CEO & Co-Founder, Carousell
Search every verified Quek Rui interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Quek Siu Rui, co-founder and CEO of Carousell, has emphasized the company's focus on recommerce and sustainable growth. In late 2024, he described Carousell's mission as making "secondhand the first choice" and noted that the company has been operating for 12 years while still being "less than 1% done." He stated that the company is investing in trust and convenience through initiatives such as a "Certified" authentication program for luxury goods and the Refash clothing resale service, which allows users to drop off unwanted clothes at physical stores. Quek said Carousell is "well capitalized" and on track to profitability, with revenue growing over 60% in the prior year and an expectation to "healthily reduce" losses. Quek has also discussed the long-term challenges and opportunities of operating in Southeast Asia, describing the region as "highly fragmented" in language, culture, and logistics. He cited the global trend toward sustainability and the circular economy as a "major tailwind" for recommerce. Reflecting on the company's journey, Quek said that "meaningful things do take time" and that the "best years are ahead of us." He has credited the company's early focus on a mobile-first "snap-sell" experience and a disciplined approach to product-market fit as foundational to its growth.
“My name is Siu Rui, one of the co‑founders of Carousell. We are on a mission to make secondhand the first choice — it saves money, the Earth, and benefits people; our job is to make selling simple and buying trustworthy. We've been doing this for about 12 years and we're still less than 1% done.”
“We started 12 years ago as three co‑founders inspired by Silicon Valley and built a mobile-first 'snap-sell' app so you could sell something in 30 seconds; we launched across seven markets in Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan and now serve tens of millions of users.”
“One of our largest categories is luxury — buyers told us they'd do more transactions if they had peace of mind, so we built an authentication team and launched a 'Certified' program to let people buy luxury bags, phones, cars and fashion with confidence.”
“I'm super bullish about Southeast Asia: by 2030 the region will be 700+ million people with a rising middle class, and a global mega-trend toward conscious, sustainable consumption is powering the circular economy — that's a major tailwind for recommerce.”
“Southeast Asia is highly fragmented — language, culture, geography, payment and shipping preferences differ — so startups have to take a long-term view and systematically build regional capabilities; the operational complexity is high but it's a meaningful long-term investment.”
“If I were to rewind 10 years and start again I'd remind myself to care enough about what you're doing — the journey is long and hard; as Bill Gates says, most people overestimate what they can achieve in 2 years and underestimate what they can achieve in 10 or 20 years.”
“For us as a group we're very focused on our recommerce strategy, very focused on bringing trust and convenience and we're doing it for a few focus categories that we are very strong in and that we want to deliver in our key markets — the likes of used cars, used mobile phones, used luxury bags and fashion.”
“With Refash — our team — users, especially our women community, who've got too many clothes in their wardrobe can put their clothes in a cleanout bag, drop it off at one of our stores; we'll pick it up, give you cash for what's good and resell them as well‑conditioned fashion items both in stores and on our platform.”
“We also have a plan to profitability and we are on track to that plan — if you saw our growth last year in revenue it was a very healthy clip of over 60%; this year we continue to expect revenue to grow healthily and, promisingly, we are going to be healthily reducing our losses this year as well.”
“Our goal is always to build both a meaningful company that does good and does great business, but also to be an enduring one that can last for many, many years.”
“We are so privileged to get the support of our investors and because of their support we are actually very well capitalized to execute on these strategies, so we feel very confident with our capital position.”
“We've got an amazing strategy, a very committed and focused team on this strategy and that's what we're really doing — staying laser focused on execution and making second the first choice.”
“Being relentlessly resourceful — we just have to find ways to work around constraints and be relentless about it.”
“In our early days we had a product-market-fit issue where we didn't figure out what to build or who to focus our time and energy on — which segment we needed to go deep in.”
“The mega trends of sustainability and the circular economy are here to stay; it's become increasingly a government agenda, a corporate agenda, and consumers are becoming a lot more aware of their own impact to the environment.”
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Oct.04 -- Bloomberg's Haslinda Amin returns for a seventh season, interviewing some of the world's sharpest business minds aboard the Singapore Flyer. Quek Siu Rui is the Co-founder & CEO of Carousell, a mobile classified app well on its way to becoming Southeast Asia's next unicorn.
Find out how founders beat the odds and achieved success from Singapore. Moderated by Kelvin Zin, Regional Vice President, Economic Development Board, West Coast, USA Speakers • Carousell – Quek Siu Rui, Co-founder • Bigo Technology – Jason Hu, Co-founder & CTO • Zopim – Wenxiang Wu, Co-founder
Carousell co-founders Marcus Tan, Quek Siu Rui and Lucas Ngoo talk about their latest tech developments, their plans for the future, and offer advice to budding entrepreneurs. ----- Read the full story: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapor... In the Lunch with Sumiko series, ST executive editor Sumiko Tan gets up close with newsmakers over lunch - and a selfie. For more on Lunch With Sumiko series: https://www.straitstimes.com/tags/lun... Subscribe to The Straits Times YouTube channel for free: https://www.youtube.com/user/StraitsT... Get the latest news updates: http://www.straitstimes.…
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