EP 283 - Sheldon Li - CEO Buyandship - The Value of an Entrepreneur Is to Make the Right Decision on Priorities

[MUSIC] >> Hi, this is Michael Wade, so welcome back to the HITEC podcast. We are joined today by Sheldon Lee, a co-founder and the CEO of Appianship. Sheldon, thank you so much for coming on the show. And I also want to thank you as well for just being so flexible. The other time of the world's supposed to record, my travel plans got in your way. So I just really appreciate you being so understanding about this. Really, I appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you for having me and inviting me. I think that's my pleasure to be able to share on your platform. >> Yeah, and I want to do this for a while, right? Because I'm just super interested in all the stuff that you're doing. And before we jump into the main part of this conversation, let's get some of your background just so we have some context for the rest of this year. >> No, some personal things. All supporting Canada, quite rough in Hong Kong. In Winnipeg actually, rail was born. I heard it's super cold, but I never got to experience it because I was brought back to Hong Kong when I was three months old still baby. >> Got it. >> And then we're till I was 16, then I went back to Canada for high school and university. I went to university of Toronto, study, and I studied at trail science, even though I'm in logistic right now. But I was really into mathematics. >> Yeah. >> What year were you born? 86 from a tiger in the year of Chinese. >> Yeah, I do. I'm a snake. >> I'm a snake. I'm not sure I'm proud of that, but that's why I am. Born in the year is. >> But this is funny too. So I was born in the year of the snake. My wife was born in the year of the snake, right? And my daughter was also born in the year of the snake. Now, and all of that was in Japan, right? So, well, I mean, I wasn't born in Japan. But I remember one time we were in Japan talking to some other lady, some friend of my wife's, and we told her that. And then we said, okay, so now you should be able to guess like how old we are. Because we're all, and it's only a 12 year cycle. And it was the year my daughter was born. And she was like 38 or 39. >> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH] >> 12. >> [LAUGH] >> Yeah, you look 24. >> Yeah, yeah, exactly. You're like, I definitely wasn't 24. >> Oh, such a great thing. Well, that's awesome. And why was your family in Canada at the time? >> Well, actually, when my father was young, he immigrated to Canada. >> Yeah. >> So I think back in the 70s or 80s, Hong Kong was announced to be returning back to China. And at that time, I think a lot of the people in Hong Kong was really worried about the future. They don't know what it would be like. So many people flee to Hong Kong by mine, but it was for the government. >> Yeah, so that's what I want to know. And I was hoping actually you were born in 1990 or 1995. When I was in Japan, right, it's got closer and closer to the handover in 1997. I remember a lot of families you write. There had been a strong relationship between Canada and Hong Kong anyway. And they've definitely welcomed the Hong Kong Chinese, whether it was in Toronto or in a paragraph, Vancouver, wherever it was. And as it got closer and closer, a lot of people left. And then as it felt like things were normalized, a lot of people came back. >> Absolutely. >> Yeah. >> Actually, when the handover happened, my dad was already back. >> Right. >> Like, after all, it was born, he never went back to Canada. >> That's right. >> And he was telling me like, it was actually a great opportunity because a lot of people left. It means that there are a lot of opportunities left behind in the city. And he was able to, you know, left-ration that and he really welcomed something. >> It's a really good point, right? Because the people that did leave actually had the means for the most part to leave. But also, we're very well educated. They were concerned about how they were going to be able to apply their education and their skills. And again, at the end of the day, it wasn't the problem that people expected at all, really. And if you came back in a certain percentage of people already gone, you're like, okay, I can do whatever I want really well. That's super cool. So good for your dad and for your mom. >> Yeah. And actually, the physicist he founded in Hong Kong was inspired from Canada. >> What was it? >> So he was doing some delivery for companies across towns when he was in Canada. >> I love this. >> So he ended up, but he was back in Hong. He was like, oh, I can do the same thing here. He was telling me back in the face, every company has a messenger in-house to do deliveries for the company. And he was like, well, I can actually hire a bunch of people to share the resources. So they can help companies save money. And that's how he started his delivery business. >> But in a way, this is super relevant for you too, right? And we'll talk about bio and chip in a second, yeah. But your dad was early in this concept of abstracting away something that corporates do and even SMEs do and saying, you do it alone, you do it alone, you do it alone. But all the resources that you're using on the back end are the same. So I'll build the back end for you. And then either you can plug in your resources or I'll give you the resources as well. It was way ahead of his time for what ends up in the software or being a SaaS business. But back then it was probably like a resource as a service business or a RAS business kind of thing, yeah. >> Yeah, on human capital workforce. >> So interesting. I didn't know that. Talk to me a little bit about bio and shape. What the idea was, why you just started to do this and how long ago you started it? >> Okay, so we started company back in 2014, November, right? >> Right, a while ago. >> Yeah. >> Right, we are B2C boss border shopping tool. So we help people by things overseas. The reason why I started it, I usually tell people about the story of my sister. Like it's a true story. >> Tell me. >> Yeah. Well, sister is very high-sensitive. Ever since she was young, right? Sometimes I go to a convenience store in 2011, you buy it out of water. And she would complain that why didn't you just cross the road to the circle, Kate Hill? Is it $1 cheaper? >> She's good. >> It's just $1. Come on. >> Right, but she has this mentality of doing all enough research to make sure you're buying at the great, the best value. And at some point, she started buying things from the state back to home and asked me to handle it for her. Right? And that's when I realized there's a two things. First thing is that same product, same brand, exact same thing, right? Can be 50% cheaper across the border, right? The kept inclined, a little lemon, anything you can think of. But at the same time, buying things overseas is quite difficult. Back in the days, a lot of my friends was asked to come in to receive the parcel for them and then to order it back to where they are, asking the family to help. And that's why we started buying shit. We just want to give access to consumer to buy things everywhere in the world at the best value. So one of the things that happens though, and one of the reasons why it's more expensive, one, not the only one, is because when it gets to the country where it's being purchased to or sent to, there are taxes, customs taxes, all these things, right? That are applied to it. And that can raise the price quite a bit, right? So you could buy a little lemon in New York for a hundred bucks, but you have to pay this fee and not fee and then that fee. And by the time it gets to you, it's 200 bucks. And in Thailand, there's some stuff where it's triple tax, it's just everybody knows it. So a lot of people will go to France, go to the United States, even today, come to Japan, buy things, put them in a suitcase, and then go back and even sell them at less than the given price there. But still more than the price that somebody would have to pay if they went to Japan on their own and bought it. How do you solve that problem? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, tax is one of the contribution to the price of a torch, but the bigger one is actually all the middlemen that is reselling it. Disabilities, retailers, you know, to open the shopping cart with super expensive brands, right? And that's why they have higher costs and have this sell at higher price, right? Versus us when we help our customers buy directly from the brand in the States, there's no more middlemen, right? And eventually, more interestingly, is that even though our consumers are saving money, the merchant, the seller is making more compared to going to distributors and sell to the same consumer. Yeah, because you can take some of that price and again, let's go back to this, but if it's $100 for, let's say, you know, product X, this distributed that middleman, that middleperson adds some stuff in it's $175 bucks, whatever it is, right? And by the time it gets to Hong Kong, it's $200. I'm just making something up. But if you eliminate that, you can actually pay them more and still have it be cheaper when you get it, yeah? Exactly. Right, we did our $3 million transaction last year, oh my god, right? And we always ask our customer why did you use our service and buy from, you know, wherever you're like Japan, Italy, Italy, or States, right? And the data tells us that, you know, after paid for shipping and tax, like import tax, they can still save on average 28% percent, right? And I haven't even asked the version for discount yet, they're selling at the listing price in the home country. And now the data is that half of this transaction is not even available, like the same product is not here. Sometimes the brand is here, but then the collection is not here. Why is it more the size? Yeah, and why? Why does that happen though? And it could be a rhetorical question for you because you may not even know why right but again I've lived outside my home country for 30 something years right? I was born and raised in the United States and I've lived in Asia since February of 1990 And yeah, there were a lot of times where I would when I went home either for a business trip or just to visit my family You know, I'd go to Walmart or Costco or something and just wave in toothpaste like 15 at a time And literally at the checkout counter the woman would say to me She would kind of lean in and just go where do you live? On the moon like you were like how is there a place where you can't get this but in fact that's true and it's probably still true. Yeah Yeah, I mean for the seller they can't keep everything At their inventory right they will have to put a lot of cash and they don't know if whether it can sell Right and a lot of like brands they customize The product to I mean localize it to do market right and that's why there's difference and not to mention that you know every country has their own Promotion period right no like How about they like to do double-eleven and knowing Japan is like new year and then the state is like black Friday Christmas presidential day No, there's always some promotion happening somewhere in the world at different timing It's just that without globalization giving access you just don't know about it or you don't you don't get access about it You had three million transactions You said last year and then you said the data tells you x y and z How big of a data infrastructure have you had to build as you grow the business right because the more insights You can get like you said you know when you're doing 10 transactions a month you can't go to a supplier and say give me a 15% discount But as you get bigger and bigger then you can just go you're buying in bulk on putting it in quotes right How powerful as the data become for you after you started in 2014? So you have almost 10 years of data. Do you see you get more and more data that becomes more and more impactful for you? Well, absolutely Aside from the data that help us Improve the conversion meaning that we can find the right deals and do the right marketing to get the transaction right At the same time more powerful thing is the GNV that we are generating Three million transactions in our platform is generating 400 million US dollar in GNV That's the purchasing power of my customer Right right now we're very focused on just consumer because in a running business you can't go B to B and B to C at the same time Hardly strengthening. Yep very hard. It's different the N A different mindset different team, right? So we're only dealing with merchants Of consumers and we haven't even start going to merchants and say hey how about I hope you sell war Sometimes we get you know Marketplace or merchants knocking on the floor for example last year one of the Large marketplace from Japan. They told me that they showed him I see that buy and she cut customers are spending 10 million All come goals a month on my platform. Can't you generate more sales for us, right? So they gave us some marketing dollar we marketed to our community right we did some Campaign then now our customers are spending 20 million on the dollars on that marketplace a month double so so Do you consider then building your own and maybe you're already doing this you've already done it right? I like to say that e-commerce is not solved yet. I really don't think it is right every one of people think about e-commerce They think about Amazon right they think in Japan about rock 10 or whatever it is right in southeesthesia, lasada But I don't think the marketplace is are the final destination for e-commerce at least not those big ones right because they're too general for me But I think what you're suggesting is that as you have more and more like 40 million dollars the GMV It's big like I don't even think I need to say it. It's redundant to say it But as individuals suppliers now start to have a relationship with you that's strong and they trust you And you go from x million dollars to 20 million dollars and they actually give you a marketing budget You're now kind of building your own marketplace in a way right because if five of them do it Well, then ten of them could do it and at some point they could have a better relationship with you Then they have with some of those other big marketplaces that we've mentioned Are you building that too or would you build just like individual stores that are run by buy-in chip that look like it's from those guys But actually you're building and running how does that work? Well, one point is that when merchants fell on Amazon for example, yeah, they have to give Amazon 15 to 30% 30 for the margin yep Right yeah And same in Hong Kong or or or different marketplace. That's how marketplace make money right for us Our vision is that there should be one platform that has every product available in the world here Right and then we should be able to compare all the offerings and give you the best price for the same product right and the experience Has to be the same as shopping locally meaning that you see it You use your local worker pay for it. You get it delivered to your home. You don't want it You return it locally. There's a very much experience like the marketplace But marketplace is just very From and how big some sumors is it right what happens in the back can be very different Yeah, for example Traditional e-commerce. There's two way of selling things one you open a marketplace ask people to list their product and you sell it right or Like an online retailer Walmart the open the online store they take inventory and then they sell it but both cases you are relying on Merchants to create your catalog right meaning that you need a procurement team looking on doors talking to brands List your product to your platform, but what we have built is that I'm able to sell anything as long as after URL meaning the As long as this product is online somewhere in the world because I have the infrastructure built Today if you give me a URL of a product from the states I can create a check-out process meaning that I can charge you you can pay with your per card and I have the logistic to deliver to your home So theoretically I don't really need to work with merchants in order to sell anything right So periodically I can add one well 10 million SKU into my marketplace in one week But then how non-trivial does the back end have to be right and how different is the back end from a traditional marketplace If you understand what I mean right because you're right actually if I want to sell in La Zada the The merchant then has to sign up log in do all this other kind of stuff on their own and what you're suggesting is that for you It's reverse you see a product or someone says to you hey, Sheldon I really want to get product xyz But I don't know how to get it and if I do get it It's all these other problems for me and you go where are you trying to buy it from And they say from here. Sorry. Go ahead What at the beginning we have a person actually making a purchase online for you. It's like a personal shopper Right in the back end Wow, but at the same time there are RPA like robotic process automation type of solution That can replace the human So we're building RPA on different marketplace to automate this process to make it scalable Okay, so this I mean there the the oven in the room then is How has the existence of even more powerful artificial intelligence tools that people are talking about recently Change the way you look at building your RPA stuff Because when you started back in 2014 Sure, there were plenty of tools for automation most of them you'd have to generate yourself As you get into 16 18 20 things have changed, but now it's just like everything's different no Yeah, I think on say open a i the most interesting thing that came I mean the unleash is that In the plus price comparison side uses keyword to match product Yep, right. I'll say plus comparison side of 70% and crypt when they match the product Right, but now with you know AI we can use multi model like More attributes to identify what product it is and match them together Right, so I see a huge potential For us to build a tool to compare The product across world You know for the best price using the AI with 99% accuracy right and with our infrastructure I can now sell you the best offering of the same product in the world just like shopping locally Right, I want to get back to the shopping locally thing too because I think it's fascinating So what you're suggesting is if this same product is available Let's say in the United States in Japan and in Europe somewhere or even in China somewhere But I live in Hong Kong let's say are in Thailand I can use the platform and as effects rates move around and as different variables move in change and as import taxes change You tracking all these stuff That that the product that I want to buy today maybe I would buy last week from the United States and next month I would buy from London That's the kind of experience that it should be Yeah Like if you if you want a faster Obviously you can buy locally sure showing a premium But I think we deserve to have the option at least to buy the lowest price the best offering in the world Yeah, so I want to give you an equivalency here and see what you think. You know this is years ago when people used to buy DVDs and they had a DVD that had three regions right, I don't even know what they were but it was probably like North America, Europe and Asia. It was probably more than that but you had region one, region two, and region three and what that meant was that if you bought a DVD player in Japan you could only buy a DVD that was made for Japan controlled by software that was on it and then there were places that made what was called region free DVDs because the arbitrage and I won't talk about arbitrage with you as well was so unfair to people that lived in Japan or that lived in Thailand that they were pirating stuff for sure because they knew that the pricing was unfair then they bought the region free DVD player which I did do I probably had three of them for like all the rooms where I had a TV and then I could buy it anywhere right and yeah sorry so it's kind of the same thing but I think the ARB is actually a really interesting idea right so you said arbitrage in passing but I don't think most people understand what arbitrage means same product different prices at different times in different time zones and in different places and I'm convinced that over time and I'm curious about your opinion about this but I'm convinced that over time that platforms like this are going to eliminate the ARB right because as technology drives e-commerce at scale it won't make any sense because somebody in Hong Kong is going to be able to buy the thing from the US at the same price then somebody at the US is going to go I can get that cheaper in Hong Kong but I'm not going to Hong Kong I'm going to do that thing in reverse and then the price is just going to revert to a mean somehow no and you're going to drive that no absolutely well um take logistic as an example go ahead back 20 years ago logistic company make a lot of money from the transparency of logistic piece yeah so they don't have like a fixed price you get a quotation they talk to you they figure out how much you're willing to pay and then they give you a price that's how they maximize their margin right that's because technology wasn't there to make everything transparent right but as the world you know you can add uh everything is getting more transparent easy to access not right now everything's more transparent even logistic piece is listing price so I think it's the same for every product I agree right unless I can hide it from you then I can maximize my margin and charge more yeah but once everything is transparent everything is going to uh converge to the same price I agree yeah I agree you definitely going to see this reversion to the same price and I'll give you the perfect example of this yesterday I was out buying a television set like this is a true story and you know they have a price for it that's there I then they go and we'll give you a little bit of a discount and I just go on my phone and I'm like I can buy it like 20% cheaper right now online but I'm here and I want to buy it now and the guy was like okay but if I hadn't done that I wasn't gonna because I have more information than I would have had 15 years ago let's say or 20 years ago that wouldn't have been possible and that dude would have sold me something way more expensive because I had no way of checking and I'm not walking to three other stores to do it right absolutely yeah you talked about logistics which is also very important in a big part of e-commerce right you posted something recently about like building a sustainable and eco-friendly partnerships and stuff around this first of all maybe you can talk about that a little bit but then talk about it as well but why that's so important to you okay so um I think you're referring to Alfred 24 yes sir post yeah so um every 24 I'm also a share of them I found that the company together with my partners right but they run it I'm on the board right I and the vision of Alfred 24 is that because my father do delivery as we do deliver for 30 years right I've been experiencing it for so long and I just went in very inefficient right for give you a number the best delivery man of my father's company can do 60 deliveries a day 60 60 yeah right the best delivery man I say uh shown from express SF express they probably do like 120 because it's more uh dense right but then at that time we're thinking how can we maximize this right and then I learned about in Singapore think of a post has been building puzzle lockers you know installing in the city and then they told me that the best delivery man can do 600 in the first of day 600 but it's more than just route optimization right so we can talk about road optimization and where traffic is and how do you map this but it's more than that right it's actually consolidation because yeah this band now goes to 10 point and each locker can do 60 delivers right just few in the lockers yeah or in 15 minutes and then it goes to another point so this guy only have to go to 10 points to 600 deliver versus back then after to 60 drop off to 260 passes right right so we did a study we did a compilation meaning that everyone that 1000 puzzles we deliver with lockers we can save 13 bands 13 on the streets 13 everyone thousand puzzles that's a lot and you know in Europe it's for it's very very common right there's a company called Info's they've done study on how much carbon emission they can save sure proposal delivered to lockers and that's how the way should be right and it's not only more clean at the same time the merchant have to compare less logistic costs right because the cost of logistic this the salary of that person and the van and how many others they can do deliver and split the cost right yeah instead of dividing by 60 now they can divide by 600 right all right so it's cheaper it's more efficient in the screener and you know our CEO is from Italy he came from a small town called Sardinia right where it is beautiful so then he was telling me that he has to keep now he's just wishing that when his grandson or grandchildren is born the world is still as beautiful as it is right now it's a passion and why he's so focusing this business it's a really good point I remember at the beginning of the pandemic right in March of 2020 and then April didn't leave the apartment and then May didn't leave the apartment and probably in the middle of June and I remember looking outside and I live in a big city right I live in Bangkok and I remember looking outside and just thinking it doesn't look normal outside it looks better but it doesn't look normal and I had this thought of just like maybe we should take like a month off every year but if that's the impact of all the carbon emissions and I'm simplifying to make a point then we should figure out a way or it's incumbent upon us to figure out a way how to get back to that you're right so your grandkids as silly as that sounds can see the earth in the same beautiful way that our grandparents did they didn't even think about it because it just wasn't as dirty as it is today they didn't have to but to be able to look up is a very famous story right of a Japanese guy this is back in the mid 90s taking his son to Hawaii and his kid looking up at the sky at night and going daddy daddy what's in the sky and his dad was like those are stars and he said how come we don't have those yeah when I was in Canada I can see so many stars yeah it's amazing right can I ask you this too and because you said this and I grew with you building a B2B building a B2 C excuse me business and building a B2C business are just like two different lanes they're parallel but they kind of don't intersect a lot right you have to be considering and you're right because I do this too I have a B2C business and I have a B2B business and there isn't a lot of overlap and you write the teams have to be different because the mentality is different and the output is different right because the inputs are different are you thinking about doing this too for B2B because there's so much going on here right because you're building the the purchase side business in the marketplace you're also investing in the infrastructure around the logistics so you're building all the rails here for this and once you figure that part out actually the B2B business should be relatively easier because it's bigger scale and fewer deliveries right so that helps too and then you can partner with local merchants to get products at a way better price for them as well and then in the same way that 20 million dollars you were talking about from the seller or the supplier in Japan turns into 200 or 400 million dollars because now you're handling all of the stuff that they're bringing into whichever country you're bringing it into is does all that make sense am I thinking about this the right way well absolutely I mean when I look at our business I see there a lot of opportunities yeah I do many ways to add a new revenue stream but at the same time I think we also need to focus right until we exploit the growth of certain revenue stream if we you know distract ourselves you know adding a new one then it hurt both revenue stream yeah I agree and doing one thing is a commitment commitment means I have to put resources I have to do the team to run it yep so if today I want to do B2B I would invest 10 hat counts to do it but at the same time I was thinking if I put these 10 hat counts into cost per position applying new users then I'll get better result in two years right because the cost per position of a new customers is still very, Kivian is very good, we turn. So I think it's like parties and milestones when to do the different opportunities. - I mean, isn't that one of the most fun things about running a business that's actually growing and being successful is that you're constantly playing this like three-dimensional chess around? We can definitely do this, that'll make us more money, but doing that actually means we can't do that. If we don't do that, then we actually let's do this instead, right? 'Cause the market's also moving in real time too. It's not, none of it is static, right? And that makes it fun. And maybe this gets back to your math skills. If you're really good at math, if you know how to do that, it really helps you on the analysis side, no? - Well, yes, definitely. It's parties, it's also parties. I think it's very tough to make a position on parties and sometimes it changes like every month when you know, senior is different, but the value of the entrepreneur is to make the right decision on parties. - Right, where do you put our resources? - Right, where do you focus? - Right. Do you remember the first time you said, "No, to something that you knew was gonna make you. " And I don't wanna know what necessarily what it is, if you do remember, be great, but you must have this experience of like, we could do that, I'm definitely gonna make some money doing that, but I'm comfortable enough with what I'm doing and there's more growth over here. I'm going to politely say, "No, thank you." Do you remember that first time you did that? - First time. - Even if, but you definitely had that happen, yeah? Definitely, but it happens almost every month. (laughing) I tell you, "Tiny, if he's coming up, you know, your friend will be like, "Hey, I think there's some senior "to you with this guy that I know, I connect you." Right now, I would say, "No, no, it's not a good time." I'm happy to have a conversation, but I won't be able to put resources to make it happen, but we can talk, maybe for future. - Yeah, and don't you think that's like one of the best entrepreneurial skills? And I like your answer there too, right? You don't, you say, "I won't do it, "but I will still meet this person," because it's always gonna take more time to do it. It's like you meet the guy or gal who runs business x and they say, "Dun, and you just start tomorrow." It's gonna take some time. So it's better to take that time, socialize with that person, socialize the idea of doing it, and then when you're ready, they already know you, so then you can turn it on pretty quickly, yeah? - Absolutely. Talking to another person is always inspiring. - Yeah. - Right? Every time we talk, there's something that happens in your brain. Oh, actually, there's something that I'm doing right now can be left with, which is running some new skills. - Yeah, I mean, I learned something from you. I learned a bunch of things already from you today. This B2B2B2C difference, 'cause I've been struggling with this myself, right? And you're right, those lanes are super parallel. They're similar, but boy, they're super different in many, many ways. I'm gonna have to rethink a bunch of stuff. Anyway, talk to me about expansion. Like, is most of your business now in Hong Kong? And if it isn't, how do you look at expanding to the rest of Asia, Southeast Asia? How does that look to you? - I mean, so much mistakes on this topic. (laughs) - Okay. - Yeah. - So I got it, I gotta go ahead. - Yeah, well, with my ship, 40% of our businesses are from Hong Kong. - Okay. - Right? 25% are from Taiwan. And then we have 10% from Philippines. And then the rest is in 12 markets, right? Singapore, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, Australia, in these markets. I have tried many different models to enter a new market. For example, you go there, you open the office, you hire the local people to run it. Just one way. You open a website and then you remotely manages the website from Hong Kong, that's the second way. You can do a JV, a majority or a minority that's already different, or 5050, right? Or you can white-lippered to a local business owner to run your business. And the mistakes I've made is that when we have done minority business, for example, going into Indonesia, and then we hope minority and the local partner holds majority. And then we can't really capture the revenue in our group anyways. So it doesn't matter how well it does, it doesn't contribute to my metric. - Right, and it's a ton of work. A ton of work. Distraction. If I am majority and the local partner is minority, because what we're building is not a dividend business. Very soon, they'll be like, what am I doing? I don't see money coming into my pocket. They get distracted, opportunity cost, they're going to start doing something else. And then this just goes into like an orphan. I would call that a business an orphan. Because no one is making effort to it. Managing from Hong Kong, and then remotely is nice, but then you cannot fully exploit the potential. Because it's not fully localized. Opening an office running yourself is expensive, and it might not work because there's a lot of management costs. So these are things I've tried to share what I find the most efficient way to exactly is what we did in Philippines. So Philippines market is two years old for us, but then it has already grown to our third largest market. So what we did differently is called venture building model. So we did a JV with a local partner, but we also have a two years contract to roll up their shares to my holding company shares. And the number of shares will depend on the size of the business after two years. So the first two years, the local partner is going to contribute a lot to make sure that it will generate a lot of revenue in order to convert more shares of our company. And two years later, who will become the shareholder of my holding company, which we align except path. - Yeah. - Online our interest, long-term interest. So so far, I find this model the most efficient way. And in the end of the day, I think going into new market definitely have to leverage local partners, but the best way to align a work local partner is to align long-term interests. - I agree. Who's idea was this? Cause it's a really interesting idea. Or was it just something I know investors? - Or is it actually our investor? - So that's what I want to ask you. So I really want to know like what the investors view up was on this because it creates some dilution for them, right? But it also gives you in a way, in a way, the company in the Philippines in some sense is buying those shares by creating higher GMV for you and growing it faster because now it can't become what it could, but it probably won't become an orphan because they're paying super close attention to it because they're watching you grow in other markets and it gives them access to that growth if they can buy their way in by getting their GMV up to some pre-agreed level. I'm guessing you can have any kind of way of doing this, but the investor must be super happy because they're feeding money into the business which then you can use for growth and they only get diluted if they reach that point. And that's kind of cool, no? The investor will be able to get that idea. Sorry, that's cool. - Yeah, there's dilution, but then the value per share is higher. - Yeah, yeah, that's my point. That's my point. So it's a great idea, right? Because the other type of dilution that an investor would have is if another investor came in and just gave you money and no other business, right? And now you're behind the eight ball because now you really have to start building yourself where you've basically said to the people in the Philippines and other places is, okay, we'll do the JV with you. And if you can reach this thing, you get value two years down the road at a much higher price because you're adding value into it. So you get a pure so dilution slower, but the cash flow in is really great. So it works both ways, yeah? - Yeah, I like it. - Yeah. - And for example, our Philippines local JV partner, they gained eight times in two years. First, the money they put in, now the value of what they have on our company is eight times. - Right, so let's say you want to expand into Vietnam, would you do the same deal? And I'm not suggesting that that country, but just you understand what I mean, now that you've learned that in this work, is this the way you're gonna do it going forward, you think? - Absolutely. - Yeah. - And it's easier for us because we have done it one time. We have a number to show the new partner how much they could achieve in two years. - Yeah, exactly. - It becomes a playbook to replicate into different markets. And we're planning to do the same little thing the next four markets we're going to. - Got it. I'm super interested to see how this works. And do you employ the same model now in Alfred in Alfred 24 in the sense that if that thing is gonna grow as well, if it's gonna move into other markets, will you do the same thing? - Well, at the right timing, definitely. I think that's the best model to win in two new markets. But Alfred 24 right now, the focus is on common because we got invested by Mr. Company, you know, is announced. And there's a huge synergy between us. We could build one of the most efficient networking on phone with them. So I think our next focus, again, is all about focus, right? Is Hong Kong working? - So when you started this company in 2014, is this the first company you started yourself? - No, actually, I started my first business when I was 24. - Okay, right? And then I sold it to a listed company in Singapore. Good stuff. - After five years? And then, you know, I used to capital team build about that business. - I just think that the learnings that you've had over time, like things get clearer and clearer, like the longer you're in business. Where you said focus, also the ability to say no, right? And coming up with the right structures, and you said you did a bunch of things wrong, but now you come up with a model for expansion that seems to make sense to you. Do you look at the way you're doing it? back sometimes and think because I have this saying that I like to say and that is there are things you know you know and there are things you think you know and it's very different right and there must have been a ton of things that you thought you knew back in 2014 where you were wrong and now you just look back and just go oh yeah I definitely didn't know that at all you know what I mean? definitely I think it's so true you know my dad is also an entrepreneur obviously he's gonna share a lot of advice to me and I thought I knew because he told me already right dad you told me yeah but until I actually make that same mistake right I wouldn't learn it properly like for some of my dad first thing you told me that never do a 50-50 business with your friend because you argue and then you go to hell and then some people hear that oh okay but me and my best friend are different we met each other since three years old right we shared everything right we are different right you're not though we're not yeah and in the end what you said happened yeah right so I have learned a lot from different entrepreneurs from mentor but until I actually make that mistake myself I wouldn't really learn it yeah and I do this in my I'll let you go after this but I do that in my own parenting understanding what it took me to learn things and I think this is really one of the hardest things for a parent to do is watch your children make a mistake where you know what the outcome is gonna be but you're right if you don't fall off that bicycle you're not gonna feel that pain on your knee and on your hands and then you won't learn one how to get back up even if it's painful but two how not to fall off again because if you're constantly behind somebody back seat driving don't do this don't do that slow down all that kind of stuff then they'll never learn on their own and then when the time comes for them to make a decision on their own they're just gonna muck it up right slowly yeah so I'm grateful that I've made a lot of mistakes yeah got rejected by so many times and these are all adding to who I am and how I do think right now okay I'm gonna let you go shelvingly a co-founder and CEO advisor that was awesome I really appreciate your time today and thank you again for being so patient with all the back in which it's on us and like you said it's very fun I really enjoy this conversation thank you thank you Michael