Podcast Future Trends, Learnings from Canton Fair, Hanoi, Singapore with Michael Michelini

After a whirlwind three-week tour across Singapore, Guangzhou for the Canton Fair, and Hanoi, Mike returns to Chiang Mai and shares his key insights at a local meetup. In this episode, he dives into global trade shifts, Vietnam’s rise as a seller hub, the strength of Singapore’s capital market, and how AI is reshaping work for entrepreneurs across Asia. Tune in for trends, takeaways, and practical reflections for growing your global business.

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(00:04) Episode 462 of Global From Asia. We are talking about future trends, insights, and some things I’ve learned and seen on the three weeks I was on the road. I’m back home now in the studio. Let’s tune in. 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 Michelini. Thank you so much for listening to,

(00:31) or maybe watching me, you know. Still prefer the audio only podcast, but we do have the video version. I’m wearing some new stuff, you know, this new gear, new clothes. I mean, the world’s changing so fast as we talk about in this podcast. But, you know, if you see me on video, I have a little GFA logo on my DJI microphone here. Why be a free advertisement for DJI, right? So I put the little sticker. And if you look at my clothes,

(01:02) my assistant Snook is awesome and we’re making custom shirts. I think anybody that’s seen me over the last 10 or so years sees me in a black button down. You know, I do get new ones. I do have a whole set of them, but I’m upgrading my clothes to have custom GFA. There’s some hidden stuff with this too. Some little Easter eggs. I don’t know if I want to ruin the whole surprise, but just as a prototype. But it’s pretty awesome.

(01:30) You know, AI has been helping us make new stuff, new physical stuff. So let’s tune into the show. This one, I’m back in Chiang Mai after a few weeks on the road. And as you know, Canton Fair in Singapore and Hanoi, I share some of my learnings there. I hope you enjoy it. I decided to bring my camera with me and record it and get some Q&A from the round table session with about 10 or 15 people there. After the recording, I kind of cut it short

(01:57) because I didn’t know if this was effective and it was getting a little bit veering in the conversation. So after the recording of the meetup, I’m going to share some more recap ideas of those points to summarize and give you some actionable ideas and give you some ideas about my shirt, some hidden features in this shirt I’m wearing. All right, so see you in the inside. Do you enjoy the podcast? Global Formation,

(02:21) do you enjoy all the community events that we do? The best way to support is coming out to our annual crossbordersummit.com. In Chiang Mai, this November 3rd, 4th and 5th, 2025. I have amazing speakers, amazing people getting together. We’re pushing the limits. We’re making things happen. This is where the movers and shakers and the deal makers come. It’s a limited supply of attendees and tickets. And we have been selling out every year.

(02:48) So I recommend checking out earlier, crossbordersummit.com. We have four topics we’re gonna talk about in this round table. We’ll start with tariffs first. We’ll talk about AI. We’ll talk about some things I’ve seen in Singapore and some things I saw in Hanoi. I was just on a three week trip. So tariffs, somebody says what tariffs? Does everybody, who? I’ll give a brief idea. Tariffs, Donald, who knows Donald Trump?

(03:18) Ain’t nobody knows Donald Trump. We’ve been trying to ignore him for the last while. So Donald Trump decided to kind of overnight, well, it escalated quickly, but he started adding tariffs to all the goods around the world. He first started with Mexico and Canada, I remember. Right, didn’t it start with Mexico, Canada? Yeah. And I think he added 10% to China, but it was like not a big deal. But then suddenly he picked on China

(03:46) and it became 145% tax. So the way tariffs work is when you import it into a country, which is in this case the U.S., the importer of record, not the Chinese factory, the importer pays up front to the U.S. customs the tariffs. So I sell stuff, I buy from China, I sell in the U.S. I buy from Thailand, I sell in the U.S. I buy from India, I sell in the U.S. So if you ship something in, you get a bill, it’s a customs bill and you have to pay the U.S. customs.

(04:17) So it’s caused a huge headache. A lot of people stopped shipping. So what I’ve noticed, I was in Canton Fair. Basically factories don’t even want to talk to U.S. importers or U.S. companies. They’re all, when I was at the Canton Fair, they were mostly looking for non-U.S. markets. Because they feel they can’t trust the U.S. policies. And so what’s been happening is people are looking for other markets. But then just yesterday, about 24 hours ago,

(04:50) on the 12th of May, the U.S. and China met somewhere in London, there was some event. It was in Switzerland. It was Switzerland. And then they dropped it to, I think, 30% base. 30 and 10, 10%? I know, the China line is 30 and the U.S. to China is 10. U.S. to China is 10, yeah. Yeah, most products are between 30 and 35 at the moment. But that’s a lot less than the 145. So now, basically, today, I don’t know about other people here, I’d love to hear from others.

(05:25) I and other sellers I know are scrambling to ship now. So now I think shipping is gonna go sky high because everybody’s been holding, basically for the last month or two, they’ve been holding their products back in China and just not shipping. Because they’re like, I’m not gonna pay 145% into the U.S. So now everybody’s scrambling to ship. So I’ve been on chats with logistics companies. Another plug, I’m a shareholder of a logistics company,

(05:53) actually, in Shenzhen, called Easy China Warehouse. So I actually am talking, I’m even more involved. I hear from my partner, CEO, about it. But everybody’s basically rushing to book shipments right now. It’s because it’s a 90-day window, the tariff reduction. So we don’t know what’s gonna happen after 90 days. And it’s still not even fully clear to me. But I was talking to Juliana before that we met earlier.

(06:23) I said, I think people are just not gonna trust the U.S. as much anymore. I think what’s gonna really happen is, maybe it’s good for us. We have to all go global from Asia. That’s my podcast name. But global, we can’t just go one market. It’s gonna be harder. I’m still mostly a U.S. market seller. But I think we have to, I’m really pushing to go to Japan now, is my first target, is Japan. It’s a little bit kind of easy.

(06:52) It’s close to China or Asia. It’s a decent discretionary income. Or Australia, we’re looking at Australia. It’s not good. Oh, no. It’s really, really slow. Yeah, sure, it’s just very slow. I just swung it on the stump and left it. Okay. Australia market. I mean, that’s more spoiled. The U.S. market, I think, is a huge market. And I’m not gonna say it’s easy, but it’s big, right? So you can kind of. Yeah, you’ve got the bottom end of the market,

(07:28) which a lot of the Chinese stuff tends to flood in on. And then you’ve got the middle market, which is always the most profitable end of the market. Then you’ve got the top end of the market. So you have to just market where you’re gonna go, yeah? And I felt that the American market’s been dropping out for the last six months, big time, anyway, on the middle market. They’re just not spending. But that’s normally what happens in a recession,

(07:54) because I’ve had companies in four recessions. And I’ve always been middle market. So it’s exactly the same thing. But I thought it was coming, so I cut back like six months ago. And it’s just proved right. So I’m not in debt. So how about others? How are others dealing with the tariffs or their marketing strategy or their perspectives? Does anybody want to share? I’ve just shut down. You just shut down? I’ve just shut down.

(08:21) Actually, a lot have been doing that. I’ve just shut down and going away to Europe for six months or three months. And then I’ll come back and see what it’s like, because it’s sunk up and down. It’s pointless spending a load of money to try and market your stuff now. You might as well come down. AI is going to be much more moving as well. I think give it three, four, five months, and then hit it again. I don’t want to show off, but my sales are up 40%.

(08:51) Fantastic. How are you? I was in Vietnam too, because actually my Thai brand is up 40%. Now my China brand is not. But my China brand is also kind of stuck, because I’m also holding shipment products and increasing price. So I think if you’re buying from China, what most people I talk to are doing is increasing price, slowing down sales, not trying to run out of stock. Because if you run out of stock, you’re dead.

(09:19) So what they do is jack up price, keep their current stock that’s there to not run out of stock. Sales drop, but you’re still in stock, hoping the tariffs come down to drop price to then send in more. So the Chinese products have been getting hit. I don’t know, people are buying more. I don’t mind to show, but we had massive sales. I don’t know if people were stockpiling because they were thinking it was gonna run out of stock,

(09:49) or they thought the prices were gonna go up, but we had people buy massive, single customers buying 20, 30, 40 products from our store. Might be resellers. You’re buying, you’re doing the bar stuff as well. Yeah, the bar stuff. So if you think it’s gonna go up 125%, you’re gonna buy it now. Yeah, so maybe it’s the restaurants. Yeah, because we sell kind of B2B. I think for your stuff, maybe. Well, with this brand, we’ve been lucky

(10:15) because we have so many SKUs. So we actually sometimes do our high volume ones first, heavy, on PPC. And it’s hard to really track, but we try to cross-sell, up-sell, bundle. So people buy multiple products. And some are almost negative on some, but it averages out. So there is some advantages of having a lot of SKUs, but of course, inventory management and such is really expensive. Everything’s from China and Thailand?

(10:42) This is 100%. I don’t know. For some reason, the brands I do, I do by country. Yeah, fair enough. Like, I have other ones from China. This is 100% Thailand. Yeah, this is 100% Thailand. So I feel a little bit, somewhat lucky. I don’t really. But I was also in Vietnam last week, in Hanoi, and I met a lot of sellers there. We had a meetup last Thursday for Gulf of Asia. And they’re also crushing it right now. Because anybody doing China stuff now

(11:10) is stopping shipments, freezing shipments, increasing price, staying in stock. So basically, it seems like the Southeast Asia sellers, it seems like, Tommy, do you want to share? No, we have been doing better. I don’t know. But for several reasons, we have been doing better. I think that for the real peak, I think it’s gonna come in the next month, or next, like, let’s say, two, three months. Because now is the time

(11:36) when people have been stopping the shipments. So now, the people start shipping again. Just getting them on the container, that’s gonna be one week. Then, container from China to USA, that’s gonna be one month. Receive them, clear the customs, that’s gonna be a couple of weeks. Amazon, receive them, put them in stock. So yeah, we are looking now, like, let’s say, two to three months. I think this is gonna be a good time

(11:57) for selling the product. I would expect to sell even some more, if you wanna do it in Thailand. Do you guys think that everybody will ship before fourth quarter, right now? Well, I mean, it’s so fresh. It’s just like a day. Like, it’s barely been 24 hours. I think it’s- I think people are gonna basically stock up. What I’m noticing right now is everybody’s stocked. Everybody’s shipping. Like, I’m trying to get my freight forwarder,

(12:18) you know, into my other, I have some from Thailand. I’m trying to lock in containers right now. But even they’re saying, they don’t wanna give me a price. Because they know everybody’s, there’s just a surging demand today. Like, yesterday and today, everybody’s surging demand, book container, book shipping, book shipping, book shipping. So they’re just like, she told me she’d hold, like, I think we got something for next week.

(12:40) We were preparing this. So our strategy with the Thai brand was, we wanted to really stock deep. Because we knew we were gonna try to really crush it. But now we’re not totally sure, because of the tariffs drop. Now, we know Chinese are, now we’re, we tried to ship before, we knew Trump was gonna drop it. Most of us said, he’s just bullshitting, he’s just going high, he’s using his art of the deal book from the 1980s he wrote,

(13:03) he can read. He’s just going high, making big headline, and he’s just gonna come down and negotiate something. We knew that. No way. But he did it a little bit sooner than maybe we had thought. We thought we could get a couple, like a shipment out. But now it’s, basically everything’s spiking. Like, basically, everybody’s trying to ship right now. I estimated July, but it came earlier. Yeah, it came earlier, right?

(13:23) We thought. I was expecting to have it last month already, because the United States can survive it on China. And even the 30% tariff, that’s gonna hurt. Yeah, it’s still gonna hurt. Many small businesses in the United States don’t even need to be e-commerce. And just like, only a body shop. I mean, it’s. 30% tariff’s gonna hurt. It’s still a lot, yeah. Yeah. So, it’s. So, it’s. It’s such a. I’m at 25% or 10% now that 30, 35, basically.

(13:47) It’s such a nightmare, like, this guy is scrambling to delay his imports into the US because he doesn’t want to pay. He’s shipped it, paying 140%, but I think tomorrow, it’s tomorrow it goes into effect. So, his is going in today. So, he’s begging his logistics company and free, custom broker, please don’t bring my, keep it at the port. I’ll pay like penalties. Because he’s $100,000 he’s sending into the US of product, you know,

(14:15) declared value costs. It means $145,000. Right? So, I, people don’t really understand. I know maybe some of us understand, but just so everybody understands. The importer, the brand, the seller has to pay that, not the factory, you know. So, he’s like stressed out because he’s trying to not have it clear customs today or tonight. Tell me, Mike, are you paying, are you paying the tariffs on the manufacturing price or the retail price?

(14:44) Manufactured. So, the way. You can basically put your manufacturing price of what you want. Well. No, but you can’t, you can’t put it that low anyway. They’re not. They’re asking people, they know. You can’t make this in 1,000 baht. It’s impossible. I’ve got Chinese selling stuff for less than a material cost. So. Yes, but still. There’s gonna be some, there’s a cross check still. There are. There’s a cross check. They’re not that.

(15:05) Basically, yeah. You can’t play it. Yeah. Not too much. You can’t put like 20% of what is your real cost. It’s just the customer knows it. Yeah, the customer knows it. They know what is the raw material cost. Then, it’s like, you can play with it, but a little bit. I believe you can play with it for 10, 20%, but you can’t play with it 80%. It’s basically, it’s a little bit of a gamble, right? You can gamble, and you can try to under declare,

(15:26) but they’re not dumb. They can look at the historical data. Even you can try that with sending a parcel to Thailand and say, oh, it’s not $30, it’s $10. You can do that. Even there, they catch it. They go to Google, and they just search Google, and they see the price, right? They. Sorry, on the small packages, which they’ve just done recently as well. Yeah, they don’t think they’re gonna bring that back, so it’s called.

(15:50) They’re gonna keep that as it is, you know? Again, nobody really knows, man. Nobody really knows. I mean, I. They think they can keep it as it is. But I think. Makes sense. I sent a package with one of my shippers, and it goes through with DHL. DHL held it at customs for over a month. Just sitting in customs, because they couldn’t check them all. Yeah. I had to send them a letter of our company, where we made everything,

(16:18) before they’d actually release it. Just on one small package. Okay. Small packages, what we normally send out from here. But we only ship into Amazon. Yeah, so basically, just to summarize, I think we’ll move to the next point. Of course, tariffs, we could talk about the whole time. We have about, you know, 10, 20 more minutes. Tariffs, basically what happens is everybody, at least Chinese, most Chinese people buying from China

(16:46) are people who are just keeping their stock in China. So I have a warehouse in China, and people are just keeping it there. We’re just gonna wait. Because a lot of us thought Trump was gonna drop it back. He was just talking big. We all knew, so we all felt that. And now everybody’s trying to ship. Basically, now the scramble is getting shipments out. So I think logistics costs are gonna go crazy expensive for,

(17:14) I don’t know, a couple weeks. Because you don’t want to run out of stock. Because basically your people are gambling, like, with all this stuff. But I think the long-term damage is people are not gonna really trust doing business solely with the US. I think a lot of us are gonna start to go to different markets. I know Australia, you know, Ian says, might not be as profitable or worth it. But I think we’re gonna be more actively looking.

(17:38) I’m personally looking. The reason I’m actually buying from Thailand is the last trade war. This is not the first time Trump has done this. He did this last presidency. But he didn’t do it as extreme as this time. This time it was 145%. That’s crazy. Last time it was 25 plus. Last time it was like 25, right? Yeah, it was nothing. Look at Europe. I’m trying to do it with Europe now. I used to be in Europe as well.

(18:00) Yeah, Europe’s a pain in the butt. Europe’s a real pain in the ass. It’s a real nightmare. You’ve got a company set up now. The VAT. Oh. VAT. Yeah, I think you’re right. Yeah, yeah. Regardless. Yeah, on the back, it’s my friends. That’s why US is still the best. I’m not bothered with Europe. I don’t know. I mean, yeah, US, I’ve mostly always been the US-only mostly market. I’ve done some in the UK. I’ve tried China.

(18:27) I’ve tried others. But I’m gonna go back to looking multi-market. I was kind of all in the US the last five, six years, but I’m gonna go back to multi. I’m not gonna like, I’m really gonna do it this time. Like, we’re working on Japan. We’re thinking about Australia. I have a question about, you said you have a freight company in China, was it? Yeah. Do you come to know if they’re, just as you said before, under-invoicing with this ship?

(18:56) Is it something that we have to explicitly tell them, or was it? Can you say that? If you work with freight companies in general, you know that they sometimes undervalue the goods, right? Factories undervalue the goods. Obviously, that’s a risk for the importer, for us, if we get confiscated, right, as you know. So, how do you control that part with your freight company? Yeah. Is it controllable? It’s a hard question, just to repeat it.

(19:24) Especially Chinese sellers and Chinese logistics companies will usually under-declare because they want the customer to save money, and they know they’re gonna complain if they get a big bill. So, forever, Chinese logistics companies, plus they can kind of say that’s a disadvantage. Right, but like. But there’s a risk, yeah, there’s a risk if you get caught, it’s not the logistics, it’s the importer that can lose the product.

(19:49) I mean, we have contracts with our clients, and it’s. Well, undervaluing 10% lesser than cost is different than undervaluing 80, 90%. Yeah.

(20:08) So that’s the trouble we’re having at the moment, I’m having at the moment, is how to trust suppliers with this shit. It’s a tricky one, like, you know, I remember in 2021 when Amazon mass banned Chinese sellers in the summer of 2021. Really? I mean, they didn’t ban every single Chinese seller, but it was like a lot of them. And they said it was for doing like Black Hat. Yeah. And what I mean is sometimes stuff like this just happens, like, and then, yeah, like, then those people get kind of like, they got away with it for that amount of time.

(20:35) And then suddenly something happens and then they’re wiped out, like, and I think what we, you know, we tell the client that’s their, their, their responsibility as the importer. And we try our best to educate them and inform them. But, but it’s, it’s, it’s also I think we know your risk tolerance. But one thing we actually recommended Easy China Warehouse and Justin’s, I’m not the expert here, I’m not the operator, but we’re, we’re ship, we’re doing LCLs, not FCLs from China.

(21:12) So one thing to do is like diversify your shipments and mix it with other, other, other, LCL means less than container load. So less than a container load, LCL and FCL is full container load. What’s the benefit of shipping LCL? The benefit of LCL is there’s a few benefits. One now is you average out your tariff cost, which seems like you, we don’t know the tariffs. But the other is your warehousing in the US, like Amazon warehousing costs.

(21:44) And three is a lot of shipping plans on Amazon now, they ask you to ship here, here, here. They’re, they’re not letting us send as much to one spot. So by doing LCL, we put an LCL to the west coast, to the middle and to the east, and then we can actually help clients, others hit. Because if you do one large container to LA, because the cheapest is like Shenzhen to LA, right, LAX. And then what the traditional way is you send a full container and then you break the container and then you send out the container.

(22:14) But what we, basically a year now, a year, a year and a half now, with all the changes, I think Amazon policies, we say do LCLs and spread it out. We also say try Japan. I mean, that’s, I’ve been a little bit behind, but we’ve, at our logistics company, been really helping. And a lot of our clients have been happy with going into Japan. So you keep some stock in the US, I mean in China, you lower your Amazon fees in the US.

(22:41) You’re kind of just more just in time sending. So even though you do a thousand pieces or whatever from your factory, you don’t send a thousand to the US and pay a thousand inventory. You keep a thousand in China and then you send in like, you predict your inventory for three to six months. You send 300 in, maybe a hundred, a hundred, a hundred, or what, you know, you’re distributing. Maybe you send a hundred to Japan.

(23:02) Maybe you send 50 to Australia, but you’re kind of keeping your supply chain in China and you’re distributing from there. That’s been, a lot of people thought Chinese sellers do FCLs. They’ve been moving to this model. So what we try to do at Easy China Warehouse is we try to actually give Western sellers what Chinese sellers are doing. Because everybody thinks that Chinese are doing FCLs there. They have not for a while because it’s, it actually sounds counterintuitive.

(23:27) It’s definitely cheaper to fill a container and send it. That part’s cheaper, but all the other stuff is, usually becomes more. So, we’ll end with AI. I’ll just do two quick ones. What I saw when I went to Singapore. So I was in Singapore more for personal, like my friend, but I also went to some business events and conferences. Singapore is really, really blowing up in a good way. I met some company registries.

(23:54) Basically, Hong Kong really lost to Singapore. For anybody that knows in Southeast Asia, it was always like Hong Kong and Singapore. As your kind of company headquarters for Asia. Hong Kong lost that. Like, it’s gone. Like, I don’t know if it’s ever coming back. And it sucks for me because actually I still am a shareholder in a Hong Kong CPA firm. So, we count people in Singapore too. But our strength in that agency, Unipro, is Hong Kong.

(24:23) So I’m not saying this for my own benefit. Everybody’s going to Singapore. Everybody’s going to Singapore. It’s more stable. There are policies. Various reasons. I don’t want to get political. You can think of the political things too. But it seems like very clear. Singapore keeps getting more people opening companies there. And, you know, some people here, like Julian says, maybe open a Thai company. What a lot of people do is they open up Singapore or Hong Kong, but now Singapore holding company.

(24:51) That then registers a Thai company or a Philippine company or a Indonesian company, operating company. So usually you have, and there’s more and more people doing these structures. A lot of people are doing their Asia headquarters in Singapore. It’s like really blowing up. Like, it was already big, but I feel like it’s really, everybody’s just going to Singapore now. So I’ve noticed that. I said I was in Hanoi last week with Vietnam sellers.

(25:15) I mean, they’re also selling Vietnamese products. And they’re also really benefiting from these tariffs. I think Vietnam did some kind of deal really early with Trump, if I recall. But I didn’t get into full technical reasons. But they are really benefiting from all of this. Also, a lot of Chinese sellers are opening up factories in Southeast Asia. I was in Canton Fair, and they’re asking me, actually, if anybody here is a factory or listening is a factory,

(25:43) they want to invest in these factories. They want to set up operations. They’re all looking to diversify. Already, Chinese own a lot of factories in Vietnam and a lot of factories in other parts, even Thailand. But I think there’s going to be more. I have a few contacts asking me to find factories here. So that way they can diversify. Plus, a lot of them are figuring, there’s also some people that do these services to kind of take the products from China,

(26:08) do light bundling in Thailand or in Vietnam, and then send it as made in Vietnam or made in Thailand. That’s blowing up. Everybody’s trying to get into that. I have a couple service providers that are getting overloaded with people trying to send China stuff to Southeast Asia to repackage and send as made in that country. So that’s blowing up. But basically, all these Chinese are looking to kind of diversify Southeast Asia in all kinds of different ways.

(26:33) Any questions or points? When I came out there, I also met some companies who were changing the certificate of origin. So rather than making it look like it’s from China, they ship to Malaysia and say it’s from Malaysia. Yeah, yeah. Malaysia’s clamping down on it. Vietnam’s clamping down on it. That’s what they’re going to do. And if Thailand don’t, they’re going to get here. That’s what I’m worried about.

(27:00) They come in here. So my stuff comes from here. It’s made here. If Thailand start allowing companies from China to relabel and change their certificate of origin. I heard it’s happening. I mean, I heard. Yeah, I know it’s going to hurt us. Then we’re in some big trouble. That’s why I’m just sitting back. I think me and your program is still so unique that I think you are quite safe on that. That’s all. Yeah, but if they put the tariffs on it, if other companies do that,

(27:31) Like you were going to get all the trousers made in China, yeah? If you do that and they get caught, then Thailand is just going to get whacked with a big tariff until it boils it down. Yeah, but you know, the idea is like Trump. I can see a tweet from Trump. So Thailand thinks they can just do stuff behind our backs with China, huh? Well, we’re going to fix that. 145% for you too. Something like that. I can see a tweet.

(28:01) And then there’s 145% Thailand. I think that’s what maybe Ian means. Yeah, I just don’t want them to just make things properly so that we as manufacturers here can actually get our… You make it. You too. So it’s in our favor that Thailand actually do their job. But I’m sure it’s going to go on until they get caught. Yeah. Okay. So just to recap, we went through the tariffs. We still keep talking about tariffs.

(28:31) Talking about Singapore. I talked a little bit about Vietnam. And then the IAI, which, you know, I think a lot of us are worried about AI. I had a long call with some of my management this morning, worried about losing their jobs. Yeah, I think there’s going to be lots more job loss, unfortunately. I don’t want to let go. I have a small team. I don’t have a huge team. But I’m changing the job role. I think jobs are changing.

(28:59) But basically the role, they’re not just going to be like… They’re not going to be… People are not going to just do tasks anymore and get paid. People have to be more like high-level overseeing, managing, QC. So at least, I don’t know, I’d love to hear what you are all doing with it. But I’m trying to turn the team into project managers of specific projects where they use AI in that project to execute.

(29:24) I’m trying to change them from a doer of tasks to an overseer of an operation. And unfortunately, some of them are not adapting to that. You won’t have thousands of staff. I can tell you, you’ve got to pick out the right ones. Yeah. Because 50%, 60%, 80% won’t manage it if they haven’t got the… Yeah. They’re just plodders. You’ve got to find the 20% that can really do the job. Yeah, we’re trying to give those that might fall into that category still a chance.

(29:59) So we’re trying to do that. But I think, yeah. I mean, I saw some video. Actually, I also have development with Hamza and my CTO is like, AI is not going to… I think he does really high-level difficult things. I don’t know. But he’s thinking it’s not going to affect. Yeah. Maybe. But I think the thing is if you’re really, really the top developer, I think you’re safe. I think the people that are screwed are the entry-level.

(30:35) They’ve got to really get off their ass and start learning everything they can and go at it like a businessman, not like someone working for someone else. Because my son’s closest company down in the UK, he’s just shut down in France. He’s going to Dubai, and he’s just setting up in Dubai. He’s gone. And then I think what Zachary was saying about, you know, he’s doing a fitness lifestyle travel blog, kind of like content.

(31:11) Yeah, content creation, and I’m kind of figuring that out. But I think you’re right by adding a physical product. I think it’s something we’ve been saying for a long time. We are a brand, and we have services, and we have products, and we have, I think it’s different types of business models. So you sell physical products, you have services, you have your affiliate income, you know, your other things. But I think we have to be diversified.

(31:41) I think so many times with all these events and meetups and digital nomads, of course we have to start with one first, but we have to diversify. I think the biggest point I’m learning to, I think the biggest point of this is we have to diversify. Diversify our income and our outcome. Like we can’t just be complacent with buying from China, selling to the U.S., or I have a travel site that has affiliate offers and SEO, right?

(32:08) I think we have to kind of go cross-channel. Like it’s going to get harder, but I think we have to be diversified. I think the times of just having one is going away. It’s not like you always have to start with one. I mean, it’s not like you can always go multiple. I think you’re going to have to more quickly go multi-stream sooner. And unfortunately, I think the other thing is the bigger you get, the bigger and smaller it’s going to go away.

(32:38) I saw it with COVID. I work with aggregators investing in brands. Like you said, you sold your brand. A lot of brands sold or maybe wiped out during COVID or gave up, but I feel like the big guys are winning, and it’s harder for the smaller guys generally. That’s what I’ve been thinking lately, is I’m seeing all of my friends losing their jobs, and they’re loyal to their company for no good reason. And now it’s hard to, you know, do one thing

(33:08) and think that it’s going to be stable. You have to do many things and hedge your bet and have something of your own. Yeah, I mean… Even traditionally stable, not the government or research or academia because they’re disabled. I think, I don’t know the data or the percentage. It’s much slimmer. But in terms of social media and AI and algorithms, every platform from YouTube to TikTok to Instagram to threads,

(33:44) all these are also updating their algorithms. So from what I understand, they’re trying to reset their platforms to invite more people in and diversify and make more money off more people. Why wouldn’t that, like, if you could fix your algorithm to drive the customer and the client closer together more quickly at a lower cost, then you are getting more sales as a platform, right? So it’s like, instead of optimizing for the most successful

(34:16) or the biggest players in these areas, they’re trying to open up for anyone that’s creating value. And I watched a guy, he’s like, he’s like, I’m quitting my job from Google. I’ve been here for X amount of time. And he started a brand out of this catalyst. I’m like, I’m quitting in 30 days. I have 30 days to figure out how to make $1,000 a month. And that was like his starting point, his brand, his sales point.

(34:43) And he got a huge following in one month, right? So it’s like this pressure is catalyzing people to really go deeper into their individual self and question where their value is, I think, which the transition phase is always… The other problem is you could be wiped out in a day. Yeah. So you can build it all up and it’s gone like that. Email list. It’s gone. They just decide to change the algorithm again, and you’re gone.

(35:14) And all that income’s gone. So you have to have like, you were saying, one here, one there, one there. I mean, I’ve got a property company in London, and if I can shut down, it’s not a problem. But if I didn’t have that, I’d be stoned. Yeah. I think diversification is key, of course, right? Because we stand on sand. Banks help us stand on sand. In case you didn’t know. I found out because of this book, right?

(35:39) Yeah. But I think AI affects people in different ways, right? Not everybody can be entrepreneurs. Not all entrepreneurs should be entrepreneurs, right? And to me, I may not have my staff, right? Because of AI. I warned them two years ago, and I gave them up gradually. I tried to find them positions elsewhere, but who knows how long that’ll last, right? Some of them took transitions. Others took a discompensary mindset.

(36:13) I have an AI company, too. Started five years ago. Back then, believe it or not, AI was easy. Now it’s super hard. It’s super duper, right? And we have big customers. We have the government of Canada, right? But whatever we do, OpenAI, Salesforce.com, the big guys are right behind us. So I mentioned this earlier. I’m from Silicon Valley, and there’s a challenge going on in Silicon Valley right now. This is called One Person Unicorn.

(36:50) Have you guys heard of that? I think you have. You know what it is, right? I mean, we had to walk into everything, you know? Yeah, so the term unicorn in Silicon Valley, in our lands, in case you’re not familiar, means that your company gets a billion-dollar valuation. And in the past, it took a team to do it, right? But now the challenge for most people is to see if you get a $1 billion valuation by yourself.

(37:20) And I’m trying to do that. You know, I have a team, but I don’t have a team that’s necessarily big, right? Because everything from marketing, business planning, and you’ve seen that, to coding, to logistics, can really be done by one person now. It used to be harder six months ago, but it’s easier today, and it’ll be easier in six months, and it’ll be, like, a no-brainer next year. That’s the pace of it. So, as you mentioned earlier,

(37:57) we’ve got to do different things, but, god, I feel bad for people. I really do. I don’t know what we’re going to do. Yesterday, I had a friend, I’m the director of a 4,000-person IT company that we used to outsource to. I was like, dude, we’re losing half the contracts. 4,000-person IT company. 25 years, 35 years? Got another call, same thing, you know? So, it’s not just us. It’s not just the brainiacs. It’s not just high-level people.

(38:32) It’s freaking everybody. Another friend, his father. This is what I’m saying. Even though I’m a developer, and I’ve worked for AI companies, you know, I cannot keep my job for the next five years. I can create a team with more AI agents. But it’s not only developers. So, my other good friend, heart surgeon. My dad is a heart surgeon. Stanford. Do you enjoy the podcast? Global Formation. Do you enjoy all the community events that we do?

(39:01) The best way to support is coming out to our annual crossbordersummit.com in Chiang Mai this November 3rd, 4th, and 5th, 2025. I have amazing speakers, amazing people getting together. We’re pushing the limits. We’re making things happen. This is where the movers and 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.

(39:30) crossbordersummit.com Thank you so much for making it through the whole thing. You know, I keep it real. I mean, this kind of podcast has become kind of my field notes. As I learn, I share what I learn with you. You know, on the road, especially this new gear I got. It’s even easier for me. I’m using it both in the studio as well as on the road. The big stuff, the big cameras are still here. I’m using those a lot for

(39:56) unboxing videos I do, and the product videos I do, and I get to have like a few different angles now for that. The dream. You know, I think it’s about the dream. You know, can you believe I’ve been selling online for over 20 years? So, it didn’t come out, and life is about having goals or dreams and making steps towards them. You’re not going to get it right away, but if you keep chipping away at it every day,

(40:23) you’re going to make progress, and it’s going to compound, and it’s going to happen. All right. So, the shirt. Let’s talk about the shirt. So, of course, I got this inlining with the GFA logos. I didn’t want it to be like an advertisement, so I don’t have any logos on the outside of the shirt, but on the inside lining, it’s got the Global From Asia logo, just the logo repeating, both on the button-down inner and around the collar.

(40:45) Also, one of my, and the shirt is also fitted to me. I don’t know if I’m jacked or whatever, but I had to make bigger bicep costume for me. I don’t know, but, and straight around the edges on the bottom as well as a hidden pocket on the inside, passport pocket, passport size. So, the idea is, you know, it’s like Global From Asia. I feel like we’re in, we’re the resistance. If you’re watching this, and you’re enjoying this,

(41:14) I know some people think I’m shadowbanned on YouTube. Maybe I am, maybe I, but we’re sharing the real deal here. You know, I don’t have any political agenda. I’m just learning, and executing, and sharing with you. Sometimes the resistance is getting, you know, more and more difficult to be. So, you know, you put your passport or some papers, and it’s in seams, so you don’t even see it from the outside. I don’t feel like taking my shirt off on the video.

(41:39) I might sell this publicly, but it’s for right now for me. I’m making a whole set of them. So, I will be able to have my passport hidden in my shirt, or papers, or other, other items that are pretty hard to detect from the outside. Because it’s a war out there. I’m telling you, it’s a war. I feel like we’re in a war. I know it’s not like bombs. I mean, some place in the world unfortunately has that, but I think the whole world is a war right now.

(42:07) I hope I don’t get shadowbanned for that. I probably am, already am. Anyway, so that’s the shirt. And, you know, what I’ve been learning over these three weeks on the road, first of all, it’s exhausting. I’m getting older. I’m 44. You know, I look like, people still think I look like I’m in my 20s, but I’m 44. As I shared in the recording, and I hope it wasn’t too offensive, or blunt, or rude. I actually asked Alvin, my editor,

(42:31) to try to help be nice. I was a little bit, somewhat emotional, because I feel like it’s just daily grind. Like we’ve been working hard daily, every day. Saturdays, Sundays included grinding. And, you know, if you believe in yourself, believe what you’re doing, it’s going to work. But I see a future, you know, with AI, and these, you know, trade war, tariffs, like manufacturing, like, it’s going away, I thought, almost thought.

(43:02) I mean, I didn’t like the whole idea of the closed borders. As you know, cross borders are a thing here. Open borders are a thing here. We love international business. But, you have to leverage everything you can, and diversify. So, I’ve diversified. I’m here in Thailand. I work with factories in Thailand. Playing around in India with Megala. You know, still in China. Even looking at US now, it’s just harder because of the time zone.

(43:25) It’s not about cost for me. I live in Asia. I’m planning to be here in the long term. So, I just don’t like being up in the middle of the night, talking to factories. That’s why I moved here in the first place. But I see the future where, you know, it’s all about the brand. I mean, people, a lot of my friends and experts on these shows have been saying the same thing. You know, you need IP, you need, I’m looking into doing patents now.

(43:46) I mean, with AI, it’s almost easier, you know, like, I think a lot of people have written it off, thinking it’s just like a chat bot, but there’s so much you can do. I’m still learning that every single day. So, I’m trying to get more IP, more brand, more IP. Of course, trademarks, but even patents. I haven’t done many patents. I’ve licensed patents. I’m working with deals right now with other people doing acquisitions of licenses

(44:11) and patents and trademarks. That’s the value. That’s the future. We have to be business owners. We have to be entrepreneurs. I hope you’ve been enjoying these shows. I hope you’ve been learning. I hope you’ve been executing. It’s about taking action. This is also with AI. Now, everything is there. Any answer you need is there. So, it’s really up to you to take the action. Now, there’s less and less excuses. There’s less and less excuses.

(44:32) Like my friend said, like, you can make money now with free AI software. Of course, you can always pay, but you can get a lot with free, and it’s just your will and desire to do it. It’s really amazing. There’s no more excuses in this world. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, your money. If you’re willing to improve yourself, you will be rewarded. If you’re going to have excuses, like, hey, isn’t it take my job,

(44:56) and this and that, you’re not going to make it. I’m sorry. You got to like evolve and adapt. I believe that’s what I’ve been constantly doing. I mean, I change my clothes, my camera, travel around the world, change my business, change my suppliers. I keep iterating, right? You’re reinventing yourself. All right, rant over, but I mean, that’s what I saw in these three weeks. You know, Singapore is kind of like taking over from Hong Kong.

(45:18) There’s a lot of business there. China is like adapting, but the tariffs keep changing, as we knew. We knew this was temporary, but there’s, we have to diversify regardless. And in Hanoi, Vietnam is booming. You know, Thailand is really great for lifestyle. I like enjoy living here. But yeah, Vietnam does seem like where a lot of it’s going. That’s it for now. Thanks for watching. Keeping it real as always. The Shadow Band,

(45:44) Mike Michelini. See you later. Peace. For more info about running an international business, please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com. That’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also, be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.