EXP001failure
2022 Q2-Q4 · GrabPay Vietnam + Telco PartnerRural Mekong Delta Fintech Pilot
“If we provide a simplified mobile money product with telco distribution, rural adoption will match urban benchmarks within 6 months.”
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Lab Notebook
What I Tried at Grab
Real experiments I ran or contributed to during my decade at Grab. These are not case studies written for success. They are honest accounts of what worked, what failed, and what the data actually showed.
A decade in product taught me that the failures are more instructive than the successes. The pattern across these experiments: technology is rarely the binding constraint. Trust, ecosystem readiness, and implementation capacity almost always are.
8experiments
4worked
1failed
3mixed
EXP002success
2023 Q1-Q2 · GrabPay VietnamAgent-Assisted Onboarding Test
“If we train local agents to assist with onboarding, completion rates will increase by 30%+ versus self-serve.”
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EXP003mixed
2023 Q3-Q4 · GrabPay Vietnam + Merchant OpsQR Payment Merchant Incentive Program
“If we subsidize QR payment acceptance for rural merchants, transaction volume will reach sustainable levels within 3 months.”
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EXP004success
2024 Q1 · GrabPay Vietnam + AI TeamVoice-First Balance Inquiry
“If we offer voice-based balance inquiry in Vietnamese, usage among low-literacy users will increase significantly.”
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EXP005success
2024 Q2-Q3 · GrabPay Vietnam + Ministry PartnershipCommune Learning Center Digital Literacy
“If we deliver digital financial literacy through existing commune learning centers, adoption will be higher than direct-to-consumer approaches.”
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EXP006mixed
2024 Q4 · GrabPay Vietnam + Agri-Input PartnerAgricultural Payment Integration
“If we embed digital payments into agricultural input purchases, farmers will adopt digital finance as part of existing commerce flows.”
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EXP007success
2025 Q1 · Grab Vietnam Driver Ops + GrabPayRural Driver-Partner Financial Services
“If we offer financial services to rural Grab drivers, they will become ambassadors for digital finance in their communities.”
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EXP008mixed
2025 Q2 · Grab Vietnam Government RelationsProvince-Level Policy Advocacy
“If we engage provincial governments directly on digital inclusion, we can accelerate regulatory support for fintech innovation.”
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Cross-Cutting Themes
The ecosystem problem
Six of eight experiments were constrained not by product quality but by the absence of surrounding infrastructure — merchants, agents, trusted intermediaries, or policy enablers.
Trust is a distribution channel
The highest-performing experiments all worked through existing trust relationships: drivers, commune instructors, input suppliers. Cold digital acquisition consistently underperformed.
Both sides of the market
Every two-sided experiment that solved only one side failed or produced mixed results. Digital inclusion is always a market design problem, not a product problem.
Policy is upstream of product
The province-level advocacy experiment revealed the ceiling. Without regulatory support for agent banking and simplified KYC, product innovation hits a structural wall.