Evidence receipt / evaluation
Published · transcript-backedSpeaker unverified: evaluation
3 Sept 2026 · 10:12 Cheeky Pint Sea founder and CEO Forrest Li in conversation with Tyler Bryson
“Okay, this is how they win the US market and this is how they win the China market >> and they bring that >> everything is very optimized for that playbook. So it's very natural for them when they come to the Southeast Asia they just say okay this is our playbook this is work in our home market must be working here and it turn out I think that is a it's not always the case there's always a best practice is uh can be shared across the whole world but uh specifically there's also a lot of a lot of things uh is is very very different and and even like I think being a Singapore company the benefit is at the very very early days we we we have to think about to go to other market is not like just trying to be successful only in Singapore market as a home market.”
— Speaker unverified
Source trail
Everything needed to verify it.
- Speaker
- Speaker unverified
- Attribution
- Not verified from this transcript
- Claim type
- evaluation
- Recorded
- 3 Sept 2026 · 10:12
- Publisher
- Cheeky Pint
Transcript context
…uh uh enabled and and driven by the strong entrepreneurial spirit. I think that is very very important. So we have a very very uh long history tradition. We every year uh we went to the top university starting from Singapore but over the years it's pretty much uh all over the world. We we have a fresh graduate program called uh we call it the GMAP. It's like a maximum associate program. We pick the young talents and every year we select the 10 to 20 and then we put them into a kind of like a a two-year rotation program like them to experience the different part of the business and travel to the different uh places and every year like the top leadership uh involve into the final interview and also I just spend the time with their uh graduation the the latest batch graduation and I actually the one thing uh I told them uh if you if you're here today and if you forget everything about this whole day workshop graduation ceremony and one thing I hope you all remember doesn't matter what you do with the company after graduation is remember you are joining a startup you are not joining a big company so that's the that's the key message uh so I think that is a way across the entire organization from the top leadership till the fresh graduate so that's the things I think keep us keep progressing and keep trying to do things differently and innovation on the other hand I think it's related to the things I just about the payment things uh it's not like just oh I want to be an entrepreneur and uh and uh I hope entrepreneurship is not just a lifestyle or things of being cool being co-founder or like yes this is a cool things still need to back to the fundamental to identify what is the specific issue what is a specific problem you are trying to solve this remind me like when we started the e-commerce uh business right this is a five years after we are into game business like a how come a game company can start a e-commerce business but actually it's it's hard for me back then to swallow the fact and there's no such a such a e-commerce marketplace platform in Southeast Asia and things has been done so well in in the US and in China why such things doesn't exist in in Southeast Asia I think that is a kind of a fundamental uh belief we have and and say okay yeah if this is opportunity and if we limit oursel. Let's try to take the opportunity. Yeah. >> Wonderful. I love that. So, if you were going to remember one thing, you always tell them you're joining a startup. Yes. Even though you're like 60,000 employees now. >> Yes. >> That's a great way to look at it. A great spirit behind it. Okay. So, let's talk about competition. Let's talk about competing. Um, when it comes to winning in Southeast Asia, Forest, um, what do you think outsiders frequently don't understand about winning here? In a way, if you look at Southeast Asia as a as a as a market, there's a lot of fantastic things, right? And it's a it's a very young population and and like the the life quality is getting better and better. It's a very big consumption market and there's a large population. So, there's a lot of things. But on the other hand, uh it's also a very d and like the the life quality is getting better and better. It's a very big consumption market and there's a large population. So, there's a lot of things. But on the other hand, uh it's also a very fragmented market and you cannot just uh think about all Southeast Asia as a as a as a one market. And if you think about like how different uh the difference between Singapore and Vietnam, right, it's like it's a two-hour flight distance, but in terms of the economic development stage of the economy and the and yeah, so the people's uh uh life quality, lifestyle, there's so much diverse things. I think it's it's a critical for it's very very important to come out the bottom up solutions for each specific market. Uh I think for us if you're looking back we benefit uh a lot uh by being a a Singapore startup a Singapore company uh we see a lot of like we are competing over the years with a lot of uh competitors uh they're pretty much originally coming from either China or US that is a pretty much the two very very big superpower in the tech industry in all the things we are we are doing and but a lot of them like uh uh they already have a very much successful proven playbook book in their home market. Okay, this is how they win the US market and this is how they win the China market >> and they bring that >> everything is very optimized for that playbook. So it's very natural for them when they come to the Southeast Asia they just say okay this is our playbook this is work in our home market must be working here and it turn out I think that is a it's not always the case there's always a best practice is uh can be shared across the whole world but uh specifically there's also a lot of a lot of things uh is is very very different and and even like I think being a Singapore company the benefit is at the very very early days we we we have to think about to go to other market is not like just trying to be successful only in Singapore market as a home market. So we we we kind of like remember you know we call oursel at the early days is like we're already a multinational startup. So and another thing is uh uh because we identify Singapore is so different even like from the neighboring countries whatever work in Singapore is doesn't mean it going to work in the other neighbor neighboring countries neighboring market. So when we go to any market we have to identify the bottom up kind of solutions and the cases and uh I think that is very critical in our journey. Yeah. >> Can you talk more about bottoms up? I think that's been a theme that we've been talking about like really solving a need in that market and then growing from there. Can you just describe more of that philosophy? >> Sure. I mean I I'm happy to give you like two examples and uh uh one is Indonesia and one is in Brazil. Uh this is both is like with our e-commerce uh business shopppee. Uh when we kind of like when we launched the shopppee we launched quickly across the Southeast Asia. Uh this is about like 10 years ago. Uh the interesting thing is we launched the app like people can start to buy things in Indonesia and then we realize Indonesia there is a very very Southeast Asia. Uh this is about like 10 years ago. Uh the interesting thing is we launched the app like people can start to buy things in Indonesia and then we realize Indonesia there is a very very specific challenge uh so people can make the order online through our mobile phone app but they cannot pay online. So it's just the the online banking online payment is not available. So the the the typical uh user behavior is that they make a payment online. Sorry, they they make a purchase online and then we have to issue them a code and then they need to travel to a ATM or like a bank branch to to make the payment like use the use the code. So that's the so it's a very very much a counterintuitive. This is this is not the e-commerce, right? Then if you you have to you have to make the go to some uh travel to somewhere else physically to make the payment then it's maybe you just easier to just to go to the go to the shop to to to to buy the things while you bother to to order uh online actually uh what make things worse is uh at that time uh the all the Indonesia the entire banking system for the security reason uh like when the the people when the buyer pay us they don't tell us they don't disclose the identity of the payer. So they don't let us know what is the bank account number to pay us. So for us it's like okay we sell 10 bottle top of waters and we we we re received the payment but we didn't know who paid us. So and >> I don't think that's I don't think that's e-commerce. >> Yeah. And then we are going to deliver too, right? And so so I I think for those things where like you never realize you should just being sitting in Singapore even like this is a 10 years ago you probably don't have that such a issue but this is become the issue in Indonesia for us to grow uh to continually uh increase the penetration and one thing we did is uh we we think about we still kind of quite innovative and the way we identify the specific buyer is basically for the 10 b of waters we sell at the 10 different prices. So if it's Yeah. So it's a like a probably each bottle of water with a difference maybe uh a part a part of a partial of one rupia. So it's like economically is not much much difference but I I think it's like the price is is the same but like by then the price itself become the identification of the of the of the of the buyer. So and then we have like a hundreds of people sitting in the office every day they do is just do the matching. [laughter] >> Yeah. So um >> but this is the type of like localization this like solve problems. It it's not in some playbook from the United States or >> Definitely. I think Amazon never have a such a problem [laughter] in in the in the in the >> go to an ATM with a code. Yeah. And uh and another things uh uh example I want to mention is like uh Brazil I always get this question. So being a Singapore company, Southeast Asia company, what how come you end up in Brazil like what's why you build up a e-commerce business uh there and actually this is also like by uh identified the specific uh opportunity and the challenge there. So, so 2019 I brought the entire team uh to to to Brazil and this is for all of…
Stored transcript either side of the excerpt. The highlighted words are the published quote; the surrounding text is unedited source, never generated.