Jeffery: Welcome to Impact Investing brought to you by SupportersFund.com from the sunny real estate capital of the world Toronto, Canada. I’m your host Jeffery JP Potvin let’s please welcome from sunny Bangkok Thailand Andrew stotz from stocks investment research and academy as our investor for today. Welcome Andrew it’s a real pleasure having you join us.

Andrew: JP Thank you very much. And I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. It definitely wasn’t a sunny capital in Cleveland, Ohio, but maybe Toronto gets a little more sun than Cleveland, but definitely not more sun than Bangkok.

Jeffery: Well, that is true. That is true. I’m going to say that today was actually a really nice sunny day in Toronto. And I think I’m going to start using nice little lines in front of everything just to emphasize wherever I am in the world. But. So today’s my first throwing that out there. So I’m going to try and put a little bit more emphasis on where everybody is these days because it’s such a remote world. Right. But we’re excited to have you join us today. Really excited because, man, do you have such a great background across all platforms from starting companies, investing in companies all the way to the world markets. And today we’re going to get to dive into that and the way we like to start our show, Andrew, is we want to dive right into it. So if you can share a little bit of your background all the way from your school days, all the way through to what you’re doing today. And then one thing about you that we wouldn’t know.

Andrew: Yeah, well, thanks for that. And the one thing that probably nobody, very few people know is I served time in jail and that was when I was 14. So luckily it was at a young age, so it wasn’t on my permanent record. I was charged with encourage ability by my parents for my behavior, and I had a drug addiction and alcohol addiction problem and my parents were pretty tough and they said, throw the book at him. And that’s part of the lessons that I learned in my life. And then I went into, you know, my story is incomplete without understanding my background, which is that I went into three different drug rehabs when I was young and got into a 12 step program that helped me from that day till today. So I’ve never had a legal drink in my life and I’ve been clean and sober for 41 years. So that is, you know, and thanks to my parents for for pushing me hard at those in those early days. So and I try to provide inspiration for people who are facing addiction and other problems and challenges like that, that there is a way out. You know, if anybody’s ever listening to the things that I say at times, I always tell them, just go online and type in 12 step programs and there’s something out there that can help. When with the 12 step program. So that’s kind of the foundation. So when I left my parents house at 18, I just started to fly. I was ready to fly and I flew to California from Ohio and I struggled to try to get my education. I ended up, you know, getting an education as an analyst in finance or as a as a as a a student in finance. And in fact, Jeffrey, I just had a I call into my client a classroom in Long Beach State where I graduated from. And it was my professor who taught me in my undergrad in 1988, and it was his last year for teaching. And so I spoke to his class, which was, you know, really exciting. But when I graduated from finance, I ended up working at Pepsi. So I worked for three years in Los Angeles in manufacturing. And I think that was something that I wasn’t really like big on Wall Street or I didn’t really know much about. I just thought finance was interesting. But I went to work in operations at Pepsi, and I think it was a great move. And I always tell young people, when you get out of university, try to get a job in something that’s different from what you study. The reason why is because first it’s going to widen your horizons, number one. But if you figure out that I don’t like operations, you could always go back to the finance or accounting that you studied. But going from the finance or accounting that you studied to a new area is a lot harder. And so that’s some advice that I give. But I, I took a trip to take it to Thailand and in Asia when I graduate university and I found Thailand was very fascinating. I had a Cambodian girlfriend at the time I was in university in Long Beach, is famous for having a large population of Cambodian. We had about 10% of the population of Cambodians in of the population of Long Beach were Cambodians. So Thailand made sense and in 1992, I quit my job at Pepsi. I sold everything I own. I closed my bank accounts. I got rid of everything. I packed up some boxes. I got on a plane and I moved to Thailand and I started teaching finance for one year. And then I realized that I wasn’t going to make any money doing that. And the politics in a Thai university are even more complex for me than the politics in a Western university. And I just thought this is a field of battle that I’m never going to win on. So I stayed teaching all my life. So I’ve been teaching since since I came to Thailand. But I got a job as an analyst and I worked for ten years as a bank analyst, basically. And then I became a head of research and then I ran teams of analysts. So I lived through the boom times in 19, you know, when I started as an analyst in 1993, I lived from 93 until 1997 when we had the Asian financial crisis. So I was living in the boom times when banks were growing their balance sheets by 20%. And then I went through the bust time and during the bust time, basically I had to, you know, learn as an analyst to how to recapitalize banks and all of that. So up until 2023, I really learned a lot about that. And so I had a career as an analyst and then as a head of research, which I did all of that for about 20 years until I set up my own firm, starts investment research and he starts academy. Now, in 1993, about my best friend Dale came to see me in Thailand. He was studying in Japan and he’s fluent in Japanese. And he said, Coffee in Thailand is terrible. And so he said, Why don’t we start a coffee business? And so he came back and in 1995 he set up coffee works our coffee business, and we started to grow. But, you know, it was it was pretty tiny, I would say, in our first year was in 1997, we probably had $100,000 in revenue or whatever. We had a factory. And the key thing is that in the 1997 crisis, everything kind of fell apart. The economy in 1998 and Thailand contracted by 11%. It was brutal. And for the coffee business, it was basically a death blow. And for my job as an analyst, I lost it in in April of 1998. And we moved into the factory to try to figure out how to regroup and make our coffee business survive. And there’s just one little defining story that I tell is that in August of 1998, it seemed like all had been lost. We had invested our money. I had still had, you know, in savings and stuff. But, you know, it was we weren’t getting our business wasn’t running the way we wanted to. We didn’t have the money to try to expand. Plus there weren’t people buying coffee at the time. It was just a crisis. And so we were living in the factory since April of 1998, and I got a phone call in August of 1998 from my sister who said her cancer returned. And when I hung up that phone, Dale and I just sat there and cried in this, you know, rainy Sunday in the middle of, you know, a jungle outside on the outskirts of Bangkok. You know, in 1998, two American guys, you know, what are we going to do? I had to get on a plane, go back and see my sister. that startup is kind of a trap. Sometimes you get in a situation where you can’t go forward because we didn’t have the funding to hire the sales team. Plus there really wasn’t that much sales in a down economy. But you also can’t go backwards because if we wanted to exit and sell our business, we were going to get $0.10 on the dollar for what we invested. So sometimes you just sitting there trying to not get knocked out. And that is exactly what happened to us in the year of 1998. And maybe I’ll I’ll stop there because I’ve said a lot of stuff, but there’s more to the story. But that gives you a picture of my number one. I’ve done five different startups over my career, but that’s the one that I would say is the most interesting story in that way.

Jeffery: Well, that’s that’s great. I’m going to go back to kind of the story that kind of kicked all of this off. And I think I really enjoyed the fact that you have not had a legal drink in your life. That’s obviously like a really good thing to share. I think that that’s something that not everybody is can say for sure. And you’ve come a long way. And I know that through listening to other podcasts and our discussions, you brought your mother with you. Now so that the bonding and the relationship is just as strong as it was then that it is today. And I think that’s phenomenal to share that, you know, what you went through and as much as your parents were hard on you, I think it kind of helped elevate you, but continued to build your relationship with them. And today it’s probably just as strong, if not better. So I think kudos. I think that’s pretty, pretty amazing accomplishment.

Andrew: Yeah, I appreciate that. It’s kind of come full circle. I think the key thing is that what I learned from my mom and dad is never give up on your loved ones. And there’s many, many times they wanted to give up for sure. And I drove them crazy and I was abusive and I was many things that was caused by my alcohol and drug addiction. And they somehow managed to see through that and hang on and and yeah, so it worked out. And so I brought my mother here seven years ago when my father passed away. And we’ve built in fact, we were just talking yesterday about how we really built an amazing relationship. She’s 85 now, but, you know, we built a huge, fantastic correction connection between the two of us. We were already close. But yeah, so for anybody out there that has the opportunity to take care of their parents, I highly recommend it for the sake that it’s something that you never, ever going to regret in your life.

Jeffery: I love it. Well, shared. So to kind of go back and peel into what you’ve been doing over the better part of the last 20 years and you and you talked a little bit about, you know, I think it’s financial stability and learning what you went to school for, challenging yourself to do something outside, but knowing you’ve built this other skill set that you have, which is to say financial or legal, whatever that might be, but challenge yourself with something else, dive into it and see where it takes you. And it sounds like the coffee was one of the businesses that you pretty much did that with. And I love the story because it shows what it takes to be an entrepreneur, right? It’s it’s not magical. It’s not grit. Maybe it’s everything. It’s all kind of tied together. Now, when you were going through this and you had to move into the warehouse and you had to do all these things to kind of help support the business, is there one or two things that really grappled you at the time that you think made you who you are today? Like, there’s the hustle that you gain from it, but is there something that, you know, that triggering moment where you were sitting there and you decided, we’ve got something here, we got to do something different? And that kind of turned the notch up because today that company is still flourishing. So what was it that kind of moved into that next base?

Andrew: Well, I think the first thing is that witnessing my business partner, Dale, going through all that and staying true to our friendship, staying true to his mission as the leader of the company to protect the interests of all shareholders. And you know, that that always was such an inspiring thing. We actually had someone steal from our factory way back then and they we submitted all this information to the police and they started a case on that particular person and the person had quit and they were kind of hiding out so the police couldn’t find them. And one day I was at eating lunch with a friend of mine in Bangkok here in a noodle shop, and the girl who had stolen money from us walked by and it was at that moment that I realized, like I thought to myself, you know how hard Dale is working to protect the interests of this company, and here’s this girl. What am I going to do? And I had the warrant for her arrest in my pocket because I kept it in my wallet for some reason, thinking that I could fold it out if I ever saw her. And I did. And there I was, if you could imagine it. Here comes this white, as we call it, in Thai foreign guy running down the street chasing after this, you know, girl. And it was kind of I think a lot of people took a second look. But eventually I was able to get the police that I we had work with. And basically got her apprehended and got her to the police station. And then they went through the process and I went back to the factory after she was arrested and I went to talk to everybody and I just said, look, stealing it doesn’t is stealing is wrong under Buddhist laws, under Buddhist guidelines, Under Christian guidelines. And don’t tell me that you’re poor. We’ve all been through situations where we’re poor and there’s many amazing people who have almost no money who don’t steal and so if you steal from this company, we’re going to bring you bring down the charges against you. And I think that that isn’t a story that was, you know, an example that’s a legacy in our in our business that basically set the tone of of how we look at it. So I would say the first thing was the relationship with Dale and watching him struggle, but stay true to the message and the mission. And I think my inspiration that I want to provide to any startup founder is that, you know, it’s only at the time of trouble and pain and suffering that your behavior really matters. It’s easy to be in good behavior when things are going well, but when things are tough, that’s the time that you really stand out. And so I really Dale inspired me and that made me want to protect the business more, support him more, get the funding that we need and then get out of that. And so that, I would say, is probably a story that of inspiration.

Jeffery: I love that. And it kind of in my mind, it triggers one thing, which was if I remember the quote or the the the data on this was that companies in a lifetime, the lifetime of a company, they’ll will pivot three times. Most founders give up on the second one and fail the business because they couldn’t handle it. So in this case, to your point, it really is setting the tone for your business. And when you get into those tough spots, already have a plan in place on how you can work through them because you’re going to have them and you’re going to have to pivot, you’re going to have to have these things that are going to change your your model, the direction you’re going, and they could crush you. But those are the biggest learnings you’re going to have in your business. And if there is a way to get through that second one, you have a very good chance of building a successful company.

Andrew: Yeah, and I think that’s that’s pretty true. I mean, we started just thinking that we were going to be buying coffee from a roasting company and then selling it, and we couldn’t find a great supplier. So we set up a roasting company. So that was kind of pivot number one. Then we thought, we’re going to supply offices and all of a sudden offices were, you know, shrunk and they didn’t budget for coffee. And then we pivoted into restaurants. And so then we started supplying coffee shops and restaurants, and then we had enough capital that we said, okay, now we’re going to pivot and focus a little bit more on hotels. And I like to call that early phase of any almost any business is what I call chasing revenue. And you’re just you know, your idea is one thing of what you’re going to bring to the market and the market. Mr. Economics knocks on your door and gives you some feedback and you realize, maybe that’s not as valuable as I thought, and now I’m going to, you know, have to chase revenue over here, over there. And I think that’s where one of the books on my shelf is a Lean startup. And Lean Startup, I think is one of the books that really helps to to to talk about that idea of pivoting, getting instant, you know, as fast as possible feedback, and then and then modifying your behavior based upon that.

Jeffery: Will you mention and that’s a great book I think all founders should get the opportunity to read that. It just layers in so many great, valuable ways of looking at your business, how to shrink your time and operate on the things and focus, and also the part you mentioned about chasing revenue. I think that’s pretty crucial because at the beginning you’re trying to figure out what the real problem is that you’re solving and maybe you can share a little bit of this, but you mentioned the three pivots that you went through. Is there a somewhere in here where you’re looking at your business and you’re saying, wait, we’ve got these three avenues, they’re all making money, let’s stick this course out and we’ll just run all three. Where is it where you decided, Hey, let’s we’re either dividing and conquering or we’re going to really focus in on this one area and make this the business, because if not, we’re going to fail or the economies of scale are hitting us and we don’t have a choice, what is that kind of direction? Or when do you say, let’s just lob everything else off and go for it?

Andrew: I would I would. First of all, I would recommend a great book by a guy named Gary Sutton, and it’s called The Six Month Fix. And he’s a turnaround guy. And I thought that book was great when we were in some of our toughest times. It really the book really annoyed me because he kicked off the whole book and says, Hi, you’re the CEO and I’m the turnaround guy. When I come, you leave because I can do what you won’t do by. And it just pissed me off really, you know, really got under my skin that wait a minute, I can do what we need to do in this business. And we had a session where I went through that book in detail, and then we sat down with myself and Dale and the management team and we just said, Can we do this or not? And that was first step. And then the second one was that we said, you know, this is not rocket science. We’re not bringing some new revolutionary thing to the market. This is coffee, This is a traditional business. We’re not giving up. And so if we had been trying to bring something really unique to the market, I think the the thinking process would be different. So that is one part of it. Now, the other part is related to the idea of do you drop something, Do you keep something? You know, I think it’s such a challenge in business that ultimately what I what I want to do is have as many different revenue streams as I can. If I can have a revenue stream in my business that is coming from offices, if I have a revenue stream coming from restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, you know, those are as many as I can get. I want to get them. But I also know that for instance, retail and website and that stuff is not our thing. It’s not in our DNA. So we’re not going there. Even in the darkest hour of the COVID crisis with the lockdowns, when our revenue was down as much as 80% in the worst months, we didn’t go there and we just didn’t because we just knew it wasn’t in our DNA and we knew it could potentially be a waste of our resources. So we kind of continue to double down. So I would say the thing, the lesson that I’ve learned and I talk a lot about strategy with my students and with others here in Thailand, I talk about the idea is that your strategy has to align with your DNA. If it doesn’t, then you’re just wasting time.

Jeffery: And I think those are super valuable points. And even if you did choose to pivot and go online or do something that was outside the DNA, that would have been extra time spent by everybody, which would have taken your eye off the ball, which was a we’re in crisis mode right now. We need to focus on the areas where we’re are generating sales, we are generating value and how do we clean that up or fix it to move it into a bigger direction or at least open up more doors in an area that we know really well? Because our fastest way to a sale as an example, would be 30 days doing it by store or it’s six months in a whole team of resources to get that other portion running and set up and going.

Andrew: Yeah. And I think the other thing that I really interested in these days is strategy and corporate strategy. And I have a one of many different services that I offer is called Profit Bootcamp, where I help mid-sized family businesses double their profits in 12 months and with profit boot camp. Basically, I have lessons that I provide to my clients on a weekly basis that they watch, take notes on, think about, and then I arrive at their facility every two weeks to sit down and discuss and debate. And the whole first month or so is devoted to the corporate strategy of the company. And I think that this is what’s key. Diversifying into different revenue streams and doing different businesses is fine as long as your corporate strategy is clear. And ultimately I like to think of a goal is, you know, I want to get to the top of the mountain. The strategy is how I get there. And one of the so so what I’m trying to do when I help my clients and when I look at our business is to focus on what’s the DNA and how do we develop the strategy of this business around that. And so I think strategy is so critical and it’s it’s it’s also what is your positioning in the market? Our positioning in the market is all about the service that we provide for our coffee business to the hotels and coffee shops who basically are having, you know, morning coffee serving two, maybe 305 hundred, you know, guests. And so we don’t take our eye off the ball. It’s not about the, you know, the most amazing quality coffee that’s for a coffee shop company to do. But for us, it’s about the machines, the technicians, the support to keep that coffee flowing so that they’re delivering the right coffee experience for their clients. And, you know, it took some time for us to kind of really figure that out. Originally, you know, we thought it was about the blends and the recipes and all that. But now we’ve learned and that fits with the DNA of Dale, who started when he was 18 as a technician, fixing coffee machines. And he did that in the U.S..

Jeffery: I love it. So you’re Dale being the CEO of the business, driving it. It sounds like you’re taking one of his core backgrounds, utilizing that and propelling the business forward and the business story forward. And then over time, you guys have, I wouldn’t say pivoted. You found your lane and your lane goes back to the best thing that you knew right away from the beginning. You tried other areas to see if this was the area that you could focus on to generate those other lines of revenue. But it always came back to the area that was the biggest problem, that the market was telling you to go and you guys eventually started to follow that and that brought you kind of to where you are today, obviously, but it helped you build revenue and build growth. And that was because you found the real problem and you focused on that and you continue to move forward. Is that a fair statement?

Andrew: Yeah. And maybe I’ll also describe the relationship between, let’s say, Dale and I, and I want to map that into the relationship between, let’s say, a CEO and a chairman. I’m not officially a chairman of the company. I’m just a shareholder. And Dale basically is the managing director and I’m a director. So ultimately, I know as as a shareholder that’s not working in the company, my job is to work on the company. And basically Dell’s focus, like any CEO, is growth, growth, growth, opportunity, market growth, all of those things is what he’s constantly focused on. If you have a CEO who’s not focused on growth, you probably have a problem. And then I see my role obviously is supporting him in that growth. But also my focus is risk, risk, risk. And so when you think about the CEO, think growth, when you think about the chairman, think risk. And if you just look at those that as a way of thinking about that, you start to realize that the value of a great chairman or board advisor or just an advisor is basically the focus on risk because the CEO’s got to focus on growth. And so I just wanted to explain that relationship. And that’s that’s how we have it in our friendship.

Jeffery: I love it. No, this is this is good. Very valuable. So now you guys have built up this great business and over time you have diversified, you’ve worked in different areas on the financing side, investing in different areas. And you’ve even written a couple of books. So there was one thing that kind of tailored to what you were just sharing. And I think my excitement was that, you know, for it was 14 points by Edward Deming and you kind of break through those. And there was a couple of points that really trigger my brain into what you’re talking about today. And I kind of wanted to maybe you could dive into a couple of them and explain them a little bit better and more context to how they benefit these early stage founders. And one of them, I think you touched on a lot of these, but I’ll start with the first one, which is create, create constant purpose towards improvement and to take your analogy of you and the CEO, what are the roles defining side of that in really hitting this one?

Andrew: So first, when I was working at Pepsi, I was kind of into statistics and finance. So I, I and my boss at the time basically said, Hey, you should go take this seminar with this guy, Dr. Deming. And I was 24 and I got on an airplane and flew to DC and I basically sat down in a room with maybe 300 other people. I sat in the front row right there just listening to what he said. And it just it rocked my world. And I think that from then until today, it’s really been an influence, what he said. And he has his 14 points, which I found very influential. And I tried to write a book called Transform Your Business with Dr. Deming’s 14 points as a way of trying to simplify as best I could, what he was saying for my management team and my company. And then I realized, okay, I probably should publish it. So I put it on Amazon and now it’s actually, you know, selling pretty well on there over the years. But the first point that he talks about is constancy of purpose, and that is that the role of management is to set the direction of the company. And what was interesting about that too, is the idea of a lot of times companies will go to lower level employees and get them involved in the setting of corporate strategy and stuff like that. And when he said is nonsense, this is your job as leader of the company, you know, don’t you know? Don’t you know, don’t try to skirt your responsibility. Your job is to to figure out what’s the direction of this company. And that’s the constancy of purpose is, you know, what’s the direction of the company. And what Dr. Deming taught is that if the constancy of purpose was continuous improvement, that you are trying to improve yourself consistently and you stay focused on the customer through those improvements, you’re going to be miles ahead of your competitors and you’re going to improve your business. So that’s the first one which he talks about, which is constancy of purpose, which I think the reason why I like family businesses is because I think family businesses have a lot more opportunity to build constancy of purpose in the biggest, most interesting family business in Asia. Related to that is Toyota. There’s been 12 CEOs and seven of them since the founding were family members. Five were not. And but they’ve set up the Toyota production system and other things about the company that are built around the DNA of the owners. And ultimately, by focusing on continually improving, they actually were a big adherent to Dr. Deming’s teachings in the old days. And so and still still are. I think that, you know, that is step number one.

Jeffery: I love it. So there’s another point that follows into that, and I want to touch on this one too much, but it’s work with one supplier to reduce cost. And the reason why I like that one is because I think it emphasizes your point earlier, which is that if you’re going to be building a business and you’re going to drive this business forward, if you have too many people operating in too many businesses, you get diluted, you get too busy, you’re all over the place. And if you can find ways to streamline things faster and better and be able to build on price and cost, you’re going to have a better opportunity to grow your business.

Andrew: Yeah, and I think with this one about going down to one supplier, it’s so against what most people think. It’s just one of his kind of revolutionary ideas or counterintuitive ideas. And his point is that, first of all, by by beating up suppliers against each other, the first thing is you’re destroying trust and the willingness and the desire of the supplier to invest in improving the product and service and the supply of the material that they’re providing is just disappearing. And so you’re never going to have the trust and the connection that’s necessary to take the improvement of your product and service to the next level. The second point that he would make about that, I believe, is that the every single product and service, every single product that you bring into your factory, let’s say, or into your business as a service is has variability in nothing. Nothing is perfect. There’s a range of incoming material. Let’s just take coffee as a clear example. If we go out and get a bunch of different suppliers and pit them against each other, first, we lose trust number one. And the second thing that happens is that when we switch suppliers, it causes a downstream effect to our roasting, to our packaging, to the storage and the shelf life of the coffee, to the taste and the reverberations of that. Switching back and forth has downstream effects that the people who are making those changes in the purchasing department have no clue about. And that’s where it’s, you know, about thinking about how do we what are we optimizing for here? Are we optimizing for, let’s say, the lowest priced, lowest cost coffee bean or we optimizing for the best and most consistent morning coffee experience for the customer and the job of senior management is to get the aim of the system, the operation, the aim of the business clear. That’s part of the constancy of purpose and that’s really part of, you know, the way he would, you know, the way I think that he described it. When I listen to it and everything I’ve read and learned.

Jeffery: It’s great. And it ties into the whole model of change. People are afraid of change. So if you have that one supplier doing one thing and again, you build trust, trust is huge because now you can lean on each other to solve bigger problems. You can get out faster of those problems and move forward. But on the change side, if you build something that’s really consistent, people keep coming back. It’s like going to a restaurant. If your favorite meal this lasagna and every time you go back and keep changing it, then you lose that consistency and you decide, I can’t go there anymore because it’s not the same coffee, it’s not the same was on you. But I was in love with the one you served last week. What happened to that one? So I think it breaks people down when they’re looking for that pattern. And everybody has a pattern, right? Every day go the same way. Pocket your phones in the same pocket. Everything is mapped out to the easiest and fastest way to get from A to B, And if you keep changing that, then you’ll lose customers instead of gaining them and building that respect with them.

Andrew: Yeah. Imagine if you’re a rock star or pop star and you went to your concerts and you have new material and you want to, you know, you’re tired of the old stuff. And the only thing the audience wants to hear is that old song that had so much meaning to them. And that’s it. And if you go and you just bring something completely new, you may find that you didn’t actually satisfy what they want. And it can be a bit repetitive. But ultimately what happens is that customers want consistency in product and service.

Jeffery: I love it. The next one that stood out is on leadership, and I think this is probably what every business early on struggles with implementing great leaders, or at least starting with them. And it. Thank you found from your your best friend that he came to you with this great idea a concept to build a business and you jumped in and backed it and became a great duo and building this company out and you went through the thick and thin of it. What is, what’s the version that you feel is the best way to overcome that, to find the right people, especially early on, and of course utilize thing through the 14 points.

Andrew: I mean, I think the first thing is you’ve got to have a clear aim and a clear mission for your company. And that’s where a lot of the things that I hear like mission vision values, that people waste a lot of time on that stuff. And I spend a lot of time on just trying to come up with something very simple about what is unique about that company and what’s the mission and ours. Ours is this message of the the quality in the person’s mouth or what one of our supplier calls it the the in the cup quality. What we want to think about is that coffee experience. That’s what we’re driven by. And since most people are drinking coffee in the morning, we can say that morning coffee experience and since that first coffee experience of the morning is probably most important, it’s that first coffee experience. And that’s really the aim of our system to maximize that at the lowest cost possible, you know, and keep it as efficient as possible. And ultimately, you know, leadership is about how are you bringing the company, setting the direction of the company, staying true to the direction of the company, and then communicating that. I used to think that strategy was secret. But now I realized strategy must be public. If your strategy is not clear and public out there, then it’s probably the case that the market isn’t feeling it or seeing it. So leadership is key and then you then you move down. I think the main thing that Dr. Deming focused on, on what I found fascinating when I sat and listened to him is he was so tough on senior management and he really said, the responsibility is yours. You set system, you set the aim in the system and the employees. You can’t go out there and talk to the employees about, I want better quality when you’re not giving them the right tools where the equipment’s old, you’re not giving you enough money for maintenance. Ultimately you are setting the system that is determining at least 90% of the output of your system. And to go and blame that on the employees, you got it all wrong. And that leadership is saying it’s my responsibility to set this system and set it with the right aim and the right, you know, understanding of that.

Jeffery: And I think that ties into the last the last point that I wanted to jump on, which was continuous improvements and forever. And I think the continuous improvements kind of falls on that, that if you want to deliver a great experience or a great product, you have to give people the tools, You have to give them the right ways to improve themselves, like you being sent this talk 20 plus years ago, that was a way of improving you and giving you ideals that changed your life forever. And that’s kind of how everybody wants to operate and work inside of a business. And they don’t want to be in a silo and they don’t want to lose that knowledge that they could be gaining by interacting or whatever that might be in their business.

Andrew: And I would just to hit this one home. What I would say is if you if you are implementing in your business KPIs, key performance, particularly for individuals, my advice is stop that crap right now. And the reason why I say that is because it’s hard enough to come up with an aim for your business and a strategy for getting there. It’s hard enough to find the right people to work with you to get there. It’s hard enough to get the different departments to work together. It’s hard enough to get people to work together. When you do individual KPIs that are tied to compensation, you are setting a fire of competition between your employees, between your departments. That is going to be extremely hard to overcome. Let’s now just accept the fact that the best times in our lives is when we’re working on projects or activities that are intrinsically satisfying, not extrinsic the Getting an A was never about. It was about the feeling I felt that I could accomplish that it wasn’t about, now my dad and mom like me or you know society wants this that it was the intrinsic and so what I really learned from Dr. Deming was that your job as a leader is to build the intrinsic motivation inside the company, get everybody in the same direction. Break down the silos, get rid of this kind of individual compensation. You know, it’s it’s a typical American thing. It doesn’t happen as much in Thailand, but they’re getting infected right now by KPI’s. But it doesn’t happen as much in Thailand because they’re really good at working together as well as most Asian companies and individuals. But really, I implore you, go out, talk to your employees, talk to your managers, and find out what they think about your KPI system. And you’re probably going to find out that they’re not very happy with it. And you would be probably better off spending that time and energy figuring out how we make this an amazing place to come. Every single day to bring the value to our customers.

Jeffery: I love it. That’s awesome. And I think founders can start to understand this more in their second and third company than they will maybe in their first company. And they’ll start to really understand some of the other points that you made that, you know, you have to be tough. And you mentioned tough is the big one in being a business, and that could be from having to let people go or pivot in harder directions because of lost revenue, whatever that might be. But I think some of those unfortunately get learned in your first company the hard way than they do in a good way, where you’re able to pivot faster than they hit you, whereas they find first time founders, you get hit a lot faster and more times, and sometimes you just can’t make it through all the hits and then you’re in your second company. You start to project, see those things before they come. And you know, those are some of the learnings that you’re going to gain. But I think to your point, you know, everything is a learning ability. Everything can be structured, everything can be built into a great strategy. You’re going to pivot to that strategy and to layer in. Don’t build KPIs, individuals build KPIs on for the business itself and use those goals as targets and go after them.

Andrew: Yep. Yeah, I mean, let’s everybody get together on how we’re delivering revenue growth, profitability, whatever those numbers are. You know at the corporate level, at the company level, and let’s get everybody together on that and get them rewarded, you know, based upon how we do as a company.

Jeffery: I love it. There’s a great book that I read a long time ago and I was trying remember the name, I believe it’s called World Inc and a good portion of it’s tied to Toyota and how that they have built out a 20 year plan strategy that they execute on. But they always have a 10 to 20 year plan, which is very unseen. Businesses just aren’t able to manage that type of planning and they’ve done a phenomenal job with that. And it kind of encompasses everything that we’ve been talking about today, is that if a business is going to be successful, it does have to carry a really good strategy and a strong leadership team and broad communications that allows everybody to work together and build all together at the same time.

Andrew: I wish I knew all this stuff when I started. When we started coffee works and when we started. You know, my other business is, I, I knew more about it, but it’s, you know, it’s so challenging because everybody that’s, you know, many people who are in business in the beginning, you know, it’s the first time and you’re going through all these mistakes. I think about all the mistakes that I made and we made. But in the end, you know, we learned a lot.

Jeffery: So all we do and it kind of moves us into another spot where you run a podcast on top of some of the other great things you do. And I will say I’ve probably listened to feels like 80% of your podcast, and there’s a lot of great segments out there and a couple more of them that really fit to this model and of what’s happening within early stage and late stage investing and a couple of them that I’ll just throw out there and you can certainly lay there some comments on was Thomas Chao. I think it is and it’s proper sell thesis. The other one was David Carr which is don’t invest unless the CEO owns a large stake. And the third one was David Perry which is bet on the person and not on the idea that these are just a couple of them that came up. And I thought, you know, this really encompasses what we’re talking about because at the end of the day, there are layers of everything we do in business from building the company to growing the company, scaling the company to selling it, and all the people you interact along the way, the pivots, the faults, the problems and to their points on their investments and the things that they had was their worst investment. They always had a great storyline that came out of it, which was pay throughout all this crazy. Here’s something, just one point that you need to focus on. Is there something that you can encompass everything that you’ve done to get you? Where are today? Is there one line that you would use that says kind of similar to what we lined up there that would really kind of throw everybody for, I need to focus on this more?

Andrew: I mean, I would say what Ultimately it’s about your unique value align with your DNA. You know, that’s that’s your chance to bring something to the market. If you can focus in on your unique value and make sure that it’s aligned with your DNA. The only other thing that I would say is then constantly, as Dr. Deming taught, don’t look at your competitors, look at your customers. The last thing you want to do is say, well, the competitor, you know, in purchasing managers in companies will do that with the same with the competitor gives me this and they give me that. And weak managers, weak founders are people who are driven by whatever people are saying like that. But your job is to focus on the customer and communicate and really try to understand what they need and try to innovate from that and bring them more value. And so you know that those are the things that I would say are the most critical, you know, things that I can think about from my own experience.

Jeffery: I love it. We’re going to pivot into the kind of our next segment and we are going to have a part V and part B of it is going to be on diversifying investments because there’s so much more that we can still talk about. But of course, this supportive of ideas around, how businesses can be more structured and the way they can think to be better in the future I think is super valuable. So but we will kind of shift into into our next segment, which is it’s called the 62nd Rant. So the way this works is you have 60 seconds to rant about anything. I’m going to try and come back and counter it with one comment and then you can close it off all time it I’ll raise my hand when we get to the 62nd mark and you can again rant about anything you like. Ready to go?

Andrew: Okay, I’m ready.

Jeffery: Ron.

Andrew: My 62nd rant will be about free market capitalism. It seems to be dying these days. Everybody is focused on large companies, large government. And then you see the collusion between these two and then people blame the problems on capitalism. The fact is, nothing has been come up in this world as a way of organizing human behavior better than capitalism for satisfying the needs of people. So my real challenge to everybody out there is to focus on free market capitalism. That is, for small, medium sized businesses, giving them a level playing, feeling, helping them get out there and compete and knock down the big giants that are colluding with governments. And if we can do that, we have a chance for society. But if we continue to allow captured capitalism and crony capitalism between government and businesses, we’re doomed.

Jeffery: I love it. That’s a great a great stance on how do we open up the markets better for early and mid-tier companies where they can operate on the equal playing field of these large entities. Now, today we’ve had so much democratization occur with open platforms where anybody can invest and all of these things that are kind of starting to drive this model. Does it feel like we’re already there or do you still think that in order for this to really take hold, they need to educate people better and finance at early stage, meaning when they’re in grade school, high school, they need to do a lot more to educate people on how finance works. What is the real impetus that’s going to change this? Because today it’s only the smart and only the rich that seem to be surviving in this in this government driven collusion. How do we drive that down and to really help these markets right.

Andrew: I think it’s over for for the West. Unfortunately, it’s too late. The destruction of education, the destruction of family and the destruction of religion, and then the collusion between big businesses and big government and the ability to print money. So, you know, so much gives so much power to politicians in the West that really it’s doesn’t the only thing that’s really I’m hopeful about is that at some point it’s going to hit a wall. But I think we’re probably far away from that. And so I try to tell people in Asia, particularly family businesses, focus on your family values, focus on, you know, focus on if it’s religion for you, focus on, you know, Thailand is a Buddhist country. Don’t let others destroy the value of family, the value of capitalism that has really helped in Asia. But in the West, I would say it’s really, really in a very, very, you know, tenuous situation right now. And I, you know, cheer on everybody who is fighting for free market capitalism. And, you know, I like to say free markets, because that’s really the key. But for small and medium sized businesses, you got to fight hard and push to get representation to say, you know, we to be represented. So, yeah, that’s kind of my observation. It’s been 31 years since I’ve lived in the US, but as I look back and look what’s happened, you know, the destruction of education is a huge thing that I believe now. You know, the question is if is there a consequence to people getting a lesser education over the last 20 years or so? And I would say there is a consequence and we’ll find out and we’ll learn. And is there a consequence for investing in education as what’s happening in Asia? I think we’ll find out and we’ll learn.

Jeffery: Now that’s well shared. I think the rest of the world is pretty well versed at the fact that a lot of Asian cultures put a lot of focus on religion and education and family. And I think those principals are trying to push their way into this north, North America, European style, and they’re getting hit by a wall. And it’s unfortunate because they’re right. These are a big focus. That should be how the rest of the world should be focused on, because that builds a lot stronger ties and bonds between people and it allows people to actually operate again on the layers going up. When you have corruption at the top, it corrupts all the way down. And that’s the unfortunate part of it. But that does very well show the irony.

Andrew: The irony of it all is that what Americans in particular I can speak to Americans, but what Americans are, you know, claiming the you know, what they want is and the destruction of education, the destruction of family, the destruction of religion is the exact things that the people who are going to America from countries all around the world are have served them so well. They’re their families, their religion, the education. It’s just like, you know, it’s not the values of the typical immigrant to America. But for some reason, Americans think that the value is to destroy those things.

Jeffery: Yeah, you know, I don’t I wish I could debate on why that’s occurring or what the reasons for it is. I don’t know if it’s just media, but I think media should probably look at their own values and decide what things they should be pushing on and what things should just get dropped from the radio lines, because I think it is getting a little extreme. The pendulum swinging way too far and some things have to come back and normalize. And the normalization right now is just not in a very efficient spot that are benefiting everybody as a as a human race. And I hope that to your point that in the next 30 years, some of that will be altered and changed and maybe they’ll learn from what’s going on in the rest of the world and how they’re managing it, especially in Asia.

Andrew: Yep, diversity in thought, free market in thought. That’s a key.

Jeffery: I totally agree with that. And we’re going to now shift into the to the next segment, which these are rapid fire questions. Some of them will be will pertain a little bit more and then we’ll get into the personal questions as well. And it’s pick one or the other, you coming from the investor standpoint. All right, here we go. So founder or co-founder and.

Andrew: Founder.

Jeffery: Would you rather have a unicorn or a four year ten x exit?

Andrew: The four year ten X.

Jeffery: Would you rather invest in tech or CPG nowadays?

Andrew: I think tech is interesting.

Jeffery: Nfts or Web 3.0.

Andrew: Web 3.0.

Jeffery: A.I. or Blockchain.

Andrew: A.I..

Jeffery: First time founder or second Third time founder.

Andrew: Second, third.

Jeffery: First money in or series A.

Andrew: That’s a tough one. I would say Series A.

Jeffery: Would you rather have a board seat or observer role?

Andrew: Observer

Jeffery: Lead or follow.

Andrew: Lead.

Jeffery: Favorite part of investing.

Andrew: Building, trusting relationships.

Jeffery: The number of companies invested per year?

Andrew: Well, I would say in my lifetime it’s been five companies.

Jeffery: It’s awesome. Now, what is a piece of advice you give to founders? Nine out of ten times?

Andrew: that’s really simple. Make sure you have on time and accurate monthly financial statements. Never deviate from that.

Jeffery: I love it that when actually I have the red button or the green button, I’m pushing it right now. That’s awesome. Do you have a philosophy or rules that you stand behind?

Andrew: I would say opportunities are endless. Don’t be constrained by looking at your competitors like that.

Jeffery: Who is your hero, mentor, and why?

Andrew: Definitely. Dr. Deming. You know what? What I learned from him is, you know, incredible. And in fact, impact impacted me all my life. He was an inspiration. And, you know, I’m hosting the Deming Institute podcast now, interviewing people that employ apply what he learned in what he taught. And so definitely him.

Jeffery: That’s pretty cool. What is your biggest fear or phobia in the business startup ecosystem, being that you’re a founder and that you are an investor, I guess there’s lots of angles you can take on that one.

Andrew: That great ideas collapse because bad financial controls and that’s why I say on time, inaccurate financial statements every month no matter what. And I say financial statements specifically, I use that word because I’m not talking about a panel. I’m talking about a balance sheet and a piano like it.

Jeffery: What line do you find you share to investors over and over and you run a program on this. So you probably got a whole pile of great, great lines help. But what’s one that would be really stand out?

Andrew: I would say the probability of true success is so tiny and true success. I mean, to get to a point that you have a sustainable business that’s paying a dividend. So the first number one goal of any startup needs to be to get to seven and a half million dollars of annual revenue. That is the volume of revenue that would allow you to have the money available for the management team that you need to grow your business as well as the infrastructure that you need so that, you know, first of, all very few businesses are truly successful. They get to pay dividends on a consistent basis. That should be your goal and you must get to seven and a half million dollars as fast as possible.

Jeffery: That’s great advice. Now, this has been a moment that I’ve been waiting for for a long time. What is your worst investment?

Andrew: And since no one goes into their worst investment, thinking it will be. Tell us about the circumstances leading up to it and then tell us your story.

Jeffery: Yes, I love.

Andrew: How mine was. Yeah, I had a friend of mine who’s a dear friend who was in a bad relationship and he wanted to get out of Australia and get back to Thailand and start a new business. And I helped him and supported him to get back to Thailand and to try to deal with some of the crap that he was dealing with. And then and then I invested in his business idea, which I think he’s a brilliant guy and his idea was was good. But eventually what ended up happening was that he, I would argue that he just didn’t have that the skills to manage it to the level that it needed to go to. And there just came a point where it became clear that there was a go no go point like a take off on an airplane, as an example, where it was clear to me that we needed probably 3 to $5 million of marketing to go international, go global with this and fight against the big competitors out there. And it was at that moment that I felt like I don’t I’m not sure if he can do that. And I’m not I’m not sure if I want to fund that or that I’m ready to go out and raise funding for that. And so we set some specific goals from that point in that discussion. It was very hard for him to hit them and he struggled. And in the end we had to shut down. And so that lost me a huge amount of money, basically from my own in my own life. And it was it was demoralizing given that was president of the Chartered Financial Analysts Association in Thailand. I was working on my PhD in finance. I had my own business in finance, and there I was losing it. And that was really a, you know, painful in relationship, in money, in reputation. I had to I kind of, you know, kept it quiet as it was going on because I just felt ashamed. And so that that’s my worst investment ever.

Jeffery: Well, because you have a fantastic podcast. I always to ask you that question because and I’m sure it’s come out throughout time, but it was really more of I think we’ve all had them and what can you gain and learn from them. And that’s why I love what you do on your podcast. So I wanted to make sure I could give you some push on that one as well for sharing that. Is there a is there an investment that and again, public markets are not is there an investment that you are really excited about as well, like your favorite investment?

Andrew: You know, I would say right now from my time where I’m investing my most amount of time is in my profit boot camp because I see a huge opportunity to help mid-sized family businesses double their profits. And I can see exactly the value I can bring to that. So that’s an investment of time that is most interesting to me right now.

Jeffery: Awesome. I can introduce you to a family office platform because I think you guys will really connect and hit it off. So he’s a great guy, but I’ll focus on that one after. But I think that’s a great a great direction and Segway going into the personal questions and it’s a great way to spend your time. And I think you’re doing a hell of a job because I’ve listened to some of the shares that you’ve put on the podcast about it, and you’re educating a lot of a lot of good people, and I think that’s really what the world needs more of. So kudos to that. All right. Last segment, we’re getting to some we’re pretty close. Most famous person that pops in your mind.

Andrew: Steve Jobs.

Jeffery: First brand that pops in your mind.

Andrew: Nike

Jeffery: Booke or movie.

Andrew: Book.
Jeffery: Superman or Batman,

Andrew: Batman,

Jeffery: Fortune Cookie or birthday cake?

Andrew: What was that.

Jeffery: Fortune cookie or birthday cake?

Andrew: Fortune cookie?

Jeffery: 5 minutes with Bezos or Oprah.

Andrew: Bezos.

Jeffery: Mountain or Beach.

Andrew: Mountain.

Jeffery: Bikeo r run.

Andrew: Bike.

Jeffery: Big Mac or Chip McNuggets.

Andrew: Big Mac.

Jeffery: Trophy or Money?

Andrew: Cash is king.

Jeffery: Beer or wine?

Andrew: Well. Well, Nick’s that one neither. Well, well, I’ll say soda.

Jeffery: Water. There we go. Ted. Talker, book reading.

Andrew: Book reading.

Jeffery: Tik Tok or Instagram.

Andrew: Instagram.

Jeffery: Facebook or LinkedIn.

Andrew: LinkedIn.

Jeffery: Favorite movie. And what character would you play?

Andrew: Serpico. And I would I think the the story of Frank Serpico, played by Al Pacino, is just one of the most fascinating movie.

Jeffery: I like that I haven’t seen in a long time. Favorite book?

Andrew: Yeah, I’d have to say Titan, the John de Rockefeller book by Ron Chernow. I think it was just absolutely riveting. I would add in one other, which is the the memoirs of Ulysses S Grant.

Jeffery: I love it. Our favorite sports team.

Andrew: Don’t have one.

Jeffery: That’s all right. Do you have any other podcasts that you would reference of interest for others to listen to?

Andrew: Brandon Gailey was a guest on my podcast. He has the blog Millionaire and he’s just such a great podcaster. He’s prepared. He brings a lot of value. I think that’s one for someone who’s looking at how to, you know, improve their blogs and stuff like that. He’s great.

Jeffery: Perfect. What is the meaning of success to you?

Andrew: For me, I would say trusting relationships is number one, and number two is money flows to me.

Jeffery: I love it. What is your superpower?

Andrew: 4 hours of intense concentration in the morning.

Jeffery: I can see that. I think you’re also great at diving in and getting people to open up and share their insights and their information. So as an analyst, I think you do a great job on getting all the right facts. So I will say that I want to end it there and say thank you very, very much, Andrew, for joining us. It was a pleasure getting to dive in and learn more from you on the other side of the mic. And the way we like to end our show is that we like to give you the last word, anything that you want to share to the investor community, to startups, to business businesses out there, I turn it over to you to share. Please share how they can get in contact with you as well. And again, thank you very much for all the information you’ve given us today, and we look forward to Part B, which will be diversifying your portfolio. But thank you.

Andrew: I appreciate I appreciate you having me on. And my first my first point to the listeners is go to listen to episode 392 where Jeffrey and I talk about his worst investment ever, and that’s my worst investment ever e-com. And I think that what I would just share is a saying that my mother said to me, and I love it, so I want to end with this and that is good, better, best never to rest until your good is better and you’re better is the best.

Jeffery: I love it. I’m going to try and memorize that. That’s fantastic. Andrew, thank you very much for your time today. It was brilliant. Thank you very much. Okay. So just to end things off with Andrew, fantastic deep dive into his experience on building a company and the financial aspects. Some of the key points to it. Certainly putting together those financials and having them go out on a monthly basis and not just just a piano, but balance sheet, keep everybody abreast of what’s going on. I think those are really key. Of course, he emphasizes it quite a bit, which was building that strategy. Where is the business going? I think that’s really crucial to operating and running your business. When you find your lane, you know, it’s double down and just go after it. So lots of great things there. Stay true to your strategy. Your strategy, make it public so that everybody’s working on it. And of course, to all the pieces that we talked about which were part of Edward Deming’s 14 step process, I implore you to dive in and read those and learn about them because they’re really valuable. And of course, this podcast is great because it it really educates you on things to look out for when it comes to bad investments, as a few of them that we did start talk about. So outside of that I want to say thank you for joining us today and if you’ve enjoyed the conversation, please feel free to share with your friends. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Please follow us on Spotify, Google and or Apple. Feel free to share an audio clip or video clip around our show. We may include it in one of our future episodes. You can find us on all social platforms, including LinkedIn, Its supporters fund. Your support and comments are truly appreciated. Please visit us at Supporters Fund dot com or startup events that open people network dot com. Thank you and have a fantastic day.