Episode 08: A New Generation Of Manufacturers, From OEM To Brand, Founder Of Ausdom, David Wu

Mike: Alright, so thank you everybody for tuning in to another Global From Asia TV series. We are in this new edition of Cross Border E-Commerce here in China talking to experts, suppliers, and sellers. And we are here with David from Ausdom. Thanks for being here. You have actually we just talk before the show Ausdom can be pronounced awesome brand. Thank you so can you introduce yourself to everyone.

David: Hi everyone. My name is David. I’m the founder and the CEO of Ausdom. Ausdom is a brand with a mission to provide best accessories products to the global e-commerce business. Especially for the e-commerce fellas.

Mike: Awesome, awesome. Yeah so how did this get started, how do you start this business.

David: My story is simple. In 2013 I graduated from right after my graduation I got a job in financial industry in Futien in Shenzhen. After working several months, I realized that’s not my dream job because I didn’t learn anything. Actually, I cannot see myself in the industry for the next 10 years. So I quit the job in 2014 after the Spring Festival. I quit the job. And I came to many startup ideas with my father and with my friends. And we talked about the possibility of being successful at the young age. Then we have this kind of long conversation over like 1 month. After 1 month, we figured out this is first stop, I should pick a project that is going to be successful. So I came to my father for help. Then he gave me advice, why not you can do a business based on our family business. Because my family is doing OEM/ODM business for the big brands over past 10 years. Right now we can use the same resources and we build a brand overtime, overseas.

Mike: Okay, there’s so much to talk about here. Very interesting. So then the name, maybe we first talk about, how you pick, what the name means?

David: Ausdom, actually many Amazon reviews gave us the review, Ausdom means like awesome. That’s exactly what we want to build in a brand and that’s why we named it. Because it has the similar pronunciation with Ausdom. And us, in Germany AUS means like come from and DOM means like quiet. We want to give a no worry, quality assured products in a shopping experience for our customers. Mike: Got it and yes so that means coming from silence.

David: Yes.

Mike: And the product you guys are doing are audio and video.

David: Our product line currently covers 2. One is audio product line, the other is video product line. Video product line include TV cam, web cam, dash cam, and every camera. Audio product line include different kinds of wireless headphones, with different kinds of features. Like active noise cancelling, share me feature, APTX, APTX FC. Almost I think every feature on a market. We can make it.

Mike: Awesome, that’s really cool. So then you’ve just started this for only a few years. What you say some advantages or skills that you had coming into this.

David: I think the best part I improved a lot for all this start up experience is the team building. Because the company’s gross is not done by me, is by my team. So team building is the key and is the most important job for founder or for CEO I think.

Mike: True, I guess it’s finding the right people in the right balance.

David: Find right people and put in the right position. Give them the right resources.

Mike: Awesome and so talking about your father’s business, so they don’t have a brand? So they’re just doing OEM.

David: They don’t have a brand. My family is always doing a OEM and ODM business behind those big brands.

Mike: Behind, exactly.

David: It’s highly traditional factory.

Mike: Exactly so for a lot of people that might not be aware that means basically they make a product but they put someone else’s brand on the manufacturing process. So yeah, it’s true that is old way. The old way was the supplier gets the order, puts a logo, sends it and they’re done. So even building up this brand, but you are still thinking B2B with the brand.

David: Yes.

Mike: So maybe you could share a little bit about your strategy.

David: Our Ausdom selling strategy is B2B. Because we don’t think it’s the factory own the brand we can, we are able to provide this access shopping experience to the end, consumers. So we need someone in the middle who can provide, local logistics, local after sales service. That’s the pattern we want in a local market.

Mike: I got it. Yes, so then how do you decide, you have growing product line, how do you decide which product to expand into.

David: First, we have a database where our team can access to for online sales, online platforms. That is one way we can decide which product might be a hot selling product in the local market. The other way is that our team we have like more than 160 product team to do the product. So in Southern Pacific niche market we may try to lead the industry, lead the market.

Mike: That is pretty good especially from your end in China and Asia. We’re talking before the interview you actually worked with Amazon Alexa Ways.

David: That’s the project we are doing right now. Mike: That’s cool. We’ll get back to business, let’s go on to some personal stuff. You also studied overseas, right? David: Yes.

Mike: What are some of your hobbies or habits that you do for fun when you’re not or you’re always working or when you’re not working.

David: I’m not always working, pretty sure. I’m a guy who tries to find a balance between work and life. I think the balance is something everyone should strive for.

Mike: Okay, so what are some of your hobbies? Basketball.

David: My hobbies is reading books. My favorite book is 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Steven Covey.

Mike: Yeah, that’s a good one. I also read that book. I always think of the last 7 habits or sharpening the soft or always improving your skill and your knowledge by practice. Great. So we’re working on the Cross Border Matchmaker which is an event in October 27th. So we’ll just bring together cross border e-commerce executives from both China and overseas in Hua Qiang Bei. So we’re really excited about that and also people viewing this. What kind of people would you like to meet from the show or from the event or in the market.

David: For Ausdom I think we are looking for global distributor, reseller, or partners who have interest in consumer electronic, who have confidence in Chinese company and the Chinese brand. Hopefully, they can come close to our company then we have face to face communication then start do something together in the local market.

Mike: Okay and now for our second segment of this series, we are talking about business model. So David’s here, a new generation of manufacturers and suppliers. He has his education overseas. He’s back in China, he’s starting a brand. It’s been a few years, growing really fast. So of course I’m thinking of, kind of, I think I understand both sides. I’m in China for 10 years now. I’ve done e-commerce so many years before I came so I understand both sides and I thought we’re going to have this conversation about the new model. So David, you own the brand. You said I think you said on the last time you, or maybe before we record, you register brand globally.

David: Yes, we have registered our brand globally at least 45 countries. We have already got a trade registration.

Mike: Yup, trademark. Great. So now you still wanna sell they call F2C or B2C, you’re still doing the B2B where you find global partners and so we’re talking before the recording, I think what e-commerce sellers especially in US or globally are afraid of being considered middleman or cut out in the, so I think the balance I think we mentioned this when we talked about it. They’re concern about exclusivity, right? So you probably talk a lot of this, either current distributor or potential distributors about exclusive. So maybe you can share, how the conversation goes with the seller who says, Oh I love your product, I love your brand, I want to sell in my country, in my market. But they say, I have the same product, I’ve done my own brands, too. But I want exclusive. So what you do you normally, how do you normally talk to them.

David: First of all, I believe that F2C is not possible for over next 20 years. I don’t think it’s possible. Why? Because we cannot provide the local logistics, local after sales service, local marketing, that is why. And our company cannot do a chain of economy everything is done by you. It’s not possible. But cut some of the middleman it is possible. It is necessary. It’s good for consumers. But you cannot cut all of them. For example, like Ausdom we have resellers in United States and the UK, in Brazil. What do we do is that, we give them like 3 year agreement exclusive. But before that we will give them like short period like 3 months. And we would do evaluation. If they can do the exclusive channel, then we will give them 3 year period.

Mike: I see, so what’s the normal turnover, how do you decide like KPI? How do you decide minimum sales volume?

David: In the beginning I think, we should not focus on that. We should focus on the trust and the person you are talking to. If that’s a good guy, they have ambition, they wanna do business then you should pick them first. Then, for Ausdom, for our brand, new branding, if they want to come into competitive industry, I think we have invest in the people, invest in the product, invest in the marketing. For example, we recently well talking about a very young guy in Philippines. They want to be our Philippine distributor but they are just a small business owner. They cannot purchase a lot of products from us. Then we came up with this idea that we kind of set build a joint venture in the Philippines. Then for every sale, 2 comes count together as 1, then he will talk to a local, his distributors then get a price and then we will deliver the products at that price on time.

Mike: Right, yeah this is cool. You’re kind of like being flexible and helping those that are willing to work hard like even as we say Global From Asia anybody that’s willing to work hard wherever they might be, whatever they’re background if they are willing to do the work and make it happen, that’s great. So we’re also talking before the recording I think the fear of Amazon sellers or e-commerce sellers or distributor is they’ll gonna get stuck in price war with other distributors. So like if you have your product in Amazon and if they list in Amazon, do you allow multiple sellers.

David: No, for each product model we only pick 1 reseller, 1 reseller. So we cannot have strict marketing channel control.

Mike: I see. And then your monitoring that.

David: Everyday. We have a guy in our team to monitor the price, monitor the re-sellers online everyday. So if someone don’t follow our marketing strategy they don’t think that our marketing strategy will be valuable in the future then we will not include him or her as our partner.

Mike: Okay, this is interesting and so sometimes people say, we talked to others in the series then we talked to others especially some of Chinese factories they don’t understand that there’s a lot of multiple brand. They think is how to say, but they think it’s putting your logo on the product. I think you’re doing more than just putting your logo. We’re talking before the recording you’re actually spending marketing money on building the brand and then you’re paying for that as a brand owner. Do you wanna share about that? Because I think some of the distributors or sellers are afraid they’re gonna spend the money doing Facebook ads or Amazon ads and then later get cut out. So you’re actually paying.

David: As our Ausdom distributors we cannot only provide the product but also the marketing strategy, marketing fees. For example if you want to do an offline advertisement you need stamp, flyers, or free samples then we can provide to our distributors for free. If you want to do an online big promotion you can sell a lot. Then we will give you price support and stock support.

Mike: Okay. So let’s expand on that, so is there MLQ, do they pay upfront in their order?

David: It depends on the case. We’re talking about. For example if it’s DOTD day of the day at Amazon then we will join together with our resellers, our partners to do this together.

Mike: I see, okay. So as far as the channels, of course US is a huge market you must be selling there. Each channel could be different partner or the same partner?

David: Each channel could be a different partner.

Mike: Of course you have Amazon, then they’re might be offline like channel, Do you have a website, do you sell on website like a shopify or shopping cart, do you have you or someone selling on the website?

David: Yes, some independent website resellers. They will sell our product.

Mike: Okay and then in that case multiple website are selling your product.

David: Yes.

Mike: I see. Okay ‘coz these are considered different channels but like eBay or Amazon where we want channel. Okay and then the support, so what the main work or main job of your distributors is helping with after sales support?

David: Yeah and local logistics.

Mike: Local logistics which, well I mean FBA there’s not much work for them in FBA it just takes. But others might have if they have eBay or offline retailers they have more a lot of logistics. How about like the listings, the copy writing, the photos?

David: We can also do the follows and some suggestion keywords and the some suggested marketing strategy for our distributors.

Mike: I got it. Cool. and then you were saying you have your team here to help with the marketing.

David: Yes.

Mike: Do you wanna share some of your team skills or people?

David: We have international team, they graduate from different countries like the UK, like Swedish then with the main reason why we build this team because we want to have our distributors to do the marketing or at least to do some part of marketing like e-commerce, right. Like e-commerce we can do a lot of advertisement online with the cheaper price compared to 1970’s. Those Japanese brands they came to the world to build their own brand, think about it. It’s kind of cheaper way to do the marketing right now in the e-commerce era.

Mike: So are these team members, so they are still Chinese born like overseas educated.

David: They are just overseas educated. Or I think in the future we will hire some local people to join our team.

Mike: Okay cool. And then you have someone in the US helping you.

David: Yes.

Mike: That’s pretty cool they were in China for a while, do you wanna share about that.

David: We have a guy in Seattle right now. They form the team to do the marketing things for our distributors.

Mike: Okay, awesome. So what’s, so you’re saying interesting about F2C I think is 20 years away or so, so what’s your strategy are you gonna continue to find more local partners, local distributors and support them to build your global brand.

David: Yes. I think for each country we only need 1 or 2 partners to do all the distribution network. We don’t need too many distributions because it’s so hard to do marketing control and the channel control.

Mike: Got it. So we’ll do some video segment on your products after we do little tour to show some of your products. Is there any other things that you’d like to share about your company here that you think people would wanna know. Will just skip that. Thank you David and then how can people find you online or find your company online.

David: You can go to the website our brand website www.ausdom.com 

Mike: Great got the whole link. That’s cool you have a global brand and like we’re saying you’re like Global From Asia it’s true you’re like really Global From Asia, Global From China and doing a great job and helping a lot of people today to understand work. So thanks David.

David: Thank you.