He Went From $0 to $100M in 11 Months — And You're Still "Planning"

Full transcript with timestamps

0:00 We have about 1,500 ads. We started from like 50 ads maybe 13 months ago. Right now we're spending 150 grand a day, but we want to spend like 200 300,000 a day.

0:08 Danny Young is the founder of IM8. We grew up from zero to 100 million annual run rate in under one year and landing partnerships with David Beckham and Arena Sabalanka. I think individuals create their own luck. If you have the will and motivation, anyone can figure out anything. In DOC, speed wins and nobody is faster than Dan. I'm very on all the time. To be fair, not everyone wants that. Some individuals, they just want comfort. That's not the right individual for our company. You have to select people that have this ambitious growth mindset. Otherwise, even one person, it'll slow everyone down.

0:51 So, you went from 0 to$100 million annual run rate in under a year. That's unheard of. obviously is on the back of a lot of marketing. So let's start there. What's your marketing mix with IMAT? Majority right now is meta and Google, right? So roughly about 85% on meta, 15% on Google. Yeah. So it's been very consistent from day one on that because we feel there's still a lot of upside for us to spend. However, with that being said, this quarter we're actually expanding into new channels as well, right? We're expanding to more podcast, YouTube, we're going to be exploring with apploving as well. So these all and of course Tik Tok. Yeah.

1:24 So, but all these channels are all going to be new to us. It's so crazy the amount of scale that you can get through just meta. I think people like highly underestimate how much scale is just there.

1:34 It's insane. And for the people listening too, we're going to get into it further as we get into the podcast. You guys have amazing strategic partnerships. Beckham, Sabalena, we're going to get into more of those. Obviously, that helps the top of the funnel and the efficiencies in in marketing. What about the team? I think that's like for me the most interesting thing. the aggressive scale. What does the team look like on like the media and content side? Is it in-house? Is it agencies? Yeah. So, it's majority in-house. I think if you look back at my career, I've always had strong teams, but you know, to be fair, I have a very founder approach. So, we limit a lot of back and forth and decision making. So, I'm involved in a lot of different decisions, right? So, I keep myself very very busy from day to night. Yeah. And then that makes everything we do able to scale so much faster. And because the

2:22 problem is a lot of times if you have whatever people five, six, seven, eight people or even more than that, your decision- making process tends to be much longer than necessary because everyone's talking and discussing what should we do, right? Because also at the end of the day, I have so much I would say also knowledge and experience within what has a high probability of success. So I can cut through a lot of that noise and just make good decisions most of the time. The wildest thing is the best entrepreneurs, no matter what scale they're at, they are still deeply in the weeds. Yeah. And you are definitely most still in the weeds.

2:58 Very in the weeds. Yeah. You understand? I know everything that's going on. So, um, we're going to say this one slow for the people out there watching.

3:04 I checked your Facebook creative. How much creative do you guys have running right now? Your Facebook account? We have about,500 ads. Yeah. And again, we started from like 50 ads, right? Like maybe 13 months ago. So, so we're consistently putting out that output. And this is so important, especially for meta, right, with the creative diversity that you need to constantly put new content out, but not just new content, but good content, right? Otherwise, you want to spend whatever it is. Right now, we're spending Yeah. upwards about 150 grand a day at total marketing.

3:34 You're spending like $100,000 a day on meta alone. Yeah. Correct. Yeah. Wow. And and that feedback loop as far as the content goes is just every single day all day testing testing testing cutting and using internal team and external team.

3:48 Yes. Yeah. Makes sense. But we want to spend like 200 we want to send 300,000 a day, right? And but then of course to be able to do that, we can't yet until we get more and more content, more great content as well.

3:59 Yeah. I think this all backs into you guys have a great subscription model. We're going to get deeper into it and you guys have the ability. I mean your whole entire business is really just CAC to LTV. Everything is based on a subscription. So you can push as hard as CAC to LTV allows you to do it. How do you look at CACLTV? What is your ballpark CACLTV that you're comfortable sharing everybody out there listening?

4:19 Correct. Right. So I think when we look at CAT to LV, the other metrics that is very interesting for us that we also look at on a daily basis is the payback period. Right. Basically how long it takes us for to recoup that CAC, right? So when we think about a CAG and LTV, we'll look at it from a 24-month horizon. So right now we're targeting roughly about 3 to 3.5 on the character LTV ratio right and then so we're right at there

4:42 for people out there listening that is a worldclass number three to 3.5 and from a a payback period you guys are right in that range as well.

4:49 Yeah payback period right now is actually under four months. Yeah. So under four months on a blended basis even because right now we actually have approximately three different skews right we have our daily ultimate essentials our longevity product and our beckham stat which is a combination of essentials and longevity yeah so on a blended wise it's less than four months so that also gives us significant confidence that we can scale this quite aggressively right because I'm sure DTC wise if you're at 3 to four months you're probably at the excellent range 6 months you're good 12 months you're like yeah you're like at a you're like a C minor Right.

5:23 Yeah. I mean, if you think about the companies, they've semi- put stuff out there like Grunes as an example. I mean, people are more in the 6 to 12 month range. That's I would say that's world class. Anything under four months.

5:32 Yeah. And that just allows you to continuously continuously push. Correct. I would say that you guys almost

5:39 are too efficient in a sense that you can push that harder to even to six months and still be highly profitable, right?

5:43 Yes. Yeah. It's a good good problem to have. What about content systems? If you're putting out thousands and thousands of ads on the back end,

5:51 how do you drive that flywheel? A lot of the push that we're doing now is with statics. A lot of the statics we push out, again, we're using a lot of AI to be able to drive that. Videos, I think, is still almost there, but all the video content we do is actually real right now. Yeah. But of course, we we augment that essentially with a combination of statics and videos. It's so crazy to see because our company actually overindexed on videos and obviously it's a way heavier lift even with AI. Yes.

6:18 But we've actually flipped it and we're about 75% statics and we're seeing way way more success. I actually think

6:25 people underestimate the simple statics that those are still working. Mh. And you guys obviously have I mean from a static perspective you can just sell on just value props of the product. You can be very simple and like direct response on that.

6:37 Correct. I I agree. Right now statics are I mean just from productionwise speed it's so efficient right now right however I do believe right now we're actually making more investments in terms how do we scale the video portion of it because the challenge what I see is that yeah you have so many companies now that are make that the static on the AI it's going to be so easy right it's going to be like a commodity right so if everyone's going to a commodity and how do you be able to differentiate against everyone else and that's where the video and authenticity is going to play a big big factor later on, right? So, in terms of real people, real stories, I think this in the next 3 to 6 months is all going to come to fruition.

7:16 Yeah. I mean, it's also just about brand positioning. I love the fact that you guys are red and we're not going to talk about athletic brands today, but when you look at that kind of product category, you think green and then you guys are red, so you get that contrast. And then obviously the celebrity partnerships, you guys can lean on that

7:30 all day long. I the first thing that I was going to ask when you said 80 85% on Meta was platform risk. So what are those other categories? You briefly mentioned it. Where are you guys looking to go to next?

7:41 Yeah. Yeah. I mean you mentioned even with 80 85% on meta, I think we still have much more upside to do on meta before we're actually saturated, right? We at least have another I would say 24 36 months even before we hit ceiling on meta. But the other platforms that we want to go into is again YouTube more podcasts. We haven't done much of YouTube or podcast app loving again we have heard a lot of great great stories on there and of course Tik Tok right so we haven't even experimented with all any of these channels and we're able to do what we've been able to do with the revenue wise and growth.

8:13 Yeah excited to see how that works out. We're uh I would say like this new emerging channel I would say is apploving is one of them and a lot of people are going to CTV. Those are two kind of ones that I'm hearing about more and more. La I think last year was the app loving year. I think this year is going to be a lot about CTV. That's another big one.

8:29 Yeah. And we also Yeah, same. We haven't even experimented with that yet, right? So that that's why it gives us so much confidence in terms of hey, where we're at and what what growth opportunities we have?

8:38 Makes sense. On the retention side, the CAC, LTV, payback period. I mean, among other things, I really think that you guys are in the subscription and retention game. Yes. What are some of those other big initiatives on the retention side? What are you guys doing to make it as sticky as possible for people to stay?

8:55 Yeah, great great question. And and that's something that we've been thinking quite hard about even the last 3 months or so, right? You because the first I would say the first yeah 9 to 12 months of the initial brand was really just about customer acquisition, right? And then so that's how we thought about because at the end of the day we can't do so much well at the same time. Yeah. But then the last three months a big big focus has been on retention. And then so one thing that we actually just started within the last 45 days is actually introduce a threemonth subscription program. And then so we started this in the US last month. And then we actually seen significant success with that because what we did is for example in the US our one-time purchase is 112 one month is 89. Three month is basically 78 a month but you pay 235 upfront right and then we deliver basically three months at one time. So that means we can

9:46 also recognize the revenue at once and give given that we're a public company that's also quite important right but we also just deliver one time so we save on logistics the customer also saves right so that's a great benefit because when you do for consumers a three months that means they give ample time for the product to work right and when you give it a routine is also really important because when you're on routine wise 30 40 60 90 days it becomes part of your daily habit right so we believe that's going to have a big big upside on the retention piece. And given the success of that, we rolled this out internationally early this month. And now we've seen actually more than 50% of individuals that are purchasing are purchasing three month subscriptions.

10:29 I want to stop you there for a second because there is so much juice squeezed into that. I love what you guys are doing. First, it's an AOV game. You guys you guys are driving up your AOV. B, your unit economics as the producer is significantly better because you're saving on shipping. And then C, you're delivering insane value to the customer on a per month perspective. They're getting the discount. And then D, you said something very interesting there. And I think we were talking off camerara about my company. It's a want, not a need. And then this, you said habitualization is that's an important part of your product, too, is

11:01 allowing yourself enough runway for people to continuously try it so they actually see the benefits. some of these other ones where if it's like if it's like one month, they might try it 5 10 15 times and it's not enough to actually see results.

11:14 I love that strategy. Yeah. And again, everyone's different, right? Some people see results in like three days, right? Some in seven days, some 14, 30, 60, 90 days. And we've ran clinical trials on this as well for individuals that have taken it for 90 days. And this was done via San Francisco Research Institute. 95% of individuals that took it after 90 days felt noticeable difference in energy levels. 85% better gut health, 80% slept better, 75% have a sharper cognitive performance. Right? So 90 days is kind of like the key time period where majority of people feel that difference.

11:48 Yeah. But one thing that we've also done with the 90-day program is again not just offer a discount. We always try to give value to that consumer, right? And why do you want to pay 90 days? Because it's actually quite significant. You're paying right now our AOV since we've introduced this 9-day program is $280 globally.

12:05 That's insane, right? And then for individuals that buying the Beckham stack, they're paying $500 upfront, right? So for a three-month period, right? So it's quite a lot at least in the DTC world, right?

12:17 We are in so early though that you still haven't even seen a longtail. That's like you just introduced this. So correct,

12:21 people aren't even on the resale yet. We're in early. Yeah, we're in early. and and one thing that we've introduced to create value and one key I would say USP about IM8 is we've have an amazing team of scientific advisory board members as well as performance trainers right so these are the likes of Dr. Don from Mayo Clinic. We also got Bobby Rich, David Beckham's trainer. So these individuals, what we provide on the 90-day program, we give access to individuals that subscribe to quarterly master classes where you can go on Zoom, talk to them live, ask questions, and they'll be providing insights in terms like to train David Beckham, right? How does Dr. Don she's a integrative oncologist at male clinic for 25 years what has she seen you that gives you you basically hope to live a healthy life right so we give access to nine of our scientific advisory board members and doctors so you can access to

13:14 them on a quarterly basis so I think that's ultimately providing value to that consumer that's insane I've never heard of anything like that that's like you're that's an irresistible offer at that point

13:24 I don't know any other brand that's ever done that you're combining so you're just you're driving the AOV with a subscription and just giving them access digital access to all these people.

13:31 Yeah, digital access. Correct. Right. And then so that's something that we're exploring right now is like how do we even basically give more access? Right now starting with a zoom, right? So we just started this like few weeks ago, right? And then later on it's like how do we provide more access in digital format as well? So you can log in, you can talk to these individuals and get real feedback basically by coming on board, right? Because at the end of the day, we don't want to just sell our product. It's about the lifestyle, the community about how do we enrich people with knowledge. That's a great idea. And for people out there listening, definitely if you have a hard product, ideulate on what type of leverage and access the humans in the marketplace that you have to then give that access to your ICP. I love that idea. I've never heard that idea. I think that's going to work in spades. And since you

14:14 have so many celebrity partners too, you can start doing maybe somebody, you know, enters to win to meet David Beckham for dinner or go play a tennis match with Saba Lang.

14:22 Oh, we did that already. We did that already. Yeah, we did that like basically last month right?

14:26 Wow. We did that. We had a golden ticket to Dubai. So basically we had a a lucky draw in which basically we invited two lucky winners airfare hotels etc. backstage assets meet with Arena Sabalanka when we did the battle of the sexes event in Dubai with Nick Curios right so that was a very special unique opportunity right just to do that so that allows us act it gives individual access where they normally wouldn't be able to access right I want to talk about some of these partnerships because we're just kind of glazing over these these massive names Sabalanko is number one tennis player in the world Beckham is icon let's rewind to that night it's summer 2023 you're at dinner with Beckham

15:05 what happens Yeah, I mean just give you a backstory on that, right? And interesting thing is like a lot of this stuff it just happened organically which was quite crazy to say right and even before you had the dinner with Beckham. It was I was having another dinner with my other good friend and just through my entrepreneurial network right business network good friend Michelle Laminer he has a big media and lifestyles events company in Asia and then yeah he knows you Beckham quite closely and then I was having dinner with him like he's like hey what you doing he's like yeah he's going to go to you meet David in London in a few weeks. He's like, "Do you want to join?" And I was like, "Are you sure?" Right? He's like, "Yeah, yes."

15:41 You know, you never know if he's kidding or not, right? He's like, "Yeah, sure." And then he's like, "Oh." Then like the next day he texted me. He's like, "Oh, you're you're you're confirmed, man. Let's" and then I was like, "Okay, let's go." And at that time, to be fair, I didn't really have an agenda because you wouldn't really think about pitching David this, right? But once we started talking, etc., tried and he was very intrigued um about my background because just share my background what is is interesting because I had the consumer background the e-commerce background and then the last 11 years with running prinetics and co-founding prinetics was life sciences so the combination of the consumer and the life sciences I think that really resonated with David because for David reputational risk was the key thing for him right is if he puts his name on a product no one's going to go after Danny Right. Everyone's going to

16:30 go after David, right? 100%. And then so that was key to him. And then I think also another key factor for David, he was like so many people, big brands, very influential individual have went to him, hey, let's do a supplement brand together. He's rejected for the last 30 years, right? And then so and one of the key things I said to him is, hey, if we do this together, the brand also has to live beyond him. It's not just going to be another celebrity brand. The key thing because at the end of the day if people may be interested at first but if the product doesn't work and feel great for individuals it's not going to have that sustaining power right

17:08 standalone standalone power and so he was also very bothered by that because a lot of times these celebrities they they a lot of people they want to make it just about the celebrity brand and then I think for him it's like he knew if he did this it has to be much bigger than even him right so I think we're looking at this from like a 5 10 15 20 year horizon and that's how we thought about this from day one and the challenge in the supplement industry a loting a lot of people they're looking at this very short term right so they're not making the proper investments early on from a science perspective the testing clinical trials because this industry is unregulated right so people tomorrow can just say talk to manufacturing get going like two weeks right it took us literally yeah to get something going right but then you can do that

17:56 and you may even have success, but I don't believe you'll have long-term success.

18:02 Yeah, I feel like it's table stakes now. We've had a couple guests on that are in and around this space. Like being NSF certified, having clinical trials, and having a long purview on it's going to take a long time to build this brand and we want to be slow and steady and incremental. I feel like if you don't have a long-term lens and have that, you have no chance moving forward. It's got to be better for you and it has to be proven

18:22 with clinical trials. Yes. Yeah. your website when I was on it, it was a great blend of transparency, direct response, but then also brand and and David had a lot of rich content on there. He had some great storytelling, not only on the science side, but like him personally, someone like him, is he an investor in the company and what are the big things that he brings to the table outside of just his general likeness?

18:45 Yeah, great. So, I mean, basically, he's a a co-founding partner in the brand, right? So, of course, he has equity and Prenetics, the parent company, which is listed on the NASDAQ. So he has that from day one right and then so what he brings to the table again such strategic insight on the brand even and to be fair when we came up with the initial product it was David's initial I would say issue with supplements he also felt was very overwhelming and that he himself was taking a dozen 12 13 14 15 supplements on a daily basis him and Victoria both but when they're traveling it's very difficult to maintain that routine and then so we're like hey there must be a their way. And so that's where we came up with daily ultimate essentials, which again the USP for us is that one drink, you mix it with powder and water, it takes care of 16 different supplements and it tastes as good. And that was also

19:36 key from David's perspect. I don't care how great the formulation is, but it also needs to taste good. Number one, by default needs to be great from a scientific perspective, but it also needs to taste good. And the brand also has to be there, right? So we actually speak to his team on a weekly basis from Yeah. So they're highly involved in the whole process, right? So many people real don't realize that but on a weekly basis we have weekly calls with their team going over our progress development, what's to come and etc. So he adds a lot of value and even for our new product development you he has the final say in terms of taste profile. So, it's great in terms of soccer and profile taste profile cuz everyone always said, "Hey, our our product tastes amazing."

20:20 For someone out there that knows him just as a soccer player, what do you think is his superpower? What's David Beckham's superpower

20:27 in business? Yeah. I think he has a long-term view, right? And again, he's willing to take risks as well because to be fair, when we met in the summer of 23, our Yeah. market cap was like 50 million bucks, right? which is yeah not great right correct

20:45 guys we're going to get into it was as high as a billion dollars down to 50 now we're almost at 300 congrats

20:50 correct right so we were we're a billion dollars when we met was a 50 million so and was going down at that time right and then now we're like 350 million market cap right and the reason I think he's willing to take risk and make the right bets from a business perspective you've seen that even with LA Galaxy right when he came everyone was thinking why did he do that

21:10 big multiple he got on that one he looks like a genius on Exactly right. And he got a deal to get a Miami team for $25 million.

21:19 Right. And but that was a long-term view. That was like a a seven to 10 year view. And then that 25 million is huge, right? Now what into Miami is easily worth $ 1.5 maybe$2 billion dollars, right? So but he had the long-term view because I think he really bets on of course the market. Yeah. The TAM etc. and also people. And then he's also when I talk to him, he's always trying to provide value for his partners. And that's what is really great about him is that hey, he wants to do the best of us for the business and from the brand and also at the end of the day, every brand that he works with, he truly believes in it.

21:56 Yeah. And I think what you've done an absolute great job of, and we're going to get into more of the partners, is the positioning. The people that you're picking are two things when I think of them. They're all premium and they're all international.

22:08 I think that with Beckham and then next up is Sabalano, number one tennis player in the world. She hits the whole entire world.

22:13 How'd she come into the picture? How'd you get her? Yeah, I mean again it's very organic. I'm I'm so blessed and grateful for that. Right. And then so how Arena came on board was last year, last January actually, Jason Stacy, Arena's performance and nutrition coach, he was not happy and they were actually not happy about Arena's supplement regime. She wasn't feeling it. And then JC started taking it in January. He because he's always on the outlook for new stuff or new brands. And he's took it for about a month. He felt noticeably better. And then he suggested to Arena to take it. And then she was on it for three months. And then I'm sure you know at that levelwise they're measuring on the daily basis the changes in terms of the mood, energy recovery for Arena. And then in May, Arena's team reached out to myself and I said, "Hey, Arena's been taking the product for three months. Can we partner together?" So, it was like a

23:06 very happy day, huh? I mean, I guess it all just comes down to product at at this point. The great product gets them all in.

23:11 Yeah, correct. A great product gets them all in and that's at the end of the day, we're still just so thankful for that because at the end of the day, if the product works, people will come in and even for like Arena, I mean, athletes are are amazing because they have so many options. Everyone's trying to push them to a product, right? And of course, they choose and they're using the product on a daily basis. Even Arena, she's using it daily. Her team of coaches are using it daily. So, if you watch Arena, every time she makes a great shot, you know, that team of coaches all wear IMA caps. Yeah,

23:40 I love that. I think a huge issue a lot of people make with these partnerships is they look at it more as like one-off deals and influencers versus deep integration and then actually authenticity where they're power users of the product. It seems as though everybody here is a power user of the product.

23:54 Yes. 100%. And how we structure the deals is also we don't want to do anything short-term. Right. So these are minimum threeyear deals.

24:01 Wow. Right. So even with Arena everyone else these are minimum threeyear deals because if it's not it becomes too short term and you both sides doesn't benefit from it. Right. And then so that means for whoever that we're dealing with for three is a long term. Right. Right. It's not just a one year thing. Right. So I think this is also very important to structure these things because it benefits both sides that we're both committed and even for us wise there's a significant portion of any of these deals in equity and which is important because just because you give them equity to be fair so many people given want to give them equity they're very selective more so on the equity piece because it's not transactional. Yeah, they believe in a product. They believe in a brand. They believe in your vision for the long term. And so that's why it works.

24:49 Another great thing that you have done is not only equity, but some of these people are also investors. And guys, on the way in here, Danny just hits me with an absolute bombshell of some of these massive names that he just signed partnerships with. I want to talk about a couple of those now. Tell everybody in the audience, I guess, let's first start with this F1 partnership. Who'd you partner with and why? Yeah. So, we partner with U. Ali Bman. He's one of the youngest drivers in F1. He just has rookie season last year, but everyone's talking about Ali. He's just amazing young kids, 20 years old, and he has top of his game right now. So, huge potential.

25:25 Yeah. So, very excited to be a partner with him, right? He's just young, always smiling, always laughing, has great potential ahead of him.

25:31 That's also a great sport with a growing TAM. And also, like I said before, it's

25:36 international. It's premium and it's international. Mhm. Yeah. Let's just keep let's just keep reeling them off one by one.

25:42 Yeah. I mean, it's been amazing like last last, you know. 3 four weeks, right? So, uh yeah, we're also very fortunate that we just partnered with Giannis. Yeah. Again, NBA superstar, literally top one, top two player in the league, right? So, very excited about that partnership. Again, these are individuals that actively use the product. So, that becomes a much easier conversation when they're they love the product, right? And then just becomes then a deal like how do we make this work for both sides? Yeah. We're we're also going to put some prayers in. I'm going to pray to the gods for you that he gets traded to New York cuz if he goes to New York then the TAM widens even more. You get even bigger.

26:17 Yeah. Exactly right. So I think there's a lot of talk on that. Yeah. So I think we're just happy to be able to partner with world class athletes.

26:24 If you had to distill down to one thing, what do you think is the one key thing that you do to close these partnerships?

26:30 Um I think at the end of the day it's it's authenticity, right? So I meet with them on a one-on-one basis and I share the journey, the story. Uh I don't just hand this off to other people, right? So because it's quite delicate when you're dealing with people of this magnitude. Um and we meet, we talk, we share the vision, the story, and at the end of the day, it has to work for both sides. So yeah, the deal, the structure, and everyone sees upside and again building something for the long term, right? So I think that's the key thing.

27:01 Yeah. Yeah. And with that being said, that's where like equity comes into play. Like if you're just compensating them with dollars in it short term, they're not going to do that. It's going to be all direct response, hard ads. And I think now more than ever, I mean, people just see right through that. I completely agree.

27:14 I would say the lynch pin of all of this, of all these partnerships, I truly do believe is content. When I went to the website, the stuff with David was very, very impressive. You had an ad with Sabalanka, a piece of content with Sabalanka that got over 200 million views and it was created with AI. Yeah, walk me through that process. How did that happen? What' you do? Tell tell us everything. So my thought processing and just giving my my thought process in terms of speed, right, as well, right? So I think it was last year. I think it was like maybe August, right? August time frame because we ran that ad in September. I was on Instagram. I saw this amazing AI ad. I was like, "Wow, this is a crazy AI ad." And it's just basically I was like, "Who made this ad?" And there's a message agency, right? And then he got back. We got on a call. We're like, "Hey, can we do an AI video, etc." Yeah, because I think what

28:03 I seen was like really amazing. And then we did it, right? And then so basically the AI video cost us 25 grand. And then we put it out basically in like three to four weeks. And you saw the ad. I mean, we were so surprised at the velocity of how fast it took off. You would never expect that we'll get 200 million views, right? Maybe we didn't get like two, three million views. And again, was more of like a test. Yeah. But I think when we pushed it out, Arena shared it as well. is that I think the algorithms are saw that and wow this is a really great ad because we had it looked very realistic but from day one we also mentioned in our video this was driven by AI so very transparent that whole process and then the first day got like 20 million meals I think that's the key is that you were transparent with what you did and it created a lot of chitter chatter in the comments and I think it gave people like agency that this is

28:51 okay to do you were very early with that one yeah we launched it like September of last year right

28:56 yeah and then again that was right before the US Open as well. So the timing also had a lot to do with it, I think. Yeah, cuz of course Arena won the US Open. Then we played in Time Square on the Big Digital Billboard, right? So it got a lot of traction during the right time. We're going to pop that up for everybody to to watch and listen to that ad.

29:13 Yeah, it's 50 seconds, but it's like I think was one of the most viewed social ads of all of 2025. It's sleek. I love it. I want to do a quick shout out to my friend Zach that owns an app that I am a power user of. It's called Outer Signal. In short, every time a celebrity, influencer, or founder buys from my store, I get a Slack message with all their details. You can flag any specific group and turn that order into a partnership, a brand moment, a gifting opportunity, even a podcast guest, anything you want. They have a ton of tools on how you can use that data.

29:42 Check them out below, link in the description, and thank me later. Enjoy the episode.

29:48 What about AI in general? Walk me through how you use that strategy, operations, customer service. I know you're ahead of the curve, so give it give us some free game on that.

29:56 Yeah, I mean I was very I would say very early in terms of the adoption of AI just from a usage perspective, even for myself, right? I I use it like literally two to three hours on a daily basis. Yeah. For everything I use it on, right? Like literally. So yeah, even when you chat first came out few years ago, very early on. I think key thing for me to be fair and my team knows that a basically I tell the team literally everyone moving forward has to be AI native otherwise it's going to be very very difficult for me to justify you know them coming their existence basically right

30:33 you said it right so I think it's it's very important as a founder to continue be updated in terms of all these new innovations because the reality is one week two weeks three weeks ago it could be irrelevant today, right? But I think with the advancement of technology, all these other competitors or brands are going to be using it and if we're not yet up to date with these technologies, we'll be left behind, right? The same goes for our employees, right? Everyone has to basically make the use of because I feel like to be fair, I've never felt like a smart guy because I was never good in school, right? I dropped out of high school, got kicked out of three high schools, so I was I would say very street smart. But now with AI tools, I mean, I literally feel very very smart.

31:17 You know, it's so funny. Now, now you're getting the the people with the EQ now are getting double the benefit because IQ is going to become everyone is going to be able to have the IQ because they can just leverage the

31:26 Yeah, exactly. It becomes a commodity, right? The knowledge piece becomes a commodity because there's no way anyone can be smarter than AI, right? Because the AI is taking knowledge from around the world where individuals they're limited by their own knowledge and what they can research, right? And then so that's gonna be commanding. So the key thing moving forward I'm always telling the team is say creativity how do you feed that AI engine is going to be so critical and how it's all going to come down to creativity you know the engineering part of it. So you briefly touched on you had your whole team making sure they're spending any and all their excess time on AI. I want to dive a bit more into like your leadership style. So tell us a little bit more about your leadership style and like the operating rhythm of how you run your companies. I'd love to hear that. Yeah.

32:11 So my operating world again is really focused on results, right? And then speed for any company is this huge huge advantage. Yeah. And then so I mean you from my whole entrepreneurial career, right? That's been the case, right? So this is now my I would say my four fifth company started from scratch and then if you look at my past two experiences even again just to background wise I moved from US to Hong Kong 2010 and launched an e-commerce company called you buy I buy and that was then acquired by Groupon. when Groupon went international. And so that was all about speed, right? Because at that time was really a land grab. So we went from like zero to at that time even before Groupon acquired us, we went from zero to monthly 1 million US monthly revenue in like four to five months, right? And then so when they acquired us, we're already the market leader and we only had like eight people working at that

33:02 time, right? For us. So that was the speed and go to market. Let's dive deeper into let's get very very granular. When did you have the idea? when did you start it and when did you get to a million dollar?

33:11 So I mean that was very interesting because I remember very specifically right because it was such a pivotal moment in my career. I remember in 2010 a friend sent me a link about Groupon and then I read a group I was like wow this is crazy like they're growing like crazy right they just raised $950 million and at that 2010 it was a lot of I mean still a lot of money but at that time

33:32 still a lot of money but everything's relative right but in 2010 there were very one of the very early ones right this is even before Uber Airbnb was just getting it started

33:41 before like the big tech platforms stuff so 950 now is like $10 billionly Exactly right. I was like, "Wow, amazing business idea." They were growing like they were already like the fastest company to hit billion dollars in revenue, blah, blah, blah, etc. Right. I was like, "Wow, crazy. I really like the idea." And always had a passion for technology. And then I was like, "Hey, I love this idea, but I can't com build that same platform and compete with them in the US because they're already so big. So I was thinking, where do I go?" I was like, "Hey, I moved to Hong Kong." So within one month, I packed my bags, basically moved to Hong Kong. had no e-commerce background, no network in Hong Kong. Moved to Hong Kong March 2nd on June 28th. I had a website up and running and it was called you bye-bye and we were selling in Hong Kong and Taiwan and the first day again it was crazy because I remember very

34:32 vividly we sold 400 vouchers on the first day by the four fifth month we were doing 1 million monthly in revenue USD revenue and on the sixth month group came calling and they acquired 51% of the company and then basically they acquired the rest in 2013 and that dime went from zero to when I left we had about like 200 million in revenue but we were the largest e-commerce company in the region at the time which was very early in Asia right so again that speed was a big portion of that

35:03 tell me more about that I mean first off just within a month you're moving to Hong Kong with no network yeah

35:08 how do you get all of those vouchers how do you get to a million dollars like tell us on the ground floor but let's get tactical here because you have no ecom background

35:17 correct what happened you have to get the brands on the platform to sell like what happened?

35:22 Yeah, correct. Great you ask these questions because I can be very specific in terms Yeah. So went to Hong Kong had no background but I knew I wanted to do the e-commerce and of course then I hired an agency for the website very involved with that part and but then of course then the key thing is actually getting the brands on board right because if you don't have any good brands on board no one's going to buy from you correct and then when I went to the big brands they all said no to me right of course they're like hey

35:46 yeah why why would I work to you I went to Starbucks and then you had to I had to do this right because I only had like four or five people in the company right so I had to go to Starbucks you go to like some of the Asian brands and they're like, "Yeah, we don't we don't need this, right?" And then so what we did early on was then, okay, if Starbucks won't work with us, okay, we we will still buy the Starbucks vouchers, right? We'll still buy the Starbucks at full value. Yeah. And then we resell it at 50% off, right? As a customer acquisition tool.

36:15 Wow. So you're saying they said no. You said, "Fuck off. I'm going to buy it." I didn't say [ __ ] off. You You said no. I'm going to buy it and then sell it for 50% off as a way to just get new customers and you're going to win on the LTV. So, it was just you just use a loss leader on the CAC and then you just win the LTV,

36:32 right? As long as you're a loss leader on CAT also to create brand value because we're very early, right? And then consumers and they'll see, oh, wow, you guys got Starbucks, right?

36:41 Wow. Correct. And it creates a great brand recognition, right? And then we made sure every single day we had a new deal at 12:00 a.m. cuz even at that time e-commerce in Hong Kong was so early and everyone told me, "Hey, no one's going to go on the website at 12:00 a.m. to find new deals." But I said, "Hey, if we have good deals, we create a new shopping behavior." And even I didn't care if that voucher sold a thousand. Every 12 a.m. I have a new voucher on, right? Just create that behavior. And so we had really great brands on in the beginning, but a lot of those brands in the beginning, they were basically we did this thing with buying the vouchers directly. And then of course at the time wise, hey, I knew in the back of my mind, yeah, Starbucks will probably send us a letter, which they did like you can't do this, right? As long

37:30 you probably can't resell vouchers. You cannot. Exactly. Says you cannot resell vouchers, right? Love that.

37:35 Yeah. But then at the end of the day, we're a small company. Beg for forgiveness later. Yes. you're you're a small company and then so but at the same it's like we have work with Starbucks then I can go to Pete's coffee it's like Starbucks is working with me right then we get a real deal from pets then so continue then one of the key moments even early on in giving you very granular specific details was I co-led this restaurant group dining concepts y

38:00 and then you the marketing director he was really rude because I co- called right and he was like don't ever call me again blah blah sing swear words to me right and that very like I was like wow this guy is like really mean right yeah and then I then I googled that who's the owner of this group right and then I still remember his name is Sandeep and then I co- called the actual office and I was like can I speak to Sandeep he was the actual owner and I was telling him hey basically my name my story and so he's like yeah Danny just come to my office I want to chat with you right and then I went to his office and I told him the story and then he was a again he started from nothing too and then he built like one of the biggest restaurant groups was in Hong Kong after I met with him for about 20 minutes like Danny's like I don't believe your e-commerce concept will work in Hong Kong but because you didn't give up even though

38:50 my marketing director hung up on you I'm going to work with you and give you 20 of my restaurants and then and it was a real deal. So that means the 20 restaurants was on my platform and had basically set up the next three four months one a week with his restaurants which was in high demand and he was like just because you're so passionate about your business I'll work with you. So I think if you try hard enough and you re reach the right people will willing to help you and work with you as long as you're a young yeah entrepreneur. I feel like just being yeah passionate, relentless, speed, and what you said there for people out there listening to take very kind of tactical advice from it. I mean, it's the same with me with licensing. We got one license, we leveraged it as social proofing and said, "Hey, we have this license and then we got the other licenses." So, I just feel like this is all about

39:38 leveraging and social proofing just to get to the next level and get the next vendor.

39:42 Yeah. Quite in early days, right? because you have so you have no leverage and then at some point you have the leverage and you are real because they are real customers.

39:49 Yes, correct. We're very grateful now. Yeah, that's a great point. When you get to that point when when it actually is real.

39:55 Yes. When you're smaller you can take much bigger risks. All right. And then as your company evolves at each stage then it's different. And of course right now we're a publicistic company right? So everything we have to do by the books, right? Everything's audited basically by Deoid, right? So I think now is a very different stage but you know when we're younger going on everyone has their journey right?

40:16 Well I mean still regardless of where you're at I still feel like speed is your superpower. How do you get your team to go as fast and be as ambitious as you are? What is that operating rhythm? Are you guys talking every single day and say by the end of the week I need to get this. You guys are talking Wednesday. What did I do Monday and Tuesday? How is how do you keep the pace?

40:34 Yeah. So I yeah everyone that works with me now or even my past companies again I'm I'm very on all the time right so again I'm involved in like every single department of the organization right so that's very key number one you also firstly have to start with team members that appreciate that speed or ambitions with the growth because to be fair not everyone wants that right some individuals they just want comfort and that's not the right individual for our company it could be for other companies So I think you have to select people that have this ambitious and growth mindset

41:09 otherwise it doesn't work right because then when you want to tell people to push the buttons everyone has to go right otherwise even one person it doesn't work it'll slow everyone down right

41:20 how do you spot that is there something that you do to understand and know that that person has it in them

41:24 I think you have to make a good judgment in terms of finding that talent in terms of what their ambitions are and yeah again I always be very transparent Like even for me, yeah, even work life, I have a work life integration. There's never any boundaries and I'm constantly I'll tell them, "Hey, you know what? I'll text you at like 12:00 a.m., 2 a.m., 6:00 a.m., doesn't matter, right?" And then so just so I am fully transparent in terms of how Yeah. what what demands they are when they're coming into and joining this company, right? Of course, they'll be able to learn a lot. I'm very hands-on. I will always for me, I always try to provide a lot of context. I never tell someone, hey, just do this blah blah blah. I was always a this is the reason why. So at the end of the day, I also want them to learn as well. Right.

42:08 So everybody has access to you in your company. Everyone everyone has access 24/7 access to

42:12 Yeah. Easy. Right. So I'm always on WhatsApp etc. And that's that's very important. Right. Because any a lot of times if they don't have access then this is where you the speed gets lost.

42:24 So talking about this group on competitor what I think is interesting about that versus what you're doing now. Correct me if I'm wrong. I feel like IMA now it's long-term. This is a life mission. It's 10, 20, 50 years. Did you intentionally go into this group on one under the notion that you thought Groupon was going to buy you and this was, hey, we can do a quick scale and get an acquisition. Were you thinking that then? That was in the back of my mind. But most importantly, if the business did well, I knew I had a lot of options, right? Because the key thing is like if the business does well, then you have a lot of options, including a sale to group, right? And coincidentally that happens. Yeah. So I'd rather be lucky than good any day.

43:04 How how much do you think it is lucky verse good? I'm curious that you just brought it up. I was going to ask you that later. How much do you think your career is percentage wise is luck versus good?

43:14 You know to be fair I think individuals create their own luck. All right. And you know if you're walking on the street nothing's going to just fall on you hit you. Right. Correct. You have to be in the right position right time. And you also have to be able to in a position to take the right bets, you know, which could be called lucky, right? But, you know, again, I'd rather be lucky. I mean, give you another two two examples. I mean, I was a seat investor in uh company called Honey, which was acquired by PayPal for 4 billion cash, right? So, I had a 300x return on that one investment, which was quite crazy, right? Um, how'd that come about? And again it was there was I had the group on experience right and then so they were working on a internet browser widget for coupons right and then so my friend introduced us and we got along well and like you know with a little bit of money and turned out after like you

44:07 know I think it was like five six years 300x return right on the on the 100 grand investment. So

44:12 guys you guys do the you guys do the math there that's uh what that's 30 million

44:15 $30 million. Yeah. Right. And then and that was directly correlated to you being in an adjacent business having success and then getting the access through that.

44:23 Correct. But of course many people didn't make that investment also at that time. Right. And another example was

44:30 in Hong Kong I met this guy and just through another entrepreneur and he had previously built the world's lightest aircraft seat and he's came to me and we were just hanging out having drinks and then he was like hey he's going to do another business and I'm like what is it? And he's like, "He's going to build a new insurance company in France." I'm like, "Has that been done before?" He's like, "No." I'm like, "Why do you think you can do it?" Blah, blah, blah, etc. He's like, "In France is very backwards and they need a new digital insurance company." And he actually did it. And it was the first time in 17 years a new insurance company has been built and I was a C investor in that. And now I have a 200x return on that. And Allen is now Europe's largest digital insurance company is now valued at like $4 billion, right? Yeah. So, I think those were all lucky. It's like I was meeting the right people at the right time, but

45:16 you also have to be able to take advantage of that. Yeah. I I want to dive a little bit into that and then then we're going to get into Prenetics where for everybody out there listening, that is the name of the Hulkco, the publicly traded company, which IM8 lives underneath. When you're making these investments, what are you looking for?

45:31 Oh, to be fair, I don't do any due diligence. You don't do any due diligence. Yeah. Yeah. I just like the guy.

45:37 Guys, this is this is not the first person that has had asymmetric crazy outcomes. Um, and they don't do due diligence. You're saying it's a 100% feel on who the jock is, who the human is.

45:47 Yes. Right. Yeah. Because the problem is once you do due diligence, it doesn't work. Right. Right. Once you do do that as you're thinking, wow, it's the success ratio is going to be like one, two, 3%. Right. Correct. Because if you do really look into it, then you have to do all this stuff because at the end of the day, you're betting on the jockey, right? And then that, of course, you're not always going to be right. Yeah. But if you have a good feel, good connection, etc., at least for me, it's it's, you know, worked very well for myself. This episode is sponsored by Poppy AI, a visual AI workspace that almost acts as a whiteboard where you can ingest in YouTube videos, podcast episodes, voice notes, PDFs. You ask it a question and then it gives you answers based on everything that you add. It's made for visual thinkers and for anybody that's sick and tired of bouncing back and forth from a bunch of different

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47:23 I think it's the jockey and then it's the TAM which which we're going to which we're going to get into next. So you have this Groupon competitor that eventually gets bought by Groupon and then it comes to the life's mission what's next Prenetics which is in 2014ish. Why don't you tell us about the thesis of that company and how that started because that comes into IMA. Yeah, that thesis come out because I exited Groupon in April of 24 right so again at that time I was actually thinking I was going to go into investments right just investing etc. I had a good exit. So I was naturally investing back into the community and entrepreneurs and etc.

47:59 Right? And then I did that for a while but I got quite bored already, right? Because then you're not in the in the weed of things, right? So I would always say I'm a very hands-on operator and I was starting think hey what else could I do? I just had e-commerce blah blah blah. I didn't want to just go back to e-commerce because that would have been actually the easy route and I wouldn't have learned anything new, right? It would just be selling something else on e-commerce which would which at the time would have been quite easy for me. And then again I was in mid-30s health started becoming a big thing that you're thinking about and taking care of right and I had my first daughter so health becomes much more a priority and then I was very intrigued by 23 and me at that time I was just very fascinated because I didn't have a science background that with via saliva sample you can learn so

48:44 much about yourself about your DNA where you're from your heritage your likenesses what you're susceptible to from a disease perspective and in Asia that business model did not exist that and that swabbing of a DNA didn't exist.

48:58 This is going back to the group. You saw it winning in the US. It wasn't in Asia. It's the same thing.

49:03 Yeah. Just saw the hole in the market in a different geography. Correct. Yeah. And and I loved Hong Kong, right? So I didn't want to go back to the US, right? And then so I saw the same thing and I was like, hey, of course I didn't have a science background, right? But I had again even when I first started 23 looked into 203 I started myself first researching and reading lots of white papers in terms of technology the science how do they actually do it because then I need to get equipped from a knowledge perspective before I can then talk to researchers and scientists geneticists for them to come join and do this together right so that's what I did a research on industry so I can then talk at least in somewhat intelligently

49:42 on the language to otherang anxious scientists and then was able to bring them on board as the founding team to create prenetics which the name actually comes from half prevention and genetics. So the original thesis was 23 and me in a different region. You have the concept you talk to scientists you bring on three four five scientists and then what uh correct and then we started going to business right so we started basically selling initially again I tested direct to consumer with the DNA test actually and just running ads etc. But at that time the customer acquisition cost in Asia was way too expensive. I'm like there's never able to be able to make a profit right and then so we didn't go direct to consumer initially. So we went to B2B TOC. So I started going out to insurance companies.

50:28 That's that that's that big money. Yeah. Large insurance companies. Yeah. AI credential because they have lot millions of insurance customers, right? And so we will offer them DNA tests to their customers and the insurance company would pay for it. Right. Okay. So that's what we did for basically the first four or five years until co hit.

50:45 And what is the unit economics of something like that look like? Is that just like a traditional wholesale model where if it's $100 you just sell it to the insurance company for 50 or how does that go?

50:54 Yeah. So it was the unit economics on that is again the insurance companies is basically buying the test on behalf of the insured. Right. So they give they provide as a free benefit like when someone buys insurance policy they like you also get your genomic results to understand your disease risk etc. All right. So, we'll just give a price basically to the insurance company and then we have our own lab and science team and then so be to to uh produce the test. So, probably lower margins than traditional businesses but huge volume because if you're working with a with an insurance company or a preferred vendor and just as many patients that come in, they're going to give it to them.

51:28 Yes. I like that business. I like that that volume business. So you're doing this for four or five years B2B B2B TOC not doing ecom co hits which with every business there's a there's a story so that happens and what happens yeah when co hit and yeah of course in March 2020 co hitong just started getting the wave of co etc wise right and then actually had a meeting with the chief executive of Hong Kong early March in terms of seeing a if there's something that we can do to help because we already had the laboratory, right? And again, I think actually to real maybe even going back before that meeting with the chief executive is that ear maybe like February people started texting me say Danny Dia do you have any PCR test or COVID test? I'm like, "No, I don't."

52:15 Right? And then another person, another friend text me, another person text me. I'm like, "There's something going on here." Right? Then I started looking into it. Why is so many people texting me about doing COVID test? Because of course we have the laboratory, etc. But that means it was very difficult to get a COVID test in Hong Kong. you actually had to go to a hospital and at the same time the hospital if you want to go number one you don't want to go to a hospital to get a COVID test but if you did the COVID test at a hospital was like5 to $600 USD for a test early on so I was like okay maybe there's something there so of course naturally you want to be able to partner with the government and then so I was able to get a meeting with the government and at the time they declined us like we don't need your help we can do it on our own

52:56 but they were interested under the notion that you had the infrastructure and then going back like the social proofing with working with the insurance companies like you were credible,

53:04 right? Exactly. We're credible. Right. So that's why they accepted the meeting in the first place, but they said, "Hey, we don't need your help. We can manage it ourselves."

53:10 And and then the second wave of CO hit, huh? Like the real wave came. They're like, "This shit's real."

53:14 Yeah. Sorry. So after that meeting, we was like, "Okay, what do we do now?" Right. Then we said, "You know what? Hey, let's just launch our own direct to consumer CO at home test, which we did basically in three weeks later." Right? So again, speed was quite critical on that. And then we launched our own direct to consumer.

53:29 Let's stop there. Wait. So, so how do you do that? So, for in three weeks, you're figuring out you're you're utilizing your scientists to figure out what this test looks like. You're getting a test, you're reverse reverse engineering it, and then just selling it.

53:40 Correct. Because we already had the laboratory infrastructure set up already, right? And so, it's just a matter of getting reagents. Yeah. Inside to our laboratory. Our team already knows the science of it as well because you have to understand we're doing clinical genomic tests. The science on that is much more complicated than just a PCR test, right? So it was even easier for us right just to understand that part and then so in 3 weeks time basically we already set up we basically set up a full infrastructure selling an online individual in Hong Kong so we're the first provider in Hong Kong to do a DTC COVID test for 100 bucks USD and like the first day we launched we had like two 300 orders already and every single day we will be sold out because there was a capacity limit right

54:23 so the hospital was jacking up the price the unit economics were crazy they were

54:25 yeah they was selling for you know, $500, $600. We did it for 100 bucks, right? So, it was just a way to offer the community or individuals something that was good and validated.

54:36 It's so funny that you say this again for for people listening out there. I've had this inflection point in my career multiple times is looking inward at your team, whether it be the talent of your team and or production or the distribution. What do you have? And you could be serving one market, but there could be a TAM that's a million times bigger that you can take your expertise and bring it elsewhere. And it seems as though that's exactly what you're about to do is you're seeing a massive opportunity and you're like, "Hey, we can produce this. I have the chops from a distribution perspective to know how to do ecom and then you go, yeah, correct." So, so we went and then so every day we're selling out and etc. And then when the second wave in July of 2020 hit, then the government came back and called me. was like, "Hey, can you help us do something, right? Because the wave is getting out of control." I'm

55:22 like, "Yeah, yes, we can definitely help." And there the first our first mission or task and was with the chief executive of Hong Kong's like, "We want to test all the restaurant workers in Hong Kong." I'm like, "Okay, how many people is that?" They're like 18,000 restaurants, 300,000 staff, right? Because And this is in July 2020. And then

55:42 this is with your laboratory with five people that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were like 10 people maybe. But then but then and then again that was a big task right and they're like how long you know do we have right we're like you have like yeah six weeks to do that right speed was critical and then so we accepted the project right and then basically then we went door todoor to pass out saliva of PCR kits to all the restaurant workers and the first day and for the first week I went out eight hours a day just to passing out because I knew I needed to show the team I was also at at big risk because At the time there was no vaccine, right? And then so I went to the most high-risisk places of COVID passing a PCR test and you can see on my Instagram like it's real story, right? Because you have to set the precedent to your team though.

56:28 You have to set a precedent. I'm willing to do that. It's like hey everyone else should be able to do that because again that goes back to the team if everyone didn't have that motivation just go. Yeah. It doesn't work right. So and then we were able to do that and so you executed that.

56:43 Yeah, we executed that. It was crazy times. We had massive hiring because at that time also in Hong Kong a lot of people got laid off. Yeah. So we actually then supplied work to a lot of people that got laid off from the hospitality industry. So it worked out to be favorable for everyone. Right. And then what happened in the coming two three years was then there was many vendors that happened eventually. There was like maybe 15 to 16 different laboratory partners. But the crazy thing is we're the first and then of course the government they have to spread the risk right they can't just give the contract to one person

57:18 one one person but then what happened eventually was all the other providers they kept messing up and they had like data issues false positives etc etc so at the time when you get a false positive in Hong Kong you have to go to the detention center for like seven days

57:34 right so it was very bad in Hong Kong but we were the only provider that did not mess up we never had a false positive false negative in individuals and the government kept coming back to us said, "Can you do more? Can you do more?" At one point, we're doing all of the testing for our inbound flights into Hong Kong. We made a household name for ourselves. Everyone that flew into Hong Kong had to do a prenetex PCR test, which was mandatory.

57:56 What does that volume look like? We're doing 40,000 tests a day. Wow. So, at one point was like crazy. It was 40,000 tests a day. 2 3,000 people, logistics, supply chain, everything had to be top-notch. And 3 years we had 800 million revenue.

58:12 I want to take a a step back here when we're looking at this. You start this company. It's on a complete rocket ship for 3 years. The identity of the company is this COVID testing.

58:20 Oh yeah. We're known as a co testing company right? Yeah. So, so two big things for people out there listening. Two things happen. One, at some point you go public, which I want to hear everything about that. And then two, obviously CO stops and we don't need co testing anymore. So you're crushing it. You're doing hundreds of millions of dollars COVID testing when people come into the airport. What happens? What are those things that happen that you go public and then obviously there's a pseudo crash that happens with your company?

58:44 Yeah, correct. Right. So, of course, I always knew, you know, co was going to end someday, especially with technology resources, the testing that was involved. Yeah. So, it was like what is one thing that can in a way create our own destiny for success and and survival, right? And then so one of the things we did early on again, our revenue was growing. We were making a name for ourselves. We decided to also in the height of COVID list the company on the NASDAQ in 2022. So it was May 18, 2022. We listed it again was amazing. We had the $1 billion valuation. Yeah, it was great until co ended, right?

59:22 What are those things that people get right or wrong when going public? I mean, for me, when I look at it, it's just like you have to be crazy with your financials.

59:29 What What are some of the other things that are the big kind of rocks that you have to push down the mountain as far as

59:35 Yeah. So I mean the financials is a good point you mentioned I mean that was always regardless we went public or not right so it was very important for us that we were audited by a big four right so you were always audited by KPMG deoid and etc right so that means they didn't actually have any issues from a accounting perspective right because if your books are not in order it's imp you can't go public right so from day one even before like early days like 2016 17 we already had audits by big four so then was just making sure that again you have the right team, the right bankers involved, the right partners involved for that

1:00:11 and when you do that COVID crashes somewhat soon. What's that inflection point where you're like okay I need to pivot?

1:00:17 Yeah. So we knew we knew we needed to pivot and then I think postco again there was a lot of companies actually went public during that time and the crazy thing is that they're all bankrupt right now or they're not listed anymore. There were like two, three, four billion dollar companies that went public during the co times because they were doing such big revenues like a billion2 billion dollars in revenues. I think the challenge there was that they continued onto that business and they thought the testing would continue for a while where I felt at that time wise I don't think testing is going to continue and then so we made a big decision at that time once we knew hey you know what CO is not going to continue and made that decision is that basically to basically shut down our co operation which meant laying off 2,000 people Danny's the pivot king he's the speed king and the pivot It takes a lot to a

1:01:08 make that hard of a pivot and then b lay off all those people. I've laid off or fired 10, 20, 30 people. Not not not thousands of people.

1:01:18 How hard was that? What was that like? I mean it was hard, right? Very very hard. Because a lot of these people we were going through kind of like the co times which was like crazy. Not just rocket [ __ ] it was just crazy intensity, right? in terms of it was working like literally 24/7 literally for almost three years. All right. And then so you went to battle with these individuals but at the end of the day there was nothing for them to do right because without testing what's there to do. So I think at the same time it was good for both the company because I knew if I didn't let go of them

1:01:54 company's out the company's out which a lot of these other companies they were listed they're they're bankrupt now they're not even listed anymore right so of course in hindsight was the right decision and even for them I mean at the end of the day it was better for them that they had to move on to something which was sustainable right so I think that's how we looked at it I think people get it for me I love the people ultimately the logo is the logo needs to be alive even have cash to pay the people. So that's the most important thing. But I think secondly, something that I've learned in my career is

1:02:23 letting someone free as early as possible to find the next thing is way better than to keep them

1:02:30 on the ship. Yeah. 100% for both sides, right? For both sides. For both sides is is the is the key thing there.

1:02:35 Yeah. So I want you to get a little vulnerable here, Danny. So your billion dollar market cap, you go down to $20 million. It was like 40

1:02:48 20 $40 million market. Very low. It was very low. A billion dollar plus market cap down to a $40 million market cap. What did you learn about yourself, your friends, the world? I'm sure that was a pretty lonely time and place to be in. What did you learn?

1:03:01 Yeah, correct. Was it was quite lonely, right? Because again, you were like kind of like even Hong Kong, we had a a a great reputation during COVID and when we listed, we're kind of like the poster boy, right? Because we're the first unicorn from Hong Kong list on the NASDAQ was such a valuation, right? I had a 20% stake. Yeah. So my worth at that time. Yeah. Was Yeah.

1:03:23 $200 million. I did the math. Yeah. You did the math, right? And then of course going down. Yeah. There was a lot of you could hear it from investors or people in street. Oh yeah. Of course. Yeah. So very easy to knock someone down when they're going down, right? And so you knew you know who your friends are because when you're at a billion dollars and at the high height you have so many people coming into you so many people want to chat with you be your friends and etc. So going go way down you actually know who your real friends are or the ones that are with you from that time through and so I think yeah that's been very clear to me right I think that everybody needs to go on a little bit of downswing to see that you get complete transparency and then I'm sure you feel so amazing that now on the upswing you're going to be real real nice to those people that were there for you. Yeah, of course.

1:04:08 Should be. Yeah, 100%. Right. And yeah, to be fair, like even at the height, yeah, I still today have not sold a single share of Prenetics, right? Because I always believed in the long term, I didn't know what we would pivot into to be fair, but I knew we would make something of it. Yeah. So that's why even when we were at 40 million, 50 million or even going down, I never sold a single share. That's like I had always the belief that we will make it and make it back.

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1:05:27 services. If you're running CTV or spending six figures plus a month on paid, email us at info@openresidency.com with subject line universal platform dependency is dangerous. Don't make that mistake. Link below for more. Let's go on to that last pivot. So dot goes down, the co testing is done. Did you have this idea for IM8? Was it an idea that was inspired by the dinner with David Beckham? What made you pick IM8 for the people out there that are looking to pick their next thing? Why did you pick IM8? So I think postco again our business outside of co wasn't a clinical genomics right so it's working with hospitals even B2B some DTC on genomic tests cancer tests etc wise right but that model was actually very difficult to scale because you need dependency on regulatory right in all of these different markets right in Southeast Asia and etc and then so you're not in full control of how fast

1:06:29 you can go right and then so that was one key aspect of it, right? Co was something that you couldn't have predicted. Correct. And then so the other business was very difficult again. It's like, hey, you want to be able to grow again. So we felt the consumer space was the right opportunity again leveraging my background e-commerce and science. So it was right at this time where again I had the opportunity with me and David literally right right when we thinking about this that we had the opportunity to meet. So you can call it lucky. Yeah.

1:07:00 Right. But right time, right setting, right platform maybe even for him because even at that time I think David was in a life where hey he was just about to turn 50. He really wanted to utilize this platform in a positive manner right and then for us the same thing. It's like it was the right time and then that's where we came up with this together. Makes a lot of sense. I say it all the time. I feel like one of the most underestimated things in business is experience. Mh. Everybody they see these kind of young gazillionaires that are in their early 20s. But the fact that you are where you are, it's just a culmination of all of these things. And for me, I would always rather bet on a second time founder, third time, fourth time, fifth time, sixth time founder. The more companies that you founded, the safer the bet is.

1:07:41 That's how I look at investing in people and companies. Yeah. Correct%. Yeah. And again, we had even when David, I mean, again, we had a 50 million mark went from one billion 50 mill like, "Oh, he must be like, oh shit." Right. What's going on here? Right. But then when I explained to him what happened the details and etc. I was like, yeah, then it makes sense in terms of our ambition and we still had cash, right? And then so that was a good thing, right? Because we made a lot of cash during the co time too. We had more than $100 million in cash in the balance sheet, but our market was 50. So there was a disconnect, right? And now because of IMA, of course, people are starting to take notice over the past 12 months. Now we went from 50 million market cap to now I think we're almost close to 340 million market cap today.

1:08:26 Not financial advice here, but I like what you're doing. I'm just I'm just going to leave it at that.

1:08:30 Okay, let's round the corner here. I'm going to ask you a ton of random questions. You could fire off short answer, long answer, whatever you want.

1:08:37 I guess let's first start off with you have I don't know over 500 Bitcoin. I don't know $40, $50 million of Bitcoin on the balance sheet. Why? Yeah. So, we just felt last June it was a good opportunity and basically from a treasury perspective to invest in Bitcoin. We have excess cash, etc., etc. So we just basically started buying Bitcoin last June and however with that being said the business of IMA just grew way faster even than I expected at the end of the last year. So it just became a bit of a distraction. So what we mentioned is that we've stopped buying Bitcoin now and into the future and just fully going all in on IMA.

1:09:15 But you're under the notion that you just think Bitcoin will hold its value more than you three 4% savings bond.

1:09:20 Yeah. Correct. Exactly. Right. I think we just is a good storage of value. Yeah. being at that's the same times say our Bitcoin assets today is again right now we have 70 million in cash 40 million Bitcoin so we have much more cash than our Bitcoin so it's not like hey I think it's a good balance who knows that those numbers could shift with where Bitco I'm bullish on Bitcoin too baby I I got some Bitcoin you also just raised a little time ago you raised $44 million for someone out there raising money what's the biggest piece of advice you give to someone about raising money again you have too.

1:09:54 I mean for anyone raising money, yeah, any opportunity you have with an investor or whoever it is, you just really have to know your business inside and out and because I think from investor perspective again they have so many options to invest in many different companies, right? So it's like why should they invest in you? So you have to be realistic about that answer and be able to show them why with details, numbers, quantities because anyone can talk to talk but you have to quantify with numbers economics and also the path to profitability. What are some of those numbers that you think are key to to translate? I think unit economics is obviously one. I think TAM is another one. You're going after a massive market.

1:10:32 Anything key that you think like in your business? What are those like key numbers that you think that you communicate to people and it really resonates for them?

1:10:39 They want simplicity like even when I invest is like hey my first question is like hey is there any other companies in your space that are doing something similar right because that's the easiest way good first question. Yeah, good first question, right? Because then it's like we know the industry is like 700 billion dollar global industry for supplements, right? It's a huge huge massive industry. Okay, then people ask, okay, who are the competitors? Of course, there's Athletic Greens, A21, they're doing $6700 million. There's other companies in the space as well, ruins, etc., right? So, I think that's an easy reference first and then the key thing is how is your product different or better than any of these competitors, right? And at the end of the day, yeah, multiple companies I believe can win in the supplements game just because of how massive and global this industry is. And then so you have to be able to show this

1:11:24 conviction and opportunity that they believe that you can do this. How big is the TAM? Who's in the space? How much they're doing? How are we different? And then a couple other core numbers. Core unit economics, maybe CAC to LTV. Yeah. But just be very very simple and precise with that.

1:11:41 Correct. And then runway too, right? is that a do you have enough cash on the balance sheet right to be able to do what you need to do. Agree with you there. You guys aren't in retail. Why aren't you in retail?

1:11:50 I think we now ship to 31 countries around the world and it's 100% direct to consumer. 98% of that is on our own website imalth.com 2% on Amazon because we still see so much growth opportunities. Yeah. Because for example only 40 40% of our business in US.

1:12:08 Yeah. Wow. 40% that's it. Yeah. That's it. Exactly. Right. Right. So 40%'s in the US. Canada, UK is number two, number three, Australia is number four, Hong Kong's number five, Singapore's number six, UAE is number seven, Germany's number eight, right? So we truly have a global business. So if you think about our growth opportunity, right? This is why we forecasted this year we want to hit 180 million revenue, but you know 40% of that is in US. So it's actually very limited right?

1:12:35 Lot of growth. Do you believe in 100% penetration in the world for DTOC as opposed to doing US DTOC and US retail?

1:12:42 Correct. Yeah. From day one. Yeah. So I think easily we have another 3 years before we even get into deep conversations with retailers to be fair all the major retailers have reached out to us. Oh

1:12:54 and we've rejected them. And from a leverage perspective keep rejecting them. Keep rejecting them and then the terms will be better.

1:13:01 Yeah. Exactly right. And the reality is like we don't Yeah. We're growing so fast. I think what if we put in retail into this now, it also loses focus. And I actually don't believe at this early stage of our brand, we can even from our own team perspective, we can do everything well.

1:13:18 Makes a lot of sense. All right. Last three questions that I ask everybody. Favorite book or podcast and why?

1:13:24 Well, so to be fair, I actually don't read books. Right. I read books. I don't read books.

1:13:29 You're researching PDFs on Chad GBT? Yes, I'm researching like science papers, papers, everything. I I read a lot,

1:13:36 but I read like online. No podcasts podcast. Yes, I I listen to some podcasts, right? So,

1:13:43 I I like to actually like to listen to the the Neil and Eric Seal podcast. That one also gives me a lot of insights in terms of what are the latest tools to use. What's it called?

1:13:52 Marketer School. Marketer School. Yeah, I believe by Neil Patel and Eric Seal. By Neil Patel and Eric Seal. We're going to pop that one up, guys. I've actually I know who Neil Patel is obviously but I've never heard of that podcast.

1:14:01 Yeah. Correct. And it's very short, right? Because it's like 15 20 minute episodes, right? And then so they're always talking about the latest tools they use. So I get like because I want to always stay up to date on the latest tools right?

1:14:11 Favorite entrepreneur or brand that you want to give flowers to and why. I think I've always been a big fan of Jack M. That's because if you think about his story from origins, right? and he had the foresight to even record when he was fundraising or getting people involved to his little apartment like 12 people, right? Recording that and then he was a English teacher in the US and just to be able to build what he' been able to build, you know, from basically coming from nothing and doing that. Yeah, very amazing.

1:14:39 All right, last question. How big can I be? Yes, great question. Right. So, I honestly believe it can be one of the world's biggest supplement brands in the next three to five years, right? And this is really rare even for my entrepreneur career that we have a lot of the pieces to make that happen because you have the great product market fit. You have the performance marketing piece right which now we have I think we have a good graphs on right you have the brand piece then you have the celebrity piece you have then the organic individuals that are using the product which are highly influential. a lot of different pieces. I think from IMA perspective and this is why I I can go on record and say a lot of times people ask me, hey, what other new business are you going to start? This is going to be my last business and I want to go all in on this and believe this has a huge potential to truly be one of

1:15:27 the world's biggest supplement brands in the next few years. I love that answer. I always say this is going to be my last company. Shows a lot of faith.

1:15:34 Yeah, I've done enough. Yeah. In terms I don't want to go back again to start from zero, right?

1:15:39 Amazing interview, man. Where can they find you? Where can they find IMA social LinkedIn websites? Where where are the big places they should look?

1:15:45 Yeah, I mean you LinkedIn, of course. Yeah, IMA anyone can find IMAalth.com on the website. You I'm on Instagram. I'm on X. Yeah, quite accessessible.

1:15:55 Amazing. Thanks for coming, man. What's up, guys? If you guys got this far in the episode, I would assume that you enjoyed it. If you got any value, it would mean the world if you hit the subscribe button, give it a like, post a comment, tell a friend. We could keep going bigger. Bigger guests, bigger locations, more value. See you in the next episode.

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The episode runs 1 h 16 min; the transcript is about 16,456 words in 209 timestamped sections.

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