sgCarMart founder Vincent Tan still in fast lane

The middle child of used-car dealer Lake View Group's Tan Ah Chew sold off the car trading portal more than 10 years ago

- Christopher Tan

“I have no interest in cars,” confesses Mr Vincent Tan, co-founder of sgCarMart, arguably Singapore’s most successful car trading portal.

“I started my entrepreneur journey selling chairs. It’s not that chairs were particularly something I loved,” says the 43-year-old. “As an entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter what industry it is, as long as it’s something that can make profits. That’s my philosophy.”

While in the first year of his mechanical engineering degree course at National University of Singapore (NUS) in 2003, Mr Tan and one of his football buddies, Mr Henry Seah, started selling office chairs at weekend pop-up markets.

“When the supply of chairs ran out, we started selling metal water bottles, which were the rage then. That didn’t go well because there were too many suppliers. So, we sold soft toys.”

Then, in the second year of his course, Mr Tan, Mr Seah and another football mate, Mr Tan Jing Lun, started sgCarMart, an online vehicle classifieds. The other two were also NUS students then.

The going was tough in the beginning. Mr Vincent Tan recalls that even as car listings grew quickly by the thousands, no one was willing to pay for sgCarMart’s services initially. So the three partners started selling flowers, car voltage stabilisers and engine oil.

“Flowers didn’t go well. The logistics killed us,” Mr Tan says. “I remember once I was delivering three stalks of lilies, and by the time I arrived at the address, two of them had turned brown.”

The car portal was eventually able to charge for its services towards the end of its second year.

“By the time we graduated, we were drawing a salary from sgCarMart,” Mr Tan says.

In 2008, JDB Investment, a Hong Kong internet services group, took a 40 per cent stake in sgCarMart.