Rather than choosing a path paved with roses, Anthony Tan, the son of a wealthy Malaysian family, persistently chose his own direction despite opposition and claims that his idea was crazy.
A former Harvard University student, Anthony Tan was expected by his parents to follow the family business and become a prominent entrepreneur in Malaysia’s oil and gas sector. As a child, he had his own bodyguard and driver until age 13.
However, while still at school, seeing himself and his friends struggle to hail taxis back home, he conceived an app that could summon a car with one tap on a phone. Securing family approval and startup capital was far from simple for Tan, however.
“When I came up with this idea, I shared it with my father and explained the app, but he dismissed it as nonsense and said Harvard had damaged my brain. Unable to persuade him, I presented it to my mother. Although she did not understand it, she still supported me, trusted me and gave me money to start the business. She did set one condition: I could try it for 6 months, but if it failed, I had to return to the family business,” Anthony Tan recounted.
Anthony Tan
After successfully persuading his mother, Tan used her support to seek agreement from the rest of the family and again persuaded his father: “I greatly respect you and your work. I am not saying what I am about to do will be better than what you do. I only ask that you let me go out into the world and let people batter me. I will not die; I will mature. With that argument, I won my father's agreement. So I advise you to confide in your mother and share your ideas with her—the person who loves you unconditionally. She will help us greatly and motivate us to overcome difficulties,” Tan shared.
After obtaining his parents’ agreement, in 2011 Anthony Tan left the family business to co-found Grabtaxi with a female Harvard Business School classmate, Tan Hooi Ling. In the early stage, he faced countless challenges persuading taxi companies and visiting drivers individually to teach them how to install the app. Most drivers thought Tan was a crazy young man, while taxi companies said he knew nothing about business. After all, many large corporations had spent millions of dollars without getting anywhere, while this app seemed trivial.
“When I was rejected and criticized, I felt like a failure, but then a thought flashed through my mind: ‘Every rejection you receive means you are moving closer to success.’ That idea motivated me to keep persuading drivers while explaining the benefits of using the app. Gradually, more people accepted it and learned to use it proficiently in just 2 weeks,” the GrabTaxi CEO confided.
Thanks to perseverance, Grabtaxi received 11,000 bookings at its initial app launch, exceeding the young CEO’s expectations. The app now has over 12 million downloads and several hundred thousand drivers operating across 6 countries. Grabtaxi has become a counterweight to giant Uber. By October 2015, Grab had raised a total of 700 million USD. In Vietnam, the government approved its trial operation.
‘After a startup journey lasting exactly four years and two months, I realized that if you begin with the intention of creating value for society and bringing joy to the community, the community will support you. Then the small can defeat the giant. We no longer fear being suppressed by giants. If young entrepreneurs can let go of that fear, they can achieve good things,’ Tan said.
Although Tan did not follow the family business, in one respect he is returning to it. His great-grandfather was also a taxi driver. Tan's grandfather and great-uncle founded Tan Chong Motor, which began as a car distributor in the 1950s before assembling Nissan vehicles in Malaysia.
Sharing more secrets of success with young Vietnamese people at Forbes' “Under 30 summit” in Ho Chi Minh City, Anthony Tan said that whenever he sees something new, he does not wait for someone to approach him; he goes directly to meet them. To handle work in the best possible way, he also believes you should always find a companion, so he often seeks outstanding mentors.
According to this CEO, choosing good experts to work with requires 3 criteria: someone trustworthy, many shared values and expertise in the issue you want to understand.
Recalling his childhood, Anthony Tan said he did not speak until age 6. Before that, his parents often took him to a skilled doctor’s center for treatment, where they said he was intellectually impaired. But once Tan began speaking, he talked a great deal and continuously.
When he started school and the teacher asked the class what they dreamed of becoming, most wanted to be doctors, engineers or teachers… Anthony Tan alone exclaimed that he wanted to be an entrepreneur.
“I wanted to become an entrepreneur because I believe entrepreneurs create happiness for people. My parents are also entrepreneurs. They are distinctive people whom I greatly respect. They create value for society, and I should learn from them. To this day, I believe that doing business means creating happiness for everyone,” Tan said.
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