Building an International Tea Ecommerce Business from China with Leo Wong

In our show today, we are talking about the Global Tea Trade eCommerce with Leo Wong who is the Founder and CEO of BornTea. He shares so many creative ways on how he has grown his tea e-commerce empire from launching to getting his first customer. Let’s listen to Leo’s story.

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Thank you so much, Leo for coming on and sharing really openly about your business, your business model and your strategies and the ways you launched.

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[00:00:00] Episode 323, three, two, three of the Global From Asia podcast. We are talking about the global team trade eCommerce business. Let’s go today. 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.

[00:00:30] Thank you everybody for always being so kind to choose our little podcast here, Global From Asia. You know, there’s so many podcasts out there. I feel I’m old, you know, talking to these people, launching podcasts and things. So I know there’s so much information out there. We try to keep this interesting and special as much as we can, you know, and today’s show is, is one of those.

[00:00:54] This is Leo Wong. I connected with him recently in, in this whole online networking I’ve been doing lately. Thomas Pun actually introduced us virtually, who was a previous guest talking about team management with radical candor. I really recommend that book and our show if you haven’t listened.

[00:01:15] So Leo is on a few different startups and he’s been doing really well and his online Tea trade. I have other friends in the community too, also doing tea. And of course we’re in China and there’s lots of tea. I liked his story. I liked how he launched it. He, you know, even with the last week show, we got some good feedback with Nick Ramil, from EC Accelerate, talking about it, customer development, talking to your customers, talking to your users, not thinking about the short term gains, the short term money, but thinking about the long term brand, a long term business building.

[00:01:51] And this is what I noticed with the interview today with Leo, he shares very creative ways that he got his first customers. It might not be as easy these days. You’ll understand why in the recording. Leo is really, really, you know, hardworking and diligent and consistent. I think that’s, what’s really important to get to where he has gotten so far, and there’s still a lot of ways to grow.

[00:02:18] So without further ado, let’s listen to Leo’s story of how he has grown his Tea E-commerce empire. Do you want to get some hacks on Amazon and e-commerce, I’m really amazed with our GFAVIP community. We have people really wanting to share stuff that you know, of course, we do these podcasts and all this free stuff.

[00:02:39] But I hate to say it, but their stuff we just can’t share totally publicly. You know, it was better off than the non-recorded online. 10, 20, 30 person say, a seminar session and that’s what we’ve been doing. We also have our courses and other materials for you to enjoy. I really appreciate you if you have joined already or applied.

[00:03:01] So application only, we’re going over quality over quantity. If you want to check it out, it is paid, but we definitely think it’s worth it just on one of these sessions alone, plus all the online courses, the membership discounts and supporting us gfavip.com. Okay, Leo, thank you so much for joining us today.

[00:03:22] This is a Global From Asia podcast. We are talking about e-commerce, the story of, of Leo’s journey, creating his Tea eCommerce website. So, we connected through Thomas, which we also have on the show recently and I’m really excited to hear your story. Do you mind just introducing yourself quickly for those tuning in today?

[00:03:48] Leo? Yeah, thank you for having me, Michael, is a pleasure. So, so Born Tea, we started off as a direct to consumer tea brands. So, which is, the digitally native brand, meaning that we do everything like primarily online. Um, so on the, on one hand and we source and find the tea lands directly in different parts of Asia and now mostly in China and we sell directly from the origin.

[00:04:25] That’s basically the core premise of the brand warranty. Great. Can you say the brand again? Born Born, B O R N T E A.com and in Chinese, it’s Cha Puerh. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Awesome. So when did you get started with this? How did I get started? And when was that? So, so, yeah, so it was about, it was 2017.

[00:04:59] And it’s actually my second company. So my first is like a music video app. It was like viral a while ago. Like, you know, six, six year, six, seven years ago, actually. Yeah. It was like a music video where it put music on, on radio and on pictures, in the sort of like the early version of TikTok and so on.

[00:05:27] And, and then, yeah, no, we decided to after like some time, I think, like three years or so, we decided to shut it down because, one or like pre-revenue so on. And then we not very sure about. Like the best way is to move forward. So we made a decision that, Oh, it’s better off to not continue. So afterwards, I was thinking, Oh, like what.

[00:05:54] You know, what should I be doing? And so on. So it kind of come, all came together, like, you know, I wanted to create something of value and something that I like and something that I have, like a bit of advantage of, and it kind of converged to the thing called Tea. And so the reason that, so first it’s, it’s good for people because it’s healthy and it’s natural.

[00:06:23] A no calorie, with a bunch of other, health benefit in there. So we thought like it is generally a good thing for the world. And secondly, because of my hometown is in a province in mainland China called Yunnan. So it’s like, Yeah. It’s like origin of tea. So I thought, well, I can definitely source directly from the farmland, you know, starting from Yunnan and I’d love to drink a lot of teas.

[00:06:52] I drink more than water, you know, a lot of time in the day. And, and, and that’s why I kind of have the urge to, Oh, like, this is something that I should be doing. So this is how it got started. Awesome. Awesome. So, Yeah. So your first, so it’s a completely new structure, new company. Do you have, you know, maybe do you have partners as you’re doing this in your new company?

[00:07:19] So are you, do you have partners, investors, how’s the, how’s the structure. Yeah, so it’s a completely new thing for, so, um, in the beginning I had a co-founder, his name is Raymond, and then gradually we thought it’s in my bigger decision that, you know, one of the person’s to, to move forward because we have like similar skills that and so on.

[00:07:48] But,he was a very you know, we both were like hustling here and there going to like Fujian and like Yunnan, sourcing tea. So we made this decision like afterwards in terms of yeah structure. Yeah. Fully bootstrapped profitable and some teammates in, in mainland China, some teammates in Hong Kong and like designers and copywriters.

[00:08:12] Some like, mostly, so far, like designers, a couple of the part time. And this is like the basic structure. We have not raised any money and we are not probably not going to raise so, so, yeah. Okay. Okay, cool. Yeah. I’m checking out the site now. And, so how did you first do the marketing? How did you get your initial or even currently your marketing channel?

[00:08:43] Yeah. So it was very interesting and like somewhat stupid as well. So what some, what we were doing was that we thought, okay, first is we, we need to find like who the people that may have higher chance of liking the product. And it’s, so it’s all about like accessibility, like it’s, Chinese tea is not as easy to get access in other parts of the world for like quality at an affordable price.

[00:09:12] A lot of time in the US like tea shop it’s, somewhat it’s it’s it’s the prices are pretty outrageous outrageous to those shops. So I thought, you know, like without a middleman and directly sending it to customer, we can save a lot of value for both us and also the customers. And so we initially, how we got as we.

[00:09:39] Try to really like talk with the customers. And by talking like in person, we find out where in Hong Kong has the most, you know, density or foreigners per square feet. And they came to us. They, you know, like, you know, a bunch of like tourist destinations but we came to a conclusion, is it actually the airport?

[00:10:03] So how we bootstrapped it? We actually built some prototype. Well like the physical product, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Oh, we go to audio, pop artists, you know, to get the packaging. We source the teabag ourselves. We spend months like sourcing the teas, like. So, I mean, this is one of those things that I should have spent like a little bit less time because we were enjoying like the time going here and there and stuff.

[00:10:27] And, and yeah, so we were actually spending 90% of the time for a few weeks in the airport, just talking with westerners to get the name out. You get emails to get, you know, feedback. And of course we made a lot of mistakes in the way that we come in. We talk with customer the way that we got feedback now, lesson learned, but you know, that’s how we thought it might be a good way to just get started without spending much marketing dollars, because which is something that we, thought may not be that good to spend.

[00:11:04] Yeah, of course the hustle. I love the hustle. Yeah. Especially talking to the user and especially face to face. That’s cool. So what year? That was 2017. 2018 time. About 2017? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you’re literally like going around there in the airport with your, like a bag, a box of teas and literally  the teas in the bag and in the boxes.

[00:11:33] We open it. We, you know, did AB test, sort of AB tests on the, on the design and the Tea we get, we even gave out samples. Like, you know, some security guy were looking at us, you know, giving some like green stuff, you know,

[00:11:46] to, to people, and then asking them, Hey, if you could, you know, take this on a plane. And, we have thought about a little bit on this, but not too much, but we were like, Oh, you know, if they’re not willing to take, you know, it’s fine. But you know, if you think to sharing that, that would be great. And people are generally great, like, you know, human beings.

[00:12:08] So yeah let me just kind of confirm the flow or the hustle. So you’re literally giving away. Did you get, did you get an email address or a survey to what, what were you, you probably asked for something to give them a free pack or like free, free samples. Ask for feedback plus email. Okay. Okay. And, and then did, did you actually sell it to, or you were purely 

[00:12:35] Sample. Purely sample. We were not planning to sell. But of course we mentioned that, Hey, like we, we are from Born Tea. You know, if you like, you can, you know, check, check out our website, but it’s purely like, free samples  are not intentionally like selling it, but more like getting some learn, learn like the behavior of the potential customers, what kind of teas they like, you know, if it is direct to consumer something that makes sense to them and, and, like the brand name, design and, and things like that.

[00:13:12] So we can somewhat make some changes. Okay. Okay, great. I’ll check. I’m checking out the site. And you also have like a business section. Do you do a lot of, of B2B or are you mostly B2C or is it. Mostly B to C. So for the business session. Yeah. so for now we, we have been isolated with thought about like, you know, to be for, for quite some time, because I’m like, why not?

[00:13:39] Right. But we, but we also don’t want to like divert, you know, thought about focus. So we have been very intensely focused on the, on the two C-PAP, but recently, because, you know most like back to Hong Kong. So I thought, you know, it would be interesting to, or what needs to be realized. So we, we did some like a corporate gifting.

[00:14:04] Things in the past where some companies in, based in Hong Kong, not much, but we are thinking about something along that line to see if it makes sense to like spend more time and effort on this. So now it’s like still exploring to see if it’s a good direction as well. Yeah, I understand.

[00:14:24] Yeah. So I’m kind of going backwards, but you did mention, you spent quite a few months sourcing and you’re, you’re going into Yunnan a lot. Do you want to just, you know, give us some insight to the sourcing process? Yeah. So for sourcing, because personally I really love tea so I basically like go directly to the tea land.

[00:14:47] We even stay with the farmers to kind of, to experience, to experience the life, actually, we like literally experienced the life, like, how, how, how it is to, to, you know, have the best tea. And what does it mean by best? Tea, like quality tea and where its certainty comes from. Like, you know, check Guanyin is from Fujian, and Longjing in Zhejiang, or black teas or puerh from Yunnan.

[00:15:18] Yeah. Puerh is, is great. And, and, and yeah, so I need really, you know, find, I try to find like the The farm lands, which have, you know, you know, like good basically like good people with good teas, in a nutshell. I went to different ones and then stayed there and then, you know, go to the farmland and visits, to, to, to do a little bit of QA.

[00:15:46] And to different provinces, yeah like Zhejiang, Fujian and Yunnan, most of the time. These are like some of the most like key producing, kind of provinces in mainland China and just like communicate with them to, to see, you know, how, how we can, structure the whole thing. And they’re generally quite, quite, quite helpful.

[00:16:14] And we also like I saw them and you’re like, Oh yeah, that sounds great. You know, if this is one of the channels that could potentially like sell to other countries, that will be interesting to explore. And. Yeah. I mean, I don’t take no for an answer. No. So I don’t want to be like, come on, like, you know, I can help and to, to sell it more.

[00:16:44] And so just always trying to, to see. Okay. Awesome. Um, so I see you have your costs. Obviously you did a good job with the branding. You have it’s your own brand is your own packaging. And you know, I know some listeners and viewers might not understand the few places you’re talking about, but they’re not near China’s big.

[00:17:05] Right. So you have like Yunnan in the West, you have like Fujian kinda on the East or, you know, East. So you say you were, you’re shipping directly from the farm. So they are packaging for you or what’s like, kind of like the fulfillment, you know, so many buys. How does, how does the whole shipping and logistics work mainly?

[00:17:32] Yeah, two ways. One is directly from the, from the farm. Or from our fulfillment place in Yunnan. So basically we ran each place. Yeah. So sometimes it depends on, it depends on a few factors, like where it is, and, and the quantity. And, but like, those are the options that we will consider. And, but, but they are kind of similar.

[00:18:00] So basically directly send to like door to door. Okay. And then the packaging is done at, at the farm or at the fulfillment, I guess you have your packaging probably prepared already, you know, and then there. Maybe give, give me some insights on how that that’s best. Probably interesting to know. Yeah.

[00:18:26] So I mostly, so the two, two ways, one is we shipped the packaging to the, the Tea place so that they pack for us. It’s because it’s not that difficult to do that. So, another way’s to have our own team pack, like basically pick and then pack, which is also not too difficult than the, than the, than the former.

[00:18:49] And so we do, we hire designers in Hong Kong and, and some copywriting efforts by the, by the copywriters, of course. And, and then we kind of test the packaging to see, know what kind of branding that we want and how other people will perceive it. And, you know, if this is something that needs to be like, breakable breakable, you know, over a long kind of logistics.

[00:19:22] So basically testing these. And we even like has a lot of paper to see which one texture is like better. So I’m like, now I can get it better sense what kind of paper that is, you know, you know, I said like, you know, laminated or so on. So yeah, it’s a pretty interesting, um, journey, like in hindsight, Yeah, man.

[00:19:44] It’s, it’s definitely, it’s a nice story. I mean, I think a lot of times listeners, a lot of, of course, we’re talking in English and, people are overseas. A lot of times there, there’s the challenge of delay logistics to packaging. But it’s cool. So I don’t know if you mind sharing a little more about the Yunan so you literally rented it.

[00:20:03] You have like a rented place and people. Yep. Correct? Yeah. So we hired some people, we rented a place and then start, start the operation there basically. And yeah, sometimes we ship the tea to there sometimes not depending on again, like the quantity and also the, where we shipped to. And decide where we shift from, you know, from the Tealand or from, from Yunnan.

[00:20:31] But I would say like operationally, we not as quite convenient because a native speaker I can get along with, with, with, with, like tea farm then, and sort of go out there. So, which is something I’m pretty good. I would say it’s definitely like.  It was tough, actually, it was not easy to like aggregating all of these, after, because you know, we are, our backend is to, we use, Shopify and yeah.

[00:21:10] I did the front end, um, by myself. And we have to use our different, integration, software integration to make it like I’m ready. Like so, so, so like basically letting our team know what to pick and pack, in, from tissue tissue, from Yunnan and other tealand.

[00:21:41] it’s something that I also spent some time on and like, um, in terms of the question, if you ask, on marketing side, so we did some, like basically Instagram, Facebook ad, which was not as useful but we did something that was quite useful is basically partnering with other like health conscious community influence because influencers you say are well not as.

[00:22:18] Not really trends are so more like brands like cross promotion brands, because they have some brands that’s quite synergetic. We, we happily give, like for their users, they can get more teas if, you know, they got, if they linked, if they got the link from like a certain brand and so on. And so this will help in getting more users without spending much.

[00:22:47] Yeah. Cause that’s always the hardest part like what decisions have to be made in order to like, basically get more customer with some marketing price, like in the beginning. Yeah, of course. I do see you have subscription, like a monthly subscription to the cold brew tea. Is that, how is that? Looks like it’s your main focus from the way the site’s laid out?

[00:23:12] Is that, is that like a good subscription. Usually it’s always the best, right? Yeah. Yeah, correct? Correct. So yeah, The instant corporate thing is something that we, banks. So, so we in the middle of the journey, so we thought, Oh, like, traditional Chinese tea direct to customer is great, but then a lot of times you know, I like some, some of our customers actually a lot of from this, from the, from the United States.

[00:23:44] So, as some of, some of us may know, like they drank mostly in a cold water, so like answer daily, like hydration. So we thought what if we could create something very natural that they can, they can consume immediately without waiting for like hours, to, to be able to, to like to, enjoy it. So I went there and talk with experts to see how to pull this off and, you know, what are some of the processes and machines that we need in order to make this.

[00:24:20] And, and yeah, and yeah, so we spent quite a few months in like really dig down into the technical chemistry and, and, and all that. So we, we basically, and especially now, as you can see from how the site is laid out, it’s kind of pretty prominent because yeah. Your main thing now. Yeah. It’s like summer, so, you know, the consumption that demand is generally a bit higher, so we wanted to make it a bit more like prominent.

[00:24:48] And, and the feedback generally, it’s been pretty good, cause basically it’s like a tea packet. Could it in any reusable bottle, give it a shake and nothing much is added purely from physical changes that we’ll be able to make it like instant coffee. Yeah. And I like, you’re going after the sustainability, you know, we’ve talked about this in some other shows, like, you know, I think everybody wants to.

[00:25:14] Hopefully, especially with this horrible Covid stuff, but just in generally taking care of the earth and being more conscious of our environments, you know, it’s also a good angle. So. I, yeah, I mean, I think I like your style, like, your, yeah, your like your hustle with the first customers or feedback with the airport.

[00:25:35] And even now you’re not really doing, you said it’s at least like way I understand it is you’re mostly getting your customers from like community, not really from paid ads or. Yeah. Yup. Correct. Not paid acquisition, mostly, some organic and some, um, uh, cross promotion. So promotion. So this is how we kind of, grow loose.

[00:25:59] A lot of brands, which I thought is a pretty healthy way to, to grow. I mean, we could try, actually, we were planning to try more on like the SEO and SEM side, but for now, uh, like kind of sticking to partnering with brands. Okay. It’s fun. It’s also fun. Yeah. I mean, I don’t know if you’ve looked at Amazon or, or these marketplaces, but you know, a lot of, a lot of people in the community are, are doing good with these marketplaces too, as a channel.

[00:26:38] we’ll explore that more, on some places. Oh, sure, sure. I mean, yeah. Step by step. So then let’s see. So any kind of like lessons learned stories, tips for people, you know, in this e-com venture world, especially in this cross border, you know, like, like we’re in. Yeah. I think for one like specific cross border is really to, of course, like first is, like to see like what kind of product to actually, um, that can like sell in, in other countries.

[00:27:20] So I would say like, focus more on the demand side, like rather than supply side. Cause, this is also something that I’ve been telling myself is that like, If something that, for example, like in China, like if the supplier is high, of course it doesn’t translate to like, it can sell in other countries.

[00:27:43] Even though he could. So I think, try to find ways to validate the demand without building your own brand. I think it’s actually quite important. And secondly, it’s, it’s just kind of like a general kind of our perspective on talking with customers, cause this is something that I wasted actually a lot of time on the reason is that I talk with customers.

[00:28:14] Asking. Oh, like if I do this, will you like this? No. Is it, I mean, a lot of maybe some of your audience or yeah. Like we know that this is not a good way. You’re like, it’s sort of self fulfilling and, Oh, Hey, if I blew through this, we like it. You know, if you drink tea, Chinese tea, you know, you get X benefit where you want to treat.

[00:28:35] It’s like asking if people like ice cream, but then the reasons that they may not like it are not obvious. When you ask them. So basically, I read a book called the Mom Test, which is a book that I wish I had read earlier and I meant to like everything. Yeah. If you could send me the link or put in the show notes.

[00:28:58] Yeah. So it’s called a Mom Test, I yeah, so basically the, the is like to the core of it is to ask. For past behavior, not future kind of the behavior that they think they will do. So generally speaking, like we hope not to ask like the imagination for, from the customers that we asked past experience give because it is the best predictor of future behavior.

[00:29:30] So, so anyway, I asked a lot of these kind of somewhat stupid questions when I think, yeah, but you know, I mean, I guess this is the, The way that I learned this from and do mistake. And, but, but yeah, this is something that if, if I had known earlier, yeah, it would have saved me a lot of time and I highly recommend it like to, to see how to talk with customers, really this still, the, the kind of thing that they do.

[00:30:02] Got it. Yeah, I like that. So, yeah. Cause like you mentioned, it was like, Oh, what’d you, do you like, or would you drink, do you, or have you, right. So your questions are about the past, what they already are doing. It’s what I kind of understand. Yeah. Correct. Correct. Awesome, man. So, so this has been fascinating.

[00:30:26] Thanks for sharing so openly Leo, your business model, it sounds like things are going well. So of course it’s pretty easy Born Tea. B O R N T E A.com. You know, I’ve been even checking out a little bit more during the show. How can people, of course, there’s that website. Is there anything else you want to like any other links or, or blogs or, or, or the things people can check out?

[00:30:50] By you or your business? Yeah. So for the business, it’s borntea.com or in Instagram, borntea. And we do you know, write blogs about tea. And we, sometimes I comment like, I, I answer questions on Quora. I was once like the global top writer on Quora on teas.  It was very

[00:31:16] interesting and fascinating. Cause there are a lot of interesting questions that I do not know how to answer people. Yeah, I bet. Does that help your business? Is your customers from then on? Not as much as I would like, but it’s also interesting to see what kind of questions that people have when, about teas. Yeah. To, to reach out to me is, leo.wong.

[00:31:43] @borntea.com. Wong, W-O-N-G. Okay, Great. Yeah. Thanks so much for sharing and I wish you more success in, in your, in your event, business venture. You know, we’re blessed with an amazing team, but it didn’t come overnight to building a content team that’s made this show. All of our online content has taken years of time and processes and systems.

[00:32:09] If you want to tap into our team of amazing people, From text, audio and others, we would love to talk to you at contentinvestments.com. It’s a little, little mini sites where you can see different things we do. And I would love to work with you. We have just a few clients and we work closely with them to make sure they succeed with our consistent team and tools, contentinvestments.com.

[00:32:34] Thank you so much, Leo for coming on and sharing really openly about your business and your strategies and the ways you launched. And. You know, like I said, at the intro, like creative ways, you know, going to the Hong Kong airport, or any airports and talking to people coming, I don’t, I didn’t remember if he said coming in or going out or just maybe going both ways in the airport, you know?

[00:32:58] So try some of his new tea, getting the word out, not even trying to get some money for that, but just get the word out, get some feedback and some users, I think that’s pretty creative. And creating content out of it, you know, trying to actually get photos, feedback, texts, emails, you know, really engaging with these people and getting the whole, the brand and the story which we’ve been talking about in previous shows.

[00:33:26] So I hope everybody has been enjoying these. We still have amazing, so many more amazing interviews already recorded for a unique, very helpful, helpful shows, but I think it always comes down to really knowing your user, knowing your customer, understanding your market and those early days, you know, really, getting the feedback and trying to understand why people want to buy or use what you have.

[00:33:56] You know, so many of us want to hide behind our computer and build kind of like me a little bit, honestly, but we have to get out there, get out of the building, you know, there’s that lean startup book. There’s a lot of these others, start a weekend I’ve been involved with and participated in over the years.

[00:34:14] You know, really getting to know your users because that’s how you can scale once you know, who you’re targeting and what they want. So you can give them more of what they want in the way that they want set it saying in the way that they want, you know, a brand, obviously it’s not just a name on a box, but it’s really a group of people with a feeling of what they want and what they’re expecting when they open that package.

[00:34:39] So with that, I will keep it shorter today. I’m actually going to go pick up my kids from school, send them to Chinese kindergarten, no English at all. Full day, full day Chinese. So it’s the first day here, early September. Finally, I still do the homeschooling because I want to keep their English, but it will be evening tutoring classes now, but my afternoon has just opened up.

[00:35:03] So. Picking them up. And, I was putting the stuff out in a V log blog. Mike’s blog.com or blog, and a Facebook, YouTube, et cetera. If you’re not under newsletter, check it out at globalfromasia.com/subscribe. With that, I am out of here. Thank you so much for choosing to listen. It is much appreciated.

[00:35:27] Enjoy the rest of your week, your day, your evening, your morning, wherever you are, whatever year this is. But the year 2020 has been one of those crazier ones. We’ll be talking for awhile. Thank you again, signing off. To get more info about, running an international business. Please visit our website at www.globalfromasia.com.

[00:35:49] That’s www.globalfromasia.com. Also be sure to subscribe to our iTunes feed. Thanks for tuning in.