Journey From Amazon FBA in 2015 To Now: NPD Process for Growth with Sean Chow

Ever wonder how a seasoned Amazon FBA seller scales to millions? This week on Global from Asia, host Mike sits down with Sean Chow, Managing Director of Smickees LLC, to unpack his journey from 2015 to now, sharing his game-changing product development strategies. Sean reveals how he transformed from a travel-funding “coconut cowboy” into a multi-eight-figure brand builder through systematic product development and consumer insights. With over a decade of experience managing an in-house portfolio of 7 and 8-figure private label brands, Sean shares his evolution from marketplace manipulation to sophisticated consumer goods development. Plus, stick around for the outro where Mike reveals why some folks think he’s vanished from the internet.

• Cross-Border Summit 2025: 2025.crossbordersummit.com (November 3-5, Chiang Mai, Thailand)
• Sean Chow’s GFA Network Profile: vip.globalfromasia.com/network/sean-chow
• GFA VIP Account: account.gfavip.com

Thank you Sean for being on the show, and thank you everybody for listening in.

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Speaker: [00:00:00] Global from Asia Podcast episode 468. Ever wonder how a seasoned Amazon FBA seller scales to millions? This week on global from Asia, I sit down with Sean Chow, founder of SM Mickey’s Group, to unpack his journey from 2015 to now sharing his game changing product development strategies. Stick around for the outro, where I reveal why some folks think I’ve vanished from the internet.

Speaker 2: Welcome to the Global from Asia podcast, where the daunting process of running an international business is broken down into straight up, actionable advice.

Speaker: I’m your host and is always joined by the amazing Lisa Usin, our GFA community manager. Lisa, what’s the vibe in the community this week?

Speaker 3: Hey, Mike.

The GFA community is buzzing. We’ve got folks gearing up for Q4 sales. There’s tons of excitement for the Cross Border Summit [00:01:00] 2025 in Chang Mai, November 3rd to fifth. Our listeners are also sending in some great questions. Keep ’em coming via our Google form on the website.

Speaker: Love that energy, Lisa. Today we’re diving into episode 468, a human edition with Sean Chao, founder of S Mickey’s Group, and a Cross-Border Summit 2025 speaker.

Sean’s dropping serious knowledge on scaling an Amazon FBA business and mastering new product development. We’ll hear how he turned challenges into millions plus a sneak peek of his summit talk,

Speaker 3: and don’t miss the outro where Mike spills the tea on why people are blowing up his WhatsApp, wondering if he’s still kicking.

Speaker: Yeah, Lisa, I’m very much alive. More on that later. But first, let’s talk about the Cross-Border Summit 2025. It’s our seventh annual event happening November 3rd to fifth in Chang Mai, Thailand. If you’re an [00:02:00] advanced e-commerce entrepreneur, this is your chance to network with pros like Sean Chow and Level Up Your Game.

Grab your tickets at cross-border summit.com.

Speaker 3: Let’s hear from our GFA community. This week’s listener question is coming up in the main segment. Ready, Mike?

Speaker: Born ready, Lisa, let’s get to it. Ready to take your e-commerce game Global? Join us at the Cross-Border Summit 2025 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. November 3rd to fifth network with top entrepreneurs.

Learn advanced strategies and scale your business. Get your tickets at cross-border summit.com. Plus sign up for a free GFAV IP account@account.gfavip.com for exclusive resources. Thank you everybody for tuning in on our global from Asia podcasts. Just catching up before the recording, you’re getting up to the 500 show mark and it’s always great to connect with good people in the community and, and, and fellow sellers.

And we have with us today, Sean Chao. I’ve had a pleasure meet you and bump into you in the Chang Mai and in the seller community [00:03:00] over, over the years, and it’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Sean is the founder of s Mickey’s Group, a seasoned Amazon FBA expert, and he is also gonna be speaking at this year’s Cross-Border Summit 2025, right here.

In our hometown of Chang Mai. So thanks for coming on today, Sean. How’s it? Nice.

Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks Mike. I really appreciate it and happy to be on.

Speaker: It’s a pleasure to have you and yeah, I mean, 10 plus years experience on e-commerce and Amazon, and you have a portfolio of seven, eight figure private label brands, so it’s, it’s really a pleasure.

I think today we’re gonna go into the journey of how you got into E-com and how you’ve. The good, the bad, the ugly. I think the ugly is always the best part for us to learn and to share our war stories. And then of course, you’re out here in Chiang Mai and in Asia, and I know you go to Japan, so some of your Asia experiences and story too.

So let’s, let’s just dive in. So how did, how did you get started? Like what was the [00:04:00] the, the light bulb moment?

Speaker 4: Well, I mean, it’s like you said, it’s been 10 years now, so like thinking back about all the way back when we started, it’s a, it’s kind of a trip thinking it’s been that long, but basically like one where it started is I always loved to travel and like I’m, I’m Australian and that’s just something in the culture where you kind of like have a rite of passage where after you finish like high school and then your holidays during college, you.

You, you go on, you go on a trip somewhere, you save up all your money and you spend it all and you come back with nothing after. You have like such a, like a great travel experience. And then like after doing that a couple times, coming back with nothing in my pocket, I was just kind of thinking about like how, what are options to make money while I travel?

And I didn’t really have any ambition to. To make any grand or big business. I, all I wanted to do was just like pay, pay my way for like [00:05:00] hostels and traveling and just do, do it like kind of on that level. And that’s kind of where my brother was. Doing some things like he, he got started on on Amazon dabbling, doing private label, white labeling products and having a little bit of success.

And then one of his best friends as well was an early A SM member. And I think a lot of people in the community got their start thanks to that program and he was actually doing super well. So I was like thinking that, oh, this might be an option. To, to kind of get that goal of being able to make a bit of money and traveling.

So yeah, that’s where, that’s where I started. And I, I, once I finished up university, I was actually in the hospitality industry for a while. Working bars, like managing bars and heading up like. Cocktail programs, and that was my passion and I loved to do that. But after I finished university and I kind of didn’t want to do that anymore, I saw where it would lead [00:06:00] the ceilings of reaching the top of that industry.

It’s not where I wanted to go. So I kind of like, I, I moved and I moved to where my brother was living, which was in Sabu Philippines, and his best friend as well. At that time he was also there. So it was more to kind of learn from them and, and get. Their, their knowledge and see if I could, yeah, if I could kind of replicate what they were doing and that was how I got my start.

Speaker: Ooh. Well that’s a, I got a couple of notes, but similar. Did you ever hear, I don’t know if it’s even a real term or just something I heard in like a small group, a coconut cowboy. Have you ever heard of that? I don’t know if that’s a thing, but No,

Speaker 4: never. You

Speaker: can open up cowboy. I, I heard from a guy Peter Miller and a nice guy does sports stuff, but.

He says, A lot of us start just to make enough money to get by. Like all I need is X amount to like have location independence or to leave my home country like Australia, US, Europe, whatever, like live in Asia and then we get stuck as coconut cowboys. We’re just getting by, like, [00:07:00] I need only like a thousand bucks a month.

Right? Like especially here in Ang White, there’s a lot of these, these, uh, nomads, right? These people. We all, but I think, I think that we all, a lot of us start that way. Like I just need this amount to like. Quit my job and live over on the road, but I, I, I remember him calling it Coconut Cowboy. So it’s like, I guess the idea is like, is enough money to have

Speaker 4: coconuts, like, or, you know, get by.

Yeah. That, that was the initial goal. But I think like, just my, my predisposition, I, I’m just naturally, I have naturally I ambitious kind of. Drive to me, and once I achieved that kind of coconut cowboy status, yeah, yeah. We, we were getting a little bit of traction and then we were just like, that, like decided to double down on, on that success and, and realized that there was like an opportunity here.

So we decided to double down on, on it and actually like going, moving away from that lifestyle business element and, and actually designing like a, a real [00:08:00] organization and. That’s what we’ve been focused on in the last, like few years is actually like creating a, an organization as opposed to something like just the lifestyle business.

Speaker: Agreed.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker: I don’t know. I, I know we’re on the show, but Char, I think sbu, I think Char, I don’t know. Yeah,

Speaker 4: actually that’s, that’s, that’s so funny. You, you mentioned that him was the mentor that I was talking about. Yeah. That’s

Speaker: him, huh? Yeah. Yeah, he’s been on the show and I, I know him well. That’s, I’ve had some deep.

He’s gotten deep with me. Kind of like, yeah, like he’s, yeah, he, yeah. I guess he, I haven’t, yeah, he gives you, gives it to you straight, right? Yeah.

Speaker 4: It’s a very small, small world, I guess in this space that’s Yeah. Coincidental. Yeah.

Speaker: True. Sure is great. Yeah. Sabu. Yeah. And, but I agree with you, and that’s what we try to talk about in the, on the show too, right?

We’re not, we’re trying to grow like global businesses. I mean, even though we’re in Asia or we’re like maybe out outside of our. Nine to [00:09:00] five. The first step I guess is maybe getting out of the matrix, I call it, or getting out of the, the, the normal. And so this is an interesting story. And then so systems, right?

I thinks the point that I’m seeing, like from what you said, like systematizing it. ’cause I think a lot of people, I talk to huge sellers, even seven figures.

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm. And

Speaker: they’re still doing everything themselves. The only thing they have like a one va, I think I still meet sellers that are really successful, but they do it all themself.

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 4: I mean, for us, that’s, we, I, I’m kind of like a systems brain that kind of like thinker. So it always, like, I feel like that side of things came naturally to me. And you do meet people that they, they have like decent sized businesses and it’s just them plus a va. But when you kind of like spread it out and think about probabilities, like they’re like outliers and maybe they kind of, either they’re really smart and, and have.

A great work ethic, and they’ve kind of found their space [00:10:00] where they’re able to do that, or they kind of just lucked into something where they’re in it and then they built their. Expertise from there. However, like if you wanna look at it from a probability standpoint, that is just not like the norm for most people.

If you want to increase your probability of success of building a, an organization and scaling it up to, to beyond seven figures, eight figures, and then like mid eight figures to nine, you really need to think about like systems. And then every time basically there’s like a. I think I, I don’t know if it’s a formal concept, but basically every time you double or triple your systems break.

And so you, you just always have to constantly be reinventing yourself if you wanna reach a, another kind of level to, to your yourself and your business

Speaker: fully. Fully agree. Fully agree. Yeah.

Speaker 4: I mean,

Speaker: yeah, and just to support that. We have to push. Yeah. Like you said, I think to be entrepreneur or business owner, yeah.

You could just not push your limits or you could just like hit that plateau. But like you said, if [00:11:00] you want to break through, you gotta like change yourself, like your mindset. I think it goes into the next point, like what’s the biggest, some of your failures, which I don’t know if there’s really a word failure to be honest, debts or mindset shifts that you’ve had, like you’re kind of touching on it, but do you wanna go into that?

Well,

Speaker 4: I mean, when I started actually I didn’t have any success. Until like my fifth. I think it was my sixth, sixth attempt of echo product. So I would like invest in a product, do all the things like, whether it’s like create your listing and put your labels and stuff on it, and, and then try and, and sell it and PPC and that kind of stuff.

So the first like five products that I launched were, were failures and like I didn’t understand numbers how to, how to measure, all that kind of important stuff back then. And that, that act, those five failures, it’s, it’s this capital intensive business. At, at that time it was a lot, and I was actually about like 20 grand into debt, like both my own money [00:12:00] and I borrowed some family money as well.

So it, it doesn’t sound like a lot the like to me now, like that’s, that doesn’t feel like a lot now, but back then it felt like a, a whole lot. But the, so there was a few failures there, but every, every single time I learned something and I knew something had to kind of change if I wanted to. Make, make it a success.

And I, I just knew so many people like succeeding. So it was not, not about whether like the I was in the wrong opportunity or not, it was just always like looking internally at myself and what I was doing. And obviously something that I was doing was not like, right. I had to learn something else, try something different.

So it wasn’t about that. This is. Not gonna work. I always knew that it would work. It was just about like, looking at myself and what we were doing and making sure that we kept trying and changing and learning new things until we figured out what worked. And then obviously like on that sixth product, it kind of like took off and that was [00:13:00] like our first successful product and, and then take like going forward, I feel like that mindset is, is really helpful.

Going forward now, I mean, we’ve gone through so many changes of over the last 10 years, any industry. In the world through like the pandemic and, and just different big macroeconomic shifts. You’re in our little environment on, on Amazon, like everything has gone through so many changes. But like for, for me, I still see like so many people succeeding.

It’s like, it’s not never been about, oh, this is the wrong place to be. It’s just, oh, we need to be better. And, and I think we talked. A little bit before we, we started recording about there. There’s not being as many sellers these days because it’s really hard. But the, on the flip side of it, there are the competency and skill level of the sellers in the game, or the people in the game at the moment is like a lot higher, but [00:14:00] it’s basically they’re just capturing a lot more market share.

And that’s what we’ve been seeing for us as well. A lot of the skills we have gotten good at over the last 10 years, it’s just like skill stacking and compounding and we start to kind of, it. It’s almost easier now, even though the game is really hard.

Speaker: Yeah, no, like. My, my, I’ve actually talked to some people trying to get into e-commerce, wanna move into e-comm?

There’s a couple elements to that part, but the focus of this part is, I think it’s the best, best industry to be in. I mean, a lot of SEO guys, especially in Chang Mai, a lot of the, the affiliate marketers I bump into, they wanna start doing their own brand. They wanna do their own product, they wanna do real e-commerce.

They’re super scared because Google Algorithm chat, GPT Oh, like. I feel like those kind of businesses are much riskier than us. I mean, I, I, I feel much safe. I have, I have a few brands myself, and I feel a lot, a lot in a better position than, than, than like information only business. I mean, know, product business is [00:15:00] hard.

I, I’m feeling a lot right now. I have to liquidate, I think. I thought I. I was gonna, but yeah, it’s hard now. Definitely.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I, I, I agree. I agree with that. And in a lot of ways it’s because of all the complexity. A and I, I feel really lucky as well because like when we got started, it was a lot less complex.

It was easier, and we were able to kind of earn our stripes, get our feet wet, and learn on the go. So all that kind of contextual knowledge of that experience. Just becomes taken for granted as background information, and it helps us make decisions going forward because we’ve seen a lot more, and we’ve been through ups and downs of pandemic lows, pandemic highs, post pandemic lows, so on and so forth, stabilization, tariffs, all this kind of stuff.

So it’s like you’ve just seen a lot and we take it for granted, but it, it, it sets you up for like your ability to kind of operate in the industry. A little bit more, a little bit better.

Speaker: Yeah. I, I have a, a book, uh, [00:16:00] e-commerce gladiator. I feel like we’re in the arena. Sellers are the modern day, like people in the arena, right?

Like, there’s also the famous quote, I think it’s Thedo Roosevelt, the man in the arena. Mm-hmm. I don’t know if in the, it’s a little bit long and people can look it up if they’re interested, but the main point is like. It’s so easy to be a critic. It’s not the critic who counts. It’s not the person in the audience looking and criticizing about the person that’s falling, falling and getting scratched, and getting dusty and getting bloody.

So like I try to teach my kids that too. I say like, it is easy to criticize or complain. This is the easy, that’s the easy way. The easy way is to say, it’s hard. It’s, I don’t wanna do it. Right. And I think for me, and biggest mindset shift I’ve had. It’s, it’s always, it’s a, i I, it’s, it’s how I take it. I told my daughter this the other day.

It’s how I take it, right? It’s not what happens, it’s how I take it. And, and I think that’s the mindset shift, right? You can blame the Chinese sellers. You can blame Donald Trump for the tariffs. You can blame whoever you wanna blame about CID, [00:17:00] like. But you just gotta get better. And it’s, it’s like a, it’s like a warrior mindset, right?

Like

Speaker 4: Yeah. And then also flipping like any kind of victim mindset into like every single thing is like an opportunity, even if it’s like your. Affects your business or affects you really heavily in a negative way. It’s always an opportunity to kind of do, like, figure it out. And usually like the biggest downfalls rep are, have become the biggest opportunities and, and growth growth levers for us.

So that’s, it’s just kind of like you said, how, how you, how you take it. And that’s, that’s super important.

Speaker: And I also try to tell people, big companies probably have the same problems that. I don’t call you small. I feel like I’m smaller. Like, like even these multinational corporations, I don’t think they have it so easy.

They’re dealing with similar problems. So I, I think we all have to get through this. One point though, I don’t want to skip past it, is you mentioned skill stacking and I’m, I’m curious for myself, I’m sure listeners are interested in some other systems or, or [00:18:00] processes that you have said are a game changer.

I’d love, I’d love to hear about that a bit.

Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean, so I feel like there’s been. In our experience, what I thought was the most important thing when I started was just kind of a road toward where, where we are now, and what I thought was most important back then was just kind of like a, a skill, like a, a building block to kind of get to the next stage.

So I think when we started there was a lot of just. Get a product, make sure it’s like differentiated, but then you just slap your label on it. And it was like not a lot of front loaded work. And a lot of it was like manipulation of the algorithm and learning how to do that. Uh, understand momentum and.

The things that you needed to do for that, whether it was reviews or sales velocity, how to manipulate that in your favor and that kind of thing. And I feel like that first part where I was just a solo entrepreneur, I learned a whole bunch of how [00:19:00] that worked and understood it. There’s been many changes over the years of how the marketplace operates, the algorithm, et cetera.

But I mean, for the most part, if you understand the core concepts of like relevancy and what. Uh, what the platform wants to show at the top that then all those principles still are sound, you just can’t manipulate them as much the same way as you used to. And then I kind of moved towards like, oh, we were doing this.

Now we want to like grow. How do we think about building systems? How do we bring other people into the organization to help us with this? So that’s was like for me, learning how to be a leader. How, how to. Train other people under me so they can be competent and efficient and effective. And then that was like a big season in, in the way that we did things.

And like, see all these things are really important. And then I guess going forward from like during the pandemic, it was [00:20:00] about like managing risk and forecasting and learning how, how to do that. Take take bets that had the highest effective. Expected value and learning how to do that. And I feel like now come full circle.

The, the biggest thing we’ve been focusing on over the past three, four years, that’s been a big attributor to our success, is having like a product development framework. And, and process to that is hard, black and white metrics that we want to hit for product development. And that just comes full circle because it’s like, oh, we’re doing all these things to.

Kind of trick away or hack away to the top. But like the industry we we are in is actually consumer goods. So like our product development process is all around like, oh, actually asking what the consumer wants. And that’s like, to me, that was a big light bulb moment. It’s like, oh, we’re in consumer goods.

Why don’t we ask them what they want, [00:21:00] build them what they want, and understand how to do it in a way that. Leans into the algorithm a little bit and, and it makes everything so much easier. So, and all that, things like training your team and training each person and then training leaders how to lead and all this kind of stuff.

It’s, it’s all like, it sounds intimidating when, when you talk about it from that high level, but it’s all like stacking skills over time and, and it really compounds over, over a longer period of time.

Speaker: Yeah. Yeah, I fully, fully agree. It’s definitely, I think you’d agree. It’s definitely a huge upfront investment, right?

Of not, not really money, but time and brain. I mean, for me, I remember I was going through making SOP and, and yeah, like KPIs and tracking. It’s a humongous of, I mean, I don’t know, maybe you don’t have to agree with me, but it’s a huge upfront. I mean, I think maybe that’s why some sellers don’t go there, or some sellers say, oh, it’s [00:22:00] so much work to teach somebody how to do it.

I just do it myself. I, right. That’s like a common one. Oh, I gotta teach somebody and take more work than me to do it myself. And that, I think that’s a limiting belief. Right? Or that’s like, that’s gonna cap you. Right. You have to get over that. But a lot of people, it is. It is.

Speaker 4: I do think it is a big time investment, but I think the intimidating thing is people think it needs to be done like all in one go when often, like we kind of build out, the way we kind of build out our SOPs and knowledge bases is we’ll structure out and the, the role and, and work backwards from the results we want and the cur and we kind of set out a curriculum.

As we onboard new team members and they’ll go through the curriculum with whoever’s leading that team, the the direct report. And for the longest time, like for a long time it was me teaching them, but now we have other leaders doing the same process. It’s just basically how to delegate or effectively and how to train and [00:23:00] bring people in.

So we just create the curriculum and then you just. Have some sort of cadence, rhythm, and consistency to doing it, whether it’s twice a week or once a week. And then when people look at, if you do it for like six months to a year, you create this like really big solid knowledge base. And when people look at it, they get intimidated and think it’s like some big deal, but really it’s just like consistency over, over.

Not even a long timeframe, like a medium timeframe. And then after that you have this big knowledge base that they can always refer back to and then, and then have regular kind of more off the cuff check-ins and calls where you’re just coaching and, and reminding and refreshing concepts. And then that way it’s like a lot easier to kind of build in that, that system when you’re a solo entrepreneur and you’re just looking to, to train and hire people.

Speaker: Yeah, I’m sure Matt, Matt Singer, he’s um. He’s, uh, also guy speaking at the Summit Cross Board Summit this year. He’s a [00:24:00] management management consultant also. He’s, he’s, uh, I don’t want, forget the wrong country in Europe, but Northern Europe or origin, but he spent a lot of time in the Philippines with a huge company in Deval.

He built like a outsourcing company, but now he’s mostly, but he’s also in management and training and he systems and he would echo similar. He’s gonna also speak about. At the summit about like mindset to go to like seven or eight figures in your business is like in management. So it’s, it’s exciting

Speaker 4: to hear.

Yeah, I mean like once you go past like yourself and then. Scaling up. A lot of the problems just become people problems and that that’s a, it’s a good place to be, but yeah, it’s a, it’s challenging too, and I can understand why it’s, it’s intimidating for people. I,

Speaker: I remember one specific event I was hosting in China back in the day, and Danny McMillan was the host of Sellers panel of Chinese sellers, and he asked, he asked some sellers, what, what’s the best hack?

You [00:25:00] have to be like, this is like 2018 or something. He’s like, what’s the best hack you have? Of your Amazon business. And I, I remember one guy, one guy’s answer and he says, it’s not about the hack, it’s about the system. And it’s about, you know, I don’t even know. He says, I don’t even know I’m Nott even operating it.

I have a whole team. I manage teams that do the hacks and then we have multiple teams. He was, he’s a huge seller, but he would say he, that was his answer, right. Because I feel like we’re not really talking about like Amazon specifically in this journey. It’s like mindset and systems and teams and, and which is important.

Right. And it’s especially for scaling because yeah, you can learn about how to do it. Like a SM was amazing. I wish I participated. I, I, I’ve heard I have met really great people in different groups there. But yeah, it’s an amazing to get the, the tactics, but it’s really about like, like you said, systematizing and building out processes and teams and people.

Yeah,

Speaker 4: I do. I [00:26:00] don’t feel like I’m the best entrepreneur. I’m, I’m seeing other people do it like better and faster. But I feel like I was like, wanted to get my hands dirty. It’s like when we worked in bars, we had an analogy that we, we wanted to know how to, how to clean the floors, wash the glasses, like do everything on the back of house, be before you got to like, being like the head bartender and managing the venue and that kind of stuff.

So I had that philosophy going in and in some ways that.

Speaker: W

Speaker 4: uh, created like a slow process for growth for us. So as opposed to like someone that thinks like system first and top down thinking where they bring in the expertise from the top and they hire down. So it’s kind of more like bottom up. But now I kind of have, thankfully, like in a good position where now we’re thinking about top down our, our business is doing well enough where we can bring in like talent that can.

Think about that top down strategy where they, they come in, they’re the [00:27:00] talent and they tell us like what to do, like best practices and that kind of thing. And yeah. So there’s different ways to skin the cat. And now we’re, we’re, we’re looking at that, that way. But I do feel like now I know where all the dead, like the skeletons are hidden.

I know where like. The business inside and out. ’cause I started as the janitor and now as the, the head of the corporation organization. And yeah. So it is just like that whole thing of skill stacking. That was my philosophy on it. And like I said, I don’t feel like it was the most effective, but I, if you asked me 10 years ago if you’d be happy with where you’re at and told me where I’d be at right now, I would be like, I’ll take that every day of the week.

That’s awesome.

Speaker: Yeah. I mean, that’s the best, that’s the, that’s the best, right? You’re happy. Happy with where you are. I mean, I think I definitely am, and I, but unfortunately I think there’s a lot of people that aren’t, and I hope that they can be, I want everybody, but I feel like you gotta go through these hard times.

Right? And, and, and this mindset, like you said earlier, right? You had to go through a lot of kind of upfront time [00:28:00] and pain to get to where you are and get through that and, and push yourself through that. So let’s go to like lessons learned and some mentorship ideas here. Like what’s that one thing is the one thing.

The one lesson that you, you wish you had known that 10 years ago plus, what would, what would that be?

Speaker 4: Well, I think I, I kind of skipped over the question before you asked, like, what is the biggest like, game changer for us? Like, and I was talking through like skill stack. Yes. But the biggest game changer for us has been the way we think about product development.

Like, and you mentioned as well, like the whole like Amazon space. But really the way I view it is we are in consumer goods, like we’re making consumer products and. But Amazon is just a channel. It’s just one channel of many potential ones. So we really had like a, a black and white framework around how we do our new product development, utilizing focus groups and simulations, market [00:29:00] simulations, that that reflect like a, a kind of a test market environment in the way that we develop our products and we kind of benchmark against.

All the top performers in the market, I guess aspirational competitors and, and start from there. And then we’ll see what’s like really important to the customers. What, and we try and get like the demographics as correct and as segmented as possible. So we know, we try and create a mini scenario that reflects the market as much as possible.

You can’t really do it un until you, you can’t really know until you go into it. The game and launch your product. But we can try and recreate, recreate a reflection of what a market is to the, with setting like a specific scenario to the participants, making sure that the participants are the correct demographic, have specific segmentation, and.

Whatever you’re trying to do, whether it’s like hobby or an affliction, like maybe they’ll have [00:30:00] diabetes or like heart disease or something. Whatever you’re developing for whatever market you’re developing for trying to get like really segmented and that’s been the big game changer for us, like how to have a framework around.

Focus groups, market testing, and then developing products from from that and actually listen to it. And then all, all that stuff that I talked about with the skill stacking, like we got better at imagery, we got better at creating image stacks, we got better at copywriting, we got better at like keyword optimization and, and market analysis.

So all that stuff was like all this stuff in the first six years, seven years that we were good at. And I felt like the missing piece was. Having a framework around actually creating good products and being able to do it consistently because like you, you mentioned it, it’s expensive. People get intimidated because the upfront investment is, is so high.

Like I started with $5,000, my first couple products, and then I borrowed. [00:31:00] A few thousand more to keep trying, but that’s still like small potatoes compared to what the investment is these days for a new product launch. And then it’s, it’s really tough when. The percentages of success that you probably seeing, like maybe you launched 10 products and four might work and six might fail.

But those six failures are a significant chunk of investment. And if you could just turn your success rate from 40% to 80%, that’s like a crazy significant change that you can build a foundation off and scale really hard on. So we’ve been able to, to do that and, and learn a whole bunch about.

Understanding how to, to interpret consumer insights and data to, to create products that people want. And then utilizing our skillset in design and co and direct response marketing [00:32:00] to not just create what people want, which is like creating the five star product, but creating products that actually drive.

Click through and conversion before we even place a, a purchase order, so we can kind of like get that validated. That’s been like a massive game changer for us, and, and that’s, that’s been huge because from there you’re all, there’s so many, like second and third order effects that come into play when you have this confidence, what that what you’re gonna launch is gonna succeed.

Speaker: I agree. Yeah. I’m tempted. Yeah. I mean, I guess we’ll get into it in, at the summits or, I mean, I don’t know if, I mean, we’re going a little bit over. I’m getting close to my time here, but, but yeah, I, I’ve looked it up actually. I didn’t know MPD, but it is, uh, it is like a thing on the internet

Speaker 4: too, like there’s a, this Yeah, I mean, like, as people that started in this space, on the Amazon space, it’s not, the first thing that gets talked about is you get, like, you talk about hacks and you talk about, yeah, just private labeling.

Stop slapping a label on something and trying [00:33:00] to hack your way to the top. Like, that doesn’t work anymore and. The end and like there’s a whole industry around it. Like all consumer, like CPG companies, consumer companies, they all, like any of these big public multi-billion dollar conglomerates, they all utilize consumer insight firms to drive their product development.

And there’s a whole like industry of it. Like you’ve got consumer insight agencies like Nielsen or Kantar and, and they’re basically the. The NPD arm or research arm for big, big consumer companies like Proctor and Gamble and Unilever and all that kind of stuff. So that, that’s like a whole, they know how important it is to, to look at consumer insights to drive product development and that, I feel like that was the missing piece for, for us to increase our success rate for the products that we launch.

From, [00:34:00] like, I’m using a real life example from our, like our, our business where we would throw things against the wall and our philosophy at the start was throw spaghetti at the wall, see what sticks, and, and then just keep what sticks. So our success rate was about two out of five products, 40%. And that was great at the start when we were able to launch lots and each product could be kept low cost.

And then the ones that stuck, we would go harder on. But now each product that you launch is a significant capital investment that it, it’s not feasible anymore to do it that way. And you really want to kind of put the odds back in your favor. So how do you create that 40% and then change it to like a 90 or a hundred percent like guaranteed success?

There’s no, never any guarantees, but it’s, it’s a big game changer from how. Like how you do things because now you’re not thinking about if it will succeed. You’re thinking [00:35:00] about how to deal with cash flow because it’s just like so capital intensive when a product succeeds and when you have all of them succeed, it’s like, not tooting my horn, but I’m just saying that it’s, it’s a very big cash drain and that’s the biggest challenge when, when you have that kind of process.

So, yeah, so that, that’s like. The biggest game changer for us is actually looking at consumer insights properly and learning how to interpret that. And that’s a whole field of study, which you can go so deep on, but I feel like it’s the highest leverage activity in this kind of business or any, any e-comm or consumer business.

Speaker: Yeah, I mean. I could, yeah. I, I, I have so many questions on it, but I mean, I guess my thought is there’s like a funnel. Everything’s like a, I feel like everything’s a funnel, right? But you need data at the top, like this consumer insight data. Then you process this, right? And then you move it to the, move it down the [00:36:00] funnel.

So you’re filtering through like consumer data, consumer insights, right? And then you have some processes, KPIs, of course, your own brand, brand, product catalog. What can match. So I could imagine something like this.

Speaker 4: Yeah. And it’s a time, big time investment too, like compared to when you would just slap your label on something off the shelf, like the time investment to developing a product.

Yeah. From Insights custom for the market, learning how to protect it. It’s a significant time investment and so you wanna make sure that the return on your time investment is, is gonna be worth that, that time you spent on, on doing it that way. So often, like our product development processes is like nine to 18 months for a product.

So like all the products that we’re developing for like need to be at least have, have a minimum. Potential revenue threshold, like it really needs to be a lot compared to before when we were happy with like doing many products that would add like 10 grand a month or [00:37:00] something. Now we’re going after ones that are minimum a hundred grand per month adding, adding on top to our revenue because of the time investment required to do it, do it this way.

Speaker: Makes sense.

Speaker 4: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. No, I mean, fascinating. Fascinating. Yeah. I’m happy to talk to you. I’m sure,

Speaker 4: like I, I’ve talked to you outside Nicole and, and at the summit as well. Like, I’ll be going a bit deep into our philosophy on this.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s just limited time for, for now. Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah, it is true.

Like we are, we have to, I think one takeaway is, I, I am also not trying to think like a FBA seller, but so many of us say, oh, FBA seller, we shouldn’t think like that, right? We’re brands and we have. Like you said, a consumer product company. Right. And we’re making, our job is to make good products, not like, and Amazon’s a channel and Yeah.

And this sounds absolute like a great system for that. Yeah, yeah,

Speaker 4: yeah. I agree. And yeah, I mean, first, like, that’s what I like, the way I kind of [00:38:00] identify is, is not, I mean that’s our, kind of our main channel at the moment. But yeah, we’re in consumer goods and we’re making products for consumers and, and.

Amazon. Amazon is like, they reward products that are great and good and that customers want, and, and it’s like a timeless, it’s a timeless skill or a timeless, I guess, foundation of your business that it doesn’t matter what kind of changes to the system. Come up, you’ll always be able to, to kind of be on top if you create consumer goods in that way, because you’re actually creating things that people want.

And the, the benefit of like where we’re at at the moment is like, Amazon is a marketplace, but it’s an algorithmic marketplace. So it’s based on an algorithm, click through rate and conversion rate. Like that’s basically all you look at. And if you design your products based on what people want and you understand.

Consumer insights, how to interpret it. You can create products [00:39:00] that lean into like click through rate and conversion rate, and then you have to back it up on the backend of making a good product. Yeah. So you can keep it like 4.7, 4.8 star. Oh. And that’s how you, that that just like, the game becomes a lot easier because now it’s like more competitive, but in, in, I love the competition because we, we have to be good at what we do and, and make good products.

Speaker: Yeah. No, I fully, fully agree. And yeah, so I think everybody has to get through this mindset shift now. I mean, we could get by pre COVID or even during prior. Yeah, there was definitely crazy times during COVID get a good product. But this is fascinating, man. I mean, I can’t wait to chat to you more at the offline and the summit.

Let’s move to the, the, the lessons learned, like we have a point on our outline about assets versus cashflow businesses and mindset, and then e-comm inventory.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just really quickly on that, that was just like a thought when you asked me that question, like, what are some lessons? And it’s kind of hard because like all the lessons that I learned [00:40:00] early on are just like, maybe not the lessons that I would like tell people now, like what’s the most important thing to think about?

But I would just say one of the things that I thought about was when, when I looked at this kind of business as an option, like. If you want to create an income and that’s important to you, like this is probably not the right business for you because there there’s, it’s significantly capital intensive.

You have to reinvest when your product, like product does well, you have to reinvest in inventory. Eventually you reach like. What I call an equilibrium point where the working capital that funds your inventory becomes sufficient and it, it just like cash flows, but that takes like a significant amount of time.

And then if you have any. Growth ambitions, then you need to require, you need to kind of invest any of your, reinve, any of your profit, like reinvested profits back into the business to grow even further. And you can use that or, and a combination of maybe some loans [00:41:00] or, or whatever, like whatever capital instruments you want to use.

But like, you really don’t see the, the benefits of it in the BA until like for a number of years and. It’s different to, it’s a different business model, to a service business or a info product business where like you get the cash upfront and that’s great. You get the cash and, and often I’m, I’m a bit jealous of some of my friends that, that run those businesses that they, they get that upfront, but those businesses are much harder to sell.

Their valuations are much lower, so they’re almost like front loading the, the reward. Whereas like for, for me, the way I look at it was we’re building an asset and yeah, we’re get, we’re getting cashflow now. Like now it’s a bit more significant, but it took us 10 years to get this to this point, and now we’re able to, to make meaningful distributions [00:42:00] from the business, but.

That first and foremost is we want to kind of grow where we’re at. So we’re still reinvesting heavily, but we’re thinking about it from like an asset building standpoint. So it just depends on what you want. Like what? What is your goal? Do you want to be the kid that. In the marshmallow test waits until the, like, waits longer to get the second marshmallow or waits even longer so they get three or are you, you want the cash reward more upfront and there are pros and cons to both, but I didn’t know any of that stuff going in.

I just was thinking, oh I’ll, I’ll do this and I’ll make money. And this year has been like our most profitable year ever. And it’s crazy like. How much like money it’s making, but I’ve never felt so broke as well. We have like no cash and it’s just like massive cash drain, but it’s a great problem. It’s like boohoo, but [00:43:00] like the mindset has to be different.

You have to, yeah. I think. If anyone should understand the choices they’re making, because we’re kind of like thinking delayed gratification. We’re not getting the cash now, but it’ll be bigger on the backend and it on an exit as well. We’ll get that reward on an exit potentially if we wanted to. I know, right?

As opposed to like getting it all upfront and, and sell and selling a service where, where you get paid first and do the thing after.

Speaker: I know. I’m going back and forth. ’cause it is, I, I’ve, I’ve done all kinds of businesses and especially earlier on, I was more services because of the cash flow or I would do services to finance the product business.

Like I, I know some others do that, but, but yeah, it’s, I totally feel you. Yeah. We we’re aligned on those thoughts. There are those days, like you said, you’re writing that check to buy that thing with all your money and you’re like, man, it is. It is fru. It is. It’s a good, yeah, [00:44:00] it’s a, it’s a good feeling, but it’s also like a, yeah, of course we’re at, we should be happy.

But it’s also like,

Speaker 4: yeah,

Speaker: stress. I don’t know how to even say it in words, but that feeling. When

Speaker 4: it’s just part of the game, that’s why, like you said, what was the lessons? One, one lesson you’d wanna kind of mention? It’s like, well that’s, that’s the lesson. It’s like you can, you can be making money, but you could feel really, really poor.

And, uh, you, if you’re in it for the long haul and you believe in it, then you know the, you trust the reward will be there on the backend. But if, if you are. Don’t like risk and you don’t like uncertainty, then maybe your choice is better to go with something where you, you get the cash upfront and, and maybe you’re not thinking about building an asset.

You just get the cash upfront and then put it in, uh. Put it in something safer like s and p 500 or, or Bitcoin.

Speaker: Bitcoin. I was gonna say Bitcoin. Alright, well this has been fun. You know, let’s just chat a little about the Asia, right? We’re both here in Chiang Mai. You go to Japan [00:45:00] often. How is, how’s this from Australia?

Your, your origins in Australia? Like, like how has that affected business or mindset? Yeah,

Speaker 4: I mean, it’s a great question. It’s something I’ve thought a lot about, and I love Chang Mai. It’s a, it’s a great place to live. We live a great lifestyle. We have a lot, a lot available to us. But the thing, the thing is, I do feel like.

People that base themselves here full-time and they don’t leave. And I don’t, I don’t mean to offend you don’t leave. I leave

Speaker: sometimes.

Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I, I know you travel a lot. Like they just get comfortable. Yeah. And I’m sure you’ve seen it a lot,

Speaker: coconut cowboy, they call, I mean, whatever you want to call it maybe, but continue scarring.

Speaker 4: Exactly. And that’s, that’s one thing where. Like I have regularly scheduled kind of trips to conferences and outside here just to get in inspired and, and see what people are doing and being like, oh yeah, I can do that. Or just, just put that fire back into you because if you [00:46:00] just kind of just stay here, you kind of are potentially a risk of.

Just chilling out and coconut cowboying and be accepting where you’re at, which is fine, but there’s not nothing wrong with that. But for me, like if I, I want to grow the business, it’s great to go outside and get inspiration and then come back here and, and have a bit of balance because it is a bit more chilled out and, but I bring that drive and, and push forward even though we’re in this environment here where it’s a little bit more.

Lifestyle based and relaxed. And so that, that’s the way I kind of like balance it out. There’s always like scheduled times throughout the year where there’s like conferences or external things to kind kind of find that fire outside. And I find that really important. I, and then, sorry, go ahead.

Speaker: No, I mean, I.

I agree. I mean, I somehow, I’m able to just work by myself. Like I think I, it was a skill I stacked easier. Your skills during COVID, I just learned to just [00:47:00] work like by myself. Like I feel like before COVID it was harder, but I just grind here. Like it’s quiet. It’s, it’s relaxing. And my family, it’s just knocked on the door actually.

And to I, uh, some people have it, I go like, I go like Bangkok for an event or I go to like Hong Kong or China or something and then come back here. Yeah.

Speaker 4: Some people have it, like, I mean, you just have to look at yourself and like for me, I know, like I, I kind of get too comfortable. So I kind of pro program that into my year to make sure that I go, go find some places to get inspired and, and get that drive.

And then when it comes to Japan, it’s also like that’s my place where I’ll kind of decompress and relax. Like my biggest hobby is snowboarding. So I go there two to three months of the year and actually just like. Clock off. And my main, my main focus is being out in the mountains and enjoying Nice, enjoying that part of my life.

So Perfect. That’s the way I find balance to kind of drive the business forward, but then also like have, have something outside of work that’s not just all about that. [00:48:00]

Speaker: Great. Thanks. Thanks. This has been a really fun. Yeah. I mean, it’s a little bit longer, but I’ve been really enjoying Hope you enjoy it and.

I think we’ll get, let’s just wrap up. Is there some, of course. We’ll have yet to summit November. Hope people can make it. This will be our seventh one, if you can believe it. I mean, we did four in China before COVID, and then this is our third in Chiang Mai, so it, super excited, super excited to have you sharing about like some of the things we’ve talking about today with the, your product research and discovery and, and launch strategies.

Anything you’d like to like shout out

Speaker 4: link, or No. I mean like, yeah, definitely looking forward to the. Summit. Like I, I, I think I said before the call, but like, I’m a, I’m a founder and operator first and foremost, so not really gonna find too much online. And I, I kind of like purposely designed it that way.

Okay. But I’m looking forward to the summit and giving some value there. Great. So anyone that wants to hear that, can, we can come along.

Speaker: Can’t wait, man. All right. Thanks so much for coming on the show, and we’ll see you in November.

Speaker 3: Wow, Mike, [00:49:00] what an episode. Sean Chow really brought it. Breaking down his Amazon FBA journey and that killer NPD framework.

What’s your big takeaway,

Speaker: Lisa? Sean’s focus on first principles over quick hacks really hit home. His point about building assets versus just chasing cash flow is gold for our listeners. Scaling their businesses plus his cross-border Summit 2025 teaser has me pumped for November.

Speaker 3: Totally agree. Speaking of, let’s remind everyone about the Cross-Border Summit.

November 3rd to fifth in Chang Mai. Sean’s session on product development is just one of many game changers. Tickets are@crossbordersummit.com. Don’t wait.

Speaker: Absolutely, Lisa. It’s the place to be for advanced entrepreneurs looking to forge their own path.

Speaker 3: Okay, Mike, we’ve got to address the elephant in the room.

I’m seeing WhatsApp messages from listeners asking if you’re still online or even alive. [00:50:00] What’s going on?

Speaker: I’m very much here. I’ve just been in a deep work phase diving into ai, coding, what I’m calling vibe coding. I haven’t been this excited since I built my first website in 1999, or started selling online in 2004.

The potential here is massive, and I’m sleeping just four to five hours a night. Okay? One night was three hours, pouring everything into this. It’s my upfront investment for a new way of life and business. The abundance coming is almost too big to wrap my head around.

Speaker 3: That’s the mic we know. Full throttle.

All right, GFA community. Keep those listener questions coming via our Google form@globalformia.com. Mike, any final words?

Speaker: Just keep forging your own path, folks, whether it’s ai, Amazon, or new markets. Embrace the journey. Thanks for tuning in to Global from Asia. See you next week.

Speaker 2: To get more info about running an international business, please visit our [00:51:00] website@ww.global from asia.com.

That’s ww.global from asia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.