J.R.: 0:00

Hello and welcome back to another episode of 1000 Gurus with me, your host, jr Yonacruz. Today's guest is Eric Y Chen. Eric is a serial entrepreneur specializing in product launch marketing services. He's well known for his viral card game Subobataj the Boba card game having sold over 100,000 units in just a few short years, and it is available in retailers like Target, barnes, noble and Amazon. He manages multiple clients through his marketing agency Launch Brand Grow, responsible for seven-figure brands running Facebook ads, web design and lead gen. In 2024, with the growth of his own brands and clients, he's building up a 3PL fulfillment center to help companies with shipping products to their end customers. This allows clients to come full circle, providing a near A to Z solution when running an e-commerce business.

J.R.: 0:47

I really enjoyed this episode for a couple of reasons, the first being that Eric is now the guest I've known the longest, since way back in high school, so it was definitely a blast from the past catching up with him after all these years about 17 or 18 years to be exact and the second is that he's covered three industries that none of my other guests have talked about before, which are sales and marketing, product development, a tabletop card game and 3PL shipping industry third-party logistics. Eric is one of the most quote-unquote decorated guests I've had on the show in terms of having a vast experience in entrepreneurship, and I learned so much from just a short hour that we had. So, without further ado, I hope you enjoy this episode with Eric Y Chen. Hello everyone and welcome back to 1000 Gurus.

J.R.: 1:28

Please welcome my guest, eric Y Chen. How's it going? Good? Good, thanks for being here. You are the first Eric Chen on my show, and so we were talking about this before the recording started, but there are a lot of Eric Chen's in the world, apparently, and so I know one of them. I know the best one. I'm a little biased, but yeah, so I don't know if you wanted to recount anything that we were saying, but your goal in life is to be the number one, eric.

Eric: 1:55

The secret well, not secret anymore, but the goal is to be the number one search result on Google for Eric Chen, if you type in my name, but I know I think over 10 Eric Chens already, just personally.

J.R.: 2:08

Just personally. Yeah, so there's too many of us. Do you know where you are in the ranking? Oh, I think probably like second page or something.

Eric: 2:15

I don't think I even show up on the first page, really.

J.R.: 2:17

Hey, second page is pretty good. I feel, like or like such a common name.

J.R.: 2:29

We'll have to double check because obviously, if you've searched it before you'll, I'll show up on the first page for myself. But yeah, in terms of a normal, like anonymous person, yeah, interesting but cool, yeah. So, anyways, thanks for being here, we'll get straight into it. Yeah, I let's see. We haven't, I don't know. The last time we talked high school, so what? This is like 16, 17 years, something like that again getting close to 20 years. Yeah, getting close to 20 years. We were just talking about our 10 year anniversary.

J.R.: 2:49

So eric is actually a year ahead of me, so he's a year older class of 2008, I believe yeah so we have a lot of mutuals and we've definitely seen each other in high school, but not like necessarily the same circles. But we're connected on facebook and I've seen what you've been up to the last 16, 17 years and it's been pretty cool, and so you were on my list of very interesting people that I know through my own networks, so I'm personally grateful to have you on the show. Thank you for making the time, thank you for having me, yeah, and so let me just recap what I wrote down in my research. When you're researching for a podcast, it's research, but if you aren't doing it for something, it's just stalking. So I think this is just research. So we both went to Irvington High School in Fremont, california. Shout out to all the Fremont people out there You're a class ahead of me.

J.R.: 3:33

You went to UC Davis, majored in international relations, econ focus, minor in communication. I'm just testing my research skills now. And then, after going through your socials and LinkedIn, I learned that. Correct me if I'm wrong. For any of these things you worked in business development and sales and some training. Digital marketing at Google. Co-founder of Startpad, which is like a product incubator sort of place. Advisor to Asian Hustle Network. I think some of us know what that is Writer at Need, that it's a media company focused on consumer products. You hosted your own podcast, the Y Factor podcast, for a couple of years, so you're no stranger to being on podcasts. You have extensive experience sharing knowledge, as you've done. A dozen or so speaking engagements I've seen, and the biggest things you're up to now is being the CEO of Launch Brand Grow and CEO of Moco Shipping and the creator of the tabletop card game Subobitage. Did I miss anything or anything else that you want to throw in there?

Eric: 4:27

I mean that pretty much sums it up. So pretty well researched.

J.R.: 4:30

Nice, cool. So what else have you been up to? I know we caught up outside, but like what else has been, eric Weichen went up to I mean on a personal side, it's mostly just adulting very hard.

Eric: 4:41

My then fiance and I bought a house together down here in SoCal, Thank you. And then we got. We had our first marriage last year on paper, and then our Asia wedding in Vietnam back in April. So we were there for about a month doing a whole Asia type wedding and then we have our Western wedding coming up. So that's just the more on the personal side. It's all just life really.

J.R.: 5:02

Nice. That's exciting.

Eric: 5:02

So so dang two weddings and the official on paper is your wife from vietnam or, yeah, her family's still in vietnam, so that's why we wanted to have a wedding out there and celebrate with them that's a dope sleep where.

J.R.: 5:15

Where's your western wedding gonna?

Eric: 5:16

happen down here, right here in socal, yeah, so just keep it more local. Yeah, and I know you and I we grew up in norcal, but most of my family's actually moved down to socal too, so the transition was pretty easy oh yeah, that makes sense.

J.R.: 5:28

I actually last weekend or the weekend before I just came back from norcal for my freshman roommate's wedding it was an indian wedding, my first one, super exciting bought the outfit and, yeah, I was just reconnecting with friends from college. But also I got to see my family, because when I go to we we talked about this when I go to NorCal, it's mostly just family, but it's nice to reconnect with people from way back. I don't know if you had this experience. We talked about our 10 year reunion, but did anyone comment on how you've either changed or are the same from high school?

Eric: 5:59

Not so much, I think it. Yeah, like you were saying earlier, when we were catching up is everyone kind of just seems the same, right, and even to now I still feel like a kid. We're just now experiencing bodily pains knee pain, have gout right so it's like I still watch anime, Like I still like trying to play video games if I have free time. Compared to our parents, when they were raising us, they didn't have that luxury, right.

J.R.: 6:22

So you still feel like a kid, but you're just now a number in your age, just older, but still, yeah, I feel that, like the mindset it's I'm the same person. You obviously have more experience and you have more responsibilities. But yeah, I feel like I could be the same person as I was in high school, because I'm doing a lot of the same stuff, exactly. That's pretty dope. Okay, if nothing else, maybe we can start off with our first topic as usual origin story, biggest influences, life trajectories. We already know where you grew up. Questions are where did you grow up and what were the main influences that inform who you are today?

Eric: 6:55

Yeah, I think the brief origin story was mostly just being raised in NorCal. My dad was working in the semiconductor industry and so just growing up, I always watched him talk about business, but I didn't really know what business meant. So when we would tag along to business trips or go to Asia and tag along, what I thought was business was just having dinner with other businessmen in suits and then shake hands and laugh, and then that's it. And so I was like oh, I want to be a businessman when I grow up. And then that was it. So once you go to college, you're like so what do you want to do?

Eric: 7:28

I was like I want to run business, but my idea of business is totally different than what business actually is. And so once I graduated university, the whole idea was oh, what can you actually do in business besides sales? So that's actually how I got into sales, because I'm not I'm not studying anything with any high vocation where it's oh, yeah, I'm starting studying to be an engineer or a doctor. It's just, yeah, just very broad degree, right. So what better than to just go into sales? So that's how I got started in my career path.

J.R.: 7:59

Okay, so in high school I don't know if you were thinking about. Were you thinking about just business when you're going to university?

Eric: 8:07

Yeah, I think it was just like business since, like I was five years old, that's the only exposure I had.

Eric: 8:14

It's not like my parents encouraged me to be a doctor or anything. I think my mom actually wanted me to be like a flight attendant. If she was like oh, if you can't be a pilot, then at least be a flight attendant. Because I think back in our parents' age they really glorified pilots, flight attendants. So there's like oh, it's so cool, you get to travel and stuff. But obviously I was like I don't want to be a flight attendant, so business was the next thing.

J.R.: 8:36

I see. What about sales and business? Do you think draws you to it, based on, maybe, your characteristics?

Eric: 8:48

personality or things like that. I think I mean you and I went to the same high school so you probably remember me being pretty social and I was a captain of the track team and stuff. So it was like partially, you know leadership and taking initiative. So I think a lot of that background still flows through with me as I grew up and then just putting that into effect. But once you're in sales, you'll fast or soon realize that business is not necessarily whether you talk a lot or talk well. It's about listening and just asking the right questions in order to close business and stuff. So that's, that was a big turning point when I did jump into my sales career. It's like, no, you shouldn't be talking that much. You should just be asking the right questions in order to have the prospect or the person that you're trying to win over talk more than you.

J.R.: 9:28

I like that because sometimes the conception of a salesperson is that talk person where they just talk a lot.

J.R.: 9:33

They're just constantly talking or a good talker, and that's it. Right, exactly. But you're saying listening is just as, if not more, important, because you get to from what I've read in sales books you get to identify what the person actually wants and meet where it makes sense for both of you, and that ability is more valuable than just the ability to talk out your ass. Right, exactly. So then you graduated with international relations and communications, so how did you go into sales at that point? I know, based on your career resume, it seems like you were along that path for a long time. How did you jump into sales at that point?

Eric: 10:06

Yeah, jumping into a sales career was actually pretty difficult. I couldn't really land a job after college. I think it took me maybe four or five months to land a job, and then it wasn't even a job, it was an internship. But luckily the company I worked for was ADP not the security company but the payroll company. It's always confused, but the payroll company actually has one of the top sales training programs in the nation and so what happens is, if you go and work at ADP, a lot of other companies will start recruiting you or reaching out to you to join their sales team because they didn't want to pay for training. But you already gone through adp's training.

Eric: 10:47

But, yeah, me going through the internship I think it was like a six week internship. I ended up being I wasn't like top intern, but they had a competition for all the interns across the entire nation and I won the, the challenge of like how many like leads you can get in a like a couple hours or on that one day. So it's like a full nationwide, like every intern is competing and I won and so at least that helped solidify a job and so, yeah, they offered me a job. I think they offered it to me before my six weeks was up because I performed well enough and then they're like cool, you can well winning, is I'm sure it's well enough exactly yeah so then I started the career as an associate salesperson and then when you talk about that type of sales role, we're talking about knocking on doors.

Eric: 11:32

We're going to small businesses and just hoping to convert someone to switch payroll, or, if they don't have a system, then try to get them on payroll. And then my role specifically luckily enough I was actually more partnered with accounting firms and CPA firms, so a lot of the door knocking was with accounting firms and then building relationships with them and then build it on referrals. So I did a partial knock on doors for random businesses. If it was within my territory, the majority of it was nurturing relationships with accountants and CPAs, and so that's really where I was able to continue building my sales skills while relationship building too, and that's where a lot of my sales background really stems from.

J.R.: 12:17

I see. So one question I have is how do you win a competition like that? What do you think are the skills or strategies or mindsets or resources that allow you to be that good at something like sales?

Eric: 12:32

I mean, if the goal is to set as many appointments as possible, right. So we're trying to do a lead gen competition and I think, especially if people are starting off in sales and this applies to your life in general, just like everything is some sort of interaction with sales but most people will get caught up with the first no, and you just got to figure out how to overcome certain objections as to why they're even saying no. So if you even frame the question correctly and not really give the person a chance to say no, then you have a better opportunity to do it right. When we were doing that competition, it was more about setting an appointment, not any hard sell to the prospect, right. So it was just more of trying to convince them. Hey, they think they're about to get caught up on a long conversation and so they're not going to feel like they have time because you just called them out of the blue and so, as long as you even overcome that with them and acknowledge it, that was like hey, I don't, I'm not taking, I don't want to take up too much of your time. I was calling her to reach out to see what you're using for payroll and if we can just set up like a quick 15 minute or 10 minute conversation to see how it can help you save money. I was just talking to this could be a white lie, I mean, it's certain tactics.

Eric: 13:44

Later down the road was like oh yeah, I was just talking to your neighbor and so you have to use that carefully. But that's better for in-person. If you did talk to the neighbor but it's yeah, your neighbor is going to sit down and talk with me next week, so I'll be back next week. And they're like oh okay, if you't want to take up too much of your time, it's going to be really quick, just to see if we save money, if maybe you can save money within five, 10 minutes. Let's just set up a time Like how does Tuesday Thursday next week? I'm not asking are you interested in taking a call? It's just hey, how does Tuesday Thursday next week sound? And they're like Thursday, cool, how about one or 2 PM, one o'clock, cool, all right, we'll give you a call back at 1 PM.

J.R.: 14:31

Boom, that was a an appointment, and then keep going. So maybe you're just a genius at this, but where did you learn how to have the right strategies to be the best in this competition? I know there's a lot of different ways you can learn this. Or did you have any mentors? Or was you just followed the training and other people just didn't as much, or I don't know.

Eric: 14:46

I think, if I think, you just got to realize you can't really follow a script too much, right? So, and that's the thing, people will just read through the script and they're not really thinking. And so, even though they equipped us with a script, you got to realize what that person is saying, because once they derail from the yes or no, because those scripts will tell you if they said yes, then schedule this, if they said no, then try to object. But if the person responds with something they don't know how to respond with, then that person freezes up. Okay, thank you, bye.

Eric: 15:20

And that's it Right, and so you just have to really spend the time to understand what you're actually talking about with the other person and just listen. Right, those are just things that I learned from the other salespeople on the team too, because, yeah, I did get some mentorship, or they assign you a mentor too, and so those are just things that I pick up along the way. Just don't focus on the script only I see.

J.R.: 15:44

so it's just people relying on this decision tree, but you were able to see broader and be more flexible and adaptable for those things that go off script and you feel like that kind of gave you an advantage.

Eric: 15:55

Exactly. I'm like I'm training my sales team too and they're still, and it could take a while. But I think that's where I identified myself as oh, I think I understand sales a little bit more than other people, because some people they could be stuck on a script level for six months. Like I'm still training my sales team for the shipping company and one of them is still on. He has a script, he's memorized it and I can tell he's trying to break out of it when there's certain questions. But you can tell he's only memorized the answers. If this, then he'll answer that Right. But you can tell he's only memorized the answers. If this, then he'll answer that right. But if there's a random question that he can't answer, at least he realized he can at least say that's a great question. I'll defer that to Eric to answer that later on if I'm not on the call with him or something right.

Eric: 16:37

So at least he's able to defer, versus freeze up and say, oh, I don't know, sorry, okay, bye, right. So at least he's taken that step, and then it'll take time, just because there's a lot of moving parts on the shipping side.

J.R.: 16:50

When we're having those conversations I see. Okay, last question on this, because I love this topic of sales and influence and the people skills aspect that you can't really escape from, no matter what industry you're in. But do you have any advice on how to get better at sales or influence? You mentioned listening and knowing the script, knowing what's inside the box and then learning how to freestyle outside of it and think on the fly. But any other advice or tips you have at excelling in this field?

Eric: 17:15

So there's a lot of sales books, sales training, all that stuff. So at Always Hired I helped build a curriculum, the owner of that business, he had very aggressive sales tactics and even the script was very aggressive. I take a very soft approach and so I think for a lot of people, when they do go into sales, they just really have to figure out which method meshes better with their personality. And so if you're a soft person to trying to be aggressive, it's just going to come out awkward and people can feel that Right. But if you're a soft person to trying to be aggressive, it's just going to come out awkward and people can feel that Right. But if you're soft and you take a more soft approach and people like, oh yeah, this guy's like nice, and then you adapted that type of approach, then it'll feel a lot better too. Otherwise you're just forcing yourself and then you can feel that tension and clash. So yeah, just you got to feel it out and see which methods work.

J.R.: 18:08

So obviously study and read up on more books to see what other approaches there are too, and practice probably right in the field and get live experience. Yeah, I like it. So let's keep going forward now. So sales ADP eventually you move into marketing and ads and things like that and if I'm connecting the dots, it informs your later steps. But could you go through that trajectory with us?

Eric: 18:25

Yeah, so in a sales organization there's always going to be outside sales and inside sales people.

Eric: 18:31

For some reason, my job has always been on the outreach side, not inside sales. So inside sales are people who get to call warm leads. So they're getting leads from the marketing side of things, or the inbound leads from the website side of things, or the inbound leads from the website, and so you have a sales team for that. Then you got other people who were like oh, let me just research and reach out to people, and for some reason, all my jobs have always been I got to do the grind versus oh, here's the lead, here's the lead. And so I'm like what if I could be or switch it where I am starting to get more on the lead side? And that's where my interest in marketing came into play, because if you're marketing things well, then people are coming to you instead of me reaching out and trying to sell you something. Right, the marketing side is you've already done half of the work to attract someone in. So that's where that stepping stone came into me wanting to go more into the marketing side.

J.R.: 19:26

I see, and then so you follow that path down and I think, if I'm not getting any of this wrong, you worked at Google for a bit and then eventually you start to help other brands market and grow their own products and whatnot. So then how did that pivot happen?

Eric: 19:44

Yeah, so I don't know if you remember, but back in 2016, I had a crazy car accident, and so that's what kind of helped put myself in towards a trajectory into wanting to do more entrepreneurial pursuits. That car accident, like I was asleep as a passenger, we crashed into a tree and then my ruptured, my intestines were ruptured, damn. So all I did was like just wake up one morning and already went through surgery. It was like tubes out my mouth and stuff and there's like a very long recovery process, and so I like more internal bleeding complications. So that second phase of recovery, that's really where I had time to think about what I wanted to do, and so that's when I decided to quit corporate and then go into figuring out entrepreneurship.

Eric: 20:33

When I did that, most of what it was at the time was like how to sell on Amazon, how to do FBA if people are familiar with that fulfillment by Amazon work from the beach, work remote, live this cool laptop lifestyle, or laptop warrior as they call it. And so around my 20, mid 20s, I was like, oh cool, I want to do that. And then I did go down that path for a couple of months and I was like, oh, this is not for me. I'm like I don't think I don't know how it's sustainable for anyone to sit at the beach on their laptop every day. I'm like I'm not even a beach person, I'm more of a mountain snow person. So this is not for me. And so I came back.

Eric: 21:10

I did end up going through launching my first product on Amazon, and that exposure just really opened up a lot of doors for me. And then I was able to help educate a lot of people on how to launch their first product, how to sell, and then I had linked up with my mentor at the time and then we became business partners and that's where we decided oh, now we have experience in a few different modes where we can help create products for other people. We had factory connections, we had the know-how to launch products, we had the facility to ship stuff out for people. So that's how that whole part got started, with the product incubation and product launching and all of that.

J.R.: 21:50

Interesting. So it was doing the thing yourself and you're like, hey, I have, now that I've done it and I've carved the path, I can help others do the same thing with their businesses. So I guess at that point, sorry, what was the product, the first thing that you built? I don't mind sharing.

Eric: 22:05

Yeah, yeah, I don't mind sharing, because I think I still have one box of the original samples that I have Because in the FBA game it's not about like you just trying to create a product. It's just like you do reverse research and see what sells and then you go try to just source that and sell it on Amazon yourself too. I sourced paper targets, so like the paper that you'll bring to the shooting range and you shoot up those papers. Oh, I see, yeah, so there's something called fluorescent splatter kind of thing, so it's just like very bright paper with the silhouette of your target and then when you shoot the target, then you can see your shots a little bit more visibly and that was like like a hoax, because it was just like bright paper is on the back side of that black silhouette.

Eric: 22:49

So I saw on the marketplace that was mostly yellow, and then someone had a green one. But I'm like, oh, no one had an orange one. And I'm like, yeah, orange just coincides with the hunting and all that stuff. So I sourced like very neon orange ones and then that was my very first product. It sold okay, until that batch that I had ordered, I guess like the ink was flaking at the top.

Eric: 23:12

And so when people got their product they're like, oh, the ink's flaked off, so this is a bad product. I'm like you can only tell them so much. Hey man, like you're about to shoot at it and destroy it. So it's like, what does a little flaking going to do with the bottom? But I was already pissed at the quality. So I told the factory. I was like, hey man, like either refund my money or I'm never going to do business with you again. And they're like, hmm, nah, we got our money. And I'm like, yeah, so I didn't renew that product. But yeah, I just sold. I just dropped the price down and sold the rest of it off. I think it was like a $10,000 investment, maybe like 5,000 units at the very beginning, and then that was it. It's just I didn't make any money. I probably lost a little bit of money, but at least I was like I went through the entire cycle of sourcing and everything, yeah, so that's why I call it a more of a learning curve.

J.R.: 23:57

I think that's pretty key to doing anything, or at least learning is you put skin in the game, you make an investment and then, when you learn, you may or may not get the return you want, but at least you gain that experience for the next thing, which I feel like you've done over and over again. Right, so, then, going forward to now helping other entrepreneurs, creators, and build their brands and whatnot, I want to ask what that journey was like, but I also want to ask you lessons learned, or challenges that you face doing that. I think there's another element of you running your own business, but now you're helping someone else with theirs. I'm sure there's an interesting dynamic there, but I don't know if you want to clarify any of those.

Eric: 24:34

There's one thing I realized over the course of the last couple of years where, as much as I try to help people or consult people even people pay me money to consult on their projects I realize time after time and I always hope that this happens where I'm, it sucks, where I will give them the advice, but they can't comprehend the advice. We'll acknowledge it or they'll understand it, but they won't, they can't put a weight on it of like how important it is versus the problem at hand that they're trying to achieve or overcome. Right, maybe because it's their first product, so there's just a lot more stressors of I got to figure out more of the factory, so they're just focused on that. But then when I tell them like hey, like once you're done with the factory stuff, like these are the next sets of challenges that are going to happen, and you got to focus on that. But then, when the time comes, they've totally forgot or didn't acknowledge it. And then now they're running into these issues. So I think it's just like everyone still needs to level up and then understand, right, because I've been doing this for I don't know 10, over 10 years, and so it's.

Eric: 25:42

Every e-commerce thing, every marketing thing, is second nature to me. But then, if you've never done marketing, you're like oh, like, what is facebook? What are facebook ads? What are meta ads? What are tiktok ads, what's cpa or all that stuff right? But for me it's just, that's just natural, and and so you realize that it'll take more years of experience for them to understand. Once you get there, like, why just help this other company just launch their product yesterday? And then I realized every week we had a consulting call. I'm like these are the things you need to focus on, these are the things you should have on the page. And then come to realize they just didn't implement any of that stuff. All right, and I'm like, okay, well, they paid for it they paid you but they're not listening.

Eric: 26:23

Yeah, yeah, so that I think that's the biggest difference between like I, what I see as my own challenges or problems and things I want to focus on. Like I can go focus on it because I have my team to help implement these things, and then, when it's a client, whether they implement or not. That's where the big discrepancy.

J.R.: 26:42

Okay, I want to get into ads and all that stuff, because it's one of the things that you wrote down. But also, on the tail end of this, do you have any advice or insights for people who are in that same space that you were, where they want to be an entrepreneur. Maybe they have a business idea or something, same space that you were where they want to be an entrepreneur. Maybe they have a business idea or something, and I know you do this professionally consulting but do you have any good starting points or advice you could give to those people on how they can make this idea manifest?

Eric: 27:07

Yeah, so it depends on the type of business. If you want to do products, you want to do service. Let's just talk about products, just because that's more of my realm. Now, if you want to start a product-based business, I would say figuring out how to do amazon fba is the best. Best course like that really forces you to understand the product, research, the manufacturing, the sourcing, freighting it in, like learning all of the lingo, because you just have to do every step to get your products here into the States, set it up on Amazon, start selling. How do you? How to do marketing on Amazon? How are you going to try to market it once your product is here? And so that forces you to go from A to Z. And so that's why, when I started doing the product incubation stuff, we were doing A to Z for people, because we already did A to Z and I've seen a lot of people because at that time, when I first started, I'm meeting other people who are on the same journey or same path or they're just starting off.

Eric: 28:08

A lot of people figure out what they like in the business process where then they start a business specifically for that. So let's just say you go out and you want to go, you have to source your product from China. And so this person's wow, I really love that process, like talking to reaching out to all these factories and writing your Excel sheet and looking at all the costing and stuff. And so all of a sudden these people are like I'm just going to now become a sourcing agent, right, I'm going to start sourcing for other people. Like I don't need to source my own stuff and sell my own stuff. I've just created a service-based business and then source it for you, right? The other thing could be like because we're doing shipping now, but it's oh, yeah, if you need help with shipping, because we have that experience. But I had to like that. So that's why, if people wanted to start entrepreneurship and start in the product base, doing an FBA Amazon product will give you exposure to every step you need.

J.R.: 29:11

I like that. I think that's really good advice. Okay, so now there's a crossroads so we can talk about Facebook ads or marketing, or there's also shipping. So you just teased that where you're getting into shipping. Which way do you want to go?

Eric: 29:25

Let's talk about marketing first, because everything will land at shipping products anyways. Yeah, yeah, yeah At the end.

J.R.: 29:30

Cool. So what do you have to say about Facebook ads and whatnot? I know, like you're saying, it was your way to turn those leads warmer. They come to you and you have experience doing that now, but I don't know if there are any insights that you want to start with.

Eric: 29:42

Yeah, the challenge with like marketing and let's just talk about Facebook ads I've been doing it since 2017. And so from then until now, things have changed entirely, and even I think last week, facebook basically said hey, we're rolling out a lot of AI functions now, like it used to already have a little bit of AI, but now they're like we're rolling out whatever. I'm not really big on AI, but they're saying like we're using this AI tech to really hone in on running the Facebook ads on the back end. And these are the things that us, as marketers, don't really know until it rolls out and starts happening. So the thing with marketing is, things are always changing and evolving, and that's the tough part, because I feel like I'm one of those people who I do see myself being slower to change and being like the grumpy person.

Eric: 30:32

It's like, oh, the kids are playing music too loud, Right? Or what is this new music? And like, where hip hop is too crazy, right, what is mumble rap, right? But now I actually can't keep up with TikTok. Tiktok to me is very overstimulating because, like people's editing skills, they're so crazy. And so I actually don't look at TikTok very often, like barely, and maybe if my wife wants to show me a video or something. But I'm more on Instagram because the edits there are a little bit more like, easier to watch.

Eric: 31:06

But that's why I'm like, with marketing, everyone knows everything's on TikTok, right? Tiktok's the thing. That's where everyone goes viral, that's where brands need to go, and so that's where we've been struggling in the last three years, because I haven't really adopted TikTok as much, and so that's why, in marketing, you just have to continue evolving. And that's the tough part, because I can see myself not evolving through this TikTok phase. We just tell them like, hey, look, we can service you guys on Facebook ads, meta ads, instagram, all that's fine. Like we are still running it, still doing it, and then now we can adapt to whatever the new AI tech that Facebook is doing. But beyond that, I'm like hey, we can't service you on TikTok, right, it's just you got to figure it out. But we I talk with other marketers and they give me insights on how TikTok is working and stuff and they basically say, well, tiktok paid still doesn't really work. It's so organic videos that drive those sales. So I'm like, okay, at least there's not really a big need for.

J.R.: 32:09

TikTok paid marketing agencies. Yeah, I see. Yeah, it makes sense, because these platforms evolve, the algorithms change, ai gets layered onto that, so it's keeping up with that. It's a challenge in itself, so it makes a lot of sense. I would like to now pivot to Subobitage, so that's a whole other thing. We can probably go back to shipping as well, but I think, from what I've researched, you've sold hundreds of thousands of units, got into big box retail and I think that's no small feat and you've done a lot. You built a global team and now you're into shipping as well. Could feat? And you've done a lot. You built a global team and now you're into shipping as well. Could you give us an insight on the origin story of that and your journey thus far?

Eric: 32:42

Yeah, so we'll start from the product incubation side, right? So even with a product incubator, most of those products were tech products hardware, consumer electronics. We had a smart law client with a golf tech product and when I was running those businesses with my partner and our clients, I realized tech products are just such a nightmare, because one it's very hard to produce, very hard to manufacture. Then you have the dealing with customers, and I remember specifically I was building up the customer support channels and stuff, and the wildest customer support tickets are like hey, I can't connect to my bluetooth to this device and I'm like what iphone are you using? And they're like iphone 4 and I'm like it clearly says iphone 8 and above compatible, right, and so you're already a couple iphone generations behind. And I'm like then they're like okay, refund. And you can't, we can't do anything about it, right, it's just we plaster iPhone 8 and above on the website and all of that, and so it's just a high return rate, the tech issues, all that stuff. Then tech moves so fast that if you don't adapt to the next technology too, then you're screwed.

Eric: 33:54

And so when I left my business partners and funny enough, and this always leads back to shipping. At the time our third partner. He was like hey, how, where are we making money the most, like the most money? And we said we're making the most money on the shipping side, not the sale of the tech product, not the marketing side, just the shipping of the products. And so he's like hey, I'll have an extra warehouse warehouse like you guys want to build a 3pl shipping business out of there in gilroy. I'm like no, gilroy.

Eric: 34:23

Yeah, I'm like absolutely not, and so that was like a sign for me to leave my business partners, because they're just like, hey, let's just focus on that. And then so when I left, I wanted to figure out another product, and it was more of what is the most analog product I could figure out, and it's like paper and cards, no technology whatsoever. And then it goes back into. At this point I had already launched products for other people. I had launched random products on Amazon. Right, we had, it was the paper targets, we had a pencil grip, and it's just, these are just random junk that had no meaning to me.

Eric: 35:00

And so when I went into it, I'm like let's make a card game. And it's like these are good memories when we were kids, we grew up playing games with friends and family, and then it's less screen time, right, and so it's just it had all these things. And then, once I started researching and developing it, I was like there actually is. There were no Boba themed games out there. And so of course, coming from my Taiwanese heritage, it was like, oh, only made sense that create a Boba themed game. And so that's kind of how it started. And then it just happened that this is right at the beginning of the pandemic, and so everyone was forced to stay indoors, and that's actually where a surge of the board game industry started coming up, and so it was just like really good timing that I had developed this thing, I had launched it right in the middle of COVID and people yeah, board games and stuff and Boba thing right, Boba man.

Eric: 35:55

Didn't exist. And so that's really where things just started taking off. We launched on Kickstarter, did a crowdfunding campaign for it, raised about $148,000. And then, once we got inventory, I made a big bet. So we pre-sold about 5,500 units. I ordered 10,000. I made a big bet and was like, okay, we just received the 10,000. Let's order another 25,000. And we fulfilled the initial 55 and we sold out of the 4,500 in a month and I was like, but luckily, I already ordered 25,000.

Eric: 36:33

So the moment I think we maybe didn't have an inventory for a week or two and then so once that landed and we were able to just continue selling and through the holidays, and then, but the issue after that was, out of the 25,000 I ordered, we only sold through 8,000 through the holidays. And so I was, I had 17,000 remaining. And then this was right after hall like Christmas time. And so come January, I'm like holy crap, we were selling hundreds a day. And then now I'm like we're not selling anything. We're selling like five a day, maybe 10 a day if we're lucky. And so then I realized, oh, okay, as we went through and springtime came about, then sales started to pick up, then summertime sales started to increase. And then Q4, boom, we're back up to 500 orders a day. And I'm like, oh, wow, this is where I discovered the seasonality of the board game industry. And so then that was what allowed me to get more prepared to sell even more.

Eric: 37:28

So that's how Subobitage grew very fast from the beginning, then it hit a low period, then it went back up and then, because of my experience with e-commerce, we were able to scale very fast. And then I then started researching well, how do I get to retail? And I cause I had no experience in retail. Like we did a little bit of retail, but that was like my business partner for our other clients when we got their tech products into Home Depot and Lowe's and Best Buy. But I wasn't really a part of that side of the thing, so I had no exposure into big box retail as much, and so this one I had to figure out all on my own, and so I went to this convention that was mainly for board game industry, got referred over to a distributor. Then I had tried talking to other distributors too, and it's just so wild that even these distributors are like oh, you're just a one, one game company, we don't even want to bother talking to you kind of thing Right.

Eric: 38:26

But at the time and this is this was like them saying, no, don't bother me. I'm like, oh, okay, well, I mean I don't know what to do then, because I we sold over 38 000 in 18 months, so who else should I talk to? And they're like oh, you sold that much in a short amount of time, okay, we can talk. And I'm like cool, and so that's. I didn't want to take no for an answer, but it wasn't like me playing hardball, but I was like okay like okay, I don't know what to do with this 38 000 sales all the success if that's not?

Eric: 38:57

enough, then I don't know what is right with this. 38,000 sales, all the success. If that's not enough, then I don't know what is right. And that's because I also did some research previously and people, I think on the forum, said, oh, retailers will acknowledge you if you at least sold 10,000 a year. So that's why I was like, oh, we did 38,000 in 18 months. That should be something right. And so that's really how we got the conversation and then we go into, we decide to sign with this distributor and then they get us into the cycle.

Eric: 39:25

But that cycle was like six months of conversations back and forth and then, once they finally accept, then they're like, okay, yeah, you now have six months to make sure you get inventory to us to get into the shelves. So even from the very first conversation took an entire year. Wow, right. So if I look at it, that meant when we got into our, it wasn't until our third year in business. Then we started rolling out to retail. So it's just that's why, when, if we're talking about business and people wanting to look and figure out entrepreneurship and business, people, people quit too early. Right, they only do it for one year, but then for us it took three years to even start to get into shells right, and so, yeah, that's basically a long journey, short of how we grew and got into Big Box.

J.R.: 40:11

Getting into Big Box. How did that change your business? Or shifted it, or I'm assuming obviously more sales after that, right, but was it worth it? Maybe that's an easy question.

Eric: 40:20

It's actually the opposite okay yeah, it's, there's a lot of growing pains. I see, yeah, so the what's cool and this is more of a oversight. So I'd say it's like both the industry and then my over. I was being overzealous, but basically because of our potential with retail, I had ordered 50,000 units based on my previous year's forecast and I said, okay, I think if we get retail, I can order instead of 25,000 at a time, I can order 50,000. This time and my prediction was somewhat correct. We had a conversation with Barnes Noble. They had already expressed interest and most likely they were going to sign us, but then we had not gotten any indication from target. But I was like me being so confident that I was like I think we'll get target too. So I told the factory let's produce 50 000, because I think both companies will order I think like 18 000 each or something. And then, if we need more e-commerce and we can get more e-commerce later, but what 50,000? Because I think both companies will order, I think like 18,000 each or something. And then if we need more e-commerce and we can get more e-commerce later.

Eric: 41:22

But what happened was I ordered 50,000, barnes and Noble took the 18,000 based on their forecast and then, and then my distributor is like great, target wants you. I was like, awesome, we get to sell the inventory. And then my distributor, like are like well, they want a different version of your game, they want to have a big box version. So that's why, if you go to target, it's a different size than what's sold online. And so they're like yeah, you basically need to double the size of the game just so it can sit better on the shelves. I see so when you do go to target, yeah, presentation. Because they're like oh, your tiny game is not going to stand out across other every other game that's on the shelves.

Eric: 42:04

So that's why when people go buy games at target and you open the box, you're like, wow, that's a lot of wasted space. It's partially because of that interesting. Yeah, so because of their request. Of course we're not going to say no, but then that meant we ordered another $25,000, right. And so just in a very short period of time, now I'm spending over $100,000 to get more inventory. And so then the cash flow is like even more tied up Because of this big opportunity. Then we had to spend more money. And then now it's like we don't get all the money back right away, they just pay. They pay in increments too, so that's been like the growing pain on our side. So it's great to have but it's not.

J.R.: 42:45

It's not instant win.

Eric: 42:46

It has its own challenges and setbacks and whatnot yeah, and so I think it's a little weird for me to say it's oh, getting into retail is easy. Now the next challenge is can you stay right? Cause a lot of these retailers will keep you for only a cycle or two cycles and then you're gone. That's why, like you, you always go and they rotate new things in and out. Right, you have to be exploding kittens, you have to be monopoly, you have to be. These like longstanding titles, right, like secret Hitler, like other games you mentioned. You play and stuff like those games are evergreen, like they'll always be on the target shelves and everything else is on rotation. So that's where the hardest challenge comes in.

Eric: 43:26

And so we already been cut by Barnes at this point. So it's more of like what they call non-renewal or non-carry forward is the official term at NCF, and so they're like oh well, we had a three cycle purchase, which is pretty decent. Like sometimes people get cut off after six, six months increments. So we had a year and a half on shelves. So that's our experience there. We're still renewed at target. We don't have a non-carry forward, knock on wood. But yeah, so we'll see if we are kept in the next cycle of target. But yeah, that's been the journey.

J.R.: 43:57

Dang, that's crazy, crazy inside. Look, you never hear about these stories and how this the inner workings are Okay, so we're shorter on time, but I want to touch on MoCo shipping. Everything leads to shipping. Anything you want to throw in for that, I know everything is out linked to this. You said that your business partners, they're making the most on shipping and so I'm guessing you got back into that.

Eric: 44:21

Yeah. So that that's where the funny part was. Like they said, hey, let's build a 3PL. And I said, no, I didn't leave my corporate job to build a 3PL. And then now everything is coming full circle into me building a 3PL, which stands for third-party logistics, right? So it's like you have a product and then you don't want to ship it yourself, you give it to a third party to do the logistics for you, right? So that's where I came in.

Eric: 44:38

Because of Subobitage, based on all those numbers that I told you the 38,000, 50,000, all that stuff it's like we're shipping that out of my apartment and out of my garage.

Eric: 44:50

The remaining 17,000 units I had from that first year of selling, that was just stored in my sister's garage for like over a year and of course my sister's like pissed because she's out of a garage, yeah, she's like can't park my car. And now it's just and I would literally drive down to irvine, from culver city down to irvine every week to go pick up like a thousand units, then put in my garage or in my apartment at the time, and then just like ship out all the stuff. And so it got to a point where I was able to move out of the apartment, move into or lease this townhome, and they had a very weird garage where it was like you could technically fit three if they configured it for three, but they flipped it so you can only fit, you can only drive one car, but the backside was two car, so you can't like park three cars, right If the opposite. Anyways, yeah, so we had a really big garage for some reason. I was like cool, this is perfect.

Eric: 45:39

I'm going to start shipping stuff out of here. And then it got to a point where we had a client come through and they're like hey, we want you to do our marketing and our shipping. Well, they said marketing. And I said I'll do your marketing if you let me do your shipping too. And so they blew up and we were on top of our game during the holidays. On top of their game, they were selling more than us. And so we're shipping out like a thousand orders a day during Christmas time or the holiday time out of my garage. And and so it got to a point where I had to decide do I want to keep doing this, because it's not sustainable, do it out of your home doing this, because it's not sustainable to do it out of your home? And I'm like either we offload and tell our clients, offload, suburb attach, give it to another company and say, hey, you guys do our shipping, or we actually become a real fulfillment center and scale up. And so that's where 2024 came in in july, where I was like okay, we're officially going to start our logistics company, become a shipping company and service the industry. And what's great about ours and this is if people want to start their own shipping company.

Eric: 46:44

The board game industry as a whole, the other two main players in shipping are overly expensive.

Eric: 46:53

And so when I did a cost comparison to offload it to them, to offload to other 3PLs, I was like, why are these board game shipping companies so expensive compared to a normal e-commerce shipping company? And so then I approached the industry, because I'm already going to these conventions and trade shows. We go in and say, hey, this is the price of shipping. And people are like how is that even possible? I'm like why are you so cheap? I'm like we're not cheap, we're market price. You guys are just overpaying for these other old, long-standing 3pls because you just thought this is the only option you had as a board game company. And so because of my experience in e-commerce, because of the experience in the board game industry, we now bring that side into the board game side. And then now people are like, okay, that makes sense. It's not like we're being cheap or making like we're lying about the rates and stuff. Yeah, it's just like no, this is what it is, what should be.

J.R.: 47:45

You just thought there's no other options. Yeah, that's crazy. Okay, so let's move forward. It's a amazing story. You just have a wealth of knowledge and experience. I feel like I could pick your brain all day. You ready to move on to rapid fire questions. Let's do it Cool. Our first question is a billboard question. So if you could put up a sign for millions of people to see, what would it say as of right now.

Eric: 48:06

it'd be for the shipping company as we're growing, so it'd be some witty shipping motto or something. Yeah, I like it.

J.R.: 48:15

What is one of the hardest challenges you faced and what did you learn from it? Thing.

Eric: 48:19

Yeah, I like it. What is one of the hardest challenges you faced and what did you learn from it? Hardest challenge I faced, think it would be. I think it would just be honestly like right now I know we were talking about it earlier before the podcast to you where we're experiencing stolen containers and clients not paying us, and so we've, especially now being married to like I have to consult my wife on all these things, right, cause the finances affect her too. And so the toughest part right now, I'll be honest, is like I told her. I was like, hey, I can't pay the mortgage this month. Oh, man, can you cover this month? Right, and that's. It's like that's a big blow, especially to a man where you're like you feel like you're supposed to be the provider. I was like, hey, the tariff situation is has hurt business, like we don't have incoming business this last month and this month, and so money is short, and that's been like the toughest, I think, especially because there's so many more factors that come into play now Self-inflicted wounds.

J.R.: 49:11

So do you have a story about something that's gone wrong in your life and you can't blame anyone because you did it to yourself? You can also pass any of these.

Eric: 49:18

It's fine, but these are great questions. Self-inflicted, I think this especially because this is very recent pains is like the client's not paying us what's. I think this is like the biggest lesson where, like and you know me right I've always been very positive, very social, very outgoing. I always even a lot of people. I don't charge money for my consult. I actually only just started doing paid consulting, so I think I should just start doing it just because. But before I was like I'm happy to give advice, hop on calls and all that. And so when I started doing these shipping services, I'm like yeah, I'll help you out. There's some friends or neighbors in the warehouses where I'm just like hey, I'll give you guys labels, just pay me because I'm getting discounted rates. I'm getting way better rates than what you're going to get online. And so I was like you can use my labels. And then all of a sudden, they're not paying me and it's not like I'm making a profit off of it either.

Eric: 50:12

So I'm literally losing money, yeah, and so that was like and I'm like it's not like I would have gave a contract or anything, it was literally just a handshake deal, so for me to help you out, and it was just me being so generous or nice at that point, where then I screwed myself over, right, and there's no one to blame but myself to let it happen.

J.R.: 50:31

Yeah, I see. Okay, maybe this is the same vein, but if you could redo one thing, what would you do differently? Not like in a regret sense, but okay, maybe if I restarted this point. And then the second part to that is, if you could give your younger self advice, what would it be Good?

Eric: 50:45

questions. Let me touch on the issue. So, in order to fix the whole money problem, we just became very strict with everyone needs a contract and, funny enough, like I was actually very hesitant about giving a very strict contract, right, if you hit three penalties on this contract and you were late to pay. Now we're charging like I don't know, 28, 30 percent in interest per week, because there should be no reason that they are late to payment. Right, if you're late, then you're already a bad client, and you should. We should fire you anyways right three times right, exactly.

Eric: 51:18

So it's like the second one is like just a nominal fee and stuff. So that's why I'm like let's start putting these parameters. But I was afraid to even do that because I felt that it was like too mean and that was like against my nature, and so I had to overcome that and be like well, this is good. And then we had no pushback. People are like signed there, you go, no questions asked, and I'm like okay, I just now it's easier, right, and now we feel like we're safer and now this protects like my team payroll and all that stuff yeah, what was the second advice to your younger self at any age?

Eric: 51:50

any age. I mean honestly, I think at this point is just not be so nice and it's not about being mean, it's just being having more boundaries, yeah prioritizing what's important, and you're responsible for more people than just yourself, so it's more important.

J.R.: 52:03

Yeah, makes sense. In the last few years, what new belief, behavior or mindset has improved your life?

Eric: 52:10

I probably would just attribute it to my wife, and I think that's why we get along so well. So I mean, obviously you read off my bio and I'm doing a lot. I'm also doing a lot because I do feel like when we have kids, eventually, that I would want to take a step back, and so I'm putting more time and effort into really putting in the grind and working 18 hours a day, and so it's just she helps put a balance and make sure, like I'm spending time for myself or not working too hard, because I'm over working already, and so, yeah, it's just nice to have her help me take a step back if necessary.

J.R.: 52:48

Nice, I like that. How do you define success?

Eric: 52:53

oh, that's a good question, because a lot of people would see oh, I got into target, that's success, I'm like and.

Eric: 53:00

But it's not successful based on the story I told right, right context and I would say I think success is just comes in little snapshots and that people should just celebrate those successes and wins when they come, because I don't think there's a really long-term definition of success, like I've never quantified it to be like oh, I want to have like $5 million sitting in the bank or something right, and be a millionaire. It's more well, I hope if I did have $5 million, I'm just reinvesting that into something else to grow it right. I think success at a certain point, for me, if I was to just define it, it's just as long as you have peace in your life, like that's health and peace right and a community. That's all you could really ask for. To me it's not, you know, money and riches it's great to have that in order to live a certain lifestyle that you want, but beyond that, without your health and peace right, peace of mind, so I would say that yeah, that would be the success, that would be the short answer.

J.R.: 53:59

Yeah, this is like a two-part question again. If you knew you couldn't fail, what would you be doing now?

Eric: 54:04

or trying, and the second part of that is if you knew you would absolutely fail regardless, what would you do anyway? If I couldn't fail up, then I'd probably just like gamble or play stock market or put into crypto or something I lost a lot on crypto, so I just stopped.

J.R.: 54:21

Okay, crypto, yeah. So that's why I was like, if I didn't fail, then yeah yeah, yeah, wish that panned out.

Eric: 54:26

If I did fail, but I would still do it I would probably be doing what I'm doing today. And because, to me, yeah, not getting paid by clients incurring those debts, things getting stolen to me those are all like failures, but I think it just comes down to what do you do after? Right, are you getting back up? Are you trying to figure things out? You're not able to pay the mortgage this month? It's okay. Well, what am I doing next to really not get back to that either? Right? So, with all the failures, it's just. I think it just comes down to how do you get back up? Yeah.

J.R.: 54:59

What is something that you've been pondering deeply or often, or what is your favorite hot take? I know you have a lot of concerns as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, so maybe there's a lot of stuff on your mind, but anything else besides that that you've been pondering deeply or frequently? Yeah I think.

Eric: 55:17

So I went back to vietnam to have asia wedding and stuff and being able to, and that was like a first long vacation I've had in a couple years and I think it was just nice to see my mom spend more time or get to know my wife's family too. And then that there's like a moment where it's a man yeah, you can tell like your parents are getting old, and so that thought of we're getting to this age where you want to treat your parents and stuff, and so I'm like, luckily, with the business and running a business and this is partially why I like to run the business is because we accumulate a crap ton of travel points through the credit cards and stuff. And so my wife and I have talked about, yeah, we want to use our points to at least fly our family business class or take them on a trip or a cruise and stuff. So that's been most of what we talk about.

J.R.: 56:05

And how do we make sure my mom is enjoying herself, especially at this age, because she's worked a long time, very hard, and we were like we just want her to enjoy herself now. I love that Funny because my mom is going to be on the show tomorrow, so we get to revisit this theme. What is one of the best or most worthwhile investments you've made in either time money, energy, et cetera?

Eric: 56:28

I'd probably say the team I've been building, and especially once we have a good hire, then you just want to like retain them as long as possible. But I know a lot of the times and especially we have one one one of our main employees like she's leaving in a couple of months to start having a family and stuff. So it's part of the journey. But I think you can tell the quality difference when you invest into your team and employees and the quality comes out. I've had bad employees and low quality workers before and it's all. It just becomes more stressful. So I think that's been the best investment is just like growing the team, and what was cool is that I flew out the core team to the wedding in Vietnam from the Philippines, and so it's like finally being able to meet them in person after three, four or five years of working together. Yeah, so yeah, that's probably been one of the best investments so far. Nice.

J.R.: 57:20

Okay, last rapid fire question Any favorite books, movies, videos, articles, media that you share or recommend? The?

Eric: 57:25

most. Oh man, this one's a tough question, just because I had a big phase of learning and that's where I try to read a lot of books and listen to a lot of podcasts and stuff. But I'm I've I theme my life every year where I like it'd be like oh, I'm in a learning phase, so that year I'm more intentional about reading and learning, so that's why I don't. I'm not in that phase, I'm more of like implementation and scaling. Now I don't know, I mean the back in the day. I would recommend like four hour work week as a book if you're trying to start on the entrepreneurial journey, but only read the first half, because the second half is not relevant anymore. It's like outdated, it's very outdated. E-myth I forget the subtitle to e-myth yeah, I've read the book.

J.R.: 58:15

Yeah, yeah, that one I remember reading it.

Eric: 58:17

I was like that's a good book. But now I just don't remember yeah, what it is.

J.R.: 58:21

Any recent media it could be fun entertainment sort of stuff. But anything you recommend on that end I do binge watch a lot of Netflix shows, but in the background.

Eric: 58:31

So my friends make fun of me because they're like oh, we watched this. I was like, oh, I watched it too. And they're like, oh, when this happened, this happened. I was like who they're like the main character. I'm like, oh, I just threw it on the background. I just have background noise, so it's hard to oh, I do sit down and watch and dedicate. I'm trying to think White Lotus, season three, was not that good. It was too slow. There was one show.

J.R.: 58:53

This one show sounded really cool, but I forgot what it was about. Yeah.

Eric: 58:57

You're a busy guy. Shogun was good, though I remember Shogun was one that I'll sit down and watch and pay attention to. So it's like, when there's a show like that, where I want to sit down and carve out time, then yeah.

J.R.: 59:09

Cool, yeah, we can do that, shogun's fine. Okay, that is it for rapid fire. We'll go into ending questions. So gratitude shout out to my mom, eric what are you grateful for?

Eric: 59:21

Yeah, I'm. I mean, I was very grateful for my wife for supporting me. I mean that's how I fell in love with her, because I think it was maybe our eighth date reading at my favorite Korean restaurant. And she was like, when she told me, she's like hey, I know you're in pursuit of all these entrepreneur stuff, so I will support you and your dreams and however you do it. Right and I'm like wow.

Eric: 59:42

Oh, man Like she has my back, yeah. And then, of course, now we're in this tough time of the economy and she's like, but I still have to give you a hard time about it. I'm like I'm not just be like, okay, I'll pay for it, just like, hey man, like yeah, you shouldn't have gotten to this point anyways, right. And I'm like, okay, well, I'm grateful for her still, that she is supporting yeah, I love that she's like I'm still here, I promise, but I can still give you a hard time.

J.R.: 1:00:03

Exactly, I love it cool. Any final ask or final takeaways you'd like the audience to have from this conversation?

Eric: 1:00:10

feel free to plug, of course. Yeah, no, not too crazy. I mean, if I'm always happy to help and chime in like you have a business idea or trying to figure out the next phase of business, or if you guys are interested in logistics and 3pl shipping, I'm more than happy to help. Yeah, you can always contact me on LinkedIn, my Instagram and what else. Yeah, our website. Yeah, moco Shipping that's M-O-C-O shippingcom. Launchbrandgrowcom also works too. So, yeah, just anything. Really, I'm just. I just try to help where I can, just because I've I've gotten advice from other entrepreneurs and I just try to give back where I can, because I try to give as much as I take from other mentors that I have as well. I love it.

J.R.: 1:00:53

Yeah, and we'll link everything in the show notes description to be able to find what Eric's up to and if you want to reach out or stuff like that. So well, that is it for the interview, Eric. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. You are a wealth of knowledge. I appreciate you taking out the time. I'm sure this will add a lot of value to whoever listens to it, and for myself especially. I'm taking a bunch of notes on this later on, so I appreciate it.

Eric: 1:01:13

Yeah, well, thank you for having me and thank you guys for listening too. Hope you guys enjoyed it.

J.R.: 1:01:17

Nice, cool, I'll do my final sign off. Thank you guys for being here. Remember to like, follow, subscribe and reminder to always be kind to other people, especially yourself, and remember that you can always learn something from someone if you take the time to listen. So thanks for listening.