From professional poker player to CEO of Hong Kong’s “Uber for Vans”. AMA!

My name is Shing Chow, and I am the founder and CEO of lalamove/easyvan.

It started with my playing of Texas Hold’em on the internet, first as a hobby, then as a profession. I played it for 16 hours a day, this went on for 7 years. I made some money from that, became financially independent and got lost.

Whilst tidying up my apartment one day and required a van to shift some stuff around, I realised that getting a van to do that was more difficult than winning at poker! From then, I wanted to change how delivery is done. We have came a long way, from how I was the only person in the company, not having any knowledge about the internet and logistics, to a company with 300 pax in strength in a span of 2 years, and having operations in 12 cities.

I love what i’m doing. Being in this position for two years, I have not paid myself a single dime. Some people call this a “calling”, as an ex-poker player, I call this an “all in”.

I’m happy to answer any questions you have, specifically on the following topics:

• Logistics in Asia
• Founding a startup: where to start?
• Creating an app without tech knowledge
• Getting investors
• Managing rapid growth
• Hiring talents
• Where to expand? How to choose?
• Secrets of the sharing economy
• Poker – how similar it is to launching a company

Here are some other things you can ask me:

• How being the CEO of a startup might sound sexy and exciting, but there are lots of boring necessities that go along with it
• How I see myself as a preacher
• Playing professional poker for 7 years, 364 days a year, and almost 16 hours a day

Fire away, I’ll answer as many as I can!

Note from Daniel, TIA’s community manager:
The host may choose at his/her preference to not answer particular questions. The AMA is moderated by the community managers, so let’s keep the questions friendly. 🙂

Read more about Lalamove/Easyvan here:

• Why on-demand logistics startup Lalamove isn’t afraid of Uber
• Hong Kong logistics startup Lalamove nabs $10M from Chinese investors
• Lalamove gets $10M funding to speed up China expansion of ‘Uber for Vans’ service
• Hong Kong’s Easyvan rebrands as Lalamove just in time for launch in Bangkok