And again, we chose that because that was where all the taxi drivers were hanging out. We wanted to go to wherever the taxi drivers were. So, I think that was a good call. The next investor was GGVC. And this was G-Shun Fu, who I'm very thankful. In fact, I'm still I will be seeing him later today. We still, he's coming to their office. They were serious people, but they helped us to think about they were very exposed to the Chinese environment. And now we're granted Asia, especially. And I remember this talked about and one of the board, meaning G-Shun was on board. Juhok was on board and G-Shun even shared about the payments landscape and how payments and high frequency transaction platforms like ours could really complement each other very well in that flywheel. And that's why we created GrabPay. So, really, I would say those were many good examples. Beyond, I would say, Series A investor helped us get Series B. G-Shun then introduced us to our Series C, which is Jason, who's very helpful from Tiger Global, Jason Tan. We again, and then Series C helped us introduce us to that time Ming Ma and Nikesh at SoftBang. Of course, then you saw the big headlines with Masayoshi. But really, that's a beauty of getting the right investor at the right time. I think if you got a great Series A investor, but in a wrong, pure time, that would also be wrong. But getting the right investor at the right time, who then introduced us to many other great investors really helped us on our journey. Let's build on that. How do you evaluate whether a specific investor is right for us at a specific point in time? I don't think it's a ideological game. I think you need to think of it as what's available. There's the pragmatic lens. Then which one suits your values. Well, when you have no option, then it's easy. When you have option N equals one is easiest. When you have option like in Series C, we have multiple people chasing us. Indeed, we have multiple people chasing us. Then we want to go with who could give us the highest probability of success. And the reputation, and again, I've never found a tech startup off this side. I've never been exposed to this group of people. Tiger Global was the first time. I didn't even know who they were. I needed somebody to tell me what they're big. Then I looked them out online while they're big. I've never heard of CO2. I've never heard of SoftBank. I was like, "Isn't that a telco?" I was as green as most founders are. And I think when you meet them, say Masayoshi, he's a visionary, incredible visionary. And people think you should just go for the money. Actually, people like him, very patient, very long-term, extreme visionary. You want those people. And those are people that drives the highest probability of success. And of course, the reputation being very credible. So you want to associate yourself with strong reputation firms as well. Yep. And can you think of a time where you really wanted a deal or invest in? It just didn't happen. We bombed. Yeah, many. We probably doubt for dimes or dollars, in this case. I would say maybe 50, 60 investors before we hit one big one. And there was a very humbling process. Very humbling. You remember 13 years ago or 12 years ago, whatever we raised, whenever we raised money, it was a time when Southeast Asia was not on the map. Tech was not on the map. Most people, if you remember coming from Malaysia, in terms of status, working for CIMB, a Maybank, a Petronas, a Kazana, it's amazing. Being a startup, you couldn't get a proper job. So that was the background we came from. So when we chased many people who didn't give us any recognition, they wouldn't even take our calls. And it was okay. It was part of the grinding process to refine us better and sharpen our messages. But there were some that I would say, gladly, on hindsight, I'm glad we bombed, because there were some that I remember, they were very clear to put in money. They wanted to put in money, but just to sell us, to then to, at that point, maybe to Uber or to whoever else, or Titi or whoever else in May have been, who are much bigger than us, and we were very small, but it was just about flipping versus, I'm in it with you, to grow the business, and actually fight Uber and win. That's the, and so I'm kind of glad those bombed out. In the early days, I mean, you talked a bit about how we have had pretty very good investors, how even those that didn't work out ended up being good for us. What did investors see? Why did one time it sucked? But yeah, I know what a feeling. But yes, on hindsight, it worked out. The injection never feels good. But, you know, like, those who did decide to back with us, and especially over the long term, what did they see in us, and also like, what did they see in the region, in the time where capital wasn't, you know, so invested in this, in this part of the world. Yeah. It's by no coincidence that we found investors who understood the region quite well. I think if you look at vertex, they've been here for a long time. GGVC, they have been around, you know, there are one of few offices that have Silicon Valley, and Singapore, China, right? Then now, Granite Asia, so they really understood the region. Even Jason Tan, Tiger Global, is mostly a New York-based office, but Jason was very, you know, he came from China to Singapore, really understood the region very well. It's master, you know, of course, understands Asia extremely well. He's invested in the region way before, you know, we were in the picture. So, I think given all these examples, it's clear that there were people who understood the region. That's number one. Because when I tried going to, I don't know, typical US names, did, I could sense a lack of understanding of the region, so you need to find people who understood the region first or foremost, and that clearly played out in our favor. The second was being able to, for those, then after that, I had to go to sort of the American centric funds at some size, then you catch attention of the Americans, and that's where the big pool capital resides until today. And they could really understand when they understood that, hey, for the region, this is sort of tracking in that trajectory of China-ish, right, or India-ish, so they could see that developing emerging markets was growing very fast, very young, digital, native population, large population. It really helped that there was the ubers of the world, the DT's of the world, that also were growing extremely quickly, and so they could see, okay, this is basically a Uber TT of Southeast Asia, right? That was very easy for them to understand, and so a lot of the investors were people who were already either invested in the sector or looking at the sector tremendously, so they understood the sector, and they understood the economics of it, and why, and how it was going to make money eventually. And what role does the founder play in convincing investors, right? Yeah, well, for seed, you know, A, A, B, I would say, I mean, in the early days, they just want to see, because they know that the ideas are diamond a dozen, they know that ideas have to pivot from it. Whatever you submit, as here's my three-year model, you know, everyone's like, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. You know, it's that type of like, are you, are you kidding me? But they look at the person, I think the founder who's pitching, they need to believe that regardless of what happens, that founder can pivot accordingly. Then I think that, so that's one, I think they always look at, can I trust this person? Second, can I believe that this person can pivot accordingly, with ever that is being thrown at them? Then the third is, does that person have the tenacity for the long run? Because most burnout, right, or over time, and you've seen this, many founders decide to, it's just not for me, and then they bail or sell out or whatever it is. Like, can they grind it out? That's the third. Then I would say, later on, the due diligence went from founder to founder and the teams. Then you remember, then I had a lot of visits, right? Then they want to see operational excellence. They wanted to see the team. Does the founder have the right team that can support, or is this guy just, or gal, just show and tell? Then they can see, okay, the one way to verify is, they look at the next layer. Is the next layer strong enough? Because that's one proof point that the founder can hire a very strong next layer. That was when you, and Adelaide, and Suda, and everybody was interviewed, especially the later stages. That was very, very important. Some people also say that it's because of your family, or family business has played a very important role to get us where we are today. What would you say to that? I cannot discount how important it was in the sense of, one, my parents invested a lot of education on dollars in me, right? That I'm very grateful for. HBS really changed my life, and I'm very grateful for that. Now, I would say beyond just the investment into me as an individual, and the values, and both the sort of heart. My mom also exposed me to my religious faith. It was the spiritual side, the mental side of capability. But more importantly, it was even beyond that tactically, right? My mom was the unpaid CFO. My mom put in money with me together. That was very important because nobody else believed in me. But even beyond that, you know, the family gave me a free rental office. One of the taxi companies we got to win as one of the early clients was because their introduction from one of our friends in a family company. So, you know, all that really, those early traction, I'm always grateful, right? Always grateful for the firm. And then the early partners like Maxis, you remember, who paid for our launch in the early days, right? All that, I think I'm very grateful. So, it takes a village to really get us the early traction, not success, but early traction. Then on top of that, it's just crazy hard work, right? By yourself and the early team and myself and all the other great people. But that you need both. One in itself is insufficient. Absolutely. And, you know, when we think about, we've been very blessed, you know, like many people believe in us, many investors, right? But obviously, when we do think investor funding, it comes with a fair amount of expectation. What is true, you know, what's, what does that look like? What are the expectations of investors? Yeah. I think once you take investor money, it's not your money. I've seen founders who, you know, I wouldn't name any companies, but who's misappropriated founder money or investor money that they think it's founder money. It's not. Because they have LPs that are public, right? So, number one, once you take investor money, it is basically other people's money. So, you have to explain yourself for everything you spend on, which goes back to your earlier point. If you remember, the board was made up of many investors. And each one had their own agenda. Some were say, Series A wanted to get out by a certain time because it was reaching their five-year window. And again, they've always been transparent about that. Those are a totally respect. And I want them to come out very well and for techs did. And I'm very happy for them, right? But there are some that, you know, have a very different agenda and some push for things that were really, really unhealthy for the long term of the company. I remember during a supply shortage, there were certain investors who pushed for things that weren't good for building up supply. That would have that decision if, and we barely won by one vote, if that decision went through against our belief, that would have, maybe I wouldn't even be here talking to you about grab and where it's gotten to. So there were several of these moments across our 13-year journey at the board where we literally had very intense debates, battles where we passed through by one vote to arrive to the company we are today. So when you take investor money, be very sure that these trade-offs are sure to happen. And you as an founder or entrepreneur must be ready for it. Yeah, I remember that. I remember that we didn't have enough supply, enough cars, enough drivers. And so that decision was very crucial in making sure that we could serve our consumers well. So I think that was a very good call. And luckily we managed to get it through. Yes, barely. Yes. How do you ensure, after we investors and everything, how do we ensure that we are not distracted by the noise, and we always make decisions that are best for the long-term benefit of this organisation. I'm sure there are a lot of trade-offs. You spoke about some, but how do we minimize the noise? I think there will always be noise. Until today at the board, there's still noise. Again, the good news is now we are able to have bond members who really think about the long-term of the company. So one way is you anchor on a vision and a calling and a purpose for the company. So people think it's only for your employee base, but actually it's just as important, if not even more important, because it's the highest decision-making body. So the board needs to be anchored on that vision, that purpose, that calling. I think that really unites everyone. The second is the board is also aligned on why we're here at the service of communities, which is in our leadership DNA. So they buy into it, they fully buy into the leadership DNA. Why is it that in our. Upcoming board meeting is held in one of our cities. We held one in Manila before. We held one in Indonesia. We held one in. We hold it across. We could conveniently all do it via Zoom. Dara doesn't have to fly from the US and Daniel doesn't have to fly from Korea or John from the UK. But we do it because we want our board to see the livelihoods that we impact. So they meet drivers, they talk to them, they understand their problems. They spend time on merchants, they understand the competitive landscape. They talk to even competitor drivers. That's so important because then I remember when we were in Manila and I remember we were at like 11.30 at night and I remember still there was a long line of movie drivers that our people working night shift until like 1.30 or 2 in the morning to sign them up because they're hungry to sign up to create a earning platform for themselves and their families. And you could see when the board saw that for themselves. It wasn't a doctor, right? This was happening every day, Monday to Sunday. You could see a different appreciation after that. And I think that's the best way to anchor them on a philosophy and value system. That's been much. And I learned that because we didn't use to do that. And there was a lot more in Tau Ziya, right? This idea of like debates or even battles in Tau Ziya at the board. But once everybody was anchored with a long-term calling and the purpose of really empowering the everyday entrepreneurs, it was much more smooth. And you can see the board. I mean everybody would say the board is much more cohesive than it's ever been now that you are on the board. So what, you know, where public is that? Do you have a favorite memory from that whole experience? On that day, I remember I, you know, was very emotionally entangled when I saw our merchants, our drivers, our persons with disabilities on stage. And during COVID, which was again, you know, I'm very grateful for Dina and Nasdaq, she was the only friend I knew who was a CEO and Nasdaq who would fly the satellite, you know, put it on top of Shangri-La and Nasdaq so that we can ring the bell. So that was, you know, we had to make so many impossible, possible for that to happen. And then seeing the the faces of our partners that was you remember it. I remember it. It was incredible. They were so happy to be on stage with us, right? It was such a magical memorable moment. And with public listening, you know, we've opened ourselves up to, you know, a different way in which people look at us, right? There's obviously more public scrutiny. Once again, you know, start with a premise that this is investor money. This is the public's money, right? Because a lot of LPs are pension funds and, you know, endowment funds. They are man on the street who put money there and then trusting these people to be good stewards. So we must be good stewards in the same way and and help to high bar. So people always ask, why do you say so much at earnings call and then tell the whole world, including competitors who are listening? First of all, I say, number one, we must justify why and how you're spending investor money, right? And how you're making money. In our case, good news now is we make money for them too. But how? I would say the second is that it's given us a lot of credibility. As you know, from Southeast Asia, there are very few, right? A handful. You can literally count with one hand of companies that have gone public in the US, which is the highest socks compliance, right? Sabines, Oxley compliance, SEC is a very high bar. But when you put yourself to the bar and still be able to perform at that bar, I think it's pushed us to hire a higher performance and culture bar, which has continued differentiated us from everybody else. And no regrets from you. You're very happy that we went down this path. I would say I'm sufficiently happy. As I prepare for the next earnings call, but yes, I would say it was the right decision for Graham. Okay, great. So before we end off, what is your advice for other tech founders, especially in the current environment, which is very different from when we, you know, we started raising money. What is your advice for them? Number one, we have to appreciate the current environment. The current environment is very different from the early environment. The biggest difference is interest cost. When cost of capital is that drastically different, you know, you are looking at an environment where you as a founder need to think about profitability much earlier on. Before you could say, hey, I don't need to think about it. So my humble suggestion to all founders would be think how to become profitable much earlier. Think about how to manage your costs much earlier. You know, we are in stewardship. We are supposed to shepherd it correctly. And that's on us. You can blame anybody for it. It's on us. You took people's money. And then the second thing is optimize for reputation because this may not be your only startup. You could do a second, a third, but once you do funny things that you can't justify, I can't explain. Gosh, you know, it's, you're done, right? You're done. I mean, besides potentially even jail time, but you're done from a reputational perspective. And many of you have many founders. Even us, we're still relatively young. You still have 10, 20, 30, 40 years of your working career. Don't sort of fake it till you make it. Many do or lie till you make it. It just catches up. And then you end up being in a much worse off situation than you were. So that's my humble sharing would be focused on profitability earlier on. Really look hard at your cost structure. And then third is optimize for long term reputation. Thank you so much, Anthony. Really appreciate the sharing. I've lived through a lot of it, but sharing it all over in brings me such great memories and just reminds me why we are still here, we're still going strong. So thank you. Great, thank you. Thank you.