Kimono Opening – Business Update Mid-2025 with Michael Michelini

It’s been a while since Mike has peeled back the curtain and given a raw, honest update on all things Global From Asia. In this special mid-year 2025 “kimono opening,” Mike shares updates from Thailand, personal and business wins, some challenges, and previews of what’s next. From ecommerce brand growth to AI-powered teams, upcoming events, and collaborative opportunities—this episode is a behind-the-scenes roadmap of the GFA ecosystem.

• Venture Seed: https://hightable.ventureseed.com
• Shadstone: https://shadstone.com
• Global From Asia: https://globalfromasia.com
• Cross Border Summit: https://crossbordersummit.com
• Para Living: https://paraliving.com
• Easy China Warehouse: https://easychinawarehouse.com
• Hamza.Market: https://hamza.market

Thank you everybody for listening in.

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[00:00:00] Episode 463 of the Global from Asia podcast. I’m here in my, I call it the meditation park. I’m in my meditation close and I’m gonna take you a little bit behind the scenes, some opportunities, some business, business updates here with what we’re working on. Let’s tune in maybe. Maybe there’s some ways we can collaborate.

Welcome to the Global from Asia Podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up actionable advice. And now your host, Michael Micheli.

Do you enjoy the podcast Global from Asia? To enjoy all the community events that we do. The best way to support is coming out to our annual cross border summit.

Dot com In Chang Mai this November 3rd, fourth and fifth, 20, 25. I have amazing speakers, amazing people getting together. We’re pushing the limits. We’re making things happen. This is [00:01:00] where the movers of shakers and the deal makers come. It’s a limited supply of attendees and tickets, and we have been selling out every year.

So I recommend checking out earlier cross border summit.com. Thank you so much for watching, or probably listening to the Global Malaysia podcast. I keep up to date with some of you that listen to the show, and I feel like we’re finally getting through a lot of this. I don’t even wanna bring up the word COVID or.

The borders as we approach our third cross border summit after the pandemic. I’d like to reflect ’cause we’re, we’re getting some preparations going and it’s looking really amazing. Just some things have been happening here with the business and it’s midday. I, I, I highly recommend maybe not a med, maybe not meditation walk, but maybe you can also take a walk in the middle of the day.

I just have my lunch. It’s about one o’clock in the afternoon on the. Thursday and there’s a mosquito getting me. [00:02:00] I just thought, take the microphone with me and record some of the updates we’ve been doing here at Global from Asia. So in the network. So let’s go down. I have my business card. Some of you have got, I know, like I met David Caruso recently.

Shout David. Thank you. Tuning in. And I’ve been carry this card around over a year now, but I always kinda use the card as a guide of the different ventures and give you some updates. And there’s opportunities. There’s opportunities. Maybe the best outcome would be somebody listening gets inspiration, maybe wants to reach out, talks to the team, makes some deals.

That would be amazing. So. It is a lot here on this card, so I’m gonna go through each major One Venture Seed. It’s a domain. A lot of these are domain names I’ve had for a long time, but Venture Seed, you might not have heard of it, but it’s essentially, I think basically a incubator startup of new ventures.

If anybody knows me, even listens to this show, knows I have lots of ideas. It’s kinda where the new ideas go or [00:03:00] the early stage projects go developing like a coaching program for a lot of the CEOs we’re putting in into that business, partners into that. With venture seed is kind of, kind of that. And the opportunity there is if we were to work on a business together, I don’t really like to call myself an investor, but we’re all investors in various forms of time or money or our network.

But I. I have detained people reaching out for investments. A lot of times. Sometimes somebody, the project I’m go through or started that way. So the call to action for you if, if you’re interested in working with Venture Seed, reach out@ventureseeded.com. The next one, Chadstone. Chadstone is a B2B consulting agency, con Asia operations.

Since I came out to China in oh seven, where a lot of our team is there, most of our operations is there. And Christian stepped up recently, a general manager, just only in April, so it’s only been a couple of months. It’s going really great. Just had a [00:04:00] call with him, but that we’re actually hiring people.

So with that, we’re of course embracing ai. So we’re really restructuring our team with ai, not to let go of people, but to, to upgrade people, to be more leaders and project managers. And we call ’em ninjas. So if you’re interested in being like a ninja with AI and our team and working online shadow’s, our, our ninja group.

Of course Global from Asia, as you were watching is our media division, the podcast. We have meetups. We’re gonna do another meetup in Xang Mai. We have chapters going with Jeanette. She has one, she’s focused within the Philippines right now. And there’s been a couple of chapter events in the Philippines.

I’ve been supporting on preparing to go there soon. But Gulf from Asia is our media and our community 4 63 show right now. The opportunity here is lots of opportunity, but. Engaging with us. I mean, I, I think essentially the model here is start a chapter [00:05:00] to, of course, participate in our events, our networking, then forecasting mosquitoes, and we are always engaging with people.

I remember some of my ts of information was pre COVID China. We had amazing community and events there. Really amazing, but we still have it if you wanna participate. We’re also doing a mastermind at aya. About eight of us confirmed to kind of become a regular crew, but that’s Aya in mid July. July 13th to the 16th.

You’d like to attend that to reach out to our community manager, Sally. Next on the list is Ross Border Summit, our seventh annual coming up November 3rd, fourth and fifth. We have some amazing speakers lined up. Some I’m returning some new and we’re upgrading the event. We’ve taken feedback over the last couple of years.

The first year in Chang May after COVID was in 2023. We called it Open [00:06:00] Borders New beginnings, which of course means we are back after COVID. We had the broken border online event during COVID, and last year’s was planting seeds, building streams, which is kind of the regrowth, the rebirth. Of the community.

All of the cross-border industry after a very devastating coronavirus world. Well, that means some was very good, but mostly very big changes. And this year we call ignition. We’ll be sharing more, working on some content and updates. Essentially, we. Boarding on the launchpad. Of course, ai, the community’s rebuilding the world has finally, I think, gotten back to somewhat normal, although it just seems like one thing after another.

Right? But essentially, ignition is a theme. We’re gonna supercharge our community, supercharge our events, supercharge our people with AI and technology. I don’t really wanna spill the beans too much, but we have some new things [00:07:00] coming to really take this hybrid of AI and online. With the in-person event.

So I’m trying to do some innovative things there. Part of living, I think, I rarely ever talk about this, maybe heard back in the day with e-commerce gladiator series, this is been rebuilding and, and and doing really well. We have a few brands that we manage here. So this kind of our holding for our various Amazon or e-commerce brands, which have been doing better than ever.

I don’t wanna jinx myself, I don’t like showing off. But Christian’s also involved here. You’re at Crossroad Summit last year. You heard him speak about it, but we’ve been really doing well. But I think it’s just the result of consistency. I tell so many people at events and on the show, I believe it’s about consistency.

If you just wanna get quick money, if you wanna listen to the Lambo YouTube ad, people saying, sign up for this course, you’re gonna be a millionaire with not working. I don’t believe in that. This [00:08:00] is years and years of blood, sweat, and tears. I always some tears, but we’re getting through it and it’s growing and for that call to action actually we are looking for more operators.

If yours is an operating brands, if you have experience operating brands and want to go in-house internal with us, we are looking for people there. We actually have more brands. We’re manage managing and working on managing. So if you wanna come in the house with us and we’d love to talk our team about that.

Next one list is easy. China Warehouse. About a year ago it was announced we, Brian Miller reached out, he’s on the show and we took over the operations and, and. Took on a new partner, Justin and Brians advisor. This is not just a warehouse. Literally, somebody just thought, I don’t need a warehouse in China.

It’s not just a China warehouse, it’s full of logistics, ocean, air, of course, warehousing in China, China, Shenzhen. This has been busier than ever. Like Justin showed me a huge batch of messages just a few [00:09:00] hours ago. Of in inquiries, people are looking to restructure a supply chain with, of course this tariff world.

And, um, we’re helping them with solutions. So Justin’s doing great. There’s been more calls with potential clients and current clients, so if we’re looking for shipping solutions more from China, but other places too, we’re entertaining Vietnam and Thailand and others to the west, to mostly US or Europe a bit, or Coast Canada.

Reach out easy China warehouse.com. Also, if you have ideas of collaboration or partnering with maybe your service company or others, there’s been some deals like that. Easy port design is a little bit earlier stage, but we’re trying to standardize our shadow stone services to be productized. And then the, the last segments are Web3 e-com.

Dcom, you’ve heard me talk about Honda a lot. Load pipe. This Decom, these are our kind of high risk, high reward for you and [00:10:00] us. This is a huge investment over years of developing Hamza market, literally having some long talks the last few days about development, but we are pouring tons of money into development and it’s a decentralized e-commerce marketplace to be able to have people like you list your products and sell them with.

For cryptocurrency, which I am still believing and I know there’s a lot of people that have, even myself, have had scams and rugs and other things. But I believe in technology, I believe in what we’re doing, but it still seems very, very early, very, very early. People are still having adoption issues. Plus our development is still not done, but it is working in a beta.

So the call to action, I think if you’re a seller and you wanna work, if you’re interested in like. Crypto Web3. I know I’ve speak, spoken to some of you. I haven’t really followed up because our tech is still not fully done. But if you’re willing to work very early stage, like in a group chat with our developers [00:11:00] and a bit manual adding your products, we’d love to talk to you at Hamza Market some.

Somebody recently just filled out a form. Best at best way, so this is some updates of our businesses. The purpose of this is I thought I would just do a mid-year update. Of what we’re working on in this network of companies global from Asia. I love it. There’s so many other projects and businesses that are not listed on this card or on the show, but the call to action is that I, I’m trying to think of a better way to engage with all of you.

I know some people are interested to invest. Some people are interested to work. I had a long four hour coffee meeting with Don yesterday, my friend Don, about some ways to help with that. So stay tuned. This is just kind of a update video, but we’re working on ways to work with you if you’re interested.

If you’re entrepreneur, business owner that wants to get creative or you’re somebody with investment capital looking to get in creative early stage project, we’re working on that. So stay tuned, keeping it a little bit shorter [00:12:00] today. I hope you enjoy. I’m here in the park. I’m loving this blood camera gear I have now.

So that’s it. I’m gonna finish my meditation walk. I walk in basically, I’ll show you real quick. Why not easily. I’m in, uh, Chang Ma as you maybe know. And then this is like a, I call it the Circle Park. It’s a small park that’s in a, in a, in a, in a neighborhood. That is a circular sidewalk. And then there’s like a, a old fountain that’s dried out in the middle and some old playground stuff in the middle and grass and trees.

But I walk in circles around this with my meditation clothes and to try to clear my mind ’cause it is high pressure lately. But I think in life, if you’re not putting yourself under pressure, you’re not growing. And diamonds are built under pressure, right? I mean, there’s lots of, lots of quotes and inspiration.

The idea is you have to push yourself every day. Some days might not be as big as others, but if you’re not doing it, you’re [00:13:00] not growing. And some people resist. Literally this morning, somebody pushed back on something. I think they’re not comfortable. It’s something new. It’s a new opportunity, and they, they push back to me on it.

But it reminds me that I’m, I’m pushing my limits. I, I told this person, if you’re willing to be open-minded a little bit more, there are some ways we can make this deal. Okay. But something I do regularly now and I like. So that’s it for now. Thanks for watching. Have a great day. Bye bye.

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Speaker 2: To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website@ww.global from asia.com.

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