Advisor, Grab Holdings
Search every verified Hooi Tan interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Tan Hooi Ling, co-founder and advisor at Grab Holdings, has reflected on the company's journey from a startup focused on taxi safety in Malaysia to a Southeast Asian "super app" offering ride-hailing, food delivery, and financial services. In a 2024 video interview series, she described the early years as a struggle for survival, stating that "the majority of startups actually fail" and that Grab was "one of the lucky few." She attributed the company's resilience to a "super app strategy" that allowed it to pivot during the COVID-19 pandemic, and she emphasized the importance of defining success metrics before launching experiments to avoid delaying difficult decisions. Tan also discussed her partnership with co-founder Anthony Tan, describing their complementary working styles—her as an introvert focused on internal and analytical tasks, and him as an extrovert handling external-facing roles. In earlier appearances, Tan spoke about Grab's growth trajectory, including its 2021 merger with Altimeter Growth Corp. via a SPAC, which she said enabled the company to attract long-term investors. She highlighted the company's focus on expanding financial services in a region where "six out of ten Southeast Asians are still unbanked or underbanked," and noted that Grab's core businesses had a total addressable market of $180 billion by 2025. Tan also discussed the company's diversity initiatives, stating that Grab monitors wage parity quarterly and has employee resource groups such as "Women at Grab" and "Pride at Grab." She advised entrepreneurs to embrace "the joy of missing out" (JOMO) to maintain focus, and cautioned that startup life is "far from fancy and glitzy."
“Anthony, we had no idea... when we first started the company we were trying to solve a problem that seemed insurmountable back then, which is safety for taxi rides throughout the region.”
“We actually solved that problem in probably about 18 to 24 months and very soon realized that we had then built a platform and a set of capabilities to go solve even bigger, broader problems for the region.”
“More often than not the majority of startups actually fail — we are one of the lucky few; one in seven global average of startups and entrepreneurs that actually make it and continue to survive — and survival literally is the biggest challenge.”
“I highly recommend reconsidering that life decision you're about to make — startup life is far from fancy and glitzy; unless you truly care about the problem you're trying to solve and you truly enjoy, trust and respect the people you're working with, you're not going to survive those down moments.”
“Anthony is probably an extreme extrovert and I'm an extreme introvert — he was really good at external-facing partnerships, sales, BD, government affairs, always being on the ground with our consumers and partners.”
“Initially we were on this one-app super app strategy — we realized we had to pivot away. It's very okay to have experiments and it's very okay to fail, but before we launch any experiment be very clear on what hypothesis we're trying to prove or disprove and what's the definition of success beforehand.”
“We are all emotionally attached to our ideas and products — if you don't logically predefine what would define success or failure beforehand, we often find ourselves in a gray zone delaying tough decisions to potentially close things down.”
“A habit I kickstarted with Anthony: ask what are the things only you can do and are most important, what are things I could pick up from you, and cascade that across the company — constantly think about urgency and importance and avoid getting stuck doing only urgent but not important things.”
“I'm Ling and I co-founded Grab with Anthony — we were trying to solve a problem that seemed insurmountable back then, which is safety for taxi rides throughout the region. We solved that problem in probably about 18 to 24 months and very soon realized that we had built a platform and a set of capabilities to go solve e...”
“More often than not the majority of startups actually fail — we are one of the lucky few, one in seven global average of startups and entrepreneurs that actually make it and continue to survive. Survival literally is the biggest challenge and was front and center for us for at least the first eight, nine, ten years.”
“I highly recommend reconsidering that life decision you're about to make — startup life is far from fancy and glitzy; the majority of day-to-day interactions are more downtime and difficult moments than up moments. Unless you truly care about the problem you're trying to solve and you truly enjoy, trust and respect the...”
“Anthony is probably an extreme extrovert and I'm an extreme introvert — he was really good and still is at everything external-facing: partnerships, sales, BD, government affairs, being on the ground with our consumers and partners. I derive energy from fewer people and more analytical, smaller-group problem-solving di...”
“Public speaking clearly wasn't a natural thing for me — skills are very buildable, so practice, practice, practice: I practiced in front of a screen and a mirror, made mistakes, learned from it and tried to get better over time.”
“Initially when we were on this one-app super-app strategy we realized we had to pivot away — it's very okay to have experiments and it's very okay to fail. But before we launch any experiment be very clear on what hypothesis we're trying to prove or disprove and what's the definition of success beforehand.”
“Experimentation for the sake of experimentation is not value-creating — you need to be clear on whether you even needed the experiment to start with and what you're trying to prove. Otherwise you risk running experiments that don't lead to meaningful outcomes.”
In Tan's final video interview series with Grab, she reflects on a decade of hands-on entrepreneurship. Read more on Inside Grab: ...
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Super-app Grab has just made its market debut on Nasdaq. But co-founder Tan Hooi Ling is happy to stay low-key. In a rare ...
Grab co-founder Hooi Ling Tan says the ride-hailing company's super-app strategy is more resilient to Covid-19 threats and sees ...
Join us live with Tan Hooi Ling, Co-Founder, Grab at the 21st Nikkei Global Management Forum. ▷ More on the forum: ...
Session Topic: Executing the SuperApp strategy in Southeast Asia - with Tan Hooi Ling, Co-Founder, Grab - In conversation with: Henny Sender, Chief Correspondent, International Finance, Financial Times Description: With its diverse and fragmented markets, can Southeast Asia have a super app like China’s WeChat? How is Grab, Southeast Asia’s first decacorn, working its way towards becoming one? How different will Southeast Asia’s super app playbook look? Join us to hear directly from Grab co-founder Hooi Ling.
Hooi Ling Tan, Co-Founder of Grab speaks with Bloomberg's Yoolim Lee at Bloomberg Sooner Than You Think in Singapore on Sept 5th, 2019. #STYT Stay Connected Twitter: / bloomberglive Instagram: / bloomberglive LinkedIn: / bloomberglive More From Bloomberg Live: https://www.bloomberglive.com
Apr.22 -- Hooi Ling Tan, Grab co-founder, discusses the company's latest funding round, partnership strategy and growth potential ...
Keynote speech "Big Startup and How To Manage It" by Tan Hooi Ling at Thinkubator.
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