The IT man’s gorgeous turn: he changed careers three times, and his business went to 60 countries overseas, earning more than 200 million yuan a year!

PART 1- Catch a straw when you are most tired

      E-commerce is a straw. When he was exhausted physically and mentally, Mr. Chen decided to change careers, so he reached out to grab the straw.

      Before doing e-commerce, Chen was always a practitioner in the traditional industry. He was engaged in fast-moving consumer goods, and he mainly dealed with supermarkets and dealers every day. After more than 6 years of work, Mr. Chen switched to IT and worked for more than 6 years.

      Recalling the years when he was working in IT, Mr. Chen said that he mainly worked on projects, dealing with the government and some larger companies, and he was exposed to some IT equipment and computer rooms every day.

      In the 12 years of fast-moving consumer goods and IT, Mr. Chen has been very tired because these two are traditional industries and have a lot of food and drinks, and the easiest way to deal with customers is to eat and drink. Surviving in a business is inevitable that we will need social engagements, and Mr. Chen is constantly assimilated by the industry atmosphere.

      "When I first graduated, my alcohol content was very poor, and a bottle of beer could almost be poured." Mr. Chen recalled his first job that year. He took his master to exercise his alcohol content. He had lunch together at noon and asked him to drink a bottle of wine. The bottle of wine was drunk from lunch to dinner, and it was not until after dinner.

      Later, Mr. Chen was constantly trained to drink, from starting a project to completing a project, and completing a series of things, such as receivables, all of which need to be dealt with, making him very tired. "I'm very tired, so I want to change careers and do things that I can do without such crazy social engagements."

PART 2- Give up 5 years of domestic e-commerce, all in cross-border e-commerce

      In 2012, Mr. Chen, who left the traditional industry, started e-commerce and started doing maternal and infant business. After more than two years of work, Mr. Chen, who is in Xiamen, saw that many people around him were doing cross-border e-commerce and did a good job. In 2014 and 2015, Mr. Chen himself had a good domestic e-commerce business and the company also had certain profits.

      Despite this, Mr. Chen felt that he should find another way out for the future of his company in case of emergencies. "If domestic e-commerce is not easy to do, there will be some way to retreat at that time." So Mr. Chen invested in many directions, and cross-border e-commerce is one of the directions of investment. While taking care of domestic e-commerce, he started to plan cross-border e-commerce .

      It was 2014, and Mr. Chen became the second group of people doing cross-border e-commerce in the country. Around 2010 and 2012, the first group of people doing cross-border e-commerce, such as Youkeshu and Anke, all entered the market at that stage.

      From the moment he decided to do cross-border e-commerce, Mr. Chen began to register trademarks and register American companies. He also registered with a domestic account and began to try to ship goods from China little by little, and then slowly started overseas business.

      From 2015 to 2016, Mr. Chen gradually found a feeling in cross-border e-commerce, so he gradually gave up domestic e-commerce. In recent years, he has closed all stores on Tmall and JD.com, and until 2019, he only retained one Tmall flagship store for maternal and infant categories, and all the others were closed.

      Since 2017, Mr. Chen and his team have all been in cross-border e-commerce, and the proportion of domestic e-commerce has gradually decreased and is getting smaller and smaller. "Our domestic e-commerce has not been basically collected this year, and it has been completed from 2012 to 2021."

PART 3- Picking mistakes are the biggest pitfall

      In the past decade, e-commerce has had the difficulties of transforming from domestic e-commerce to cross-border e-commerce? Mr. Chen smiled and said, it was very difficult to say, but in fact he had quite a lot of thoughts. Mr. Chen’s English is not very good. When he first started doing cross-border e-commerce, he needed to use talents to solve this problem, but the few supervisors he recruited were not suitable.

      In fact, at that time, Mr. Chen also thought about giving up, but he was optimistic about global business. In his opinion, Chinese companies have natural advantages when competing with foreign companies, because China has lower labor costs in the industrial belt, and Chinese people are more diligent. More importantly, Chinese people are more willing to spend time on their careers, so the probability of success is higher than that of foreigners.

      Of course, Chinese companies will also have their own difficulties. For example, brands, Chinese brands are not as well-known as foreign brands in the local area, but have a high enough cost-effectiveness. This is also the reason why Mr. Chen is confident.

      Speaking of the pitfalls that have been struck by cross-border e-commerce, Mr. Chen said that the most impressive thing about him is also the most trapped one, which is the talent issue. He had experienced two mistakes in selecting people. The first time he hired the supervisor was to find someone he thought was a big shot. After he came, he found that his skills were high and he changed it in less than a month. The second supervisor I recruited was not good at character. While getting his salary, he opened a small shop himself, selling their own products, and fiddling with the company's products through the company's wholesale business.

      "The company is paying advertising costs, but he puts the profits in his own pocket. The mistake in selecting people is the most impressive thing for me to start an e-commerce business." Mr. Chen concluded.

PART 4- Lower the pursuit of profits and value the company's model and value

      As a veteran of e-commerce for ten years, Mr. Chen has experienced both domestic e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce. The transformation of business layout has also made Mr. Chen constantly change. When he was in e-commerce, he considered more about how to sell goods, how to make his products better, and how to make the entire company's operations and profits higher.

      Now, Mr. Chen is thinking more about how to make his company more valuable, be able to do more meaningful things for this society, and make this career full of infinite possibilities.

      "It lowers the pursuit of profits, and also lowers the pursuit of very detailed products and brands, and focuses more on corporate models, corporate management, etc.." This is the biggest difference between Mr. Chen's previous e-commerce and now e-commerce.

      Mr. Chen is not only a founding member of Lao Gao Cross-border E-commerce Club, but also a member of the second phase of Jinguan Club. When he was planted by Jinguan Club, he first joined Laogao E-commerce Club. In Laogao E-commerce Club, Mr. Chen felt that it had a great impact on his understanding and opened up a lot, so he applied to Jinguan Club.

      "The entire Golden Crown Club has always practiced the friendship of good brothers. I have also found many like-minded friends in the Golden Crown Club, good brothers, and everyone helps and supports each other." Mr. Chen mentioned his understanding of the Golden Crown Club. He and Lao Gao are good brothers from fans to friends to today's life. He feels that Lao Gao has helped him a lot, helped him open up his cognition and broaden his previous situation.