High Flyers: Quek Siu Rui, Carousell Co-founder & CEO

[Music] hello I'm hustling Armin in Singapore he's been said to have turned down a hundred million dollars for his company at the age of 26 carousels and mobile classifieds app doing big business in the asia-pacific now valued at more than half a billion dollars carousels co-founder and CEO quick soiree is today's high flier set up in 2012 carousel was built with the aim of making it simple to sell and a breeze to buy three friends whose creation quickly spread throughout the native Singapore and beyond carousel is now available in six markets from Malaysia to Australia Hong Kong to the Philippines growing at a pace with the backing of investors like Rakatan Sequoia India and Singapore's DPS bank the company's latest full rein to the Philippines has been helped by a strategic takeover more acquisitions are planned and at the helm of the aggressive expansion as a young man still in his early 30s a young man called Craig's array who's determined to make carousel Saudis Asia's next unicorn [Music] quicks you're a welcome to high flyers a pleasure to have you today thank you for having me now carousel is born seven years ago three friends from university born out of a love for tech what was the inspiration you know Marcus Lucas and myself we were really fortunate to have gone for this program in university so it was caught anywheres overseas colleges so we were in Silicon Valley we worked as interns and tech startups for an entire year so small companies to many people we did everything and anything that was needed and we also took classes at Stanford University so being in the Silicon Valley was life-changing everywhere you go people are talking about apps and tag and you know but startups that they were creating and in in class we got the chance to meet with guest lecturers like checked Aussie or Twitter there's air in area parks we got to go to startup school and Zuckerberg was a speaker and hearing all these stories which is so fascinating you know they were all what we learn was that they were really no different from you and I just individuals absolutely passionate about a problem that they wanted to solve and just dedicated their lives to it what was the problem you are trying to solve so when we came back we figured like hey we love tech we're gonna learn how to build apps and then every one of those how to build apps the best way to sustain it is solve all one problem so we had all these gadgets no King knows on GoPros that we use once or twice sitting in a continent is collecting dust we used to buy and sell these kinds of items on forums desktop classified sites but we found ourselves using the mobile phone for everything on the Internet and we thought there must be an easier way to sell these items on using mobile so if we search the App Store there was nothing like this and we decided to just build it so what's really the magic of carousel is the fact that you can list it in 30 seconds you know I think it's just about reducing friction and making it so inspiring and simple right the idea that you could just take a photo put a title in price and listen item it was unheard of we really pioneered what the mobile classifieds experience should be and I think testament to the simplicity you know fast forward seven years over 250 million these things have been created rewind seven years oh it wasn't that easy you had to go to flea markets convince people to actually list of products mostly and literally how it goes that we had no money so Lucas Malek denied bootstrap district our own savings for eighteen months we had no salaries what we did was we had three laptops a lot of passion not that much time but we still made time anyway to go to flea markets we went to where we thought people were having a problem selling so if you had to be at a flea market eight hours in the Sun in a heap selling stuff we thought why not do in the comfort of home in snapless self was it difficult raising funds I mean seven years ago seed money was difficult to come by you know was extremely fund raising is always difficult right you know I've now been raising money for many as last year we raised a CBC 85 million Roland and you know before there'll be in around every round is actually very difficult but I think especially in 2013 2012 this was a time when there were really no venture capital seen in Singapore and for us we decided that you know in the early days we started talking to investors some investors say like hey you know big guys are gonna crush you you guys are not gonna be with make money you just a current goony you know that cuz I reckon Bone Collector ad so not many people were really seeing the potential for this business model and so Lucas Marcus and I just decided you know what let's just keep hands down focus prove to people that is a meaningful meaningful problem worth solving get the traction and then go out and raise what was the biggest challenge in that journey in building the company I think you know first yeah in first two years two or three years stuff it was really faced one of the company building a foundation building a strong base at which we had a playbook the skill just of more market so it was very much Singapore century and it was learning everything from learning how to focus on a segment relative killing to everyone and meeting every nothing to anyone right - you got us iterator product it's not ship it and it's done you've got to keep improving stay close to your users it's about how you have to be resourceful and be creative about your solution so every time there was a back-to-school season locus markers and I would go on a campus the night before school reopens apace posted snap this our textbooks in 30 seconds because it was an intense concentration of people who wanted to buy textbooks and sell textbooks so it was a way to kind of get people in and then we put textbooks category as our tenth category so in the way you see that fashion beauty gadgets and so on and so that helped us also cause it was really all these lessons that we've learned that helped us realize that we had a playbook to no skill to more markets right so we're going to war market there's like doing each market was like starting a new startup all over again extremely painful but we did it because we cared about solving the problem for a lot of people and the phase three it was all about how do you build a muscle of monetization but it goes and it was a brand new capability we never had salespeople business development people in the past two years we've really built up their muscle and it really paid off all of last year revenue grew 4x last year [Music] from day one started interacting a Debian person we went to flea markets talk to sellers doesn't go against a principle of buying and selling online where you Minh minimized human interaction it's not about hearing about how people felt so much satisfaction making a friend discovering a hobby joining an interest group you no sir a carousel started with three the fountain is basically 2 now 400 what's it difficult scaling to where you are today I think it's a real privilege now to have a team of four hundred plus amazing talented individuals and it was certainly a challenge you know when I look back some of our biggest challenges have been always people relate it and because we feel a deep sense of responsibility for the people that we have and when they are in a position where they don't feel like I'm making an impact or they have some bureaucracy to work around those are certainly the challenges that we've had to navigate the past couple years as we scaled from three to now 400 plus people and these are all things around the operating system of the organization so when we first started it was all about building a product today I think about and obsess about how should our talent pool people actually collaborate work together make magic happen together it's about how we structure how do we put in place great culture working principles and that's tremendously different from what I guess we've had to do from day one and you know I think going forward the way will make a big impact on people's lives is to all people and it's something that rightfully we should be obsessed about I mean you talk about making magic together that magic can't happen if you don't have the community the buyers and the sellers and you often talk about this community why why is that so important because you even have activities tailored for them yeah I do you look at carousel it's a it's a great app and it's very simple to use there's a functionality and they would keep improving functionality but really what underlies carousel it's the people behind it you know it's a people selling the items buying items actually meeting up sharing their stories their interests helping each other out in the process so you know carousel would not be one of this without our community and know we from day one started interacting adamian we went to flea markets talk to sellers understand their needs show them the early prototypes convinced them to be our early beta users we went out to the markets to acquire buyers as well to showcase the app and what this really is and this is a great efficient way to do it and we also want to celebrate the community so we hold meetups to actually interact with them to tell them what we are about tell them what's coming and actually just help them mingle with the rest of the community adjoins a really good Avenue for us to understand how we can serve them better to the extent that we actually know also hold held a a mega community event to celebrate them doesn't it go against a principle of buying and selling online where you minh minimize human interaction you know I think that's conventional wisdom you think buying and selling online it's all about efficiencies but actually humans and people are an underlying commonality in dis transactions and actually people enjoyed interactions when they actually and every Saudis ourselves initially we thought also the most efficient way to actually buy and sell but we started hearing about how people felt so much satisfaction making a friend discovering a hobby joining an interest group like a retro gamers community and carousel it all started because of a carousel transaction and it went on to become friends so we saw that that was really the power and magic of carousel where transactions are just a way more than dollars and cents is actually about that friendship about discovering interest about possibilities being created you still buy and sell on carousel what's the latest thing that you sold a lot I think let me talk about something I bought and I definitely buy and sell a lot I'm a big user we started carousel because we wanted it for ourselves and then growing up I was a big buying and selling geek on all sorts of platforms the one item that I bought recently it's actually quite quite a special one because you know my nephew is like 2 plus 0 now I was just bugging my dad of my my brother right he's dead too for this ninjago they go a long right both we discontinued now in the stores they couldn't find it and this just been bugging my brother Florian like so I heard about it and I just whipped up carousel searched it it was there the next day I went to pick it up from the cellar gave it to my nephew and you know my brother sent me a photo that night where my nephew actually ha ninjago illegal alum to sleep because he was totally in love with it I mean that means everyone call just instantly I don't know maybe favorite button nice but I certainly made me feel like a better uncle it always interesting because it all started with like makeup you know smaller products and now people go online on carousel to sell even their luxury cars and real estate yeah talk us through the transformation you know from day one we've always wanted to build a product for everyone um but when we first started we also learned an important lesson or focus you know I think they're saying the value it's much better to make a hundred people in love you then tons of people just kind of like you and so we took that philosophy too high so when we started we saw that the segments that we really serve well was actually the 15 to 24 euros largely female audience buying and selling fashion and beauty and lifestyle products and we just focus on them for an entire year in 2013 and that really helped us grow tremendously and lock the network effects in the marketplace you know but since then the growth has just continued and the product of appeal has now evolved to categories like kitchen appliances furniture do things like rules will ring so a car that you can actually buy had even Popple weeks what weeks exactly couple weeks so everything right now I think there was even a four thousand US dollar pinball machine there got so so so many many interesting things that evolve and I think it's a it's a function also of how the product has now grown to serve larger parts of the segments and of the community right so we started very young audience but today we have more than 60% of our users more than 25 years old and you know it's quite balanced in terms of gender distribution today so it's really a product everyone what are some of the memorable transactions because I know that some of the rooms in your office are named after those transactions right I think one closest to my heart clearly is the MacBook transaction I did personally so one of our meeting rooms is named after the MacBook or even have the first transactions it was not one of the first the first was actually a Kindle and I see but one really was a very meaningful story that has kept me going in the hardest times during the seven-year journey that we have had I mean it was story about how I sold my MacBook it was abandoned in the corner I listed it for sale in carousel a dad came to the office to pick it up and well I think if I gave him the worst sales pitch I say it's slow and all like why are you buying this but I really wanted to know and he told me he was buying this for his nanny or daughter he wanted her to learn the Internet but couldn't afford a brand-new computer and so for me at that moment time I was like wow actually this item that's underutilized bendin actually has this potential to go and create possibilities for this an annual goal who potentially otherwise would not have been able to access the Internet and so for us that's the discovery that it's really more than just transactions where we want to inspire people to buy and sell because with each transaction possibility you guys created for one another [Music] we truly believe that less than 1% done carousel is now valued at about 500 million dollars for us founders nothing has changed life is still singularly about character no I'm not taking the public transport it exactly you stewey what was it like growing up in Singapore what were your ambitions then hmm you know I think growing up in Singapore I learn a very normal lifestyle grew up going to the local schools neighborhood schools keeping Benjamin Denis and pollux Polytechnic study diploma and business at a time everything in time also you know combining a lot of my early childhood going to my granddad business - I guess play it is his warehouses and in Factory and combining this I guess very practical education system of like doing projects and coming up business plans I thought yeah it's nothing a business is quite interesting and then eventually I went to university NUS and did business again and you know in business school and on day one they tell you successes clearing that in realms of goldman sachs interview and getting a job there or I being a McKinsey consultant and you know after the first two years you start to almost believe that that's what you need to do and I guess Society has a lot of expectations that you should just get a good job do well in school and get a good paying job and stable until I guess I went to Silicon Valley and that's where my life changed just got exposed to this whole idea that Wow technology can really make an impact in people's lives and I really want to dedicate my life to helping as many people as possible mom and dad must have been horrified that you decided to kind of ditch whatever you learned in school to be an entrepreneur yeah actually when I look back one of the toughest things about doing a start-up was actually telling my parents was gonna do a startup and I remember telling my dad and mom that I was gonna do this thing called a start I'm gonna start carousel and immediately I saw their faces change it was a look of worry fear I think most of all like disappointment and and actually that really hit me quite hard it was almost like I really disappointed my parents but you know I think we were very committed in doing this we started showing them that we really care about this problem we were serious about it we had a game plan we showed em my officers was free offices office space absorbs anyone and all the time I think they saw that we were really committed to it what's the vision for the company now seven years on you talked about how seven years on you've only achieved one percent of what you hope to achieve where do you go from here you know in fact we truly believe you're less than 1% done like I believe here is that every person in this wall has something they're like this underutilized in the news that should go on and benefit someone else like why is it there and eventually have those items land in the landfill and so our vision is how can we have second hand become the first choice become a lifestyle so we dream of a war where if you have something excess in your life you actually sell it on carousel goes on the benefit someone else if you needed something in your life for need or once you actually turned to a secondhand choice first on care itself like uncle postman like uncle postman I mean like the the the reason why we are so passionate about creating this lifestyle is because the impact it creates so uncle postman is a story that and I discovered a soldier it has went viral it was a story about Uncle postman who is 60 plus zero he works half hours a day delivers mail to 2,000 households every single day using a bicycle and he account so he was in pain and he turned to carousel to buy an e bike to improve his life so this talent heard about Uncle postman story gave him the e back for free uncle postman replied him on carousel saying hey you're the best seller ever in my life I'll never forget seller was so touched poster this exchange on social went viral and it's how we heard about it and so for us it was just two big takeaways one like this was real human to human interaction people helping each other out in number two as technologies or responsibility or building very simple products inspiring easy to accessible products we're even sixty plus zero and the postman could benefit from carousel is now valued at about five hundred million dollars each of the three co-founders you Lucas and Marcus own slightly less than well at least the figures shell slightly less than 9 percent age which values you at about forty fifty million dollars has life change with all that money you know I think for us seven years on the only thing that we feel every single day is is the deep sense of privilege and gratitude for the chance to do what we do and you know it's so hard to find something where it's a product that you love yourself millions of people love and millions more people can benefit from and so for us founders nothing has changed life is still singularly about character not taking the public transport anymore exactly so I think for the first six years you know we were always running for the last train and a year ago I finally decided to just talk food out on app you know we were already entering and acquired a cast company based other cars vertical we had all these car dealers selling their carbon canister I decided like okay maybe it's time to try it why it's like to buy a car and so I got a really simple car from one of our customers no car dealers process curious as a simple Volkswagen Jetta second-hand car it's black just like my t-shirt so very boring per se yeah you know I'm curious in a world where technology is developing so quickly in a world where everything's being disrupted by AI for instance how do you see your business being disrupted or how are you disrupting your own business you know anything first and foremost we are technologists at heart like we love technology and we want to embrace technology to solving problems and especially delivering a much better user experience for users so we look at what we're doing if AI one of the things that we have invested in is really all rather really really focus on as a company is how do we remove friction from the selling and buying process so if you look at our what we did seven years ago snap this sell you know image selling a 30 second process today we obsess about how can we make a three second process just take the photo everything else your title price description category is automatically populated and you can list it and it's a beautiful this thing that sounds well and we're doing a lot more of using the buying side of things as well right so if you actually chat with someone today we actually suggest chat replies that it's also based off a deep learning model that study over 400 million chat messages to suggest replies to you so it's dynamic it's not a static template right so it's all these little things that AI can actually do to help remove friction make it attach simpler and tad more inspiring and tad more fun and we are committed to using it Sheree just one final question before we let you go what advice would you give to aspiring entrepreneurs you know I think you know the one thing that I tell aspiring entrepreneurs all the time is that you've got to really be passionate about what you do and understand why you do what you do because I can guarantee every entrepreneur that the journey will definitely be tough even seven years in I like to joke that the only easy day was yesterday and the reason why you keep going through all the tough times is because you really care a lot about what you do and absolutely passionate about the problem that you're solving quick story thank you so much for being on high fliers been a pleasure having you with us it's been a pleasure thank you for having me [Music] you

Channel: Bloomberg Technology

Views: 15,597

Keywords: Bloomberg

Id: NEaZ3LhcR1A

Length: 24min 6sec (1446 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2019