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Christopher Quek

👤 Speaker
638 total appearances

Appearances Over Time

Podcast Appearances

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

You'll be very surprised by the amount of kind-hearted people that's out there who's willing to give you opinion or two to help you on your journey.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

You'll be very surprised by the amount of kind-hearted people that's out there who's willing to give you opinion or two to help you on your journey.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

Sure. So I guess it's just about the lesser of the two evils. Was I going to go into Malaysia that was unknown or will I go back to China where I can't even speak very good Mandarin to start off with? And was I going to continue to manufacture automotive parts? Now, the family business was actually a supplier of plastic tooling and injection molds for automotives.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

Sure. So I guess it's just about the lesser of the two evils. Was I going to go into Malaysia that was unknown or will I go back to China where I can't even speak very good Mandarin to start off with? And was I going to continue to manufacture automotive parts? Now, the family business was actually a supplier of plastic tooling and injection molds for automotives.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

So usually when you are manufacturing plastics, it gives us a very accurate kind of smell and I didn't feel good. And in fact, there was already a trigger point in my value system that was I going to continue as the next generation of business owners to continue polluting, to continue doing the same mold just to make money for the sake of money.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

So usually when you are manufacturing plastics, it gives us a very accurate kind of smell and I didn't feel good. And in fact, there was already a trigger point in my value system that was I going to continue as the next generation of business owners to continue polluting, to continue doing the same mold just to make money for the sake of money.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And I was not very happy of what the family was actually building towards. I didn't want to have my name stuck on it that Christopher Kwak, manufacturer of automotive parts. But rather, when I went over to Malaysia, my Malaysian friends were really nice to me and I got really influenced by them.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And I was not very happy of what the family was actually building towards. I didn't want to have my name stuck on it that Christopher Kwak, manufacturer of automotive parts. But rather, when I went over to Malaysia, my Malaysian friends were really nice to me and I got really influenced by them.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

In fact, one of them was just telling me about the immense economic prosperity that Malaysia will go through and this kind of potential opportunities that you can work on. At that time, I created an e-commerce business that was very similar to Amazon. But what I did was an arbitrage advantage where Amazon couldn't actually enter Malaysia at that point in time.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

In fact, one of them was just telling me about the immense economic prosperity that Malaysia will go through and this kind of potential opportunities that you can work on. At that time, I created an e-commerce business that was very similar to Amazon. But what I did was an arbitrage advantage where Amazon couldn't actually enter Malaysia at that point in time.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

That was in the early 2000s because Malaysians couldn't use their credit cards overseas. And so what I did was that I established a very localized payment system. Malaysians were happy to purchase books, beauty products, and I shipped them via Singapore. So I think this was just a little bit of creativity that I discovered.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

That was in the early 2000s because Malaysians couldn't use their credit cards overseas. And so what I did was that I established a very localized payment system. Malaysians were happy to purchase books, beauty products, and I shipped them via Singapore. So I think this was just a little bit of creativity that I discovered.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

I discovered the demand, and then I discovered the supply line that I could go for. And it was fantastic for those six years. I guess the reason what actually changed significantly was that regulations went down. That means credit cards in Malaysia were becoming much easier to purchase overseas. So I was starting to lose my advantage.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

I discovered the demand, and then I discovered the supply line that I could go for. And it was fantastic for those six years. I guess the reason what actually changed significantly was that regulations went down. That means credit cards in Malaysia were becoming much easier to purchase overseas. So I was starting to lose my advantage.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And the second one was like you having the likes of Lazada, Q10, all arriving and they were gladly throwing money to lose money. And I realised that my game is up and I decided that maybe this is a part of my phase of journey that I decided that it's time to actually move on.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And the second one was like you having the likes of Lazada, Q10, all arriving and they were gladly throwing money to lose money. And I realised that my game is up and I decided that maybe this is a part of my phase of journey that I decided that it's time to actually move on.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And at that moment in time, coming back to Singapore and meeting my fiancé, I realised that life is becoming more deeply back-rooted into Singapore. So just to give you a little bit of context, what really transpired during that point in time in Malaysia.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And at that moment in time, coming back to Singapore and meeting my fiancé, I realised that life is becoming more deeply back-rooted into Singapore. So just to give you a little bit of context, what really transpired during that point in time in Malaysia.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And I also wanted to highlight to the audience, it's really interesting that sometimes when you've been to a place, it doesn't mean that it's the end in your life journey. In fact, this year, my venture capitalist company, we have actually gone full circle and I'm back in Malaysia very often is because half my team is in Malaysia.

Chief Change Officer
#221 Inheritance? No Thanks. Chris Quek’s Boldest Bet Yet – Part 1

And I also wanted to highlight to the audience, it's really interesting that sometimes when you've been to a place, it doesn't mean that it's the end in your life journey. In fact, this year, my venture capitalist company, we have actually gone full circle and I'm back in Malaysia very often is because half my team is in Malaysia.