How Steve Jobs inspired a student to create Singapore's most successful company

Forrest Li is the founder and owner of Sea Ltd, Singapore's most expensive public company. In 2020, its capitalization amounted to $ 69 billion, and Forrest Li's fortune grew to $ 7.1 billion, ensuring his place in the top ten richest people in the country.

The coronavirus pandemic, which turned out to be a natural disaster for many sectors of the economy, has become a powerful driver of Sea Ltd's development: since the beginning of the year, the company's shares have grown by more than 1,000%, and their price has reached $ 146. Forrest Li's steadfast faith in Singapore's digital future, the development of online commerce, digital payments and online gaming have turned the startup founder into a billionaire.

The key moment in Li's life was the 2005 Stanford graduation ceremony. The young man was inspired by the speech of an outstanding guest Steve Jobs, who encouraged students to follow their hobbies and turn them into a profitable business. Following the dream, the future billionaire had experienced several defeats, but found his niche and succeeded in it.

The first steps in business

In 2005, Li and his wife Ma Liqian moved to Singapore and launched their first project, the gaming company GG Game. The initiative was unsuccessful, but this did not stop the entrepreneur, and in 2009 he implemented the second startup Garena. This time, he did not act alone: his partners were mainland Chinese immigrants Ye and Chen.

Collaboration with Riot Games

Running the Garena project in the post-crisis period was extremely difficult, but in 2010, the entrepreneurs were able to turn the tide in their favor: they signed an agreement with the American gaming company Riot Games and sold 40% of Garena shares to the Chinese giant Tencent, providing their business with large financial injections. This deal allowed Li to keep the company afloat and gave the opportunity to develop further.

New horizons

In 2014, Forrest Li, inspired by the example of Chinese online retail giants Alibaba and Tencent, began to explore new horizons. Garena offered customers a new payment service AirPay, which later became known as SeaMoney. A year later, Li entered the online sales market with the online store Shopee.

In 2017, the entrepreneur renamed the company to Sea: the new name better corresponded to the main target market - Southeast Asia. At the same time, Forrest developed his main hobby – developing online games, the company Garena is still engaged in this line of business.

Window of opportunity during the pandemic

The worldwide lockdown gave a powerful impetus to the development of various online services. Self-isolation forced people to buy and make payments via the Internet, download games and apps more often, and therefore all of Forrest's main business lines demonstrated significant growth.

- Garena increased the number of active users by 61 % in 2020 by launching the Free Fire multiplayer game. The new product has gained huge popularity and has become the third most downloaded app in Google Play.
- Total sales of the Shopee online store increased by 110 % compared to 2019 and reached $ 8 billion, while the number of orders increased to 616 million units.
- SeaMoney online payment service more than quadrupled its revenue in the second quarter of 2020 as compared to the previous year.

In the near future, Forrest Li plans to launch a new project related to online banking. Specifically for this purpose, the entrepreneur will receive a license to issue consumer loans and attract investments from natural persons.

Passion for football and helping talented athletes

Being keen on football, Forrest Li wants to develop the sport in Singapore: he is in the board of the country's Football Association and actively supports young players. Besides, the entrepreneur funds the local professional club "Lion City Sailors" and plans to create a world-class training center for talented athletes.

The achievements of Forrest Li once again prove right the opinion of the legendary Steve Jobs: you need to follow your dream and not be afraid of obstacles. Those who follow this path are the future of the whole world.