Journal for Internship Course 5

Interviewer: Miku Anraku

Interviewee: Frank Li

Interview Date: September 28th

1. When did you start to contact with trading industry and figured out that you are interested in this area?

I started to contact with the trading industry when I was a Junior of the college. I got the chance to contact with this company because of our CEO Gang Bao. He is a very successful businessman and I met him during the family dinner. He is one of the friends of my family. When we had a conversation during the dinner, we talked about my future career plan and my thoughts on the business. He found my idea of the food trading was very interesting, so he invited me to startup the business with him for the food trading.

I stared to have the interest on the food distribution because of my girlfriend. She was working in the biggest Asian e-commerce company, and she gave me the inspiration of our business.

2. What is your opinion about the international business, and what is the biggest challenge for it?

As a global citizen, I think international business is very interesting, I am proud of myself by brining my hometown culture to the United States.

The biggest challenge for the international business is the importing process, especially for the consuming products. I faced a lot of difficulty at the beginning because of the unfamiliarity for the FDA and USDA regulations.

3. How do you balance the wholesale business and e-commerce retail business?

It is challenging to maintain both wholesale and retail business, because wholesale market could heavily impact the sales for online e-commerce retail business due to the similarity of the products. However, I found the way to balance these two parts of the business by differentiating the selling products.

4. Please tell me about your future plan you developed for the company.

My future plan for the company is to enter the mainstream market such as Costco, Walmart and Amazon, etc. I will start to plan for our own food brand by localizing the products and packages.

5. On a 1-10 point scale, please rate your ability as the leader of the company.

I think I will give myself 9 points as the leader of the company, because I think I have a strong ability to motivate the employees and share the vision with them to accomplish our goals.

How do you consider the trade war between China and U.S? Is that a challenge or risk for your company?

Back to 2020, the Trump Administration announce the new import rules which add punitive tariff 25% on all products from China. I really had struggle moment for my business at that time, because my business starts the idea that importing the Chinese dried foods into U.S market. The first reason was the China really have long historic culture on foods which I really familiar with it. The second reason was the Chines foods have advanced price competing foods’ price on almost developed countries. However, the punitive tariff reduces the advantage on price. During that time, I started to consider the product of market positioning. I redefine the customer base, start mid-high-end customer, the age considering young and middle ages’ people. They more attention to product’s quality and package design. Comparing the quality and package design, price not priority to consider. I switch the risk to become the chance. The product in market is keeping growing and attractive.

As international business, how you balance the China team and U.S team?

Due to culture and education difference, they have different thought and ability. I will keep my China team focus on executive ability, and let U.S team focus on creative ability. They all play an important role in our company.To be specific One side focus