Why we’re building Markai
“What matters most to you, and why?”
For decades, the Stanford Graduate School of Business has asked this essay question to every applicant. On a hot and humid August night in 2018, in Futian, Shenzhen, Chenyu wrote: “Looking back on my personal journey, I wouldn’t have seen so much of the world’s richness if not for the risks I took. My goal is to make this possible to others by helping entrepreneurs in developing nations realize their full potential.”
Similarly, on a foggy July afternoon in San Francisco, Tim Spencer wrote: “Talent and passion are equally distributed across human societies, but access to opportunity is not.” When he arrived on Stanford’s campus, Tim bonded with his soon-to-be roommate Chenyu over the fact that they had both written their essays about empowering entrepreneurs in emerging markets.
We are from different worlds. Chenyu was born and raised in a small manufacturing compound in Henan, China. Tim was born and raised in Denver, Colorado, where his parents worked for United Airlines. Yet we immediately connected with one another — we had each lived and worked on 3 different continents and traveled to over 60 countries. We are passionate about connecting people and ideas across borders. We wake up every day wanting to bring the world closer together.
Growing up, Chenyu watched his father, a small business owner from Henan, struggle to obtain financing and sell overseas. He has spent most of his professional life in Hong Kong and Shenzhen, where many of China’s manufacturers and cross-border e-commerce sellers are based. He also worked in Ethiopia, where he helped local independent consumer brand owners sell their products in foreign markets. But perhaps above all, he is inspired by the example of Yiwu in China, home of the bustling, seemingly endless Yiwu Market, where people from all over the world gather to trade. When you spend time in Yiwu, you come to realize that small businesses truly drive the world forward. It doesn’t matter whether you’re Chinese, American, Ethiopian, Brazilian, Yemeni, German or Indian — this is a place to witness the beating heart of the globally interconnected economy.
Tim’s desire to link people and ideas across borders began from a young age, when his family’s work in the airline industry gave him early exposure to the wide variety of cultures this world has to offer. His parents were careful to instill in him the idea that growing up in a place like the United States was an immense privilege, and that one’s opportunities in life are primarily a function of the circumstances of one’s birth. Through his education and work experience, Tim lived all over the world, but his time living in Shanghai was particularly transformational. In this global megacity of 25 million inhabitants, some 40% of whom are migrant workers, the sacrifices people are willing to make to build a better life for themselves and their families is clear for all to see. There is a shortage of neither talent nor hard work, but the resources and opportunities people elsewhere take for granted are often in short supply.
Markai is our dream come true. We’re acquiring and growing small- and medium-sized cross-border e-commerce brands in Asia, starting in China. We work alongside the entrepreneurs who built these businesses, help articulate their brand story, and bring their products to a global audience.
E-commerce is taking over the world — some 20% of all retail sales are expected to happen online in 2021, up from single digits just five years ago. In particular, the rise of Amazon and other third-party marketplaces has enabled something that wasn’t possible before — a small business anywhere in the world can create an incredible product and sell it to a consumer anywhere else in the world. We view this as an incredible development that goes a long way toward democratizing access to opportunity globally.
Despite this development, many small businesses in emerging markets continue to face the same challenges Chenyu’s father once struggled to overcome. They lack the resources and know-how to compete with huge multinational brands. They don’t have access to financing or other resources to help their businesses grow. They are often constrained by their language abilities and access to technology.
This is where Markai comes in. We help small- and medium-sized e-commerce businesses break through these barriers and take their incredible products to a global audience. Our expertise in growing brands, building supply chains and raising capital for further growth will help take these brands to the next level.
Our name “Markai” is a combination of the word “market” and the word “kai”, which means open in Mandarin Chinese (开). Markai reflects our hope to create a more open e-commerce market globally. In a world that seems increasingly driven by those seeking to push countries and cultures away from one another, we proudly stand on the side of those wanting to bring people together.
This is why we are building Markai — to help small businesses in developing countries, and to build bridges across borders. It will be a hard journey. It requires a deep understanding of a variety of different and complex markets, processes and cultures. But if a Chinese person raised in a factory compound in Henan and an American raised in an airline family in Denver can come together through their shared ideals and passion, we believe Markai’s mission can become a reality.
