Yeah.

So it's funny. Like I always joke, like, yeah, I'm in the schmatta business, right. That you just work, . My father started in the business in the seventies, he was really early into China sign, making manufacturing clothing, and in Taiwan,

 He started in the sweater business, actually selling the high end, like, you know, Nordstrom's or Neiman Marcus. Like I remember they had like, you know, I think bill Clinton, where one of his sweaters, And did you manufacture on behalf of other brands or was it your own brand that bill was wearing

It was his brand. It was called Jed sportswear. so, we got to see both sides of it. Like, you know, it's, totally different, like having your own brand versus like being a contract manufacturer. Like, Hey apples, apple, , but like the iPhone is made by five. All right. So , we started to be apple.

It worked for a couple of years, but then we said, let's be Foxconn for clothing, you know? So we did a lot of white labeling. We've done things for Costco, Amazon, a lot of catalog companies where it's like, it's there. But we do all the contract manufacturing for them. So my father started barrage unite, overseas, textile.

He bought into the company in 95 and since then was able to take sales up to like almost 50, 60 million annually. And it was a great business. It was like a time where people. cared about buying in bulk. Like you could buy 10 pairs of pants. Why not? And it was super cheap, but now it's like, oh, you'd rather buy like $300 pair of pants.

Right. And so we had a really good run. I mean, I started going to the business in 2012. Unfortunately at that time, my father got diagnosed with end stage renal failure, so he had to do dialysis. So that's why I got into the business. and you became president of this business? Tell me more about manufacturing today. Like, is it, is there automation? What is it like?

There is a little bit of that. Like always tell people, this is an also I learned from my father and you don't even realize it clothing is more of a commoditized business. unless you own the brand, unless you own a Nike or polo or Tommy Hilfiger, you're not gonna make.

 As much as you think, as you think the margins are crazy. Cause like this shirt I'm wearing, because it has underarm armor on it. . Okay. Like The MIT can charge like $80 but like if it had none of those labels on it, I would have to sell it for under 10 bucks,

So when it comes to clothing, it's you either make money through the fabric you use or where you. , I mean, we were lucky because we're Chinese, our background, we had all the factories and understood the landscape, but nowadays you have to go to Vietnam.

You have to go to Sri Lanka, you have to go where the wages are much less and that's make the margin , and the thing is, is that in China , I think that stat is 70% of all manufactured fabric is still coming out of. but the manufacturing of the actual clothing, the assembly is not in China as much as it used to be.

So we saw that shift and like my father called it in 2013, you know, like it was talking to customers like, oh, if they're like, oh, how ways to sell? And I'm like, well, we don't want to go to like a third world country where we don't have enough. always joke with people like, oh, you think about wall street or lawyers?

It's like, oh no, I've worked in the clothing business. I worked with some of the scummiest people on the planet. It like a contract doesn't mean anything. , you have to be really on top of it, because like people don't understand. It's like, it's not that like forever 21 owns clothing.

They take possession of it after it clears customs, you know? So all of it is on me as a manufacturer. Like I buy the fabric, I pay for the workers to do it. I do the importation. I do the shipping, all of it's me like to do a Costco order for me, to get my money back. Like if I'm putting a hundred dollars in and I want to make like $130, it takes me six.

that's the cash cycle of , getting it there, but it's great margin because I then it's on volume, you know, but , if you take a wrong order, you could be bankrupt.

'cause you don't get paid until Costco sells it. here's the thing about Costco.

 there's no like 90 day window. you can return things in a year or two years. As long as you show that you're a member and you bought it from.

For me as a manufacturer or as a supplier. My biggest fear is that 90 day window. If I deliver January 1st,

I don't get money until 90 days later, anything that gets returned in those 90 days, I have to eat

So it's not when sold, but it's sold plus the 90 day window.

Yes. So, and especially if it's over 5% and that triggers. Like that triggers something like, oh, there must be a quality issue. And they have to do a full review especially like we do something like Kirkland, signature, like that's Costco's own brand. Right.

So for them, like they have all the negotiating power

what Kirkland signature is a brand. I know that's cool. I didn't know you, uh, you made that

Yeah, but we literally bought a Tommy Bahama shirt toppy. It exactly the same , but once Kirkland, signature, and once Tommy Bahama, Tom Bahama and sell it for a hundred bucks, they sell for 1299.

 all Constable cares about is 15%. they don't want to make 80% there. They're finally making 50. You see, they make most of their money from in volume and through the membership.

Interesting.

So if I'm a startup, I guess maybe I don't contract with you, but how do I think about who I should contract with?

Really when you're a startup, it's really about getting your brand and finding customers. Right? Like, I mean, I get this all the time. People ask me like, Hey, can you do this for me? And I'm like, no, because it's in a minimum order, quantity issue. Like I actually invest in a startup that is trying to help that . And right now I'm also working with somebody else who has a great context, li and Fung Lykke li and Fung is one of the biggest contract manufacturer. They are like the Fox hunt for clothing. You know, there's no MOQ. That's what everyone talks about. I tell people, like if you can't fill a 20 foot container forget about going abroad, just do it locally because you're not going to get, you know, the economies of scale that you want.

, so, but you're saying that they are the Leon phone.

They're one of the largest, but you're saying there's no MOQ minimum order quantity.

For them because they have so many orders. Right. And they have so many factories that they can allocate it out. Cause like to start off, I guess they see the potential of you having, like, let's say you're a celebrity and like, okay, well we'll make 10 or 20 units for you because they know that, Hey, when it does well, , the later on you can have a bulk order and it makes sense for them.

But like, if you're just like no name brand and you don't have a celebrity or you don't have the ability to scale, they won't take a chance on you,

and what are the key things to look for? If I'm a startup, trying to evaluate a manufacturer you have to have a really good relationship. what about we were known for, her barrage was that we paid on. Like always on time but most big brands, they were like until we have it in our hands from our trucking company or whatever, we're not paying

a dime, but just like any other startup, it's all about cashflow.

You go bankrupt, not because, oh, you have a bad idea. Or it's just you had the money at the wrong time. And that's what it is. I take that when I look at startups, well, nowadays,

and given what's going on right now in the world, I have to ask if you have thoughts on supply chain and just.

What people are misunderstanding about all the supply chain issues we're facing. I think what people don't understand this for startups now is that it takes time to build the relationship. Like you might have money right now, but that doesn't mean anything because like you have to be on boots on the ground, like, It's not something you could do online. These are physical things that you have to go check on, you know, the quality control.

And it's like, even if , you manufacture in China and you send somebody a tech pack and you show them, this is the color I want. It doesn't mean anything. It's all about fit like a large, and Tommy Hilfiger is a different than a large Calvin climber.

 Okay. So you really think it's about building those relationships. You have to actually meet with the people who are in your supply chain. Face-to-face

What do you think about different countries and where startups should locate their manufacturing today?

What you're seeing there is also the relationships that are being built because there's less quality, the, I mean, when you go to a even more third world country, the problem there is like they might do for really cheap, but they could do it for really bad. And so you can't make them do certain needlework.

people still do a lot of clothing out of China for the high-end. it's not because the machines are better, sometimes it is. But really it's also because of the quality of workmanship is better because they've done it for so long. The needlework is just so much like embroidery stuff. You're not going to go to Sri Lanka to do it, you're going to go to China because the needle is so more exact , and companies are willing to pay for that because it's so much better quality, then you're not going to get returns.

Can you just look at my shirt? Like when you go out to like happy hours, you look at people's clothing. You're like, oh, look at that and work.

I can to a certain set and you feel the material. And also the funny thing about fashion really is like, you might be ahead of your time, but it takes two or three cycles for everyone to catch up.

I remember what everyone had a leather jacket, you know, everyone had a knit suit, but people were like, why would you wear a knit suit or joggers? Right. Like who wouldn't wear a jogger now?

 Wait until we, it takes a couple of years for it to catch up, , as in like celebrities are doing it, the fashion industry is doing it How do you see those trends

 You go to the stores. You're not on Instagram. You go to the stores because these stores are the indicators . Cause it's like, okay, you're at Armani exchange. We don't look at them. I said, if you look at Armani first, see what they're doing. And then it trickles.

 You got to go from high end to low end.

Okay. I don't do either. So I really wouldn't know. And just one more thing on this. Do you advise people at all on just doing business with China? Because , you know, you have a lot of cross border experience Yeah, for me, it always depends on the type of product, right? Like software. It's gonna be harder if you don't have the right mechanisms in place. Like, I mean, I try to ask like Eric, Juan from zoom, this question, because zoom is not big enough. You know, it's like Microsoft is right. Cause you have to give up more of the IP, more of the code source code to show.

And so, yeah, that's not a good idea, but if you have a product, it doesn't mean you can just go anywhere. You have to find the right access points into like a beverage company. For example, like you can't just like, oh, let me just start up shop , but just in terms of software, so you would say the software is really hard because it's like, diverging, like people talk about sort of the Internet's diverging a sense. And you know, you're either run on the AWS or you're run on like Ali-Baba infrastructure or something.

Okay. That's what it is in China head or J D

 How do you see that evolving? Like, will it continue to be more and more bifurcated? Like a decade ago? Wasn't the us able to export more of our like social networks or zoom tooling, et cetera.

 But not in China. Like, the joke used to be it's CDC write copy to China. Right? Like you copy whatever this is here. And then China just does a little bit better. And for that, you know, market, and now like you see something totally different., as an investor, you see, like, I'm sure you've heard of like pop shop live.

Right. And that's not an American idea. That's more of a Chinese idea, but it's like, oh, like live. You know, Amazon's doing it, Walmart's getting into it. And that's because they just saw Chinese. That's how they shop. They don't go on the store. They see like a celebrity or star or somebody an influencer.

And they talk about a product. And like, you know, there's something called shell homeschool, which is red. And , it's just like a platform for celebrities to do makeup.

And then you could buy makeup right away. Last time it was a $6 billion market cap valuation

just for that.

I think, that if I say I just saw like a ping duo duo sort of

knock off for the U S

, are there any trends that you still think are really interesting that, one might see more of in China right.

now that is just coming to the U S.

It's interesting. I just feel like. how we sell things they've just had a better way of selling bulk. Like, I mean, I have one company called crave and when talk about this and it's just like, If you're not selling to China, you're doing something wrong because there's about 350 million people in China who are considered the middle class.

That's the size of the us population And it's like, if you don't have a plan of having a consumer product and finding ways of like partnering up with the right people to sell in China, it just makes no sense. Every company in the world, fortune 500 company is going there, but at the same time, The interests are different.

Like, you know, it used to be like all these brands were going to China. And , all these duty rates were huge, like buying a Mercedes, like a $50,000. Mercedes probably cost like 120,000 in

China. And it feels like now you're going to see like all these brands come in, China that maybe they're going to come to other locations like the U S or Europe or Latin America or.

Like I spent so much money, with like finding minerals or, you know, resources with all these African countries. Like maybe they won't buy like us, branded clothing anymore. They're gonna buy like Chinese branded clothing. Like you see that, you see like Duane way. Like he didn't do.

In through the Korea, right? He did something like a Chinese lean nine or whatever it was called. Like our Stephon Marbury has his own shoe line. Going to be changing the sense where it's like, you can have a brand coming from China that people will want.

Yeah, fascinating. I could talk to you about this for hours, but let me talk about investing. No, kind of the same time. I think you said that you became president of United overseas. You also started, investing.

Yeah. I remember my first investment. It was a for company called it was called GIF GIF.

And I remember that , I was out just networking and I've met buck Jordan, who is a close friend still today and I've invested a lot of money with box and I was like, damn.

Like this before apple pay started and like,,oh, okay. I'll put the 25 K

that's how I just thought it.

give to something about gift cards, right? This allows you to like trade.

Yeah, it's digital gift cards, right? It's the idea of where like the physical form, like this is not a gift card, but like actually having a cart, you need 90% of the market. Was this like having it? What if you lost it?

It'd be horrible. And then like the best part of that story was that like, I literally got my investment back after.

 And then after that I got the money back like, well, I didn't want to pay taxes.

I'll like, and you know, Q S was happening, And so I was like, oh, let me roll it over. And I rolled it over into the channel now.

And so that was the start of you investing out of J Hart, which is the family office investing. Right. To tell me kind of how much you did out of J Hart. When did you form unicorn ventures?

Talk me through the journey.

Yeah. So with J Hart, I was just like doing all these random investments. I didn't know what I was doing. Right. I remember my, like the fourth investment opportunity I had was a company where you pretend to buy and sell stock as a gaming company.

And I'm like, this is sounds horrible. Like we're the angry birds. Like we're like the plants and zombies are the fruit man job. And I'm like, and why do they call it Robin? So I turned out Robin hood at $20 million valuation, not understanding like not even downloading it. If I am who I am the investor today, I would have done it then.

I would have a network. , I hadn't started investing in other people's venture funds, but now I'm like over 30. but that means I was in the arena. I could have grabbed the rebound or like I wasn't like outside of the stadium

How did you get in the arena to just be in the arena to see the Robin hoods and the Chown Aus?

I'm just good at networking. That's really what it was like. I mean, that opportunity came from a friend of mine who was managing partner at Goldman Sachs and he just saw this and I was like, oh, I listened to the other thing you sent me instead of Robin hood, which is like my mistake, but Hey, Part of it. The hack is like literally going out, like tonight, there right now it's like NFTE LA week. Right? Like, so I don't go out you know, and go meet other people and understand more about web three. I'm going to miss opportunities and you just have to go do it.

I see you out a lot. Um, uh, Okay, so I stopped you. You were going to tell me you did that for a couple of years, and then you started unicorn.

Yeah. So what happened with unicorn? I was like, I didn't think I needed a third master's, but I did. Do you want me to go warden? but the part of why I went to Wharton was not because I needed the degree. It was because it was gonna be in San Francisco or, and had a great San Francisco campus. And I'm like, well, let me go meet some more entrepreneurs.

Get up there to Silicon valley. And that's where I met one of my business partners. Dave. I started with, and the other partner with unicorn is my good friend, Phillip Serafin, who I've known when he was 21 and I was 24. So over 15 plus years now.

 So we didn't raise a fund in the traditional sense of having LPs. It was just our three GPS with our.

David Lin. He was CFO at maker studios.

a founding CFO of maker studios. He was there for seven months. He wasn't there when Disney bought maker, but he was there in the beginning before then Dave was at GRP. And if people don't know GRP is, that's what a fund is now, that's the beginning of our front. And who's Phillip Phillip he's from Houston, Texas, and he's part of uh, Serafin family out of there. I mean, love them, you know, it's almost like I grew up with them.

It's like, where did the time go? And now Phillip has done a tremendous job. Like now unicorn sits under the umbrella of something called Truesdale ventures, which I'm a part of Truesdell.

 People might not know it, but they will hear more and more of in the LA system, like Truesdell has invested over 300 plus million in the last 18, 24 months.

We wait, say that again, 300 million in the last 18 or 24 months. I did

Yes.

In Investing in what moves.

Investing in well, Phillips likes to say he's industry agnostic sector, Gnostic, and stage agnostic. So it's anywhere from pre-seed all the way to pre IPO. We've done consumer consumer tech, mental health mobility better for you brands.

So unicorn is now under Truesdale or sort of changed. It's an evolution. So we should now look for Truesdale and, you know, are you looking for deals where there already is a lead? I just want to know what deals to be sending you now.

Well, everything, right? Like we can co-invest we could lead around, like led certain rounds, like with data bento, for example, out of Boston, Massachusetts we do invest in funds. We have a fun strategy as well, because it's listen. There's certain things that we're not great at.

You know, we're not great at necessarily biotech or gaming. Right. But we've like invested into Griffith gaming partners or we invested with At time, bio ventures. And then there's refractor capital that through my, relationship with David Lee and now with resolve memoria, like we got into great companies because of that, because what we look for is like tremendous deal flow, but also what we can do to value, add to companies.

Cause like everyone has money, but it's really like, how can we get them to be more success? I honestly, like, I didn't think I'd be a beverage expert and I don't think I am, but we've invested in so many different beverage and CPG it's like, now I know what the next. But that's a great deal of capital. So now do you have LPs It's an interesting question. We're at that point where like an inflection point where we're deciding whether Phillip wants to, you know, keep investing out of the family office or potentially get LPs, there could be an opportunity for us to do Truesdale. No fun too, but yeah, that's been talked about I'm actually in the process also of starting a new fund well.

Okay, but just so the listeners follow along, there was first Jay Hart, which is the family office, And that still exists. You still invest

And I still invest all that. Cause I still do certain things that Dave won't let me invest in for our funds. So I'm like, I got to do it. I'm sorry.

money. I think you and I have one of those in common, Is

Send it.

Yep. Gordon didn't do it, but did it in J Hart and Hey, we were right.

Yeah, we're right. I'm well,

so far so good. It's

looking good. Okay. So then you've got J Hart unicorn, which is evolving into Truesdales. Now I'll call it

Truesdale, and then you've got another fun. Tell me about new thing.

Well, the new thing is calling it Playhouse ventures. It's really focused on pre-seed to series a, there's going to be a good component of crypto and web three into it. I feel it's a really great space to get into I'm in right now in negotiations with, I think it's pretty much going to be done, but like my other GP will be Steve.

Um,

know that name.

yeah, and like he is a huge influencer on NFTs and that he like really adopted, besides just having all these board apes that he has, like he's, I think a top five NFT holder,

you know, like him, Justin Bieber, Gary V Paris Hilton. And so he sees her. Troy is not a deal flow as well. and we're going to see a lot of things and it's like exciting for me.

Of that is exciting. Congratulations. So Steve Aoki, I only know him by his music. Does he have sort of a thesis on the NFT space? Or do you have, certain focus that you're going into it.

Yeah, well, we're just looking for utility, right? I mean, there's one approach of like he asked if he could invest in NFTE directly. Like, yeah. I mean, I don't want to have it like more than 20% being NFTs because I actually there's other funds who do that. And also I don't want to register as an investment advisor, but their whole too much crypto is I still love the picks and shovels approach.

Right? Like I've been warehousing some deals. Like I got us into consensus, you know, which is mathematics amass. I think that's a great company. Steve is a big personality. Like, I think he wants to go into space one day.

Or food, like, I mean, his father started Benihana and he has a great brand called pizza Aoki out there. And this is helping like mom and pop restaurants have extra revenue through other brands created.

Everything you say every sentence you have, I'm like a new revelation. So Steve Aoki, his father started Benihana.

Yeah.

Yup. Yeah. And him and his brother, Kevin Aoki have a restaurants as well okay, so you've got all that investing. Tell me about also the fund investing because believe you've done over 30 VCs.

That's amazing. Yeah.

That's more than most people. I, I know I'm even , most of our LPs, how do you think about your fund strategy?

Yeah, I had a call of Howard Morgan. , we invest in a company called update the AI and he's a chairman. And I actually saw him at your event at pie day.

And like, I though I was first I'm meeting in person and I'm like, something I took away from our first call was like, he says, he's an LP in 85 different VC funds.

And I said, well, I got to catch up.

Yeah,

And it's just like, just like him when I hear what his strategy is and what he's invested. I know what I don't know, you know, and I know that I can't be everywhere. Even if I have a great team, if I hire like 10 analysts, they're not going to be able to see and do everything.

And there are really smart people out there. So I might invest in other seed funds just because they're just great workers and they're great. Like talent finders as well. Like I don't mind co-investing and finding great companies. It's like, that's what I learned in this game. I wish I had these people in my life.

When I turned down Robin hood.

Yeah.

What do you think of this? Like, does that make sense?

And like, even for this one, like, I don't want to be famous. I don't want to be well-known, you know, I'd rather have Steve get all the credit when I do GP, like, you know, in fund investments, I just see like, wow, like what are you doing differently?

the funny thing is like, when I first started working with Dave, it was just like, we just saw are totally opposite Dave won't admit it, but I think he's more of like a six Sigma kind of guy. He needs more data.

He needs to get to that like 99.9, 9, 9, 9 percentile confidence. , I just want one Sigma. Like, I be like, just give me like 70, 68%. And like, I'll take a,, chance. , fair game. Has anything surprised you like getting to see how these different funds operate?

You know what the best thing that happened to me was that I also started a new company and you know, mark. Thing, both sides of the table. Right. , and you have amazing podcasts where everyone can learn as well. So what I learned is not only being an investor was like also being a founders.

It's like how people see things totally different than you. You know, I remember like I was at an event and it was me and David.

The founder of dollar shave club. And he could just like, remember like the people who said, no,

it's just like, Each time people said, no, now I know what I need to do.

Like, okay. I need to show revenue. I remember I was talking to one of the founders of seamless and he's like, you know, Jonathan, you know, you have this dog food. Right. And it's just like, , I'm sure you have, you have one dog that likes it, but I don't need like a hundred dogs to love your dog food.

I just need like 10. And I'm like, well, after he said that I stopped the fundraise. I'm like, let's get 10 more dogs. you need to be a better investor. And now I know how to like send the right deals to buy people.

no, it's fascinating. Like if you sit, have you ever judged like a hackathon with other really smart VCs sitting on the panel, you end up liking different companies, right? It's

not, one formula.

yeah.

So like, I would say Dave definitely made me a better fund manager cause I was a great still, which is all by myself, an angel vessel because I like taking chances early. If you want to ask me to run a growth fund to do all that modeling, get a person from MIT or Wharton or Harvard or wherever

to do it.

Yeah, no, the early seed also, especially if you're doing it some with the gut feeling, that's an early stage thing.

It's all about team. It's that person like, it's like, you're betting on that person that he or she has the ability to get, because I tell people like, I'm your high school, college counselor. I'm just trying to get you to college, to get your series a funding. I don't know how you're gonna do in college.

Right? I hope you make it. I hope you graduate.

The, all my job is to get you that, that series act that's all that matters.

I like that phrasing. What do you think about just the vendor ecosystem? You have a lot of exposure to a lot of funds,

I think this is a lot of capital out there

, and you have to really differentiate yourself and to see what you're good at and what you're not good at find the right LPs that match your mentality. Because like I always thought with, it's not about money, like it's not about money to make you successful.

It's really like. That you have How do you think about public and private market allocation?

I'm probably the wrong person to ask that because like, you know, right now fortunate, my father passed away five years ago and it was his my mom and I now, like I used to be a financial advisor. Right. I've been trained, like doing all that stuff, asset allocation. And it's like, really like for a certain portfolio size of whatever.

Like, even if you're, you know, a family office, you shouldn't have more than like 20. You know, 30%, he was like, you look at Dave, Swinson's like, you know, Yale model, how he's doing that. Like, yeah, that's a lot because usually you should be like five to 10 in alternatives and private equity. And I'm probably in 96.

And I'm not married yet, but I will be soon, I guess. and I'm not like I don't have any kids yet, so I'm the risk taker now, And I always tell people who do venture funds, like as long as you're making my money, whatever you make, I'll put it back into your next fund,

 It's not just money. I see that sometimes like the moment you don't want to go networking, you don't want to go do that. You gotta just stop. Like, I enjoy it. Like I see you at all, these events it's like, yeah. Cause you a little bit. You have to love that.

I was actually going to, at the end of this, I was like, Jonathan, you and I need to compare social calendar a little bit because if you ever need a plus one,

 What about other advice you have for people, whether it's startups or fund managers, Anything else that comes from.

It's funny. I tell people like, you have to know who you are and what you represent. Right. If someone's going to Google your name, what comes up first,

, and I started doing this right before the pandemic, you know, and the nineties, I started hiring a marketing team to help me, like, for me, it's like knowing what, I don't want to say what your brand is, but knowing what you stand for, it really is important because like then people will come to you and ask you for certain things because it makes.

And people, I think when they Google me, they'll know like, oh, I like investing consumer goods because I have that experience being, you know, a vendor and a supplier. And so I was like, I can see what makes sense are in fashion. They'll come to me and be like, listen, I love your idea, but I've seen it before.

And it doesn't work. And these are the things. And like, maybe I won't invest, but like, if you can answer these questions, then come back.

Hmm.

do you say you stand for? What do you represent?

I think for me, it's like, I always tell this and like, no, I can say, cause I'm gonna to be on this podcast. So it's gonna be official on my autobiography. I hope if I ever have the opportunity to write one is going to be called in case of. And it's like, and it's like, it's not just in relationship senses.

Right. But it's also as like, as your entrepreneur or a founder, like I'm your emergency contact for good or bad? like, I like to get on phone with people I've invested in and just talk like, yeah, texting. Like I still tag I'm on WhatsApp. I'm on every possible text messaging service, but just being able to get on that phone and talking to somebody now and just not being worried, what you say

I love it in case of emergencies. So good. Jonathan. That's so good. I just asked someone else, like, what would be your autobiography? And they said it would be a minus.

I mean, you have so many interesting life experiences. Jonathan. It's really fun talking with you. I'm so glad you came on the show.

no, thank you, Minnie. I'm really happy.