Acquisition and Turning Point: The Latest In the Ecommerce Venture with Marc Roca

It has been quite some time since we talked about the Ecommerce Gladiator series and Sisitano. I have been saying there would be an update on the show and today we have quite a big one, we are joining Alpha Rock Capital.

I came over to Manila to make this deal and wanted to make sure we also put it out on the podcast.

We will bring Marc on the show who also was a shareholder in the company but really as the co-founder and president of Alpha Rock Capital now – let’s tune in.

√ Marc Roca’s VIP Expert Page
√ Alpharockcapital.com – Amazon FBA investment holding company
√ Sisitano.com
√ Transferwise
√ GFA’s Broker Service

Thanks Marc, I’m excited for the future of Sisitano and especially Alpha Rock Capital, let’s do this!

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Episode 265 Global From Asia there has been an acquisition. 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. Okay everybody. I’m doing my little intro here before getting in the interview. Still here in Manila going to the airport soon to spend a quiet little office not little decent office.

[00:00:31] And if you follow our Instagram, I got a picture on Mike Michelini username Instagram. Hi logged in after a year. I’ve been a little bit on the DL. The last year has been a really weird kind of year. About a year, probably about a year ago, I was looking for a new place to live. Picked Thailand, schools, immigration there.

[00:00:57] Sisitano, we’ve had I suppose technically Paraliving, Inc.. But of course the main brand is Sisitano. And, there’s a you know, I been moving it around. I mean, there’s been so much turnover of management and I think this is the best deal for the shareholders. Of course. I am a shareholder and people have been asking for updates.

[00:01:20] There’s been comments on my YouTube and emails and people even want to get involved and I feel like we needed to update everybody. And, you know, there’s been talks of the partners. It’s been a really emotional week for me to be honest here in Manila for about a week. And it’s not the end but it’s a new start for Sisitano and the Amazon business in the e-commerce Gladiator series here at Global From Asia. Has been actually two years since it launched.

[00:01:47] So we bring Marc Roca who is also at a time the CEO of Sisitano and he’s the president and co-founder of Alpha Rock Capital, which is a Holdings company future investment fund of Amazon businesses. And, it’s been acquisition of Sisitano so I’ll be joining the company here and a lot of other things happening and we talked about the story here right in the office while I was here.

[00:02:16] I had my zoom H6 recorder and two microphones and everything and we’re doing it right here. And keep everything real, keeping it real. We’re just share and can’t share exact numbers, but maybe in the future. We’ll talk about that. But there’s some valuation models that Alpha Rock uses as well as many others in the industry.

[00:02:36] And amazing things happening. So I think I’m trying to keep everybody happy which in life is very difficult. But it’s been a very, crazy roller coaster with, with Sisitano over the last couple of years and I know investors are listening and friends are listening and partners are listening and I hope I can be everybody’s friend still.

[00:02:58] But anyway, let’s tune into the show. Are you doing businesses Between Borders and you need a cross-border legal help and IP help and trademarks and all of that. We have an amazing partner at crossborderIP.com. It’s a network of lawyers mostly in the US, but around the world that can help you doing IP transfer registration patents and more into headed up by a lot of people I’ve have huge respect for and they will be supporting Cross

[00:03:30] Border Summit and this show of course. We got a little plug here. If you need help with trademarks and patents help in US and China other parts of the world and you want to deal with one firm that can do it all as well as understands e-commerce Amazon FBA. I definitely recommend checking out www.crossborderIP.com supporter of the show.

[00:03:54] Thank you so much. All right, thank you everybody for tuning into the Global From Asia podcast. This has been one that’s been in the works for a couple of months. I know a lot of people and asking for the updates of the Sisitano business and what we’ve been up to in there. So I’m in Manila, Philippines at the new office of Alpha Rock Capital which many of you remember Marc Roca.

[00:04:19] He was, he’s a partner in Sisitano, but he’s working on something much bigger now called the, we’re still working on the terms. Holding company, it’s what I’m told. Is that right? That’s it. Okay. Well we’ll say holding company, Investment Company for at least, for right now Amazon FBA companies and I came here very last minute.  I was in Bangkok last week. Listeners

[00:04:44] Remember Marc’s like you got to come over here and see what’s going on and I think you know. Marc’s says it about himself, you know, he knows he looks like he’s very fast mover and I was like, okay, okay. A little bit hesitant honestly, but I came over and I’m glad I did it. I met the partners and I met I saw the massive spreadsheets of hours or I don’t know how many days or weeks of work that those spreadsheets have been but so we basically the big news for listeners is we’ve merged.

[00:05:17] Or had Sisitano, technically Para living acquired by this Investment Company holding company. We want to call it a PE fund but that’s not yet allowed to be called. I took yeah, it’s a hybrid right now. It’s a startup that acquires Amazon FBA businesses and also Amazon Associates in the near future and.

[00:05:42] We’re just starting out on building our track record. So yeah, so like we’re let’s say we’re in start-up mode for the next 18 months. Sure. What’s the model has been proven sure. We can move on to more like Private Equity. Okay, great. So let’s back up a little bit. So I know we kind of haven’t done a, we called the e-commerce Gladiator series.

[00:06:02] Global From Asia. We took a break from that late last year and I know some people been asking what’s happening. So what happened there was there’s actually been a lot that’s happened 2019, but I think Marc got into the game of Amazon when you know before Sisitano you were, you were buying a few other businesses and. Yeah, I bought the first one in May 2018 and then we bought the second one with my partner Vedas

[00:06:26] In July and I had to learn how to manage the business, how to optimize it. We started building the systems and in November I hired David. Which is now the VP of operations and he helped me finalize these systems and prepare for scale. And that’s where we are right now. We just move the operations to the US

[00:06:49] In July because we were based in Singapore but due to the banking system being so slow. This is a problem. Yeah. We also at Hong Kong problems and Singapore problems. So yeah, I know so now we’re based in the US and ready to scale and we’ve been doing Acquisitions left and right. Yeah, so there’s lots of opportunity for listeners to get involved.

[00:07:09] We can talk about some ways later. And so you’re  basically back to Sisistano and you know it is you are you did a great job in fourth quarter when you came on last year and then you took you know, he’s got less active because of this opportunity. So I think it was like really seem like you got because I we had met in person in October at DC BKK and you have been working.

[00:07:32] With Sisitano for a couple months before and and so I think you said January is something where really big happened in January this year. Yes, basically in this DC BKK it’s were David and I met for a second time and what I was fooling around with the idea of just creating an Acquisitions firm and buying.

[00:07:53] Profitable businesses so over that quarter, it’s when the ideas were finalized and then in January is when we when we officially launched and we had Capital increase in March and we bought another business in March and then all the banking woes as I said happened and now we’re in US and US, it’s great.

[00:08:16] We were partnered with Revision Legal, which is a top firm and with their help we were able to do what we want to do at the speed that is acceptable. Yeah, I think just a note on that. I know whether you know, of course. I am not as active as I used to be but I’m still a partner in CPA firm in Hong Kong Unipro was Ray.

[00:08:35] But yeah, the banking is just really hard in Hong Kong and even Singapore. I don’t know if you want to talk about the Transferwise issue. Yeah. Basically we were using Transferwise as the banking system right because you can open the banks the bank account really fast on one day we just. What hiding out for dinner and we got an email that they just had shut down on our account.

[00:08:55] Basically what they told us is they were they’re leveraging the risk because we were in paying much commission because it was everything was USD to USD. So for transferring $10,000 we’re only paying one dollar in commission and they say that’s not what transferwise is so they prefer to choose to the currency conversion?

[00:09:18] Yeah, right, that’s fair to them right that’s their business. They can do whatever they want. Yep. So then so now I think one of the things that to let listeners know is you’re doing everything, well let’s talk about we, we are trying to do everything legally and there’s no like we’re not trying to attack, save or not.

[00:09:35] We registered of free ICC. Everything goes through the proper channels. We have a top CPA firm that specializes in hedge funds. We have a bookkeeping firm that specializes in Amazon muse minded. So yeah, we started moving to the US when that happened. That was April 4. Hmm and it took April May and June to finalize the legal document.

[00:10:01] Yeah, I can imagine. Because you have to explain what you want to do and then. You have to make sure what you want to do is possible. Yeah, so by the end of June everything was ready and we incorporated in Delaware and then we started operation as move the assets on July 1st. So here we are one month later.

[00:10:22] We’re going to have the first monthly reporting on August 15 because every month. We’re doing monthly reports and consolation of accounts. Great. To know where we stand, then yeah. Going back to Sisitano, I came in and we improved over those six months in the fourth quarter. And then I told Mike look.

[00:10:43] My opportunity cost is really high to really spend so many hours in Sisitano. Can you take over and then Mike took over and he’s been doing a great job. Alas, what happens is I see the opportunity cost and Mike’s skills, which you are amazing, and I’d rather have him apply his skills on a business that’s selling half a million dollars a month than

[00:11:08] A business that’s only doing ten thousand dollars a month. Yep. So we’ve been talking about this for a few months quite a few months. I think I remember maybe March when we first started talking about it and I think it’s you know takes time. And then also there’s a lot of Partners we’ve had on the show.

[00:11:24] Honestly, I’m guessing you know, I think my wife is like my advisor, but I think it’s also too many people involved in a business is also a dangerous thing. So, you know, we made everybody happy. I think maybe we’ll get some ah previous, some of the partners on, previous Partners on the show. But we made a cash or Equity deal offer and there was some phone calls and negotiations with with the current Partners Phil, Meir and Adrian on it and we.

[00:11:51] Finally had everybody. We want everybody be comfortable and happy what we want everything to move forward and it this show will be really fresh. But we you know, of course specially there’s some ocean motions. I believe everybody’s happy and hopefully it’ll some of them will come into this. They have the option of money or shares so hopefully we get some of them joining in the in Acquisitions firm holding company and but I think everybody’s everybody’s happy.

[00:12:20] And so one thing I’m yeah, I’m definitely like like Marc said I’ll be I’ll be the. Director of Business Development and Content. So I’ve been here already in Manila helping with video, videos of the different partners and we, were building the websites Alpha Rock Capital.com. You can it’s so the I don’t know when The Show Goes live in might not be so pretty yet, but we have some people working on that but I think you can get a good idea of what what’s happening here with the history page and the team page you can check all of that out.

[00:12:53] But you know, that’s one thing I’ve learned. I’m not going to be I’ve been listening to some of the calls with some of the Amazon businesses, selling your business and also some other deals and I’ve learned I’m Not The Negotiator. I think yeah, we don’t have either partners should be on this show. We will get them in this show. We actually have Alpha Rock podcast too, I’ll be helping out with that but.

[00:13:16] Yeah, I think in negotiating, is business and there’s no emotion. So I think those are I’ll be focused more on the business development and I’ll be focused on the content creation and marketing there’s already five. So let’s talk about some of the some of the Investments maybe we can’t reveal brands or too much.

[00:13:34] But maybe I think we could speak about the negotiations about the Sisitano. Sure. Acquisition. One thing that we’ve been learning not just on Sisitano, also on other deals. It’s when you start a business you need to define the exit strategy and have it written down. Yeah, it’s true. Because then as we said there’s emotions and some of the partners say some work more than others and then some don’t agree and then you know, hmm.

[00:14:08] It’s complicated. Yeah, so for the listeners, if you’re starting a business with a partner, make sure you have the exit strategy clear. Even you want to sell the business eventually down the line or someone buys the business or the other partner buys the business or you know, I think actually I think that’s what Alpha Rock capital is about.

[00:14:30] If you look at the website later, I love anybody’s feedback. I think, I mean, I support entrepreneurs I support startups, but I think a lot of times people we’ve noticed that you’ve been talking a lot of people selling their businesses. They get overwhelmed. There’s a lot to do. They they want me to take some cash out.

[00:14:47] They want to try something else, you know, so I think you have to have your plan. What’s your what’s your goal was starting an Amazon or any kind of business and what the way you want to get out of the business is it’s totally true and Marc says so. I believe everybody’s mostly happy. I mean we can’t make anybody a hundred percent happy but I believe if anybody talked to the partners they would be so, you know satisfied at least and we have good relations.

[00:15:12] So.

[00:15:17] maybe we do we want talk about some of the the strategy of what we’ll do with with Sisitano or ordering in your. Yeah, Some of your other. So ,basically the acquisition we’re buying out the assets, which is a trademark and then the listings. So we’re going to transfer the Moka Pot and The French Press listings to one of our existing accounts because it makes more sense for economies of scale to have more products in one account and not have so many Amazon independent entities and then we’re going to keep growing it. Like, Mike was working for new products for this Q4 and what Alpha Rock enable Sisitano is we have credit lines for inventory.

[00:15:56] So if we want to launch a 9-cup moka pot, we can just, we have the money for it. If we want to launch another kind of French Press, we have the money for it. So it it enables having more businesses in a holding company. It enables the business that is already grown and it’s just creating profit to funnel some cash to the businesses that are still growing.

[00:16:18] Mhm and that have a huge possibility of growth and it’s the Synergy of the cashflow that allows this massive growth. Yeah, I agree. It kind of goes to the next point is it’s I would I guess we call it a rollup strategy. Yeah, it’s a roll-up strategy. Basically if you only have one business when you’re trying to sell it out you’re going to get 2 to 3 times earnings and if we have a holding company with 10 to 20 businesses, we can get a higher multiple around seven eight nine times.

[00:16:49] And then also the risk is diversified because if one container goes missing it’s okay because it’s only one container on one of 10 businesses. So the revenue of course, it still sucks. Yeah at the revenue doesn’t take a huge hit. Yeah, and like I said I started looking here if you crack crack me up.

[00:17:08] You’re like you’re buying some businesses in the websites are online because we’re transferring the hosting or something like get the whip but I guess is right now, we’re not really focused on the web strategy even on that’s kind of my skill. But yeah, that’s why you’re in. Yeah, that’s why I’m here, but we got the websites back online and hopefully will leverage that but still it’s pure still purely Amazon focused probably for the foreseeable future for now, but I think there’s also some affiliate sites in the in the Holdings.

[00:17:37] Yeah. We’re in, we’re buying one that I own this month in. Okay. It’s coming into the Holdings company this month because even if we want to move fast, we have to follow strict timelines. It’s 1 Capital increase a month maximum. And that’s how it has to be because of the filings with the SEC and you know, things are not as fast as we would but still faster than the normal m&a that big six months.

[00:18:05] Yeah, I think so. So like you said just to back up a little bit so like. Yeah the spreadsheets. I don’t think we can make public unfortunately, but I guess if you’re if you’re serious you can contact Alpha Rock and there we have some investor relations guys here that will do a good job taking care of your serious.

[00:18:23] But basically every month for the first few months were going to be raising raising money and there’s different. Yes, and we’re going to be growing very fast and the idea is. The idea is really using the same team right? Where have a lot of the great team info in the Manila area Metro and also other parts of the Philippines and other parts around the world.

[00:18:46] We have also some other partners that affirmed that are based in that are like experts in different parts of online businesses, and we have a great team to leverage that so I like I said I,I love it. That’s one thing. I really like about it is we’re moving fast. And like I’m grabbing a cup of coffee and in the office and I come back and watch like I we just bought another one like a plates business or something and then we’re having dinner last night and there’s glass jars on the shelf and I’m like, yeah, I think we own a glass jar company now. So it’s a beauty of Amazon.

[00:19:22] You can buy the most random things and they’re making money. The latest acquisition is a stainless steel containers. So it’s a business that was started by two girls in Australia years ago and they just had babies in December. So they don’t wanna take care of it anymore. So in a sense, we also like providing a service which is an exit strategy.

[00:19:45] Some people get $50,000 $100,000 and then they forget about their Amazon business and we’re happy to take it because we can optimize it right now. This one was shipping steel by air, so we’re just gonna, I need to work on usual container and it’s going to ship by sea. So the cost of goods go down 40% almost right away on the next order.

[00:20:06] Yeah. So I mean everyone everyone is happy right? I think if it’s a gap in the market, I mean, there’s also a pitch deck that we have of course, that’s also confidential or By Request only but in the deck. You know, there’s also the the Gap in the market you like. You said we were buying businesses fifty thousand a hundred thousand dollars like, you know, so you get 1 million up to a million.

[00:20:28] So there’s not much buyers in that in that market most buyers from I’m learning this too, but I think are in the million and above range. That’s with the equity firms. So we’re kind of hitting up that smaller size Market which seems like there’s the biggest amount of businesses today because he’s the one that are run by a single person and the to the cash flow cash flow constraints.

[00:20:50] They weren’t able to scale it. Most of the businesses are that we by have never been fully stocked basically because Amazon keeps eating your cash right like it start selling more and more every month. Like one of our products when we launched it in July 2018. We were sending a hundred units a month and now we’re selling.

[00:21:12] 1,200 units a month. So that’s 12 times the inventory and that inventory that you need to pay and sent to Amazon. Yep. Every month. Yeah, so I think that’s what there’s like. I think there were seven points. I remember are in the pi-, in the pitch deck but we’re trying to optimize a course that seems like one of the most popular, people just don’t have the cash flow because that’s one of the problems in Amazon.

[00:21:33] Our e-commerce is you got to finance the inventory. You gotta have the money and I think it’s going to advantages in this holding companies. The economies of scale and the cheaper money access to cheaper Capital that the smaller business owners can’t maybe get access to so it’s an exciting time.

[00:21:51] We talk I’m looking at my outline, but basically for what’s next for Sisitano, I think we’ll add some variations. Like you said on moka pots, we have some new listings, of course preparing for fourth quarter just like many other businesses in this Holdings company. Yeah, we fix the pot. Yeah, we fix the handle.

[00:22:08] Yeah. That was a huge problem because. Yeah, Basically it was the best-selling product. Yeah. For Sisitano and then we had to remove it all. We will remove. The sales went down because the algorithm of Amazon if you have a lot of return yeah, they don’t like you so they rank you lower.  Now it’s been recovering we fix the PPC too.

[00:22:28] We ready for Q4. See, especially the reviews have been picking up and if we had more variations on the same listing you can leverage that. So I think that’s one thing I’ve even learned the last week I’ve been here is is adding variations is a great way to expand without even having a new listing just leverage the current listing.

[00:22:43] Yes new colors. Yep new sizes. That’s like I think the easiest way to grow on Amazon because people already trust your brand and your product. Yep, and then you start an upsell instead of likes only 16 ounce. You add the 24 ounce to so now they say oh, maybe I want one of each. Okay, and then one other exciting thing is Cross Border Summit. Of course everybody listening here is about, this is building up.

[00:23:07] So only a few months away October 22nd 23rd and Marc will be there and some of the other partners and and active people in the in the firm will be there too. We’ll try to tap into China. We have some pretty big Chinese sellers coming and I’m actually excited. That’s really what the meaning of cross border is about. It’s

[00:23:25] Bringing different borders, people from different borders and in e-commerce and in a import-export, so I’m really excited to have the support of Alpha Rock with with the event and you guys can meet them and I can’t wait. I’m already Preparing People to introduce because that’s just like you said DC BKK and other events events is really a great way for deals to happen and making business.

[00:23:47] So yeah, and you mean people that then might work along with you. Yeah, that’s that’s the only way to validate because most of the, of us are doing online business and that was you meet line. You hung out you have dinner you have drinks and then you like do this David good yeah, it’s good. So awesome.

[00:24:07] Here. He is. There he is. Yeah, you can and we make things happen. So it’ll be great to see some listeners there. A funny story about Guangzhou. Oh, yeah. I was there in May two thousand eighteen and just after the Canton Fair because I want to do anything Amazon and the first acquisition went through the next day.

[00:24:28] I was in the factory because it was there. I didn’t know where even the seller was like the supplier was located and I just texted him like I mean 1 – 1 hour away. So you just took the bars in there you go. We went there and saw the factory and now that supplier makes the product without sending any deposit.

[00:24:45] You just makes it and he knows I’m gonna pay him. So amazing especially for Chinese exactly. It’s way to go. We have to go meet him again and excited to go back to China. It’s gonna have things move fast in China to if you like Fast China’s a place for that. So let’s talk about Alpha Rock a bit, I,

[00:25:03] Hopefully people have been learning. So basically it’s I know you put in your money either a lot of other partners, we rolled into Sisitano into it. There’s a few other businesses, you know, maybe want to share a little bit more about it and where it’s at now where we’re going to go. Basically, we started tapping into friends and family first and we finalized the first two Capital increases and we’re now buying businesses with that money and the next one will be in September.

[00:25:37] To use the money in October to buy businesses. Okay, and it’s going great. Like a lot of Acquisitions at the same time which means a lot of migrations would make the system of evaluating and migrating the businesses more efficient because the more instances you have the more flaws you can find and more refined the processes and yeah, it’s very exciting.

[00:26:05] Great. Yes. Oh, So then this is our I know it’s it’s kind of a closed round for the next I think it’s already full but like every month I’ve seen from what I understand, there’s like a round but I think even you say like sometimes he’s I’ve heard I’m not so involved in this part of the but I heard like the September rounds maybe Fuller there’s October round and then. So far

[00:26:28] We haven’t gone past the September round. Okay, and we already have a lot of leads. Great. of people that want to invest basically the next six months we were gonna. Finalize how to scale because right now we are scaling and it’s going fast. So we’re finalizing everything I’d say by the start of next year.

[00:26:51] It’s when we can start taking in quite a lot more money. Yeah, because we also have seen we just moved to the US. We also have all the financial for at least six months and that’s going to be, people will see the growth because the growth is there. Yeah, I mean, I know that’s one cool thing about you you have you’re you’re you know, you’re not just talking too you’re doing and I think you have some weird, has some big you really going to buy everything. If the price is right.

[00:27:40] So it’s hard to see easy improvement. But for our business that’s less than half a million. There are quite a few of quite a few people don’t even use pay per click. So that’s if a business is not using pay-per-click that’s already a high consideration for an acquisition because we know partnering with our agency.

[00:28:01] We can improve it 20%. Awesome. Okay. Well, this has been a fascinating catch up. I hope we got some people interested. I’m sure. We’ll keep everybody posted and of course. You can check out Alpha Rock Capital.com to see and learn more and there’s a connect form. It’s meant more for people wanting to invest right now rather than sell their business.

[00:28:21] But of course we’re open we’re open for discussions. For those most of those and maybe if you want to join us, you know, if you’re talented people but the main the main focus of the website or the, the fund, I can’t say fund but the holding company is, you know getting people to put some capital in and I’m really excited.

[00:28:43] I think this is a great next step for Sisitano too.  To think a lot of listeners probably understand the same, right if you’re starting Amazon businesses, you got to realize you got to have money. I guess Sisitano could have kept going on its own or it could have raised more money. I know that people even in our community it would have maybe invested in it and we had people asking about it, but I do believe this.

[00:29:01] Roll-up strategy makes sense. I bet your listeners. We’ve even had some calls with some people selling their business and they get excited about it when they’re on calls about the. I think a lot of people will say would this make sense, and I’ve also agreed in this. So thanks Marc for updating us, and this is hot off the press the this news.

[00:29:22] So thank you everybody for listening and and being part of this journey. My pleasure. Thanks, Marc. So is this stuff sound exciting to you? Do you want to meet these people in person a lot of our guests on the show and these deals were doing we’re putting this as much of these resources together at the crossbordersummit.com. Tickets have been open for a couple of weeks.

[00:29:45] You know what surprised me, you know, it’s ad but we’ve got some amazing Chinese sellers registering. I used to think Chinese people didn’t want to pay for these events and by says no reason to pay. They’re paying full price. I really appreciate the support. I think the show is getting more popular in China than overseas.

[00:30:04] But if you are listening overseas and you want to come in to Guangzhou, China during a Canton Fair meet some amazing of this speakers. We got huge lineup two full days plus if you want to upgrade to our Mastermind VIP sessions, it’s going to be totally amazing fourth annual crossbordersummit.com/china.

[00:30:25] See you there. Thanks so much Marc for this today. I don’t think I have a blah blah blah, but maybe it will turn out to be a blah blah. I’m here. I’m bright and early I get in I came into the office could have worked in my air B&B, but I decided to roll up into this office 6 a.m. And get this uploaded for Alvin to edit before I go onto an airplane, man.

[00:30:52] It says no direct flights to Chiang Mai from Manila. So I gotta go Bangkok ha-, hang out in Bangkok. Hope I didn’t pick wrong airports because there’s two massive airports in this massive Bangkok. There’s DMK. And BKK but I get double check my itinerary. Well, I hope I don’t have to take a taxi across town urgently between flights.

[00:31:15] But, anyway, it’ll be mostly on the road. Today is Friday August 2nd 2019 as I record this but I don’t know. What do you guys think? I got, man, it was emotional week for me with Sisitano. There was some partners that didn’t want to quote unquote give up. Didn’t want to sell out or have me take a job or whatever you want to call it.

[00:31:41] I don’t you know, of course there’s there’s all kinds of different terms or Acquisitions and merging and shares and cash and shit, you know, but I honestly think like Marc said having a clear exit strategy in any business is is the is the most important I mean Partners, I I almost didn’t listen to my first lesson my first business in.

[00:32:03] 2004. Actually 2003 started selling but you know, it’s a lot of times it’s just different people have different ideas. And we also didn’t really work whenever I we didn’t keep a full-time CEO on Sisitano. It’s a smaller business. Maybe we should have raised more money or we should have had another investment round we had but I think the biggest was an operator.

[00:32:27] We needed a full-time operator on the business when Meir and I brainstormed this in his living room about two years ago about a leveraging the community Global From Asia about you know about taking people that want to invest in Amazon and get exposure and people that maybe don’t have money or want to learn and hustle and put those people together and hey Mike.

[00:32:51] I’m the connector. I’m the nice guy. I’m the dude who can get things happening, which is what I do. It’s what I’m doing in Alpha Rock. It’s what I’m doing in Global From Asia. Why do a Cross Border Summit events? This is what I do. This is why I’m I’m a connector. I’m a networker. I’m a marketer. I’m a content creator.

[00:33:05] I’m an artist. I’m the artist. That’s who I am. We’ve never able to successfully find somebody to, is able to ha- will, we willing and able to hustle a quote-unquote for free, you know for the data monthly compensation and would also, you know be happy with you know, 20 25 percent equity in a business.

[00:33:28] that investment money to buy inventory, you know, I at least for me I was never never able to I don’t think anybody in the company’s history of two years. I don’t want to bring up personal names, but I don’t think anybody was able to be fully committed to this project. Over the last two years, you know, we’ve tried but I think there’s people that needed either would love to do it, but they needed a monthly compensation or maybe they were able but not interested.

[00:33:54] Maybe they felt like there’s too many other. I remember someone said, too many other partners. What are these other guys doing? They’re not really doing anything, or put some money in that’s actually one thing Alpha Rock. There’s not gonna be any like partial ownership. It’s a hundred percent ownership complete buyouts know that was the terms also with Sisitano. We, they could take Equity.

[00:34:16] So the way to deal is going is going to be cash first and then they could decide to use that cash to invest in Alpha Rock original was like cash or Equity but a thing has been changing even since the interview just give everybody cash then they can use that cash to invest into these can’t say fund yet.

[00:34:34] That’s the only thing I was really impressed. Like when I was talking to Marc before I came here. I was in Bangkok in a literally I had to lose my return ticket to Chiang Mai last week because I just directly flew here. Drinking coffee too, but I directly flew here left left, you know some Partners felt like I was doing this behind some people’s backs.

[00:34:54] I was trying to always be just transparent as possible. Collecting feedback, collecting numbers, collecting everything, talking to people this did happen pretty fast. I did know for the last few months Marc was working on the investment company, and I knew that he wanted to of course have me work and I joined them and use my resources and skills.

[00:35:22] But also to you know consolidate and focus Sisitano into a bigger company bigger resources. I mean that is the beauty Amazon businesses, I think the reason they’re so profitable is they’re very standard. You know, we’re joking, I think I said in the interview with Marc, you know, literally while I’ve been here there’s been acquisition of a like a plates company with using bamboo.

[00:35:46] Um, but I mean, whatever even the price might be totally different in random. I remember we had Greg Mercer and Jungle Scout on the show and earlier in the e-commerce Gladiators series. I guess this is turning into a blah blah station, but he said it doesn’t really matter what product on Amazon you can just sell totally unrelated products. But in Sisitano, we try to focus on a niche maybe within a certain brand name, but you could still have an account seller account selling all kinds of stuff.

[00:36:15] Which I’ve been noticing. I’ve been learning a lot. I love to learn and listening to these Amazon’s business owners selling their businesses and Marc, Marc loves that, man. There’s like speaker phone in the office and like, you know, there’s a few of us in this office and we’re hearing these guys and it’s also true.

[00:36:31] I mean, I really believe that these small businesses, you know doing, you know from like a hundred thousand to a million dollars in value are, are not appreciate- no, they’re definitely undervalued. They’re usually one or two owners operating it. We got Freelancers didn’t really have full-time employees yet.

[00:36:53] I see these as a great opportunity to consider, they’re also stressed out. I’m hearing you can hear it. They are tired or out of stock and inventory and that’s the game and Amazon. You got to keep putting that money into by that inventory. That was like my first bar products business. That was one reason I exited in 2012.

[00:37:09] I was in $50,000. I financed it $25,000 to the bank a Bank of America 18% personally co-sign. They don’t just let me do it in a company name. I remember that you know, so and the same with Sisitano. It’s overwhelming, you’re sourcing from factories your Finance inventory or waiting two or three months for the Moka pot to be manufactured.

[00:37:29] You’re sending it for a month on a sea you hope you don’t run out of stock. So, you know one thing is done. We’re going to add so many more variations on that one listing. You know, we are it’s just a few real listings. I’m working really hard adding more listings at any seller listening knows the amount of effort that goes into creating a listing launching a listing, you know.

[00:37:49] Especially when you’re buying from China and manufactured then there’s these trade War tariffs. We don’t know what’s going to happen. So I think a lot of listeners it maybe your sellers wanted to sell out, you know, of course, you know, like I said, Some some partners of Sisitano called me a sellout, you know, and influence the other partners to vote for this selling out but I think it’s going to make this more valuable long-term.

[00:38:11] You know, I think we could have stayed Independt. We could have kept operating that was really the only one operating the company for the last three four months, you know, and I realize I knew I know the Blood Sweat and Tears. That’s involved in operating an e-commerce business and Amazon business.

[00:38:26] You’re getting squeezed by your factories trying to now there’s these tariffs coming up trade Wars. There’s a you know, the Amazon there’s the, you know price competitiveness. You need a team you need you need a scalable model and I do always believe. And we’ve even talked to other sellers selling other business and they stay here about what Alpha Rock’s working on are like wow.

[00:38:48] This sounds interesting to me. You know, they’re interested. Maybe they’ll take ca- equity in the future. I don’t think we’re ready to offer shares in the holding company yet, but they’re just getting cash, but I think they see the value in economies of scale because we’re consolidating maybe even Sisitano. When I talked to Ino and Inside Quality.

[00:39:07] Maybe we could combine that with some of the other brand products that are or Alpha Rock Capital has and we could save money, you know ev- anybody doing a logistics knows a full container is cheaper net net and LCL a partial container because you’ve got a there’s all these fees these logistics companies nail you when you do a partial container because they got it is a little bit extra hassle for them.

[00:39:31] So we’ll maybe fill up some Sisitano products with other shipments coming out of China from the Alpha Rock Capitals Holdings, and that’s that’s what I believe in and I. Although the partners of Sisitano don’t have to buy into the fund. They have the option to I really truly believe in the spreadsheets.

[00:39:52] They are pretty aggressive. But I really do believe that buying a company for you know, a few hundred thousand that’s doing good Revenue. I think the revenue can be increased but it’s not just the top line that can be increased, the bottom line, it can be improved. You know, I’ve also seen these guys selling their businesses and they’re buying from trading companies they’re buying from.

[00:40:14] Really overpriced suppliers, they’re not or they’re doing air shipments instead of see shipments. They’re not playing in our inventory. They’re doing there’s so much more optimization that can be done. So I really truly believe in this I you know don’t think I can even sell shares yet. I’m not my shares, but sell to you guys.

[00:40:34] Of course do your own due diligence. This is a highly risky thing. But doing business is high risk. So I’m not taking a cash for my shares. I put it into the Alpha Rock. It’s very complicated. There’s so much paperwork, but that was what impressed me when I came here. Marc was right to get me out here.

[00:40:53] I see I see you know Vedas is his Major partner, another poker player and this dude is like a numbers machine. Like he just doesn’t even know about the Amazon stuff. He just looks at it like investment models, you know invest initial investment monthly returns and he’s running spreadsheets on all the deals that were looking to buy out.

[00:41:16] I’m I’m really impressed with the organization and and there’s a good balance in the team so I will keep you guys updated. I will help Alpha Rock start their own podcast where the plan is probably at least monthly updates about the fund. I can’t keep saying fund. About the Acquisitions firm or holding company primarily of Amazon businesses some affiliate sites, but that’ll be more done on the Alpha Rock Capital podcasts, which has not yet been.

[00:41:44] Fully launched. I did put a very small preview show. You might be able find in iTunes. But of course Global from Asia will be continuing to go they’ll be supporting of course and sponsoring their also sponsoring and supporting the cross border summit. I think there’s huge opportunity with Chinese sellers.

[00:42:02] I think there’s huge opportunity with bridging China e-commerce and Amazon with the international market. So I can’t wait to make some amazing intros of Marc and the Team Alpha Rock too. We have some huge Chinese sellers speaking at the event like Patrick Jung who’s been on the show. Hi Jung. Wilson, some others that are you know huge and they don’t know anything about what’s happening in Southeast Asia with all these foreigners like well, I’m a foreigner, non-chinese.

[00:42:29] So I’m really looking forward to being able to leverage that and Bridge more. So this is this is like the announcement podcast is Marc is, and I don’t think we were. Showing off their I’m like no, I mean, we just there’s just, you know million dollars in this company and just going to be used to deploy into Amazon businesses and scale.

[00:42:48] So we just as what I liked, I mean, we’re not showing off. We’re just executing moving fast and making things happen. So it was a pretty fast deal with Sisitano that got the vote passed and I believe everybody’s happy. Of course people have their stories and mine. But I think anybody listening believes me.

[00:43:11] I’m trying my best to keep everybody happy move forward. Can, I don’t want to leave people behind and we made a decent deal. I think everybody’s happy. That’s it. At least I hope and let’s just keep keep on rocking and maybe some listeners will get involved what we’re doing here. There’s so many opportunities selling their business investing in the fund.

[00:43:30] I holding company may be joining us. I know there’s a lot of hustlers there that want to work come out to Asia. Man, there will be a lot of jobs for people to come out maybe internships is I’m telling you. I have a big, I have a big ideas of what’s Happening here. So, Talk soon, bye-bye. Get more info about running an international business, please visit our website at triple www.globalfromasia.com that’s www.globalfromasia.com.

[00:44:00] Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.