Grab’s first employees open up on the early days of the company and their takeaways

Photo credit: Grab.

If you want the low-down on a company, who better to ask than those who’ve been there since day one? That’s what Grab did this January when we got our pioneering employees to share how we got to where we are today.

The result? Tales of grit, guts, and pure perseverance. Read on for career #inspo!

(Brief history lesson: Grab started life as MyTeksi in 2012. From its initial home base in Malaysia, the brand expanded to Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.) 

Being small pushes you to give your all

“Grab’s first office in Malaysia was […] in a guard house. We later ‘upgraded’ to a storeroom in the Renault car showroom in Petaling Jaya. I had a plastic foldable table and a stack of boxes as a chair. To save on business trips, we took cheap midnight flights and even shared beds with colleagues. Some of us had our share of enduring snores and being mistakenly hugged at night. But being small, we had grit […] and hunger. We used to take 1 am flights to Manila and fan out to approach taxi drivers the moment we touched down. I remember how [CEO] Anthony Tan asked me to develop a plan to launch GrabTaxi in Indonesia one night at 10:30 pm. I submitted a proposal eight hours later and flew to Jakarta the next day to start hiring and finding an office space. We launched the service within six weeks.” — Hong Eu Gene, deputy country manager, Grab Indonesia

Grab all opportunities 

“I joined Grab after working for nine years at a management consulting firm. At my previous firm, I was comfortable, doing well, and had a good shot at being made a partner. I had my first interview with Grab on a Saturday, got a job offer on Wednesday […], and resigned the following Monday! I was really scared. For the first few months, I asked myself what I had gotten myself into. But the opportunity to build up a company from scratch doesn’t come often. My advice: Recognize when opportunities come your way. When the stars are aligned, don’t be afraid to take the plunge. After all, the more you fail, the faster you succeed.” — Lim Kell Jay, country head, Grab Singapore 

If you don’t understand it, you can’t build it

“Before building our app, we made regular visits to a taxi booking center in Kuala Lumpur to understand their processes. In fact, one of my teammates worked there for six months. We learned how commuters would phone in and wait to be matched to a driver […] sometimes for as long as 30 minutes. That experience really helped us live and breathe the product.” — Aaron Gill, head of business solutions, Grab

Play with those who challenge you

“At the start, established businesses told us: ‘I give you five months. You will go bankrupt. There is no way you can fight us.’ Over the years, we faced stiff competition from rival ride-hailing apps, some of whom were bigger. It was like a David and Goliath situation. But remember you will always gain from facing a Goliath—you’ll gain maturity, learn something new about yourself, and push yourself to get ahead. The key is to compete on your strengths. Some of our rivals had more funds than we did. So we looked beyond money and focused on building a relationship with our Grab drivers. Happy drivers will result in happy passengers.” — Adelene Foo, regional head of 2-wheels, Grab

Solve problems not just with your head but also with your heart

“One challenge in the Philippines was that not all drivers owned smartphones. We got around this by calling up drivers and manually matching them to passengers so they could see we were giving them jobs. At the same time, we delivered smartphones to them so they could start using our app. We also gave our drivers bags of rice and canned food as incentives—small gestures that they really appreciated. Seeing them happy touched my heart.” — Rose Perea, customer support supervisor, Grab Philippines

Face time matters, but not the kind on your phone

“We faced rival ride-hailing apps during our early days in Singapore. At the time, [CEO] Anthony Tan used to tell me, ‘Bro, there’s no second place in the war.’ So to build a bond with taxi drivers, my team visited Changi airport and Lavender food court at 3 am to introduce them to Grab. I spent weekends attending their weddings, kids’ birthday parties, visiting them in the hospital […], and grabbed coffee with some of them every Wednesday. That’s how we gained their trust and support. Once we dominated the supply of taxis, our rivals didn’t stand a chance.” — Desmond Ng, head of partner quality, Grab Singapore

Sometimes you have to go all in

“It was a gamble to launch a private hire car service in Thailand. The project could have failed. When I asked my team of three people if they understood what they were getting into, their response was that the only risk they could not take was delaying the launch and being beaten by the competition. That same night, we went to Ikea and used our own money to buy furniture for our empty office.” — Vichakorn Varavarn Na Ayudhaya, head of new verticals, Grab Thailand

Great colleagues never say, ‘That’s not my job’

“One Christmas eve, the Vietnamese marketing team had to wrap hundreds of gifts for an event. By 5 pm, everyone was exhausted. That was when our operations team came by to offer assistance. We knew most of them wanted to go home for Christmas, but they gave excuses like how traffic was bad so they might as well stay to help. We completed everything by 8 pm and had time for a mini-celebration in the office. It taught me that sometimes you can’t do everything yourself. So, share your load with a team you love.” — Dao Tuan Dung, manager, digital marketing, Grab Vietnam

Push yourself to exceed targets 

“I joined the sales team in Singapore, working to recruit drivers. My target was to sign up eight drivers in a day, but I pushed myself to aim for 12. In fact, my team challenged each other: The person with the lowest sign-ups would treat everyone else to drinks. We knocked off work at 7 pm, but I used to accommodate drivers on their night shift. They would drive to my void deck between 9 pm to 12 am and I would sign them up. Back then, not everyone understood how to use the app, so I spent weekends calling drivers to check in on them. The happiest thing was seeing their smiles when they achieved their incentives. They would say, ‘Thank you for signing me up.” – Robin Yeo, sales commando, Grab Singapore

Never break faith with your partners 

“Our teams were lean, but we worked around the clock to ensure our drivers were paid on time and fairly. In the early days before we automated our processes, we used to manually tabulate our drivers’ incentives for the month and email them their earning statements one by one. It was the same thing with payments. We would stand in front of cash deposit machines to deposit the earnings into each drivers’ account.” — Eunice Goh, manager, accounting, Grab Singapore 

Go beyond your comfort zone