That's the ending. This conversation is about the price of getting there.

Zeth Lim founded Verdant Solar in 2013. He didn't hire a single person for five years. He chose residential rooftops — one customer at a time — in an industry where one commercial contract could equal thousands of homes in revenue. And right before the company went public, the government policy that powered his entire market ran out of quota.

Every patient decision had a cost. The patience tax. And the argument this conversation makes is that the tax compounded into the thing that made the listing possible.

In the second episode of Straits Signal, I sat down with Zeth — weeks after his IPO — to unpack what it actually takes to build conviction in a market where the rules keep changing. From a solo founder running installations alone, to a 160-person company navigating policy shifts, stock price volatility, and the question of who solar is really accessible to.

Here's what we got into:
1. The residential bet nobody wanted — why Zeth chose the hardest path in Malaysian solar and spent a decade building the operational muscle most competitors skipped. "If we cannot win by doing things people cannot do, why not choose a path people don't want to do?"
2. The five-year solo run — no employees, no team, just a founder building conviction alone from 2013 to 2018. What made him finally hire, and why it took a leap of faith — literally
3. The sales freeze that shouldn't make sense — Verdant was growing 2-3x in months. Customer complaints were rising. So they froze sales hiring during their best quarter. The decision that looks cautious on a 12-month view and inevitable on a 10-year one
4. The accessibility arithmetic — solar systems cost RM16K to RM50K. Median household income is RM5-6K a month. I pushed Zeth on whether "accessible to everyone" is a mission or a marketing line. His answer was honest enough to be worth hearing
5.The policy rug-pull and what comes after — NEM 3.0 ran out of quota right before the IPO. Solar ATAP launched January 2026 with no fixed quotas, bigger system sizes, and new battery storage rules. The playbook is being rewritten in real time
6. And the line that stuck — I asked what scares him more: failing again, or never failing again. His answer tells you everything about how this founder thinks about the next decade. Because for a company that just went public, the greater risk isn't stumbling. It's standing still.
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🎙️ STRAITS SIGNAL — EP 02: THE PATIENCE TAX
Tracking the operators mid-move. Not the press release version. The actual story.
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CHAPTERS:
00:00 — Sun rise: intro & the IPO moment
02:34 — The path people don't want to do: why residential solar
05:05 — Profit is a result, not a priority
09:51 — Welcome to the fishbowl: life after going public
10:46 — Policy musical chairs: NEM 3.0 out, Solar ATAP in
12:15 — The accessibility arithmetic: RM16K vs RM5K income
17:28 — Solar company or cleantech platform? The pivot question
18:15 — 3x growth, frozen sales: the quarter that broke the playbook
20:26 — Chaos is not the enemy: faith, IQ, EQ, and SQ
23:36 — Rapid fire: one word, one fear, one regret
27:31 — Letter to the founder at 3AM
34:25 — The hundred-year bet: legacy, relationships, and what actually lasts
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Most people know Hong Seh for Ferrari. For Maserati. For the kind of cars that made Singaporeans crane their necks on the PIE.

That chapter's closed. And what Edward Tan — third-generation, true-blue Singaporean — is building in its place is arguably more interesting. Less glamorous, maybe. But the kind of bet that only makes sense if you're willing to read ten years ahead and act now.

Electric lorries. Commercial EVs. The unglamorous backbone of how this city actually moves.

In Singapore's first episode of Straits Signal, I sat down with Edward inside an actual electric lorry — yes, we recorded in one — to unpack the full circuit of this pivot. From a family that started in fish tackle and hardware in 1936, evolved through chemicals, landed on luxury cars, and is now going all-in on clean commercial fleets.

Here's what we got into:

• The evolution nobody saw coming — how a petrolhead family traded horsepower for kilowatts, and why Edward calls it evolution, not disruption
• The 119 problem — Singapore just registered 119 commercial EVs in two months. Edward breaks down why that number is actually more signal than it looks — and what the 40,000 government incentive flipping on January 1st really means for the Y and X plate segments
• Why Chinese EVs deserve a second look — beyond the skepticism, Edward makes the case for why China's volume, data, and consolidation puts them ahead on commercial EVs in ways the Western market simply hasn't caught up to yet
• The system integrator play — selling a lorry is the easy part. Edward's real bet is on solving everything around it — fleet management software, refrigeration systems, battery monitoring, bodybuilders, after-sales. End to end, or bust.
• And the line that stuck — humans are our own worst enemy. Very kiasi, very kiasu — scared to die, scared to lose, but somehow also scared to move. Because the technology is here. The economics work. The only variable left is us.

Timestamps

• 00:00 — Intro: 1936 to electric lorries
• 03:20 — Why Tesla was a bridge, not a destination
• 08:45 — Breaking down the G, Y and X plate segments
• 14:10 — The real reason adoption is slow (hint: it's not the charging)
• 22:30 — The China EV question — risk or edge?
• 31:00 — Becoming a system integrator: deliberate choice or market push?
• 40:15 — What it would actually take for electrification to fail
• 47:00 — Quickfire: fleet operators, what are you waiting for?

About Straits Signal
Straits Signal tracks the operators mid-move — the real decisions, the pivots, the logic behind the leap. Hosted by Kim Yeoh. Built for people who want the actual story, not the press release version.

New episodes dropping regularly. Follow so you don't miss the next signal.

Connect
🔗 Hong Seh Group / Edward Tan — LinkedIn
📍 Singapore

If this episode sparked something — share it with the one person in your network who's still sitting on the fence about EVs. You know exactly who that is.