My first venture

My first venture into starting a business began when my friend bought an iPhone case from a guy. This seller, who often traveled to China, had purchased a large quantity of cases hoping to resell them. Seeing an opportunity, he offered to sell them to us at a low price so that we could resell them ourselves. Seeing this was a chance to make a business, my friend then decided to approach me. The guy did informed us that we would have to buy a minimum number of cases and at that point of time being secondary school students, we didn't have a lot of money. We approached another friends of ours to join us in this venture. Total we bought about from what i remembered $200~ worth of iPhone cases and cables.

This was the casing and cables that we have bought.

Our profit margin looked good initially; we were selling each case for $20 to $30. We even started a Facebook page called “The Blue Dynamic” to spread the word (It has ceased to exists now).

However, the business didn’t last too long. Not long after, the iPhone model changed, and the iPhone 4 cases weren’t in demand anymore. We ended up having to sell off our cases for cheap.

However, through this experience, I realized a potential business opportunity; reselling iPhone cases. Back then we didn't have Shopee or Lazada. Qoo10 was where we went for our online shopping.

Once, I came across a listing on Qoo10 where someone was selling iPhone cases for just $0.01 each! I thought it was a joke, but I decided to test it out by buying ten cases for $0.10 total. And believe it or not, they actually delivered! That’s when I got more curious and decided to engage the seller. I didn’t just want to order online; I wanted to see the goods for myself. So, I asked the seller about his warehouse and decided to go over myself. I picked out 100 cases and a few unique ones, then paid him online through Qoo10, opting for self-collect.

Sadly, I couldn’t retrieve the Qoo10 receipts to show as proof, but here’s how the casings looked like.

That day, I went home with 100+ phone casings...

I began listing the iPhone cases on Carousell, a platform that was just starting to gain popularity as a trendy place for people to sell their pre-owned items. For me, it became the perfect venue to sell these cases to a broader audience. I knew that selling just one case would cover all my initial expenses. At the peak, I was selling each case for $10, but over time, I had to reduce the price to $2 per case. However, I had already made a decent profit by then. The experience of using Carousell opened up a new business idea for me...