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Wheels of fortune
Faced with obstacles like the ban on e-scooters on footpaths and COVID-19, the family of NTU alumni behind homegrown brand Mobot turned their fortunes around with innovative products and marketing strategies.
Text: Derek Rodriguez
The date was November 4, 2019. NTU business undergrad Bobby Lai had just left his hall room and was heading to class. Feeling his phone vibrate in his pocket, he checked it to see a message from a friend. The text stopped him in his tracks.
“My friend sent me a piece of news announcing that e-scooters were permanently banned from public footpaths," recalls Bobby, whose family owns and runs Mobot, one of the leading local e-scooter companies at that time. “I called my dad immediately and told him I would take a leave of absence from my studies to help the company.”
WATCH: Meet the Lai Family at the Mobot HQ |
His father and Mobot’s founder, Ifrey Lai, says he couldn’t believe his ears when he heard the news from his son.
“We had a stock of e-scooters in our warehouses that was worth more than a million dollars. And just like that, it became dead stock. Our business was in total disruption. It almost collapsed, and I had to sell a property to finance the company’s operation,” says Ifrey, who earned his NTU Master’s in Computer Integrated Manufacturing in 2003.
To save on warehousing fees, they sent their stock of e-scooters to America, Brunei, Indonesia and Malaysia to be sold on a consignment basis. Although this meant they didn’t get any payment from retailers, they recouped some of their losses.
During Bobby’s six-month break from his studies, he flew to Brunei to sell their e-scooters.
Bouncing back
Soon after, the pandemic shook the world and the circuit breaker confined people in Singapore to their homes. Running and cycling became popular ways to unwind.
Recognising this trend, Mobot introduced folding bicycles of their own.
The two Master’s graduates from the Lai family, with a six-year-old Bobby, two decades ago.
NTU is like a second home to Bobby and his family, who visit the campus regularly for meals and family outings.
Says Ifrey: “Our challenge was being a newcomer in a mature industry. We needed to make our bicycles different from others. We achieved this by introducing innovations like a patented air pump which is hidden inside the seat pole and the world’s first integrated speedometer. And we differentiated our bicycles visually by giving them colours that stood out.”
Adds Bobby, who has taken up the role of Mobot’s brand manager since graduating last year: “We were new to the foldie segment and wanted to quickly pick up the pace. To build awareness, we started collaborating with celebrities in Singapore.”
The company organises cycling get-togethers where the Lai family joins other Mobot riders on trips around the island, including to NTU.
This strategy was wildly successful and had a rollover effect. Through word of mouth and personal recommendations, other celebrities came to them for bicycles as well. A glance at the Mobot website now shows local actors Zoe Tay, Fann Wong, Christopher Lee and other household names on Mobot bicycles.
Gradually growing their personal mobility aid lineup also helped cement their reputation in the industry, with the company now becoming the largest personal mobility aid retailer in Singapore.
A place where we belong
Ifrey says that NTU played a big part in the creation of Mobot.
“The best asset for a startup company is the NTU network. When I founded Mobot in 2012, I consulted my professors for advice on starting a company and got valuable inputs from them. I also got some funding from my NTU friends,” he says.
While Ifrey sets the company’s direction, the operations of the family business are run by his wife, Jenny Cheng, who holds a Master’s degree in Biomedical Engineering from NTU. The company also turns to her when research on potential new products is needed.
To keep themselves up to date with running a business in the digital era, the couple returned to NTU in 2022 for the Enterprise Leadership for Transformation course, which supports leaders of small and medium enterprises in developing their business growth capabilities.
Their resilience and drive to succeed have also been shaped by their early lives in Singapore.
Ifrey was an engineer and Jenny was a gynaecologist in China when they decided to make the move here in 2000 to pursue their Master’s degrees in NTU. Their time spent in NTU meant so much to them that they still feel connected to the university.
“The Singapore environment was totally new for me. But when I went to NTU, I got to know so many people,” says Jenny. “Even now, we treat the NTU campus as our second home. When we’re free, we’ll drive there to eat.”
Nodding along, Bobby adds: “When our relatives from China come to Singapore, one of the first places we take them is to Canteen 1 or Canteen 2 to eat! Some of my friends haven’t graduated yet, so I go back to see them regularly. I’ve also been back to give talks to students. Being on the NTU campus gives me a good feeling.”
This article first appeared in issue 5 of U, the NTU alumni magazine.
