In this episode of the Impulso podcast, Jianggan Li is joined by Blake Larson, Ex-Global Managing Director at Lalamove, and Alexander Le, Ex-Managing director at Rocket Internet. Tune in as the three former Rocket Internet pioneers turned founders share their journey through the highs and lows of the startup world.
In the first part of this series, they dive into:
- What it takes to be a good founder;
- The lonely road of being a founder;
- The contrast between builders who love creating and those better suited for managing large teams;
- Challenges faced in the early days of Easy-taxi
Tune in to hear candid reflections on leadership, personal fulfilment, and the lessons learned from failure.
Also available on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Featured materials:
Momentum Works Immersion: Ecommerce & Live Commerce
[AI-generated transcript]
Jianggan: [00:00:00] The following is a conversation I had with Blake Larson and Alexander Le. Both were my close friends and we started building EasyTaxi for Rocket Internet together in 2013. So we’ll be in a trench together and we have had lots of interesting encounters and butter stories. So over the years, we have remained very close friends, even though our path diverged a little bit.
Blake is now back in the U. S., living in St. Petersburg, Florida. Alex is based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia so over a weekend, all three of us gathered in Singapore to discuss about some of the learnings and reflections and life lessons. So in this episode, you will hear us talking about three major topics, challenges of being a founder CEO, number two, personal growth through entrepreneurship, number three, our rocket internet experience.
and scaling issues. So [00:01:00] I hope that you enjoy the discussion. This is episode 91 of the impossible podcast by momentum works.
Blake: [00:00:00] And tell a CEO about his business that. I’m going to know better than him. All I can do is like ask him or like questions of why they chose what they did. But ultimately most of the conversations end up being like therapy for what it is to be the founder and saying like you know, to like not have an outlet, someone to speak to because you can’t tell your board certain things.
You can’t tell your during port certain things , right. Cause you don’t want them running in like every thought you have, you can’t tell them because then they go run and do it. And you’re like, no, I just wanted to talk. So like, I think the founder role is. So lonely so often founder slash CEO role, because like, they don’t have even a peer network.
It’s their peers are busy in the same situation. So anyway, like, I end up being like a therapist. It’s not in a bad way, but like, I’m with some, like, the the personal board to the CEO to be able to say what. They’re thinking what they’re feeling and like digesting it
Jianggan: because you have been through it only because I’ve been through it again.
Blake: It’s like and then actually post exit to some [00:01:00] degree, like having that feeling of being lost. Right? So actually, like, I use that to actually then go talk to the founder of like, don’t forget why you’re building what you’re building. And like, yeah. What, what would be like, what success for you, because sometimes you get lost just like going and going and being better and better and better.
But like, to what end right for you as a person. Yeah. And so anyway, like, that’s, that’s actually when most of our conversations end up. And, you know, they think it’s all gonna be strategy, but it’s actually like, why am I doing what I’m doing and where do we want it to go? And then like, yeah, the self-reflection piece, like I didn’t do any hardly any of that when I was building.
I don’t know about you guys. It felt like when you were just in the wheel.
Alex: So it’s a lot to unpack because I think ultimately, I think most people are not gonna be in a situation where they have time to think about the personal self. Well, this also is in the twenties, right. You, you’re meant to just throw yourself at one thing.
Yeah. And go deep to kind of reap the value accrue the value and it’s at the sacrifice of Being [00:02:00] a whole person, it’s like you said, kind of mix your personality to being a startup. Yes. And then I kind of didn’t do the same thing afterwards where it’s like, well, at least you have an exit. I didn’t have a significant exit, but I’ve had a period of quiet reflection.
Blake: Who the hell am I? I don’t shake a leg.
Alex: Exactly. And, but what I realized why game was so valuable, which helps you ground even more. So if you want to build more mixture in the future is the personal aspect, which I was thinking.
Blake: No, that’s great. I actually, I like that because like I always tell people like, when are you going to build the next one?
When are you going to do it? And I’m like, now, now I like, now I know like, what is important to me if I go build a company, like. Really what my values work. It’s like the first or second time through it. You’re kind of just trying to figure it out. But like now I’m like, I don’t want a company with more than 20 people.
You know? You don’t want more than 20. Yeah, because like I’m a builder, like. I don’t like managing. I don’t like the governance of things that are required to build like certain types of companies, but I only know that by going through it to the extreme.
Jianggan: So you [00:03:00] like a certain size where like, you know, everyone and people can like come together and figure things out and
Blake: yeah, I like the intellectual, like debate and respect and like, or anybody can contribute equally.
And I was always like a reluctant leader in the sense. It’s like,
Alex: By force.
Blake: By force, right? But like, I’m never one where it’s like, I need to be the captain. And it’s like, I ended up being the captain for lots of reasons. But I don’t, I don’t take any, like I don’t know.
Alex: It’s like egotrip.
Blake: Yes, exactly.
Because it’s like, it’s not that fun for me. Like, what’s fun for me is like sitting, like, if you guys are like, hey, I got a great idea. Yeah. I’d be like. What can you do? What can you do? What can I do? Yeah, yeah. And, and whoever that is for me what’s a lot of fun and, then like, at some point, like I recognize like once a long move got so big, it’s like I don’t wanna, like, somebody’s so much better suited to run teams of hundreds and thousands than me.
Correct. And like at first I was like, oh, like I’m a failure. I can’t, like, yeah. I can’t upskill that. And then I was like, wait a [00:04:00] minute. Afterwards, I reflected, I was like, hey I don’t enjoy that. And that’s okay. Like, where’s my sweet spot. And that is someone else’s sweet spot. And like, I’m not anything less because I don’t want to be that.
So anyway, that’s where, like, I say 20 people that it could be 50 could be 100. But like, the point is, I don’t,
Alex: I think the on average, if you’re a good founder that you’re going to be in that kind of position. I’ve known a lot of people who’ve like kind of raised to unicorn venture status, have hundreds of people and they say the same exact thing.
Right. Oh, I think it’s a different type of breed of person. Maybe like the barbarian sociopath. Yeah. I managed thousands of people. This is my, it’s like a corporate ego. Right. But like, if you’re like a innate builder or you wanted to solve problems or add value to have impact around you, it’s like, it’s not really,
Jianggan: very different things that you enjoy.
Blake: Yeah. And what I would say is like working with Shing, who started Lala move
Jianggan: Mm-Hmm.
Blake: There’s so few people that can upskill themself as quickly as a company [00:05:00] that like Yeah. To match that. Right. Like if you think about that, like we grew more than 300% for the first, like six years of the company.
Mm-Hmm. Yeah. Think about any personal skill that you have. Yeah. If you asked yourself to be three X better next year than you were this year and do that like. Several years in a row, the vast majority of us cannot. And if you do, like, you end up having to trade off everything. Yes. Except that. And so anyway, at least that’s my experience.
Like, what I saw,
Jianggan: I mean, just about that is sort of a exponential growth along. A single line, right? You basically need to teach something old skills you have, and you have to build some new skills because the organizational complexity, the work you have been doing will become different as the company scales.
First, it’s not just like the size thing, right?
Blake: For sure, for sure. Yeah, like, and it’s the recognition of that and the letting go of like what you were good at. So I always used to say, like. In my job, because like, again, I started when we were like 10 people and I left them right about 10, 000, you know, [00:06:00] and I said, like, I would always be, I was like, I felt like a sociopath because I was like, terrible my job for 6 you know, you’re figuring it out.
No, no. But then, like, after 6 I got this for 6 months. For 6 months, you’re great. And then the company goes 3x and like, you’re like, shit. I’m terrible again. So it’s like, it’s like this mental gymnastic of like feeling great. And then like terrible, in a very short amount of time. And like, that actually can be quite exhausting.
So I don’t, I, again, like, that’s my experience. I don’t know what your experience like. You’ve gone across a lot of different companies too especially with Rocket and like jumping in at different points. Like what, what have you guys seen? Yeah,
Alex: I dunno like, yeah, because what, what you say is very interesting because at the end of the day, ’cause you went through it, I feel a lot of people in like our position, if we haven’t gone through that, we still have that.
What if hunger or desire or like, because I feel like after my quiet few years of reflection, [00:07:00] the past few years, I think I’ve come to the same conclusion, but without the experience. So it’s just like, one part of me is like, I should just go be a founder or something, but it’s like more curated to something that’s like more guy, like, it’s just more suited to me.
It doesn’t have to be tech. It doesn’t have to be so ego driven as to align more for them as a person. And then I think I’ve matured to a point where I can probably do that. But it’s more like, if I had that experience before, I probably also.
Blake: Right, so yeah, well, and I think like going, you have to go through it, right?
Like, it’s like life. You have to go through it to know what’s important. And so there’s like, no, just like knowing. Actually, there’s a few people that are so vocationally driven that they can just like, and I was always jealous of those people, but I just had to throw myself in to figure it out.
Like, you know. The doing was the part that forced me through self reflection, but I never did it. Not enough until after
Jianggan: the journey of the past 11 years. Last week, we just had a sort of MBA reunion. I think you guys joined rocket around the same time young at the time. Sort of, I mean, you have.
[00:08:00] Friends going to hedge funds, friends going to consulting, friends going to large corporates. Last week I was, I was in a reunion of my MBA class, I mean, in Xi’an, a city in northwest China. I think 10 of us showed up. Oh, people went through different, very different career paths. And it was interesting that I am, Probably the most reconciled with myself, the most cohort, because what do you mean?
Alex: Yeah,
Jianggan: because I mean, we have a partner from McKinsey. We have somebody who is very senior at the investment bank in China. We have somebody else who is a VP of a large brand, et cetera, et cetera. But I think I’m in a situation where I have probably because I’ve been through so much turbulence in rocket and after rocket.
I looked at people who complain about things which they have no control of. So I look at things, I mean, at least I have control of what I want to do. I mean, it gives me anxiety because sometimes you need to figure out what’s the right thing to do. Sometimes you feel really shitty because you made your own decision.
You led people towards the wrong path. But at the end of the day, [00:09:00] we look back at all this and the richness of experience is something that I was like. Wow. Okay. Interesting. And after the whole thing, I am probably the only one amongst the group who doesn’t have any white hair.
Blake: Once I stopped working, my hair started to go back.
Alex: I take a guess on the interpretation of maybe why. Yeah. So I think a lot of these people are, it’s kind of what we tied to what we talked about before. We’re optimizing, we’re putting ourselves into the situation of optimizing towards a non clear goal about not clear optimum other than.
Hypercapitalistic growth, right? So, in that you don’t have the buying the sense of self, which is really important to probably kind of have along that way. If you can carve the time, but if not, you do it later afterwards, if we’re talking about. So, all your friends in that situation, they’re living society’s expectations of what you should be, a partner, you know, I mean, and I think what’s very interesting in your case, if you really look at the evolution of momentum works over time, it’s a manifestation of who you are and look at the [00:10:00] products and how you execute them, right?
Like, the type of media or the content you do, it’s just, it’s always been very consistently Jianggan. Like, I just know, and that really works well, because I think about, like, I’ve been thinking about this for the past few years. Like, we look at our past experience in the past decade, how can we use our skill set to monetize them in a very different market environment?
I mean, up until recently, I didn’t have too many opportunities where rocket ships were coming across me. Maybe in the past few years, things are changing, maybe situations, but in general, it’s been very hard to get a job or to build something with easy money, fast scaling doesn’t exist. So, but like, what you’ve done is, I think you’ve kind of.
Put yourself, you’ve injected yourself, set yourself in the company. The company is you, right? And so that’s why it doesn’t sound
Jianggan: very promising, but
Blake: no, no, but there’s
Alex: pros and cons. So like you go very wide in the beginning, which is a valid strategy for startups. Cause then you see which points are valuable.
Then you hone in, which I think you’ve done with Momentum Works. And sometimes you open up more opportunity again, more chaos to find out how to grow that more. Let’s kind of go ahead and focus on [00:11:00] that. Right. And I think. That’s why you have more balance because you’ve kind of been living the way you want to live and you’ve been able to monetize it, whether it’s been in cockroach mode or growth mode, you’ve kind of
Jianggan: been through that.
Right? Enjoy the process of working with colleagues at that moment. And I think just I mentioned about the fact that I’m. Most reconciled with myself.
Blake: Well, I think I had the same experience too, like talking to my other friends that went through the MBA. We had a reunion last year and the people that go through some, like the gift of entrepreneurship or being a founder or whatever is maybe not like in the moment.
It’s like incredibly hard and taxing and like. You’re doing things like to like the nth degree all the time just to survive, right? And it’s a lot. But the gift it gives you is that you get to know yourself and you do it for the reasons that you know are important. Or it’s like somebody who’s gone through the corporate route.
Yeah, it’s they’re still working within the constructs of an environment that’s already been shaped for them. And they have to. To [00:12:00] conform, not in a bad way, but they have to fit that system where as an entrepreneur, you were building this, like you’re building cars, you drive it. And through that, you end up learning what is truly yours.
So when you say like momentum works as a reflection of him, it’s because he’s gone through that journey to actually know what him is without. But because in entrepreneurship, there is no context. There is no system unless you create it.
Alex: Well, I think there’s, there’s two parts to that. One, one, I think, I think early days, it’s going to be more a subconscious manifestation.
Yes. Right. And then over time, as I mean, I don’t know, you have to ask your team this Jianggan, but as you mature, you can more consciously think about that from a personal and professional standpoint. How do I take that towards a vision? Right? So, whereas I think in corporate, there’s a little bit of the corporate trap when you described is that people might conform themselves to corporate, but that’s wrong.
Because at the end of the day, a lot of things are out of their hands. The way corporate machine is built, the game is different. So when you do that, become very unhappy. And those people are mixing up like you know, personal expression or personal interest of [00:13:00] personal brand with a corporate. And they’re trying to become that, but it’s not.
So like, I think the people who really play corporate well, and if you’re not going to the very, very tough as CEO, but you’re somewhere in between, it’s very high level. It’s more like. I have my life here and my corporate is separate, right? So I do nine to five, but then I go have tons of money. I go see any ops or whatever, every year, you know, they
Blake: don’t lie to themselves.
Correct game that it is. And they make that game work for them. Yeah.
Alex: Yeah.
Blake: And
Alex: I think the flip side of entrepreneurship is that you can’t divorce that early on. It’s impossible because you will not actually acknowledge it. You cannot build a belief. You cannot get people to omission. So then that’s where the flip side for an entrepreneur is that it’s very, Yeah.
Dangerous that after say, 10 years of execution is your own baby and then you exit them. What do you think? What do you do? It’s just like, you know, yeah,
Jianggan: I would like to ask you guys. I mean, obviously you left rocket to join a lot of movies early days. I think we left out at the same time. . Yeah. Because of forced.
Yeah.
Alex: We lost stuff. . [00:14:00]
Jianggan: We lost the battle. And I think of course, lots of reflections. I think one thing for sure is that we’re focusing on the wrong things. Well, that’s focused lot on bi. We focus a lot on operations. Yeah.
Alex: But the thing is, at the way on venture scaling that structure of rock internet, it’s out of our hands.
Right. So if we were at the country execution level, whereas the strategic was failed and that layer was very multi layered, we were technically N minus two from all over same one, but at the same time, one was in Brazil, one was in Germany. It’s not like we’re going to pick up the phone call to change strategy.
Right. I mean, by it, right. Rocket was structured where you could, but it takes a lot of balls. You’re going to cut out, like, you know, you’re gonna kill a lot of social capital.
Jianggan: And also you should be willing to sacrifice your like real time KPIs, transmitted to Germany. Over a certain period of time, because you are doing the right thing, you are focusing resources on something long term.
And that is hard. That’s mental. Very hard.
Alex: What do you guys think? Do you think from an execution standpoint? We were probably 1 of the better regions out of easy taxi. Executing KPIs, I mean, like, what was given to us and what we had to achieve?
Blake: I don’t know. I don’t know.
Alex: Yeah,
Blake: I’m trying to think of the [00:15:00] numbers back.
It’s quite a while ago. The model pocket for easy text. I can’t speak for the other ventures because you guys participated, but at least for me, it was like bound to be a failed model unless you rise to number one very, very quickly. And then you get the subsequent funding to continue that example.
It’s great, right? Because there really was no strategy. Like the strategy was open markets as quick as you can on board supply, get as many rides as you can. But that’s like a very empty strategy, like from a resource standpoint, the tech, it’s like Southeast Asia is all different markets, right?
Just like South America, just like everywhere. And so it’s like having run subsequent like technology companies that had are heavy in operations. If your product doesn’t have some level of like nuance, like Even just payments, for example, something like this, like something very simple. Like it doesn’t scale.
Like you can keep throwing people in money and marketing, like drive inbound, but there’s like no retention. So it’s like we were bound to fail. And then once Grab raised 250 million for four countries, and we’d only raised 70 [00:16:00] million for 33 countries. Like. If it’s a money game and a speed game, money speeds you up.
Yeah. And then if everything else being held equal, let’s say product and tech with grab and easy to actually the same, you’re toast in that kind of market because consumers have no switching costs. Right. They have a coupon switching costs. I
Jianggan: remember like a few months into Rocket into easy taxi.
I wrote an email to someone higher up in rocket. I said, okay, what’s the strategy?
Alex: Okay. Many times. Yes. What I got.
Jianggan: I got an email back you all caps about six to 700 words saying that what the hell is strategy? It’s all excuses. Well, as you said, opening new markets or on the market share, et cetera, nothing wrong with that. But the thing is that, I mean, how do you get there? Right. I mean, especially. As you said, like, I mean, 70 million for 32 countries, but it’s one product team for 32 countries.
The amount of customization that’s needed, the amount of like local nuances that you would have to deal with. And especially in Southeast Asia, the amount of languages you have to deal with. Yeah.
Blake: Hell.
Jianggan: Yes.
Blake: Yeah. Well, and then there’s like [00:17:00] simple things like. Even how to scale your team. There was, we had zero playbook, right?
Like you could have structured your team different than I structured my team, which you structured different from your team. And so it’s like, that was fun already. What? No, it was fun. But like from a, like if your game plan speed and execution, like these are not decisions that MD should really have to think through.
Correct. Right. Like, it’s like you have, if you have a thousand rides a day, you should have three ops people like
Alex: Correct, correct, correct, correct.
Blake: And whether that’s right or wrong for the country. The speed in which you can do it because you don’t have to think about how to do it is way more important if that is your strategy.
So like, that’s where the strategy stops way too quickly. If you ask me, there’s, there’s, there’s no playbook. I
Alex: think I remember you started Hong Kong before Vietnam. And then I was asking,
Blake: I started Hong Kong. Then like, after a month of getting into Hong Kong, they’re like, Go help him start Singapore. And so I’m asking you,
Jianggan: I was, I mean, but, I started Singapore.
I have the money in my personal account. I have a city friend who asked me, Hey, why do you have so much money? And then they said, okay, there’s this guy called Blake in Hong Kong. Obviously it’s not from Hong Kong and he has experience. He can come [00:18:00] and help you. One month of experience. We’re all talking to you.
I think we’re the shining star. This is how we do it. Then he descended to Singapore, stay at a shitty hotel. And I don’t say that. How do you do it? Let’s print some, we print flyer,
Blake: we have flyers and we spent like three hours under marina based sands in the taxi lines. What we do? I go, I think, so
someone trained me, literally I in Hong Kong, correct. And was Dennis there? I don’t think that is for one day. Here’s your KPIs. Here’s your budget. See ya. And I was like, and in our office, literally for five people was not 50 square feet. Yeah.
Alex: So, so
Blake: anyway, like and I don’t blame any of them. Right.
Like, of course I, and, but It forced you to learn and like, obviously it’s what probably made us friends, right? Had there been a playbook and you just stayed in your own thing. It’s like, so like, I have no regrets or whatever, but like getting to do something similar to the second time around where I still [00:19:00] made lots and lots of mistakes, but I was like, at least aware of some of like there has to be like a thoughtfulness as a leader.
At least three to six months out and it can change if the information changes, just to be like, let’s open it. Like right after I saw you, I went and like helped hire Usman and went to Jakarta and then I was sent to Bombay and I was still a guy who only like three weeks on the job. Right.
Jianggan: So he’s more experienced.
He’s going to help you even though that the place that he has done is like one month old, one
Blake: month old. And actually Hong Kong was a terrible performer. Singapore, like was the shining star actually, if you remember. Yeah. You know, like relatively, I remember the chart where it showed like weeks to number of rides and like
Jianggan: there’s lot to do with the supply demand dynamics in, in
Blake: all agreed.
Like Yeah. But at the time it’s like, we didn’t necessarily know that. We didn’t know that, right? Like bigger city and bigger should have more orders, like less competition, blah, blah, blah. Like maybe if there’s not enough smartphones, I remember [00:20:00] hearing the stories about like, you probably like selling smartphones or buying them, right?
And it’s like, it’s unsecured loans, right? Exactly. Is that like, When you’re spending so much time trying to equip your drivers to be able to be on your platform, you’re not building your platform. You’re selling phones. Correct.
Alex: And at one point, it was the biggest noise. Yeah. So
Blake: anyway, like, but great stories like war stories after the fact, but when you’re in the moment, you’re like, that’s the blind leading the blinds.
Sorry, guys.
Alex: It was the same as a lawyer. When we launched the lawyer early days, it was just, you know, X Groupon guys, no one knew what they were doing, but then you’re just sent to one country who’s had one month more experience. It’s like, they just draw the chart. Okay. Here’s operations. Here’s buying.
Here’s marketing. You just need to build each of these things. And then you just pick one. And then, so it’s just like, okay, good luck. I’ll tell the next country and do the same thing. And so
Blake: it’s just very, very, I remember spent so much time. Also, like you said, you had money in the bank account. Like, yeah.
I, they’re like, you need to go get on this bank account for it because maybe it’s a Laura home. No, it’s something else that got shut down. And I was like, a [00:21:00] shell entity here, but my name wasn’t on it. I was also not local and I like, and they’re like, so, but the money’s going there, but Oh, by the way, they’ve got like a hundred thousand dollars of debt.
And we’re only transferring you 50, 000. And I was like I got creditors coming after me who I don’t even know who they are. Like it’s from like past entity because you’re director of that Because I’m the director. My name’s on the director and like, I can’t get off of, it was like, I don’t know what the,
Jianggan: so yeah, I remember that entity in Malaysia, which we Chinese services.
I was handling all liquidation of all entities in Southeast Asia. Okay. There’s one entity in Malaysia called Rocket Internet Services. Okay. And that has gone through like eight different companies, the same entity and has never done audit and have four directors who were working for different companies and obviously everyone wants to resign.
But everyone, nobody wants to sign to let them
Blake: all
Jianggan: in the same room. Like, of course, we didn’t [00:22:00] care. just left it there. Ah, didn’t care. I was talking
Blake: to them,
Jianggan: but I think, you know, of course I was one of them. And yeah, so I’m not sure how it went.
Jianggan:I Hope you have enjoyed what we have discussed. It’s a fairly long discussion we had over the weekend, so we have divided that into Three different episodes. So this is the first episode and you will have two more episodes coming up. Of course there are a lot more anecdotes and stories that we could share, and I hope that over the years we will bring more of this to you.
And I also hope that you can reflect about your own journey and just write to us if you have anything you want to discuss. Thank you.