In 2015, a college dropout and his coworker were venting over a coffee chat.

They didn’t know it then, but they were about to launch the first version of what is now Malaysia’s first unicorn, Carsome.

Carsome has raised over $575M in funding and is active in 5 markets in Southeast Asia. And this is their story.

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🔥 Meet the founder

Eric Cheng was far from your straight-A student. He spent too much time playing video game  and eventually dropped out of college.

He had one dream—and it was to make a lot of money and start his own business.

With money saved up from working at a multilevel marketing (MLM) company, he launched a magazine business in 2006. But after publishing a few editions, they ran out of money and failed.

That didn’t stop Eric, who launched another business soon after. They saw early successes, but the business took a massive turn and they ended up losing all money they earned in the end. He failed—again.

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😥  Two failures

After two failed businesses, Eric was crushed. Who wouldn’t be?

At this point, if he wanted to return to the workforce, he’d have to start from the very bottom. He didn’t have a college degree and no work experience outside of his companies.

That left him in a dark place mentally. He would hide in his room and avoid his friends, who all had jobs—while he was struggling to find one.

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❌  Staying away from entrepreneurship

After hopping between part-time jobs, Eric found a job in marketing and worked there for over 8 years, quickly rising up the ranks to Senior Account Manager.

He tried starting a third business in between, but sold his shares after a few months and returned to his marketing job.

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💨 Fast forward to 2015

Eric was meeting his coworker Jiun Ee Teoh for coffee, and they found themselves both venting about how frustrating it was to buy used cars.

You didn’t know the true price or condition of each car, and you’d have to visit tons of dealerships to find the exact car you want.

On top of that, there were tons of additional fees and once it’s sold—you’re on your own with any issues you run into with the car.

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🕑  The beginning

Eric and Jiun Ee launched Carsome that year, starting off as a car comparison website. This allowed people to discover and compare different car models before customers buy them somewhere else.

People loved it. But they started asking questions beyond just cars—they started asking about selling cars.

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😉  Fourth time’s the charm?

So, Carsome pivoted and started helping customers buy and sell cars

Now, you can sell your car as fast as 24 hours or test drive and buy a used car (that you can actually trust) all on one platform, Carsome. It’s fast, easy, and trustworthy.

They went from selling 1,000 cars in 2016 to 100,000 in just five years! They even have physical showrooms, the option to test-drive the car, a 5-day money back guarantee, post-purchase support, and more.

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🦄  Unicorn status

Now, Carsome is one of Southeast Asia’s largest online used car platforms, active in Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

They raised a $290M Series E in 2022 which fueled their unicorn valuation to over $1.3B.

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