B2B
Product Development & Industrial Design Expert
Consumer Trends Expert
Entrepreneur
Rick Louie has spent his career doing two things exceptionally well: spotting opportunities before they're obvious, and building the operational machinery to capture them. As Co-Founder of Rest and Co-Founder of MTC Global, he brings more than a decade of global sourcing, supply chain, and e-commerce experience to a brand that has redefined what sleep products can look like when quality and transparency aren't negotiable.Rick was born and raised in Hong Kong, and immigrated to Vancouver, Canada with his family. He was assigned to a school in Renfrew Heights based on his neighborhood where he was introduced to a classmate named Andy Nguyen by a teacher who said Andy was the nice one who'd show him around. They formed a lasting friendship, and 30-plus years later, they're still building things together.Entrepreneurship was never a career choice for Rick—it was just how he was wired. His parents owned a restaurant, and he grew up watching them build something from scratch. When he briefly attended architecture school after graduating from Simon Fraser University, he lasted less than a year before realizing that sitting at a computer running cost estimates wasn't the life he wanted. He had no idea what came next. The answer came at a Chinese trade fair in the mid 2000s, where he spotted an opportunity that most North Americans had missed: Canadian retailers were phasing out plastic bags, but there weren't many reusable alternatives on the market yet. Rick started importing customized bags and selling them directly to grocery stores. What looked like a niche business was really a masterclass—in importing, in B2B sales, in sourcing direct from manufacturers in China. It was the foundation everything else would be built upon.When e-commerce began to take off, Rick made the pivot without hesitation. He launched his first e-commerce store selling men’s clothing, and ran it entirely solo: setting up the website, handling media buys, writing copy, managing customer service, picking and packing orders. It was exhausting, but it was also invaluable. Running every function of a business yourself means you understand the full ecosystem—not just what each piece does, but how they all connect. That understanding is one of Rick's most durable competitive advantages.When drop-shipping began to commoditize, Rick was already thinking about what came next. He wanted a real brand—something ownable, something built to last. Andy reached out at exactly the right moment. Together with Mr. Zhou, whose manufacturing relationships in China were unmatched, the three entrepreneurs saw an opening: a cooling fabric that had gone viral in China, an underserved audience of hot sleepers, and a supply chain that let them iterate in weeks instead of months. Rest was the result.Rick's decade-plus in global sourcing shapes how Rest builds products in ways competitors can't easily replicate. Most bedding brands sit several layers removed from their factories—relying on intermediaries who add cost, reduce transparency, and slow down iteration. Rest connects directly to the manufacturer. That means the quality claims on the label are backed by lab reports. It means the product can be improved in weeks, not quarters. And it means when Rick says something is the best, he can prove it.Today, Rick operates at a strategic and operational level—building the 80-person-plus team, establishing processes, and making sure the organization has the infrastructure to scale. The hardest part of that evolution, he'll admit, was learning to trust other people to do the work. "I never thought anyone could do a better job than me." He's since learned that a focused specialist can, and the company runs better because of it.Rick currently lives in Vietnam, where he still finds time to play basketball at least once a week. He's a new father, which has added new meaning to the idea of getting quality sleep—even if getting eight hours of it remains aspirational. His favorite part of any given workday is reading Rest customer reviews. When a customer dealing with a health condition says the Evercool® comforter helped them sleep through the night, he's reminded that they're not just selling bedding. They're making a real difference in customers’ lives.LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rlouie/
