Along with a few co-founders, I launched a platform in Hong Kong called Shopline. It provides small businesses in the region an easy way to build and manage their e-commerce shops. The product would help these business owners achieve their goals online without all the technical hurdles that many usually face. While there were huge platforms available from the west (i.e. Shopify), none were solving that pain point for the merchants in Asia. The differentiator was fourfold – language, culture, payment methods and support. We aimed not only to be the go-to solution for Hong Kong, but also a platform that can help businesses across the region. We were accepted to the 500 Startups Accelerator in mid-2014, raised US$1.2M in seed funding and grew to a team of 27 with offices in HK and Taiwan. In a little over a year, the business went from just a handful of users to thousands of shops created and paying customers.
I served as a co-founder and its CEO until December 2015.
