He Left His Corporate Job And Raised $400 Million To Empower The New Surge In Ecommerce
Chang Wen Lai has built an incredible empire from serving both new and pivoting players to the eCommerce space. His company Ninja Van has already raised $400M in the process and now employs tens of thousands. During our interview on the DealMakers Podcast, Chang Wen Lai shared why he made the leap from a lucrative career in finance to launching his own hit startup, balancing fundraising with dilution and capital, as well as managing big teams, and what’s different about the market post-coronavirus.
Chang Wen Lai has built an incredible empire from serving both new and pivoting players to the eCommerce space. His company Ninja Van has already raised $400M in the process and now employs tens of thousands.
During our interview on the DealMakers Podcast, Chang Wen Lai shared why he made the leap from a lucrative career in finance to launching his own hit startup, balancing fundraising with dilution and capital, as well as managing big teams, and what’s different about the market post-coronavirus.
Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.
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Here is the content that we will cover in this post. Let’s get started.
- 1. Finding Your Path
- 2. What Makes A Great Company
- 3. Comfort Vs. Fulfillment
- 4. Where Is Your Place In The Value Chain?
- 5. The Magic Bullet
- 6. COVID-19 & The Democratization Of Retail
Finding Your Path
Chang was born in Singapore. If you’ve never been, you might be surprised to learn that English is their first language, and he says the culture isn’t that different from the UK or US. His father was an entrepreneur. Though, he says he was always more into science, math, and logistics than the arts.
When it came to choosing what to study in college, he figured that finance and business would pay the best.
This led to an exchange program at Wharton in the US in 2010. His biggest takeaway in differences between countries was the ability to buy just about anything easily and conveniently online through Amazon. Yet, he continued his career into finance.
What Makes A Great Company
Chang Wen Lai started into investment banking with Barclays, trading and working with derivatives.
That experience provided some unique insight into what makes a business successful and a good investment. Rather than being super interesting or being hyped up in the media, he says it is actually the unsexy businesses that do best. If you want to make a smart investment or create a lasting company, it is really about focused, well-managed businesses that are good at executing. He says “they are the combination of many good things done well, neither of which could stand alone and prop a company up, but together, they created great companies.”
Comfort Vs. Fulfillment
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