Forrest Li (Xiaodong) is the founder of one of the largest marketplaces in Southeast Asia, Shopee, present in countries such as Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, for example. Since 2019, Shoppe has also been present in Brazil, being today one of the largest in the country.
O Shopee alongside the company that developed the game Free Fire, Garena; and digital payments provider SeaMoney; is part of the Sea group, which is a Singaporean technology conglomerate founded by Forrest Li in 2009.
Forrest Li was born in 1977 in China, but migrated to Singapore after graduating in Engineering at Jiaotong University in Shanghai. He later earned a Masters of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
At the university, one of the tutors could not pronounce his Chinese name Xiaodong, as revealed by a Forbes article. So, after watching the movie Forrest Gump, he adopted the name Forrest Li.
In 2017, shortly after listing Sea on the New York Stock Exchange, Forrest Li became one of the 5 richest men in Singapore. As per Forbes data, he now has a fortune valued at $4,2 billion.
FORREST LI AND HIS SHOPEE TRAJECTORY
In 2015, Forrest Li decided to diversify his business. So he created the Shopee marketplace, which can be accessed via web browsers and through Android and iOS apps.
In this new business, the entrepreneur used his experience in the field of online games to create a gamified e-commerce. In other words, it integrated different games into the shopping environment, generating greater public engagement.
In addition to gamification, Forrest Li has included in Shopee features such as low price, free shipping and product delivery guarantee, which provide more attractiveness and safety for consumers.
With these characteristics, Shopee arrived in Brazil in 2019. In just two years, the app from this marketplace became the most downloaded among the country's e-commerce apps, according to Reuters information cited by FDR. A success.
THE POWER OF SHOPEE TODAY
Currently, Shopee is one of the largest marketplaces in Southeast Asia and the world. According to SimilarWeb's July 2022 data, Shopee is the 34th most accessed e-commerce site on the planet.
The main tool of the marketplace founded by Forrest Li is his app. To give you an idea, over 95% of Shopee's sales come from its app, as Mobile Time blog info.
With that much power, Shopee is a source of pride for its founder. However, judging by the entrepreneur's entrepreneurial spirit, this marketplace will still grow much more. I end this biography with the words of Forrest Li, “We want to continually push the limits”.
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