Daniel Kerr, founder of OpenCart, one of the world’s top e-commerce software suppliers, saw a market gap in the technology of e-commerce and decided to make it his niche. A seasoned software engineer, Kerr started working on his own e-commerce software in 2007, before launching the start-up in 2012.
How did you set up OpenCart?
I was working as a software engineer for a battery company when I realised how much the technology of e-commerce was outdated. No one had updated the technology for a number of years, so I decided to develop my own.
For five years, I worked in a full-time job during the day and on my own project after work. I completely destroyed my health; I was eating my meals in front of the computer, and going to bed at one in the morning. In the first five years, I did not make any money from it, but two years ago things finally took a turn for the better, and so I decided to quit my job and launch OpenCart. I am from Britain, but I decided to run OpenCart in Hong Kong because my wife is from here.
What do you think of the start-up culture in Hong Kong?
The last time I went to a start-up meeting, I noticed that most of the companies there were started by people who had immigrated to Hong Kong and were taking advantage of the manufacturing capabilities of the mainland.
I think it is great that Hong Kong is so close to the mainland and is able to make use of both its potential and its huge market. From the point of view of OpenCart, the mainland has a huge market for e-commence and consumers take to the idea of online shopping really well. We are currently the number one e-commerce software supplier in China, according to figures from PayPal last year.