A high school dropout reveals how he built a $200M brand

Danny Yeung 0:00 We hit 100 million annual revenue run rate at 11 months. Bruins did it in 22 months, right? And they were acquired for 1.2 billion. AG1 took them 10 years to hit 100 million. We hit 200 million run rate in 18 months. [upbeat music]

Shaan Puri 0:21 All right, Danny, welcome to the show, man. Why don't we start off... Why don't you give a little, a little intro to yourself. So who are you? What do you do?

Danny Yeung 0:28 Hey, Shaan. Thanks for having me. Quick background, myself, always been an entrepreneur. Started working at a very young age. At 15, I was a telemarketer, so that's how I, you know, got started working. Age 24, had my first business. Was a restaurant, did that for three, four years. Then ventured into hotel furniture business, import/export from China into the US. Eventually worked on some big projects like the MGM City Center in Vegas. Did that also for three, four years. Then in 2010, I took a leap of faith and moved to Hong Kong, um, to launch a e-commerce company that was doing group buying. And then when Groupon went international, they acquired 51% of my company, and we became the largest e-commerce company in the region. I left in 2014. We're doing about 200 million annual revenues. I had a good exit. That's where, you know, I made my first million. Yeah, that's it, per se.

Shaan Puri 1:18 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 1:20 More than a million. Um, but... And then after e-commerce, I was like, "Hey, you know, what do I do next?" Had a lot of options at my disposal, and I didn't just wanna go back into e-commerce even though that was the easy route for me. Um, I ventured... Then I actually, you know, got started in diagnostics and DNA testing. So founded Prenetics, which was a life sciences DNA testing company. And again, this was 2014, right? So very early. No one was really talking about this stuff. And I think you'll see that in my entrepreneurial career, it wasn't the obvious choice, but everyone's like, now looking back, it's the obvious choice, right? I mean, think about-

Shaan Puri 1:57 Right

Danny Yeung 1:57 ... in 2010, no one was using e-commerce in Hong Kong. Yeah, everyone, in fact, told me to go back to US. They're like, "Danny, just go back to US. This model's not gonna work in Hong Kong." We b- we made it the number one e-commerce company at the time. But going back to Prenetics, you know, started us a life sciences company. When COVID hit, you know, we were prime position to take advantage of it. We worked very fast. In two weeks, we got our COVID testing kit. We then became Hong Kong's number one COVID PCR provider, as well as in the UK. So those, yeah, three years, we... Yeah, I would say we were, like, printing money, I would say, right?

Shaan Puri 2:36 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 2:37 Um-

Shaan Puri 2:37 It exploded.

Danny Yeung 2:38 At one point, we're doing 40,000 PCR tests a day, right? We totaled at 28 million. This is laboratory PCR tests. Those three years, we did 700 million-plus revenue, um, in three years' time. We listed on the NASDAQ in 2022. We're a household name. Everyone that arrived in Hong Kong at one point had a mandatory Prenetics PCR test. And then, of course, that led...

Danny Yeung 3:05 goes into, you know, IM8, which is kind of, you know, what happened after COVID. You know, we had a billion-dollar valuation during COVID in 2022 because COVID was still going on. 18 months later, our market cap hit, I think it was, like, 50 million, right? Went from a billion-plus to $50 million. Holy shit, right? You really know who your friends are at that point, right? Because-

Shaan Puri 3:29 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 3:29 ... at a billion-

Shaan Puri 3:31 You got a lot of fre- got a lot of friends at a billion. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 3:33 You got a lot of friends at a billion.

Shaan Puri 3:35 When you're down 95%, uh... Okay, the stock's down 95%. Were the friends also down 95%, or it wasn't so bad?

Danny Yeung 3:42 No, I mean, the friends wasn't down 95%, but when you're, when you're going up, everyone wants to be involved, which is natural, to be fair, right? Everyone wants to be-

Shaan Puri 3:50 Yeah

Danny Yeung 3:50 ... surrounded by winners, but very few want to be surrounded and associated when you're going down, right? Because-

Shaan Puri 3:57 Mm-hmm

Danny Yeung 3:57 ... I think the path to recover is significantly much harder. I mean, we had a few options, like, you know what? Why don't we just close the business? 'Cause y- y- you have to think about the, the background, right? We... I think in 2022, yeah, we did, you know, 272 million revenue, right? And basically 40,000 tests turned to nothing, right? So basically, you know, our revenue dropped by, uh, 95%. And, and to be fair, I think the market, you know, r- realized that and it was rightfully valued. So we said, "Okay, what do we do? You know, do we close up shop, just return capital to our shareholders? Um, you know, do I do something else?" I mean, of course, you know, to be very... Y- I've been successful as a operator as well as investor, right? So I had a lot of options still, but, you know, I knew that, y- you know, I still wanted to create something out of this, and also wanted to be very responsible to the shareholders from before. Coincidentally, at the same time as we were thinking what to do, you know, I had

Danny Yeung 5:01 the opportunity to meet with David Beckham, and this was right at the same time where I was thinking about getting into the supplement category. And when I met David, you know, it wasn't to, like, pitch him on, "Hey, let's get to the supplement category." We were just having a conversation about his background, what he's doing, and he was very intrigued about my consumer background as well as my life sciences background. And he was telling me, you know, about his problem, him and Victoria's problem, about how even for where they are as individuals, and of course, you know, they have all these resources available to them, right? They even found the supplement category very overwhelming, especially that when they're traveling, you know, they just can't maintain that routine of taking 12, 13, 14, 15 pills and these capsules and et cetera. They just, yeah, don't do it, right? And then-

Shaan Puri 5:59 Yeah

Danny Yeung 5:59 ... me as an entrepreneur, I was like, "Hey, I'm sure there's a better way for that." And yeah, after, you know, three to four months, countless conversations, as I'm, I, I'm sure you can imagine, and someone with David's pedigree and background, if something went wrong, it's not... No one cares about Danny. It's always gonna be, "Hey, David, sound- something blew up." Right? So he had to take-

Shaan Puri 6:24 Right

Danny Yeung 6:24 ... significant precaution. And I told David from day one, "Hey, David, I know, you know, for the last 30 years, there's been so many people wanting you to do this category, and you've rejected." And I told David something that was surprising to him. I was like, "David, if we do this together, yeah, I don't want you just as the ambassador. I want you as a co-founder, but this brand has to live beyond you. I don't want this to be another celebrity

Danny Yeung 6:48 brand."

Shaan Puri 6:49 Yeah. So let's explain what IM8 is, right? 'Cause that's the current business. So IM8, if I go to the website, I see Beckham, I see Giannis, I see Lily Collins. I see a bunch of famous people, and they're drinking a little red drink. And, you know-

Danny Yeung 7:04 Yes

Shaan Puri 7:04 ... so if you've seen-

Danny Yeung 7:04 I, I have it here too. Yeah

Shaan Puri 7:05 ... most of the, most of the supplement category is green. You guys are red.

Danny Yeung 7:09 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 7:09 And, um, it's a, it's some sort of supplement drink, longevity drink. You got the Beckham stack on here. And can you explain just in short, like, you know, just real quick, like what, what actually is the product that you sell?

Danny Yeung 7:22 Yeah. So we've made the business model very simple. We came out with our Daily Ultimate Essentials, and it's very simple, right? It has 90 ingredients, replaces 16 different supplements in a powder sachet. You mix it with 12 ounces of water. You just drink it every single morning, and it takes care of your foundational nutritional needs. So what does that mean? All of your multivitamins, um, your CoQ10, MSM, probiotics, prebiotics, postbiotics. And 'cause normally, you would have to take the equivalent of 16 different supplements. That would easily cost you $250 to $300 on a monthly basis. Yeah. And for us, we're selling it at $90 a monthly basis, this combination, which also tastes great, and you can carry it around with you everywhere.

Shaan Puri 8:10 Right. And you guys have been... I mean, you're a public company, so you're public about your numbers, but you've talked about your numbers before.

Danny Yeung 8:15 Yes.

Shaan Puri 8:16 Um, this-- you're only about a year into this, to this product ri- line, right?

Danny Yeung 8:20 We're only 20 months in. We only launched December of '24, right? And, you know, now we've been the fastest-growing supplement brand, you know, ever recorded.

Shaan Puri 8:30 What does that mean? How fa- how fast are you growing?

Danny Yeung 8:32 We hit 100 million annual revenue run rate at 11 months. Um, in this category-wise, I mean, Grew & Stili in 22 months, right? And they were acquired for $1.2 billion after three years. AG1 took them 10 years to hit 100 million. We hit 200 million run rate in 18 months.

Shaan Puri 8:51 So you're at $200 million a year. So there's two, two angles to this, right? I have my e-com nerd hat-

Danny Yeung 8:56 Yes

Shaan Puri 8:56 ... 'cause I've been in e-commerce, and I can ask you about the funnel and the CAC and all that. Then there's just, like, high level, you know, product-market fit. When you hit a pro-- when a product hits a nerve, and you've, you've nailed the positioning, the branding. You've nailed something in category and positioning. Can you talk to me about category and positioning? 'Cause I think those are highly underrated, and most people are terrible at that, and it's very hard to recover if you have category and positioning wrong. You can be the best at just trying to crank the, grind the funnel, but it just doesn't matter if you haven't gotten those, that, the first, first key decision right. Can you talk to me about category and positioning?

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Danny Yeung 10:05 Even before, you know, we got into this category, everyone told me not to do this. They're like, "Hey, supplement category, highly competitive, so many bad eggs." And, and to be fair, I mean, I can tell this story now is that, you know, my whole board disagreed with me, right? They're like, "You, you, you don't know anything about supplements, Danny." I'm like, "It's true too, right?"

Shaan Puri 10:24 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 10:25 I haven't got to... I, I, I didn't do anything in this category before, right? Yeah, it was e-com, we're selling coupons, DNA testing, running the lab, all that stuff. Yeah. But also, to be fair, yeah, before any of that, I never had a, a background in asphalt too, right?

Shaan Puri 10:40 [laughs] Yeah.

Danny Yeung 10:41 So of course, still, yeah, the board was like, "You know what?" And then we have to make a, of course, a commitment with David Beckham. There was, yeah, you know, it was not a small commitment, correct?

Shaan Puri 10:51 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 10:51 And then so they disagreed with me, but you know, I knew that if we made a great product and we've nailed the positioning and the brand right, and with the support of DB, you know, this would be a home run. So I had to really fight and educate my board. And again, I was like, "Hey, you know what? If I'm wrong, I'm gonna resign. I'm gonna, you know-

Shaan Puri 11:14 Right

Danny Yeung 11:14 ... quit," right?

Shaan Puri 11:14 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 11:15 That was, that was what, that was my position because it really, I needed to be convinced myself that was, this was the right move.

Shaan Puri 11:24 But, but what made you think that this would be the right move? 'Cause it, it is true. Supplement category is crowded, right?

Danny Yeung 11:29 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 11:29 Like, a lot of people have a celebrity. Who cares, right? Like-

Danny Yeung 11:31 Correct

Shaan Puri 11:31 ... that doesn't-

Danny Yeung 11:32 And a lot of celebrity brands fail

Shaan Puri 11:33 ... that doesn't do anything.

Danny Yeung 11:33 Right? They're like-

Shaan Puri 11:34 Yeah, yeah

Danny Yeung 11:34 ... they're on my board telling me there's so many s- there's actually more failures of celebrity brands if you think about than actually success cases, right?

Shaan Puri 11:42 So what was your take?

Danny Yeung 11:43 So my, my take was, and number one, everything starts with the product, right? Everything starts with a better product than what's available in the market. And I can, yeah, honestly say, yeah, we have the best product in the market. But like you s- fairly pointed out, consumers may not recognize that, right?

Shaan Puri 11:59 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 11:59 And then so this is where, you know, from day one, we spend a, more time also on the taste- Profile. 'Cause a lot of times people have the great product, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, but if it doesn't taste good, no one's gonna drink it, right?

Shaan Puri 12:11 Right.

Danny Yeung 12:11 So I spent a week at the factories, that's every single day, testing like, you know, 20, 30 different flavors until we got that taste. Like, ah, you know what?

Shaan Puri 12:20 Mm.

Danny Yeung 12:20 This tastes good, right?

Shaan Puri 12:22 Okay.

Danny Yeung 12:22 And that people wants to drink again. But those two things, th- [laughs] those two also doesn't, you know, relate to success, right? So you mentioned the color, the brand. We wanted this to stand out. We didn't wanna just create another greens powder, right? Then no one created a reds powder, right? And then so I think-

Shaan Puri 12:38 Right

Danny Yeung 12:38 ... by default, that was interesting to people.

Shaan Puri 12:41 Is it red because it's, like, made of beets, or it's red because you made it red? Like, well, you know what I mean? Like, did it need to be red, or you chose to be red?

Danny Yeung 12:49 It was a natural coincidence that when we created the formulation, there was, like, beets inside, yeah, in the formulation, and this was a natural red color. And then we're like, "Shit, let's just, let's just go hard on this color."

Shaan Puri 13:02 Right.

Danny Yeung 13:02 Right? Which then made sense. And then our packaging, if you look at, is a very big red box, right? It's very premium, the positioning. So I didn't want it just to be another supplement brand. I wanted to, yeah, have a cr- really great unboxing experience. It's bold. The name, you know, easy to remember. The fonts, the colors.

Shaan Puri 13:23 How'd you come up with the name? 'Cause, you know, I, whenever I brainstorm company names, you get 500 names. Each one you look at, you're like, "Ah, that could be it." And then, you know, so, like, if I had written down on my list of supplement names, IM and then the number 8, I might have... Maybe I'd be like, "Oh, that kinda flows," but I would've... The, the courage it takes to pick such a weird name. Where does that come from? Why, why, why that name?

Danny Yeung 13:46 Oh, I'm-

Shaan Puri 13:46 How'd you-

Danny Yeung 13:46 I'm very good at names, right? [laughs]

Shaan Puri 13:48 Okay.

Danny Yeung 13:48 I, I would say I'm, like, really good at names. I mean, my, my e-commerce company is called You Buy I Buy, right? Group buying, right? With that just the number you.

Shaan Puri 13:56 Right.

Danny Yeung 13:56 Then Prunetics was half prevention and genetics, so yeah, Prunetics.

Shaan Puri 14:00 Okay.

Danny Yeung 14:01 Right? And then, of course, IM8, it came out wanting something simple and easy to remember. Um, and then IM means I am, and then 8, if you flip it around, means infinity, infinite possibilities, right? And I knew at one day we'll enter China, and the number 8 will also work in China, right?

Shaan Puri 14:20 Right.

Danny Yeung 14:20 So there's definitely meanings-

Shaan Puri 14:21 That's the lucky, lucky number of China, right?

Danny Yeung 14:22 Not for me. And it's like, I am is like, I am healthy, I am strong, I am powerful.

Shaan Puri 14:27 Right.

Danny Yeung 14:27 So there's a great meaning behind it.

Shaan Puri 14:31 Okay. And so you go into this category. Now you get your formulation done. What's the zero to one? So what did that, what did that look like? You just fire up Facebook ads, a Shopify store? Did you do anything else? Like, what, what did zero to one look like for you? And how fast did it go?

Danny Yeung 14:42 Uh, zero to one, again, the formulation part, you know, I would say was a result of also getting amazing scientific advisory board, yeah, on. Again, when I looked into this, it was like, okay, what are all the different challenges someone can, you know, go at us? And it's like, hey, just because we have David Beckham, it's not enough. And everyone knows David's not a scientist, right? I'm not a scientist, right? So we then, the next step was recruiting a world-class scientific advisory board, the likes of Dr. Dawn Mussallem from Mayo Clinic, um, you know, James Green, the former chief scientist of NASA, Suzanne Decoda, you know, the director of microbiome at Cedars-Sinai. So these individuals we brought along, they all took part in creating this formulation, and that wasn't enough.

Shaan Puri 15:31 And how did you do that, by the way? That's, um, what, you're cold emailing? Is there a... I, I actually know there's, like, a [laughs] there's, like, an agency. There's, like, a brokerage service. I don't know if you know this one. There's a brokerage service between doctors and supplement brands. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 15:43 Oh.

Shaan Puri 15:43 That literally is like, "Get a doctor on your brand."

Danny Yeung 15:46 Uh.

Shaan Puri 15:46 I don't know if you've seen this.

Danny Yeung 15:47 I haven't seen that.

Shaan Puri 15:47 There's, like, a very niche agency some guy has.

Danny Yeung 15:49 Okay.

Shaan Puri 15:49 But what did you do? You, you cold called these people? You go fly out, meet them? You saw them in equity?

Danny Yeung 15:55 Yeah, so, I mean, um-

Shaan Puri 15:55 What, what, what's happening?

Danny Yeung 15:56 I, I knew the former chief scientist of NASA prior, yeah, yeah. Basically, he was at NASA for two years, so that was easy because he knew me, right? Again, a lot of this-

Shaan Puri 16:04 Okay

Danny Yeung 16:04 ... relationships is, is built on trust. And, you know, for Dr. Dawn Mussallem, you know, I contacted her on LinkedIn. We got on a call. And again, the first time we chatted, she was very skeptical, 'cause so many supplement brands, you know, reach out to them. And again, the f- especially as if you're a practicing physician, yeah, it's also quite rare to work with a supplement brand, especially if you're, let's say, with Mayo Clinic. Really, really rare.

Shaan Puri 16:30 Mm-hmm.

Danny Yeung 16:31 Right? Because they have a lot of restrictions, et cetera, et cetera, right?

Shaan Puri 16:34 Sure.

Danny Yeung 16:34 So, but I think from day one, you know, even I, I told Dawn, again, we're, we're still working today very closely, is that we need to prove the science and evidence. Yeah? So that's why we embarked on a clinical trial before we launched the brand. We embarked on start third-party testing by not just one organization, but by two, by Eurofins and NSF certification for sport. So that means if you're a professional athlete, you know it's free from 280 banned

Danny Yeung 17:05 substances.

Shaan Puri 17:06 So I have a lot of friends who are in the supplement game, and i- in, in general, when you're in e-commerce, it, but it's easy to become very skeptical and very jaded.

Danny Yeung 17:14 Of course.

Shaan Puri 17:15 Um, not because anybody means poorly, but just because it's very easy to get something up and running and put the, make... put all your effort into the packaging, maybe even some into the taste. But ultimately-

Danny Yeung 17:26 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 17:26 ... you know, you're not in the factory. And, and, you know, and also, it's very easy to have something that might help but is, is, is not scientifically proven, right?

Danny Yeung 17:37 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 17:37 Scientifically proven is a very high bar. And so I would say there's almost two, two, two parts of the ledger. There's the first part, which is like, are these clean ingredients, and is it made in a clean factory? That's kinda like s- te- trust test number one.

Danny Yeung 17:49 Yes.

Shaan Puri 17:49 Trust test number two is, what the hell is a postbiotic?

Danny Yeung 17:52 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 17:52 What's a prebiotic?

Danny Yeung 17:53 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 17:53 Does any of this stuff actually matter? If I drink this, does anything really change in my body?

Danny Yeung 17:56 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 17:56 And I know, obviously, I'm asking, you know, the priest if religion is real.

Danny Yeung 18:01 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 18:01 But I, I guess, like, if I'm a highly logical, rational person, what would be your most convincing thing you could tell me that would make me actually believe in supplements?

Danny Yeung 18:10 A lot of supplements out there don't work, and that's the reality. Right? And I think the best validation of our product is that doesn't matter who we have, Beckham, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, our business won't be, in 20 months, can't be a 20 million... a 200-million-plus business without recurring subscriptions. And that means the product works as advertised. All right? And I think the best-

Shaan Puri 18:34 How does someone know that the product works? How does the customer feel-

Danny Yeung 18:36 Oh, you feel it

Shaan Puri 18:37 ... the product works?

Danny Yeung 18:37 I mean, you'll feel it.

Shaan Puri 18:37 What, what changes?

Danny Yeung 18:38 And again, and, and the best way to-

Shaan Puri 18:39 Like energy? What, what, what are you feeling?

Danny Yeung 18:42 Um, better energy, recovery. Yeah. Um, you sleep better. Your gut, yeah, everything is working better. Yeah. And of course, a lot of these individuals, these are CEOs, athletes. I think the best case I can s-show for you, I mean, I, I was surprised by this email, right? Around last April or May of 2025, right, I got an email from Aryna Sabalenka's team, right? A cold email, [laughs] into me, right? They're like, "Hey, you know, Aryna's been on your product for about three months now via a recommendation from her nutrition coach." When you're the world number one tennis player, every single thing, they're measuring your recovery, how you're feeling three to four times on a daily basis. And they don't need the bullshit, right? I mean, she has so many options and resources, and she's like, "Hey, she's been feeling amazing from a recovery perspective, and she hasn't gotten sick while on the product." And given that they are traveling, yeah, different time zones every single week, can we partner together, right?

Shaan Puri 19:42 Mm-hmm.

Danny Yeung 19:43 And then so that was a great validation of the product working at the highest level of sports. And the reality is also, every single ambassador that came after that was inbound to me.

Shaan Puri 19:56 Hey, let me ask you a question. Is the market in China or India, for that matter, like two big population places, is the, is the supplement market the same? Is it just the same but 10 years ago? Um, is it different? Or what's going on over there?

Danny Yeung 20:11 Um, India, to be honest with you, I don't know. Um, I do know-

Shaan Puri 20:15 Okay

Danny Yeung 20:15 ... it's a much lower price point and category. Um, in China, they do have AG1, but it's not, like... Yeah, from what I understand, it's not doing well.

Shaan Puri 20:24 Hmm. Why do you think that is? Is it pr- is it all just price point, or is there a-another factor?

Danny Yeung 20:29 Um, I mean, again, it goes back, you know, to price point, education, branding, positioning. You know, there's, like, so much, right? And I think, you know, to be fair, 99% of American companies going to China and think they can just succeed with the same business model. Um, and for China to operate it successfully, you need a completely different business model, completely different-

Shaan Puri 20:52 Right

Danny Yeung 20:52 ... team. Like, for example, my team can't do China, 100%. There's, like, no hell they... no way they can do China, right? So for me to enter-

Shaan Puri 20:59 Hmm

Danny Yeung 20:59 ... China, I would need to get a completely new team of every single individual.

Shaan Puri 21:05 Right. Tell me about some of the operational excellence. So I want to know what are some things that you're doing that I could look at that, um, I could be inspired by? "Oh, that, that... You know, the way they do that, that's really good." So now I'll give you a couple examples. So we had Chad from Gruns on the podcast, and he was showing us their funnels and their Facebook ads. We were looking at his ad library together. And they were showing, like, he's got, like, you know... There's eight different sort of reasons to buy, right? Maybe you're on Ozempic and you want-

Danny Yeung 21:33 Hmm

Shaan Puri 21:33 ... Ozempic support.

Danny Yeung 21:34 Yes.

Shaan Puri 21:34 Maybe you're looking for mood, and here's a mood thing. Maybe you're a woman and your hair, and your, your hair's falling out postpartum. Whatever. I don't know what their ex-- I don't remember the exact angles. He's like, "I've got, like, the ad that goes to the landing page for that persona, for that problem, for that sales pitch, and I'm running all eight simultaneously," whereas most-

Danny Yeung 21:52 Mm-hmm

Shaan Puri 21:52 ... entrepreneurs are, you know, usually just get fixated on one and they don't get, they don't get as much of the market. He would tell us that. Or, um, Eric Ryan from Method Soap and Ollie Gummies came on, and he was... He's a master of packaging and positioning, and he said, "I was looking in the vitamin aisle, and, you know, first thing I knew was that every container was round-

Danny Yeung 22:10 Hmm

Shaan Puri 22:10 ... and so we would be a rectangle."

Danny Yeung 22:11 Uh-huh.

Shaan Puri 22:12 And he's like, "It's as simple as that. I look for a sea of sameness, and everywhere in the aisle that I see a sea of sameness, I know there's an opportunity to come and do something different." That's what they did in Band-Aids and soap and vitamins.

Danny Yeung 22:22 Yeah. I, I would, I would say e-even right now, you know, to be fair-wise, you know, the ads and landing pages, personas, that's quite standard operating procedure right now, right?

Shaan Puri 22:30 Sure.

Danny Yeung 22:30 If you're a DCC brand doing $100 to $200 million, I mean, you have to be doing that, correct? Um-

Shaan Puri 22:37 Yep

Danny Yeung 22:37 ... I think for us-wise, I mean, one thing that we've done really well with scaling on meta ads, you know. Right now we have anywhere from, you know, 2,000 to 3,000 ads live at any given time. We're testing out, you know, 500 to 800 creators on a weekly basis. So it's that constant testing, um, that is really, really important, right? And you have... And right now the reality is, even with ad buying, I mean, you know, ad buying is like a commodity right now, yeah? Before, a few years ago, you have to be really, really good at ad buying. But now Meta does all of that for you already, right?

Shaan Puri 23:09 Right. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 23:09 You don't need to do the targeting. You don't need to do all this stuff, right? All you need to really figure out is how do you get really good creatives and really good creative diversity on the different personas, because now you need the creative to do the targeting.

Shaan Puri 23:23 And so tell me about that creative machine. So you said two things.

Danny Yeung 23:25 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 23:25 You said you have a couple thousand ads running at a time. So are those, like, statics? Are those videos-

Danny Yeung 23:31 Statics and videos

Shaan Puri 23:32 ... or anything you guys make?

Danny Yeung 23:32 I would say it's about, you know, 55%, 60% statics and then the rest videos.

Shaan Puri 23:37 And you're doing that with what? A studio? You're doing that with AI? You... What, what is the machine that's building all that?

Danny Yeung 23:43 A combination of everything. So we have our own ambassadors. Yeah. Again, we have... Well, of course, we have, like, yeah, top 10 very famous ambassadors, then we have another thousand or more so am-ambassadors, uh, affiliates that are creating lots of content for us on a daily basis, right? And that feeds the engine depending on whichever personas that we're going to. And a lot of times, you know, you have your proven winners, and then it's like, how do we recreate all these proven winners? 'Cause, you know, there's also creative fatigue that happens, right? So we've have our own creative fatigue score that we identify- So we know, okay, when a ad is potentially going to get into fatigue, which then ultimately will drop that ROAS, right? Again, three hundred thousand above on a bi- daily basis on Meta, you know, which is quite high given that we're only twenty months in, right? And we've been able to-

Shaan Puri 24:35 Yeah

Danny Yeung 24:36 ... scale that and I think one key thing, again, public information, given we're a public company, is that if you look at what happened in Q2 versus Q1, Q1, our CAC was three oh five, right? Our average order value is about two hundred and thirty dollars, right? So, um, and we s- we doubled our marketing spend in Q2, right? We doubled it from about seventeen to thirty-three million dollars in a quarter, right? Our CAC actually went down by four dollars, right? From three oh five to three oh one. 'Cause you would imagine if you're doubling spend, your CAC's always gonna go up.

Shaan Puri 25:11 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 25:11 Right? And then so I think we reached a point where, again, we got the engine running, the brand is also doing very well from a brand position,

Danny Yeung 25:20 and we've ran now 200 plus offline events. I think this is something that I haven't seen any other supplement brand do.

Shaan Puri 25:28 And why are you doing that? Because that creates content or because that creates loyalty or both? What- what's the, what's the main reason to do 200 offline events?

Danny Yeung 25:34 I mean, it's very important for, from us from day one, and it's very... a bus- this is about a authentic product science, and, you know, when we have these events, we have our scientific advisory board members there. They're talking about the product, right? And again, this is not just a marketing aspect. It's, you know, we have real science behind the brand. They get to meet our formulators and our scientists and doctors. Last week in New York, we did, like, you know, seven events in seven days, right-

Shaan Puri 26:02 Mm

Danny Yeung 26:03 ... um, as part of US Open. I always say these... the events are very difficult to scale, right?

Shaan Puri 26:09 Right.

Danny Yeung 26:09 But I think that's very, very important, especially in the age of AI. You don't know what's real. We don't know what's, what's fake or whatever, right?

Shaan Puri 26:18 Right. Right.

Danny Yeung 26:18 And then so I think having that offline presence is really important for us.

Shaan Puri 26:23 Yeah, and I think that's pretty counter to where most brands are right now. I think it's so easy to sit, sit at your laptop, fire up ads, let the... you know, tweak your landing page, and it's c- clearly you get the scale, you get to measure it, you get every... you get the feedback loop right away. You don't have to, like, go get face rejection out in the real world. And it almost means that, like, offline has this disproportionate premium because it's simply, like, less contested. And once you've had an in-person touch point and then you go see an ad, right, it's gonna be a completely different experience than if you've never... it's just a brand you've never heard of.

Danny Yeung 26:55 Hundred percent, and I attribute, you know, that CAC lowering when we double our spend. We're not talking, we're ta- talking about, like, a lot of double, a lot of spend doubling, right? And even July, our CAC fell to two hundred and thirty-nine dollars, right?

Shaan Puri 27:09 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 27:10 You know, which is, you know, we're spending more than ten million dollars a month on marketing, right? And then so it was continued to lower it, but I do believe... Again, I don't have quantifiable data to say these are all offline, but I'm gonna continue-

Shaan Puri 27:23 Right

Danny Yeung 27:23 ... to double down on offline events, um, 'cause that's, uh, really important to the brand side of things.

Shaan Puri 27:27 Tell me about some of the kind of early days of entrepreneurship where maybe your entrepreneurial philosophy got, got formed or the s- core skills that are helping you today-

Danny Yeung 27:38 Mm

Shaan Puri 27:38 ... but where were they first kind of originating? Where, where, where'd you cut your teeth doing it?

Danny Yeung 27:42 I mean, so I dropped out of high school,

Danny Yeung 27:45 right? So I was, you know, basically a bad kid, got kicked out of high school for fighting, so I had to really learn everything, you know, on the streets, I would say, right? As, as an entrepreneur, you know, you're always faced with making decisions with very limited information. And I think, you know, for everyone that knows me, I have-- you know me, I'm, like, very street smart, right? I can figure things out by myself with l- very little information.

Shaan Puri 28:10 Where, where were you going to high school?

Danny Yeung 28:12 In San Francisco.

Shaan Puri 28:14 Oh, you were in San Francisco. So you get kicked out. So what-- why

Shaan Puri 28:17 telemarketing? How did you stumble into telemarketing?

Danny Yeung 28:19 Um, I, I mean, I think I, yeah, I didn't stumble. I think it was like, "Well, what do I do?" You know, "I'm not going to school," right? [chuckles] So and then as a telemarketer, you know, I was 15. I was good at it. I was good in, you know, kind of, like, cold calling people.

Shaan Puri 28:32 What were you selling?

Danny Yeung 28:33 I was selling timeshares.

Shaan Puri 28:35 Timeshares. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 28:36 Yeah. And, yeah. Remember timeshares is like... Again, th- this is about thirty years ago, right? So those few years where I would say I was a very bad kid actually formed a lot of my thinking as an entrepreneur 'cause I always had to reinvent myself, always had to go to a new school, make new friends, um, and get very comfortable, and yeah, I, I, I believe I can survive anywhere. You put me into Nigeria, Africa, whatever it is, I will figure it out.

Shaan Puri 29:03 Yeah. [laughs] The, yeah, the sort of more adversity you face, the more confidence you get, um, when you survive. You know, there's, there's another guy, um, Craig, Craig Clemens, who came on the podcast. Good friend, great guy. He's also an e-commerce monster, so his company, Golden Hippo, does hundreds of millions a year in sales, bootstrapped, him and his brothers. He also was in telemarketing.

Danny Yeung 29:23 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 29:23 He was selling dating products-

Danny Yeung 29:24 Oh

Shaan Puri 29:24 ... when he was younger. And, um, you know, he, he was sharing... He-- for him, one of the ways he got better at sales was he was going to these seminars, and he was reading books, and he was just looking for, like, anything he could pull out, one line, one, one copywriting thing, one psychological, um, sort of hook that he could pull on to. Did you do any of that, or were you just brute force numbers game?

Danny Yeung 29:45 I mean, you have to, like, communicate, you know, properly, right? I think you always have to be direct, and I think I al- I've always kept that, right? So very transparent in terms of, hey, especially with, let's say, trying to meet someone for the first time, always telling my team, "Jans, don't, don't, you know, don't talk about BS, BS," right? I think you just have to be direct-

Shaan Puri 30:01 Yeah

Danny Yeung 30:01 ... and transparent. What's in it for them? What's in it for us? And again, for me, I've always, for each of my businesses, I'm always trying to deliver greater value first. I think that's very important. I never try to look at what's in it for me. I always say, "What can I help this person with? How can I help my partner? How can I help their business?" And that's been my philosophy from day one. I think if you have that type of philosophy going in, it doesn't matter if the other partner doesn't reciprocate. You move and you learn and move on.

Shaan Puri 30:31 Mm-hmm. So you're telemarketing, you learn about the numbers game, you learn that you gotta sort of figure it out, st- get street smart to figure out things to, to survive.

Danny Yeung 30:39 And y- and you, you learn that it doesn't matter who you talk to, right? You can... I can go up to anyone and just basically... You know, the worst thing that happens is they reject me, right?

Shaan Puri 30:47 How many people would you call in a day?

Danny Yeung 30:49 It was, like, night shift at the time when I was working, so it was like, you know, 6:30 to 10:00. I would say 100, 200 people.

Shaan Puri 30:56 And of that, what's the rejection rate?

Danny Yeung 30:59 Still gonna be like-

Shaan Puri 30:59 You know, how much is-

Danny Yeung 31:00 ... 90, 90, 95%, right?

Shaan Puri 31:02 [laughs] And, and so was that something... Did you have to sort of... What'd you tell yourself to be able to, like, kind of quickly bounce back from that?

Danny Yeung 31:13 No, it's just, I mean, again, it's a, it's a numbers game. You just fail, you know? But you basically just tell yourself, "Hey, you know, the next one is gonna be more likely to be positive," right? So you have just get through it. And I think, you know, to be fair, telemarketing taught me a lot. Yeah, you have to have a thick skin. Even when you're talking to investors, same thing, right? [laughs] When you're early on, days getting investment, I mean, you talk to 100 investors, you know, only five maybe may invest in you. So there's nothing different-

Shaan Puri 31:35 Right

Danny Yeung 31:36 ... about that. It's just you're not getting rejected, like, they hanging up on you, but you, you're still faced with that, right? I'm gonna give you example, um, of how that came to use, right? So I once doing my hotel furniture business, I was cold calling basically MGM, then I got a meeting. And then once I was able to get a meeting, then I was able to, you know, deliver the value I was able to get. But without my cold calling days, I probably wouldn't have done that, right?

Shaan Puri 32:01 Right.

Danny Yeung 32:01 Even when I did my e-commerce business, You Buy, I Buy, which was group buying, I remember I went to Hong Kong, and I had to cold call all the merchants myself, right? Because, again, you know, it is not like, you know-

Shaan Puri 32:12 Starts off with nobody. Yeah

Danny Yeung 32:13 It starts with nobody, right? So I remember one time I was calling a big restaurant group, and then director of marketing, he hung up on me. And it was like he hung up on me really, like... He, like, was like... It hurt me. I was like, "Wow, this guy's like..." He said some, like, very bad words and blah, blah, blah to me, right?

Shaan Puri 32:28 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 32:28 And then normally it was like, "Oh, shit," you probably like... You know, then I was thinking, "Wow, who's this guy's boss?" I was thinking, right?

Shaan Puri 32:34 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 32:35 And then I, then I, like, found who this bo- this guy's boss is. He was director of marketing. And I cold called the office, and it was Sandeep, and he owned, like, 30-plus restaurants. This Indian entrepreneur. And I asked for Sandeep, ph- called the front desk. He picked up the phone.

Shaan Puri 32:50 Mm-hmm.

Danny Yeung 32:50 And I'm like, "Hey, this is Danny. I just moved to Hong Kong. I moved here from the US. You know, can I have five minutes of your time? 'Cause I have this interesting e-commerce idea and would love to see if I can partner with you." Right? And then he met with me the next day for 20 minutes, and he told me, "Danny, hey, um, Danny, I don't think your business is gonna work in Hong Kong. 'Cause why would I give 50% off to customers and I only get 25% of the check, right?"

Shaan Puri 33:21 Right.

Danny Yeung 33:21 "But you know what? Because, you know, you called me after my director of marketing hung up on you-"

Shaan Puri 33:27 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 33:27 "... and we're still here, I'm gonna work with you and give you all of my 30 restaurants and sign you up." Um, and he did that because he knew, you know, I didn't give up and just was persistent, resilience. And that changed the trajectory of the business because he gave me 30 restaurants. I needed one deal a day, right?

Shaan Puri 33:44 Mm.

Danny Yeung 33:45 So he gave me... Basically, uh, my whole next 30 days was filled by one guy saying yes. And then of course then I can continue. But he was a big restaurant group, right? It was a very f- And then I would then go to other restaurant groups because I got him, 'cause he was so famous. "Hey, you know, Sandeep, Danny Khan, so- so's working with us. You know, can you partner, too?" Then, yeah... And once you, once you get, yeah, some traction, et cetera, then more and more people will work with you, right? But that's just reality. Someone has to give you a chance, and you just always have-

Shaan Puri 34:11 Right

Danny Yeung 34:11 ... to be on the hunt.

Shaan Puri 34:13 My, my Uncle Vinny was a door-to-door... When he came to the country, he came to this country, he was a door-to-door salesman of, like, the Bible or I don't know what he was selling. And I asked him the same thing. I'm like, "Man, you were walking around in the heat in Georgia in the summers. You're walking house to house, knocking on door, like, getting rejected even more than on the phone. Like, to your face."

Danny Yeung 34:33 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 34:33 "Door slam." And, um, same thing, 90 to 95% of people door slam us. He was the top sales guy, and he had a, he had a thick Indian accent. I was like, "How did you do that?" And he goes, "Oh, I took rejection better than anyone else." I said, "Well, how did you take rejection better?" He goes, "I put a price on the word no." So he said, "If a, if a yes is worth $100 to me, and it's gonna take me, you know, for every 20 nos, I get one yes-"

Danny Yeung 34:57 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 34:57 "... then," he's like, "then every no is worth $5 to me."

Danny Yeung 35:00 Yes. Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 35:00 Right? And he's like, "I just... So when they would say no, I would hear in my head, 'All right, that's five bucks in the bank. Let's keep going.'" And so he's like, "I was adding up the nos. I was putting a price on it, 'cause I knew really, like, it's a numbers game. I have to keep knocking, and so I have to, like, sort of see each knock as a success even though what I... my ears hear is, is a rejection. I have to change what I'm hearing." And that led him to be the number one sales guy in the country, and he ended up training all the other sales guys. And I think there's a, I think there's something everybody should take from, from that, whether you're fundraising or whatever, whatever you're doing, that, like, you know, e-commerce, I think a good... Like, I think if I looked at our conversion rate right now, I think it's, like, two-point-something percent. 2%, 2%, 2.5% maybe. And, you know, 97.5% [laughs] of people come to our site-

Danny Yeung 35:46 Yes

Shaan Puri 35:46 ... and say, "Hell no."

Danny Yeung 35:47 [laughs] Same.

Shaan Puri 35:48 Now, you don't feel it as much when it's e-commerce-

Danny Yeung 35:50 Right. Yeah

Shaan Puri 35:50 ... but, but you f- but if... but you feel it when it's over there, you know? So, so it's all a numbers game.

Danny Yeung 35:56 Mm-hmm. Yes.

Shaan Puri 35:57 What else? You, you, you mentioned MGM. What's, what's the story there? I didn't understand that one.

Danny Yeung 36:01 When I started first working the hotel furniture business, I was doing hotels that were, like, 50 rooms, you know, 100 rooms, small hotels. That's right? A ho- small hotels chains that's doing all of their custom furniture.

Shaan Puri 36:12 Sorry, can you go back? Why, why did, why does Danny start selling hotel furniture? How does that happen?

Danny Yeung 36:17 No, because I was doing my restaurant business at the time. I had a good friend that was an interior designer, and she was just telling me, "Hey," you know, she's a designer for these hotels, and she was having difficulty sourcing furniture. And, you know, I was like, "Why don't you look in China?" And she was like she doesn't know how to. And I'm like, "Why don't I help you?" And she's like, "Okay, why don't you help me," right? And I just did it for her. And then, but w- after a few of the hotels, I figured out, you know, it's the same process if I make 50 chairs or 50 tables as if I make 2 to 3,000 chairs, right?

Shaan Puri 36:49 Hmm.

Danny Yeung 36:49 So I was like, "Who is making 2,000 hotel rooms right now?" And at that time was, like, Vegas, right? Then I started cold-calling the Vegas hotels, and eventually I cold-called MGM, and she gave me a meeting, and then I went into the meeting, and, you know, one year later, I got a, you know, $4 million contract with MGM.

Shaan Puri 37:08 [laughs] How did that feel, that first kinda big contract?

Danny Yeung 37:12 I mean, it, it felt, you know, amazing. But of course, ultimately, you know, I wanted to deliver, and that's... So that's why a lot of times, even when we do an achievement or milestone, you know, I always tell the team, "Hey, you know, this is good, you know, but it's not the end," right? "We're just getting started," right? And just, like, you know, even-

Shaan Puri 37:30 Hmm

Danny Yeung 37:30 ... last month, we had 20 million in monthly revenue, right? But hey, this is good progress, great progress, I would say, but we have so much greater opportunity still. But you know, I was of course happy that we're able to get such a big customer.

Shaan Puri 37:43 When you were doing the COVID

Shaan Puri 37:45 testing, you were kind of in the right place when COVID hit, where you could provide testing. You said a couple interesting things. One, the ramp was crazy. You said you did, like, 700 million revenue in the couple of years, which is just a bonkers number. I'm sure there was a lot of free cash flow in that, too, not just revenue.

Danny Yeung 38:04 Yeah. We made over $100 million net.

Shaan Puri 38:06 Net, yeah, exactly. And, and you... The second thing was you said, like, in Hong Kong, like, everybody who entered the country had that. Sounds like maybe you had, like, a kind of, a really valuable key contract that you won or some sort of, like, a, you know, pretty defensible position. So can you tell the, the story of that? And also, during that, did you, did you think, did you know, "Well, this, the music's gonna stop on this at some point, and what happens after that?" Or did you say, "I, I don't know. We're... Let's just run, and we'll figure it out when we, when, when that happens"?

Danny Yeung 38:35 Yeah, so I can tell you the backstory on this, right? So, um, I think this is in April, yeah, April of 2020. So COVID was getting very bad. I had a meeting with the chief executive of Hong Kong. I was like, "Hey, you know, we have a lab. You know, COVID seems to be getting, you know, worse and worse, you know, by the day. You know, can we somehow provide support and make use of our laboratory, you know, to basically to provide COVID testing to the community?" Right? Um, and then, you know, the chief executive said the same s- at the time, said, "You know what? Um, you know, we have our own public health laboratory. We can do it all of ourselves." So that was that, right? And I'm like, "Okay. No, no worries," and... Because at the time was, it was very difficult to get a COVID test in Hong Kong. You would have to go to the hospital, and they were charging, like, $300 to $400 USD for a COVID test. And then I knew the cost of a COVID test is a fraction of that, right? And they were making so much money. And at the time, you don't want to go to a hospital to do a COVID test 'cause it means that you may get infected too, right? I was like, "You know what? We'll just create our own at-home PCR tests," okay? And then so we launched that within about a little bit more than two weeks, and every day, we're just trying to help out the community. We're selling it for $100 US when everyone wants selling it for $400.

Shaan Puri 39:57 Hmm.

Danny Yeung 39:57 And even the hospitals would call me, it's like, "Why are you guys selling them for so cheap?" I was like, I was like, "I just want to help the community," right? That, that was, that was the core, um, reason for getting into it. So every single day, we'd be selling out. And then in July, yeah, and the government actually then, again, c- called me and was like, "Can we meet again?" 'Cause it was getting out of control, right? You know, three months later, and they're like, "Daniel, we need your help. Um, you know, can you help us service COVID testing to the commun-" I'm like, "Yeah, we'd love to help." Like, you know, "Uh, what do you want us to do?" They're like, "We want you to test 300,000 restaurant workers across 18,000 restaurants in Hong Kong."

Shaan Puri 40:42 Wow.

Danny Yeung 40:42 And I'm like, [laughs] "How long of a time, you know, do you want these testings?" They're like, "Yeah, we want you to do this in three weeks." So that was a crazy operations, right? I don't know why I, I even said yes to it. Again, we went from 100,000, 100, 200 tests on a daily basis to now testing, you know, 300,000 people in about a month time, which basically meant that we had to scale up from 200 tests to 10,000 tests on a daily basis. And myself, my executive team, where we're all in, the whole... We... Then we h- and there was... There were so many people without jobs at that time, right? And then basically we started h- mass hiring. You know, at one point-

Shaan Puri 41:25 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 41:25 ... we had, like, 2,000 to 3,000 people.

Shaan Puri 41:28 What was the bottleneck? Was it the actual tests, the supply chain for the test, or was it the people in the lab to read the test? Does it... 'Cause you, you get the result at home, right? What... You, you don't even need a-

Danny Yeung 41:38 No, no, no. You get the result in the lab.

Shaan Puri 41:39 Okay, so you would send it in?

Danny Yeung 41:41 You have to send it in. Um, this-

Shaan Puri 41:43 Hmm

Danny Yeung 41:43 ... this was before antigen tests were rolled out, right?

Shaan Puri 41:46 Okay.

Danny Yeung 41:46 'Cause ear- early on, you had to do the s- you had to do a laboratory test, which is the PCR test.

Shaan Puri 41:52 Yeah.

Danny Yeung 41:52 And then the antigen test, which is the quick ones, which are less accurate, only came into play, you know, maybe one year after.

Shaan Puri 42:00 I see. I see.

Danny Yeung 42:01 Right?

Shaan Puri 42:01 Okay. So, so you said supply chain and hiring people. You needed-

Danny Yeung 42:03 People, logistics, data, right? And then we were the first company contracted by the Hong Kong government to do mass community testing. And of course, you know, six months later, we... there was, like, 14, 15 different laboratories that were also doing COVID testing. However, the thing that stood out from us is I think a lot of it has to do with my technology and e-commerce background and, and data and all that stuff, yeah, was, um, we were the only testing provider that never had a [censored] up when it came to false positives and false negatives And then so when all these other laboratories, they messed up, and then the government got a lot of, yeah, crap for it, right? Obviously, because if you get a positive during that time, you have to go to detention-

Shaan Puri 42:51 Wow. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 42:52 ... for like 7 to 14 days, right? And then so this is why at one point, every single individual that landed Hong Kong Airport was mandated a Prenetics test because they wanted it to be the most secure and most accurate test.

Shaan Puri 43:04 Did you have to do anything crazy to unlock the supply chain there?

Danny Yeung 43:08 On a daily basis, you had to be fighting, you know, with so many different other, you know, laboratories around the world, right-

Shaan Puri 43:16 Yeah

Danny Yeung 43:16 ... you know, to get all this supply chain. So it was like every single day we're fighting. And again, a lot of times you had just to outbid them. And we have volumes, right? So again, but it was a constant battle. Those were some craz- two, three years of craziness.

Shaan Puri 43:29 Yeah. When you... So l- I, I, what my last question, you know, I had a few friends who were doing this. I had one friend who was doing mobile testing. He had like vans that were testing. I had another friend that was doing PPE when, when you couldn't get masks and, and other PPE-

Danny Yeung 43:42 Yeah

Shaan Puri 43:42 ... to hospitals and whatnot, and people were making money hand over fist and they're doing this 'cause there's so mu- I mean, there's the h- the strongest demand I've ever seen for anything ever, right?

Danny Yeung 43:50 Yes.

Shaan Puri 43:51 Like life or death at global scale. But, you know, some of those people, they've kind of st- stashed away enough cash that it was still a success, and some people had overbuilt, and then suddenly the music stopped, and now it's like a lot of work for nothing.

Danny Yeung 44:04 So every... So I'll give you an example, right, on, on that exact thing is that it was, it was right when we knew COVID was over, I let go of 2,000 people very, very fast, and that turned out to be a really, you know, good decision, you know. Because, again, during that timeline, Shaan, you had Cue Health, uh, you had, you know, Lucira, and these were at the time, they were listed companies. At one point, Cue Health was $3 billion market cap. They had a billion dollars in revenue in the US, right? Lucira, they had another like I think they were $2 billion market cap. Yeah, they went bankrupt, you know, 18 months after COVID 'cause they overbuilt. They built their own manufacturing places. They bought into the at-home testing, which never panned out post-COVID.

Shaan Puri 44:49 Right.

Danny Yeung 44:49 But I knew that for both sides, for a company to survive after this, we needed to make a drastic cut, and also for the individuals, right? There's... What, what are we gonna do? Why am I have 2,000 people if there's no testing? I'm just gonna like-

Shaan Puri 45:01 Right

Danny Yeung 45:02 ... you know, stand around, which is not good for them. Everyone has to move on, you know, with their life and, and livelihood and, you know, that was w- a very difficult decision of course, but ultimately it was the right decision for both sides.

Shaan Puri 45:15 If you were... I don't know if y- you know, you meet a lot of entrepreneurs or y- you know, there's a lot of people that will come up to you that are, you know, excited about what you've done and they're trying to do something and they pitch you an idea. What do you think most entrepreneurs just don't get? What's the one thing if you feel like you could just shake them and, and say, "Look, man, you just really don't get it. It's the gap between where you are and where you wanna be is this." What do you think that gap looks like for most people?

Danny Yeung 45:39 I think, uh, I mean, again, but going back to number one, right? You, you know, I always believe that if you build the best product in the market, it just makes everything so much easier, right?

Shaan Puri 45:50 Mm.

Danny Yeung 45:51 And I think if you look at, again, even, you know, when, when the COVID testing, I, I... we had the best product in the market. So if you have the best product in the market, it's much easier to build foundation, branding, positioning, premium pricing over any of your competitors, right? And I also believe, you know, as entrepreneurs and et cetera, you have to get into the weed of everything. I think some entrepreneurs, they don't like to, yeah, get involved in every part of the business. But at least from my perspective, you know, what's worked very well for me is I'm involved in every part of the business. Doesn't matter if we're 100 million company, 200 million, we'll be a billion dollars, whatever, I guarantee I'll be involved in a lot of the key, uh, all of the key decisions, um-

Shaan Puri 46:36 Mm

Danny Yeung 46:36 ... because I think that's what separates a founder from a hired CEO, right?

Shaan Puri 46:42 Mm.

Danny Yeung 46:42 I think the founder... And that's why a lot of times these founders, blah, blah, blah, et cetera, they grow their business to 400, they hire a CEO, and oftentimes the founder always comes back, right?

Shaan Puri 46:52 Mm.

Danny Yeung 46:52 'Cause the CEO perspective, they're always much more conservative, and they're looking at this from a page head, where the founders, they were able to take risks that a CEO wouldn't be able to take. So for example, even when I started IM8, if it was a CEO, there, there was no way he would've been able to take that risk, right? But because I'm the founder, you know, I have so much at stake here, there's no one in the organization that to take a risk as much as me.

Shaan Puri 47:17 Mm.

Danny Yeung 47:17 Right? To be able to make that move-

Shaan Puri 47:18 Yeah, that's a good point

Danny Yeung 47:19 ... let's get into the supplement category, right?

Shaan Puri 47:21 Yeah. It's, uh, I don't know if you've read... Have you read Founder Mode, the sort of Paul Graham blog post?

Danny Yeung 47:26 Yeah, I mean, I've, yeah, I've read that. Yeah, it's quite, I think, you know, Founder Mode is very different. Uh, correct? It's like, yeah, we're, we see things very, very uniquely different. I think entrepreneurs, you know, really have to dive into that.

Shaan Puri 47:37 Yeah. And, and you know, the first thing you said about product, you know, bu- build the best product in the market, I mean, on one hand that sounds obvious, um, of like, oh, well, okay, yeah. A- and I would say most people, everyone thinks they have a good product.

Danny Yeung 47:49 Yeah, but you have to be realistic, right? It's like, eh, it's like a big difference. I mean, I, I tell people, "How do you know this?" I, I

Danny Yeung 47:55 say, "Don't trust me. Just put it into Claude. Put it in ChatGPT. What's better, IM8 or, you know, AG1, Dorian Greens, right? Let's see what it says on the similar product, right?

Shaan Puri 48:03 [laughs] What, what does it say? Let's try.

Danny Yeung 48:06 Yeah.

Shaan Puri 48:07 It says, "If I had to choose one today, I'd buy IM8 over AG1." So y- y- there you go.

Danny Yeung 48:11 Good.

Shaan Puri 48:11 It says-

Danny Yeung 48:12 Yeah

Shaan Puri 48:12 ... "It's not just 90 ingredients versus 75," 'cause that's... ingredient count is mostly marketing.

Danny Yeung 48:16 Okay.

Shaan Puri 48:17 "I think that it's currently doing a better job putting useful ingredients at disclosed non-trivial doses in the same daily drink." And then it goes through the formula-

Danny Yeung 48:25 Oh

Shaan Puri 48:25 ... and it gives, gives a little bit of an answer. So at least according to, to ChatGPT right now-

Danny Yeung 48:30 Yeah

Shaan Puri 48:30 ... that, that is, that is correct. [laughs]

Danny Yeung 48:32 Awesome.

Shaan Puri 48:32 Which I think is a-

Danny Yeung 48:33 Okay, I wanna-

Shaan Puri 48:33 ... non-trivial accomplishment

Danny Yeung 48:34 ... I'm gonna cut that and you... I'm gonna cut that segment out and use it as an ad, okay? That's perfect. [laughs]

Shaan Puri 48:38 [laughs] Yeah.

Danny Yeung 48:39 Right?

Shaan Puri 48:39 Yeah, give me my kickback-

Danny Yeung 48:40 Yeah

Shaan Puri 48:40 ... and then you can do whatever you want.

Danny Yeung 48:41 Yeah, I'll give you 10% back. Um-

Shaan Puri 48:42 I'll be one of your TikTok affiliates.

Danny Yeung 48:44 It'll be... Exactly.

Shaan Puri 48:44 [laughs]

Danny Yeung 48:44 Affiliates. Yeah.

Shaan Puri 48:46 You know, I sold my company to this guy, Mike, um, Mike Whitmire, and he was telling... He had built the number one ranked result for buying or selling gold online. So anybody who wants to buy gold, his company was, was the, the premier leader. And I was excited when we sold 'cause I was like, "Oh, you know so much about SEO. What are all the SEO hacks that we are, we're not doing?" I'm, I, I'm terrible at SEO. I never even tried that as a growth strategy. So I was like, "Tell me, tell me, like, you know, w- what should we start doing?" And after a few meetings, I was like, "Dude, when are you gonna tell me, like, the hacks?" And he's like, "Well, there's some best practices," but he's like, "There's not really hacks." He's like... So I was like, "What'd you do with the gold company?" And he goes, "I printed out, like, the page, the webpage for all of us. And I asked myself honestly, 'Is there a reason you should use us? Why should Google put us number one? Are we better? Are we actually better? Is it easier to use? Is it, is it easier to understand? Is it more friendly? Is it faster? Like, do we have... Are we better in any way?'" And he's like, "The... We had a cold, honest conversation with ourselves that, no, we were not better. And then we decided, well, we actually have to be better if Google's gonna rank us higher. And slowly but surely, we did, you know, one... brick by brick, we just made the actual experience better until we felt we actually deserved to be number one. And guess what? Like, at that point, we didn't need any of the hacks. We actually were number one." And I just remember thinking like, "Oh, I feel like you just taught me, like, a very valuable, um, like, you know, a very valuable, obvious lesson that I needed to hear from someone like you." I need, and I needed to hear from the guy who could shatter this myth in my head that the guys who rank number one are always just doing these clever tricks, and it's like there's no trick. The trick was be the best, and if you're not willing to be the best, like if you're... You know, there's no way around. You just gotta go through this, and, uh, I, I needed to hear that at the time.

Danny Yeung 50:36 Again, that's, that-

Shaan Puri 50:36 That's awesome

Danny Yeung 50:37 ... it starts with a product, and to me, entrepreneurs just have to be realistic, right?

Shaan Puri 50:40 Well, isn't it right that as a founder you basically have to alternate between delusion and realism in a way that doesn't make any sense?

Danny Yeung 50:47 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 50:47 One, in one moment, you're gonna have to be delusional. You're gonna have no evidence, but you're gonna have to have the faith.

Danny Yeung 50:53 Yes.

Shaan Puri 50:53 And you're gonna have to believe even though-

Danny Yeung 50:54 Mm

Shaan Puri 50:54 ... you have no experience in this. The market tells you one thing, smart people tell you one thing, but you believe another. That's delusion.

Danny Yeung 51:00 [laughs]

Shaan Puri 51:00 And you gotta be a little delulu. But then-

Danny Yeung 51:01 You could. Exactly

Shaan Puri 51:02 ... then you have to switch gears and be hyper-realistic, and the guy... You know somebody who's never delusional, they end up being an employee.

Danny Yeung 51:09 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 51:09 And somebody who's only delusional ends up being a failed founder.

Danny Yeung 51:12 Mm-hmm.

Shaan Puri 51:13 It's the person who's able to shift gears between the two and know when you're, when you need to be in each mode. That's sort of the, the art of the whole thing.

Danny Yeung 51:21 Yeah, and then, like, again, I had to be very... Yeah, like you said, I had to be very delusional because I knew in my head if we put all these pieces together, we will have a big success, right? But again, going back, I didn't have any experience in this, so you had to build this with the limited information I knew-

Shaan Puri 51:36 Yeah

Danny Yeung 51:36 ... at the time.

Shaan Puri 51:38 Yeah. Um, well, Danny, I appreciate you coming on, man. This is a... You, you have a fun story from telemarketing to now, uh, running one of the fastest growing supplement brands in the world. And, uh, thanks for coming on.

Danny Yeung 51:50 Thank you. [outro music]