Why People are Moving from China to Thailand with Don Wilder

Even before Covid, many ecommerce and internet entrepreneurs were leaving China for Southeast Asia. It is a mix of Vietnam, Malaysia, and Thailand. 

Today we hone in on the migration to Thailand and bring on the show Don Wilder a crowdfunding expert and also business partner with Michael on various ecommerce and crowdfunding projects. He moved from China to Thailand before Covid, and we will dig into that story. Mike also recently moved BACK to Thailand after getting stuck in China for almost 3 years (Mike lived in Thailand from mid 2018 to the end of 2019). Faith is a new co-host of Global From Asia and will join us as well.

√ Don Wilder’s VIP Page
√ Don’s GFA podcast interview on Crowdfunding
√ Mike’s China return and lockdown experience (March 2020)
√ Don’s crowdfunding agency (Mike / GFA is also a partner)
√ Don’s coaching and mentoring and course
√ Visit our GFA partner – Mercury – for US banking solutons for your ecommerce businesss

Thanks Don, thanks faith and everybody for tuning in and we’ll see you in the next podcast.

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gfa382

[00:00:00] Thank you everybody for tuning into episode 382 Global from Asia. We’re in Thailand. Now we’re talking about the move from China to Thailand for business owners. 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.

[00:00:21] And now your host, Michael Michelini. All right. Episode 382, super excited, and we have a new new person to introduce, Faith. She’s our co-host here right off the press. First time here. Thanks for making it on the show Faith. How are you doing? I’m doing super great, very excited. And I’m honestly super excited for everyone to see our podcast with Don.

[00:00:47] And I, I know you were very happy talking with Don. You were talking a lot of things, business moving to Thailand, doing a lot of ventures. What can you say about the podcast that we were able to do with Don? Yeah, it’s really, it was a lot of fun, you know, it was, it was great to have you with us. So it’s the three of us on this show today and it’s the first time to be recording in, in Thailand.

[00:01:09] You know, I was in China for two and a half years straight, no trips in or out. So a lot of us nomad are travelers or used to traveling, but yeah, I’m really excited for this show. And also we’ve been busy, you know, with the blimp program, blimp method, we’ve got some new products listing. We don’t talk about it in

[00:01:27] Today’s show, but, but has been super busy here at the Global from Asia community. And there’s lots to do. So we’re ready for this interview, faith. Absolutely. Well, there’s a lot to wait for, a lot of projects with Mike and I hope you guys will be waiting for it. I believe so. And of course, Don, we are talking about Don.

[00:01:48] He is an owner for a crowdfunding agency. And I mean, of course, if you want, if you would like to learn more about Don, how, how his journey is, how Mike’s journey is. Well, let’s get going and watch the podcast. Yeah. Let’s tune in. And thank you to our sponsor, our returning sponsor mercury.com online bank while it’s a real bank, but you can do it totally online for US.

[00:02:11] Our blimp program participants are going through this as well. Thank you, Mercury. Travis is great there. He’s been on our show. He’s been in our events. We’re gonna have another event where we will have them attending as well. And if you wanna get a little bonus for you and us, if you sign up and do some special circumstances, you can go to globalfromasia.com/mercury.

[00:02:31] I also have a video tutorial that we use, even for the blimp people use the same exact video to learn how to use it. Oh, I hope you can check it out totally free. Why not see you there? All right. We’re back. It’s been a little bit of a break since the last show, but it’s the new, the new and improved Global From Asia.

[00:02:47] Maybe we got a lot of exciting things to talk about and I’ve brought in my good friend and business partner, Don with us today. So we’ll get to him in a second, but I think a little bit of the background of the show is, even before COVID, you know, e-commerce, entrepreneurs, internet entrepreneurs were moving from mainland China to the Southeast Asia.

[00:03:07] You know, today we’re focusing on Thailand, but a lot of times it was Vietnam, Malaysia, Philippines, and Thailand, other places, a lot of us talk about which one do they choose. Today, we’re focusing on Thailand. I I’m doing the first show since I left China here in Thailand. And Don’s with us. Yeah, it’s exciting times.

[00:03:27] And Faith’s our, co-host our new, co-host, how you doing faith? Thank you so much. Well, very happy. So ecstatic right now to, to be here in the show, be able to co-host you and absolutely to be able to meet Don. And I know he’s been very busy and then he, I mean, just on showing up right now and getting to know more about the journey and everything, it’s a great privilege, honestly.

[00:03:53] Yeah, it’s really, really, really exciting. I’m so excited for the, the next generation of, of this, of this podcast. And mm-hmm so, you know, I actually, that’s not like my first time moving to Thailand. Actually, I spent some time at Philippines as well, but okay. I spent a year and a half in Thailand before, before coronavirus and I’m back.

[00:04:15] So we’ll get into my story a little bit. I wanna hear a little bit more from Don. Don, you’ve been on a show at least at least once or more. We’ll link up your previous show where you talked about your crowdfunding expertise and in insights. But today we’re talking about Thailand. And do you wanna share a little bit about yourself?

[00:04:31] Sure. Sure. I mean, I guess we, you know, you and I met back in Shenzhen, one of the GFA events that you put on. And, and then of course we had a lot of mutual friends. But you know, I’m American from Idaho originally. And I ended up taking a trip to Taipei, Taiwan in like 2007. I was playing basketball for university in Portland, and I ended up staying in Taiwan for a couple weeks and absolutely loved it.

[00:04:57] And I kind of saw then the opportunity to teach English. And I was an English major communications major, and I made the decision. I wanted to go back to Asia. This time, you know, at that time, I wanna go to, to mainland China to just do, do a year of teaching as a kind of a gap year, and then go back to doing my masters.

[00:05:16] But everything kind of went as planned, went to Guangzhou, China in 2010, taught English for a year. Absolutely loved it. It’s a great city, learned the language, really adapted well, and then I was looking at the, the idea going back to do my master’s calling my friends and, and some different, you know, friends back state side who had.

[00:05:36] Finished their master’s degree. And they were, they were basically looking for work. Right. And I’m like, there’s no way I’m going back. I’m I’m, I’m definitely sticking out in China. There’s tons of opportunities out here. I had basically switched off of teaching at a language school to just teaching privately and I was making great money.

[00:05:52] I was working like part-time and being able to travel all around China and get to really network and, and do some other fun stuff in, in Guangzhou. So yeah, I mean, I stayed in China up until the time I left for Thailand in 2018, I was just saying, and so it’s been great. I mean, I, I, I I’ve had, you know, great experiences in China.

[00:06:13] I know China’s changed a lot since I left in 2018, which Mike you’ll probably uncover a bit I’ve kind of had to see and, and hear and live vicariously through you. And some of my other friends that are, were still, you know, there for was a, was a great experience and business and that thanks so much.

[00:06:36] Absolutely. And again, your China story. How did you get to China? And when it’s the background, what is the background mainly? Yeah, so, like I said, I, I went over to teach English in 2010 and I bought a one way, one way ticket. I was living in Boise, Idaho with some friends and, you know, I just like, all right, now’s the time.

[00:06:58] So I hustle made some money, flew to China without a job. And I’m thinking like, oh, I’ll find something. And, and thankfully I did, ended up teaching at a education center in, in Guangzhou for about a year. And then that, that really kicked it off. I mean, I was able to really experience China and in. A new way, I guess, you know, coming from a small town in Idaho and then going to school in Portland, like it was a completely different culture, different language, you know, a lot of it’s it’s for a lot of people that get out there and it’s sink or swim.

[00:07:26] So when I bought the ticket out there, I was thinking like, this is either gonna be a, a fun little vacation, or I’m gonna make something of it, you know, see, see what opportunities are there. And it turned out to be something great. Like, I, I really went all in, you know, a lot of people when they, when they go, they, they kind of wanna feel stuff out what I, you know, immediately started learning Mandarin.

[00:07:46] So through the course of the first year, I became really fluent in Mandarin Chinese. And so that opened up opportunities to speak to locals and people in the city and connect with them in a different way, which led me to playing basketball as Mike knows. Yeah. I was playing like a semipro club, club ball getting paid to kind of fly around China , which was a lot of, lot of fun things, kinda like commercials and music videos.

[00:08:08] Okay. I want, I want a game show speaking Chinese. So it’s just some fun, fun things probably wouldn’t have happened to me if I would’ve stayed in, in Idaho or, or Portland, you know? Yeah. Yeah. That’s really nice. It sounds great. Since I, you were just learning new language, meeting new people and then You were getting a lot of experiences.

[00:08:28] Was that overwhelming to you? Or were you just, all right. I’m just enjoying my time here. Yeah. Good, good question. I think Mike, Mike knows this. Anyone who’s been to China. I mean, it’s, it’s so populated in like these first tier cities think Guangzhou has 15 million people. Wow. Shenzhen popul, and all right. I think, I think, I think it really is the densest population of, of people within a, you know, square square meter.

[00:08:56] They’re in the Pearl river Delta there. So, you know, for me it was, it was definitely overwhelming, but it was exciting at the same point because I was just, you know, continue thinking like, wow, this is incredibly inconvenient that I have to pull a number from, from the bank queue. And literally wait for six hours before I can even see a bank teller.

[00:09:15] Like most people would go nuts. Right? Yeah. But I thought it was like, like, wow, this is, this is an interesting part of Chinese culture. Like all I’m gonna try to see, just fit in and see how it goes, you know, going to a hospital in China, Mike probably has some stories too different, certain experience.

[00:09:31] Right. So yo man, it’s, it’s, it’s crazy. So, so I mean, like it it’s, it’s it’s depending on how you look at it, is it completely can make or break the experience. Right. I think probably with most things, but for people that go to foreign countries, I think it’s just a very typical American mindset, where they go somewhere.

[00:09:52] They want everything to be Americanized. They want people to speak English perfectly. Yeah. You know, they want, they want everything to be, you know, fit to their kinda little worldview, but China doesn’t work that way. So, so a lot of Westerners, they, they don’t, they don’t really do well in, in China. Like my parents visited me in China and they also visited me in Thailand.

[00:10:09] And my mom and my dad are like, we will never go back to China. So, but, but for Thailand, you know, we’ll definitely come visit again. Cause it’s, it’s different people, different kind of culture and everything. It sounds great. At least you got this feeling, all right I wouldn’t be experiencing this if I did not move out of Idaho.

[00:10:26] And it’s a good thing. Like you thinks you experienced something good, something new to do in your life, right? Oh, oh yeah. You. I think my life would’ve been very predictable. I know it would’ve if I would’ve just stayed in, in small town, Idaho and not nothing against it, people that stay like my older brother and sister, they, you know, they married young and, and settled there in the city and they’re still there.

[00:10:47] But for me, I wanted something different, you know, I was like, you kind of see the road ahead. I’m like, what would life look like if I went abroad? And then all those ideas, you know, flooding like, all right, let’s, let’s try to make it. So I said, yeah, I think, you know, there’s, it takes a level of being, I don’t know, a little bit crazy as, as some people think, when I bought that one way ticket to China, they’re like, man, you were, you were nuts.

[00:11:07] But for me, I’m like, like, I, I really wanted a different experience. And I think when you come to that point, you’re willing to try new things and then be open to, to where it leads you. So I think being, you know, having somewhat of a, a open mindset and kind of a growth mentality can lead you into a lot of cool.

[00:11:24] That sounds pretty great. Pretty good. I love that. Love the energy about you just moving in one way ticket. No matter what people would tell you, I would go there no matter what, right. It sounds great. It sounds really great. And I would love to touch base with Mike. Of course. Mike’s China story in like how, when you just moved to China, I would love to hear it from Mike.

[00:11:47] Yeah, sure. So my story. A little bit different, a little bit different, but I, I was selling on, you know, a lot of people like to say I was on wall street, that wall street to, to China, but actually I, I quit my wall street job in ‘07 too. I, I was just not happy. And I was doing enough to get by on eBay and my website.

[00:12:07] But of course I was buying from Alibaba and global sources and I was trying to do the sourcing stuff for even other people without even being to China. And I was like, man, I, I feel like a hypocrite man. I’m like helping people buy from China without even being there. So I was like, I gotta go to the trade shows.

[00:12:22] So I went out to the trade shows in ‘07, October ‘07, actually. Yeah. I had no clue. Really. I had no clue. I did have round trip though. I can’t say I did a one way. I was a round trip, but I extended. From four weeks to five weeks, I went to Hong Kong. She and Shanghai, Beijing, Beijing was really fun.

[00:12:40] Honestly, I was in Beijing in November. I, I was having a lot of fun in Beijing, like going to even factories and, and making new friends, business connections, but stayed extra week in Beijing. And then I, I don’t know, I went back to the US with no place to live and, you know, I, I was like, this is just too boring for me.

[00:13:00] No offense to my friends in the us, but I was like, you know, like, like Don was saying, right? Like, I guess we both chose the even you Faith. I’d love to hear your story maybe in a, in a future, but you know, you were, I know you spent time in Dubai and you know, I think once you get traveling, it’s hard to kind of go to the normal track of yeah.

[00:13:19] People. So I kind of went back around Christmas, I think Christmas ‘07. I did a six month return ticket because. I think it was looking at the prices and I think itwas even cheaper. I don’t know, Don, I remember a round trip was almost the same price or cheaper if I remember, well, at least when I looked in continental and so I got a round trip for six months.

[00:13:40] It was the longest round trip you could do at the time. You couldn’t do a further return ticket more than six months. And then I was like, let me see what happens in six months. And , I’m still like, well, not really in China. Now we can talk about, but still in Asia since then, they’re a little bit up, all over the place and yeah, a lot of stories, but that’s the, that’s the quick one and yeah, just buying from factories, figuring it out.

[00:14:05] As I went, you know, hiring people, setting up companies like school of hard knocks. Seriously,

[00:14:14] Certainly nice, well was scared that you were able just to come in, do, do things that you wanted to, especially like you coming in in China. And I totally relate because I was living in Dubai for 10 years and I was, it was just very, you learn a lot of nationalities, experiences, culture, and I love learning about culture and that’s why that’s the best thing about just moving to another country.

[00:14:37] Right. It’s great. Yeah. I mean, it’s the best way. I mean, I have kids now, a lot of people know, and they’ve gotten such open mind from seeing all these different cultures, US, China, Thailand, they’re really understanding, like languages and currencies. And most I had no clue, like, especially as an American, like we’re such in a bubble, right.

[00:14:58] We’re in a bubble, right. Don was mentioning. We, we have our comfort zone and everything’s in English. Everything’s in one currency, you know, most, of course there’s a lot of different cultures in our schools and stuff, but yeah, it’s, it’s a, it’s a whole different perspective once you get outta your home country.

[00:15:14] Hmm. So I think let’s, this is a fun one. We’re we’re experimenting here. So that’s both of our stories to, to, to China. But I think now this, we both are in Thailand. So Don, why, you know, you mentioned you went to Thailand 2018. I don’t know if I heard the why. I don’t know if you want to get, I, I, I still love China.

[00:15:35] I don’t know. I think you do too, but I don’t wanna be like a, I’m not gonna like. Well, you could do, you can say however you wanna say, but I’d love to hear the good, the bad, the ugly, how’d you how’d you get to why’d you come here. Yeah, yeah. You know it, I guess. He’s thinking here, he’s thinking, you know, there’s, uh, being, being in, in, in China, just so people know, like proximity to Thailand, you’re looking at a, you know, a few hour flight.

[00:16:02] I think it’s like three hour, four hours from Guangzho direct flights to Thailand, to Bangkok. And, and then getting around Thailand, you know, it’s not that big of a country. So flying is super convenient. So before, you know, I was still in China from 2000, what, 12, I think it made a trip to Patia with my girlfriend.

[00:16:20] And, uh, 2014 also did a trip to Phuket. So I had, I. Been to Thailand a few times, but I’d always go south to the islands, which is probably kind of the, the exotic parts of Thailand, right? The, the beautiful beaches and kind of the tourists, the culture. But people kept telling me friends from China, like, oh, if you go to Thailand, next time, go north, go up into the mountains.

[00:16:42] They have elephants and they have temples and it it’s just a beautiful place. And I remember thinking like, why would I want to go to Thailand and look at mountains? Like I’m from Northern Idaho, we have mountains everywhere. Right? Like elephants are cool, but yeah, what, but, so I ended up doing it. Someone I knew from, from Guangzhou moved to Chiang Mai and they invited me up to just check it out.

[00:17:02] So, So I did. I came over to Chiang Mai for like a week and spent time with this person and then ended up just loving it, seeing that the city was super little and, and everything. The infrastructure was great, low cost of, of, of living, you know, the, the food, the, the people were so much nicer than they were in the south, which I guess is, you know, I guess to be expected on these overly touristed places.

[00:17:25] People in Chiang Mai may just have a very down to earth, a vibe about them. And then there was a lot of other digital nomads, different, you know, entrepreneurs in, in Chiang Mai and so I was able to kind of get plugged into a network and I saw that man, like I could definitely see myself out here because at the time I was living at Shenzhen, I had a company running, doing crowdfund consulting for basically Chinese hardware companies, startups that had different, unique gadgets.

[00:17:51] They wanna try to get into the Western market, big, big factories that had a cool product, but they didn’t know how to brand. They didn’t know how to like, market. Basically we used crowdfunding on Kickstarter, Indiegogo as an engine to kind of cross the bridge into the Western market, helped them get, you know, some subtraction and brand it in the right ways and kind of push, push them out.

[00:18:09] So I was doing that and Shenzhen’s, end’s a fun city. It’s great. But it’s very fast paced, I guess it’s like the, the Chinese side of Hong Kong on, on like the, the level of, of, how fast things move. So every day, you know, stuff happens, people are, are, you know, like getting stuff done. And I remember just being bombarded by all these different opportunities.

[00:18:30] And it was cool on one, on one side, on the other side, it was just like feeling kind of tired, you know, like concrete jungle every day, you know, it’s fast paced, go, go, go. And, you know, it’s, it’s also a lot of expectations to, to perform, get, get stuff done, deliver results. And I was running a fairly small team at the time.

[00:18:49] And a lot of the work I was doing. So I got to this point where I just like, I needed a break. I was really burned. And one of the big things is Mike knows it was ongoing. Was the internet in China. He, the internet just sucks. Right? They have the, I know the great firewall, the great, the great wall is there, but the great firewall is even higher and even harder to get through.

[00:19:08] And you never know from day to day, if, if your VPN is gonna be able to connect to Google so you can check your email, right. Or, or if you, you can even, you know, see, see what’s happening on a, on a YouTube event. So it was, it was miserable, you know, work productivity really suffered. And, and I think that was one of the illuminating things where I did come to, to Thailand and the internet was just blazing fast, right?

[00:19:30] Like so fast. I was just thinking like, what, what the hell am I doing? Trying to run my, my business. You know, most of it being online in, in China, it just didn’t make sense. So that was one of the big things that, that ended up bringing me, bringing me out here. Awesome. Thanks Don. For that. All right. That sounds great, Don, and very happy to get to know more about you and like you just doing all of your company’s businesses here in Thailand, and I hope you’re enjoying Thailand.

[00:19:58] I believe so. Oh yeah. It’s been great. That sounds great. And I would love to also just come and go with Mike here. Like all of your moving to Thailand’s story. I would love to get more of it. Furthermore it, yeah, sure, sure. So there’s, it’s actually, I moved twice, right Don, at least twice. Depends how many times you count, but both, both for the same reason.

[00:20:22] The first time I came, I think Don’s, I dunno if Don would like to share this too publicly, but we can cut this if you want. But I think you’re an expecting dad. It’s a life, it’s a life changer. So I I’m a father of two and having kids totally changes. Totally changes everything. So, yeah, you’ll, you know, you’re finding out already.

[00:20:46] I know we’ve been talking, but so for my story, of course, I was always frustrated with the internet, not gonna lie. But what really got me was the cost of education in China and equality education choices in China, I was fighting to just, you know, already as expensive cost of living the rising costs of China.

[00:21:05] Again, I’m not really trying to bash on China. I know people will think I’m trying to bash on China. I’m not, I, I, my wife is Chinese, I have friends in China. I know I do business in China, but it’s no, it’s just facts. The cost of living has been skyrocketing and the cost of education, I think in China for quality English, especially if you want English, it’s super expensive.

[00:21:23] You know? So the big one for me was the cost of school for my children. And then I honestly didn’t choose Thailand straight off. I, Wendy and I, we traveled around in 2018. We went to Philippines, Thailand, Kuala Lumpur, and then Nepal. We were looking for a place to move to. And we picked Thailand because of the school options, the education, the environment for our children.

[00:21:50] Of course I love living here is fun. It’s relaxing. Like, man, I’m on a hundred megabyte, 150 megabyte down speed test to internet right now. So Internet’s super fast. But my favorite part is just the education for my kids. Like they’re back here and they’re thanking me. My, I, I actually, I don’t, I didn’t even, I don’t know if somebody had told ’em to thank me, but they were thanking me for the school.

[00:22:11] just the other day like yesterday. So, you know, I think, I course I could have back. I could have gone back to the US. Alright. A lot of parents, a lot of Americans, or even Europeans, they go back to their home countries for school when they’re married with kids. But you know, I I’m trying to stick it out in Asia and you know, even Philippines, I couldn’t find schools in the Philippines.

[00:22:32] So my friends of our team and my friends in Philippines say has changed since 2018 or 17, but. Then I was gonna have to change the whole school semester because the school semester in Philippines is like totally different. I don’t know if Faith, you know what I’m talking about. It’s like a total different school calendar than like. It’s different curriculum believe so.

[00:22:52] So, so it was like I’ve I was really trying to think about Philippines, but, and I, I don’t, you know, international true international schools are like crazy. They’re like $20,000 us a year per kid. It’s like insanity, you know? I mean, you know, like that’s just insanity to spend like private college tuition for kindergarten, you know, like seriously.

[00:23:17] So, so my primary reason was the schooling. And like Don said before, COVID we could fly back to China for like a business meeting or a trip or a conference or an event. I was doing events in China, even when I was living in Thailand. I, I, I, I flew back to China for events that I, I Global from Asia events before

[00:23:38] COVID. So back then. It wasn’t such a big decision now. It’s like, it’s like a moving for life, you know but like before COVID, before COVID we could just go there if we needed to. So that’s my, my, my reason. That’s totally nice. It, you, well, you, you started it. I mean, I want to hear more about COVID stories.

[00:24:02] Like we all have different stories when it comes to COVID like me, I was just stuck with my family here. So I was just doing a lot of things with my family. Almost just like doing a lot of bonding. Well, I wanna hear from Don, of course you do have your own COVID story. Like you’ve been mostly been in Thailand.

[00:24:20] I understand, but I think you also spend time in the US. Have you been stuck anywhere? Any further stories about it? Yeah. Yeah. So the first time the lockdown happened, I was in Phuket actually. Okay. The kind of the south side, and as Mike knows, the, the one drawback of, of this city Chiang Mai, in my opinion, is the smoky season.

[00:24:43] Like the, cause the it’s in the mountains. Right. And we’re kinda like in this valley, there’s a lot of burning that happens in the new part of the year, like February of March. Yeah. And so that smoke tends to kind of drift in and settle in the city. So, so anyway, like most people fly out, but I, I had happened at that time in, in February, I was still in Chiang Mai and then the government was talking about going into lockdowns and I’m thinking all, I’m gonna get locked down here or it’s gonna be, you know, on a somewhere so flew down to Phuket.

[00:25:09] And, but still, but still the lockdowns were, were rough, man. I mean, you, they, they basically. Blocked off all of the, the beaches. So nobody could even go down to the beaches, which doesn’t really make much sense. You know, outdoor stuff was really limited. They put curfews on us. so I was, I was in a, in a fairly small hotel for, for like close to two months and I was stir crazy as ever.

[00:25:34] Right. Like I’m sure a lot of people were like cabin fever. Like, like when you’re, you’re in a house, you can kind of move around a little bit when you’re in a hotel man, like you’re you gotta rough it. Yeah. But, but I tried to, to think of it as, you know, how can I turn this negative situation into a positive one in some way, like flip a negative into a positive, like what’s what, what can I do?

[00:25:52] So it almost became like a little sabbatical for me, right? So I’ve got like this small environment and I’m thinking, all right, I’m gonna start studying, reading all these books that I’ve had bookmarked for for years, going through some of these, these training programs and thinking of products that I could actually develop and gonna initiate, development process on.

[00:26:10] And so it turned out to be a super productive time downtime for me. And so through that period, I was able to develop, I think, three different products that are, that are out and running now. And one of ’em is I think Mike knows about it’s kind of cool. It’s, it’s basically the only water weighted fitness Fest on the market.

[00:26:29] Yeah. So we’ve got patents already for it and it’s it’s in the us. So basically the product is a, is a weighted best for athletes that are doing, you know, cross-functional training. They wanna improve on their, on their fitness and, and different areas. But the traditional way of, of weighted vest is using iron or steel.

[00:26:46] But I thought like, Hey, why don’t why don’t. Like this, this product I’m in my, in my room trying to work out, I’m lifting up buckets of heavy water. I’m like, what if, what if someone put water into a vest that uses the vest? So anyway, I, I started the research and I found that, that nobody had actually developed something like this.

[00:27:02] I looked at the patents and everything. The patents were pretty much cleared, so I jumped in and started it. But I don’t think that would’ve added that idea would’ve ever came about. If I wasn’t stuck in a little hotel in, in Phuket. Right. Mm-hmm like, uh, I think so. So yeah, I guess a lot of good stuff did come from, from COVID as well as some of the, you know, more challenging parts.

[00:27:21] Totally. You understand? There’s a lot as well, but I mean, again, there’s a lot of COVID stories. You have yours, you have a lot. And I was just curious, like, that what’s the, what’s the best thing. Other than that was the best thing that you were able to realize in terms of business. Absolutely. When you were in lockdown, what do you think.

[00:27:46] I mean, I just saw kind of the landscape for business was, was inevitably going to change mm-hmm right. Where people were no longer meeting offline. There was very, you know, tons of, tons of different restrictions and everybody was moving online. All right. So what does that mean for business? How are people going to communicate on the day to day?

[00:28:05] If they can’t go to their jobs? They can’t work. All right. Well, companies like zoom are gonna make a fortune. Right. And, uh, so, so there’s, there’s different shifts in even how people are, are, are thinking and, and working. Like we looked at for a while, developing a, a health mask, right. That, that could basically detect the air quality and a few other things.

[00:28:22] We ended up dropping it because that whole market was super, super saturated at the time. And I was also some technical stuff on manufacturing, but, But yeah, I think, you know, you, you, when you get thrown into something like, like today you’re hosting the, the show for the first time. , you’re gonna, you gotta start by swimming.

[00:28:39] Yeah. And then you just gotta adapt. You gotta adapt. Right. You gotta feel it out. So. Absolutely. Yeah. I feel like that, you know, COVID man, it, it destroyed a lot of people destroyed a lot of families, relationships set people in depression and all kinds of just really, really terrible, terrible things, you know, like when you cut people off from their normal, normal things.

[00:28:57] But it really, like I said, I think, feel like for some people, they, they took that situation and they found a way to, to improve their lives in some way. Right. They realized, wow, relationships are actually really important. I should start valuing my relationships, more, communicating, more closely with the people that I care about.

[00:29:12] And, and then other people kind of just let it, let it eat ’em away, you know? And, um, So, so anyway. Yeah. Well, but, but as far as your question, I did go back to the us. I took care of some business. My, my grandmother wasn’t doing well, ended up staying for eight months. Mm-hmm I wasn’t sure if I was gonna be there for a few months or what.

[00:29:28] So I came back and in Thailand at that time I still had to quarantine. So it was like 14 days again in a whole small hotel room in Bangkok, just quarantining being, being treated like I had leprosy, you know,, people you show up when they’re in, in the white, the white suits and everything PPE, I believe so.

[00:29:48] Yeah. Right, right. They knock on your door and, you know, to deliver food and you open the door and the dude is like a track runner, you know, cause he’s already gone down the hallway and around the corner. And so, so, so much, so much like solo time, you know, you, you learn to appreciate the face to face communication that you have with people.

[00:30:07] At least that’s, that’s what I felt like. Yeah. That’s totally nice. Again, it’s always the realization in the COVID situation. It’s always like that. There’s a lot as well. Well, of course I wanna hear it for a bike as well. I know you, you are. I mean, it’s pretty different. You’re with your kids, with your family, I would like to hear your lockdown situation mainly.

[00:30:30] Yeah. I mean, I have to, you know, honestly mine is like really complicated and long, I mean, was there too, but, but I was separated from my family. I almost coulda was gonna be one of those people, like, uh, mentioned. I have friends that had been separated from their, their kids in China for like two years.

[00:30:47] Plus, I mean, it almost was me cuz I was down in the Philippines in BGC, you know, Manila work cause we left Thailand in right after Christmas, 2019, right after the kids finished school, I went to their Christmas party and. And then my wife wanted to go back to her hometown for Chinese, you know, holidays, Chinese new year, learn Chinese kids get some more Chinese exposure cuz they weren’t getting much Chinese for that like year and a half or so we were in Thailand.

[00:31:15] So she, so we were like, all right, we’ll come back after six months. But you know, that’s a cool thing about Wendy she’s she’s not like pushy she’s she knows I wouldn’t wanna stick in her hometown for six months. So she’s like, you know, I know you’re not gonna wanna stick around so you can, you know, you can kind of be free for a while.

[00:31:33] I’ll be with my family, the kids will be with my parents. So I, I just willingly picked Manila because I was doing some work with an aggregator Amazon investment company. And I sold my, ran to them. And I was, I had a position like as a BD, as a consultant and was doing a lot of deals. They were really fun.

[00:31:51] They were fun people too, like became friends with them. So I was like, I’ll go down Manila for a couple months, you know, man, it was like the worst timing, like seriously Tagatayerupted two days after I landed. Do you know the volcano? And then as soon as the volcano Ash finished, coronavirus came, like they were like, you know, this guy, Alex, actually I’m talking to him a couple days.

[00:32:19] He moved to Thailand too. Actually he’s like, dude, did you bring this shit from China, bro? Like you come here and like, and like apocalypse happens like a volcano erupts and a deadly virus spreads, you know, like, so I kind of evacuated man. Like actually we’re trying to get Faith in my, one of my, these microphones for the show, cuz actually Don knows Rico. Rico and I Made in China podcast.

[00:32:46] He has my stuff, dude. He has my stuff, Don he’s got my luggage, cuz I, I, I didn’t even move outta my Manila apartment. I was meeting LJ at, and the other team in Bohol. I went down to the islands right before lockdown and I couldn’t fly back to Manila from Bohol, the islands. So it was like the craziest nightmare.

[00:33:10] I went there with flip flops, a tank tops and a carryon bag. And I couldn’t go back to my apartment in Manila, you know? So I had to take like an emergency flight back to China a after a week of being stranded in Cebu, I had various hotels. It just, I actually, I made some video blogs. I carry this around. I do Mike’s blog.com my personal blog.

[00:33:33] So I was like recording this. It was really insane. So yeah. And then I got stuck in kind of stuck in China for two and a half years. My, my joke is it was the longest visit to my in-laws for the holidays ever. I think I might’ve broken a record. You know, you, you go to see the in-laws for, uh, for the holidays, but it was like a two and a half year long one.

[00:33:54] So that’s the quick one, of course, but I have a whole show about it. Globalfromasia.com/lockdown. If you want to hear it, it’s full episode. I, I say that sounds great. Totally great. And I mean, it’s very different from Don as well, but again, it’s, it’s the same thing that you were, you were really situation again.

[00:34:16] It’s good though, that we do have realization, especially when comes to business, it’s it actually really matters. And I, I wanted talk more about the future part of opportunities. Absolutely. And I just wanna touch base with Don, I mean, are you still buying from China on your crowdfunding projects? I mean, any thoughts about China business opportunities right now?

[00:34:37] Sure. Yes. I am still making things in China and manufacturing there’s is still for most, for most type of products, more suited than other countries, although that’s that landscape’s kind of changing. So, so yeah, as far as business opportunities in China, I think there there’s, there’s still a lot, you know, cause it’s such a big country and it’s still growing and there’s, there’s a lot of demands even within the domestic market for, for, you know, high quality product as the, the, the middle class continues to develop, they have more expendable income, which means they want nicer products and often those are coming from overseas.

[00:35:15] So, you know, the, the opportunities as before was manufacturing, China and sending out as, uh, some of my friends that stayed in China and are continued to thrive in their businesses are actually doing the import business, bringing products into China to serve the, the domestic market and not, not an easy thing to do, but definitely very, very lucrative if, if you get it to work.

[00:35:35] But, but yeah, I think that’s, that’s probably it get it that you were saying. Yeah. I mean, we can’t, I think it’s, I was just on a call with another entrepreneur in Thailand and he’s saying like, you know, it’s, it’s, you can’t really avoid buying from China. Right? I was just, I’m really like setting up my little studio here behind me, if you’re on the video version of this and we can’t avoid it, even, even if we buy from factories in, in Mexico, I somebody’s buying from Mexico.

[00:36:06] You know, I, we actually buy from factories in Thailand for some of our brands and Amazon, we sell, but a lot of the raw materials, a lot of stuff still comes from China. You know? So I think of course, is anything is possible. You know, some people have more political reasons or whatever. They don’t wanna buy from China for political or, you know, whatever, various reasons.

[00:36:25] But I feel like we have to still buy from China. A lot of our products are still from China for our brands. And, but I am trying to buy from Thailand more. It just kind of naturally happened. Actually I wanna catch up with Don about it. There’s I’ll probably bring Andres on the show soon, but he there’s like a, in the mountains of Chiang Mai, they, they hand make the jewelry.

[00:36:44] It’s handmade jewelry and we sell it on Amazon. So, but they still buy a lot of materials from China to, to make the jewelry. So. Okay. All right. I mean, that’s good. That’s good as well. But of course, for Mike, you’re buying from China, Thailand, mainly both countries for various brands. And I mean, what’s the trends you see on it, for sure.

[00:37:08] I mean, we, there’s a little bit of a political meeting in October in China. I don’t wanna get, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s politics and businesses somewhat have to be connected, but we don’t really know what the policies in China government, the leaders want. We don’t really know. I mean, nobody seems. Some people think it’s gonna be more open.

[00:37:30] Some people think it’s gonna be more closed. I don’t know if you wanna flip a coin faith or Don. We don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows the outcome of this meeting in October. So literally as when I called, you know, yesterday, you know, somebody he left at China, it’s like a year ago, can’t come back easily.

[00:37:51] He just wants to sell his brand because he doesn’t wanna deal with China anymore. He just doesn’t wanna deal with it. So, you know, and he’s saying like, I could wait until October and see if they’re gonna make better policies. But I think a lot of people are waiting until this October meeting, which is about a month away from now, I think October 15th or 16th.

[00:38:10] So a lot of answers will be done about the future of China business. I think after this meeting, before we’re, we’re kind of kind of gambling. If we think it’s gonna get more open, probably try to do more business with China. Now get more deals. Cause I think even factories. Are more open they’re, they’re more hungry for business, but if we think it’s gonna get more closed and the policy is gonna get more in inwards, if we think maybe the China leaders don’t wanna do business with the west as much anymore, and they, they just wanna be more separate then, then, then I think you should try to do less with China.

[00:38:44] Right. So I guess we just gotta decide, do we do the leaders of China wanna do more with the west or less with the west at this point? And then we’ll probably all find out by the mid end October, what the answer is. all right. Okay. Then that sounds great. Well, you know, if you know here in the Philippines, it would always say it’s more fun in the Philippines, right?

[00:39:05] It’s always that tagline that always comes in special in duty free. I love it. I love it. When you go in airports, you can see. Yeah. It’s more fun to Philippines, but my main question here, I mean, why Thailand. Why not? Philippines, Don, you want to take a crack? I could take, I guess, I guess it’s maybe. I haven’t spent enough time in the Philippines, Faith to be, to be honest, I’ve been to Manila and Boracay, and I love Boracay.

[00:39:31] It was a, it was really a beautiful little island, but it was, it was fairly brief amount of time. I think, I think maybe what’s kept me out here is not just the Thai culture, but it’s the actual digital nomads that I’ve connected with that have, have built, you know, good rapport and probably on somewhat of a similar frequency where there’s masterminding happening.

[00:39:55] And there’s like an actual community that’s, that’s encouraging, their respective business growth and in Boracay was definitely in vacation mode and didn’t really see many other foreigners didn’t really connect with, with anyone there that, that well, but I, I did find that the, the Filipino people were, were so hospitable and charming and friendly, like the a hundred, a hundred percent.

[00:40:18] Like they were some of those friendly people I’ve, I’ve met. Okay. Of of course, of course, honestly. And again, if Thailand would work best for you, I mean, I, it’s always the best place where you can venture more, especially when we are in the business sector. So it, it will be best again, super happy for you that you’re here in Thailand, venturing to a lot of things.

[00:40:40] That’s what really matters right now. Thanks. Awesome. Okay. Yes. Hey Mike. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead faith. Yeah, but seriously, let’s discuss other options like Philippines, Malaysia, Cambodia, mainland Vietnam. Why not those places as well, just, and also just do, going back to America, this is, this is something that you’re, are you really looking forward to doing in the future?

[00:41:10] Other countries other than Thailand? Yeah. Don, I’d love to hear Don. I think Don’s, are you a li are you a lifer man? Are you a Thailand for life?

[00:41:22] I, I mean, I can’t find any other place that I would really wanna go. And now, as you know, Mike, my wife is, is Thai she’s from Chiang Mai and I have a baby on the way and her family’s here. You know, all of my closest friends are here, so I love the city. Like I don’t, I don’t see a reason to think about going anywhere else at this point.

[00:41:43] Yeah. I’ll add some there. I could add some points, you know, I, I did study those other a lot of those locations, there are a lot of nomads, digital nomads in Vietnam, too. And in, and in Philippines, you know, I met some of them there. I’m not so familiar with Cambodia, but Malaysia also has some good programs for immigration.

[00:42:01] You know, the crazy thing about Malaysia though, I don’t know if anybody here about MM2H they called Malaysia my second home. It was a big immigration program. They wanted to attract more foreigners to move their long term to get residency. And actually a lot of my friends back were really trying to get me to go to Malaysia instead of Thailand for that visa program.

[00:42:20] But then for some reason, during COVID, they made the policy a lot, a lot, a lot harder. And I’m pretty sure some of the listeners today are those friends, cuz I believe they’re they tune into most of these shows and they’re a little bit upset at the program because they were halfway through this program and it, I don’t think it totally stopped, but it made the requirements much more expensive and complicated than originally.

[00:42:46] And so, you know, Thailand immigration is not as, I don’t know, maybe Don has a better answer, but it’s hard to get a long term Thai visa, you know, it’s the visas, the immigration is not so easy in Thailand, you know, but it seems like even in, in Malaysia now it’s not as easy. It’s just harder and harder. I think after COVID for long term visas for non-locals right.

[00:43:09] It just seems like globalization is going backwards. You know, I just don’t know what it is. I don’t know if, you know, if you, either you want to comment on that, but it used to be like more open, right. But it feels like I’ve been saying this on this show for like the last three or four years, you know, trade wars, import duties, immigration policies, just globally, everywhere has been getting harder and not as open.

[00:43:32] I don’t know what it is in my opinion. I mean for me personally, coming from China and how complicated the visa policy typically was or difficult, you know, all the, all the red tape and paperwork you have to go through. And, and the headaches of processing. Thailand was much more of a fast track. And for me, it’s been really smooth.

[00:43:52] The companies that I’ve worked with to get my visas, I’ve been pretty well tied in with immigration. You know, I feel like the visa policy, it’s one of those rubber band policies in countries in Southeast Asia where they can, they can shrink it or they can expand it as, as much as they want to. So it’s more about who you’re getting your visa through, right?

[00:44:15] So the, the I’m I’m on a ed visa now. The school has close ties with immigration. So they’re, they’re not shutting down, you know, and it’s just, it’s just the nature of how business works here in Thailand. Probably very similar in China. Right. Really. So, yeah, man, it’s, it’s been super smooth and of course, with Thailand now they have the elite visas as well.

[00:44:36] So some of my friends are on that, which is also quite, quite nice, quite, quite spending. But I mean, I think as long as you don’t kill somebody, you are you’re, you’re, you’re free to go, you know, like, uh, they’ll pick you up in, in a limousine, right. Red carpet and you know, you have like access to all the golf courses out here.

[00:44:51] There’s some other fun perks that they, they offer, but it’s, it’s similar to probably like the, one of those investment visas in the, in the US. And where you, you, you spend, you know, I think it’s like invest half a million dollars and they can kind of put you on the fast track to get you a really good visa, which turns into a green card after a certain amount of years EB five.

[00:45:11] Right. I think that’s called EB five, the EB five that’s right. That’s right. Yeah. And, uh, right, right. And, and so I think there, there are, there are options. All right. That sounds really great. And also just knowing of you just venturing to a lot there in Thailand, and this is absolutely a big question for the both a few.

[00:45:33] It’s a, a question. I mean, why ma what made you stay in Asia? Why Asia, it’s mainly that? It’s, I mean, let’s go with Don first. Why Asia? Well, I think I’ve been out here for going on like 13 years close. I, I don’t know, you know, after you stay somewhere, certain period of time, it kind of becomes more like home.

[00:45:57] I go back to the states and I, I literally experience more culture shock, reverse, reverse culture shock, going back to us then when I, when I came to Asia. So, you know, once you get used to the environment and, and you, you know, enjoy it, there’s, there’s a level of comfort and kind of like, you know, this is, this is home.

[00:46:15] So I think that’s probably the, the main thing for me. How about you, Mike? I mean, I, I, I’ll be honest, you know, we, we bought the domain globalfromanywhere.com I don’t know if you knew that Don even. But there was a time I was thinking about, you know, obviously the show was called Global from Asia and, you know, I was thinking about calling it Global from Anywhere at some point.

[00:46:41] And a lot of my friends moved to Europe. A lot of people are talking about Lisbon Portugal, or even Greece. I see these friends in Greece, you know, and then there’s some that are like looking for tax optimization. And some of these islands, I forgot the island names and of Costa Rica.. True. But you know, I, I like Asia and I, I still.

[00:47:07] Believe it’s a good place to do global business. Although I just get comments on my Facebook video. Oh, come to South Africa, you know, F Asia, you know, it’s getting taken over by China, et cetera, et cetera. I still, I still believe in Asia, it’s got a huge population and, you know, There’s so much international business to be done here.

[00:47:28] And I, I, I like,my very, the, the, the, really the root is I like the chaos. I like the insanity, you know, I like, I like to go on a jeepney in Cebu. I like to go and like some kind of crazy Chinese taxi driver at midnight, in a rain from a, from, a delayed airplane. I, I like to go on like, drink a mango.

[00:47:51] I like to drink a mango shake while I’m like, you know, there’s not as much of that in tuktuks. They they’re not around anymore, man. But you know, like they’ve ripped, they’ve always would rip me off, but you know, you just budget the rip off and, and enjoy the ride. But. You know, I kind of like that.

[00:48:09] That’s what I like about Asia, you know, so that’s my, my real answer, I guess, but you know, that’s all right. I mean, of course, Asia, we have a lot of things in store in Asia, not Thailand, there’s a lot, mainly just all of Asia and I totally understand it. And since that also again, we have another topic and I would want to start it, of course, the future of Global from Asia.

[00:48:37] And I believe that both of you were, were really connecting more of that as well. And I would like to ask what’s your plans? What plans do we have here for Global from Asia? Yeah, I mean, we wrote up a blog. I mean, I was literally just brushing off the dust of the cross border summit, Thailand plan from November, 2020 Don.

[00:48:57] I am. The brains of the operations is my, is my wife, Wendy, you know, I was about to pay the five grand or whatever US dollars to the resorts in Thailand, January, 2020. I remember I almost paid, I don’t know if I’d ever get that back, but we contacted the same resort just this week to prepare for the next cross border summit in to first time in Thailand, probably.

[00:49:22] I don’t know, Don, maybe you can gimme some tips on dates, but definitely not this year, 2023, trying to think of when, but definitely gonna do events here. We’re working on this school system. We’ve been doing this GFA kids online for quite a while, trying to make like, you know, it sounds a little crazy, but like some kind of a ecosystem for entrepreneurs to live and work.

[00:49:44] Maybe that’s like a one year plus. Plan before we can start something. But yeah, I mean really wanna try to make Thailand a, a big part of this. And actually when we registered to globalfromasia.com in October, 2013, to start this, we didn’t call it like China podcast or Hong Kong podcast, even though it was actually a show about Hong Kong business, the idea was always to be about Asia.

[00:50:08] I always kind of thought I would move to Thailand or somewhere Southeast Asia after China. So we’re kind of in that next stage. And we really wanna, you know, there’s this, there’s just this a lot we have planned, but basically, yeah, we’re doubling down as Southeast Asia. Now I’d say for this next stage.

[00:50:26] All right. And I think people will love to hear your collab with you Don in my collabing and projects, I believe the crowdfunding service for Inno launch. I mean, I would love to hear from the both of you, your collab yeah. Don, you wanna share about some of the things you’re doing and we’re yeah. We’re working on together.

[00:50:45] Yeah. Well, as I think as most people know, Mike has a number of business ventures that he runs and he’s got a really talented team that supports him on kind of like his various ventures. So, you know, my, my background experience is in crowdfunding. You know, with, with experience in product design manufacturing, and then the marketing side of running a crowdfunding campaign and supporting all, you know, all the different number of moving parts that goes into a crowdfunding campaign.

[00:51:14] But I’ve really, you know, after talking with Mike and, and seeing where we could find some synergy decided to push off a new collaboration on. He and his team kind of coming on, on with me to support on the crowdfunding services. And so right now I’m training, training his team, and we’re, we’re working with a, a client in China to prep for their crowdfunding campaign, which will likely go live next month.

[00:51:38] And, and then we’ve got some others in the pipeline. And so it’s been, it’s been great. So it’s kind of like opening up both of our networks and our toolboxes, our, our, our abilities and pushing it into, you know, a great service. Awesome. I think that. Yes. That’s what I’m, you know, super excited about. I enjoy working with Mike as well.

[00:51:53] So Mike, Mike has always been almost like a, like a brother of sorts. Okay. You know, we’ve, we’ve also experienced a lot of the crazy taxi rides from a, from a delayed flight in China and, you know, the, the strange foods and experience there’s, there’s a, there’s a type of, you know, odd, oddly enough, there’s a type of bonding that comes from going through some of this crazy stuff, you know, even if it’s not together knowing, knowing what they’ve gone through and be able to relate to it.

[00:52:18] So, so anyway, it’s, it’s been cool. You know, I think I’ve been burnt on some previous ventures, some, some partnerships, but ever since I’ve started working with Mike it’s, it’s been, it’s been really good. Like we, we, we, we connect pretty well. Yeah. We, so yeah, we work well together and yeah, Don, you know, Don Don’s like everybody’s friend, man, like everybody in Chiang Mai knows you.

[00:52:40] I , I’m still getting, I haven’t really left my little family zone too much, but even I bumped into the neighbor here in my, like, Village. And they’re like, oh yeah, Don, the guy from Idaho. Yeah. With the tattoos. that’s what he said. so, yeah. It’s yeah. You’re you’re really, I mean, yeah. I know you’ve told me some of the bad deals that have happened and I guess, you know, we’re both pretty nice.

[00:53:06] We are nice people, pretty transparent. You know, we, we, we invest in a long term versus a short term, so I think that’s, that’s why we work well together. So it’s really cool that we’re expanding that totally nice. And at least if you really, to each other, not only, but is this, and of course I wanted to ask if what is, what are the best ways to work to the, with both of you, for example, people listening in your podcast or hearing this podcast, do you want to just really.

[00:53:37] To work with you. Like, for example, Don, how do people get to work with you? Well, I mean, I’m pretty much on all, all these different social media platforms, but if you go to Inno-launch, which is I N N O hyphen launch.com, you can see some of the services that we offer. And of course, you know, there’s, there’s a ability to get in touch with us there.

[00:53:55] But if you guys all know Mike, so, you know, Mike, Mike is a part of it as well. So I think being able to get in touch with him, you can, you know, learn more about what we’re able to do. And we really have a wide range of, you know, services that we can offer from product IDs, like ideation into market research, into branding, marketing, you know, trademarks, LLCs, whatever, whatever a company really needs to get up and running.

[00:54:17] If you’re a startup or if you’re a larger company, like we’ve, we’ve had experience working with entrepreneurs and startups, larger companies at different levels, factories, even, right. Yeah. So I think we’re pretty versatile. The type of services we’re offer. For sure, man, we can make it happen. And like, I’m actually excited too, Don, like I love to see potential in people, right?

[00:54:41] Like, like I was at that dinner where that guy knew you and he’s actually looking for like, looking for things to do, looking for opportunities. And I was like, I want to, I want to catch up with them later, but I feel like we can structure. I wanna structure it where we can, we can really like empower more people to, to even maybe take a lead on a project we’re doing, you know, we got so much opportunities.

[00:55:03] So, you know, and Faith’s great, you know, it’s like day, day three or four, you know, she’s gonna be leading, leading a lot. We got her, she’s taken charge. So there’s just, we wanna just give lots of opportunities to people, you know, that’s, that’s what it’s about. Awesome. Yeah. And also for Mike, do you want to promote something?

[00:55:26] How about any projects that’s coming in? Anything that people will be wanting to wait from you? Sure. You know, we just started another batch for the blimp program for the excalibur brothers brand. So that might, might be, we’ll probably open that up again around after Christmas. Maybe, maybe we’ll do something black Friday, but people can join a wait list.

[00:55:46] You know, if you do have a crowdfunding campaign you wanna work with Don also has an amazing course and, and he can also mentor people on crowdfunding. So, okay. People are doing that. We’d love to help, help you get that, get that experience. I know more people have been working with Don on that. So that’s really exciting.

[00:56:04] And you know, just there’s tons of stuff we’re doing. Honestly, we’re looking for brand managers or project managers. I I’m, I’m trying to structure it where we. Have some people dedicated on specific brands. I think faith, even you and I were chatting about that the other day. And I think we gotta have people focused on one brand yeah.

[00:56:22] And managing that one brand. So we’re, you know, if somebody’s interested to, to head that up, we’re we’re looking absolutely. Well, people will be wanting to work with the photo, a few beautiful people that would, I mean, both of you are very passionate when it comes to all of your businesses. Well, I think you can actually see that just from this podcast.

[00:56:43] Well, if you guys wanna work with this beautiful people, Don and Mike, well, you know where to catch them, we will placing, we will be placing all their socials here in this podcast. And again, if you do have any questions to the, both of them, just feel free to reach them out and they’ll be happy to assist you as well.

[00:57:00] Cool. Great job Faith. You’re a pro I’m loving this. Thank you. . And Don, thanks.Great job faith. Yeah. Thanks for coming. Hopefully it’s kind of along what you were hoping for. Yeah. All right. Great job, faith. It was really fun to have you on as a cohost. I’m excited to do more together. Did you like it? How’d you feel that you did great?

[00:57:25] Well, I think it’s so much, I really tried my best, did my best and honestly, having to have Don as our guest well, I would learn a lot and I learned a lot from you as well. It seems very exciting. And I might wanna try to visit Thailand very soon. Yeah. Come by. Come by. Actually it’s we’re working on a conference, you know, I don’t.

[00:57:48] People kind of made the assumption. When I came down, everybody’s been saying, oh, some events in Thailand, cuz it’s kind of impossible unfortunately I do events in China, you know, because of lockdowns and mm-hmm, , it’s really unfortunate. So of course it’s everywhere in the world is kind of still a little bit risky almost I’d say to, to plan a long term big event.

[00:58:08] But, but yeah, I mean I’d say 2023, for sure. We’re, we’re still deciding dates and then faith would be great to get you, get you here for that, for sure. You know, as the community manager and, and working with us in the show, what have you here? And, I’ll also be visiting in the Philippines. I don’t know if actually I don’t even know if you know Faith, but we’re.

[00:58:27] We’re doing a company retreat for the team in December, actually. okay. I dunno if Nessa even mentioned that or LJ, but I think Anne or oh, Anne mentioned it she’s spilled the beans. Yeah. So we could meet there for sure. And, but there’s definitely lots of opportunities in Asia, you know, like it’s not that far Philippines in Thailand and, and in Dubai, I’m jealous.

[00:58:52] I’ve, I’ve not really, actually, I literally just talked to my friend, Lucy, Lucy, and he’s in Dubai right now. Like right before the recording. I haven’t, I haven’t been there, but I’ve went to the airport. That’s it? So Dubai, it’s always the accent of everything. That’s where, that’s where you go, going to Paris going to any anywhere.

[00:59:13] I mean, Dubai is a good. Lots of good places to see, beaches, you name it is always the best. Well, you might wanna try visit Dubai as well and also stay just for quite a bit. Yeah. I want to go, I wanna go. Maybe we can make some events, you know, try and go back on track. You know, Colombia, we had Esteban, I gotta reach out to him, but you know, everything got messed up with COVID, but you know, there’s a huge interest in Colombia.

[00:59:39] Maybe Dubai let’s, let’s go Global from Asia. Right. absolutely more than that. More than that. And I would just wanted to tap into this kind of question. I think a lot of our listeners and viewers would love to hear from you. What are the things that you’re just planning more since that you’re staying there in Thailand for quite some time now, what are you planning for?

[01:00:02] 2023? Yeah. Like we hinted towards the cross border summit for sure. You know, and I think a lot of our listeners are kind of like, you know, like me, like getting older and having kids having, so I did find a school. I, I didn’t, I talked about a little bit, but I found his co-op actually, Faith. It’s a parents owned parent organized nonprofit school.

[01:00:28] So it’s not even a licensed school. It’s, it’s two entrepreneurs, a husband and wife, couple that were tired of like traditional school for profits. And they’re doing a nonprofit and I’m going to a meeting this month. Well, the show comes out Tuesday, but the day before the show goes online, I’m gonna have a parent meeting and.

[01:00:47] The idea is we’re trying to build an ecosystem. And originally I was even thinking about making the school. We have the GFA kids program online, but I felt like instead of trying to do it our self, we should cooperate with them. They’re trying to raise 50 million Baht to open a real school. And they’re asking me for some input and help.

[01:01:05] So I showed ’em about Gulf OFIA and things. It’s really new. I’m gonna present it on Monday, but besides just the school we wanna make, like, you know, a real, like, kind of like a co-living environment for entrepreneurs. Oh, e-commerce business owners. You know, we, we hinted about we we’re doing blimp now and I had a good call with, with Bob.

[01:01:26] One of our franchisees, he’s a Vietnam. I think you’ve heard about him, but everybody’s interested in like doing business together, you know, helping each other, hopefully no more lockdowns, but I, even, when I was locked down, I felt like cross for that. Fingers crossed. But even when I was locked down, I felt like if we were locked down in the same area, we would be still able to hang out.

[01:01:54] So I’m not sure if it’s 2023, it might be longer, but we’re gonna try to do some kind of a beta like co-living area. Like I, I got a one year lease on this place I’m at now with the idea that the next lease would be something bigger. Cuz the school is also one year they’re moving to another, they’re still finding a location for their school.

[01:02:13] So I’m trying to line up the school and it’s like living area together. I talked to Don actually we had dinner together. He’s actually, we had dinner together after the show and he’s like, he’s like, how is GFA village? You asked me it was kind of a code name, but I said, no, this is not the village. That’s like next year.

[01:02:32] So yeah, 2023. There’s a lot. There’s a lot to do. And what’s super exciting about it. There’s a lot of store for 2023 and I believe all of our listeners here and all of our viewers here at GFA. I mean they’re ready for it. Absolutely. They’re ready and I mean of first you being in it, um, working thoroughly keenly, well, it will make a big difference.

[01:02:55] I mean 2023. I mean there’s a lot. If we can always plan out more things, especially when it comes to the co-living space. Well, that’s what the digital Noma are waiting for. You know, that for sure, for sure. You know, I don’t get so crazy, but you know, for the listeners that have been through this show, you know, we’ve gone through a lot, you know, we had banking problems in Hong Kong.

[01:03:19] It really disrupted a lot of people. And then, you know, the whole China disruption, you know, a lot of us built lives in China, you know, it’s kind of hard, you know, so we’re kind of tired of the old system. I, I could talk about this, the logo, but we’ll talk about it in the future, but the logo, I don’t know if you.

[01:03:37] I could see it on the video, but it’s a, it’s a G yeah, but it actually means if you see a it’s a person, a man, or a woman with the city on his shoulders, I dunno if you ever read the book, ATLA, shrugged, it’s old book, but the idea is we’re tired of society to burden burdening us mm-hmm and we’re just tossing this off of our shoulders, like this, this burden off our shoulder to be like in this new kind of a way of living.

[01:04:06] That’s the, kind of the idea. So hopefully to make that more true coming in the next year, of course, of course. And we will be waiting for it. I mean, of course just let us know anymore updates and we’ll let you know everyone, if we do have any updates and honestly just keep you off to date. Anything that’ll be coming in by 2022 and 2023.

[01:04:28] Yeah, for sure. You know,more friends wanna move out to Thailand. You know, I, we’re not like visa agents, but you know, visas and things we could try to help, especially if you’re in our, in our V I P network or other community perk. We’d love to try to help you out, but this is great. I’m really happy to have your Faith.

[01:04:44] I love your energy and positive mindset, so it’s great. Let’s I think we’re wrapping up today’s show and we’re gonna get back into the groove of amazing shows for listeners and viewers. Thanks a lot. Absolutely. We look forward to meeting you guys very soon again, and we’ll see you in the next podcast.

[01:05:03] Take care. Bye. To get more info about running an international business, please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com. That’s triple w.global from asia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.