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Putting out fires in the e-commerce world, Lam Wun Chi ignited a logistics revolution that would redefine the very essence of industry excellence
Many entrepreneurs spot opportunities to make an industry more efficient, and move from a physical business to a digital one. Lam Wun Chi’s journey has moved in the opposite direction—first setting up an e-commerce platform, then moving into the business of delivering physical items with Spaceship, of which he is co-founder and CEO.
He was driven by a powerful motivation—a deep-rooted dissatisfaction with the fragmented and outdated state of the logistics industry. The inefficiencies and limitations he observed were just the tip of the iceberg, fuelling Lam’s determination to revolutionise the field.
Taking the plunge
Lam decided to dive in early as an entrepreneur, forming his first company, Kaiser Bloc, while he was still a university student in 2010. An e-commerce platform that allowed people in Hong Kong and elsewhere to buy Japanese products, it worked with a Japanese logistics partner.
“It was very stressful,” Lam says. “Logistics is very important in our daily lives, but it’s a very traditional industry... There are so many pain points: the handling procedure is complicated, the price is high, it’s unreliable and it’s fragmented. There are cross-border courier companies, domestic ones, warehousing operators. To run an e-commerce business, we needed a comprehensive solution, not a patchwork of disjointed services.”
With Spaceship, that’s exactly what he set out to provide. With their existing business struggling, Lam and his co-founder Stanley Wong—who first met playing football—pivoted to the new company in 2019, when they had about two months’ financial runway left. “We understood that no matter who it is, everyone’s having problems with logistics. That’s why we launched Spaceship.”
A simple solution
Spaceship is more than just an intelligent logistics system; it is a game-changer—a unified platform where e-commerce businesses, corporations and even individual consumers can seamlessly handle all their logistical needs. Lam describes it as the “Hotels.com of logistics,” a one-stop destination to simplify the complex world of supply chains, deliveries and warehouse management.
“We leverage the power of AI and machine learning to provide more accurate and precise shipment predictions,” he says. “Furthermore, we automate warehouse operations and streamline the procedures involved in the physical handling of parcels, improving overall efficiency and productivity.”
Spaceship really came into its own during the pandemic-induced bump in demand for delivery services, he adds. Amidst the relentless onslaught of Covid-19, unpredictable lockdowns left many trapped in a maze of restrictions. Post offices were not operating, and there was no way for people to send anything to relatives and friends. Spaceship is a platform that helped to restore simple human connection.
“I even went back to my secondary school to tell the story of Spaceship, and found that some teachers and students there were my clients. It was very surprising and made me very proud, helping people to solve their logistics problems.”
