GrabCar – the Closest Driver vs Traffic Conditions

I’m a heavy user of GrabCar services. I have been using GrabCar for the past 2-3 years intensively, I mostly use it for transportation purposes to and from the office.

One of the things I noticed while ordering a ride from Grab is that it prioritises your request to the closest drivers around you in distance. This algorithm probably works out fine most of the time for most of the locations, however in some edge cases this can work against a customer in a very negative way. I will give very specific location as an example.

Case Study: Berjaya Times Square

Take the Bukit Bintang area at rush hour, after work, between 6pm – 7:30pm, particularly Berjaya Times Square Mall.

Here is how the traffic conditions look during the rush hour, after office hours. Area shaded in red usually has a terrible traffic congestion during this time. It’s located right across the street, opposite of The Berjaya Times Square Mall.

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Launching New Startups in Big Corporations

Many industries are being disrupted by new and innovative technologies and many more are awaiting to be disrupted in the next 5-10 years.

This anticipation has obviously resulted in many corporations attempting to create their own innovative products, so as not to be disrupted by a third party technology or a startup. It’s quite common these days to see Telcos, Banks and Insurance companies organizing hackathons, and trying to generate innovative ideas that could be used in their respective industries.

Generating new ideas is the easy part. But as discussed in my previous post, trying to develop totally new products in a corporate setting is very challenging to say the least.

startupvscorp

3 Corporate Hurdles that Kill New Initiatives

There are at least three main corporate hurdles for a successful new product incubation within a large corporate setting, these are corporate structure, approval processes and procurement processes. Oftentimes, corporations make a mistake of starting a new product without addressing any of these three pain points. Continue reading

Motivation, Ability & Attitude

All things being equal, from my observation success or failure of a startup boils down to three main characteristics of its staff: Motivation, Ability & Attitude. This of course, first and foremost applies to the founder, followed by his/her team that supports him/her behind.

  1. Motivation – is the founder motivated to make his startup-idea a success? Is this his own idea that he is passionate about? Or was he put in charge of this startup by someone else (board, investors..)?

    Level of motivation that a founder has for his startup-idea plays a major role in the success of his startup.

  2. Ability – is he capable, both as a leader and a manager? Does he have the expertise in the field that his startup is operating? How is his execution skills? Is he a doer? Does he have the required experience?

    Well-roundedness is the key characteristic of able people – people who get things done. They understand and appreciate the different complexities of running a company. From product development to HR to Operations etc. And they are able to navigate through the many challenges and still get the things done.

  3. Attitude – does he have the right attitude towards the idea, the startup, the way startups normally operate in a chaotic environment, agile methodology, continuous improvement, continuous customer feedback…? Or is he a 9am – 5pm, corporate type of guy?

    Having a right attitude will produce a right behavior and vice versa. (Definition of an attitude: a settled way of thinking or feeling about someone or something, typically one that is reflected in a person’s behavior.)

    It’s hard to change attitudes, and often times it’s impossible to change settled attitudes. Therefore, it’s absolutely critical to have the right person as the founder from the beginning. Same goes to the hiring of team members. Most hiring managers tend to pay more attention to CV credentials than an attitude of a person, which I think is a big mistake.

Often times, people have different combination of these three. I hope that your founder has the highest scores in all three, namely; high motivation, strong ability and the right attitude in order to achieve a fully connected cycle to run your startup smoothly.

full_cycle

But realistically, it’s difficult to find an individual that has a fully connected cycle. And it’s more difficult to build a team that has the full-cycle as well.

disconnected_cycle

Conclusion

This is not some sort of management theory from MBA books. It’s just my personal observation throughout the years. Being both as an entrepreneur myself and an employee of startups and big corporation. I, now can see these three characteristics that are needed in the founder & the team to get a good idea turn into a successful startup.

What do you think?