GoGoVan’s CEO on $1b merger, Vietnam plans, and concerns for the future

GoGoVan is in a growth spurt, and it’s expecting to launch its new Vietnam business by the end of this year or early 2020, co-founder and CEO Steven Lam tells Tech in Asia.

Vietnam will be the last-mile logistics startup’s first foray into Southeast Asia since it entered Singapore back in 2014, as well as its first full country launch after merging with mainland Chinese competitor 58 Suyun in late 2017.

That deal gave Hong Kong-based GoGoVan instant coverage across more than 300 cities in China, turning it into one of the country’s top last-mile logistics players overnight.

Competition remains fierce in the massive Chinese market, and it hasn’t all a breeze for Gogovan since it integrated 58 Suyun’s business. At the same time, there are still opportunities for growth in the country’s smaller towns and cities.

But as it sets its sights on Vietnam and other markets in Southeast Asia, is GoGoVan spreading itself too thin?

Born of necessity

GoGoVan has come a long way since Lam and his co-founders began the company in 2013.

Like many startups, GoGoVan was born almost by accident, and out of necessity. On returning to their native Hong Kong after studying at University of California, Berkeley, Lam and his classmates Reeve Kwan and Rick Tang were testing out ideas for their own business.

After trying out crowdfunding and online reselling of gadgets from factories just across the border in Shenzhen (almost a rite of passage for Hong Kong entrepreneurs), the trio reconsidered an idea they first had while slogging it out at a Chinese restaurant back in California.

One of their main jobs had been to pack and seal hundreds upon hundreds of “oyster pails” – the archetypal Chinese takeout boxes familiar to millions of Americans (and viewers of US sitcoms). These were then placed in a plastic bag emblazoned with the phrase, “Have a nice day!” before being handed to delivery drivers.

The classmates figured that the saccharine greetings, dragons, and pagodas on the bags and boxes were taking up potentially valuable advertising space.

In Hong Kong, the more commonplace conveyance for your lunchtime order of cha siu fan or chow mein is a plain polystyrene box. Lam and his co-founders attached ads to these boxes, and the amount paid by advertisers meant that the boxes could be distributed to restaurant owners free of charge.

Early Southeast Asia connections

China expansion

Unicorn merger

Good morning, Vietnam

Competition and robots