Latest / Whisky Unfinished / Ashley Dudarenok on China, AI & the Long Game

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Ashley Dudarenok on China, AI & the Long Game · Whisky Unfinished

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Hey guys, Rakesh here, the Whiskey Chief.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_04: Firstly, thank you so much for watching this.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_04: I really appreciate it.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: If you could like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome Ashley to Whiskey Unfinished, where the whiskey's never finished, and neither's the conversation.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: However, today, a little bit of an exception for the viewers to understand.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_04: Since you don't drink alcohol, we've decided today I will join you at Income Rottery.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_04: And there's lots of people obviously out there who take a break from alcohol or don't drink.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: Doesn't mean they can't listen to this podcast.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: So today we're trying something a bit new.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_04: We're not gonna drink, we're just gonna have an amazing conversation.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you so much for being here.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you to Cash.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_05: It's exciting!
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_04: It's very exciting, yeah.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: I've had the benefit of knowing you for about a year now through EO Entrepreneurs Organization.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: We're very fortunate to be in the same forum.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_04: We've traveled to India together, we've traveled to Dongguan together, we've gotten to Macau together.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_04: Hopefully, we'll go to many more Thailand, that's right.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_04: We went to Chiang Mai together, and that's all just in the last year, right?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: So uh hopefully we'll get many more adventures around the world together.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: So, but diving into you've been an entrepreneur now what almost 15 years or over 15 years.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_04: I myself also have never worked for a large company, so we won't talk about that.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_04: We'll talk a little bit about what we know.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_04: But you founded agencies, I know you have this beautiful chateau in in France that you rent out and do retreats.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_04: Show Sun, obviously, which is your you know digital transformation agency, is is you know the main thing in your baby.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_04: You're gonna be launching your own podcast soon, so we'll we'll chat about that later.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: I guess looking back over those 15 years, how do you decide, you know, what ventures you want to double down on, and it's really, hey, I want to focus here versus starting new.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_04: I assume it's not only about money, right?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_04: It's gotta be about is it instinct, is it a mix of different things that that helps you decide?
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_05: I think as entrepreneurs, um, we are a different breed.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_05: And everybody goes into business with their own um hopes and delusions, and everybody learns, you know, through their own journey.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_05: For me, when I got into business, it was an accident.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_05: Okay.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_05: I did not wake up one morning and be like, you know what, that's it, this is my calling, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_05: No, I was really, really bored in my corporate job.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, I've done it for a year, I was so bored, and I was thinking to myself, I've done all this studying, I've done all these amazing things.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_05: You know, I was born in the Soviet Union, I've studied abroad, I relocated across the world, I've learned languages, I've I've done all those things, and now I'm gonna live the rest of my life like this.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_05: This is so boring, there must be more to life than this.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_05: Then an opportunity came.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_05: A client that I got to know through my work came and said, Would you do this project with me and for me?
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_05: And that would mean going into business.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_05: So I said yes.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because what's the worst that could happen?
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_05: And then it evolved from there.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_05: My journey taught me that business, first of all, is about three things.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_05: It is about adding value, making money, and for me personally, having fun.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_05: So if one of these things is missing, for example, you don't make money, obviously that's a charity.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_04: That's not a good thing, it's not a good thing, you're not gonna last, no matter how many backers, investors.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, ultimately it's it's not business, right?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_05: If you're not adding value, same thing, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_05: One point you're gonna be discovered.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, look at how many Forbes, 30 under 30 list um awardees are right now in prison or don't have businesses at all.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_05: And ultimately you need to have fun because for me, fun is a very important value.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_05: Um for some people it's not.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_05: So you need to ultimately know what is this entrepreneurship journey uh is for you.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_05: And I felt that my first business was absolutely amazing.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_05: It was a marketing agency, as you said, and it taught me the most important thing.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_05: It taught me marketing.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_05: No matter what you do, everybody says it's about selling, right?
• 3:56
  SPEAKER_05: You need to know sales.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_05: Business is about sales, sales, sales.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_05: But before that, it's about marketing.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I I think in a way marketing is almost better, right?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_04: Because sales is push, marketing is pull.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_04: If you can do your marketing right, your sales become much easier, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_04: And then people are coming to you and you're just hopefully closing the deal.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_04: If you're doing your marketing marketing, exactly.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_05: And to be honest, it is part of the same process.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_05: It is part of the same process.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_05: It's just that when you do sales without marketing, you're trying to do marketing and sales at the same time.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, without realizing it.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you're starting by introducing yourself.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly, exactly, exactly.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_05: And it shouldn't be that.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_05: So my first business really taught me a lot, a lot of things.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_05: And that's why I'm saying uh to your question of you know pivoting and when do you know it's time to move on?
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_05: I believe that ultimately, first of all, understand what kind of entrepreneur you are, what are your values, and then uh from there on, does your business still fulfill you?
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_05: Does it still teach you a lot of things?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_05: So for me, marketing was amazing.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_05: I've done it for 10 years, I love it, and it's a foundation for any other business that I've ever started and run and will run in the future.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_05: But at the same time, I could just see myself 10 years from now doing pretty much the same things at a different scale, maybe with a different social media platform, maybe in a different market.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_05: But it's all more of the same, so it's quite boring.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_05: So at some point, plus of course there were some other uh you know changes because we did marketing for mainland China.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_05: Mainland China is developing very fast back in the day, uh back in the good old days when foreign brands were entering China and they had absolutely no clue.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_05: And social media was evolving into the social commerce, and you could really uh bring up communities that would be your ultimate customers.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_05: It was fun.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_05: We were creating, I mean, the first social media streams, we were creating the first uh group buying pools, and it was it was um magic.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_04: And it was new, right?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_04: It was all innovative and all new platforms for the Western world.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_05: The whole world was still deciding whether they will ever be able to sell through Facebook because it was all about kitty cat pictures.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_05: And in China we have this social commerce going on.
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_04: So And I remember like the first you know, singles day, right, when that became such a and these kind of m milestone days throughout the year that are not just Valentine's Day, yeah.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_05: Where they would sell billions and billions of dollars, and then evolving from a platform going into an ecosystem, and then right now breaking ecosystem silos and creating digital economy, which is more like a life OS, like uh operating system for life in China, all of that was basically happening in front of our eyes.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, that all sounds really exciting to me, but you're saying, hey, you know, I've done that enough now.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_05: Exactly.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_05: So marketing was enough of marketing.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_05: And then you look at uh diminishing uh profits because there's so much competition, because China market also became more mature, so ultimately everybody was focusing on ROI.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_05: So instead of marketing, your real job became again, marketing and sales works hand in hand.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_05: At some point they say, okay, why don't you become a DP, which is doyin partner, something like TP Taoba partner, which basically means you are, apart from doing marketing, you're also in charge of supply chain, you're also in charge of selling products, and it's a different business.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_04: And not something you want to go into.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's a it's a it's a business where you are uh ultimately an online distributor with a very strong marketing function.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_05: So it's not the wrong business, but it's not my business.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's not fun.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh or it doesn't sound like for someone it might be fun.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_04: For some manufacturing and doing all of that is fun and supply chain management and distribution.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_04: For you, you're more excited by the marketing, the brand.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_05: But it was not just about the fun, it was really about learning.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_05: Can I learn a lot here?
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_05: Do I want to be in this business?
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_05: And I mean, we kept uh uh a part of the team and we're still working out of Shanghai, and it's good, but the operation has also shrunk, and I don't spend time there.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_05: There is uh, you know, a team and obviously uh a director there.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_05: Um and then uh the exciting part is about China's digital transformation.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_05: The exciting part is about China building out uh, I believe, the future of how we're gonna run a lot of businesses, building out you know, AI capabilities, robotics, extended reality.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: That is fun.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_05: So we pivoted into a different business.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think it's amazing.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_04: Like while most of the world maybe is sleeping or unaware, I'm I was always fascinated by the dark factories and like how fast that's going in terms of manufacturing when you talk about China's still thought around around the world mostly as manufacturing, right?
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_04: That's at least the the maybe misconception.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_04: I don't know if you agree, but people think, hey, everything I buy, especially in the US or the Western world, made in China, right?
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_04: But more and more of those factories are employing more robotics, more AI, more transformational technologies to need less and less and less workers, right?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that's a fascinating part that people don't realize is happening, I guess, how fast that's happening and how quickly we're getting to levels of crazy efficiency and lower cost.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_04: Because in the last, I guess, 10 years, you know, prices for making things in China had become started to become more expensive.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_04: You'd see factories move to like Vietnam and kind of other cheaper places.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_04: Do you think that changes now with technology and things go back to China?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: Or what what's your view on yeah, what this digital transformation from a manufacturing point of view?
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_05: When it comes to manufacturing, China doesn't want cheap manufacturing anymore.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_05: So if they're very happy for I mean, shoe sellers uh that want very, very cheap flip-flops to go to Vietnam, right?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_05: China wants high-tech manufacturing.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_05: China wants to build robots, not your own.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_02: Semiconductors and yeah.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_05: Right, but but the reality is, I mean, China is all about clusters, right?
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_05: So, for example, in Guangdong, we have the world's largest cluster of underwear manufacturing.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_05: You want push-up bras, you want those swimsuits, whatever it is you need, you want, because there is new material being developed.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_05: There is obviously um, you know, resources, supply chain, there's everybody.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_05: Uh people that produce buttons, people that produce the little boats, everything and anything is there.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_05: And uh looking at Iwu, right?
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_05: Another city in China that a lot of people outside of our region probably have not heard of.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_05: It's basically the capital of Christmas and any kind of small commodities.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's actually my my brother's business and my dad's business, because they've done import export out of China to mostly Africa for, I don't know, 10-15 years.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_04: Iwu is actually one of the b best places to go because the order quantities are smaller, right?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: You could get a few dozen of something or or whatever, a few hundred cartons of something versus a whole you know 40-foot container.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_04: So it's it's a crazy marketplace where you if you haven't been, um, it's hard to imagine how how how efficient and how amazing it is.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_05: Or like the furniture city, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_05: Again, here just across the border from from us, uh, between Shenzhen and Guangzhou.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_05: Same thing.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's a mall after mall after mall after mall of floor.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_05: Of quality quality furniture stores.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_05: So, but what I want to say is that manufacturing in China is definitely changing.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_05: First of all, we do not want cheap manufacturing, we do not want manufacturing that is damaging to the environment.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_05: For example, if you know, uh my husband for many years used to run the chemical business in the region.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_05: And every year they had it harder and harder and harder to get permits to renew their you know sites.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_05: So they don't want that kind of stuff, but they do want more either integrated businesses.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_05: So if we own, let's say, furniture, or if we own, let's say, bags, leather bags manufacturing of a certain yeah, we we will continue owning them at least for a while, but meanwhile, the capabilities are of course gonna be EVs, high quality, any sort of digital products, robots, of course, uh, etc.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_05: And uh for that we have the mines, we have the um uh also supply chain, and we are building on top of each other, like from EVs, we now have robots.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_05: So everybody who you know there was this oversupply of obviously there were a lot of brands and there was this overcapacity, and right now only 15 brands survived.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, but all those people, all those sites, all that innovation and all that human capital right now is building robots.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_04: Well, yes, and with the world entering a crazy energy crisis, I think EVs all of a sudden became a little more popular, right?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_04: So there might be lots more demand for those than we thought.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_04: So going back to to your career and and thinking about you said the chateau, the agency, the podcast, different trips, innovation trips you've done for for brands into China.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_04: Take us back somewhere in in your career over the last 15 years.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_04: What's what's a what's a pivot you did, you know, that really shaped your approach to how you think about business and how you think about scaling?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_04: Tell like tell us a story about um one of those times where you had to make a decision and you you went one way.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_05: Well, I think in my own personal story, there are maybe two uh moments that really defined where I am today.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_05: The first one is maybe 10 years ago or so, I read a book which was called Stand Out or Standing Out.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_05: And in that book, the author said you still have a decade to build your personal brand, to build your thought leadership.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_05: After that, basically the internet is gonna take over, it's gonna be too crowded, it's gonna be very difficult.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_05: So start now.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_05: And if you are a business owner, no matter whether you are a factory owner, whether you do whiskies, whether you have a consulting, you need to be a thought leader in your space.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_05: And I was like, oh, this kind of makes sense.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_05: Especially if you're in marketing, think about it, right?
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_05: You're doing marketing for everybody else, but a lot of agencies back then, a lot of owners of you know those agencies wouldn't have social media presence at all.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_05: And uh uh I started uh I started uh working towards that.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_05: So that pivot was really very uncomfortable because first of all, you need to suddenly be, you know, the spokesperson.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: And out there, you have you're the brand, you're the brand, you're the face, right?
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_05: You need to come up with content.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_05: And you know, right now we think about content, content.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_05: We've heard that word a lot, but think about 10 years ago.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't a thing, right?
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_05: You would come to work and you would work in your business rather than on your business, and you wouldn't sit there as a founder and think, okay, for two days a week, I need to create content.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_05: What to even create?
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah right?
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_05: So it would be videos, it would be um books, it would be reports.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_05: So it took a lot, a lot of time, courage, a lot of discomfort to kind of move and shift and create space around you.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_05: But ultimately, I think it was an amazing decision because it shaped um uh it's not vanity.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_05: A lot of people think thought leadership is vanity, like you become this brand.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: Or egotistical, or this is just you know somebody who needs to talk about themselves, right?
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_04: That's the perception.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: But I think that's the perception maybe because of kind of Hollywood stars and things like that.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_04: But I don't I don't see that in the business sense necessarily.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_05: No, a lot of people, I I also think that a lot of people in the business uh probably started for that reason for that reason, but then they understand they they don't keep up because it's so much work.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_05: And if you don't truly either get value out of it or believe in the concept, you won't pull through.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, you need that consistency in long term.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yes.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_05: And ultimately, thought leadership, in my experience, I've right now done it for eight, nine years, it is infrastructure.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_05: You invest in it for many years for a long time, and then it works for you for the rest of your life.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_05: So we were able to build a community, we were able to activate social media followership.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_05: We that is why our company does not have a sales team.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_05: We don't have a sales team, we only have a marketing team, and marketing team focuses on our thought leadership books, reports, my staff, etc.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_05: So I am a spokesperson, and uh that was again a big pivot rather than selling consulting services or whatever other services.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_04: You were positioned in the marketplace for the services you provide, which is thought leadership into China and and and insights, I should say, into what's happening across China, right?
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so I positioned uh myself as a voice for China's digital transformation.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_04: Which was very smart.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: One thing you said, and I do want to hear you said there were two pivots.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_04: I do want to come back to the second pivot, but just staying on this for a second, you mentioned you know in that book scaling, you know, ten years, you have to do it now.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_04: Is that what you feel ten years later?
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_04: Like in the moment now, do you think it's too late if somebody's listening right now and they want to create their own personal brand?
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_04: Is it too late for them to start now?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_05: I think it's not too late, but you probably that window is shrinking for sure.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_05: So I'd say we still have two years.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_04: Because it's too competitive, or why do you think it's too competitive?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_05: Just because it will be very difficult in about two years from now to distinguish a real person from anything that digital um that is AI, maybe AI.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_05: Anything that that that is created.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_05: Um and people will be fatigued.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_05: So now you still have time to um have a little bit of their mind share.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_05: They will understand that you're a real person, they will grow to, you know, like you, and then once you have community, it's easier kind of to grow the community, etc.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_05: And then you will have to, after maybe two, three, four years, you will have to grow your community by being physically with them.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_05: So there will be a huge, in my understanding, a huge comeback of offline events, of you know, this kind of opportunities for arm to come to to come together offline.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_05: But if you start with zero, right, I it it might be harder in some ways.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_05: But again, I don't think it's gonna be impossible ever.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_05: It always will be.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, I think people I don't know, in a way, do you think that because there will be so much AI content, potentially fake content, potentially, you know, whatever, non non-human generated content, that maybe there'll be more actually uh a want or demand for real authentic content.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_04: So there will be a lot of people.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, but they wouldn't know who is who.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_04: So the challenge is if you're not there already, then they would they would assume you.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_05: I I think in a few years from now, when people see content that they like, they will assume that you are not a real person.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_04: Well, just for anyone listening or watching, we are real.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_04: We're both here.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_05: And we're in the same room.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, we're in the same room.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_04: None of this is whether you believe us or not, I guess that's up to them.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_04: But we are actually filming this live and doing it.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: Um what was the second pivot you were gonna mention?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: There were two key moments in your career.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_05: And the second pivot was becoming Chinese.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_05: So a few years back, I have made a decision to naturalize as Chinese.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_05: And some people thought it was crazy.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_05: They thought, like, what it's very limiting.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_05: They're like, oh, but yes, Ashley, you're working, you know, in the China digital space, and but but why?
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_05: Like it's so limiting, you know.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_05: There's obviously geopolitical tensions, there's like all that.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_05: And I think that to be honest, sometimes committing and going deep is much better than just going broad.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_05: So in my business, I want who I want the founders of the largest companies in China uh to trust me.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_05: I want this, you know, people to know that I'm here for the long haul.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_05: So why wouldn't?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_05: And I genuinely enjoy this part of the world.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_05: This is the place where I've lived most of my life.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_05: I'm not planning to be.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_05: Why not?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_05: So I made that decision, I became Chinese, and again, it's been years, and I would say it was a beautiful uh decision and commitment.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, and I think more people in business also sometimes need to realize that it's not always broad, but sometimes you need to go deep to really figure out where to next.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, technically, my nationality is Chinese.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: We are both Chinese! I have a Hong Kong passport, and I always uh it's always funny, right?
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_04: Because anytime I travel anywhere, I have to write.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, I look Indian.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_04: If you're listening right now, if you turn on video and look at me, I'm I I look Indian, right?
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_04: But I have an American accent because I lived in in the US for a long time.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: But my nationality is Chinese, but I was born in the Philippines, so uh so if if whatever you're asking me where I was born, uh what's my ethnicity, uh, what's my nationality, what's my religion, these are all very, very different things.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: I always found it funny uh years ago, my my business partner uh here in the whiskey world is uh a woman named Lee Tan.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_04: She looks Malaysian Chinese, but she's she has a Malaysian passport, and I have a Hong Kong passport.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_04: Every time we would travel to Shanghai together, I think as you know, back in the day, at least they would split Chinese nationals from non-Chinese nationals, and you have this Indian-looking guy and this Malaysian Chinese looking woman, and I would go to the Chinese national line, and she would go to the foreigner line, and it would always confuse the immigration.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: They would always be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_04: I'd have to basically, you know, take my China card and like stick it on my forehead and be like, no, no, I'm Chinese, and I'm like, mmm, okay.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: If you insist it here.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm I'm committed here as well.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: Well, my wife is American, so I guess technically we're hedging.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: Uh finding either way.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_04: And our daughter has, you know, Hong Kong and US passports, at least for now, until she's 18.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: So we have, you know, a little bit of time to see what happens in the world.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe it gets better, maybe it gets worse.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_04: So you've committed to to being Chinese, and you said that overall that that was a great decision.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_04: Was there any dissent?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_04: Did you have do you remember any experiences where that was viewed as negative in any way?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: Or no?
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_04: It was all very positive once you made that decision.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_04: And you switched from being Russian to being Chinese, right?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, that's right.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_05: Um, I think I mean there are some inconveniences, but more more of uh laughing matter, you know, you enter the hard it's hard to go to the US, it's hard to go to India.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_04: We both were in India in uh in January.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_04: Of uh 2026.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, to get a visa to India.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_04: I'm amazed we both were able to get a visa to India.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_05: Has become uh exponentially more difficult.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_05: Um never imagine.
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_04: I got a I got a one-month, you know, uh one entry, I think it was, so that's long gone.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_04: If I want to go to India, I need to like yeah, apply for a whole year.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_05: I think I need to apply now for next January.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_04: Now you've you had been to India before we went in January of this year.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_04: Did anything change in terms of your perceptions or or thoughts?
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_04: So so just the background is we were both at the uh RIE conference in Pune together, which was hosted by EO, uh Entrepreneurs Organization.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_04: There was, I don't know, maybe 150 or whatever it was, EO members from across India and their wives and families.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_04: I remember we both had a great time.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_04: Was there a key takeaway for you from that or anything that changed about your perception of anything?
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_05: First of all, to see Pune.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_05: I've never been to Pune before, so I've uh only done more, let's say, touristy places from Mumbai to Kerala to you know Goa to Bengaluru, but I've never been to Pune, so it was exciting to see a very different city.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_05: And of course, I mean the EO in India, it's a different breed of animal.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's not what we have here in North Asia, it's very different from what we have in the US, and just to see them in action, they've put together the best show.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_05: I've never been at an event like this.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_05: I I accredit Ritu, I credit Rito, Rita, if you're listening.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_05: I credit you for this amazing experience.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_04: Hey guys, Rikesh here, the whiskey chief.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_04: If you made it this far in the episode, firstly, thank you so much.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_04: As you know, it takes a lot to put on these kinds of episodes.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_04: So if you can like and subscribe below, it really helps us bring the best whiskeys to you and keep doing this show the best we can.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_04: Thanks.
• 23:48
  SPEAKER_04: And what what are your thoughts on how you see India shaping versus where China is shaping now, let's say coming forward in the next five years?
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: I find it interesting because I remember particularly going back to I think it was right around the year 2000.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, the similarities between China and India, if you go back in terms of size of population, GDP, were generally very, very close, right?
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_04: There weren't actually that many differences back then.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_04: China went a very, you know, certain path in terms of opening up, joining the World Trade Order Organization, um, building, building, building, building infrastructure, infrastructure, and obviously the biggest difference is a long-term plan and a very clear, you know, government structure of how that was done.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: India, on the other hand, and they have the one child policy, everything.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_04: India, on the other hand, claims to be the biggest democracy right in the world, and that comes with its own set of challenges in terms of getting you know things done, uh, population you know still growing at a at a bigger rate.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_04: So fast, you know, from 2000, now we're in 2026, you know, 26 later, uh years later.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_04: You obviously have very deep knowledge of of China.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_04: How does China think about India?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_04: Like what what what is the what do you see as the differences in terms of how they're growing, you know, moving forward now?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_05: Both countries are what I call ancient civilizations.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_05: And there is a lot of context that one needs to understand before any common commentary can be given about an ancient civilization.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_05: And India is in my experience, you cannot say infinitely more complex, but at its current state, it's infinitely more diverse.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_05: It's intimately more familiar with its roots, and it is figuring out how to be a modern nation, putting it all together.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_05: China had a different path with the um again Confucius uh philosophy, which basically says that there is a role for everyone in the family or in the organization or in the let's say government.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_05: And uh the role of the government is to lead us out of the darkness, etc.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_05: And they took this role and they simplified the language and they introduced a lot of policies that actually were learned from the Soviet Union that served, if you look from the progress perspective, them very well.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_05: They've also built out infrastructure, even though it's not a profitable project.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_05: Like look at the United States, for example.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_05: There's no infrastructure, there's no public transport.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_05: Right?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_05: Why?
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_05: Because it's not commercially viable, there's no money in it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_05: Okay, but China says there's no money in it, it's okay because I provide it as a service to my for the people.
• 26:41
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_05: So again, we it's very hard to give commentary about India and China without going so much deeper into how those ancient civilizations actually came to being, what do they believe in, and uh how do they interact with, yes, each other, but also with their leadership, and what do they expect of this social contract?
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_05: Because in China expectation is very clear, we've probably all heard about it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_05: There's mandate of heaven, right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_05: And ultimately, which is given to the emperor who says, you rule us, if you rule us wisely and you rule us well, your dynasty will continue.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_05: But if not, the mandate of heaven can and will be taken away.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_05: So for those people that think that oh, in China, you know, everybody's oppressed, that nobody, you know, Chinese will never, you know, like challenge the power of that one unique whatever party, the reality is Chinese uh throughout their five plus uh thousand years of history were quite a rebellious nation.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_05: They they've led many uh many um, let's say, um, situations where governments fell and changed hands.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_05: And that is why the social contract is so important to the current leadership.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_05: They want to do a good job, and they are doing a good job in many ways, and they and they uh are delivering on expectation of the majority of the people most of the times.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_05: And when it comes to India, that social contract, from what I understand and my understanding, is very shallow, is very different because every single locality has their own set of rules, expectations, and and of course, ways to get there.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_04: There's only one thing that brings Indians together, that's cricket.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_04: So that's all the India.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_05: Cricket is a president.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_04: Maybe cricket and Bollywood are the two things that that brings that that nation together.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, but otherwise you're right.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_04: It is it is very uh very split in terms of what's happening in every different community and every different lifestyle.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_04: So so coming back to talking about um China, and you've highlighted a lot of you know market trends, right?
• 28:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um I'm interested to talk a little bit about China's resilience because I think particularly well, not even just through the the pandemic, but I think we're going through another period where China is is leaning on its resilience, especially with everything going on in the world.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_04: It seems to be even more and more focused on getting through this and rebuilding.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_04: Obviously, as we know, in in China stock markets had its challenges, real estate prices have had more than its challenges.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_04: Um, some people have done okay, but a lot of people are not doing as great right now in China.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_04: And China was the big story, I guess, particularly when I moved back to Hong Kong from New York 2009.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_04: It felt like it was all about China, maybe also because it was Hong Kong and we just had the Beijing Olympics in 2008, and it was kind of yeah, I look back as that was kind of China's coming out party to the world, right?
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, and then everything has kind of evolved from there.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_04: But then COVID has changed a lot of that situation, right?
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you know, how uh I guess when you you know talk to particularly Western executives, um, you know, what what's their misconception about China in this now, this next kind of three, four, five years, um, and how should they prepare for this next growth phase?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_04: Because you you work with a lot of Western brands and and just not even Western, but brands outside of China.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_04: Um, how should they be thinking or how should we be thinking about what what you see in China over the next few years in terms of resilience or growth?
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so when it comes to resilience, I think a lot of people still believe that China is resilient because of its government and because of the subsidies and because of the uh you know uh the way that these forces interact, which is partly true, but the real story is China's focus and obsession with the consumer.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_05: The Chinese companies today and the Chinese economy today is resilient because um there's so much internal competition, there's so much um uh demand for high quality, cheap products delivered immediately, right now, um, that those that are able to survive with that gym um come out on top.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_05: And that trains people, that trains companies, that trains the whole again, supply chains, that trains the whole market.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_05: Um and also again, China um is of course evolving, and you've you've mentioned that.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_05: It's not what it used to be 10 years ago, 20 years ago.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, what carried China a lot was the um optimism.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_05: It wasn't just the fact that you know that um everything was happening, but also people believed that tomorrow is always gonna be better than today.
• 31:45
  SPEAKER_04: And it was going in that especially in the 2010s, right?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_04: That was everything was going up.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: The stock market, real estate price, more consumers, uh everything.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_05: But even if there were Asian financial crises, this and that, there was always this belief that this is temporary, but tomorrow is still gonna be better than today because everything is happening, everything's going our way.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_05: You know, we are we are rising, we are thriving, you know, this is where the future is being built.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_05: And for 35 years, again, they delivered on this uh on this optimism up until COVID, when again it wasn't COVID's fault, but COVID surely accelerated some of the structural cracks, let's say.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_05: And again, the uh I think the administration is not delusional, they know that there are challenges.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_05: There are challenges in the, you know, in the structural things, the education, the the pension system, the all of these things that you cannot change overnight.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_05: Um and also the opportunities for the young people.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_05: So for the first time during the pandemic, first of all, a lot of people had um experienced the lockdown, have experienced the limiting uh, let's say, power of uh of Bao An.
• 32:54
  SPEAKER_05: Bao An is the uh security guard who sits downstairs and basically can just decide not to let you out, right?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_05: Or drag you out of your apartment or whatnot.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_05: It was shocking for a lot of people.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_05: So coming out of the pandemic, um many Chinese, especially young Chinese, developed some sort of, you know, kind of psychological challenges, or even if not, then they started working with a psychologist or a coach or somebody else, which is again very unusual.
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_05: Just I'm sure, like in Indian culture, it's very unusual.
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you don't go typically to see a psychologist unless you are clinically unwell.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, depressed or need some serious help.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_04: It's not yeah, it's the mental health issues are not recognized in China or India like they are in the US.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_04: Not not everyone has ADHD immediately, which is when they're born.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I feel like there's a pendulum, and I think the US has gone a little too far, but that's just my opinion.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_04: I I think overdiagnosing and over-medicating, unfortunately.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_04: But yes, coming back to China.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so you're seeing that changing now with young people.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_05: There was a change when it comes to the the uh mental health.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_05: Of course, the this kind of the first instance where you see that wow, my freedoms, so to say, can really be very, really um limited and taken away, right?
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_05: On top of all that, of course, we were locked down for three years, uh which had a significant impact on obviously businesses and not just our real estate, but uh all uh major operations and the jobs and whatnot, more graduates, fewer jobs, all very, very stressful.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_05: So for the first time, this generation that started uh basically thumpying, right, to life flat, uh involution and all that, when they figured out that no matter how hard I work, and I've been sold that story that if you work hard, if you study, you you're like like tomorrow is gonna be better than today.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_05: But for the first time ever, that social contract was kind of not just not given, it was broken in many ways.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_05: So young people feel disillusioned.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_05: Young people feel that you know what, I'm making money now, but why should I spend this money?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_05: Because who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_05: So that mindset is exactly what is holding China today um um a little bit hostage.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_05: And uh the government is aiming to stimulate it, but of course it's not something you can you can easily do.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_05: No, and companies are trying to help, and you know, but it's going to be a huge transformation.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_05: What we are observing, in my view, is not China uh, you know, kind of going down and whatnot.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's evolving into a service consumption uh economy.
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_05: And that evolution, unfortunately, or fortunately, is coinciding with the fact that the generation is seeing a break from that utopian um upward path of optimism.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_05: So we have less optimistic consumers who've seen real time what is possible, and now we need to transition from product-based economy to service-based economy, which is painful for any market.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_05: And China is going through all of all of that at the same time.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_04: Very challenging times, but you you're still optimistic, of course, right?
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_04: You you think this is uh a fa a phase.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_05: This is something I think China will successfully transition into a service-based economy.
• 36:16
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's not gonna transition there in half a year.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_05: No, it's gonna take time.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_02: It does.
• 36:21
  SPEAKER_05: But what China is doing while transitioning um and um shifting their internal market, China is also transitioning into becoming the innovation gym of the world.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_05: Whether you want it or not, you like it or not, if you want to be fit as any organization, um tech as a tech company or or corporate or a small startup, and you want to be mm impactful on a global scale, you need to go to that gym.
• 36:49
  SPEAKER_05: And China is that gym.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_05: So market is doing their own thing, but at the same time, we are very, very much on track with the the whole building the future.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_04: Speaking of the future and and Chinese consumers, so I wanted to ask you about the this little bit of shift that we've been seeing from, you know, Chinese consumers are shifting from buying things to more chasing feelings.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_04: You know, how do you see this emotional economy kind of changing over the next five years?
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: One thing that I noticed I thought was interesting was pets, for example.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I would say maybe 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I'm sure people had pets, but not hugely popular in the last five, six, seven, eight years, immense uh you know, increase in people having pets, again, all relating to less of I need to buy because I need these things, but more emotion things that have an emotional connection.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_04: Are you seeing that trend?
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_04: Do you see that continuing?
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_05: Absolutely.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's it's a global trend.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_05: In fact, we see that across the board.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_05: Um, people want less stuff, people want more um feeling, right?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_05: They they want meaningful, they want an experience, and this this is global.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_05: Um, it's a little bit like that Maslow pyramid when we move up when we already have enough stuff.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_05: You just want different things, and that different thing typically comes in in something less tangible.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_05: So, yes, people want to travel more, people want to have a path who gives them that sense of just you know unconditional love and also sense of belonging, and it's also your your your kind of fur baby, and so many projections go into that path that that um you are building an economy around it.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_05: And China is very good uh at building economies around something.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_05: For example, today uh we've heard during the pandemic there was a huge rise in um uh hiking and the whole outdoor economy, right?
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_05: But um now we have the snow economy, so everybody is skiing.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_05: Um China is building resorts that are open year round, including here in Guangdong, including there in Heilongjiang, including Hainan resorts where you can ski, skate and do whatnot, uh play snowball uh all year round.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_05: And there's a huge economy with it.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_05: So you want to look good, right?
• 39:08
  SPEAKER_04: You want to you want to You gotta dress up, you gotta be warming.
• 39:11
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you gotta train, etc.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_05: etc.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_05: And all of those different economies from silverhead economy, uh or we call them silver swans, right?
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_05: Uh the basically generation that is the wealthiest generation of China today.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_05: They're not Gen Z.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, they're much older, they are retiring, and no, they do not want to look after their grandkids, they want to buy a huge ass camera.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_05: If they even have grandkids, but typically they typically that generation still has or is expecting to have, but uh, they just want to buy a huge camera, you know, and go to uh Shangri-La to shoot birds, you know, and and uh grandmas love uh going again to travel and they rent uh villas together somewhere close to Beijing and they live there in a communal home.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_05: And it's a very different uh generation compared to again somebody who was who was a grandma or granddad uh 15, 20 years ago, just completely, completely different.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_05: And those people hold a lot of money, they they watch microdramas, and uh they're quite fun in so many ways.
• 40:20
  SPEAKER_04: So if you were setting up a new business, or let's say you're getting giving advice to an entrepreneur outside of China who wants to take advantage of something in that realm, what advice would you give them to think about, or or what opportunities do you think could be unlocked in the next, let's say, five years around this you know, emotional economy and all the things that go around that?
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_04: Any advice for anyone listening who might want to get into obviously call you, that's advice number one.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_05: But I I would say if if somebody is not yet in China and it's a large company, then there's something wrong because uh majority of the companies are already in and they are intimately familiar with what's happening in China and they stay um very, very uh connected with lower tier CD communities that actually drive majority of their um bottom line.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_05: Um and if you're new, I'd say good news because this year, for the first time, and that's a little bit of the shift that kind of goes unnoticed, or at least you know, international media is not covering it.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_05: So China is getting a lot of pressure from its um um Chinese brands going global, right?
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_05: And Chinese tech companies expanding and whatnot.
• 41:30
  SPEAKER_05: And the pressure is um the world wants it to be a fair deal, right?
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_05: And China says, okay, we will first of all encourage our Chinese companies to open local offices and local manufacturers to give you jobs, but at the same time, we will encourage more and more smaller firms from your uh from your destinations to come to China to come to China and to succeed.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_05: Because China, again, China is a market where the platform business ecosystem is very big.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_05: So you want to enter China.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, you need to set up, for example, with Alibaba.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_05: There is a man minimum GMV, there's a minimum like volumes.
• 42:07
  SPEAKER_05: It's rather complicated in many ways, and sometimes your marketing budgets are just unaffordable for someone who is very, very small.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_04: So right now, through So you're saying you need a certain level of size.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_05: You need a size, you and you also need stamina.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_05: It's very possible that you enter China, spend 700,000 US dollars on marketing, and then you leave.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, well, it happened countless of times.
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_04: Countless times.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_05: And it happened also with large companies, right?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_05: You you name it.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_04: Huge brands.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_05: Huge brands.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_05: So um, you know, the the good news is right now it is a part of uh China's broader agenda.
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_05: So it is a part of the five-year plan.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_05: And if it is a part of five-year plan, you can be sure that this is something that will be done and this there will be steps taken.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_05: So for those smaller brands, mid-sized brands that are eyeing China right now, to be honest, it's not a bad time.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_05: There will be subsidies, there will be opportunities because again, it is a part of this bigger, broader picture.
• 43:09
  SPEAKER_05: And Chinese, again and Indians, you know, uh people coming from ancient civilization, we like to look at things broadly.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_05: We want to understand every single moving part, and only then you're able to actually make sense of what's going on.
• 43:24
  SPEAKER_05: So, again, if you want to understand China, it's so complex.
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_05: Don't look at only uh where to enter, how to sell.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_05: Look at the broader picture.
• 43:31
  SPEAKER_05: You will see it m so much more clearly.
• 43:33
  SPEAKER_05: And that is also how the leadership of Chinese companies or Chinese uh, let's say, uh uh government, they are approaching things.
• 43:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, this is a whiskey podcast.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna ask you a whiskey related question to that, then an entry, because we're obviously in in our company is in Hong Kong, but not uh and we've talked about kind of entering mainland China for many years and not really made made the the leap for mi for various reasons, cost, etc.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_04: being one of them.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, one of our newer services that that we're launching uh soon called Cast of Significance is really focused on people who want to celebrate a significant moment in their life.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_04: So um the birth of a child, getting married, turning 40 or 50s, uh selling your company, whatever it might be, right?
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_04: The years that are important to you are different than the years that are important to me.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_04: And for somebody who likes whiskey, which there are many people in China who like whiskey, and I would say it's still growing.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_04: It's still a very, very small part of the for those who drink in China, it's still obviously beer, then Baijo and Mao Tai, you know, then you get into spirits, then it's whiskey, and then probably wine, and then still whiskey, right?
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_04: So it's still a very small, small percentage.
• 44:46
  SPEAKER_04: But interestingly, at least, you know, when I was in um Shenzhen last year and Guangzhou, you're seeing a an increase in in people who are the demographics of the people who are drinking it.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_04: So one thing I found really interesting that you don't see a lot around the world is a lot more women drinking whiskey in Shenzhen and Guangzhou, because in the Western world, right, there's a connotation that men drink whiskey, right?
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's in it's in the Bond films, it's in you know TV, it's growing up, men drink whiskey, women drink, I don't know, what you know, rose or a cocktail or something like that.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_04: That's just the connotation.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_04: But in China, nobody grew up with that connotation.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_04: So one of the beautiful things I noticed was that without that, I guess, historical, you know, pretext, um, women were sitting around, you know, four or five women having a having a wonderful whiskey.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: And they do like that, obviously, stronger taste, kind of some more similar to a baijo or or a Mao Tai, etc.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_04: So I guess, you know, I I definitely can't uh afford you, obviously.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_04: So I'll I'll use this opportunity to get two minutes of free advice.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um if you were, you know, do you see the potential for something like this in terms of the emotional economy, right?
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_04: I guess that we're trying to appeal to the father or the grandfather who might want to buy a cask of whiskey for their son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter, as something that becomes a multi-generational asset that they hold.
• 46:13
  SPEAKER_04: The cask stays in Scotland, the whiskey continues to mature, continues to go up in age.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and at celebratory milestone moments, let's say the kid turns 18 or the whatever the kid gets married or something like that, you then celebrate by using this.
• 46:30
  SPEAKER_04: So it's not an investment um per se in terms of you're buying and selling to make money, it's an investment in time and an investment in celebration of life's most meaningful milestones.
• 46:42
  SPEAKER_04: Do you see any?
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_05: And what what is the what is the ticket?
• 46:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh can start as low as 5,000 pounds.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_04: So not cheap, but not uh you know impossible for for people with some level of wealth.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_05: And is there an opportunity to then bottle it and sell it?
• 47:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yes, there's some value to it, yes.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_04: There would be.
• 47:11
  SPEAKER_04: But this is kind of entering into a 20-year, 30-year type contract and thinking about it as a as a multi-generational type thing.
• 47:20
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 47:21
  SPEAKER_05: So I I think in general in China the legacy is a very strong cultural pull.
• 47:26
  SPEAKER_05: So people do enjoy giving a gift that could be enjoyed together.
• 47:36
  SPEAKER_05: That is also legacy, that is also something that can be ultimately presented, bottled, etc.
• 47:41
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, Chinese are very pragmatic, so they love something that can also be resolved.
• 47:46
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, look at the gold.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 47:47
  SPEAKER_05: It's not only the fact that they like the shiny little thing.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_05: Right.
• 47:51
  SPEAKER_05: They the physical yeah, it is physical and also worse comes to worse.
• 47:56
  SPEAKER_05: I mean, 10% up, 20% down, it's still gold, and you can always sell it.
• 48:00
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_05: So um I think it is uh it is there's definitely potential.
• 48:05
  SPEAKER_05: The um It's all about the storytelling.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_05: It's just about storytelling, and it's of course about finding your community.
• 48:13
  SPEAKER_05: So if uh I do not know about this particular business, but in many businesses, when you approach, let's say, Western client, you go for the client themselves.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_05: For example, I don't know, you have let's let's go something completely different, like events.
• 48:27
  SPEAKER_05: You are trying to sell an expensive event to someone, right?
• 48:30
  SPEAKER_05: You uh capture somebody from Australia and say, hey, this is an amazing event, and please come, and they would consider, and if they like it, they'll sign up.
• 48:38
  SPEAKER_05: In China, no matter what you do, this is not gonna work.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_05: You typically need to find a community leader.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_05: Then this community leader says, you know what?
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_05: I'm going to this event and I'm gonna rally other 20 people to go with me.
• 48:51
  SPEAKER_05: My friends, their friends of their friends, but we are gonna go with a delegation to this event.
• 48:55
  SPEAKER_05: So think about it a bit like that.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_05: You are recruiting your community leaders who are going to um tell the story that you told them for the first time to their friends.
• 49:08
  SPEAKER_05: So make the story easy to retell, make the story culturally impactful for them to retell.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_05: Make it make their job easy.
• 49:16
  SPEAKER_05: They're your marketers, ambassadors, salespeople, etc.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: etc.
• 49:20
  SPEAKER_05: And that is how when you look at Hong Kong, we have so many successful insurance products that are ultimately uh targeting specifically mainland Chinese.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_05: That's how it all works.
• 49:31
  SPEAKER_05: Because the story is very simple.
• 49:32
  SPEAKER_05: You come to Hong Kong, you put a little bit of money, you get better coverage, this and that.
• 49:37
  SPEAKER_04: Safety safety, da-da-da.
• 49:38
  SPEAKER_05: And and and plus the uh my friends, my daughter's friends, uh somebody sells it to me, so okay, why not?
• 49:47
  SPEAKER_05: So um what we are able to sell through these methods from expensive New York apartments to uh, I'm sure uh whiskey and whatnot is absolutely absolutely possible.
• 50:00
  SPEAKER_05: And also starting with lower tier CDs where they just where not that they have a lot less choice, but they have a lot less global stories that could be instead of the shang or whatever.
• 50:12
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, because these guys seen it on, done it all, they're they're bombarded by they've probably heard about whiskey investment from somewhere else.
• 50:18
  SPEAKER_05: So for you to tell that story effectively, you need to first erase the other story and say that we're not doing that, but we're doing this.
• 50:25
  SPEAKER_05: So you go to somebody who's never really too much kind of been about in it, and then you introduce this whole idea and they go, like, wow, this is this is cool.
• 50:35
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, fun.
• 50:36
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you for the advice.
• 50:37
  SPEAKER_05: Oh, that was just sharing.
• 50:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, uh, thank you for the learning.
• 50:42
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so we'll wrap up now, and thank you so much for for taking the time.
• 50:46
  SPEAKER_04: It's been a really amazing conversation.
• 50:49
  SPEAKER_04: Um, you're launching a new podcast of your own called Hidden Switch.
• 50:52
  SPEAKER_04: Um, tell us a bit more about that.
• 50:54
  SPEAKER_04: Tell us about the story or the gap that that you're looking to fill by by starting this new venture.
• 51:01
  SPEAKER_05: Yeah, so the Hidden Switch is uh launching, it's about spotlighting billion dollar founders uh from emerging markets, so 70% China, but also India, also Africa, also Southeast Asia, Latin America.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_05: And uh I think the gap here is really not that we don't have enough stories, it's the narrator who is missing because the Western um media very often is telling the story about the emerging world, either as a charity case or a cautionary tale, or with some other, let's say, spin that is not always productive.
• 51:39
  SPEAKER_05: Very often it's not.
• 51:40
  SPEAKER_05: And I think at this stage of our development, we shall realize that the next Silicon Valley is not gonna be Silicon Valley.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_05: Um you know, pr places from Lagos to Shenzhen to Jakarta are where the future is being built.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_05: And with AI, we are democratizing access to so many things and tools.
• 52:00
  SPEAKER_05: So it is time to bring some of those founders that are really changing their industries into the spotlight.
• 52:06
  SPEAKER_05: So through this podcast, I'm aiming to uh bring them out onto the international stage, give them an opportunity to tell their own stories.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_05: And um yes, this is what's up.
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_05: Congrats!
• 52:19
  SPEAKER_04: It's gonna be amazing.
• 52:20
  SPEAKER_04: I look forward to obviously tuning in.
• 52:22
  SPEAKER_04: And yeah, just a huge thank you for taking the time to be here today.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I learned a lot.
• 52:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh hopefully those of you who are still listening did as well.
• 52:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um, just to kind of conclude things, I was really interested to learn about your entrepreneurship journey, some of the pivots that you made early on and doubled down, where um becoming you know Chinese and uh as well focusing on marketing and certain instead of sales really helped you to build the agencies and and different ventures that you have now.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_04: Really interesting conversation about China where it's been, where it's going.
• 52:54
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, maybe some of the new opportunities in this emotional economy and resilience, and as you said, as part of the five-year plan, uh maybe not well advertised, but there is a lot of new opportunities, economic zones, incentives, etc., for those who are who are thinking about about China.
• 53:11
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so I learned a lot, and hopefully the listeners did, and thank you so much for taking the time.
• 53:17
  SPEAKER_05: Thank you so much, Rikash.
• 53:18
  SPEAKER_05: It was amazing! Let's go get it!
• 53:20
  SPEAKER_04: As always, as always, whiskey's never finished.
• 53:23
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, it is now.
• 53:25
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, but the conversation isn't.
• 53:27
  SPEAKER_04: So thank you so much.
• 53:28
  SPEAKER_04: That's it.
• 53:30
  SPEAKER_04: Hey guys, Rikesh here, the whiskey chief.
• 53:32
  SPEAKER_04: Firstly, thanks so much for for watching this episode.
• 53:35
  SPEAKER_04: It really means a lot to us.
• 53:36
  SPEAKER_04: If you can like and subscribe below, it just really helps us to keep bringing you the best whiskeys in the world.