22 YEAR OLD MAKES $1,000,000 PER MONTH SELLING ONLINE - Alex Chen

Entrepreneurship is really you versus you. There's literally nothing stopping you from achieving anything you want in life except yourself. Once you realize that, you'll see that the whole world's for your taking. One of my lowest moments in my life probably when I was through the exit process. This is what I suppose kind of blew you up made over 30 million dollars for it. 30 million dollars from a football came on unlike the news, bro, from there we sold out everything. Notification, notifuteil, seal seal, and just went crazy. This e-commerce business model actually works. So all the people we're talking online about this, they're not talking bullshit. That's all I needed to know. This model work. Like if you chase something that means it's running away from you. Instead of chasing money, you have to attract it. I always wanted to become a millionaire when I was 18. Unfortunately, I didn't hit it. I became it when I was 19. I went from 10k a day to 15, to 20, to 30, to 40, to 5 every single day. And then I went to 300 a day. Alex, your whole time doing entrepreneurship. You're 22 years old right now. What's the greatest lesson you've learned that you could teach to the people watching today? Wow. We're merely diving into it. We'll dive it straight into it. My biggest lesson, Brian, for learning so many. But if I have to name one of them, is that entrepreneurship is really you versus you. Like I have to remind myself every single day about this as well, because I tend to forget about it. Like you look at your environment, you're on social media, you're on Twitter, you're looking at other people, and everyone convinces you online that someone is stopping you. Either their family is stopping them, the government is stopping them, their environment, their friends. But if I actually think about it, there's literally nothing stopping you from achieving anything you want in life, except yourself. Yeah. Okay, so I have to remind myself that it's you versus you. And once you realize that you'll see that the whole world's for your taking. That's it, man. That's it. And you've been absolutely smashing it. And you have to get introduction to yourself. I mean, I wanted to bring the bull here with me, because this is what I suppose kind of blew you up and I you made it. So before we come into your whole backstory, talk to me about this bright bull and what it actually is. So your hand, we have a bright soccer ball, a football we say in Europe, right? Yeah, football, yeah. That's where I also got a lot of controversy on TikTok as well, whereas I soccer ball football. But yeah, long story short, this is the brand which I started since I was 15. Oh, it's 15. Okay, so you was like seven years old? Oh, not seven years old. Sixteen, seven years ago. I was 16. I was 16 when I started. Yeah. But yeah, when you hand you have a bright ball, it's made me, I did very well with the ball. Okay, this is like one of the parks, the main parks we've been selling. Bright is the brand is called. But I started with the actual with the football and made over 30 million dollars for it. And 30 million dollars from a football. Yeah, just one ball. That's crazy. I know, honestly, we sell, we sold like America footballs, we sell basketballs, but I would say 90% come from this football. And so this is a product you made. You just don't like your drop ship from anywhere else. It's a product you made. Actually, it's actually funny because most people actually in Econ, they start out without any stock, right? They just see something I express and they just start selling it. I actually did the other way around. How I started with this park is literally, I was scrolling on Instagram. One day, I was already in Econ, we could talk a bit about it in a minute, but I was selling all kinds of COVID products, but nothing really worked out. So at some point, I was just scrolling on Instagram, and I saw this ad of Rollstar. Lichy on the page Rollstar. I know Rollstar is not that popular anymore, but yeah, back then, 2020, like everywhere. Like it's the Hoot Fights, everyone's on Rollstar. So I was just scrolling, I was in the mall, I remember. And I already realized that because before that, I was selling on platforms, like bull.com, that's like the Dutch Amazon, the Dutch Amazon, and in the Netherlands, like Amazon was not that big. So I realized, I was selling on this platform, but I realized that I don't really have any control over anything I'm doing, because like some motherfuckers could just wake up and just undercut me with $1, and I don't have any sales anymore. Okay, my extension. So I realized, you know what, I need my own website, I need my own brand. That was always my dream. I knew if I have control over something, I can skilled so much further. And it was also kept towards how much I could earn on these platforms. Yeah. So I saw that on Rollstar, I saw like a guy in the U.S. It was called Hologier or something, this big U.S. brands, and they were just running an ad of a guy playing with a basketball. It was a glowing basketball. Exactly as this one. I'm actually sending that version as well. It was a basketball. But I was like, I didn't even think of selling it. Like, oh, I want to buy it myself. Literally, I was like, bro, this is this boss crazy. Because we were sometimes basketballing outside. I was like, bro, this could be so cool to bring to my friends, right? And impress them. So I was looking to the website. I was like, I came home. So I just saved it. I did nothing with it. After a couple of months, my frustration grew. My frustration grew with the platform. So I was like, you know what? Let me find something which I can sell myself. I have my own control over my own brand. So I went to my Instagram again. I remembered, oh, I have these glowing balls. So what I just did is I scrolled on. I went to Google first thing I did. I served like glowing football. I typed in some keywords. And I couldn't find anything. Except this US brand. But I was from the Netherlands. I'm from a very small town in the Netherlands. And I realized, okay, nobody is actually selling this in Europe, neither in the UK. Like nobody was selling it there. I was just one guy in the US. But I couldn't believe it. I was like, this is cool. Like, I actually like this part. I love it. Like, I would want to buy it myself. Like, why is nobody selling this? Obviously, there were some Ali Express sellers. There were some guys were selling it on a low skill. But nobody was actually doing it as a real brand. So that's where I saw the gap and opportunity during COVID also, it was around May of 2020. This was. So I already got some experience with selling COVID-related parks on platforms. But I've never really started my own website. So first thing I did was literally, I just went to YouTube. I didn't buy any course. I didn't do any coaching. First thing I did went to YouTube. I typed in like Shopify tutorial. I got this one US guy, shout out to him. Dan Ves, I believe, was his name. I don't think it's around anymore. But he had like a three hour course, which was complete for free. Explaining everything from 8 to 10, like a full tutorial. Yeah, full tutorial, how to buy your supply chain, like how to buy your products from Ali Baba, start your shop by store, run ads, everything. It was free. It was crazy. So I just watched that. I followed all the steps and I made so many mistakes. Okay, to get back to your question, I actually started, like most people would actually be dropshipping it, right? I started with buying one sample for my supply in China. I found it through Ali Baba. And bro, but there was like right now, you can see like a fee 10 or something of the ball. Like the V1 looks way different. Oh, really? Okay. Like it was got damaged very easily. It was like a different kind of glowing. And I went back and forward supplier, got one sample in. And then the sample wasn't good. Had to wait a couple of weeks again. I made so many mistakes in there, but that was a bit of the journey in there. Just to break down on that, how much would you say you spent on samples? Actually, I have a picture in my notes right now. I have a picture, like I literally, because I made a couple of thousand dollars on the part I sold before. So I started like that, bro. From literally nothing I started, but the only couple of hundred dollars I started. And I built my bank account up by just sending COVID rated products and reaching some hives here and there. And I literally, I have this picture in my notes. I started with $500 in my bank account. $500, I put this budget to this. And I spent like a couple of hundred dollars. I think $300 on samples going back and forth. I had to pay for like a DHL coming in and out. I had to pay for like the import tax. And I almost spent broke. And I only had a couple of dollars left to $100 left to buy some stocks. So I literally started with only 10 pieces. That was the first batch I bought. 10 pieces, just 10 pieces. 10 pieces I bought and I sold them. Okay, there was like a big struggle to sell them. We can dive deep into the minute. But yeah, from 10, I went to 20 to 30, 40, literally. I didn't know about like this whole drop-in model was very unfamiliar with me. I have never heard of it before. I was like, there were not that many guys who were doing that back in the days. So as a guy who started essentially with $500 or less than that, I really want to understand your motivation for wanting to start a brand. And to come to that, we've got to now come back to the whole back story. So it talked to me about your whole upbringing. What was your family life like? What was your financials around you like? What was your whole life like? So as I said before, I grew up in a very small town in Netherlands. And like, she's always in places, is that something you want to go? No, like he was from Amsterdam. I believe close to Amsterdam. He was also the other side of Netherlands. Netherlands is not that big. So most towns are small, but I was from a relatively small town. Yeah. And since I was born basically, so I'm ethnically Chinese. And classically, as Chinese people usually have, my parents had a restaurant. They started off when I was born. They already had a restaurant. So my mom is also Chinese. They're both Chinese, but my mom is born in Netherlands. Okay. So she's native and my dad is from China. So I have to 16 years, he still can speak a language. Yeah. Classic Asian people. But since I was born, they had like a small takeaway Chinese restaurant. Literally, it was just very small. Okay. So I grew up only around like Chinese restaurants, this whole environment of a Chinese restaurant. We literally lived next to the Chinese restaurant. So I was there. Since I could walk, I was there. I can remember only being there. I think since I was six or seven, I started working there. Behind the counter, just packing stuff, sometimes taking some orders. Literally as like this small Chinese job. Okay. Like I always wasn't that tall, so I was even smaller than. And since I was 12, my parents decided to go bigger. And it's also the same moment where I started going to high school. And my parents decided to go, like from this small takeaway restaurant, they wanted to go to an all-you-can-eat restaurant. It was like a buffet place. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was also in a city nearby. And this business was 10 times bigger. Literally 10 times as bigger. They, I remember very vividly. Like my parents, I talked to them afterwards about this wall. They literally went most all-in with their money again, with starting a bigger restaurant because they wanted to have more ambitions. Yeah. And we still have this restaurant to this day. Oh really? And yeah, yeah, yeah. So I worked, so that's where from 11, 12, they started it. And I started working there. And bros, literally started washing dishes because like, it's not a good look for, because I was very small, like for a child's stand outside and was like a little bit more classic and more high-class than a normal takeaway restaurant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I started this as a dishwasher. Yeah. And yeah, my back still works from that shit. I'm not gonna lie. But I got the hernia there. Because at the same time, I was going to the gym. Yeah. And actually, I didn't start going to the gym yet. At 11 or 12, I, because they started an all-you-can-eat place. I got fat as fuck really okay so you'll eat all the food bro like I was I was a little bit chubby before yeah some people say I'm still chubby in my my my cheeks but anyways but from the from the from that moment that all you can eat but I started to start eat everything because bro I thought I was I guess I was there every single day so I just bro every single night and during the work time cookies and candy and they just like my parents were too busy because they just opened and it was so busy every single day I bro remember so vividly was so fucking busy but obviously was good okay and from that point I actually never got paid okay I never got paid I always worked yeah this was the greater good yeah and yeah I started diswashing from there I went to the to behind the counter and started taking orders we also did a bit of takeaway then I started to take the phone and at some point I was just general manager doing everything and it was always for the greater goods you know I never got paid so and I learned discipline in there so to answer your question my biggest lesson I think a takeaway from that was that my parents since because since I was basically since I have conscious my parents already had a restaurant I learned this this work ethic from them okay that no matter how you feel our restaurants open seven days a week yeah so we just have to show up that does have to show up yeah exactly and I it's same time I started going to high school my parents started like my my friends now back then had like every weekend they had like a house party that their parties and I I always was the type of guys that like guys I cannot come because I have to work it was set a day was this year's day was weekend and I was I always had so much I always had so much foam over was crazy I was like bro this this setting with this message this happened but this girl's here I was like fuck and I always have to work I saw the teenager boy once when he when someone hears that this goes around or when something something fun going on bro I had so much foam and I always like once I got 16 or something like a 15 16 like people started to drink and I was I also started to drink and that was every weekend there was a party so I always have to work around 10 I just went on my bike I took all the leftovers sushi with me and I went to the party I was there so it was great times but yeah that's why I learned most of my work ethic and I actually rolled into 2020 2020 is when I was 15 and there was the first moment where I actually I realized already back in the days that I didn't want to lift this normal average life I was in high school I was doing the highest I don't know in in other countries how that's called but I would basically do the highest grade high school so but I wasn't the smartest guy like I've always been a smart guy but I realized once I got into that higher a higher level high school that I wasn't the smartest guy in the room and I had to actually study to get a okay great just like enough to enough to pass but like all the guys around me bro they didn't even study and they just bro easily got an apron so I always had to learn and not to study but I was I always realized that I wasn't meant for this normal going to the normal route going to university and then I going to the normal nine to five but for me was either I'm gonna start a restaurants I'm gonna either take over my parents' restaurant and just work in like the restaurant business yeah and like I'd rather do that and work seven days we can at least drive it drive at B&W or Mercedes yeah then then just go into a normal university and live a normal life because I never I always like kind of felt felt I don't know what the word for that is but I didn't feel attracted to that okay like the normal student life like I actually never I all I realized in right now that's why I don't party anymore I don't drink anymore that I actually don't like that life and most of the students in the lands they live that student life where they like drink party and shit like that and they don't really achieve anything so at 15 I was on a bike ride home actually from school from high school and it was like before COVID so this December 2019 before 2020 even one of my best friends who was still good friends went to this day he told me on his bike ride home he told me like but there's this Chinese guy online he was also Chinese and he's Dutch and he's talking about selling on like Dutch Amazon and back then he was selling courses by the way but who knew about that shit so I was like bro tell me more about that guy so he told me about he sent me the video when I got he sent me the video and when I got home first thing I did I watched that video it was like a 30 minute video of of like this Chinese Dutch guy who literally started like just gave a tutorial of 30 minutes how to sell products on the Dutch Amazon hmm so I was like bro this is like it something just clicked for me was like immediately like Eureka moment I was like bro I should do this yeah so I didn't even doubt about it first moment I the first thing I did was I started the research online okay I watched more videos I checked AliExpress I was like just familiar platforms but one issue which I stumbled upon because if I wanted to sell on that platform I needed like a registered business okay in UK like a LP right yeah in the lands like you need like an Amon saga yeah so prepare it I think yeah yeah yeah so because I was 15 I couldn't get it so I a lot of hurdles we didn't have chat with you back in the day so I just had to Google stuff I know guys are now it is very spoiled but you know we didn't have that and I realized that literally I could just I could open a business on like for my own name with my parents a permission but I could just use my private bank kind of stuff so it took me a couple weeks to figure that out and after that I saw the first opportunity I saw the first opportunity which was like airports were so hot everyone had airports not the apples pro yet but just the normal ones okay like a toothbrush one yeah yeah you know what I mean so but obviously these these were very highly priced and most people couldn't afford them so there was this ice there was this rip off airports which people start selling online and start to come up it was like it was called like I 11 or I I ate or something I don't know if you remember these but I remember a copy of airports I remember my cousin and they had like the police I was one blue one red and he's got flash in the stuff actually like this police thing on it and it like this button on it they look very big yeah they had the same function as airports so I started coming up and the first thing I did was literally just go to Ali Baba so I knew about that platform I found it also on the tutorial and I started to look up for these airports but I didn't really start selling them right away on the Dutch platform on the Dutch Amazon I just started selling them on like a Dutch version of eBay and I just bought 20 pieces 20 pieces started listing them on there and literally I have still have all the pictures on my phone where I made this this a picture of the airports I call the cheapest deals that's how I call it okay that's his name yeah cheapest deals I listed on there but probably made so many mistakes because on that platform you have to like pay to come on top yeah it was eBay it was not really a a normal selling platform was just people selling just their garbage online and I actually made a loss on that and made a loss on that I realized how this but I did learn how this supply chain worked like getting the products from Ali Baba talking to the supplier talking English with them and then getting the products in having to pay import text which I didn't know about and yeah but eventually these these airports actually still in my home but I know it's still in my home I sold like 10 of them and from there actually it was I sold that until like February of 2020 that's where my same friend who told me about this these these about Econ about this guy online he said bro have you seen that this he literally faced at me I was at home I was studying for a test or something he called me he said bro there's this this this this virus which is coming up in China and like I think only the Chinese news knew about it so I was very very early like we're talking about the beginning of February so nobody really knew about it yet so he said bro I think this is gonna go crazy because like it was spreading very fast in China everywhere it was well obviously we're talking about the COVID virus in here yeah we have to probably beat it out yeah probably yeah but anyways um he said bro you know what is a genius idea we have to sell mouth mask but I thought bro that's the best idea ever correct me if you don't you know more than me but I'm already in saying that just a lot of people it regardless of the virus a lot of people in China do with like the the face masks and stuff anyway I think it was it was fashion before so obviously I never grew up in China but I know about the Chinese coach a lot of guys they were like the black one as a fashion I know I I think before COVID a lot of guys and and and and woman guys were where was a face mask before but now I was stereotype right but from that point yeah I I said to him bro this is genius so first thing we did is we literally went to our local uh uh local store okay it was just action as cults like a big store in the Netherlands yeah we went there and they sold these mouth mask these these uh but they were for construction yeah it was not meant to be like non meant for COVID it's his logical structure mass so we bought like a hundred of them they were like 20 sets of pieces like 10 sets of pieces yeah about all of them take them yeah and I had one friend who could do graphic designing so what he did also this friend from high school he put like this picture he we found online he literally put like corona proof on the mouth mask yeah we were early so we listened them on there for like five bucks a piece we were like okay this genius on the Dutch platform a Dutch Amazon and in the beginning we didn't have much sales but until this moment where in Italy I know it was the first case which came up in Europe the first case came up one guy got COVID there bro it came on unlike the the news in the Netherlands yeah because our members were spreading from like China all the way started to go west yeah west and then first came was in Italy it from there bro came on unlike the news bro from there we sold out everything the one this is all gone five from five bucks per piece but all gone we know like what the actual fuck from that point we like okay how do we actually gonna send this because bro it was just mouth like it was in one box yet like 20 pieces of mouth mask they were just construction and I was like bro how am I gonna send this shit so and I'll just hit them in my home right I got these orders in so for the next thing we did as two genius 15 year old kids we went to the same store and we bought sandwich bags like like literally the the bags we will bring the food yeah yeah the sealed box So yeah, we just bought these like a five cents a piece and we put the mouth mask in that sandwich bag And we put like a label on it. We just sent it out there five bucks a piece. Yeah, from there first case in Netherlands We still managed to get some mouth masks from the same store like a couple of hundred of them and we started listing them for like 15 bucks a piece. It was crazy for five for five pieces. We put it on like 50 bucks. Mm-hmm Bro, first case hit in a Netherlands and we were selling that in Netherlands, right? So bro from there went crazy. I remember like Notification notification notification seal seal seal and just went crazy We sold out the same day and we couldn't get them anywhere after that points, bro Alibaba was sold out everyone's trying to get the handle mouth mask And I was just the first person like actually setting that and catching that hype In there before it was actually like before anyone anyone got caught that trend and in the end like we made like seven hundred bucks per person It was it wasn't like yeah, but Watson for us to 50 year old kids in high school, bro We felt like kings yeah, we said like roll. We're gonna go eat to like the most expensive restaurant that you're learning immediately and then restaurant starts to close Yeah, right. So it went crazy to it is interesting because you know in that period there covered Corona virus So everyone will call it all those words which are coming to a bleep up There are so many people who became millionaires or they learn how to become millionaires, right because you'll have People who were let's just say in the 20s 30s who already knew what to do from the get-go They already knew how to set up the shut the store make it efficient and print millions, right? They knew that and then you have people like yourself the youngsters who thought I could call this the opportunity where we can discover more about Econus so that might have been your first sort of take and yes You may have only made seven hundred dollars per person But it's led you to the business that's enjoying now. It's giving you the whole fundamentals and in a time like that You know, that's where as they say literally a millionaires are made so exactly if I knew what I know right now I could have probably made millions of with this mouth mask. It's great. I would have got bought every single I would have built my own factory in China about to sell them. Yeah, and everyone needed them So it was crazy and from there actually to that like from from those mouth masks I started this my first days of success. I saw this shit like buying stuff from China actually bought them in Netherlands But like this e-commerce business model. Mm-hmm actually works. Mm-hmm So all the people were talking online about this and like they actually they're not talking bullshit Yeah, and that's all I needed to know this model works and from there Because I like I actually fell in love with sketching hype and doing this like just sketching trends Mm-hmm. I saw this trend where the gym started to close down as well in the Netherlands actually crazy that we had to use a QR code to go to the gym But like that's a different story. Yeah, most people forgot about that But from that point I started to sell at home fitness bands at home pooler bars made a couple of thousand dollars with that And that's where I came to the point where at like 15 end of 15 where I started to start bright Mid 2020 is that because you're kind of ready in the sports sector with all the pull-up bars of fitness bars and stuff Actually, if you look back at it, it makes sense, but I didn't think about like that. Okay. It's it's just Yeah, I just naturally went like that before we come to bright. I want to kind of understand what your Motivation was and I don't know already asked that but I want to find out what your first taste of money is because at the end of the day We will do these things as young kids because we want money, you know We see a Lamborghini and stuff like that when we think all right cool. I want to start a business because I want money No one starts a business because they're like oh, I want to change people's lives And then the day you start a business when you're young is because you want money What was your first taste you had of money not necessarily through yourself? But you might have seen a Dutch guy around driving a Lamborghini. What was that first moment that you can't really for? I need money in life I mean, when I was like like since I started to get a phone you get social media rights Tiktok wasn't that big back then you had like musically and stuff but Instagram was huge, right? Yeah, and you had these like Dutch influences. They bought their Lambo like Looking back at it now. I start to understand the business model why they did it They just went all in on their car probably took a loan and everything but besides that I was like brown and Lambo as well Like just like you're saying I was so money driven. I actually still money driven But like I wanted to flex like that's the honest answer like I wanted to have something like which other people couldn't get Yeah, I wanted to buy the Lambo and I remember so vividly. I was literally in my parents house in my bedroom Just looking like putting my chair to the back Literally visualizing my hands on the Lamborghini. And like now I have a Lamborghini which actually Like pretty disappointing to be honest, but that's a different story Let's comment to our story. Would you mean it's disappointing you bought a Lambo old age? I bought a Lambo at 22, 22, 21, 21 actually I know I bought it in Dubai I will hear which one you bought the same same color as the hurricane. Well, like same colors is this the ball Which one should I show it to you in a minute? It's I'll just bring it. Yeah, okay. It's here. So why is it disappointing to be honest? The Lamborghini at 21 years old like I already the thing is I already knew before and because I like I bought it pretty late in my career It was not the first days of money which I had and I started by a Lambo I could have bought it like three years ago probably but I On purpose extended myself buying that because I knew that it wasn't gonna really gonna bring me happiness because I already saw that All this traveling all this luxury the five star hotels and stuff. I was already taking like very expensive cars It's just as taxi or to which I for right and I realized and I said Lambo's before that I like it just you get used to it Right and I realized that that The money it came by happiness, okay, but but only to a certain extent. Yeah, and and it came by pleasure Okay, and pleasure is not the same as it's like being fulfilled in life and I realized that okay if I buy this Lambo It's it I already knew it was not gonna make me happy and it's a very freeing feeling actually for me that Before I bought it I already knew I'm gonna probably gonna use to it and now it's just in my garage And I only drive it like one one day a week Yeah, that's when I drive the thing. I don't lose it. Yeah, so it was pretty disappointing, but I Know that it would strive me to work harder. This money motivation is a very I think it's a great motivator because it's something Which is goes outside of yourself and it's something to prove to other people I can actually do this and now I want to Rolls-Roy's Now I want to Bugatti and it even strives me further, but it's a very freeing feeling to know that it's not I Know I don't expect it to make me happy, okay? The beginning was the greatest lesson you've learned right I'm gonna ask you a question here now Which is kind of unpowerful slightly different as well. What's the biggest lesson you've learned about money? I think if you chase money If you chase something that means it's running away from you and I realize like the moments where I'm desperate because a lot of times I have been drafted in my career That's why I noticed that things start just start to go hard and it's not only about money But it's about literally less than about anything alive Mm-hmm if you're chasing anything or desperate after something it means running away from you So you you have to work harder to get it and I noticed that if you have to instead of chasing money you have to attract it Okay, you have to become the person in your mind first Which will you want to become to the level which you want to become and then you can become a new pocket when I mean with that is The I always wanted to become a millionaire when I was 18 Okay, that was my goal unfortunately I didn't hit it. I became it when I was 19 But I remember it's very very vivid. It was I was 18 and I wrote down literally on my notebook I had my notebook in front of me. I was like why am I not a millionaire yet like I know all the I know so many Millionaires around me because I went to like Luke Baumart event as well. That's why I started to meet him and I was around by so many Millionaires, but yeah, I started exactly Connect connect but anyways, I had like like I had so many mirrors around me But I only had like maybe a couple of hundred came a bank account and was going up and down at the reinvested stock I was like bro, why am I not a millionaire literally I was in my parents still my parents who I was riding down like I know I know everything I like what I have to do. I have a business I know people who have done it. So it's proven for me. So why am I still not a millionaire? So I wrote down for me and and The first thing I wrote down was apparently I am not a millionaire in my mind yet. Otherwise, I would have it in my bank account So I was like I have to become a millionaire in my mind first Okay, first time when you experience okay, I need to take my mindset Back then we don't think about mindset. You just think about making money So when you heard this term of okay, I need to become a millionaire in my mind What was your first thoughts? We think in I started to actually buy a book was one that Luke recommended to me was called the magic of thinking big Okay, you guys were listening is a great book and in there they they describe a very simple concept Basically, like if you're gonna put your mind to anything anyways like put it to something big Okay, because if you put your mind to something big even if you land among the middle Okay, you still have achieved more than you originally thought like the 10x rule from Gregg. Yeah, don't write And from the after I read that book I was like mid-2022 Just before the World Cup before like you for This was also I went to the first capital club event with Luke I met him there and after I read that book I was like I have to think bigger like I'm just Caging myself. I'm boxing myself up. I'm having a limited mindset. I'm not I have this sort of imposter syndrome that I feel like deep inside If I really deep inside feel I feel like I'm not worth the millionaire status yet So I went back to my notebook. I was like okay. I have to read that book. I have to set bigger goals So this is where I literally bought a whiteboard before that I didn't really set goals I just had like sometimes I just wrote out. I want to do 100k would be nice But from that point I bought a whiteboard and I actually put on there because in the book they described as well You need to have set you need to set goals Because imagine yourself going into your car. You don't set your navigation You can land in Dubai you can go to UK you can land in the water like you have to know where you want to drive Do you have to know your destination? So from that lesson. I wrote it down. Okay In that book they said as well you have to think big our first was like okay What am I gonna put on there because my record month around 10 was like 400k, but it was last Q4 So at that moment I was doing around two 300k a month. I was outside of Q4 right so I was like you know What the million dollar month that that's something which I just dream about one if I can hit one million dollars in a month That would just be like out of this world because back in the days you have to realize right now there guys would doing 10 million dollars a month, everyone is flexing their screenshots, right? But back in the days, bro, there was nobody publicly with their brand doing like one million dollars a month. There were a couple of guys also in the UK, I believe, we're doing it, but like they were top of the game, like the gods in the game, right? If I can do one million dollars with these balls, they'll be crazy. So I put one million dollars on the whiteboard. Just fuck it. Just uncomfortable as fuck. I just put it on there. And I started to do the math. So I was still in my bed. I was grabbing my calculator. One million dollars a month means I have to do $33,000 a day, which is like more than $1,500 an hour. So I have to sell like, I have to sell like five, I do 500 to 1,000 orders per day. Like, that's crazy. Like I couldn't, I didn't believe I could do it. Okay, I was like, bro, that's so much. How could I do it? Because my record day was like 15K, but it was 10. And I was only doing like between five and 10. Yeah. So it was like, bro, that's crazy. But, you know what? The great thing is about sending big goals, because I put one million dollars on that goal list. I realized with what I'm currently doing is not gonna happen. It's just unrealistic. Okay, I was, I'm always very objective to myself. Like doing 1,000 orders in just, because I was selling with Breitzport, still running that brand. I was only selling it in Netherlands and Belgium and in Germany. That's it. Just three countries. Just three countries, maybe a little bit of Scandinavia Sweden as well. But that was it. And I realized like, for me already doing like $10,000 per day in these small countries, I literally saw my product. When I went outside sometimes, my friends, they just sent this ball to me. Like when there's a kid who had a ball. Everyone in the neighbor had seen my ads and has seen this part eight. So I realized, okay, if I really wanna go to $1,000 a month, I have to expand. I have to make bigger moves to reach these bigger goals. Okay, and I was the first move which I made was okay. I have to scale internationally. Okay, like, okay, it's nice. I'm selling in Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, but this is comfort zone. I have to go into UK, because I did research and there was nobody really selling this in UK yet. And UK was my next first market, then I went to the US, both approximately at the same time, just before Q4 2022. And bro, from that moment, when I expanded to UK and US, and all because I said those goals, right? Bro, I went to like first, I went to like, I went from 10 K a day, I went to 15 to 20 to 30 to 40 to 50. And from that bro, every single day, I was going like 20 to 30 K up. And at some point, I was doing 100 K every single day. Okay, there was, there was around November 2022 and remind yourself. I was the first guy, because I was posting online about my brand, Bright. I was the first guy, like, publicly doing 100 K days with his brand. There was some guys doing it, but not like with a public brand, because you could just find. - Yeah, okay, so at the same time, I'm going to love Copicass and everything. But bro, from the 100K, at the same time, the World Cup was, I don't know, you remember probably, 2022 World Cup was crazy. And I always thought the UK was going to bring it home, but then there was that. - We were going to, until we didn't, you know, that's what the UK is always like. - I really, I bet the big amount, that's what I also lost the big amount. - I'm not gambling, but I bet the UK winning the World Cup. But from there, from 100K, I eventually hit 200K. And then I went to 300K. Bro, my parents were like, what the actual fuck? Like, I showed it to them. They were like, bro, no way. Like this is fake, like, because at the same time, I know I'm going very far in the story and skipping a lot of steps. But at the same time, bro, I switched my fulfillment, because I was doing my fulfillment just from the Netherlands. Okay, I was first doing my fulfillment from home. So I'm just packing orders from home, which was crazy. Or the roll-off. - Yeah. - I did it all the way around. So like, what most people would do right now. So from packing at home, I went to Fumus and the Netherlands, but with the Fumus and the Netherlands, you still have to like, ship your book stock with a sea or with like the freight border. You still have to ship to the Netherlands, which takes a long time. So at the same time, I decided, you know what, I'm going to move my supply chain to China. And moving my supply chain to China, having my fulfillment and 3PL there as well, and my factory there next to it, bro, I managed to reach crazy skill. - Yeah, I can imagine, yeah. Crazy skill. I'm probably a lot more better modules of all, right? - Yeah, like better margins as well. And much faster, like right now, from going from my factory to my 3PL, okay, like third-party logistics, that means, only to one day. So if I like, if I went from, because my cash flow obviously was like, it was hard to go from the $10,000 per day to $300,000 per day in like two months time. Like your cash flow has to handle it. And I had to max out my A-max, bro. (laughing) My A-max, I had a lot of calls with A-max to max it out. Didn't have any loan, nobody loan me any money. Didn't take any loan from anyone. Just had to finesse my way, be creative with my money. - I'm gonna come to the scale of it in a second, bro. But you mentioned something there, which I think is an important topic for people to know. And that was goals. Now, I know you mentioned your goal was to get to a million and you've done that via opening internationally. If someone was to write their goals on a whiteboard right now, what are the actual steps you've got to break down to make sure you achieve those goals? - Good question. So first of all, like, first of all, buy a whiteboard, okay? I think a whiteboard is just no brainer. Because if you wake up, I would put it somewhere. I would put it also somewhere next to my desk. So somewhere where you just see it every single day. Okay, first thing you wanna do is, okay, you grab your whiteboard, you bought one, you have it in front of you. What I always like to do is start your goals low. Okay, I just don't, I didn't just write on there, like one million dollar, one month. Okay, I didn't just write it on there. I started very low with like 30K a month. But obviously, I was already doing one hundred to two hundred thousand dollars a month. I went from like, I put on there like, so the first circle was like 30K, then I went to 50, then I did a hundred, then I did a three hundred, then I did a five hundred, and then I did one in criminal steps. - Yeah, exactly, in criminal steps. Because I see a lot of people that put very big goal in there. Some of my students, they do this well, but I always tell them, this is not gonna work. Because you don't see any progression towards that goal. So you're just gonna never gonna look at it anymore. You're like, fuck it. And eventually, just gonna leave it behind. But if you actually see yourself making progression, you give yourself confidence that you're gonna reach the next goal, okay? So to give it practically for all the listeners, like you wanna start very small. So if you wanna reach 100K in a month, you wanna start with like just one K. Just one K a month, then to five K a month, then to 10K a month. And once you put it on there, there's no, you ride it on there, you put it somewhere next to your bed, and you have to make yourself one promise. This is more of a mindset thing, but I know it sounds very cliche, but that's the same thing I did. I just put it next to my desk, and I made myself the promise. I am not gonna quit until I've reached this goal. And you have to realize that if you make yourself the promise, then there's literally no other option in universe than not to reach them. Like, if you make yourself the, I didn't care. Like, I put their goals 2022, but I didn't care how long it was gonna take. It was gonna take until 2025. If the 2024, I didn't give a fuck. - Was there ever a point throughout them goals of when you put a timeline and you ever thought I'm gonna give up? - With the 2022 goals, I didn't, because the timing was perfect. And the World Cup became after that. So I just wanted to be realistic with you. After that, once I wrote down those goals, I saw going from 100k to 1 million. And I even had to wipe out the 1 million and then go right down to 2 million, 3 million. And then 4 million, which was 4.5, was the record that year. But afterwards, I tried to replicate the same thing again, 2023, 2024. And that's the moment where I got a lot of struggles, to be honest. - So then in terms of scale, I know you said you opened it in the last few days, but what else did you do to scale to that million dollars or even 4.5 million dollars one? Were you just pumping money and ads or was actually business strategy behind it? - It's a good question. So there was a lot of things we did at the same time. So I wanna dive into every aspect, right? So the first one was scale internationally. I knew that if I wanted to do more orders, I had to expand my target audience. Okay, we really touched on it already, but I saw a gap that nobody was doing in the UK. And I still had this compared it in the US, but I knew, bro, I could do so much better than them. - Okay. - I just knew and at the same time, because I was gonna scale into the US, I knew, okay, I'm only saying this football, I have to sell an America football, because people like that. I was already selling a basketball, but America football also went crazy in the US. - Yes, 'cause that's way bigger than soccer. - Yeah, exactly. And soccer is not big in the US. I found some U.S. creators in the US, let them make some ads, and bro, these also went crazy. But I gotta be honest as well, and I wouldn't be realistic in here, I wouldn't say it, is that the timing was also perfect, because it was just before Q4, the World Cup was going on, Black Friday was going on, but obviously I positioned myself at that moment too, like, into being these countries. So at the same time, and the second point is the filmment. I already briefly touched on it, but I moved my supply chain from local filmment to international filmment, from just one place, which was next to my factory. So because of that, I had international skill. I could easily add Sweden, I could easily add Denmark, I could easily add US, Australia, Canada. - Oh, one place only. - I said it, because I could just scale from one place, like if you do the traditional method, you have to get local stock in the US, you need to wear out in the UK, you need to wear out in Australia, and to manage that to cash flow wise, that's going to be dramatic, right? So that helped, so this is the second part for filmment. Third part, which really helped for me, is that I realized, I'm just putting all my gems out there. Okay, I realized, I was literally looking at my metrics. It was, I was in my Shopify dashboard, I was like, bro, I am shipping next day delivery. Okay, I was doing next day delivery, because I was doing local filmment right in Netherlands. I was like, bro, I'm doing next day delivery, and only like 5% of my customers are coming back. So I had a retention rate of 5%, from the 100 customers I had, 5 customers were actually buying another ball. I was like, bro, I'm doing next day delivery, I'm doing thank you cards, I'm doing everything right, and still 5% is coming back. And that's where I realized, bro, like you're buying a soccer ball, why would you need another ball? And that was a big mental shift for me, because I realized, bro, if customers are not going to come back anyways, like why would I not just do everything possible to have them buy right now? Like I don't have to, for example, like to give this a back to example about this. The big change I made was, before I only did like seal events, like Black Friday seal, Christmas seal, I only did that on the day itself. So I only did like Black Friday seal, just Black Friday, because I thought like, bro, other big brands like Nike and everything. They all spread out over the week, over the whole month. Exactly, but like they keep their brand image high by just selling, like, keeping it like, Thank you very much. fair, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. If they say that seal ends tomorrow, the seal ends tomorrow. Yeah. So what I did, I was like broke customers are not going to come back anyways. I have to go all out. So what I did, I just started my Halloween sealed was October. My started like a beginning of October, I started my Halloween seal. And I just gave a no brained deal which ends in 24 hours. Yeah. You got to mean like 24 hour deal, but obviously didn't end in 24 hours, but it worked. Okay. There's a lot of brands, you know, because if you see or search and drop to that, but you see it on a lot of brands websites, if you go on like fast fashion sites, they'll say sell ending eight hours. You can go back to that website in eight hours time and it was the countdown we set to something else. Yeah. Like it's constantly the countdown, which is mad because it plays with human psychology to make them think I need to get in now. Yeah. But really and truly, it's not even ending then anyway. Like what I realized at that point is like bro, customers are not like they're not coming back to my side of 24 hours to check that seal. Yeah. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like they don't even know. So like let me just put a seal on there. And obviously I had a very good deal on my website. So I made a no brained deal and had this seal event, which I just ran for the entire month. Yeah. After Halloween, I went to Black Friday, but I started in the beginning of November. Yeah. And because of that, okay, for two things, which happened. First of all, your conversion rate just goes crazy, right? Because you have a seal running in the Black Friday seal ends in 24 hours. So everyone just like I want to buy right now. Yeah. But second of all, I had a room to scale, which is very important. Like it's hard. If you if you're just running your Black Friday seal and just Black Friday alone on just the Friday, it's hard to scale up your ads. If you're doing like $10,000 per day to go towards $300,000 per day in just one day, Facebook like needs time to scale. Yeah. So I could just double my budget every single day because I had time and I'd room to scale. And because of these three things, which I implemented, that's why I reached the skill of $300,000 per day. Sick. Super. Congratulations. Thank you. Not to the manufacturing side of things, right? Because this I'll grab the football again because I don't really like it and I like it. You can keep it. I know it's weird off the chase, bro. I don't even know where to put it. I'm going back to London soon. But I know it's a weird thing to say, but I like the texture as well. Yeah, because probably the material, stuff like that. So this ball itself, did you design and find the manufacturing yourself and all that sort of stuff? Like what was the whole process of actually creating the ball self? Because I know you said you've got your manufacturing now and shipment stuff like that from China, right? And obviously a lot of products that we know that nowadays are made in China. So what was your whole process to it? At first, I started with Alibaba. So I literally went to Alibaba.com. I searched like glowing football. I messaged like 10 suppliers with like a template. Literally, I had a template. I sent it to them. If you guys want a template, you can just DM me on Instagram. I'll send a template to them. It's like an easy template and send to 10 suppliers. I just saw the guy, the person who responded the fastest had the best prices and the English was fast, which is very important. These three things I'm looking at for a supplier. Found a supplier, they had the best prices, got in touch with them, got a sample in. Obviously went back and forth like for two months, getting everything ready for getting the product perfect. It was not the product we just see right now actually had a lot of versions. Yeah. So from there, work with them for like two years. But one big mistake I actually made, okay, it is for less of all of the guys who are listening and even ECOM or want start ECOM. I always thought that my manufacturer, my factory was the best one and there were no other ones. And that's a mistake which cost me literally millions down the line. I swear, like if I do the math, I don't want to do the math, I should do the math because let's do the math. Okay. I found a new manufacturer after the whole Q4 creation. It's 22 after World Cup. 23, I found a new manufacturer. My contact in AM and China on my agent put me in touch with another manufacturer. He said pro Alex, there is a supplier in here who sells the same products, but he sells for like he has like $3 less, it's like no way. I don't believe it. So I was like, he already sent to me like a long time ago, but I just put it away, I said no way. Nice price, the best. I know, I negotiated with him. I was, I'm Chinese, she's Chinese, I have the best price. Yeah. Little did I know. Okay, after the whole craziness, I contacted this other supplier which he sent to me. I got in a call with him. He said, bro, I can give you like the the ball for like 50, 40% less than I have right now, 40%. I said, I don't believe you. Like, okay, let me see. I probably the ball of shit. Probably. Yeah. Got to be something wrong. No way, but I was coping, right? So he sent me a sample. He sent me a sample and it was after I sold already like tens of thousands of units, right? He sent me a sample. I was like, bro, no way. This ball is even better. Like it bounced better. It just, bro, what's this better? More durable. It was a exact same product, but even better. 40% less cost of goods. Eventually, I even negotiated it down to 50%. Yeah. Less cost of goods. So I went from like $7 a ball to like $350 per ball. Yes, crazy. Bro, and if I do the math load, if I do the math, like, bro, I could have said I had I could have done one or two million dollars extra profit in my pocket, all because I was arrogant. And I like one big mistake I made. So that's what I'm telling all the guys as well. Like don't be arrogant and don't be stubborn. Like check out there because there's hundreds of thousands of millions of suppliers in China who deliver the same product and could do it for cheaper, especially if you got the right context. You just have to be open-minded. Exactly. You have to like actually put it in the time to go maybe go to China because right now, obviously, it was COVID. So I didn't really never went. And last year, it's first time I went to China and visited the manufacturers. Well, and you realize that, bro, you can negotiate so much more. You can find all the suppliers who are way cheaper because you have to realize that Alibaba, Alibaba is like some sort of, it's like our Ali Express for them, like our Amazon for them. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like the resellers are on Alibaba. Okay. Like you have sites like, I'm going to drop them in here like 1688. Something. Yeah. Well, like you can look it up on Google. Bro, these websites, they have the real suppliers. They have the real spine. You'll see that most of the time, Alibaba, they're even drop shipping you. So the dropship is getting dropped ships. The dropship is getting dropped ship. That's crazy. But everyone watching this right now, you look at getting some e-com gems. I want to come to this right because we were mentioning China. You went to China recently for manufacturing, but also you went to China. You made a vlog out of it because you met one of the most viral people out there, a size from astronaut who's not viral. You met Mr. Tony from LC sign himself. As I said, here's his TikTok. Suddenly his Instagram rules and everything speaks for itself. Everyone knows who he is. How did you get in touch with him? Why did you go and see him? What was the whole story behind it? Tell me. That's funny, actually, because I was already going to go to China. I was going to go with my cameraman for the first time, to visit the manufacturer, visit my agent. I was asking my friends, I was asking my cousin, "Bro, who should I meet?" There's not many Western famous Chinese people. He told me, "Bro, you should meet this LED sign guy." I was like, "Who's that?" He showed me a video. I was like, "I've seen his videos. I've seen him everywhere, but I didn't really follow him." He's like this LC sign guy, this Tony guy. I watched some of his videos. Bro, this is crazy. First thing I did is I just went to his WhatsApp in his bio. I was like, "Let me get in touch with him." I just went a message. I'm going to be honest with you. I got my stuff weighing. I just said, "Bro, I want to buy 1000 pieces of LED signs." I just showed interest in the product. I said, "Bro, this is my LED brand. I want to have some bright sports signs." At that point, I got in touch with the Silser rep. From the Silser rep, I said, "Okay, let's do a call. Let's do a call." I said, "Can I speak to Tony?" Because I saw the Silser spokesperson. There was some holiday in China, Chinese New Year, so I was like, and I was going to go to China the next day. It's not probably not going to happen. Too good to be true. Fuck this shit. Then I suddenly responded. He said, "I got put in a witch hat group with Tony himself." I was like, "Bro, what the fuck?" I went to the group call. Tony was in there. I got translated just to be sure. I can speak Chinese, but I just wanted to have a translated in there for sure. This would be sure. My team in there as well. We said, "Bro, let's do a call out, man. Let's run it." He was immediately in. I was like, "Bro, this guy is so chill." I saw him very, very high. I still see him very high. This is a great guy. I was like, "This guy is just chill guy." From there, we planned in a date. I came there, we shot some shorts, which went crazy viral. I saw the rocket as well. It was funny as fuck. This guy, bro, he's Tony guy. He's even more funny in real life than he is now. From there, I met him and became good friends. Bro, he's so down to earth. In China, is he as famous as he is in the Western Lord? I asked him actually. I don't think he is. In China, they have their own social media platforms. They have the "Toyin", the Chinese TikTok, Shao Hong Su, but he's very famous on the Western platform. They have TikTok in China as well, right? "Toying", it's called. It's the Chinese TikTok. It's called "Toying". It's the same parent company, BikeDance. It's a label differently. They just have their own version. I've heard a lot of rumors where they're saying that you see these rumors, right? When in China, it's so interesting. I only educated stuff. This bullshit, bro. I've seen the biggest brainwreld is China. Even more brainwreld than the European brainwreld. It's crazy. The brainwreld on TikTok is crazy. You're a young guy. How do you not fall into brainwreld? I'm not missing a talk about social media. I'm talking, including social media, but I'm also just talking about in real life stuff as well. How do you stay away from that brainwreld activity? Bro, I don't. That's one of my honest answers. I don't. Bro, I catch myself when I'm in the toilet. I'm in three meetings and I'm like, let me open my TikTok. Let me check my own account. My own account is doing. That's why I haven't deleted that because I want to check my own account. That's a cope obviously. Then the first video I'm watching is always great. The first video I'm getting. I can't go to my own account. I have to watch this TikTok. I'm watching it. I'm like, bro, this is so interesting. I keep scrolling and I eventually hear the tum tum tum tum. I hear all the brainwreld. It's dangerous. The brainwreld is dangerous because if I think about it, even the last five shorts, which I watch, I can't remember them. So it's literally like if you watch YouTube video, you at least remember what you've seen. Yeah. You at least got some lesson out of it. For example, - You got some sort of value to it. - Yeah. - With a short, it's so dangerous nowadays. Because you're just forgetting what you're seeing. Literally. - You know the reason why I don't like shorts, right? It's because, and this is my theory, I'm a conspiracy theorist as well, by the way. - Oh, we should talk about it. - But I genuinely believe that these platforms make short form content to essentially rock people's brains. I know there's that term brain work, but I'm talking about literally cut their attention span and make sure that if they don't have someone's attention in a millisecond, they got to move on. And you see that in so many people, I just feel like people's IQ are dropping purely because of stuff like TikTok and stuff like that. - I think it's correct. - I think it's probably correct. - But bro, you have in these companies, like Mera, TikTok, Biden, Snapchat, they have scientists, literally full time, a team of scientists working there, how to keep you on their platform, how to keep you addicted. - Yeah, well that's the, that's what every platform wants. You know when everyone talks about our group and this and that and the other, there's no our group. All it is is that platform wants that person on their platform as long as possible. And if you could do that, then your video's gonna over. - You know what Kanye West said, right? Like if the platform is free to use, you're probably the product. And it's true, like if you're on Instagram, if you think about it, if you just like refresh your Instagram page, it's like a slot machine which literally goes up and down, the exact same mechanics. And it's crazy to think about that. Like for some reason, when I open my phone, but I fall trapped into it as well, they're so good that everyone I know around me is falling in the trap to all the people. My mom is on TikTok the whole day. But when I open my phone, first thing I open is Instagram. - Yeah, at least when you wake up, when you open your eyes, I say Instagram stuff about that. - But the thing is, they've done a such a good job that you can delete it. Like if I delete it, like I'm just ghosted everywhere. Like nobody knows anything is going on. Obviously not everyone has to know that you exist. But like nowadays, if you don't have Instagram and you don't have like social media, it's where all our kind of people are, right? All Gen Z, all millennials are on this platform. - You don't even exist if you don't have Instagram. - Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. - So they force you to have this, the network effect, it's crazy. I wanna come into the Wolfie side of things, right? As we said in the beginning, $3 million at 22. And before I come to ask you questions about what's the most expensive stuff you've bought or wasted money on, et cetera, 'cause I'm sure you would have had those moments as well. You move to the buy, why? - I mean, there's only one right answer. I think that's for everyone, which starts with D and Ns on S. I think everyone can feel that they're gaping. But without diving too deep into that subject, because I think all Europeans are moving that because of that, if the tax rate would be like 50%, I probably wouldn't be here, honest. But obviously the tax rate is great. It's only 9% nowadays in here. But bro, first of all, weather's always amazing. Network is perfect. There's some downsides, but overall, I've traveled the whole world. I've been in Asia, didn't went to Africa yet, but been to a lot of places in the world, and overall, Dubai, if you just list it down in upsides and downsides, Dubai is still the best. - So I think it's a no-brainer to move here. - And you've got a nice apartment as well. How comes you went all out on the apartment too? Because anyone could come here and get any sort of place, right? So this is now where we get into the spending habits and the wealth and what you do with the money you earn. So not necessarily the apartment, but what's like the most expensive thing you've bought? - Probably the most expensive thing I bought, which I remember is the Lamborghini. Well, the Lamborghini which I bought a couple of months ago. It was my dream car. I had it financially, I obviously have done pretty well. So I was like, you know what, this is the moment. - Which one is it? - It's a Huracan. But I wanted to put it in the same color as the bright bulb. 'Cause I always visualize, okay, if I'm gonna buy it one day, I know it's very flashy, but I just want to put the same color. Okay, that's got to be the color which I put on it. But that's my most expensive purchase. But I would say stupid purchases. I mean, I bought a watch, which is diamond. I start, obviously not worth anything anymore if you ice it up. - That's awesome. - But I like it, I'm young anyway, so I don't give a fuck. But besides that, like, I think I've wasted, you know where I had a waste a lot of money on? - Gone. - Which is really just wasted. Because look, you know, if you buy a Lamborghini, okay, I buy it for $200,000, $300,000. I pay like $220,000 I think for it. - Yeah. - Like the thing is, it's still as worth. Like after a year, it's really fun. I probably made content with made some ROI with it. - Yeah. - Like I still sell it. But for like 10% loss, 20% loss. But one place where I waste a lot of money is gambling. (laughing) - That's a rumbling on what? - Bro, sports betting, black check. I'm Asian bro, like I just got a gamble, you know what I mean? - Is it an Asian culture to do so? - I don't know, I think it's an OG's bro. I think it's an OG's that we just like. And I'm very, I wanna see addictive it. I'm dedicated. I'm dedicated person. - No, that's addictive. - Like I just, like, I kind of lose. - So I don't have one. - I keep going. - Someone's saying to me that they're dedicated to that, wait, it's just addiction bro, it's just addiction. - I'm dedicated to my, to my black check table, bro. But I mean, obviously that's some place where I lose money. For example, I lost like 50K on Formula One when I went there. Like that's just money which it's just gone. Wasted it. And I'm like, why did I do that? - Which effort did you go to? - The Abu Dhabi one. - The last one. - The last one there was good. - Yeah, I don't think it's good. I think Formula One is like a sport, which I don't even, I think it's just. - A lot of networking there though. - Do you have a friend? - Yeah, I went to Abu Dhabi one not last year, two years ago in the year before that as well. But it depends where you are. Where I was, we was on the side of W Hotel. - And that's the best place, right? - Yeah, one of the, like, it's like almost like, I don't want to sound like egotistic or flat. It's almost like VIP area. - Yeah. - So the people you meet there are next level. - Exactly. - But I've been the first time I ever went. I was on the South Grandstand. So literally right at the back of the lap. - Yeah, yeah. - And there's just no one, you don't attract anyone there. There's nothing to do. - Yeah, I think if you go from networking's probably a match because only rich people go watch that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Go actually go there, especially in Abu Dhabi and we're not monoco to actually watch it. But like the sport, if you talk about a sport itself, I'm just not a fan yet. Maybe you will notice one's in future because like you just see cars slapping all the time. It's much more fun. You see all the people on the yachts also watch some TV. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's crazy. - What's the next steps for yourself? Ecommerce, the brand, the whole lot. Where'd you want to take the brand and then we'll talk about yourself. - Good question. So at the moment, which I'm doing at the moment, what I'm doing right now is I run four active brands at the moment, I have four brands. A bright sport, obviously, one of the ones. But I've been very realistic to myself that I'm selling glowing footballs. Like just let's be honest in here. Like, and I talked about the recurring revenue rate before right, the customer's coming back. And I've been very honest to myself. Always been, okay, you can only skill it to a certain point if customers are not coming back. Like if you're selling clothing, you're selling supplements, customers can actually be coming back. They don't need a second ball. So when I realized that, okay, there's another long-term business model in selling glowing balls. I can do much more. I was like, okay, let me exit this company. So this is after 2022 and 2023, I tried to exit it. I can dive very deep into it, but didn't work out. Unfortunately, I had three offers on the table fell out last minute for life-changing amounts of money, by the way. Spend a lot of six figures on lawyers, accountants, you name it, didn't work out last minute. Unfortunately, fell out. And at some point, I was like, okay, I know what, this is not worth my time anymore to go into this whole process again, do diligence, the whole talking to buyers, you name it. So I was like, let me just keep it, keep it for cash flow. So after this, there was like a year ago, something, right? But I knew, like, I have a team for Bright, okay? Like, obviously there was a whole process getting the team there, but I finally, because of the exit process, I automated and got myself out of the business. So it's running pretty automated. - Love it, yeah. - Like just being realistic in here, Bright is still doing well, but it does the best, it's pretty seasonal. So it does the best during Q4, okay? Like, obviously, the world cup is coming next year again. We'll probably do very well in there. It's gonna do record days again there. We got things lined up there as well, but it's pretty seasonal. So it's not, at this point in entrepreneurship back, I've been running this brand for literally six years already. I'm crossing my six year right now. So is it really worth my time to put all my eggs into selling glowing balls? Like, I genuinely believe in a concept of, it matters in which lake you're fishing in, in which leak you're in. Like, if you're in a woman's MBA, it's very hard to make a billion dollars of becoming a billionaire in the MBA, in a woman's MBA, right? But if you go to the MBA, you can become a billionaire. So it matters in which leak you're playing, right? And I think in the glowing ball leak, so to say, like, it's hard to make a billion dollars. And I wanna make a billion dollars. So there's what I'm working on right now. I'm working on a new startup, which I've been working on for a while. I'm gonna say where it is right now, but yeah, I'm investing a lot of my mind. - Is it in the e-commerce space? - No, it's not an e-commerce space. I wanna go outside of the e-commerce space. It's also digital, it's digital though. But without giving too much about it, I'm working on it for a long time already. And I'm putting just being transparent to you right now. I'm putting a lot of my money into this project right now. So it's requiring a lot of my money because I'm self-funding it. I've got a big team in there which requires very high-five figure overheads, every single month and we're not making any profit or revenue yet. So that's where most of my money is going. That's why I cannot live that lavishly in terms of buying, like living on the palm, like a mansion on the palm or buying a Rolls Royce. - I have to put it into the startup, Ed. So what I'm doing at the moment, I'm running four brands at the same time. Four brands, some of them have partners in them. So my partners are running that. For example, my head coach Jacob, which is a legend. He's my head coach within my coaching program. And he's running a lot of the brands. He's very good at e-commerce. He's running some of them. Four brands are mostly automated. They're still doing seven figures a month. Between like some months we hit like seven figures, low seven figures. So one million dollars, some had a month, we hit three million dollars. It's also with Bright included. But during Q4, I know when Q4 starts again, like with Bright, we can just scale up again towards $200,000, $200,000. But for me right now, it's just not worth my time to put all my time into Bright. But what we're doing right now with Bright is we're diversifying our ex into more products which actually have people coming back to. That's our priority right now. We want to sell products which actually Has recurring revenue rate? - Talk to me about the exit process 'cause I know you said you were looking to exit and it was off at the table. And you're really mental why you wanted to exit. But that whole process, I know for some businesses can take up to a year to even two years to exit their business. Podcasts are done in your state. The guy exit is business and that took a whole full year. So did that have any mental stress on you and did that change the way you look at the business, the way you look at life, what was it exactly? - So I think if one of my lowest moments in my life was probably when I was through the exit process. Like, honestly, if I look back at my career like the moment, okay, when I start entrepreneurs, there was probably my lowest moment when my girlfriend broke up where I wasn't working. That was my lowest moment. But my second lowest moment, which equally as bad was during the exit process. Because you probably talked to this guy yesterday as well. Crazy that he actually made it happen because I know how much effort you requires and how hard it is to exit it. Because I think I start the process first for the wrong moment because I think you have to exit a company when it's at the uptrend. And for me, I start the process after Q4. So I was in a sort of downtrend with my brand. Okay, so and that's not good, right? It's not good for the looks as well for buyer. And I learned so many lessons in terms of, I didn't have my finance in order. So I had to fix all my books throughout all the companies, throughout all the bank accounts. We had to like fix three or four years of transactions. Since I started in 2020 I had to fix my transactions. All of the single received, I went out to eat, I had to get a receipt. I don't have this anymore. So I had to sort it out, took like half a year, had to wait on that. And then we could speak to buyers. But like once we spoke to buyers as well, started to go better. But one thing which I hated about the exit process, which is just something which comes with it, is that you have this, you're putting all this effort in, right? You're putting so much time into this, you're putting your paying account as your lawyers and you have an uncertain outcome, which I hate. And at the same time, while you have this uncertain outcome, there's also you have to keep your business up. So at the same time you're fixing your books, you're talking to buyers, you're like thinking, "But how can I move myself out of the business? "How can I make this more sellable, more attractive to buyers?" At the same time you have to keep your numbers up. And the worst thing is, you cannot take too big of a risk. Because if you take big risks, like your numbers will risk going down. So you have to keep it stable while fixing the exit process. And I hate that, I hate that. - You have to stay in a very stagnant place. - Exactly, and if you're going down, it's very stress-free. I have to push numbers up. And it's a very shit position to be in, to be honest. And also, you're putting a whole destiny in someone else's hands. And a buyer, let's see like this, a buyer's always trying to convince you that what you have is not worth much. - Because they want to bargain. - Exactly, they want to convince you that you don't have anything. But if Mia is a seller, as the owner of the brand, I'm trying to convince them that what I have is great. So at the same time, you have, it fights. So then they ask very tough questions. Like, why did you have a dip in 2021? What happened there? And I was like, bro, I was just school. I was finishing my exam, so I couldn't focus on it. And they're like, ah, I understand. So yeah, the exit is mental, bro. The process is, for people who are doing it, like I learned a lot, obviously, but it's something which takes a big mental toll. - Definitely, bro, definitely. Is it something you'd want to exit in the future then? Even after knowing all this process, when you know what the whole procedure's like, would you want to go that way again? - For bright sport, probably not. For bright sport, maybe if we like have another crazy world cup around, they will exit it. And because I obviously now I've fixed my books, everything is on order. So it is exitable, probably. But like the question, the whole question is, okay, is it worth my time and effort to go into the process again? But I now have the context and I know how it works. For bright, probably really sticking not. For the other brands, maybe, there's other brands also have more recurring revenue rates, which is one thing, because for bright, just being real with you, the multiplier wasn't that high, because customers were not coming back. - Yeah, so that's what you learned in this. - Exactly, and buyers are looking for something which is sustainable for long-term, so they want something which actually has a big recurring revenue rate. Customers are going back big community-based, and they really have that with bright. - It's just like, hey, libible. So that's crazy, bro. Like I actually like, once I read that, I was like, bro, because I saw where start that brand in 2022 or something. And you just exit it in three years, bro. That's crazy. - Yeah, mental growth. - Respect, bro. That's like for, probably she has other people who are running their brand, but you see, their exits are very real. And obviously, I think one thing which she did very well is the branding, and then the content they have, like, was crazy. - I know you asked me before the podcast, if I do anything else other than podcasts. But if there is one thing I do want to do, is to build a brand to sell. And it doesn't necessarily mean e-commerce brand or something like that, but build something to sell, 'cause that's where the life changing money comes from. You know, I mean, it's all good, making a hundred, 200, 300, 400 grand or whatever, it may be per month. But having a big lump sum of multiple, multiple millions, maybe even nine figures, that's where the whole life changing stuff is. - Exactly, I mean, that's what you see with, if you look at most wealthy people, even in like the Forbes or every wealthy person, - So let's go into buy, they even exit their company, they IPO'd it, or they sold their shares to a private equity or something. And that's the game which I want to play as well with my next company. Obviously, I want to make a lot of cash, but I also want to have big payday. Because I know you don't even have to exit your company completely, you can stay on, you can sell your shares, you can have a buyout, and there's so many ways. And like this, what I realized as well, my whole mindset shifted as well during exit process, I was like, okay, this month, I have done, for example, one month, I done $700,000 in profit, with just bright. I was like, okay, if you put a multiply on there, my multiply was between 1.5 and 2, Abida, so it was bear market back then. So probably right now it's higher even nowadays, but especially after the road exit, probably. But yeah, 1.5 to 2. So I could get like, I have to do, I have like 1.05 million to $1.5 million, I could get on my, on that month alone, for exit. So if you think about it, like all this profit you've done over those months, like that you can get a multiply on that. So that's crazy. - Yeah, it's been a whole mindset shift. - It's been two. And what do you look, and what do you want your future to look like? You're 22 now, so let's imagine yourself, your life as 30 years old, in fact, do this, let's do this exercise. Yeah, close your eyes for me. - Okay. - Yeah. - My eyes are already closed on Asian, but I'll close it even more. - I'm not gonna laugh as racist as I'll laugh. Your 30 years old. - Yeah. - Where are you in the world? Where are you living? What does your house look like? Car collection look like? What does the family life look like? And what does the, I suppose the wealth status look like? - 30 years old, so it's an ADS from now. - Yeah. Good question. I think far, but you're usually not that far. Like, I'm. - Give us your question. Booyener, for sure, because that's a goal of mine. Not Booyener and in dirhams, like Dong Booyener, US dollars, or Euros, British pounds. Booyener, for sure, because that's the goal for the next company as well. Booyener, have many kids. I do have to get to work though. First, find a wife. Like, because if I have many kids there, I still got ages left, so I got to get to work. Probably based Dubai, based Dubai, be in Asia a lot as well, because I feel home in there. But for sure, Booyener, have a company which is spitting out cash every single month, which I don't have to exit, which is very important. Because I think if you have a company which don't even want to exit, that's even better position. - Yeah. - And I can live a life which I feel fulfilled. Inspire more people. Already inspiring some people with the small following I have, but on the biggest scale, be respect in entrepreneurship community. And hopefully out of e-commerce, that's my go, obviously, want to move out of e-commerce in the coming years and going to bigger businesses. And I think just a more, I have a rough vision of where I want to be in like five years, 10 years, but hopefully a much more leveled-up version of my which I'm right now. Because I generally believe as a person, if you are in the same position as you are right now, like in a year from now, as you are right now, then you've done something very wrong. And I still struggle with this, because if I look at my past year, like I've grown a lot, financially as well, also on the social media, I've grown a bit, but I haven't made that many of crazy moves, which I want to and time flies for some reason so fast. So I could be 30, it feels like tomorrow, you got to make it. So it's most important for me that I keep moving, I keep pivoting. I have this North Star, I have to have to keep pivoting. And along the way, make changes and move towards my goal, that's most important, hopefully a little bit closer to where I want to be. You want to inspire other people, but who inspires you? Myself in 10 years, that's the right answer for me. I think there's a lot of guys who are obviously online inspiring me, but I've just been real with you. I've probably met a lot of people which you looked up to as well, without naming any names. But I think maybe you can relate with me, but for me, once I've met some people which I really looked up to online, and I meet them in real life. I'm like, it's great, great and all, especially the first day. But after a while, I'm like, it wasn't that special. - Yeah, it's like, don't meet your heroes. - Exactly, online looks so amazing. And then if I meet them in real life, they have their flaws. They have so many things, I'm like, bro, why are you doing that? They have a lot of their strong points, obviously, right? But I'm obviously not perfect at all. Far from perfect, let's be clear about that. But one thing, which I realized, it's hard to. Because everyone has to, you don't see everything online. Even if I look up to, for example, Christian Ronaldo, let's say I will look up to Christian Ronaldo, or Elon Musk. You don't know what's going behind the scenes. Obviously, their accomplishments are great. You could meet them and understand their life and be like, you know, I don't want that life. - Yeah, exactly. The whole aspect of inspiration could change. - Yeah, so what inspires me the most is myself in 10 years. That's where I'm looking up to. And I know I want to be in 10 years. So that's where I'm working towards. And like every time I have a big decision to make, it's also like, what would myself in 10 years do? - Yeah. - And yeah, I try to minimize my regrets. That's one decision making, which I have. Okay, if I have. hard decision. Okay, would I regret this in 10 years? And if the answer is yes, then I do it. Hmm, definitely, but definitely. And finally, what is your message to the people who are watching this right now, wherever they've come from your audience, wherever they've come from mine, or wherever they've just stumbled across this podcast somewhere on the internet? What would your message be to them? Warren Buffett, he recently retired, right? You've seen it probably. He was the most wealthy man of all time. Okay, like one of the most rich guys ever. He had everything a man I could ever want. But everyone who's listening to this, us included. We are richer than him, because we have one thing which he doesn't have, which is time. Okay, you would give up, he would give up all his wealth, all his money, right now to become your age, which we got any of your ages of the listeners who are watching right now. Okay, and we are wasting it. You're wasting it. That's, that's, that's, that's a shame. If I think about it, like this guy, he would, like, we are rich in him. We have all the time in the world. We are young. We are energetic. We have the internet. We are Gen Z. We know what's going on. We understand everything is out there for free. We have chat, we have AI nowadays. And you're still wasting your time. And that's just crazy to me. Okay, like for me, my message to everyone who was listening to this, because I tried to make content as well. And I tried to be the person which online, I tried to make content that I wish I saw when I started. Okay, and I wish I had a big brother who was just real with me without trying to sell me a course. Like, obviously, I sell one-on-one coaching. I sell, I have a coaching program where I coach students to start out an e-commerce business. But that's something which, which, which I try not to push it to people. That's why I don't promote it anywhere. And I just generally when people are messaging me, I'm like, okay, you can join my program. I actually want to help you. But I don't want to do it forever because I think it's a scalable model because we're actually one-on-one coaching someone, right? So it's hard for me to scale it up. And that's why I'm just doing it while I'm still an e-com. I want to share my knowledge and while I'm still doing well an e-com, I just want to share my knowledge to everyone and skill it up. But yeah, I see nowadays there's a lot of guys online who are, you smell it. Okay, you just smell it. And I sometimes catch myself as well when I make content that I start to promote my stuff. I'm selling, right? And you can just smell it. Like every single person that watching online, every big person that watching online is trying to sell them something. And hopefully to talk about myself in 10 years as well, hopefully I'll be making content in 10 years as well, which is just out there to inspire people. And actually, generally, like, okay, I make this content. I want to inspire you. Same with this podcast. But I don't want anything from you. I don't need anything. I don't need your money. I don't need your following. It doesn't have to be. I don't need your attention. I just want to be, hopefully I can make your life better and you leave better listening to this than you were before. Okay, so you got one life. Go after it. There's so many fucking opportunities nowadays. You have chat. If we had chat, if you didn't know, back in the days, bro, you'd be so much richer. You have all the opportunity. There's, there's, there's millions of ways to make money at these days. Choose one business model and go online on it. Make your life so easy that you remove everything which, which, which is stopping you from achieving that. Ignore the naysayers, ignore the bad friends, skip the parties, focus on yourself. And if you focus 100% of yourself, you'll get anything you have in one of your life. Well, powerful message send off the podcast. Alex, I want to thank you very, very much for coming on. If people want to find you and follow you, where can they do so? That's Alex channel Instagram. And bro, like last but not least, I do have something for you. I want to, I want to grab it once. I just want to give you shit. We're getting gifts out here. This is why I love the boy. Oh, before we close off. Oh, I know you like cigars. So I bought something for you in here. Here you go. This is sick. I'm not a cigars, but I want to make cigars myself. Yeah, open it. We got, well, first of all, I just need to say, look at the carbon case. That is next level. I saw you like cigars. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate it. Okay. I hope you like it, though. I like it. I don't know if you're having a joker. So just to let everyone know, it's a basically car, I have to train stuff like that. The reason why I said enough, you have a joker because you might have seen the clip when I was smoking a cigar, a tristan tape, and I fully butchered the cigar by yourself in the world. Yeah. Yeah. And so when you got the car, I was like, okay, I don't know if he's trying to take a joke to that and all that, but no, it looks sick, bro. Appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you for the invite, man, because generally, generally, like, I've been listening to your podcast for a while already, like since your, like, when I discovered you was the first into a date, says that I've been loyal listening to your podcast. So, like, we also, it go for me to be on this podcast. I want to thank you for for this invite. No, definitely, bro. Likewise, when I've seen your stuff online, you know, that's why I said to you, come on the podcast because I thought, I like the message that this guy's putting out, they like his information. I like the product. What a cool story it could be. And I'm glad you're here, man. Well, this is sick. Thank you, brother. Thank you, man. This is it. What a cool set. I'm going to take a picture of this and then share it to people. That's it. Well, guys, that's a action for you. Thank you very much. And yeah, don't forget to tune in next Sunday on the next episodes of your podcast. Peace.