Mad Unicorn is inspired by the real-life story of Komsan Saelee (named Santi in the series), the founder of Thailand’s first unicorn startup. Obviously, the makers have taken a lot of creative liberties, but even if 10 percent of the entire story was true, then I have to say that Saelee and his team did an incredible job. The man literally put in his blood, sweat and tears to build his empire from scratch. Coming from an underprivileged background, Santi had neither proper education nor any resources to start his own business. But what separated him from others was that he just refused to surrender to his circumstances. His hunger to learn and adapt was probably his biggest strength. So let’s find out what happened in the series and how Santi’s company raised more than a billion dollars.
Spoiler Alert
What was Santi’s business idea?
Santi worked at a sand mine, but he had dreams of conquering the world. There was this belief in him that one day he would earn so much money that his family could spend their entire lives without any sort of struggle. Santi didn’t share a very good relationship with his father, who had left the family for another woman. His father did give some money to his mother, but he made their lives a living hell. Santi had a younger brother, Thong, who didn’t do anything apart from getting into trouble with the law every other day. But it was not Thong’s fault; he was born into such an environment that it was almost impossible for him to do something worthwhile with his life. Santi knew that the onus of pulling his family out of their deplorable situation lay upon him. Santi bagged a deal for the owner of the sand mine, and the latter was so impressed that he promoted Santi to the position of manager. But Santi knew that he would have to start a business of his own if he really wanted to make it big. He asked his employer if he could borrow some money in bulk so that he could use it as capital for his business venture. The sand mine owner was a good man, and he gave Santi some money because he believed that the boy had the potential to make a name for himself.
Santi had realized that the e-commerce logistics market in Thailand needed an upgrade. Where the delivery fee that courier companies charged in China started from somewhere around 25 baht, in Thailand it was double the amount. Once, Santi was trying to send a jar of cookies back home for his mother, when he realized that the minimum amount that the delivery companies charged was 50 baht. He knew that if somehow he could lower that cost and find a way to do business like the Chinese, then he would be able to change the logistics game completely. But to do that, he needed support—somebody who had contacts and who knew the tricks of the trade.
Why did Kanin betray Santi?
Santi tried his hand at a lot of things, but he struck gold when Mr. Kanin, the founder of the Kanin Group, noticed him. Santi idolized the man, and he felt overwhelmed when Mr. Kanin decided to partner with him and invest in his business. Santi got in touch with a Chinese company called Easy Express, and he pitched them his idea of penetrating the Thai market. The only problem was that Easy’s operations lead, Xiaoyu, had certain assumptions about Santi because of what he had done with her back in the day. Santi had once borrowed Xiaoyu’s lipstick, as he wanted to impress a prospective client who was supposedly going to buy condos from him that he was desperate to sell. Xiaoyu knew that the man couldn’t be trusted, and to make matters worse, she found out that Santi had tried to manipulate the numbers to try to show there was a huge demand for courier delivery services. He had paid random people to go and stand in line at a local courier store, and when Xiaoyu found out about it, she didn’t appreciate it at all. Kanin wanted Santi to bribe Xiaoyu and give her an offer to come on board, but Santi realized that she was not the kind of woman who could be lured in by such ploys. He apologized to her, and that actually made Xiaoyu feel that Santi was not a bad man. So Easy came on board, and Santi got a 19 percent stake in the company. He was happy, as finally his dream of starting his own business was going to turn into a reality. But then something unprecedented happened that made him realize that he was wrong in blindly putting his trust in Kanin. Kanin made a deal with Peter, the head of Easy in China, and asked him to make his son, Ken, the CEO of the Thai venture. It was Xiaoyu who called Santi and informed him about it because she probably felt bad for the man. Santi’s stake was reduced to 1.9 percent, and he completely lost his mind, as he couldn’t imagine that Kanin could do something like that. Santi told Kanin to his face that he would start his own company, and he would make sure that he became the biggest logistics firm in the entirety of Thailand. Kanin just didn’t want the control to go into the hands of anybody else other than his family. No doubt the man had built his empire from scratch, but he was too insecure to let anybody else achieve the same feat.
How did Santi and Xiaoyu get an investor on board?
Santi had declared in front of Kanin that he would build his own company and meet him in the market. But the problem was that he didn’t have a team, and moreover, he didn’t have any clue how he would get an investor on board. The first person to come on board was a tech genius named Ruijie, who’d worked for Easy in China earlier and was one of Xiaoyu’s colleagues. It was Xiaoyu who had suggested his name to Santi, as she knew that the man, though erratic at times, was an exceptional talent. Xiaoyu was the second person to come on board, though her reason for joining Santi’s company was very different. Her father had been served a subpoena, and she needed around 100 million baht to repay the debt and save her childhood home. Though Ruijie was a bit skeptical about taking her, Santi had a soft corner for Xiaoyu. So eventually Xiaoyu became the COO of the company, and together with Santi, she started the search for an investor who believed their vision and saw the potential in what they were trying to do. The problem was that Easy was already doing what Santi wanted to with his company, and they had all the funding in the world, which gave them an edge. Santi wasn’t able to figure out what he could do differently in order to stand out from the crowd. One day, luckily, Xiaoyu got a call from a potential investor who wanted to meet the team and understand what they were trying to do. Alice Wang knew that Santi’s business venture had a lot of potential and that, without any investors, he didn’t have much of an option other than to accept her demands. It was during the meeting that Santi improvised and told Alice Wang that his company was different from Easy because he was going to deliver the goods at the customer’s doorstep. Xiaoyu was shocked, as she knew that if they wanted to do that, then their expenses would increase drastically. Up until then, a customer had to pick up their parcel from the company’s office, and what Santi had promised to do was unheard of. But his improvisation worked, and Alice Wang came on board and agreed to be the sole investor for Santi’s company, which he named Thunder Express.
Was Santi Able To Get His Revenge?
Ken, Kanin’s son, was definitely not ready to compete with Santi, who was in such a desperate situation that he could go to extreme lengths to keep his business afloat. Kanin would have been able to win the race had he focused on making his services better rather than trying to sabotage Santi’s business. Kanin was not the CEO of Easy on paper, but in reality he was the one who was pulling the strings. He told his son that poverty made a man do things that nobody could imagine. He told him to not underestimate what Santi was capable of doing. Kanin did everything to create obstacles in Santi’s way. Santi got frustrated by the unnecessary legal issues that he had to face, because apparently every other person in a position of power was on Kanin’s payroll. Santi got so irritated that he decided to launch a campaign where he was going to deliver parcels at just 19 baht. Kanin knew that Santi would make such an impulsive decision, and that was why he pushed him to the edge. Kanin was an experienced businessman, and he knew that, at that price point, Thunder Express wouldn’t be able to survive for more than 4-5 months in the market. Santi had to reduce the salaries of his employees, because of which a lot of people ended up leaving Thunder Express. A huge online retailer named Mally, who at that time was using the services of multiple logistics firms, decided to bring about a change in their policies. The management of Mally decided that on the 11th day of the 11th month, they would have a one-day sale for their customers. They told their logistics partner that whoever delivered the most amount of packages, without damaging them, would win the competition, which meant bagging a contract to become Mally’s exclusive delivery partner for a year. Xiaoyu had made it very clear that without more investment, they would not be able to last till the 11th month of the year. Things were not looking good for Thunder Express, but then Xiaoyu sold her shares, and whatever amount she got, she gave it to Santi to keep the business running. Santi felt guilty, he felt overwhelmed. He promised Xiaoyu that he would pay her back with interest, and assured her that he wouldn’t let her sacrifice go in vain. At the end of Mad Unicorn, Santi, Ruijie, and Xiaoyu realized that there was a mole in their team who was leaking everything they were working on to Ken and his father. Ken had gotten in touch with one of the employees from the tech team, Linux, and told her that he would pay the medical bills for her mother, who was suffering from a terminal illness, if she leaked information. Linux formatted the entire factory settings on the day of the sale, because of which the conveyor belt stopped functioning, and the team was forced to scan packages manually.
Apart from Linux, Ken had another mole in Santi’s team who informed him that Thunder Express was going to use airplanes to transport their packages since all the trucks were already booked by Ken. Ken did have a lot of potential, but he just burned his effort creating obstacles in Santi’s way. On the other hand, Santi just wanted to win. Even when nothing went in Santi’s favor, he was able to defeat Kanin and bag the one-year contract that made him Mally’s exclusive delivery partner. Santi took his revenge on Kanin, and the latter, surprisingly, accepted his defeat graciously. Kanin always knew that Santi had the potential to do what he had done years back, which was why he never underestimated him. He knew that hunger, scarcity of resources, pain, and grief were powerful motivators, and that they could push Santi to climb to the top of the food chain. In the end, Ken decided to leave his father’s organization, as he just didn’t like the entire experience he’d had. He had actually tried everything to win his father’s trust, but in the end, Peter, the investor, and even his father made him feel that he was good for nothing. I believe that Kanin didn’t do the right thing by asking his son to resort to unlawful means. If only Kanin would have told his son that failure and success were part of the game and that he shouldn’t lose heart till the time he knew that he gave his best, then I believe things would have turned out to be a bit different.
What happened between Santi and Xiaoyu?
If you know there could be no conclusion to a story, then you should take it to a beautiful turn and leave it there. Santi and Xiaoyu both had feelings for each other, but they knew nothing could happen between them. Xiaoyu was already spoken for. Actually, she would have gotten married already had her father’s house not been confiscated by the law enforcement authorities. But things changed after she joined Thunder Express. The company was like her baby, and she felt responsible for it, just like a mother would. Whenever two people spend so much time together, they start understanding each other better than anybody else. Xiaoyu didn’t realize when she grew fond of Santi. As for Santi, he was infatuated with her since day one. He knew that she was already dating a guy named Liam, which was why he never tried flirting with her and maintained a boundary. Santi wanted to leave the company after a couple of years, earn enough to get her childhood home back, and then spend the rest of her life with Liam. Unlike Santi, Xiaoyu didn’t want to conquer the world and build an empire. She wanted a simple and hassle-free life, but in the process she got a little distracted. Liam came to meet Xiaoyu, and he saw a very different side of her. He told her that if he had been a stranger, he would have felt that Xiaoyu and Santi were in love with each other. Santi would have loved if Liam’s words would have turned into reality, but he knew that it was not his destiny. Xiaoyu did go back to Liam, but she told him very truthfully that she had developed some inexplicable feelings for Santi over a period of time. She gave Liam a free hand to decide if he wanted to stay with her or not. Liam proved why a girl like Xiaoyu loved him so much. After their fight, Liam never went back to his hometown, but he took another apartment in the same building without telling Xiaoyu. He was worried about her, though he didn’t want to bother her with his presence. I won’t deny that I felt a little bad when Santi and Xiaoyu didn’t end up together. At the end of Mad Unicorn, Santi went to meet Xiaoyu, as he wanted to pay her back with interest. The eyes said what words couldn’t. It was evident by their body language and the kind of love they had for each other. They were happy that they had made it in their lives but also sad that they couldn’t take their relationship forward. But then, Santi was grateful about the fact that he got to know such a beautiful person.
Santi not only took revenge on Mr. Kanin, but Thunder Express became the first unicorn startup of Thailand. Santi proved to the world that one could make their own luck only if they had the persistence, courage, and determination to keep chasing their dreams.
