Mark Zuckerberg once shared that the best piece of advice Peter Thiel, founder of PayPal, gave him was, “In a world that’s changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.” In the story of Simon Siu, founder of the local taxi-hailing app FlyTaxi (飛的), this advice perfectly captures the spirit of his entrepreneurial journey.
In Simon’s opinion, entrepreneurs tend to be willing to take risks, and he recognized this trait in himself from a young age. “In high school, I was already trying out different side projects, so I knew at that time I was going to build things as a career,” Simon says.
An Airport Taxi-Hailing Experience That Started an Entrepreneurial Journey
Ten years after graduating from CUHK with a degree in Information Engineering, Simon Siu drew on his technology expertise to found FlyTaxi, which would go on to become one of Hong Kong’s largest local taxi-hailing platforms. Before that, he spent his days developing banking systems while pursuing side projects in his spare time.
A turning point came in 2013 when he was helping a friend call a taxi from the airport. Frustrated by the cumbersome process, he wondered, “Isn’t there a more straightforward way to do this?” Although a few taxi-hailing apps already existed, Simon believed there was still room for improvement. Seeing an opportunity to apply his technical skills, he decided to build one himself. “I thought, why not give it a try?”
Simon (third from left, front row) joined a New Asia College study tour to London to study English. (Source: interviewee)
CUHK squash team group photo. Simon was actively involved in sports during his time at CUHK, gaining experience in teamwork. (Source: interviewee)
2013 was a boom year for the app economy. Five years have passed since Apple launched its landmark App Store with an initial 500 applications. By then, the App Store already offered more than 770,000 apps and had recorded over 40 billion downloads. Meanwhile, San Francisco start-up Uber was rapidly expanding internationally, with a valuation of US$3.76 billion. In Hong Kong, however, passengers still mainly relied on hailing taxis on the street or booking them by phone. During peak hours or in more remote locations, finding a taxi could be a real challenge.
Simon realized that interactions between drivers and passengers were often one-off, with virtually no room for follow-up once a ride ended. With a platform, both sides could leave records of their interactions.
Simon named his app “FlyTaxi”, “飛的” in Chinese. The name resonated immediately with Hongkongers, who use the phrase “飛的” to describe rushing somewhere by taxi.
As Simon’s workload grew, he quit his job in the same year he founded FlyTaxi and became a full-time entrepreneur.
“People Are Actually Using It”
Is there anything a born risk-taker is scared to do? Apparently, yes. When FlyTaxi first launched, Simon had no money, no staff, and no customers. He went to the streets outside Bank Centre in Mong Kok, holding up signs to promote his own app.
“I still had a bit of pride,” he laughed. “But I was broke. There really wasn’t another option. Once you decide to do it, you just have to go all in.”
A few weeks later, orders actually began to come in. “It was amazing. People were actually using this crude app,” he says with a touch of self-deprecating humor, sending the InnoPort colleagues into laughter.
At the time, the app had only a basic interface and a handful of simple functions. Simon jokingly calls it “rubbish”, but moving fast, even imperfectly, was, in his view, the best way to elicit feedback from the market.
“Even if the app only barely worked and was falling apart at the seams, once you put it on the market, users would tell you very honestly whether it worked and where the problems were.”
Simon says he was never fully prepared. He simply found the idea interesting and went ahead and did it.
It sounds like Simon took a lot of risks, but with every step, Simon did everything he could to improve his chances of success. He kept costs low. As an app-based business, FlyTaxi did not initially need an office. Simon handled most of the work himself and outsourced some tasks to remote colleagues.
He describes himself as having an “engineering mindset”. He did the best he could to automate processes to reduce the amount of work that has to be handled by people.
From One App to a Million-User Platform
When Uber entered Hong Kong in 2014, competition intensified. Ride-hailing companies from Chinese Mainland also came to Hong Kong to compete for a share of the market.
Large companies embarked on aggressive subsidy campaigns, using discounts and incentives to attract users before gradually monetising that customer base over time.
Simon acknowledges that large companies were doing the right thing for themselves. But small companies have their own way of playing the game. The crucial thing is to know where you stand.
“You do what you can with the resources you have.” Simon did not have the money to subsidize passengers, but he understood Hong Kong better than any international player. FlyTaxi introduced features tailored to Hong Kong users, such as fare estimates, options for urban, New Territories and Lantau taxis, and choices between different cross-harbour tunnels.
When a bug appeared or new rules surfaced in Hong Kong, FlyTaxi’s lean development team could respond almost immediately. Larger companies, by contrast, could be slower to react to local changes, with new measures often requiring multiple layers of approval before they could be implemented.
With this small-company approach, FlyTaxi gradually established itself as a key player in the Hong Kong taxi-hailing market. By 2026, the platform was handling more than one million orders a month and had processed over one hundred million orders in total. It had around two million registered passengers and more than 100,000 registered drivers.
In 2023, FlyTaxi hosted a dinner for its drivers. (Source: interviewee)
The 3 A.M. Reality of Entrepreneurship
When asked whether there had been a defining moment when FlyTaxi turned from a young startup into a more mature company, Simon laughed. He went on to say that entrepreneurship was hardly as dramatic as outsiders sometimes imagined. Most of the time, it was about keeping things going day after day.
There were several moments when he considered giving up. He recalled a system migration some time ago, after which users were unable to call a taxi through the app. Sometime around two o’clock in the morning, Simon received a phone call telling him the entire system had gone down. He hung up and looked at his phone. Hundreds of WhatsApp messages flooded in.
In 2024, FlyTaxi colleagues took part in a promotional event. (Source: interviewee)
In 2026, Simon attended the company’s spring dinner with FlyTaxi colleagues. (Source: interviewee)
For a fleeting moment, Simon felt at a loss. Then he quickly realized that a founder’s job is not to panic, but to solve problems. He forced himself to stay calm, spent more than an hour fixing the system, and replied to all the WhatsApp messages.
Over the years, all sorts of problems have occurred. After each one was resolved, Simon found it difficult to truly relax. Because there was no guaranteed, permanent solution, he never knew when the next problem would appear.
Simon’s mantra for living with this uncertainty for years is to deal with whatever comes your way and learn to take things as they come. Simon’s experience has taught him that, both mentally and practically, an entrepreneur has to accept that problems can arise at any moment and be ready to respond.
“It’s like playing a video game. When you fail, just treat it as gaining experience points.” Simon approaches setbacks with a rational, almost matter-of-fact attitude. What matters most to him is whether his product genuinely improves people’s lives.
When asked about words of encouragement or criticism people gave him during his entrepreneurial journey, he had a really hard time recalling them. But he can readily recount the reviews left in the app store. When someone books a taxi through FlyTaxi or recovers an item left behind in a cab, Simon feels a strong sense of satisfaction. Negative reviews sting, but they also make him reflect on how the team can improve.
FlyTaxi turned information engineering knowledge into a practical transport service, improving taxi-hailing efficiency while providing drivers with additional customers and sources of income. Through user accounts, ratings, complaint follow-ups and lost-property assistance, the platform transformed the driver-passenger relationship from a “one-off interaction” into a “repeated interaction” that could be followed up over time, providing basic safeguards for service quality.
At a New Crossroads
In May this year, Uber Hong Kong officially announced its acquisition of FlyTaxi. FlyTaxi will cease operating independently by the end of the year and be integrated into the Uber app.
Simon says FlyTaxi has maintained a stable share of the market over the years, contentedly serving its own customer base. For Uber, acquiring FlyTaxi was the most efficient way to reach and serve that customer base.
FlyTaxi staff gathering in 2026. (圖片來源: 受訪者)
What is the next step for Simon? He says that after spending so many years in the business world, he now hopes to do something non-profit and create a genuine social impact.
Becoming a lecturer, mentoring others in entrepreneurship and technology, and passing on what he has learned are all things he would like to try.
When people who want to start a business come to him for advice, the first thing he looks at is not necessarily their business idea, but whether their personality is suited to entrepreneurship and whether they truly want to do it.
“Some people think about starting a business simply because the economy is bad or because they don’t get along with their colleagues. But entrepreneurship can actually mean earning less money, and it’s not necessarily the right fit for everyone.”
An InnoPort colleague followed up and asked Simon what kind of personality is suited to entrepreneurship.
He answered, “Someone who is willing to take risks, work through solitude, and stay committed over the long run.”
Simon feels that he has already gained much of the experience and fulfilment he hoped to find through building FlyTaxi. Now, he is ready to embark on a new journey, taking the entrepreneurial spirit that began on campus into the wider community and creating an even greater impact.
Reporter: CUHK Knowledge Transfer Inno-ambassador — Zhengyang Zhou (Department of Psychology)
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