WHAT'S IN MY PORTFOLIO

What's In My Portfolio: Richard Xia

21 Mar 2023

Richard Xia is the CEO and Co-Founder of Novelship

“I’m the CEO and Co-Founder of Novelship, Asia’s fastest growing online marketplace for 100% authentic, limited-edition sneakers, apparel, and collectibles. Launched in October 2018, Novelship is a safe ecosystem for buyers and sellers in the resale marketplace to transact authentic products, including exclusive merchandise.  


(Related: What's In My Portfolio - Alan Kueh, Co-founder, Memotics)

Our next goal is to enhance the Novelship community. More than just a platform for buying and selling sneakers, we want to bring people together to discuss all things collectible- and sneaker-related. Part of our expansion plans also include launching parallel products around what we offer to users. We’re continuing to work closely with our in-house team to develop more products for our customers. As we continue to bring the Novelship experience to more users, we’re also exploring expansion into at least one more geographical market by the end of 2023.   

At the advent of Covid-19, there were multiple changes that drastically impacted the way businesses were carried out. However, our team persevered and constantly adapted with the volatile situation, identifying opportunities along the way. This resulted in more than 80 times growth since 2020 and expanding into several geographical markets. 
 
Driven by Novelship’s passionate team that strives to better understand our consumers' needs, we have expanded our product offerings tremendously and are on track to continuously improving the streetwear experience for all our users across the region.  

Going forward, we hope that disruptive innovation in our industry will make people sit up and notice what we’re doing. We are working with certain designers, to not only develop innovative new designs, but also develop products within the Web3.0 space. 
 
We will also be disrupting the definition of what ‘hype’ is. There are several ways streetwear can be used to express individuality and we are currently developing a process that will empower every user to choose the products, ultimately redefining what the word ‘hype’ means to suit every individual.

At the moment, we are in the midst of working with several brands directly, with more exciting products coming up in 2023 to enable and empower our users.”