Latest / Pitch to Product / Touring 16 Chinese Factories In Two Weeks
Transcript
- Pitch to Product: are we here? Why is it important? What the heck are we doing in China? Hello. Hi. We're with the team here in Shanghai. It's 10 30 p.m. at night right now at home. So we were going to do a live podcast, and this is the next best thing. So we've got a list of questions from our team at home that we're gonna be answering today. I guess let's start off with some introductions. Why don't you go first? Yeah. Hi, I'm Jada Jane. I'm a designer on the design team of 52 Launch and I'm really excited to be able to go on this trip to China as we're starting to Bring some more of the designers to get a better idea of how some of the manufacturing processes and production work. I can go next. So I'm Paige, I'm a product developer. This is my second time in China. I went for a month last year, and this time I got to bring Jada. It's kind of fun being here for her first time. We're here with two of our Chinese employees. They've worked with us for a little bit. I you guys go ahead. Introduce yourself. Yeah, keep going. Keep going? Keep going. Go ahead. Might introduce myself? Yeah, get in the camera. Hello, I'm Robin. Like I've been working for 52 launch for about three years and basically I'm taking care of the sourcing and with the factories and yeah and the daily communicate daily communication with the factories every day, yeah follow up the sampling, creation, bug production, something like that. Hi, my name is Vincent. nice to meet you and I I'm the source manager working in 50 to launch. So so far I've worked in this company for about one year. So my major responsibility was to you know assist to source and from China and also try to find the super suppliers as per the project requirements. And also I will be the one you know responsible or later on coordinated for the QC inspection and as well as the final shipping to the overseas destinations. And on this trip, we're actually going to be interviewing a couple of new people for QC. Jason's been spending a lot of time traveling all throughout China to do our inspections for us, the quality inspections at the very end of the project. So hopefully we'll have a couple more people helping us with those too. Yes, yes, sure. Okay. Next question. Okay, what city are you calling from? We already answered that. Shanghai. It's about what's what's the temperature right now? It's 86 degrees Fahrenheit, which is actually on the cooler side of what we been experiencing this trip. It's usually been mid-90s with very high humidity. Very, very high humidity. So that's been a bit of an adjustment. But today should be nice. We're gonna actually, it's our first day that's had a little bit more downtime, so we're gonna do some sightseeing after this. Alright, next question. How many cities and factories are you seeing as part of your trip? so Jada and I were just actually well all of us were just counting it. I think we're gonna see around fifteen, maybe sixteen total, but gonna we're gonna be hitting around thirty to forty-five projects because a lot of our factories have multiple projects that we work with them on. we flew into Hong Kong two Wednesdays ago and we stayed in the Shenzhen Dongguan area. it's in the south, and then We took a high-speed train up to the Shanto, Shaman, what's that province? Fuzhou province? Yes. Fuzhou. Fujian Fujian province. Fujian province. And then we worked our way up to more in the north. So now we're in the Shanghai area. We'll be seeing a couple in Hangzhou. Hangzhou. We saw two in the Jinhua area. One we went out to Nanjing. Nanjing. And then we're gonna be finishing up in Ningba. So we have a couple days left in Ning. And then we go back to Hong Kong to fly a beautiful 15 hours home. Back to Boston. Okay, so why are we here? Why is it important? What the heck are we doing in China? Do you wanna take this one? Sure. So there's quite a few things that we're able to do while we're face to face in China. Obviously, we're visiting a ton of factories and suppliers and we are talking about all of your projects. We are on the spot managing and correcting certain things on samples. We are getting advice back from the factory on some of the projects. We're actually able to present new projects to the factory, which saves us so much time in the back and forth communication, especially with the time difference. And then we're getting real-time feedback from them, which has been great. and along the way learning a lot, a lot, a lot about the manufacturing processes, building relationships, the importance of these relationships, and making new friends and seeing Asia. Yeah, so I'm I'm talking to Robin and Jason every day. This is Jada's first time meeting them, but yes, but as a product developer, me and Sander and Luke and Jeffrey. Our whole product development team, we are on WeChat every single day, the whole entire time we're awake. So not only for the projects that we're seeing and meeting the factory managers, but for us being able to talk about the projects on the spot where usually it takes we'd have to wait 12 hours because our we talk in the night and in the morning, but being able to just be here all day, you know, we're in the back of a taxi and I'm like, hey Jason, can does the factory understand this and we can have a conversation about it? So speeds things up so much, so valuable. Right. The factory, I mean, asking them for pictures of color swatches and getting them a day later and saying, no, we need we need a better one. just being able to do it there with them and get it done in five minutes is just a huge time saver. Yeah. And then from the design, the design side, growing a lot as a designer and understanding and seeing in person how these projects are being made, and meeting the people that make the projects and the machines. make the projects will help future designs and help my knowledge and the team's knowledge and so we can all just continue to get better and quicker more efficient. Absolutely. so our day to day, what does our day to day, like the average day look like? one of you guys answer you put too quiet. What is what is like a normal day look like when we're here visiting each other? You got it. Okay, so I think like, you know, every morning some, you know, me and Jada and the page song we were together have a have a breakfast and then sometimes we would discuss about schedule to visit the supplier one by one and I think for this chip you know basically for every supplier we have very good results after visiting each of the suppliers and also for some new products and the new projects so like we see a lot of big potentials to work with the existing suppliers so we see a very good positive news from the suppliers so every day we are we key to to visiting the to visit the suppliers. He's missing out the the part of all the D Ds and the trains and the cars and the planes. So I think we're we've actually this has been better than my last trip. We've been spending how long do you think in the car or the train? at least two hours every day. Yeah, two to three hours every day, which is less than usual. Yeah. We've had a few three, four hour train rides. Yeah. which is crazy because if we were to take the train at home, it probably would take ten hours. Yeah. They're really, really fast, a lot better than our transportation. But we've been in the back of a car a lot. Right. Most days. Also a lot of lunches and dinners. Yes, you're right. And most days we are seeing two factories with two suppliers so back to back meetings with the with the meal in between, see if we can squeeze in a little time for doing some some of our own work and catching everybody up at home, making sure that we're inputting all the information that we're gathering and doing whatever. needs to be down on the side and then finding time to to hang out and actually enjoy where we are enjoy the people that we're with. Yeah. The Chinese are very hospitable. Yes. They're very Jason and Robin and all the factories, they're always like let's go eat a meal together. It's very traditional. Everyone's sharing food. It really helps get to know people outside of the project too and make it even stronger. Yeah. Okay, so what have you learned about the process since being in China? Is there anything that surprised you? I've been here before, so I'm gonna let our first timer answer this question. my gosh. There's been so much. There's been obvious the obvious cultural differences, which has been kind of amazing to see. And there's been, I guess, a huge emphasis on those relationships that we do have with. the the factories and being able to build those and the importance of that has been a little bit surprising to me because previously I don't do a ton of the communications back and forth between the factory. I'm kind of making the documents and setting things up for Paige and the rest of the production team to handle. But now I'm being introduced into those conversations. I'm being added into the group chats and I'm being able to handle some of those problems and questions which has been super cool. And then seeing the actual people and the actual machines that are making these projects and products, it's just I don't know, it's kind of just insane. It's really it's yeah it's really amazing. There's real people behind every request that we're making, every tech pack we're sending over every three-day model. and they have personalities too, just like us, and just understanding that and Of that and how how I can even in the documentation side kind of transfer some of that knowledge over has been really really interesting and something I'm going to do a lot more intent intentionally moving forward. Yeah. I think for me it's been like learning that I have to work differently with different people. Yeah. So I think at home, even before I've been to China, my understanding of manufacturing was just kind of like this. well-oiled machine, you're not thinking about the people that are getting sick. We have to get a new project manager because someone got really sick or somebody responds really well to direct pressure and some people don't. Some people need more kind of like just just a different way of working. So for me it's been learning how to work with different people that have a different culture and and they just work differently than us. You kind of have to learn how work in China versus in the States. Yeah. Okay, so while we have Jason and Robin here, we're gonna ask them some more questions. do you have any advice for our clients? Hmm yeah that's a big question that's a big question. Any question to our clan well based on my experience like those sign pepper I got from the we got from the client Yeah they're very unique, so innovative. If we really can make it 100% happen, nothing changed. That gonna be great. But like there's some machine in China, although the future have been doing such product for so many years. They have the equipment, they have the machine, they have the workers, they have labors. But from zero to one. It's something different, especially when the tape pad, the design is so unique, so innovative. So that means like sometimes we probably have to compromise. We have to compromise. We may not we might not be able to make the design 100% stay as the tape pad, but we can make it 80, 90%, something like that. If we always like insist you have to be exactly the same, then the product will never ever happen. So yeah, compromise is something we have to do. And what we have to do better is like we need to find the balance point from here to here. So where's the balance point? We have to figure out. So that's what that's me and Jason, Jada, PageJob, everything. We have to communicate with the factory manager every day and talk about a lot of hours. adjust the machine how we can buy some new compliment to make the sand hooks like try our best to make a sand hook it's the sand is the replacement something so yeah it wasn't an easy job to do yeah it's all but it's not just something you work really hard you make it happen but The idea is very important. Yeah, we have to think a lot. We have to communicate really well with the battery guys and figure out, okay, this is something, yeah, something we can make, can be made in China. And also can escape. waste market by the client, by the consumers. So this takes time and also takes money, investment to make it to make it happen. Yeah we are still digging. I believe that it's we keep working on that a couple years later we will have more experience, have more resources so we can yeah make our development, our projects better better. Yeah, our goal is just make the same formula. On the way to hundreds of percent same is like infection is gonna kill place infection is what are they perfection is gonna kill profitability. Exactly, exactly. And the set that we're doing is so innovative that yeah, sometimes we do have to compromise. Exactly. It's very innovative and a lot of times we're asking for their minimum quantity. Yeah. So the factories are it's it's difficult to ask them to invest in something so unique and innovative when we're also asking them to do the minimum that they're willing to offer. so I think there's definitely a balance of like we can keep pushing them for it, but at a certain point we do have to compromise. and we have to make those decisions balancing out. we we need this to be successful in the market, but this is also the first time it's being introduced to the market. So we have to get it to a point where we can just get it out there and test it and like the iPhone is on iPhone 17 and they started with one, so it's all about just getting it out there and yeah. I 52 launch for me is just kind of like dream worker. Dream worker. It's a dream work. You have dream, you have idea. It's true. We are in charge to how make your dream happen. It comes true. Yeah, yeah. That's a great company. So that that leads into our next question. What's your favorite part of working with 52 Launch? you or me first? You first. Okay, okay, okay. Okay, yeah, yeah. I will tell you first because I work for 52 Launch probably two years longer than Jason. So So yeah the first thing is like the business of 52 launch grow really fast in the past few years. Every week, every month we have new customers, we have new product projects, keep coming. It just made us make we employ, feel like wow, that's great. Business growing. We see hope, right? Yeah, this is the first thing. The second thing is like All the products, all the projects we got so far are so innovative. It always kind of like based something already exists in the market. But we made something very unique. Nobody ever does that. Yeah. Something, yeah in China we call it saving point. Something very special selling point in the market. Yeah. So innovative sometimes means challenge. It also means it's funny. It's interesting. So yeah, just make me and Jay's ex sourcing to your canoe like, yeah, it's chilling, another challenge day. But it's not a funny day. Let's see what's gonna happen. Can we find the right battery? to take care of this project. Yeah. Especially every single time. When we really find the right one, the right battery to cooperate with, and they say yes, this something can be happening, we can do it. Really just great, especially when the sample is really complicated and we s saw something real from the temperature, from the computer to become a real thing. Wow, that really just so nice. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think the other cool thing is how many different types of factories have we seen? I mean we've been to some cut and sew, metal, memory foam, toys, motorized brushes. Sport sporting goods. Sporting goods. we've been to all different kinds of factories. I guess. Yeah. We're talking about products probably hundreds already, but you we talk about peel grade. The peel gray, right? Kitty gray. category gray. It's kinda like textile. Yeah, yeah. Textiles. Electronics. Electronics. Health we're seeing health products, medical. Yeah, basically. So we still focus on something. We are not just we want to get everything. But we also kind of professional some yeah. Yes. Yeah. And the cool part too is also like we're we're not experts in any of those things so being able to like work with people that can tell us like like I I help health products like I we do so many things. I'm like, what do you think? And they're like, yeah, like let's do this. And we're like, sounds good to me. It's been super cool. Yeah. Okay, so last question, what's coming next? What's next in our schedule and just what's next in general? I can answer. We're we're today we're I mean we're getting a little bit worked on this morning, but we're going to go explore Shanghai. And then tomorrow we're seeing two factories. One of them is the health products and Robin's coming with us to that one. Jason's coming with us to another memory foam manufacturer. we have some Interviews coming up for the QC people and then Jada and I fly home and we say goodbye to our uncles. Okay. So then when we come home, Jada and I plan on doing another kind of tell all about our experiences. We've got some funny stories to share. Yes. It's been a great time. Definitely sad it's coming to an end. Also ready to slow down a little bit, not be traveling every single day. so it's bittersweet, but yeah. It's been a great time. We've got a lot of photos and videos to share so that everyone can kind of see what really is happening. It's hard to it's hard to do it and tell about it at the same time, but we've been doing our best to really document everything and share it. so yeah. Yeah, just a couple more nights, a few more days. Yeah. Boston. Alright, how do you say goodbye in Chinese? we stay? Csai Jian. Okay. Okay.