The first batch of post-00s who started overseas businesses now earn millions a year

As globalization continues to deepen, a group of post-00s entrepreneurs have begun to emerge in the international market. They have taken advantage of information gaps, a deep understanding of the local market, and the influence of social media to create their own business paths. From cross-border e-commerce to local life services, these young entrepreneurs have demonstrated their wisdom, courage, and innovative spirit.

If he hadn't started his own business, Jason might have been trapped in the disillusionment story of "spending millions studying abroad and returning home with a monthly salary of 3,000 yuan."

In the domestic job market, his "watered-down" degree from Australia is worthless. His behavior of jumping between six industries in five years will be labeled as "unstable". I'm afraid he won't even have a chance to interview.

Now, he sits in the conference room, convincing the 50-year-old director of a listed company to cooperate with himself, who is in his early twenties, with solid reasoning, and watching the other party's eyes change from questioning to appreciation.

Those experiences that were considered "tough" also became nutrients for his courage to venture overseas. The international market development and trading company he founded became profitable in half a year. It has a team of nearly 20 people in Sydney and Japan, with employees aged between 70 and 90, and he, as the boss, is only a 00.

In the past two years, there are many post-00s who work as part-time international students and CEOs like Jason. Terry, Li Li, Rui Rui, and Qiao An are all trendsetters who have gone abroad.

Their entrepreneurial journey is similar to that of countless predecessors. It seems to be full of glory, but in fact, it has its ups and downs. Some of them received 5 million angel round financing before leaving school, while others have not yet made back their investment.

But they are all the darlings of fate, because they grew up in the highly prosperous golden age, are born with a keen business sense, know how to take advantage of the developed industrial system behind them, and are good at playing with the rules of the overseas world.

In the turbulent Age of Discovery, this "new force" used its wisdom and courage to create one wealth story after another.

01 Terry: Taking advantage of information asymmetry to “speculate and profiteer”, earning millions a year

Selling goods across borders is like "picking up money". This was my first impression when I came into contact with cross-border e-commerce.

That was in 2020, and I was still studying in college in New York. Because my dog ​​needed a bath every now and then, and the pet store's charge of $80 per bath was too much to bear, I brought a pet drying box from China.

I didn't expect that after I bought it, friends would often come to borrow the machine and ask me for the link. After hearing so much, I realized that this might be a business opportunity, so I quickly contacted a domestic manufacturer and got 100 drying boxes. I put them on Amazon, and they were sold out in less than three days, making a net profit of nearly $20,000.

I originally wanted to make some money and then stop, but Amazon came to me and wanted to buy drying boxes from me at a 40% discount. They were selling them as a product and wanted to place an order for 2,000 units right away.

Although this squeezed some profits, I agreed to it because I didn't have to sell it myself. However, the easy win I imagined did not come, and I suffered a big setback.

According to Amazon's regulations, payment would not be made until three months after delivery, which meant that I had to advance the money. Of course, I didn't have that much money, so I had to return to China to seek investment.

Amazon's name is quite useful. With the cooperation agreement, I raised nearly 5 million yuan. Once everything was ready, I started looking for factories, placing orders, and waiting for the money to come in.

But plans cannot keep up with changes. Amazon required delivery within two months, but the factory's production capacity could not keep up. When it came to acceptance, there were still four or five hundred units missing, so Amazon canceled the order.

In desperation, I could only sell the products myself, but after trying Amazon, independent websites, and TikTok, I found that I couldn’t sell them.

Looking back, we found that those customers who rushed to buy were overseas Chinese. The locals were not very confident about smart products because they had little contact with them in their daily lives. At the same time, there are many offline pet stores in the United States, and people prefer to shop offline compared to online shopping.

After this wave of losses, I deeply understood the saying "It is difficult for people to earn money beyond their own knowledge. Even if they make money by luck, they will often lose it by their own strength." From then on, I learned to start from the needs of customers in everything.

After that, I switched to the pet toy line, which helped me avoid many pitfalls.

Last year, a well-established pet store here took a fancy to one of our smart cat balls and wanted to sell it under their brand. We designed the outer packaging according to the popular domestic high-tech style, but it was rejected and we were told to make it according to their standards.

It was a very earthy color scheme, very similar to the packaging of the toys I had when I was a child, but I thought that the customer would know the locals better, so I supplied them as requested. As expected, the products were sold out as soon as they were put on the shelves.

Now, they get 100,000 balls from me every three months. It is no exaggeration to say that most of TikTok’s pet balls in North America come from me. I can earn 200,000 US dollars every year from this category alone.

Of course, I didn’t put all my hopes on North America. After all, prices have been rising here in the past two years, and life has become more difficult for everyone.

With the help of a wealthy classmate from the Middle East, I opened a Middle East line and resold leftover genuine leather bags according to the preferences of the people there, at 50 dirhams each.

First, they broadcast live on Facebook, and then lead people to sell goods on WhatsApp. With a combination of public and private domains, the "ladies" in the Middle East can't resist at all, and the goods are often sold out while they are still on the way.

Seeing that I made money, my overseas classmates are now eager to try it out.

02 Li Li: After two rounds of "getting rich quickly", it is impossible to work as a laborer

When it comes to doing business, I may be what others call a "talented player."

I started to make money because I was desperate and wanted to find a way out. I was in school for only half a year when the pandemic hit. I couldn’t go out, and I had to take online classes in front of the professor’s face every day. It was a torture for me who loved to go out and take pictures.

In order to avoid going crazy, I researched outfits online to quench my thirst. As I was browsing around, I discovered a bug. There are no trendy clothing stores here. Most of the styles are simple. Many international students complained that they couldn't find clothes that suit them.

It just so happened that domestic fashion was quite popular in our country at that time, and I thought that with so many Chinese people in Canada, there should be a big market for bringing domestic fashion over.

Facts have proven that international students cannot change their Chinese tastes or their dressing habits. I carefully compared and selected several popular domestic fashion brands such as Yi San Shou and posted them on WeChat Moments. They were often sold out as soon as they were posted.

After working as a "clothing porter" for less than two months, my monthly profit reached more than 4,000 Canadian dollars, equivalent to more than 20,000 RMB, which was more than enough to cover my living expenses.

But this job was very tedious and my schoolwork was very heavy, so I had no choice but to give up. It was not until the summer vacation of my junior year that my academic problems came to an end and I became interested again.

I am a coconut lover, but there is only one store selling coconut jelly in the entire GTA area (equivalent to the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region in China). Not only do I have to drive for more than an hour and wait in line for a long time every time, but the price gets more expensive as the products go up, and one costs nearly 100 yuan.

I was unhappy, but I also thought this was an opportunity, so I decided to do it myself. Because this was an offline business, I didn't copy the experience from last time, but instead found a friend in the catering industry and learned from him.

With their guidance, we determined the taste, category, and packaging issues, and with a large number of hot recommendations from Xiaohongshu store bloggers, the store opened with great fanfare at the beginning of the summer vacation.

I have to say that domestic traffic platforms are really powerful. Waves of people come here to try them out. I can earn around 300 Canadian dollars every day, and I made nearly 200,000 RMB in one summer vacation.

Of course, it was fun to make money, but it was also really busy and tiring. Plus, seeing that my business was doing well, a lot of coconut jelly shops popped up all of a sudden, and business became difficult. Not long after school started, I closed the shop and ran away.

However, after these two waves of "getting rich quickly", it was impossible for me to work anymore. In the second half of my senior year, I began to look for long-term entrepreneurial projects, and finally established my other major hobby - manicure.

Compared to the dirt-cheap manicures in China, a simple single-color manicure in Canada costs 80 Canadian dollars, plus a 10%-15% tip; if you want to get diamonds, you'll have to spend at least 1,000 RMB.

After being backstabbed several times, I gradually realized: If I use the domestic industrial chain and match it with Canadian prices, wouldn’t the profit be even greater than coconut jelly?

I took action as soon as I thought of it. I signed up for a course to learn manicure, and then I found ways to get in touch with domestic manufacturers of nail materials such as glue and diamonds. I bought them at Christmas time at a price that was half the market price and got off to a good start.

Now, I can make more than 4,000 yuan by making 10 pieces a day. I will go back to China for further studies every once in a while to upgrade the latest technology and design styles to maintain my unique competitiveness.

03 Ruirui: From monopolizing the market to disbanding in just over a year

My entrepreneurial experience is like a fleeting shooting star, short but brilliant.

After the outbreak of the epidemic, Canada also experienced years of lockdown, and fresh food delivery became a hot industry. Three partners and I plunged into it, hoping to create a "mini Meituan" or a "mini SF Express."

At that time, Uber food delivery was already very popular, but the delivery fee was as high as RMB 50-150. We wanted to go the affordable delivery route, but after research, we found that this would not work in Canada, which has a vast land and a sparse population, so we decisively turned to ToB.

In pursuit of efficiency, we have also narrowed the range of product categories. We no longer deal in refrigerated products such as cakes and flowers, but only transport frozen items. The warehouse opening hours have also been extended to 11 pm to ensure that any undelivered goods can be returned to the freezer in a timely manner.

After the company was put into operation, our orders quickly soared from dozens at the beginning to hundreds. Later, almost all the fresh food stores in the city came to us for cooperation, and we also took over the business of some large supermarkets. We almost monopolized the B2B fresh food delivery in Toronto.

At that time, business was so prosperous that even refunds were very prompt.

I still remember that summer a customer wanted to ship ice cream. Before accepting the order, I had clearly informed him that there was a risk of the ice cream melting, and offered a slightly more expensive solution. The customer said he didn't care and just asked us to deliver it as soon as possible.

But as expected, the driver happened to be in poor condition that day and his efficiency was low. Even though he had put this order at the front of the queue, the ice cream melted into puddles of liquid when it was delivered.

The customer who received the goods turned hostile and demanded compensation for the loss. We were very angry at his rogue behavior, but the post-2000s generation of business people are committed to not arguing about things that can be solved with money, so we finally spent money to resolve the problem. Moreover, there was only one return order every few days, which did not affect the speed at which we made money.

At our peak, we had endless business every day when we opened. Nearly 600 orders came in like snowflakes, and our turnover once exceeded five digits, expressed in Canadian dollars, which is almost 100,000 RMB.

But there is an old saying that "excessive joy leads to sorrow". The epidemic has brought us entrepreneurial opportunities, but it has also planted the seeds of pain for us.

The opportunity was there, and one year after we started our business, many Chinese teams also got involved. Originally there were only one or two companies in this field, but later there were so many that you couldn't count them with one hand.

This is not the worst news. During our business start-up period, the price of gasoline in Canada rose from 98 cents per liter to 200 cents per liter, doubling directly.

We have always insisted on giving 80% of the profit from each order to the driver, and the remaining 20% ​​is used to spread the operating costs. After the oil price soared, the company's profit margin could no longer be maintained.

During that time, I returned to the state at the beginning of my business. I was either staying up late to make posters or taking online classes in the car on the way to visit clients. The only difference is that this time it was not to seize the initiative, but because I was afraid of being eliminated.

However, it is difficult to overcome force majeure. We struggled for several months in the dilemma of drivers not wanting to cut their wages and merchants not accepting price increases. Finally, when our losses reached the cost line, we had to reluctantly close the company.

But I didn't give up. I rented the original warehouse and worked part-time as an overseas mail deliveryman. After graduation, I went to work in an overseas warehouse, secretly learning the business skills of the big bosses, and waited until I was fully prepared to fight again.

04 Qiao An: I failed, but I can change my fate

"Qiao An, is the project going well recently?" I spent a long time typing and deleting this greeting from my classmate, but I finally concealed the unfavorable situation.

After all, it was my own decision to turn the initially “small-scale” course assignment into a real entrepreneurial project.

When I took the entrepreneurship elective course in the first semester of my senior year, five of my classmates and I chose the baby plush doll entrepreneurship project. Because we conducted sufficient offline research and detailed analysis, we won first place in the group.

After the project was completed, everyone wanted to disband, after all, graduation was imminent and job hunting was imminent, but I felt that this project was very feasible and tried my best to push it into practice.

From the perspective of a deep plush toy player, I appealed to their emotions and reason, and continued to lobby them that in the Canadian plush toy market, which is full of big brands, there is considerable room for growth in toys for babies that are priced between big brands and white-label products.

With my insistence, everyone finally compromised.

As I was able to deal with my friends, I threw myself into the game with all my strength. First, I referred to Jellycat's iconic smiley face and compared it with the mental state of the post-00s generation, who were "not able to live well, but unable to die", and designed an expression that was both sad and lazy, so that people would remember us at a glance.

After that, I went back to the Guangdong OEM factory to select fabrics that were soft enough, revised the proofing plan four times, and focused on details almost obsessively. Other friends were also busy taking photos, making posters, and launching an independent website.

After everything was ready, my confidence swelled, and I spent a few hundred Canadian dollars on advertising on TikTok and Facebook, waiting for a successful start.

I didn’t expect that after waiting, I found myself to be the clown: the video that I thought would have hundreds or thousands of views ended up with only single-digit exposures, and the transactions were directly closed at zero.

I started to get anxious. I had to know that the initial batch of 500 pieces had already drained nearly half of my savings, and now the marketing expenses were also wasted. My business might collapse at the very beginning. Thinking of my classmates who were helping me for free, I was even more ashamed to face their concern.

But it is not my style to surrender when encountering difficulties. After being depressed for a day or two, I cheered myself up and started sending visiting emails to offline maternal and child stores one by one, preparing to go to the stores with my doll to introduce myself.

Facts have proved that "shameless" people can really live a good life. As soon as I walked into a local chain store, two shop assistants were attracted by the cute appearance of the dolls. Before I could introduce them, they started to touch them and praised the products highly. Finally, they took the initiative to introduce the purchasing manager to me to discuss further cooperation.

In this way, the first batch of 50 dolls were sold in physical stores. Although the quantity was not large, it was a good start for a startup brand.

In terms of online channels, I also spent more than half a month constantly disassembling the content posted by other sellers, from the most basic composition to post-editing, and I looked for tutorials everywhere to learn.

For example, many stores have KOLs appearing on the screen, so I overcame my “camera phobia” and became my own brand spokesperson. I practiced my sales pitch over and over again, and switched the originally boring pictures to videos to make them vivid product sharing videos.

Now, my video traffic has reached thousands steadily, and I have successfully sold my first online order.

After experiencing ups and downs, my mentality has become much more stable. I believe that through daily observation, recording and continuous attempts, I will definitely succeed.

(All characters in this article are pseudonyms. Special thanks to bloggers "J's Entrepreneurship Notes", "Gwenda", "Chi Yu Wu Ci", and "Li Shiba Fa Fa Fa" for their support of this article.)

Text | Yu Liling and Chen Zijie Editor | Cao Binling and Fu Xiaoling Data support | Insight Data Research Institute This article is written by the author of Operation Pie [Appearance and Inside], WeChat public account: [Appearance and Inside], original/authorized to be published in Operation Pie, and any reproduction without permission is prohibited.

The title image is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.