Maker Manager Money - Entrepreneur & Business Owner Inspiration
Hello there. Welcome to the Maker Manager Money podcast with Kyle Ariel Knowles. This podcast is about entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, founders, business owners, and business partnerships, from startups to stayups, to inspire entrepreneurs to keep going and future entrepreneurs to just start.
Maker Manager Money - Entrepreneur & Business Owner Inspiration
Building a Legacy: Mentorship and E-commerce Success with Justin Cao
Welcome to the Maker-Manager Money podcast! In this inspiring episode, host Kyle Ariel Knowles sits down with Justin Cao, founder of multiple thriving Amazon FBA businesses generating over $7 million in revenue. Justin shares his incredible journey from humble beginnings as a Vietnamese-American entrepreneur to achieving financial freedom and success in e-commerce. Justin is also the founder of AMZSHIFU, which teaches how to launch and master an Amazon FBA business.
Here are three key takeaways from our conversation that I believe every entrepreneur can benefit from:
- The 1% Better Mindset: Justin emphasizes the importance of the "1% rule"—making minor, incremental daily improvements can lead to significant long-term success. He shared how this mindset helped him transform his life, from losing weight to building a thriving business. Instead of going all in and risking burnout, focus on consistent, manageable progress. This approach applies not only to business but also to personal development.
- The Value of Mentorship: Justin credits much of his success to the mentors who guided him. He highlights the importance of seeking out individuals who have already navigated the path you aspire to take. Mentorship can provide invaluable insights, accountability, and encouragement. As Justin says, "You need someone who knows what that top mountain looks like to guide you." This reminds us that we don’t have to go it alone; resources and people are willing to help us succeed.
- Customer-Centric Thinking: One pivotal shift in Justin's business strategy was changing his perspective from that of a seller to that of a customer. By focusing on how to serve customers better and meet their needs, he was able to create a successful product line. This customer-first approach is crucial in any business, as it fosters loyalty and encourages repeat purchases. Remember, it's not just about making a sale; it's about building relationships and providing value.
In this episode, you'll learn about:
- The importance of the "1% better every day" mindset and how it transformed Justin's life.
- The role of mentorship in overcoming challenges and achieving success.
- Justin's early entrepreneurial struggles and the pivotal moments led him to Amazon FBA.
- Actionable strategies for product selection, marketing, and scaling your Amazon business.
- Insights into building a brand and leveraging Amazon's ecosystem for long-term success.
Justin also discusses his passion for giving back, his experiences as a mentor, and the legacy he aims to create through his foundation. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur or looking to scale your existing business, this episode is packed with valuable insights and motivation.
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Kyle Ariel Knowles: Hello there, welcome to the Maker-Manager Money podcast, a podcast to inspire entrepreneurs to keep going and entrepreneurs to just start. My name is Kyle Knowles and today's guest is Justin Cao. Justin is the co-founder of a $7 million plus company and the CEO of AMZ Shippu. As a Vietnamese-American entrepreneur, Justin's journey from humble beginnings to Amazon FBA success is truly inspiring. He now mentors entrepreneurs to build profitable Amazon private label businesses, focusing on actionable strategies for product selection, marketing, and scaling. Driven by a passion for giving back, Justin empowers others to break free from the nine to five and achieve financial and time freedom. Prepare to be motivated by his story of resilience and his commitment to helping others succeed on Amazon. Welcome to the show, Justin.
Justin Cao: Hey, thank you so much, Kyle, for having me here.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yeah, thanks for being here. Where are you dialing in from? From Dallas, Texas. Dallas, Texas. Okay. I wanted to start just because I know on your especially on Instagram, you have like 150,000 followers. But right up front you you talk about 1% better every day. And so you emphasize that sort of mindset and the importance of mentorship. For an entrepreneur who might feel overwhelmed or lost, what are some actionable steps they can take today?
Justin Cao: Yeah, absolutely. So for me, the reason why I put on my headline, the 1% rule, which is 1% better every single day, because that is the single recipe that helped me lost a lot of weight and build my success. I used to weigh 225 pounds and I used to be broke. I used to be fat and living life in misery. And the habit that I used before was I wanted to go all in, like what people telling me is, you gotta go all in, that new year resolution, give it 100%. But that's why so many people fail. That's why so many people never see the physique that they always want, the success that they always want, because they take the wrong approach. Until I learned from my millionaire mentors, hey, he pulled me over one day, he said, hey, Justin, you see that the same experimenting, the same strategy that you've been using over and over has not yielded you a different result. Why don't you change the approach? Just like Albert Einstein shared. Insanity is expecting a different outcome by doing the exact same experiments. That's why I'm starting to try his method. Every day I'm asking myself, how can I become just 1% more every single day? By just showing up for the gym, even just one minute, by showing up and work just an extra one hour on my business, instead of like five to eight hours a day. It's all compounding over time. And that is why they said compounding is the eighth wonder by Warren Buffett, you know, that come down to the 1% rule. And that's why they call the rich people the 1% for a reason.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: And so you learned that from, from a mentor that you had. Did this mentor come along after you started your doing your own business or was this before you decided to start your own business?
Justin Cao: I would say that I, learned from so many different mentors. But the mentor that gave me the knowledge that helped me to be where I am today, he came along as I was stuck in like a failure cycle. His name is Charlie Pham. He's another like Vietnamese immigrant who moved to the US at the age of eight. And he was, he always liked selling drugs. And then he gave up that life to go into like a fake life driven and Now he's just like running multiple million dollar company and he took me under his wing.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: You faced numerous setbacks in your early entrepreneurial efforts before succeeding with Amazon FBA. Can you share a specific moment or challenge that felt particularly difficult?
Justin Cao: And what was the key to persevering through it? Yeah, the most difficult thing for me, I would say is to get over my ego, get over my the same set of habit, by set and the same site, like environment. Because so many of us, yes, we do have the capability to break through because you and me were born the same with hands and feet and brains, you know, but it's just the environment that is hard for me to like sacrifice. But then there's a quote say that if you don't sacrifice for what you have, your dream will become a sacrifice, you know? So to answer your question, it was to break the tie with my past.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay. And then so let's talk about your entrepreneurial journey. You know, you immigrated to the United States, and I'm sure you worked plenty of other jobs before you started your, your first business. So what, what were some of the jobs you had before you went into business for yourself?
Justin Cao: Yeah, I work for Toyota. I worked As a tutor in college, I also hauling stuff for people because I bought a truck as my very first car. I'm trying to find many different ways to make money. So I juggle a lot. I also do nails, every kind of job that I know for sure I can make money. I'll do it like legally, you know.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: And then how did you get into Amazon and Amazon, I guess, FBA and having your own kind of white label products?
Justin Cao: Yeah, so it's very interesting that I knew about selling online on Amazon back in 2015. But during that time, I was listening to other people that selling online probably a scam. You may not make money off of it. And it's too saturated. So I was not giving in until 2017, where I feel like, okay, maybe it's the time. So I started with eBay first. I go around finding people, garage sales stuff that I can list it on eBay. And the moment where the light bulb came is when I make my first sale on eBay, where I never met the customer, never talked to them, except they give me the money and I ship the product out to them. That's when my proof of Concept is validated. That is not a scam. That is a legitimate business, and there is money there. Many of us stuck in the analysis paralysis because we don't take action fast enough. We are afraid of failures, you know, and that was me. I was afraid of failures because I failed so many times that I miscount. So once I able to get that proof of concept done, that's when I start diving into gradually into the world of e-commerce. And eventually late of 2018, that's when I started to get my shop with Amazon. Okay. And what, what was, what were some of the first products that you started selling there? Yeah. So my very first product, I fail on my first product. In fact, I lost like close to almost like $10,000 worth of product costs and opportunity costs because I dedicate so much time to that project. And that product was fake eyelashes. that I bought from China for a penny to a dollar. But the takeaway lesson for me was that I cannot do the exact same thing as other people and expect to make money because there are people that are like the OG in the eyelashes. So why the customer have to buy from me? Meanwhile, they have other better option from product that have reputation from different seller. Those are my very first failed products. I was stuck in the loops. That's when my mentor came along and said, hey, why don't you change different approach? And what did you do differently then going forward? I started to think not from a standpoint of a seller, rather than from a customer standpoint. Because for me, when I first started, I always, how can I make the most amount of money? But if you take a look at all the big companies, They are customer centric, even on Amazon. Customer always first. So when I started changing my mindset from how can I better serve a customer? How can I make their life better with my product? Give them a good deal so that they can always come back to buy my product and prefer friend and family. That's when everything changed. And that's what I learned from my mentor and the business starting to take off. My first year I did about $235,000. And profit was about 30% off of it while working for like, I would say about one hour to two hours a day. And that moment is starting to like, how can I do more? Because now I know how to make my first six figure on Amazon. That, and then my mentor said, Hey, congratulations. You make, you know how to make your first six figure. Now continue double down, just like driving a car. If you learn how to drive a car and you can drive from A to B, So that means you can drive from A to C, C to D, and E to F, eventually, if you double down. And that gave me confidence into continuously reinvesting into my business and think long term. Okay. And so you were working one to two hours a day, but did you have another job? I still have. a notified job because I was wanting to quit my job. But then my mentor told me, Hey, Justin, this is another mentor. Hey, Justin, write out the pro and cons before you start quitting your notified job, because right now you still need money coming in for you to feeding this business. So by quitting notified job, Don't do it because it's not as glamorous as what you heard online. People just click that 9 to 5 job, high six figure, all in. You're not that case. You're not special. He says that you're not special justice. So work in a 9 to 5 job, but do not overwork at your 9 to 5 job that you have no time on this business. So I still have a 9 to 5 job, still make some money, but I dedicated time, time blocking, And then my boss wanted me to work more, but I always come up with excuses because if I want to say yes to him, I say no to building my future. And then, so this is 2018 where you made $235,000. The end of 2019, that's when the tax return came in. Fun fact, I have my tax return on my Instagram. I document my entire journey.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's awesome. Every year you put it out? Yeah. Okay. That's great. We'll have to go check it out. So I know today is tax day here in America. So what does it look like this year? So fast forward, let's see, that'd be six years, five, five years later from 2019. What does this what does this past year look like for you?
Justin Cao: Yeah, I can show you some number right here. So this is one of my store right here. $731,000 for the past 12 months.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Nice.
Justin Cao: There's so many Google out there. They don't have number for me. I do. So you can validate it yourself.
null: $423,000.
Justin Cao: This is another store. I also have all the businesses and real estate, but so far this year we brought in about two, two, two and a half. That's awesome.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: And so what, so those two stores that you just showed the numbers on, what, what are you selling on each of those stores?
Justin Cao: Yeah, so for me, I always recommend my student, including myself, is to revolve around products that are within these four, education, beauty industry, health industry, and recreation industry, like pet, you know, pet and home and garden. Because those four industries, you have a ton of different products that are considered as essential for human existence. who doesn't want to look beautiful, who doesn't want to have health, who doesn't want to continue education, who doesn't want to have fun in life. So to give you a very specific product, I would say, for me, I always selling, I'm in the educational space and I'm in like the recreational. So I sell quite a bit of different product. And the store that I share with you, each of them have like two to three product maximum.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Is this a situation and a lot of people and I've never run an Amazon store either, so you're gonna have to educate me as well. But so is this a situation where you are listing things on Amazon and people are buying them from Amazon and Amazon shipping them or is another company drop shipping them from somewhere else?
Justin Cao: Yeah, I got this question a lot, and I want to share this is that on Amazon, they have, for me personally, what I do, they call it private labeling. Basically, we are private label a product, but in some, in other industry, they call it white label. You buy a product from a manufacturer overseas, you put your logo on it. and you ship it directly to Amazon warehouse, and then you do digital marketing. And when a customer make a purchase, Amazon do all the fulfillments, all the customer service. And for you, the only job that you need is project management and digital marketing. That's why Amazon like us, Seller, we're able to travel very freely and we can work almost like everywhere. And fun fact that I live six months here, six months in Asia, because you know that there is a conversion between the dollar that could be like three times more in Asia. You can do a lot more in Asia. So that is another hack that us as Amazon seller able to leverage while working remotely, thanks to Amazon FBA. So to answer your question, we don't do drop shipping. We store the product in Amazon warehouse and we just leveraging them, their whole ecosystem for us to grow.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Okay, and so to get your label on that product that someone else has made, does the company who makes it put your label on it? Or does it come to you, you have to put the label on it, and then you have to send it to Amazon?
Justin Cao: So a lot of the time the manufacturers have the capability to put the logo on your product for you straight in the manufacturers. And you just have to request it. And you can go for as low as 100 units, 200 units to put your logo on it. Many misconception is that people think that you need to order thousands of units for people to put logo on your product. No, you can order as low as 100, 200 units and have your manufacturer to do that for you as a minimal cost, maybe about 20 cents, 30 cents. What are the channels that you're focused on doing digital marketing for these products? Very interesting is that a lot of people, they hate Amazon. They say Amazon is just like so strict. You don't want to sell on Amazon. There's so many restrictions. Earlier, I was watching a guy, he was just bashing Amazon so much. And he's telling people to go and create their own store outside of Amazon. Yes, you can do that. But remember, at first, nobody knows you. And many businesses, they struggle with creating, like fighting lead, fighting customer. Amazon is already a laid up with 300 million customer worldwide. And they have marketplace in different country that you can tap in. America is the number one marketplace. Last year, Amazon did $630 billion in total revenue last year. is a huge layup. And to answer your question, starting an Amazon, my strategy, okay, this is my strategy that I teach my student and people that are tuning in, as well as use Amazon, leveraging Amazon ecosystem as a launchpad for you to get customer. Because on Amazon, it's so easy. You just have the right product. People are just going to look up a keyword and they see your product, they see good price, good images, they just buy it. We call it organic ranking, which is reputation. So use Amazon as a leverage, build cashflow, and build up your brand, and eventually build an email list, build a website. When a customer make a purchase of your product, put a small card, incentivize them to visit your website, to claim a free gift. And then you will be able to collect those email. And now you have a customer for lifetime values. You can offer them similar products, in your own website. So you have a funnel, lead funnel from Amazon over to your website, and that's how you build up your brand. And eventually the end goal that I want to share with everyone here, including myself, I sold two brands in the past. One did about $4 million a year. The other one did about a million dollars a year. I sold those companies for a very sweet payout, very humble payout. And the game here that I want to share with people is use Amazon as a launchpad. When you, uh, small like mid-size bill outside of Amazon to your Shopify. So that way you can create your army presence. Just not just Amazon, but also outside use other social media channel to market your product and eventually sell it as a bundle to investor. You can also sell it on the website called empire flippers. That is like the OG of Amazon businesses. Sell, buy and sell. And you can sell for a really good payout. Empireflippers.com?
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yes. Okay. We'll put the links to these sites in the show notes as well. Thanks for sharing that. Part of your time you're spending now being a mentor and a coach and offering lessons of how to do this, how to build an Amazon business. Can you talk about that and how you got into that?
Justin Cao: Absolutely. So for me, I always been liking to help, liking to help people, because in my past my background I was a tutor in college. I tutoring science, math and physics. And of course I'm Asian. So I supposed to be good at it. But I'm able to transfer the strategy that we use in Asia. Like for me, I don't do math like in America, they have to make you draw different block, and then do the math together. In Asia, we teach you to have from A to Z in a short amount of time as much as possible. So compress the time, get the result. Yeah, so I moved that knowledge over to teach people here in my college and a lot of people get A's as well as a mentor's kit to get scholarship too. And that kind of made me feel like, oh wow, I can actually contribute something in this world. I don't feel like I live cluelessly. I live with a purpose. And when I started my Amazon business, it's the same way. I started to see success. And then there are people that came to me because I verbally, I openly share my journey. People came and said, Hey, I got this, this guru right here. They took my money. They didn't even teach me at all. They over-promise, but they never deliver. I bought in this course, this guy, he just gave me a bunch of basic information that I can easily YouTube. And now I'm stuck. How can you help me, Justin? So one of the very good story is I helped someone who live in Australia, but still in the US market, went from in debt with like product that cannot be sold because nobody want to buy his product to have a million dollars in 30 days doing Q4. By picking the right product, the right digital marketing, that's how I'm able to start sparking that passion again of teaching people. And that's why we're starting to open more. And now my mentorship is that this is my vision for Amazon Shifu. Shifu is a university in the future. Amazon is going to be one channel that I know that I'm good at. But in the future, I'm going to invite different mentors that know about every different industry. to come in and teach and share knowledge so that we have a place for people to trust and to learn. So that way people don't get their dream burned or the guru out there. And again, I'm not perfect. In my coaching program, I'm always improving, but I know for sure that I put my customer first. The same philosophy when I apply to my Amazon business. Okay. That's great.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: And back to digital marketing, just one more time. So can you place ads on Amazon or, you know, when you see sponsored, when someone searches for something, you see a sponsored post, is that the digital marketing that you're doing using Amazon's own ad kind of network?
Justin Cao: Yeah. So Amazon ad network is, they call it Amazon PPC, which is pay-per-click. You pay Amazon to show your product. And whenever someone click on that sponsor listing, you pay Amazon. And it's very simple. It's not really that hard. If you were to run Facebook ad before or Google ad, it's almost similar because Amazon is still, it's a search engine. And Amazon just want to show most relevant product to the people who are searching for it. So yes, to answer your question. Yes. Amazon has its own marketing platform and that is one of the leverage. But for me, I built most of my company, not just using Amazon. We also use influencer marketing. We use SEO on Google and like blog posts and same on Reddit to make sure that people starting to search up for different keyword. And eventually they funnel back into us. That is the difference between us and other guru out there is we use so many different tools to draw. all the marketing back to the Amazon channel and eventually that funnel back into our website eventually.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: If someone buys on Amazon, you can't access that customer information. That's why you have to put some kind of card or something in the product for them to go sign up or go to your website. And then you can start the relationship there. Is that how it works? Exactly.
Justin Cao: That's exactly how it works. Because many people, they complain, Oh, Amazon, they don't share with you customer information. It's true because Amazon, they want you to sell on there, but it doesn't mean you don't have the power. to incentivize a customer to go into your website. That is one of the powerful tip to help you improve and increase your brand values as well as revenue. Because I do sell on Shopify as well. And let's say my Amazon sale is, let's say a million dollars to $2 million a year. My Shopify at least have a million a year. That is another income stream from the same product, same brand. And you can also sell the same product on Etsy as well. Because there may be people who doesn't like to shop on Amazon, But they have, they has been like a frequent shopper on Etsy. They still will be able to buy your product on Etsy too. So multiple income stream, brand value increase. You can sell your brand at a really good multiple.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: And then when you're selling on Shopify, is it drop shipped from the manufacturer or how does the Shopify store work?
Justin Cao: Yeah. So with the drop, um, with the Shopify store, here's a few things that you can do. First, you can do like multi-channel fulfillment. Amazon offer that as well. That's number one for you to fulfill the products. Number two, you can use a third party fulfillment center to help you to do all that fulfillment. Or you can do able to drop ship product from China over here. But one thing that I don't recommend to drop ship that because it's longer time and it's harder for people to get access to your product. So I usually test, I use the dropshipping method first to test out what people love to buy after they make a first purchase on Amazon. And then I test a different offer and see which one has really good sales. That's when I'm starting to bring that into like a whole full batch of a similar product. I either store it in Amazon or store it in like a third party fulfillment center to ship it to the customer.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: I guess Shopify has some kind of API that will send the order to Amazon and Amazon will fulfill it even though it's not purchased through Amazon.
Justin Cao: Amazon, I feel like they just, they want to do their best to help you. But at the same time, they have to help themselves too. But Amazon, they have one of the largest, uh, shipping too. Like right now they ship is they're shipping so many shipment as much as UPS.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: They're smart to offer fulfillment then because for shoppers who, uh, want to utilize their sort of infrastructure to ship products, even though they're not selling them directly on Amazon, that's pretty cool.
Justin Cao: Absolutely. And they, they collect information too. So it's a, they do the same thing and we do the same thing. That's a part of business.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's really cool. And so if you talk about how you spend your time each day, now, how much time is dedicated to mentorship and teaching versus running your stores?
Justin Cao: Yeah. So far my business, uh, different of my businesses, I do have business partners and I do have CEO that planet, but on a regular basis, I probably spend about one to two hours a day, uh, managing like each different each dip, uh, each businesses. I do spend about one to two hours a day, depending on how urgency and important a certain project is. We, um, I still run majority of the time. I still run actively my Amazon businesses. And for the coaching side, I do it because that's what I love to do. It's a side of my hobbies. And it's also helped me build a legacy that it can live on by the time that I'm gone. So I'm thinking very long-term. By the time that I'm gone, will a legacy that can live on and will there be the future generation, we'll be able to learn from the knowledge that we share today. So to answer your question, majority of the time still Amazon, I still launching product, I still doing active business, and I show you the number already. And then I coach my student, and I also have a team to coach my student too, because I only have 24 hours a day. But my coaches, most of them are six figure, seven figure, and even eight figure business owner that in there and contributing to the next generation of Amazon seller and business owner.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: At what point did you decide to leave your full-time job?
Justin Cao: I would say to leave my full-time job is really come down to when my side hustle starting to out earning my nine to five jobs. And I have six month worth of secure funding because your job was always be there, but opportunity may not be.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Where, where can people find you, uh, and find your Instagram and where can people find, uh, your mentorship and your, your classes and lessons to become an Amazon seller?
Justin Cao: Yeah. So my Instagram is Justin, Justin, J U S T I N T H E H U N C H O. Uh, I am very active on my social media because I like to catch up with the news as well as, um, teach. I do a lot of live stream on there to help people. So many people can get their direct question answer on there on my Instagram. And I do have a YouTube. where I interview so many of our students success as well as like other seller failures and document them as a podcast. The raw truth, the clams as well as the dings of Amazon so that people have a full realistic look about this whole business model. It's still the number one platform in the whole entire world. And I want people like you, like people who are working a nine to five jobs, who are looking for freedom, to find a way to reach that, because life is short. Your family, your loved ones, they may not be here that long. Same with your parents. We're all dying one single day at a time. Why building your boss' dream meanwhile you can building yours? For you to build yours and to go fast. The key is leveraging, leveraging ecosystem of Amazon, leveraging that 300 million customer and offer people the best product and thing long-term.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's really awesome. So, Justin, where does the Huncho come from? Oh, it's a wrap for me. Okay, so you're not you were you a rapper at one time or no?
Justin Cao: I love music. There was one time that I wanted to become a music singer. But I started to look into statistic and a lot of them like very slim chance for you to become successful. in the music industry. And you know, Jack Ma, he got so rich and then he just created his own music show and become a singer of it. So I'd rather take that approach, make the most money, create a music, like an entertainment company and be your own singer.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's a good way to back into it. One way or another. Yeah, for sure. That's really cool. So I just have a few more questions for you, Justin. I've really learned so much from our conversation. Thanks for being so generous with your time today. Who has had the most significant impact on your life and why?
Justin Cao: I would say God did this because he saved me. He saved me so many times because my past life, I was not the same as where I am now. And humans like us, every eight years, we change the way we think. We change because our testosterone change, you know. But my very early age, I was very hard-headed. I was very tempered. I was like always trying to find something to beat people up. And because I grew up with a lot of resentments. My dad passed away, but so I shout out to God as the most impacted. Like Peter for me, he's like my ultimate boss, like the OG right now that I'm looking up to. And second is gonna be my, even though my father is not here anymore, but I still feel his presence because I am his present right now. So, and I feel like there's a certain DNA inside of me that honor my dad legacy. And then my mom, my mentors, the people that never give up on me. Shout out to Charlie Pham, shout out to Josh Snow. He owned one of the largest oral healthcare, oral product in the whole entire world, like Snow Teeth Winding System. There's also other mentor that they like to like, Loki, I would not be where I am now without their help. And here's a very simple way to think of it. These people, they already know what are the top of the success mountain look like. And for me, as someone new, I never know what does look like. So how can I get there? It's hard. You need to have someone who know what that top mountain look like to guiding you. That is why mentorship is so important. And that is the cheat code to success. Even Mr. Beats say that too.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yeah, I agree. It's interesting, too, because a lot of people will tell you you can't do it because they've never done it. But I've never met anyone who's had success that would say to me, you can't do that. Do you know what I mean? It's people that are successful and already doing what you want to do. They're the ones that are going to help you the most. Absolutely. I'm sorry to hear about your father. How long ago did he pass away?
Justin Cao: He passed away when I was 13 years old. So it's more than 10 years already. OK. And what was his name? Quan. O-A-N-H. OK. And what did he do for a living? Oh, he was a businessman. And there was a lot of lessons that I was able to learn from my mom to apply to my current business. And before he passed away, one of the biggest lessons that I learned from him was that during that time, he sacrificed his health for the family, to take care of both of his family. My mom has a huge family because in Vietnam during the wartime, and even fast forward now, people still have a lot of kids, you know, like one family could have like six to 10 kids in Vietnam back in the war day. So my dad sacrificed all of his health, all of his mental and peace, just to take care of my mom's side, as well as his dad's side, like his family side, to take care of all the auntie, all the uncles. And in the end, he left with his health damage. And then he have to, all the money left have to go toward that. And the key lesson here that I learned is sometime you have to put yourself in a position to focus on your health, because if you don't have your health, no matter how much money that you make, you eventually have to give it to the doctor.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yeah.
Justin Cao: And then your kids, they may grew up without your presence and they might have some resentment, some, some, you know, That's what I learned is put my health first. And that's why in my mentorship program, I make sure that I have a dedicated channel for my students to work out daily. And they have to check in with me daily because I believe fitness discipline carry over to business discipline. And if they have their health in place, they have more mental clarity, they have more energy. And they can go into war because business is war, you know, you have to be strong first. And that's why fitness is there for a reason.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Yeah, I like that. I like that attitude. And I love the lessons you learned from your father. He sounds like an amazing man. And you are doing, you're carrying on his work as a businessman.
Justin Cao: Absolutely. One thing that my mom shared is that my dad, he also do when doing his time, he also like contribute a lot to like the society and the, um, the community that he lived in. And same for me. We do have a foundation that has my father's name on it and his business name on it, because whatever I do right now is to honor his legacy. That kind of live on. The foundation right now, we do sponsor children that grew up as an orphanages. We did sponsor more than 63 orphanages students to go to school. And we build about seven houses completely free for family that has children. because there's a hope right there. And that's how the legacy live on.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: That's a really beautiful legacy. And that's a great way to honor your father. Thank you for sharing that. I just have the last few lightning round of questions for you, just to get to know you a little bit better. Favorite candy bar.
Justin Cao: My favorite candy bars. Oh, man. A lot, because I used to be fat, you know that I eat a lot of food, but the one thing that I would say, sweet and sour, you know like the tiny little sweet and sour candy bears? and then the shower strip. Okay, like that. I love Spanish sour stuff. That's awesome. Do you get it have a cheat day once in a while and have those every day is a cheat day because I use intermediate fasting. I only eat like one meals a day or maybe like very small little meals a day. So I don't restrict myself into I would say food, but I eat very selective though. But right now I would say maybe every day when I feel like I eat something, I'm going to eat something, but then I'm going to pay for it the next day. Or like the moment before, that means I'm going to, let's say if I'm going to have really big meals later on, I'm going to fast for the whole day. Or let's say if I didn't fast for the whole day, I fast the next morning. Because we just have to even out. Life and life, everything needs sacrifices. you unhappy now, make sure that you pay for it later or pay it before, before you enjoy the fruit. I love it. Favorite music artist. Oh man. Music artists. I would say I used to love Taylor Swift, but I like right now the Hill song for like spiritedly. You know, So that's my favorite artist. But before, I love The Beagle. I love Justin Bieber. I love Bruno Mars. I love Tyler Swift. I love Selena Gomez. We Vietnamese, we love American music. That's awesome. Favorite cereal. Cereal? Oh, man, I don't eat cereal. I grew up in Vietnam. So I would say my cereal is I have no serial. Mac or PC? MacBook. Google or Microsoft? I use Google email because I love Google Drive for teamwork. Dogs or cats? I like both. I don't discriminate.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: Any animal is like my favorite. And last question for you, Justin, before I let you go, what's the worst thing about being an entrepreneur and what's the next or what's the best thing about being an entrepreneur?
Justin Cao: Yeah, for me, I try to build my life around positivity as well as gratitude, because in entrepreneurship, stress, anxiety, and fear and doubt probably the things that you would have to encounter because there's no boss gonna be bossing you around and you have to hold yourself accountable and that often came along. And in the past, I used to think of it as an excuse for me to like, oh man, I hate this job, like Entrepreneurial Month because so much stress. But then the money is there for a reason. The purpose, the freedom is there for a reason. So now I just feel like every day being an entrepreneur is a blessing. every day able to build, wake up. There's going to be a day where I don't feel like I want to wake up at all because like stress, because of project, because of things just like the tariff situation that happened. I'm like, oh man, but hey, how can we find blessing in this guy? So I don't hate it. I always trying to find what are the blessing in this guy's in there for me to learn. And for the thing that I love the most about entrepreneurship is learning, meeting the cool people just like you, Kyle. I love to meet cool people, learn from them and be able to I would say to, how can we help each other to grow? How can we serve the next generation, the young kids that we can all look up to? Because right now, what you're doing right now, I promise you, your young grandkids gonna tune in for the same, to this episode, and they're gonna see how awesome you are to do this thing, interviewing the right people, talk about money, the very sensitive topic that people don't talk about in America. I'm grateful for everything, good and bad, I'm grateful.
Kyle Ariel Knowles: I love it. I love those answers, Justin. I've really appreciated getting to know you better and meeting you. That's one of the exciting things about doing a podcast is meeting so many cool people that are out there making money and running businesses and doing mentorship and helping out in the community. So thank you for being on Maker Manager Money today and I appreciate all your time and I wish you much success in the future.
Justin Cao: Same here. And I know for sure that whatever you do right now, just know that I can feel I can feel very a sense of purpose that you have and I know for sure that your kids will be very proud of you as well as your grandkids and your grand grandkids. They're going to tune in. They're going to be very proud of whatever you do right now. And shout out to God. God did, you know, God did everything like millions of people. Why us here? You know, sometimes we cannot fit them. Yeah, well, thank you so much for being on the show. Absolutely. Thank you for having me. God bless you, brother.
