In just five years, the 32-year-old entrepreneur has built up a multimillion-dollar international express delivery business responsible for delivering a million parcels a day on behalf of some of Southeast Asia's biggest retailers.CEO. In fact, it took three abandoned corporate careers and one failed fashion line for Lai and his co-founders, Boxian Tan and Shaun Chong, kick-start their entrepreneurial vision.It all started back in 2015.
"Every time we had an online customer we went 'wow, that's really easy to get a customer, no shop, nothing required," said Lai.Foolishly I said: 'Why don't we open a logistics company to solve this problem.'"The pain only hit after that when we had to deliver the parcel," said Lai, who relied on local couriers to get his orders out. "I think the entire logistics industry was not set up for e-commerce at that point in time.
Initially, they ran the company, named Ninja Van, in tandem with their fashion line, figuring it was "highly synergistic" to have one business generating volume for another.But after a year of juggling both, something had to give: The friends shut down their clothing business to focus on Ninja Van full time.
"We realized that the fashion business wasn't necessarily our forte," joked Lai. "We decided let's focus on a business which we felt could scale a lot better — and not just in Singapore, but across the region."Back in 2014, Southeast Asia was home to one of the world's fast-growing e-commerce markets, thanks toand an expanding middle class. Yet, when it came to delivering orders, the region was lagging behind.
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