What Can Tracy Lin Do with 80 Million Rides? Taiwan’s Next Superapp
Founder Spotlight: Tracy Lin, CEO of Taiwan Taxi
With a 24% market share, Taiwan Taxi is the largest taxi company in Taiwan. Its subsidiary Taiwan Intelligent Life Co. operates 55688, Taiwan’s biggest and most popular taxi service app. To further develop 55688 into a super-app that offers an unmatched “one-stop solution” for lifestyle services, Taiwan Intelligent Life has formed a strategic partnership with Headline Asia, which is investing US$5 million in support of its development.
Leading the charge is Tracy Lin, CEO of Taiwan Taxi, who is taking the industry giant into the digital era.
“We are impressed by Taiwan Taxi’s human-centric operational excellence and expect to work with Tracy to bring their business to the next level,” said Joseph Huang, partner at Headline Asia.
“We are impressed by Taiwan Taxi’s human-centric operational excellence and expect to work with Tracy to bring their business to the next level,” said Joseph Huang, partner at Headline Asia.
“As a strategic partner, Headline Asia’s commitment goes beyond funding. We hope the success of this partnership will encourage more Taiwanese traditional companies to embrace digital technology and undergo their own transformation so the world can see that Taiwanese companies are capable of creating best-in-class start-ups and apps,” he added.
Currently, 55688 has 6.5 million users and offers a wide range of services such as ride-hailing, laundry, housekeeping, and moving. We talked to Tracy about her vision on the digital transformation of Taiwan Taxi.
What was your experience before heading up Taiwan Intelligent Life?
I first joined Taiwan Taxi a decade ago and since then, I’ve had different roles at multiple levels, ranging from advising the operation team, establishing the Big Data department, and participating in the IPO planning. I also helped with financial auditing and actively contributed to the development of various news businesses. These roles helped me gain a deeper understanding of the company. The accumulation of these experiences not only helped me gain keen insights into the market but also served as the fuel that eventually resulted in the creation of Taiwan Intelligent Life.
Why did you start Taiwan Intelligent Life?
Ten years ago, the chairman had the idea of turning 55688 into a multi-purpose app that provides an array of lifestyle services to users, the number of which has exceeded 6.5 million to date. As the capabilities of our ride-hailing, laundry, and courier services became more developed it made sense to aggregate them in an app that allows an O2O experience. Grab, a unicorn in Southeast Asia, took a similar route starting out with cab-hailing also. Grab is a good case study for Taiwan to emulate as we aim to develop a super app. In 2021, our cab business fell 80% due to Covid, but the company overall did not suffer a loss, mainly because we provide multiple services that are able to address different needs. This further motivated us to make a deeper foray into the lifestyle space and continue to evolve so we can adapt to the ever-changing landscape.
“In 2021, our cab business fell 80% due to Covid, but the company overall did not suffer a loss, mainly because we provide multiple services that are able to address different needs.” said Tracy Lin.
As a female leader in a traditional business, what is the biggest change or challenge for you?
It is often thought that as a woman, gender could be an impediment, especially when you are taking on a new role. However, many females are attentive and resilient, which are qualities that are valued in the workplace. In my job, I have developed a strong inner strength and courage for innovations. By focusing on details and communications, I look forward to using my leadership to empower my team members and maximize their expertise to the fullest.
What were the challenges you encountered when you proposed to spin-off from the parent company?
Internal management discussion could be the first yet most strenuous part of any business transformation. It could be very difficult to change the mindset of the decision-makers, especially when they recognized how arduous the challenges could be. After a lengthy explanation on how the spin-off could empower various teams to truly maximize their expertise, the team understood the benefits of the spin-off. The process strengthened the collaborativeness in the company and everyone gained a clearer understanding of the goal we are pursuing together.
Can you share with us what changes spin-off brought to the company?
Taiwan Taxi’s operational excellence in fleet management has been tested by the market. However, we were able to see that there could be internal friction between our fleet management and the 55688 app development. The spin-off made the app more flexible in collaborating with more business partners in relevant industries, thereby unleashing the full value of the platform.
How will the partnership with Headline Asia help the app to reach new heights?
What Taiwan Intelligent Life wants to do is straightforward. We want to help make your life easier so you have more time to enjoy life. We hope our partnership with Headline Asia will open the door for us to the capital markets, elevate our brand, attract more business partners and talents. We aim to create a lifestyle ecosystem in Taiwan and we are working fast. I also believe that by leveraging our partnership with Headline, we can turn 55688, a local Taiwan app, into an international platform in the near future.
“We aim to create a lifestyle ecosystem in Taiwan and we are working fast. I also believe that by leveraging our partnership with Headline, we can turn 55688, a local Taiwan app, into an international platform in the near future.” said Tracy Lin.
What is your vision for Taiwan Intelligent life for the next five years?
Many international unicorn companies that offer lifestyle services started from transportation. By leveraging 55688’s dominance in Taiwan’s transportation sector as well as its brand value with 6.5 million users, we can use 55688 as a foothold to expand our services. We aim to offer our users an unmatched “one-stop solution” lifestyle service.
Being customer-oriented, Taiwan Intelligent Life will continue to optimize user experience and in the meantime, increasingly open our ecosystem and embrace more verticals, work with more industry leaders, in order to become a world-class digital lifestyle service platform.
What do you see as Taiwan Taxi’s three biggest strengths?
I am deeply impressed by our drivers’ friendliness, warmth, and professionalism. I once met a driver who provided blank postcards for his passengers. The passengers could write a message for their future self and the driver would mail the postcards to them a year later. This gesture really touched me because it was voluntary and came from his heart. During that short ride, riders can reflect upon their lives and contemplate their directions. To me, this is really touching.
Who are the competitors for Taiwan Intelligent Life?
When it comes to the individual sectors, such as travel, delivery, food, clothing, housing, transportation, and other services, there are competitors. However, there is no competition for an app that can offer an array of lifestyle-related services on the same platform. Therefore, we hope to become the first of its kind in Taiwan.
*This article is translated from Chinese and edited for clarity.
