This Chinese graduate built Yamibuy into a US$100 million business selling Asian snacks, instant noodles in America
Alex Zhou, chief executive of US-based e-commerce site Yamibuy, has built a business out of selling hard-to-find items for the Asian immigrant communities
When Alex Zhou, chief executive of US-based e-commerce site Yamibuy, first moved from the Chinese port city of Dalian to study at a university in the Midwestern state of Kansas, he never imagined that obtaining items like soy sauce or Chinese-style instant noodles would entail a two-hour drive on the Interstate-70 highway to Kansas City.
To Zhou, the college town of Manhattan, Kansas, seemed to be “in the middle of nowhere”, with almost no Asian supermarkets or restaurants serving authentic Chinese dishes. Even e-commerce had failed him – he found the Asian foodstuff selection available on Amazon to be limited, and what little there was on offer catered more to the tastes of locals than to the Chinese or other Asian immigrants.
“The closest mid-sized Asian supermarket was two hours away, there were no other options,” Zhou, 32, said in a phone interview. “I had friends who would drive hours every weekend to find specific Asian products or have authentic dim sum in a Chinese restaurant, and [that they were willing to do this] seemed crazy to me.”
The solution to an untapped market
The frustrations he faced in obtaining Asian foodstuff led Zhou to think of starting an e-commerce site to sell items to people who encountered similar problems – Asian students, professionals and immigrants who lived in the US but yearned for a taste of home.
Upon graduation from Kansas State University in 2013, Zhou moved to Los Angeles and forked out US$50,000 to start Yamibuy, with plans to stock Asian products that were hard to find in the US.
