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Recently I read quite a few bibliographical books of Fastlaners. Below is the true story about the youngest self-made millionaire from Thailand. It had been written in several books, magazines and presented in talk shows in Thailand.
I translated the story from a few of his interviews in found on Youtube and from Thai magazines. I spent a few hours to translate & collaborate this material. Hope it provides the community some value
Here...
In 2004, young kid name “Top” walked into a bank in Bangkok. He asked a bank officer if he could make THB10 million ($330,000) loan for his business. That bank officer thought this kid came in to make a joke. He was totally ignored.
The bank officer didn’t know at first is that kid already made THB 1 million ($33,000) a month, from his franchise business.
After a short discussion with the bank officer, he was informed that his request got rejected. Not because his documents were not ready, or his income statement didn’t look good enough.
It was because his highest education he had so far was just high school, and he was just 19 years old. So he was not qualified for making a loan.
A few years earlier in high school, he was not a very good student. He didn't pay attention to his study, instead he was so addicted to online game. There was a game called “Everquest” which he got addicted that he played almost all day everyday. That made his grades in high school very poor.
However, he was very good in the game world. In fact, he was the best player in his arena. He could collect all rare items required for character upgrade that other people couldn’t find.
As he was well-known within the game world, other players started to contact him to buy the game items. So he started to make money by selling the game items, mostly to players from USA. Two years in high school, he made a lot of money from selling the game item.
According to one of his interview, he was able to make THB100,000 – THB200,000 ($7,000) a month by selling game items alone. The amount was this amount sufficient so that he bought his first car (brand-new) by himself.
After high school, he entered university (University of Chamber of commerce of Thailand) at age 17. In first year of, he also didn’t pay attention to his study.
The turning point was when he didn’t have money and asked his mother for money, his mother with serious face, spent about 10 minutes looking for the money for him. That was the moment he knew there was something going on in his family.
It turned out that his parents were about to declared bankrupted because of some bad investments. The house they lived in could be put in auction any time. His parents had THB40 million (US$1.3 million) in debt, and prepared to move to China and stay there permanently as there might be nothing left in Thailand to avoid those creditors.
He knew that he has to do something about it. Finally he sold his game ID for good amount of money. He spent much of time on thinking how to make money so he could help his parent and to escape study life.
He looked at a lot of opportunities that might work for him, such as sell food and open small coffee shop in front of campus. He did try to sell something but it didn’t work. He also invested in buying large number of cheap CD players, but didn’t sell well as they broke easily. The people who bought buyers got mad.
One day in 2003 he had chance to visit international business fair in north Bangkok. He looked around and found franchise from Japan “Chestnut Franchise”. (Japanese name but China made) As he always loved chestnut, he approached the franchise staff, and found that the whole set of equipment including franchise brand was too expensive.
So he bargained to buy only a chestnut roaster. (Normally, after any exhibition end, staff wouldn’t want to carry heavy tool back. Those apparatus are for show anyway. People would approach selling staff as the end if last late to but something at a discount rate) Top got the roaster machine back home.
He began to think about his own franchise. He used that roaster to roast chestnut himself and sold chestnut in a super market. Since he never roasted or cooked anything before, he could sell well.
He bought space in Big-C Supermart and he hired an employee to sell chestnut there. First few weeks, the chestnut was not sold very well. Some days it was never sold at all. Customers complained that the taste was terrible.
He went outside to check what happened in chestnut business outside. He went to fresh markets, China town and weekend market. He wanted to see how people roast and sell chestnuts. He secretly noted down techniques, ingredients, and tips he got from those chestnut sellers to improved his
The taste of his chest nut got better. Within a short time (after 4-5 weeks), his chestnut was sold out very fast. The first day he sold out his chestnut, he told his only one employee that he would expand to other locations. That day his chestnut made THB5,000 ($170) in profit. He will create a franchise. If he could expand to 20 stands, it will be 100,000 a day.
One and a half years later, he did sell 30 franchises. His chestnut business gave him THB1,000,000 ($33,000) a month. He was franchiser at 18.
At that time, he dropped out from the university.
The business was so successful, but he didn’t want to limit himself to only chestnut. So he put other things (snacks) into his business like dehydrate peach, lungan and crispy “fried” seaweed. Not very long after that, he found that the thing that was sold out fastest each day was not chestnut. It was crispy “fired” seaweed.
Not a few days that crispy “fried” seaweed was sold out, but almost everyday it was sold out first. He didn’t know much about this product, as he bought it from wholesalers in China town and re-sold it.
Also one day, he had to pick up a friend, and during the ride his friend didn’t do anything but ate crispy “fried” seaweed all the time.
He thought there must be something special about it. Then he bought more packs of crispy “fried” seaweed , but not for selling. He give to anybody he knew and asked what they thought about it. Almost everybody loved it.
He was surprised that no one had sold crispy “fried” seaweed as retail. All were big pack wholesales.
That moment, he knew he would turn the business direction to crispy “fried” seaweed. He would sell crispy “fried” seaweed in small packs. So He studied as much he could about crispy “fried” seaweed things.
He fired seaweed himself, went to university lab to meet with technical and get advice how to keep seaweed for a long time.
Now he knew how to fried seaweed. He had the product and he wanted to sell it fast. Selling it at chestnut stand was not a good idea anymore because he always got bad spot. It was hard already to keep quality and control those 30 franchisees.
He needed to sell different way.
**** I don’t know the below actually happened or not. It seems a little too fantasy to be in person’s real life. I think there a good change that the writer or Top himself had added it to make story more interesting. It was too claver for 18 year-old boy in my opinion.
One day while he was walking in Bangkok’s weekend market, he spotted a group of girl scouts line up, standing, singing and asking for a donation from people who walked by in front of the market’s toilet.
He didn’t understand why that girl scouts happened to stand in front of the market’s toilet but that didn’t bother him. (In Thailand, we have to pay small change for entering some private own toilet, usually it cost 3 small coins).
Then he saw many people were giving a few coins to those girl scouts without hesitation, while another group of girl scouts on the opposite side of the same street didn’t get much donation. Both sides were crowded. That was interesting, he thought. He made a conclusion in his mind “ok, what makes people pay easily is charity”.
Just about to walk away, he found that. No no no! It wasn’t charity. It has nothing to do with charity. It is “Location”. Girl scouts who asked for donation in front of paid toilet got more donation because at that spot people were ready to pay.
Before entering the toilet, put their hand a pock to reach for small coins to pay for the toilet fee, there is a good change that they found some coins in the pockets.
When people came out of the toilet or before going in, they knew they have to pay just to take a pee. And if there are coins left in the pocket, why not give to little girls.
So he knew to sell well he needed location. If he reaches to people who were ready to buy, more change that people will see and buy his product. And if he could reach to more locations, he would be able to even more.
Since crispy “fried” seaweed is for eating, he needed a place or many places where people can go, buy and eat it right away.
The outlets that have the access to large amount of people in the country was 7-Eleven. In 2004, there were 3,000 7-Eleven in Thailand (now 6,000).
Not very long after that, he went to 7-Eleven office to present his product. Back it 2004, it was quite easy for any person to just pop in the office and show what he wanted to sell. Nowadays, it is almost impossible for one man product. It has to be presented as registered company with proper plan.
He managed to meet with 7-Eleven product managers. After the crispy “fried” seaweed have been test and reviewed, he got accepted for further process, with a few recommends for change package and price.
7-Eleven staff explained Top in brief about procedure what to do next. First, they had to visit Top’s factory 30 days from now. In the factory, they wanted to see production line, process, and they wanted perform some quality & safety check. After that it would take a few weeks for them to give final confirmation whether the crispy “fried” seaweed can be sold in 7-Eleven or not.
The problem was at age 19, he didn’t have a factory, employees, production line or anything like that. So next day we walked to the bank, asking for a loan, and got rejected.
He believed that having the access to 7-Eleven worth more than anything. So he sold the ownership chestnut franchise business, including equipment and the remaining materials to some investors. At that point chestnut franchise still gave him THB1 million a month.
When he got money, he renovated and turned an old small building of his parents that was not put to auction yet in to a small factory. Also hires a 5-6 neighborhoods to be his factory staff.
7-Evelen came to visit the factory and did checking processes. He received a few feedback.
Several days later, he got a call from 7-Evelen’s staff for the final confirmation. The staff informed him that the management has approved his crispy “fried” seaweed to be sold in 7-Eleven.
7-Eleven also wanted the final confirmation from him if he could deliver 72,000 packs of crispy “fried” seaweed in the first shipment within 45 days, and the it had to be available in all 3,000 of 7-Elevent outlets thought the country, yes or no?
Only an idiot will say no.:coolgleamA:
He did deliver the first lot of crispy “fried” seaweed. Within 3 months crispy “fried” seaweed was available in every 7-Eleven in the country. 2 years later Top’s crispy “fried” seaweed was exported to Singapore and Hong Kong.
Three years later, he was worth THB100 million ($3.3 million). In 2011, the revenue of crispy “fried” seaweed increase to THB1.5 billion ($50 million) per year (at 2011).
Now his crispy “fried” seaweed is sold in all 6,000 7-Eleven outlets, major super market, shops, and almost all grocery.
In 2011, the product is now available in 19 countries including US, UK, Canada and Australia. He becomes the Thailand’s youngest self-made billionaire with net worth of THB 1 billion ($33 million) at age 26.
***Note: The richest person in Thailand had net worth of THB 220 billion ($7 billion)
If you want to see what Top’ billion-dollar product looks like, or get more information, just do a google search for keyword “taokaenoi” .
The first results should be the company website (in red theme).
In Youtube, you can search the same.
One thing ironic, that is Tao kae noi means “A Young Millionaire”. He got it when he came back home from selling chestnut, he heard his father jokingly talking a friend “Oh… my son will be a young millionaire, can you believe that? ” From the interview, he said as soon as he heard that, he would use that as his brands. "A young millionaire" name became the brand name for his crispy “fried” seaweed
---
So, what we can learn from this.
I have two below.
Execution
Top loves progress & execution. When have new idea, he didn’t sit and think about it. He went out and did something about it.
Distribution
The access to good locations.
In the beginning, 7-Eleven really gives him a lot leverage in terms of distribution. What he has to do is only produced a good quality crispy “fried” seaweed then ship to a 7-Eleven’s warehouse in north Bangkok.
Next morning his crispy “fried” seaweed is available in all 76 cities. Assuming that the product is really good, all problems related to distribution, and all transportation problems are handled by 7-Eleven.
With this power, he was able increase his wealth very fast.
What do you think?
I translated the story from a few of his interviews in found on Youtube and from Thai magazines. I spent a few hours to translate & collaborate this material. Hope it provides the community some value
Here...
In 2004, young kid name “Top” walked into a bank in Bangkok. He asked a bank officer if he could make THB10 million ($330,000) loan for his business. That bank officer thought this kid came in to make a joke. He was totally ignored.
The bank officer didn’t know at first is that kid already made THB 1 million ($33,000) a month, from his franchise business.
After a short discussion with the bank officer, he was informed that his request got rejected. Not because his documents were not ready, or his income statement didn’t look good enough.
It was because his highest education he had so far was just high school, and he was just 19 years old. So he was not qualified for making a loan.
A few years earlier in high school, he was not a very good student. He didn't pay attention to his study, instead he was so addicted to online game. There was a game called “Everquest” which he got addicted that he played almost all day everyday. That made his grades in high school very poor.
However, he was very good in the game world. In fact, he was the best player in his arena. He could collect all rare items required for character upgrade that other people couldn’t find.
As he was well-known within the game world, other players started to contact him to buy the game items. So he started to make money by selling the game items, mostly to players from USA. Two years in high school, he made a lot of money from selling the game item.
According to one of his interview, he was able to make THB100,000 – THB200,000 ($7,000) a month by selling game items alone. The amount was this amount sufficient so that he bought his first car (brand-new) by himself.
After high school, he entered university (University of Chamber of commerce of Thailand) at age 17. In first year of, he also didn’t pay attention to his study.
The turning point was when he didn’t have money and asked his mother for money, his mother with serious face, spent about 10 minutes looking for the money for him. That was the moment he knew there was something going on in his family.
It turned out that his parents were about to declared bankrupted because of some bad investments. The house they lived in could be put in auction any time. His parents had THB40 million (US$1.3 million) in debt, and prepared to move to China and stay there permanently as there might be nothing left in Thailand to avoid those creditors.
He knew that he has to do something about it. Finally he sold his game ID for good amount of money. He spent much of time on thinking how to make money so he could help his parent and to escape study life.
He looked at a lot of opportunities that might work for him, such as sell food and open small coffee shop in front of campus. He did try to sell something but it didn’t work. He also invested in buying large number of cheap CD players, but didn’t sell well as they broke easily. The people who bought buyers got mad.
One day in 2003 he had chance to visit international business fair in north Bangkok. He looked around and found franchise from Japan “Chestnut Franchise”. (Japanese name but China made) As he always loved chestnut, he approached the franchise staff, and found that the whole set of equipment including franchise brand was too expensive.
So he bargained to buy only a chestnut roaster. (Normally, after any exhibition end, staff wouldn’t want to carry heavy tool back. Those apparatus are for show anyway. People would approach selling staff as the end if last late to but something at a discount rate) Top got the roaster machine back home.
He began to think about his own franchise. He used that roaster to roast chestnut himself and sold chestnut in a super market. Since he never roasted or cooked anything before, he could sell well.
He bought space in Big-C Supermart and he hired an employee to sell chestnut there. First few weeks, the chestnut was not sold very well. Some days it was never sold at all. Customers complained that the taste was terrible.
He went outside to check what happened in chestnut business outside. He went to fresh markets, China town and weekend market. He wanted to see how people roast and sell chestnuts. He secretly noted down techniques, ingredients, and tips he got from those chestnut sellers to improved his
The taste of his chest nut got better. Within a short time (after 4-5 weeks), his chestnut was sold out very fast. The first day he sold out his chestnut, he told his only one employee that he would expand to other locations. That day his chestnut made THB5,000 ($170) in profit. He will create a franchise. If he could expand to 20 stands, it will be 100,000 a day.
One and a half years later, he did sell 30 franchises. His chestnut business gave him THB1,000,000 ($33,000) a month. He was franchiser at 18.
At that time, he dropped out from the university.
The business was so successful, but he didn’t want to limit himself to only chestnut. So he put other things (snacks) into his business like dehydrate peach, lungan and crispy “fried” seaweed. Not very long after that, he found that the thing that was sold out fastest each day was not chestnut. It was crispy “fired” seaweed.
Not a few days that crispy “fried” seaweed was sold out, but almost everyday it was sold out first. He didn’t know much about this product, as he bought it from wholesalers in China town and re-sold it.
Also one day, he had to pick up a friend, and during the ride his friend didn’t do anything but ate crispy “fried” seaweed all the time.
He thought there must be something special about it. Then he bought more packs of crispy “fried” seaweed , but not for selling. He give to anybody he knew and asked what they thought about it. Almost everybody loved it.
He was surprised that no one had sold crispy “fried” seaweed as retail. All were big pack wholesales.
That moment, he knew he would turn the business direction to crispy “fried” seaweed. He would sell crispy “fried” seaweed in small packs. So He studied as much he could about crispy “fried” seaweed things.
He fired seaweed himself, went to university lab to meet with technical and get advice how to keep seaweed for a long time.
Now he knew how to fried seaweed. He had the product and he wanted to sell it fast. Selling it at chestnut stand was not a good idea anymore because he always got bad spot. It was hard already to keep quality and control those 30 franchisees.
He needed to sell different way.
**** I don’t know the below actually happened or not. It seems a little too fantasy to be in person’s real life. I think there a good change that the writer or Top himself had added it to make story more interesting. It was too claver for 18 year-old boy in my opinion.
One day while he was walking in Bangkok’s weekend market, he spotted a group of girl scouts line up, standing, singing and asking for a donation from people who walked by in front of the market’s toilet.
He didn’t understand why that girl scouts happened to stand in front of the market’s toilet but that didn’t bother him. (In Thailand, we have to pay small change for entering some private own toilet, usually it cost 3 small coins).
Then he saw many people were giving a few coins to those girl scouts without hesitation, while another group of girl scouts on the opposite side of the same street didn’t get much donation. Both sides were crowded. That was interesting, he thought. He made a conclusion in his mind “ok, what makes people pay easily is charity”.
Just about to walk away, he found that. No no no! It wasn’t charity. It has nothing to do with charity. It is “Location”. Girl scouts who asked for donation in front of paid toilet got more donation because at that spot people were ready to pay.
Before entering the toilet, put their hand a pock to reach for small coins to pay for the toilet fee, there is a good change that they found some coins in the pockets.
When people came out of the toilet or before going in, they knew they have to pay just to take a pee. And if there are coins left in the pocket, why not give to little girls.
So he knew to sell well he needed location. If he reaches to people who were ready to buy, more change that people will see and buy his product. And if he could reach to more locations, he would be able to even more.
Since crispy “fried” seaweed is for eating, he needed a place or many places where people can go, buy and eat it right away.
The outlets that have the access to large amount of people in the country was 7-Eleven. In 2004, there were 3,000 7-Eleven in Thailand (now 6,000).
Not very long after that, he went to 7-Eleven office to present his product. Back it 2004, it was quite easy for any person to just pop in the office and show what he wanted to sell. Nowadays, it is almost impossible for one man product. It has to be presented as registered company with proper plan.
He managed to meet with 7-Eleven product managers. After the crispy “fried” seaweed have been test and reviewed, he got accepted for further process, with a few recommends for change package and price.
7-Eleven staff explained Top in brief about procedure what to do next. First, they had to visit Top’s factory 30 days from now. In the factory, they wanted to see production line, process, and they wanted perform some quality & safety check. After that it would take a few weeks for them to give final confirmation whether the crispy “fried” seaweed can be sold in 7-Eleven or not.
The problem was at age 19, he didn’t have a factory, employees, production line or anything like that. So next day we walked to the bank, asking for a loan, and got rejected.
He believed that having the access to 7-Eleven worth more than anything. So he sold the ownership chestnut franchise business, including equipment and the remaining materials to some investors. At that point chestnut franchise still gave him THB1 million a month.
When he got money, he renovated and turned an old small building of his parents that was not put to auction yet in to a small factory. Also hires a 5-6 neighborhoods to be his factory staff.
7-Evelen came to visit the factory and did checking processes. He received a few feedback.
Several days later, he got a call from 7-Evelen’s staff for the final confirmation. The staff informed him that the management has approved his crispy “fried” seaweed to be sold in 7-Eleven.
7-Eleven also wanted the final confirmation from him if he could deliver 72,000 packs of crispy “fried” seaweed in the first shipment within 45 days, and the it had to be available in all 3,000 of 7-Elevent outlets thought the country, yes or no?
Only an idiot will say no.:coolgleamA:
He did deliver the first lot of crispy “fried” seaweed. Within 3 months crispy “fried” seaweed was available in every 7-Eleven in the country. 2 years later Top’s crispy “fried” seaweed was exported to Singapore and Hong Kong.
Three years later, he was worth THB100 million ($3.3 million). In 2011, the revenue of crispy “fried” seaweed increase to THB1.5 billion ($50 million) per year (at 2011).
Now his crispy “fried” seaweed is sold in all 6,000 7-Eleven outlets, major super market, shops, and almost all grocery.
In 2011, the product is now available in 19 countries including US, UK, Canada and Australia. He becomes the Thailand’s youngest self-made billionaire with net worth of THB 1 billion ($33 million) at age 26.
***Note: The richest person in Thailand had net worth of THB 220 billion ($7 billion)
If you want to see what Top’ billion-dollar product looks like, or get more information, just do a google search for keyword “taokaenoi” .
The first results should be the company website (in red theme).
In Youtube, you can search the same.
One thing ironic, that is Tao kae noi means “A Young Millionaire”. He got it when he came back home from selling chestnut, he heard his father jokingly talking a friend “Oh… my son will be a young millionaire, can you believe that? ” From the interview, he said as soon as he heard that, he would use that as his brands. "A young millionaire" name became the brand name for his crispy “fried” seaweed
---
So, what we can learn from this.
I have two below.
Execution
Top loves progress & execution. When have new idea, he didn’t sit and think about it. He went out and did something about it.
Distribution
The access to good locations.
In the beginning, 7-Eleven really gives him a lot leverage in terms of distribution. What he has to do is only produced a good quality crispy “fried” seaweed then ship to a 7-Eleven’s warehouse in north Bangkok.
Next morning his crispy “fried” seaweed is available in all 76 cities. Assuming that the product is really good, all problems related to distribution, and all transportation problems are handled by 7-Eleven.
With this power, he was able increase his wealth very fast.
What do you think?
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