Trailblazer Show

Bryan is the founder of Asian Hustle Network and a burgeoning Real Estate investor with 3 multifamily apartment buildings in Ohio, LA and Sacramento. Asian Hustle Network is one of the largest communities of Asian entrepreneurs from all over the world.  In this podcast, Bryan shares with us how he failed miserably in his first venture and his shift from being a software engineer just 3 years ago to being the owner of 3 multifamily apartment buildings. Bryan also dives deep into how he sets himself up for success every day with a solid morning routine, how to transition real estate mentors into real estate partners and how he plans on helping his tenants during this health and economic crisis. Including forgiving up to 50% of their rent in the coming months. I really enjoyed this conversation with Bryan and I trust you will too!

Amanda Nguyen is the Founder and CEO of the booming San Francisco bake shop, Butter&. Amanda is the first guest to come back onto the Trailblazer Show for the 2nd time. We discuss how Butter& is not only surviving COVID-19, but actually thriving in this new environment. Since COVID-19 and the invention of “Quarantine Cakes” which in the past several weeks have been featured by USA Today and twice by People Magazine.  In this podcast, we discuss Amanda’s initial reaction after realizing business was being decimated by covid-19, how sticking to the core values of employee centricity helped Amanda come up with the idea for Quarantine cakes, what happened when the quarantine cake was launched, the list of cake makers Butter& compiled from all over the world and the 100’s of potential jobs it has saved, how quarantine cakes have broken the existing processes, and why empathy is more important than ever. At the end of the episode, Amanda goes into answering some of your questions. The questions you had after listening to the first episode with Amanda. Amanda goes into exactly the schedule in which cakes are being baked, and the secret sauce to Butter&’s spectacular cakes!   There is a lot of doom and gloom out in the world right now, but there are also many examples of successful adaptations to this new environment. My hope is that this interview with Amanda gives you and your loved ones the hope we all need to make it through this crisis and come out on the other side even stronger. Please enjoy this conversation with Amanda Nguyen.

Kevin is a author, model for Timberland and the founder and CEO of epic gardening, a mega successful digital media property showing people how to grow their own food through the blog Instagram and now TikTok. We discuss how his professional career in poker has helped him become a better decision maker and how the failures and successes that led to Epic Gardening. One of the steps along the way was being an early employee at scribe, the company behind many of my favorite Books including, can’t hurt me, by David Goggins

On this podcast, we have Mark Huang. Mark recently closed on his very first real estate investment deal for a 3 unit property in San Diego that generates $1,200 in profits per month. During the day, Mark is a mechanical engineer that builds and prototypes parts and products for the Navy. By night, Mark is the engineer behind many of the EcoQube line of products. In this podcast, Mark and I talk about the steps he took toward finding his first real estate investment, the requirements of the property, the math he ran through before acquire his very first property, the books that he’s listened to over 3 times that’s helped him acquire the knowledge to execute on his vision of becoming a real estate investor.  We also dig into some of the small things mark and many other people I know do that create massive results. One of them, being intentional with your instagram and youtube news feeds.  I hope you all enjoy this podcast with my dear friend and product design partner, Mark Huang.

On this podcast, we have Eric Suen and Carlos discussing their plans and drivers to become financially free. They both help debunk some myths and misconceptions in the status quo and in the current social narrative society tells us today Eric is 25 and has already built 3 streams of income. He has a day job in sales, income from his first real estate investment and selling tea from his annual tea sourcing expeditions to the rural parts of China. Eric is a good friend of mine. We actually started our first real business together setting up aquariums in people’s homes and offices. Carlos is a portfolio and asset manager at Deutche bank helping manage real estate projects over $300MM and is a home owner under 30yo in san francisco. If there’s one takeaway from this podcast, it is that it’s possible to be financially free well before the age of 65 (retirement) and that you and I can take the first step toward financial freedom and both Eric and Carlos give us insight into the way they think about personal finance. 

8 years after learning about Burning Man, I attended for the first time! In this podcast, I share the incredible workshops I attended that has given me a whole new perspective on myself, 50% of the population and how to have an open heart. 

Rosanna Yau is a designer, Y Combinator alumni, and the co-founder of BackerKit, the #1 platform enabling project creators to manage their crowdfunding campaigns effectively. In addition to helping crowdfunding campaign creators quickly fulfill to all their backers, BackerKit has also helped creators raise $150,000,000 on their platform In this conversation with Rosanna, we discuss everything from Rosanna’s background to how she got involved in helping create one of the earliest decentralized platforms. And how she created backerkit with Maxwell, the cofounder of backerkit. We also go on to discuss how rosanna hires, what her days are like, how she deals with overwhelm and the one book she gives to every new hire.  Please enjoy this awesome conversation I had with Rosanna Yau, the cofounder of backerkit!

Dr. Lisa Kroon is the Chair of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy in the School of Pharmacy at UC San Francisco. Lisa is responsible for setting the strategy, priorities, and goals for the clinical pharmacy program.

Dr. Chris Duff is the Director of Platform & Community at FundRx, an early-stage healthcare venture capital firm.   He is a doctor-by-training with marketing expertise across a wide range of industries.   Fun fact here - One of the industries include selling chicken coops online.   In this podcast, Chris and I discuss his journey from completing medical school at the University of Illinois to becoming a director at FundRx   We also discussed how he avoided his sunk cost fallacy and was able to objectively evaluate what he enjoyed and did not enjoy   Which ultimately led to him to be 1 of 200 people in his class of medical students to take the lesser-taken path of not pursuing a residency and blazing his own trail to his current dream job.   Chris also shares his massive failures in his first and second businesses prior to starting from scratch to acquire his digital marketing skillset   I really enjoyed my conversation with Chris. Please enjoy!   _____   Previously, he led campaign strategy for LaunchBoom, one of the most well-known marketing agency specializing in crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter and Indiegogo.   He also co-founded Physiologic Technology, which utilized existing smart scale technology to help physicians administer individualized diuretic-dosing instructions at low cost.   Chris holds both his M.D. and an undergraduate degree from the University of Illinois, where he graduated with Highest Honors.

Scott is the founder of kickbooster.me, the #1 affiliate platform for crowdfunded campaigns on Indiegogo and Kickstarter Scott shares his journey in building his first business, a construction company and how his drive for money led him slowly to a less fulfilling life. We discuss the trigger and health issues he encountered that led to him leaving and selling his first business and taking 2 years to find the next thing that got him excited Scott also shares the habit that allowed him to increase his sensitivity to what led to a more fulfilled life which I love. This ultimately led to him to build out the most badass home on wheels I’ve ever seen he now lives out of For people that know me, I’ve been dreaming of living in something like this since I was 13. Scott is very unique where he is an astute and accomplished business person but he is also an extremely present, fulfilled and calm human being. This is rare and a characteristic I try very hard to emulate because in many situations, in order to accomplish something, it requires you to constantly be chasing and thinking about what’s coming around the corner and frankly, to be never satisfied. Scott seems to have found the right balance. In this podcast, Scott shares with us how he got there. So please, enjoy this amazing conversation with Scott.

Chris Yin is currently the VP of Product at Rainforest QA and an angel investor. He's built products, teams, and businesses from very early stage to public companies. Chris specializes in finding opportunities, bringing products to market (strategy, development, distribution), leading multiple cross-functional teams, and scaling organizations. Formerly, Chris was at Coupa Software, currently a publicly traded company with a $5.6 billion market cap. At Coupa, Chris helped lead the company from a smaller startup to an IPO with the development and growth of the Expenses, Inventory, and Mobile product lines. Prior to that, he was an early team member at Xpenser, an early stage startup that was acquired by Coupa.

Moe Arnaiz is an entrepreneur with a passion for building enduring companies. Moe was the CEO and Co-Founder of eMOBUS (now Tangoe), he bootstrapped the software company in the mobility management space to over 500 enterprise customers and a successful exit to a $6.7B private equity firm. After the exit, Moe took 2 years to spend time with family, travel and advise early-stage companies. Moe is now working on his next venture, Weeldi, which gives businesses the power to transform the data in their web browsers into a scalable, reliable API in seconds, with no coding required — allowing them to quickly extract the web data they need to be successful when APIs are unwieldy or unavailable. Moe grew up in San Francisco’s Excelsior District, spent 16 years in San Diego where he was on SD Metro Magazines 40-under-40 list and now resides in Mill Valley, CA with his wife and 2 children. He spends his free time eating good food and enjoying life with family and friends

Risk adversity helps keep you fiscally responsible, but at what point does it hold you back from achieving your goals? Amanda Nguyen, founder of Butter&, tells her story of how she left jobs at the Federal Reserve, Eventbrite, and Facebook to turn her passion project into a full-fledged business selling 1,000+ cakes since 2017.       

Steven is a 26-year old industrial product designer/entrepreneur from San Francisco. He has launched over 20 products, building a multimillion-dollar business and selling half a million wallets worldwide and is recognized by major publications like Forbes, GQ, and Business Insider. His products focus on minimal, functional designs in fashion and accessories.

In high school, Shad successfully went through the BS/MD admissions process with a high school GPA that barely met the minimum requirements for most BS/MD programs. Shad developed unorthodox strategies to stand out in the highly competitive BS/MD candidate pool. His unique experience has taught him the vital importance of crafting an exceptional application and narrative, above all else. Shad develops the unique admissions strategies that contributes to the tremendous success and competitive advantage granted to PremedHQ’s students and families.

Benny Luo is founder of NextShark.com, the largest online publication targeting Asian Americans. It reaches over 10 million per week on social media and has been cited by The New York Times, Washington Post, BBC, Forbes, Business Insider, and more. Previously, he founded NewMediaRockstars.com, a media destination for internet culture, acquired by Zealot Networks in 2013. In 2017, he was inducted into the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2018.

In good to great, Jim collins and his research team reviewed in depth 6,000 articles, generated more than 2,000 pages of interview transcripts and created 384 megabytes of computer data in a five-year project to dissect what specific characteristics made good companies great. In his 2,000 pages of interview transcripts, these were some questions that were asked consistently. What was happening when you were there during the pivotal moments? How did you know, what was the point of breakthrough? The executives responsible for the “breakthroughs” repeatedly responded with: “I don’t get the question. There was no miracle moment. There was no breakthrough. It wasn’t as dramatic as it sounds. It was a gradual process. More of a awakening that happened in steps.” The way achievement is viewed from the outside is different from the way it actually feels on the inside even though you can see the inflection point from the outside looking in. It’s a series of continuous good decisions, supremely well executed, disciplined thought processes that added up one upon another that over long period of time created a great result. In this podcast, we explore the mental models and processes they use daily. In other words, how do they think? How do they deal with fear + doubt? What are the things they do or think about on a daily basis that lead to positive results over time. “Our job in this life is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.” -Steven Pressfield