April 10, 2025
I recently had the pleasure of joining Dano Falk on the DefDevice Podcast to share my entrepreneurial journey from a shy 10-year-old in Los Angeles to founding the 7 Figure Seller Japan Mastermind.
Dano and I go way back to our early Amazon selling days when we’d have regular Skype calls with our friend from Bali in our own informal mastermind.
We also explored how my fascination with Japanese culture as a child came full circle as I now live in Japan, organizing conferences that help e-commerce entrepreneurs tap into the incredible potential of Amazon Japan – the fourth largest Amazon marketplace globally yet surprisingly under-competitive compared to the US and Europe.
Takeaways
Here are my top 5 key takeaways from this podcast:
- Amazon Japan represents a massive untapped opportunity: As the fourth largest Amazon marketplace globally, Japan offers significantly less competition than the US and European markets. For example, a yoga mat best-seller in the US has 72,000 reviews, while in Japan it only has 373 reviews.
- Take bigger risks when you’re young: Early in your career, you have less to lose and more time to recover from failures. My biggest failures, like not securing that full-time position at Google, often opened doors to new and unexpected opportunities.
- Cross-cultural experiences can become your competitive advantage: My background growing up in a Chinese-American household, studying Chinese at university, and living in Shanghai for 11 years gave me unique insights into sourcing and manufacturing that became invaluable for e-commerce success.
- The e-commerce landscape is constantly evolving: From being an eBay power seller in 2005 when it dominated e-commerce, to adapting to Amazon FBA in 2015, to focusing on Japan as the next frontier – success requires staying flexible and identifying new opportunities.
- Faith and persistence are essential for entrepreneurial success: The entrepreneurial journey is a roller coaster with highs and lows. Having faith in your vision and persisting through challenges has been crucial at every stage – from organizing my first online conference when my wife was expecting our child to creating the first Amazon Japan conference without speaking Japanese.
Video
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Full Transcript
Gary Huang: Because the younger you are, the more risk you can take, right? You have less to lose. Right. 18 years old, you don’t have a family, you don’t have a mortgage. You have less to lose. And you can take more risk because if you fail, then you can just go back home. When I failed at Google, I went back home. But then that opened up a new door, a new opportunity.
Dano Falk: Welcome to a new episode of The DefDevice Podcast. My name is Dano Falk and today I have Gary Huang with me who is the founder of the Seven Figure Seller Japan Mastermind. Hey ho. Welcome, Gary.
Gary Huang: Right? Yes. You got it, Dano. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Dano Falk: Oh yeah, we go a long way back, man. I remember the times when we were having like a weekly or monthly Skype call with our friend from Bali. Yeah, that’s when we were mostly like active as Amazon sellers. Both of us. I like the three of us.
Gary Huang: Yeah, we had a little mastermind going, correct?
Dano Falk: We had a little mastermind going, yeah. And then what happened? I mean, I sold my Amazon business. That’s one. And you are still selling or?
Gary Huang: I’m still selling. I’m selling in Japan now, but I’m doing, I’m running the Seven Figure Seller Japan Mastermind, which is an in-person conference teaching people how to sell in Japan and. Yeah, doing some other stuff as well. But yeah, and I became a father and you know, life changed in COVID and we moved from Shanghai to Tokyo, I mean to Okinawa, then Tokyo. It’s a long story. I’m sure we’ll get into it. But.
Dano Falk: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m looking forward to that. I mean, this is what this is all about, about your life story. But first of all, let us know more about your Seven Figure Seller Summit thing. I mean, it’s about selling in Japan and I’m, I think your next event is coming up in April, is that right?
Gary Huang: Yes, that’s right. So I, so Japan, Amazon. Japan is kind of like the Amazon niche, right? I mean, people say the richest are in the niches, right? So you have to find like, you know, a very niche product to succeed because it’s so saturated and competitive in like Amazon US and Europe. But Japan’s the fourth biggest Amazon market. And you know, we, like, I found out like, you know, something like a yoga mat. The best seller in the US has like, you know, 4.6 stars and 72,000 reviews. But in Japan it only has 3.9 stars and 373 reviews. So the competition is a lot lower. And if you’re already selling like US and EU, there’s like certain advantages you have that you can implement and sell into Japan and you don’t even need to speak Japanese to sell in Japan. You know, I’m selling in Japan, I don’t really speak Japanese. But yeah, that’s just, you know, I feel like Amazon Japan is the niche right now in 2024.
Dano Falk: And this is what we have in common. Because you know, this, you know the pitch that you just made for Amazon Japan, this is normally my pitch because one of our services is actually to help sellers, you know, brands to start selling on Amazon Japan. And you know, when I say like Amazon Japan is the fourth biggest marketplace, normally like eyes go really big because nobody can believe it. And yeah, I completely agree. It’s a big opportunity, it’s much underestimated. And I mean our agency side is to help brands to enter the market. But you are doing like something on a much bigger scale. You’re actually organizing a summit in Japan and where you’re inviting international sellers and local business providers to meet.
Gary Huang: Yeah.
Dano Falk: And you know, to cooperate and.
Gary Huang: To basically we’re just, we’re giving you guys the roadmap how to sell on Amazon Japan. So we have seven figure sellers selling Japan. We have, I mean last year we had one Japanese seller, he’s selling $40 million US per year only in Amazon Japan. He doesn’t sell anywhere else. So he was sharing, you know, what he’s doing and you know, he owns like three bestseller badges and three of the most competitive categories. So. And you know, he’s just stuff like that. You know, we’re really helping sellers, you know, selling Japan because there’s a lot of, you know, myths and there’s a lot of Japan’s intimidating. Right. I mean like the language and culture and stuff like that. But there, I mean there’s ways that you can overcome those challenges. So that’s where we’re helping sellers do for the ones that are very serious about Japan.
Dano Falk: Yeah, and that’s your main business right now, right? I mean you’re organizing these summits and these events and you’re also very active blogging and posting about this kind of stuff. So this is the core of your business right now, to organize events to bring people to Japan basically and to create awareness about this topic. Is that correct?
Gary Huang: Well yeah, we have our, I mean the Japan conference. We did it last year for the first time, it was the first ever Amazon event. So we do this once a year. And then we also do the online conference, the Seven Figure Seller Summit. So that will be in June. So that one is online and that’s for selling on. You know, just really teaching people how to grow their business, scale their business on Amazon. Marketing, PPC. You know, profitability is a big thing. AI was really big. It’s still like, you know, everything is going somehow related through AI right now there’s like a big shift. Right. So really featuring, you know, actual sellers, how they’re doing that. So that’s what we’re doing in June as well. Yeah, those are the main parts.
Dano Falk: Wow. Yeah, I mean that’s quite a journey I mean to go from selling on Amazon and we will learn more about where you come from to kind of make this the core of your business to organize these kind of events. I find it quite amazing and very unique and which kind of brings up the question in my head which is not exactly unexpected. Go back to 10-year-old Gary and meet 10-year-old Gary and find out like what was he doing? What was he about?
Gary Huang: 10-year-old Gary was in Los Angeles, California, USA. I think it was. Yeah, I was a quiet kid. I was the quietest kid in school. I wouldn’t talk until, unless the teacher called on me. So I think that built up my listening skills and my observation skills. And even as a child I was really fascinated by Japanese culture. I mean I never thought that someday I would live in Japan. Like I really liked the, you know, the video games like Nintendo and all the coolest video games they were in Japan, you know, before they came out in the US or other places. And some of the, the best ones like the Final Fantasy series, they never were released in the US unless you couldn’t play. Unless, you know, you had the Japanese system. Right. So I was always, I had this fascination with Japan and when I was a kid I also like, you know, origami. Do you know what that is? Origami?
Dano Falk: Sure.
Gary Huang: You know what that is, right? Like. Oh yeah, it’s paper folding, right? You know like making the crane. But there’s like so much more you can do. So when my mom went to work like during, you know, during the summer, you know, I had a lot of time and my mom went to work and my grandma was taking care of me at home. I would, I would like, she gave me this origami book. I couldn’t read Japanese or maybe it was Chinese. I don’t even remember, but I would just study the pictures and then I would just follow the steps one by one, you know, just the pictures. Like I couldn’t read the text because it was in Japanese or Chinese at that time. And then when she came home, like I made a whole zoo of little animals, like, you know, the tiger and like the dolphin and all of these different animals. I was very fascinated by that. So I guess, you know, that’s part of the thing. I guess, you know, I come full circle now. I’m living in Japan, you know, my son’s going to pre-kindergarten and. But I didn’t come directly to Japan, you know, I lived in Shanghai for about 11 years. I met my wife in Shanghai. I mean she’s from Shanghai. We got married. You know, I was working, sourcing. But yeah, that, I guess that’s a glimpse to entertain.
Dano Falk: It feels like a glimpse only. Yeah. So I mean, how did 10-year-old Gary, who lived in LA, start, you know, moving around? I mean, what was your first ambition? I mean, if it comes to like leaving school and starting your working life, what was the first thing that you had in mind? What was your first goal?
Gary Huang: When I was 10 or when I left school? Like college?
Dano Falk: Yeah, when it was about time to kind of make your first choice after leaving college. Yeah.
Gary Huang: Growing up in LA, I, you know, my parents are immigrants from China. I was born in the U.S. but my parents and my grandma, they immigrated from Beijing in the late ’70s. So I kind of grew up in a bicultural, you know, environment because outside the house I only spoke English, but inside the house I only spoke Mandarin. So I, it’s funny, you know, I’ve been living abroad for so many years, but I didn’t take like the first time I boarded an airplane wasn’t until I was 17 years old. Right. I never even flew like to New York or to Florida. Right. But the first flight I took was, I still remember it was a 17-hour flight from Los Angeles to Beijing, China, because we were going to visit my uncles, my cousins. Right. Because I still had extended family that I had never met. So I remember I was 17, I had just graduated from high school, like you know, before I started college and I went with my mom and it was very eye-opening to me because when I landed, I remember it was summertime, it was so humid and then I was like so anxious on the planes. You can’t imagine. I mean, the flight was slower than it is now. It was 17 hours and that was my first flight. And then when I got there, it was like so muggy, it’s hard to breathe. But when I heard the people talking, there was almost like this sense of familiarity because it was like the Chinese that we spoke at home, except like everybody was speaking like this. I mean, I wasn’t by any means fluent, but it’s like there was a sense of familiarity and it was very eye-opening because China back then, it was kind of like the Wild West, right? I mean, you would like bargain and you know, like, I remember beer was cheaper than water and it was, it was really like the Wild West. I mean, now China is very different. And I think, you know, it was free and loose before. Now it’s a larger problem. You know, that’s a whole another topic. But it really opened my eyes. I kind of had like a curiosity that sparked from that trip and then going to university. I went to university in Los Angeles, very close to home. My mom was very protective of me as an only child and like, she wanted me to stay close to home. So I went to USC, which is a great school, University of Southern California. But it really didn’t, I didn’t get the independence that I wanted. So I guess to do that I decided to do study abroad. So I really felt that connection with China and then I wasn’t by any means fluent, so I actually switched my major from biology to Chinese because I really wanted to. I felt like there was something there and I felt there was a sense of excitement and LA was, I mean, LA is a cool city, but I was bored of LA because I was, you know, born and raised there, went there for school all my life. And then I really wanted to, you know, go over there for like, sense of adventure. So yeah, I guess that’s the first turning point. Like, I did study abroad over there in Beijing and had many friends from Japan, Hong Kong, Chinese, you know, met other Americans, like from the Midwest, from East Coast. I never met in LA, so it was very eye-opening for me. Yeah, I guess that was one like shift or turning point.
Dano Falk: All right. Yeah, that’s very understandable. And then you went from studying Chinese to becoming an Amazon seller. How did that happen?
Gary Huang: So when I did study abroad, remember, I had met many friends from all over. Right. So we, after graduation, I really wanted to work in China because I felt like, you know, there’s. If I worked in the US it’s great but I feel like I’m only using part of my skill set, right? I’m not using my Chinese. I just really love to like be able to like negotiate and I feel like, you know, from that shy 10-year-old kid, I needed to reinvent myself. I did like in LA, I just felt like I’m still kind of like pigeonholed. And then when I’m in, I remember when I was in China, you know, in Beijing University and I told like my friends, oh, you know, I’m actually like a shy person. They’re like, what are you talking about? Come on. Because I was like, my Chinese was probably like one of the best in the program. So every time we went to dinner I would be the person that ordered all the dishes. And you know, I would like when we went out I would like negotiate with like the street vendor for that T-shirt. And then I just felt like it was almost liberating to me. And then I just felt like this is a really cool place, right? So after graduation I decided to continue in China. After college graduation I did a one-year graduate studies program in Nanjing, China at the Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center. So this was in 2002, 2003, this was over 20 years ago. And then the program got cut short because of another disease, not COVID, it was called SARS. So I don’t know, it was an avian, like avian bird flu virus. And then they canceled the program and then there was like a small jolt to the economy. Companies weren’t really hiring. But anyways, long story short, one of my friends from the study abroad program, she got a job offer at Google in Mountain View, California, the Silicon Valley Bay Area. And then so after graduation I just kept in touch. And then she said, hey Gary, why don’t you come up to Mountain View? And you know, or before that she said, hey, send me your resume. You know Google is hiring. You know, maybe they have something for you, right? And I’m like okay. So I sent my resume and then they flew me up for a job interview. And then I didn’t get a full-time job but I did get a contract like a temp position in their online advertising AdWords department. So I think people know like Google AdWords, I mean that’s their bread and butter. I mean it’s like multi-billion dollar, you know, but I was working there. This was in pre-IPO. Pre-IPO Google in 2004. This was 20 years ago. I was, my job was to review all of those AdWords ads, like those three lines, right, for like editorial, you know, hate speech, porn. You know, there were adult ads so you know, you had to make sure to label anything that was like sexual into porn. And there. And back then it was kind of like the Wild West online. There was, you know, online poker was legal still and then there was like, you know, Nani Juice, Tahitian Nani Juice, health supplement. So it really opened my eyes. But another turning point was at the end. I was let go. I did not get the job offer. If I got that job offer, I would definitely be a millionaire by now with the stock options, right. I probably wouldn’t even be having this conversation with you guys, right? I wouldn’t, I probably wouldn’t be selling on Amazon. Like, you know, but anyways, I was really devastated from that because I really didn’t get that job. I remember, you know, my grandma was very old and you know, she was kind of like had dementia. And then my mom, you know, she was very proud and you know, my aunt was very proud that I got that at least that temp position, right. But I didn’t get the full-time offer. It was like one of my biggest setbacks in my life actually because I was really depressed and sad and I moved back down home. My parents got divorced as well. I wanted to go back to China, but you know, for a career. But I just felt like I needed to be with family. And in 2004 because of the turning points. So the first product I sold online was in 2005. You know, after I didn’t get the job in Google, I saw that there was this opportunity. I’m like, hey, you know, these people are spending all this money on Google selling stuff online, like e-commerce businesses, right? There’s probably something here. Back then, eBay was the biggest online e-commerce market. You know, they were like Amazon today, right? This was 20 years ago. So the first product. So I started doing arbitrage. So I would go to, I started on eBay. So I would drive around to like estate sales. Like do you know what that is? Estate sales? No. Okay, so it’s a fancy way of saying when someone dies, right, the family wants to get rid of all their stuff. So they’re doing a big sale. It’s like a garage sale. Okay.
Dano Falk: Yeah, I would call it garage sale on Craigslist.
Gary Huang: Yeah, I would go on Craigslist Saturday morning and then I’ll drive around to all the rich neighborhoods like Beverly Hills and I’ll pick up all the good stuff for really cheap. So that’s how I got started selling stuff on eBay.
Dano Falk: There you go. On eBay. There’s another thing we have in common, dude. Yeah, I also was selling on eBay, I think, in 2005 or something. Yeah, or even before that. Yeah, yeah.
Gary Huang: Were you in Germany or where were you?
Dano Falk: Yeah, in Germany.
Gary Huang: Yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, so then. So then from that, I studied eBay and I built my own private label brand on eBay selling women’s shoes. So I, my mom had a friend that was a Chinese importer, so he imported women’s shoes. So I didn’t import. I didn’t have to import directly. I just bought the shoes from our friend Tony. So I would call him Uncle Tony. And then he had these really. They weren’t like nice fancy shoes. They were kind of like tacky, like Mary Jane type shoes. And they catered to like rockabilly, like really niche type audience. So I literally. I was selling shoes and the profit margin was good, but the sizing and the returns were a nightmare because if it was like half size too big or too small, it was coming back. So back then, I did all of the pick and pack. I did all the zebra thermal printing myself. I would drive to my post office every day. I did that for like almost a year. I think this was in 2005, actually. No, I did that for several years. From 2005 to 2008, I would go to eBay conferences in Las Vegas. Kind of like, you know, the Amazon conferences they have today. You know, I would. I would study. I would buy like, eBay for Dummies. And I was an eBay power seller. I had like that badge. Yeah, that. That’s how I got started on e-commerce. This was 2005.
Dano Falk: Interesting lamp drop. Second time today.
Gary Huang: Yeah, I don’t have my pro setup. I mean, I had a very professional setup in Okinawa when we had a nice rental house, but Tokyo. Yeah, I’m not in my office today, but anyways.
Dano Falk: Yeah, all right, no problem. So you were a power seller on eBay. See, this is something I didn’t know, man. eBay power seller. And then you became. And then you became an Amazon power seller. I mean, how. How did this migration from eBay to Amazon happen?
Gary Huang: Yeah, so I was selling on eBay, but then I saw that there were other platforms. Right. This was 2005, 6, 2007, and up until 2008, the global financial crisis. So I had a Yahoo Store, the Yahoo Store is kind of like the Shopify of today. It was like this kind of like drag and drop type. It’s a little bit, what do you call it, primitive compared to now. But that’s how I had my own store. And then I also just started selling on Amazon. I remembered back then they didn’t have FBA yet. This was 2000 up until 2008. So I got started selling on Amazon as well. But Amazon at that time was not nearly the size it is now. I mean, back then eBay was the king. But yeah, so I did that for a couple years and then I just remember it was 2008, right? Beijing had their Olympics. So I would have the radio on as I was doing, you know, the picking and the packing and all of like, you know, my eBaying and stuff. And then they were talking about Beijing Olympics, they were talking about, you know, the culture there. And you know, they’re talking about like, you know, I’m like, I know that, you know, I really want to explore that. And I had one really good friend of mine who also was, he was in Shanghai. Like he lived in LA, his parents are in LA, he’s Chinese American as well. And then he had a really nice job in Shanghai. He’s like, Gary, why don’t you just come to Shanghai and then you can just stay with me, you know, for temporarily, right, while you get settled in. Like, I know you’re sick of LA and you know, I can tell you really want to try China. Why don’t you just come with me, you know, come crash at my place, right? So I remembered it was July 5, 2008 and then I just bought a ticket, a one-way flight to Shanghai. No job in hand. I had that one really good friend. And then I just went to Shanghai for that summer and then I ended up, thank God I found a job through my university alumni network, USC. And it was in sourcing. One of the alumni, he’s a lot older, like, but he was a super experienced, you know, ex-Johnson and Johnson managing director. You know, he’s, he was Brazilian. I mean he’s Brazilian Chinese so you know, Western educated. And then he worked in China since the ’80s. So he was like very experienced. China hand. I learned so much from him. Like all of the sourcing, like all the negotiations, all of the, the stuff like the Guanxi and all that stuff. You know, I have to thank him. He really showed me the ropes to China. I mean, I knew the language, but he taught me like the business side, right, and like selling and watching out, like these guys playing tricks and stuff like that. So from 2008, that’s how I got, I made the transition. But so I, at that time I tried to continue the e-commerce business, but it was just too much because there was no FBA. I hired like a part-time high school student to come in two days a week to the LA, like the warehouse rental, like slash my mom’s warehouse in LA. And I still had like a whole mess of shoes there. And she was, I mean, like the high school kid, like she was helping me like fulfill the orders and stuff. And yeah, man, I just, I couldn’t sustain it. So I stopped the e-commerce business for a number of years, all the way up until 2015. And then that’s when I heard about Amazon FBA and I heard those podcasts, like The Amazing Seller and you know, like Jungle Scout. I’m like, hey, you know, I know that, right. I used to do the eBay thing. I know how to do that. I’m on the ground in China. I know how to do the sourcing. I mean, by then I visited hundreds of Chinese factories. I would go to trade shows and I would fly to Hong Kong. You know, Shanghai had trade show every other week and I put two and two together. So I started selling on Amazon FBA about 2015. And I remember the first Amazon product that, I mean that I got back into was Apple Watch bands. So at that time Apple Watch had just launched. You know, we talked about this. I think we talked about this. Right, like Apple Watch bands. I had a business partner at that time. Yeah. And then we built a six-figure business. I mean, just in, I think like six months. Right. It was like a really big opportunity. Yeah. So that’s how I got started on Amazon FBA about 2015. Yeah, at that time it was really the Wild West and you could like, you know, do giveaways and the reviews and I was like throwing up like anything, man. I was doing like posture braces, I did sleeping bags. I did so many different products, man. It was, it was really crazy. Yeah.
Dano Falk: Yeah. Wow. Yeah. I think this is when we were kind of buddies without knowing each other, when we were both selling on Amazon private label. And I was also selling Apple Watch accessories. And I started right, you know, at the 2014 when Apple Watch came out.
Gary Huang: Yes, exactly.
Dano Falk: So it was for my choice of products.
Gary Huang: Hey, are you gonna do something with the Apple, the glasses. I just thought of that tonight, like during dinner. Some, you know, like the new Apple, like the glasses, accessories. Man, maybe we should do something together. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Dano Falk: I’ll be very open to collaborate. I mean the glasses, I mean that’s like a high-end product sold by Apple.
Gary Huang: I mean it is, it is.
Dano Falk: They have announced it at their conference I think a few months ago and I think they only start selling now. But yeah, I’m always open to new ideas. We should have a chat about that. And then from. So you were in Shanghai, you knew all the factories, you spoke Mandarin, you went in China. I mean, of course that’s a huge advantage. I mean this is one of the things that I tell people who ask me like what to sell or how to start selling. I mean if you have like an advantage like this, that’s huge. You have direct connections to manufacturers. I think that’s one of the big things to have in the game. But then today you are in Japan and you are doing these masterminds. So there’s another gap that we have to bridge. Dude. So you were an Amazon seller. What happened then?
Gary Huang: 2018, okay, so I was an Amazon seller. I also got married as well. So I got married to my wife in Shanghai and then we had our son in 2018. So my son was born November 13, 2018. And leading up to his birth, I, you know, previously I would go, I would fly to attend conferences like Amazon conferences like Global Sources Summit in Hong Kong. I think you know that even. Right. And I was also, oh, I also started 80/20 Sourcing. 80/20 Sourcing, which is still around. I created that website to help e-commerce sellers and Amazon sources save time and money sourcing from China. Because it was, it started as a blog, just blogging about, you know, the tricks that suppliers will play on you. You know, like all that. The sourcing was like a black box. So I was one of the earlier people to kind of create that content online. I mean it’s very readily available now. But back then like not everyone knew Alibaba and I created YouTube videos. I collaborated with Jungle Scout, you know, on the million dollar case study and I think there were like 400,000 views on that. I think we helped a lot of people get started. And I remember like I would introduce the concept of Guanxi, you know, in China. Because Guanxi is the concept of, you know, building connections, building relationships to build better business. So I don’t want to say I’m the person that taught that to the rest of the world, but I think a lot of people learned from the content that I produce. And you know, my mission now, right now is to help sellers grow their business, scale their business and exit their e-commerce business. So I created 80/20 Sourcing as a blog to help sellers to do that. Okay. And then I was invited to speak as a result at a number of conferences including Global Sources Summit. So going back to that turning point in 2018, my wife was expecting and I couldn’t fly to that conference anymore. Right. So rather than being left behind, I thought, hey, why not invite these seven-figure sellers to teach me online what they’re doing and to teach everybody else online. So that was the genesis of Seven Figure Seller Summit. It started in 2018. It was really designed to learn from seven-figure sellers how they’re doing it. So you can do it too. So that was the first online conference that we created that was in 2018. And then after that it started getting bigger and bigger. We would get like 1500 people registering, 2000 people registering. And then during the pandemic we had like 3,000 people registering. And then we were voted the favorite Amazon conference in the world two years in a row. We were featured in Forbes. And yeah, it was, yeah, because at that time everybody was locked down. Right. And then me being a seller, you know, I curate all of the speakers, I put together all of the topics because I, you know, by that time I was selling for many years and you know, through 80/20 Sourcing I had like a whole community email list. So I really, you know, I was like the voice of the audience basically.
Dano Falk: Right.
Gary Huang: I know what the right questions to ask. That’s what makes our event different from those other events. Because those other events may be good events but the actual like the people, they may not be sellers or you know, and you know, I try to have like, you know, I do things the right way. Right. Like I, you know, there’s like black hat, there’s like other ways, but I don’t feel that’s the right way to do business. And if you want to exit your business, if you have like black hat tactics, that’s the biggest turn off to a potential buyer. Right. So yeah, so that’s what makes us different from other events out there.
Dano Falk: Yeah. And you started definitely as an online event, right?
Gary Huang: Yes, we started purely online because I couldn’t fly to the event. Remember my wife was expecting.
Dano Falk: I couldn’t fly to Hong Kong anymore.
Gary Huang: So we started online. We put together nine online events throughout the years. Seven-figure sellers.
Dano Falk: But now you are in Japan. So how did that happen?
Gary Huang: Okay, so my son was. And for the first six months we were in Shanghai, and then after that it was. We were just trying to decide where do we want to raise our kid, right? Do we want to raise our kid in China or the US where, you know, where I’m from originally or somewhere else, right? Because I mean, I don’t want to talk too much about that. We can talk a whole another hour about parenting, right? But basically my wife and I, we always liked visiting Japan. I mean from the culture to the food, to like the cool like hot spring hotels and you know, so we would literally like before we became parents, we would fly to just come to Japan from Shanghai. It was a quick flight, just on a holiday like twice a year. And I think our dream was to at least live part of the year in Japan because we really like everything here. I still remember it was getting very cold in Shanghai in 2019. At that time, we didn’t plan on moving yet, but we wanted to go on a holiday to somewhere warm. It was November of 2019. It was after US Thanksgiving. I still remember this was before COVID hit. Actually, I think COVID just started in Wuhan around that time. But nobody knew it, or at least the government didn’t tell people yet. So we decided to fly to Thailand and then Vietnam for a holiday somewhere warm with our son, who was one year old at that time. So we ended up going to Bangkok and then Chiang Mai. And then after that, I remember it was the New Year and I actually met with some e-commerce friends. I met with Mike Jackness and his wife in Chiang Mai for the New Year. I still remember it was really good to meet up with him. He’s a friend of mine. And then that’s when COVID started to hit. And then we went to Vietnam. We went to Da Nang, which is a beachside town. I don’t know if you’ve been before. Beautiful beach, very cheap, not that developed, at least this was in ’19. But then, you know, China got, you know, with COVID, it started getting serious, right? So we were worried to go back. I remember we transited through Hong Kong. It was January. It was late January. It was my birthday. I still remember it was January 26, 2020. That was the day that Kobe had the helicopter crash and he died that was on my birthday and we were in Hong Kong and COVID was hitting China. I still remember that day. My wife. I was in the hotel gym working out. And then my wife said they broke the bad news. Did you hear what happened to Kobe?
Dano Falk: Right.
Gary Huang: I still remember. And at that time, we were unsure, where do we want to go next? Because we were transiting through Hong Kong because our Vietnam visas had expired. I had just done a summit in Da Nang. I think that was like maybe Summit 3 or something. And then we were like, where should we go? Right? We didn’t want to fly long haul US, because that was difficult with our son. And then we just looked at the map and we’re like, okay, Okinawa, Japan. That’s one of the shortest flights from Hong Kong. Because we didn’t want to go back to China. And my wife already had a visa. And, you know, I can go to Japan visa-free for three months. So we just flew to Okinawa from Hong Kong. And then I had never been to Okinawa. I really didn’t know what to expect. But we were very fortunate that during COVID the Japanese government had an exemption for any foreigners that had difficulty returning to their home country. They were allowed a temporary extension on their visas. So we were able to stay on a tourist visa in Japan from January 2020 all the way until October of 2022. We lived in Japan for two and a half years in Okinawa. I couldn’t go back to China because my residence permit had expired during COVID. And then to renew that, I could not do it at a Chinese embassy abroad. I physically had to be in China, but I could not go to China because China closed their borders. Even though my wife is Chinese, even though I worked there for over a decade, I paid all my taxes. I could not go back to China. Okay. And then we ended up. I mean, Okinawa, it’s a blue zone, right? I think, Dano, you know this, right? Like the people. It’s like one of the longest lifespans for people in the world. And then it very beautiful beaches and there was zero tourists. So we were able to go to like any beach we want. We went to the world-famous. Like, we took our son to the aquarium. I had like a season pass to the aquarium, to the zoo. I mean, the COVID cases were the highest in Japan because everybody wanted to get away and they couldn’t leave Japan. So all the Japanese tourists went to Okinawa. But I think we were very fortunate to be able to stay there during that time. And I was able to run the online conferences from Okinawa. And yeah, it was. Everybody wanted to do the Amazon thing because e-commerce was booming. I mean, e-commerce was like the silver lining of the cloud. Right. During COVID. So we were very fortunate during that time. And my son actually, he took his first steps in Japan, his first words in Japan. And we never knew that we would be in Japan. But I think our dream kind of came true, Dano, because we had that thought, hey, if we can live part of the year in Japan. Because we didn’t think we could even get a long enough visa to. Right. Like, you know, normally you can only stay for three months and now they have the new digital nomad visa, six months for foreigners from like 40 countries. But yeah, that’s how we came to Japan.
Dano Falk: Wow. Okay, now I understand because that part, I mean, I was always confused, like, how come Gary from LA, who lived in Beijing is now suddenly in Okinawa?
Gary Huang: Shanghai. Lived in Shanghai. Yeah. It’s complicated.
Dano Falk: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s complicated. But I think that’s what most entrepreneurs have in common. So if you look at the backstory, it’s always complicated. I don’t think out of the 50 podcasts I’ve done so far, I think there’s only like a handful of people who have actually grown up in one place and actually did their business in that same place where they grew up. So most of us have been like around for all different reasons. Yeah, that’s fascinating to hear. And let’s come to the conclusion of the wisdom that you have gained along your journey as an entrepreneur. What would you share today with 10-year-old Gary or with maybe an 18-year-old entrepreneur who would like to start his own business?
Gary Huang: If you’re 10 years old, I would get started, you know, somehow, right. Whether it’s, you know, when I was 10 years, I was working for my mom at her clothing company during summer holidays. And I remember like she was, she’s a retired fashion designer. I would go into the, like her workshop and then I would like glue the little flowers on like women’s hats and like glue like the flowers on the women’s shirts. And that’s how I got started. And I made some money, right? And you know, like my cousin and I, we would also like make bootleg CDs. We burn those CDs for like sell to friends, right? You know, we would download those bootleg things. I would say just get started. I mean, because the younger you are, the more risk you can take, right? You have less to lose. 18 years old, you don’t have a family, you don’t have like a mortgage. Right. You have less to lose and you can take more risk because if you fail, then you can just go back home. Like when I failed at Google, I went back home, but then that opened up a new door, a new opportunity. Right. And then I don’t think there’s like. And the other thing now is like giving the world as it is. Like we can’t really plan like a 20-year plan, right. I think I can only plan like a two-year plan. I don’t know where I’ll be like, you know, five years from now. Right. But I think we have to pivot and then, you know, when we have the opportunity, we have to pivot and we have to have faith as well. I mean, like whether you’re religious or you gotta have faith. Because I think certain things happen for a reason and like. Yeah, so I think. I don’t know if that makes sense, but yeah, that would be my parting words.
Dano Falk: Yeah. Thank you, man. Yeah. Having faith is definitely, I mean, one way to put it, you know, that we have to believe in something. We have to have some kind of confidence. Some people call it hope or, you know, just expecting something good to happen. Yeah, maybe this is. But faith is one way to put it, which I completely agree. It’s an essence of venturing into anything. We have to have faith that it could actually work.
Gary Huang: If I didn’t have faith, I don’t think we would have, you know, I don’t think we would be where we are today. Like even like last year, like the first Japan mastermind. Like I don’t even to this day, I don’t really speak Japanese. Right. It’s embarrassing. But I was able to organize a conference in Japan, in Tokyo, and we had like, you know, speakers from all over the world and even Amazon attended our event. Right. I mean, without the faith to just do what we did, like, I don’t think I could have pulled it off. Right. And but for the next event, I mean, there’s a whole new set of challenges. Right? So you gotta have faith, man. And entrepreneurial, I guess the other thing, okay, the entrepreneurial journey is a roller coaster, right? I’m sure you guys have heard there’s like the ups, the highs and the lows. Right. And even today, you know, I, somebody hacked into our ActiveCampaign email marketing account and then I wasn’t able to send emails since last week. And then we had to go back and forth with their verification and someone sent like this spam email to all of our people on our list. Even today, I’m still working on this. Right. I mean, it’s just, you know, this stuff is going to happen. Right. But I still feel like if you’re doing the right thing, you know, the journey, it’s not easy. It’s, you’re gonna get the target on your back. Right. Whether you say, you know, it’s spiritual warfare or however you want to put it, I just feel like we just have to have faith. We can’t give up. Yeah, I’m still in the middle of it. I’m not saying like I’m this super successful business person, you know, I’m just like everybody else out there. We’re still in the middle of the journey. We haven’t finished the journey yet. So I’m just happy to at least share some of my experiences today. So thank you, Dano, for that.
Dano Falk: Thank you for sharing, Gary. Thank you so much. I appreciate. I learned a lot today, how Gary became who he is today. So that was very insightful and I’m sure our audience has also had a lot of good takeaways. Thank you so much for spending the time with me here and we’ll stay in touch, man.
Gary Huang: Excellent. Thanks again, Dano. And thanks everybody for listening. And if you do want to sell in Japan, highly recommend you check out the Seven Figure Seller Japan Mastermind April 8th to the 10th in Okinawa. And I. Yes, besides the event, yeah, Okinawa is a beautiful place for people to check out. I kind of wanted to give back to Okinawa as well, because Okinawa really accepted us when other places turned us away during the pandemic. And actually Okinawa is actually the poorest prefecture in Japan. Like the per capita income is the lowest. So they really struggled during pandemic. So I’m just trying to at least also give back to that community as well.
Dano Falk: That is very noble of you. Thank you, Gary.