Consumer incentives are a different kind of investment, namely...

Consumer incentives are a different kind of investment, namely it's an investment in customer acquisition. In a marketplace style business model with no real moat it comes down to attracting and maintaining the "hard side" of a marketplace.

As an example Uber went through many different driver incentive schemes before they landed on the current one. The incentive scheme at Uber is a driver rating system that rewards drivers that are more active. They progress through levels such as platinum and diamond and rewards are offered based on the level you reach. Drivers are the hard side of the rider/driver network that is ride sharing. The issue Uber was facing was that too many drivers would use multiple ride sharing apps at the same time and accept only the best trips. This causes what Uber calls a "zero" which is rating for how well the app worked for the rider. To reduce the number of zeros Uber created the driver rewards program to keep the driver engaged and using the Uber app only. To reach diamond level rewards the driver would have to be active in Uber for 90% of the time meaning less bad experience for customers. I don't know about you but I've only ever had a zero once while using Uber so incentives work really well.

IOU really doesn't have the resources to compete with Grab so most customers will go where the incentives are. This is one of the reasons I was ok with the IDSB acquisition. When you're the smaller player you have to think strategically about how you can foster network effects in more organic ways. Targeting the IDSB customer database creates an environment in which higher credit worthy individuals are acquired from a trusted source. Word of mouth would spread and over time the network effect kicks in and customer acquisition scales. It would then just be a matter of making these customers sticky by providing a good user experience. The delays have really proven to be letting the company down and that's all execution.