Thailand’s First Unicorn!

On its surface, Thailand’s first unicorn, Flash Express, doesn’t seem to have any “wow” factor behind it. Frankly, I don’t know “enough” about the underlying business model just yet but it does have some interesting “features” of potential disruptors:

- The fact that it doesn’t have “wow” factor is in itself, a characteristic of potential disruptor!

- It’s able to provide a service that’s “not as good” as the norm. My experience and others in my circle, are not very good. Late packages, inability to track packages accurately etc.

- Given the above, I don’t think we (me and my circle of friends!) are the target customers!

- Very likely the “customer group” for Flash Express, is folks who just want to get things from point A to point B, as cheaply as possible. This group won’t care about tracking, where are my packages (probably because such customers would have way too many packages “in flight” etc

- If Flash’s trajectory continue, they will eventually be able to develop all of those capabilities and might eventually be “good enough” for us too (we are used to FedEx, DHL, Kerry). This depends on what their “secret sauce” is, if any, other than cost cutting.

- Cost cutting isn’t in itself bad, it’s just replicable.

- Regardless, the “network” effect may also come into play if Flash’s users base is considerably larger than its competitors that, Flash may be too big that others won’t be able to compete on price.

Again, don’t know enough about the underlying business model just yet!