Hi Everyone!
I've been a Steem member since August 2016 (with the suggestion of my friend @ekitcho 😂) but was too busy and didn't take the opportunity to blog here. I am France Born Chinese, born and grew up in France for 20+ years where I studied Computer Engineering and learned some values on the way.
After graduated from University, I was looking for a job about computer engineering. But after attending few interview and visiting their workplaces, I didn't feel like belonging and working at these places.
So I decide to do what I do best, selling things on internet (yes, I used to sell replica Nike Shoes since I am 14 years old) but I Also wanted to take a break and visiting the world (yes, I never got the opportunity to travel before my 21 years old).
For my first trip I decide to go to China Guangzhou (the chinese who sold me my replica nike came from Guangzhou 😏) where I started my new business: selling replica Beats By Dre headphones in 2010.
How did I start?
In Guangzhou, haven't much savings, I was sharing a room with a Taxi Driver and a Student. At that time I couldn't speak a single word in chinese, and my english kinda sux (most french are worst in english than me). I was trying to communicate with them with google translate, when google was still working in china. I was telling them about what I wanna do there, 'Selling Replica to the West". So the Student accompany me to some Replica Market of Guangzhou, and our Taxi Driver roomate was driving us around.
I found the beats by dre replicas in an electronic Market in guangzhou, named Dashatou 3rd Road. I directly saw the opportunity since I remember these headphones were always out of stock in Europe when I wanted to buy them!
I start a website, grabbing the photos from the official Monster Beats website, making it look quite official and professional and starting to sell them. It was quite difficult in the beginning, since I wasn't really good in SEO or Online Marketing. But since I am in China, without my usual West Comfort, I got more motivation and more focus to learn things. So I was learning and practicing on the go how to SEO, but it was pretty difficult, you know all these writing content things. (you surely noticed I am really bad at writing). But once again with the help of my friend @ekitcho, who is really geeky and know things before me I got some good tips. I don't need to know how to SEO or Marketing or whatever. I can Just use the service from Getafreelancer or Blackhatworld and that's what I did. I paid for some Black Hat Things that propulse my website to top 3 google rank for my keywords. And guess what? It works! 😬
We sold an average of 70 headphones per day, and took a 150$ profit on each (make your math :p). So what happened next? The taxi driver stops driving taxi, the student stop study. We 3 focused together in this replica headphones business. It was running pretty well and we made $$$💰💰💰 for 2 years till google release their google Panda Algorythm and the DCMA closed our website. 😢
After that, my both chinese friends went back to their hometown, living a pretty cool relaxing luxury life but we still keep contact for some small business.
How about me today?
4 years ago, I met a chinese girl 💑 with who I have a baby today. She help me a lot to be integrated to China, as I wasnt totally integrated yet. First she made me learn chinese, then she made me get my chinese drive license, and finally make me have a son in China. Haha. 👪
On the business side, one of my friend who worked in a bank came to find me 3 years ago, telling me about her dream: making her own Fashion Brand. I told her that it was totally possible and that it doesn't have to stay a dream. Because when you fly thousands of km, from your country to another for the first time, launching your own business without speaking the local language and still succeed and making money out of it, you kinda feel unstoppable 💪. So yes, from my own experience, I just wanted to take this challenge and help her making her dream comes true.
How did I start my own fashion brand with my friend?
The first funny things is that none of us know how to design, we are as much good designer as Christiano Ronaldo 😂 . But I remembered that I saw many fashion handbags, shoes, clothings in a market near by the one i bought my headphones couple years ago. So I went to visit this market with her, picking up what we think was good looking and changing the label to our own brandname: house of hello. Why house of hello? I have actually no idea, my friend got this name idea from her friend who got this idea from another friend...😪
After receiving our samples bags with our label sticked on it, we hired some Russian model to take photo with them, then I made a website for it and selling them in the world. We didn't got much success in US or Europe, but the brand was pretty popular in China. Seems like this business model fits pretty well the chinese market, we were using some Key Opinion Leader (KOL/Bloggers)from China to help us promote the brand.
Once again, I was lucky enough to make pretty good amount money out of it until the day LVMH decide to sue me for copyright infringement. Since then, feeling a bit annoying about all these law suits, I decided to leave the company and starting my own brand with my own designer Team with my "almost own" Design 😜 Under my Own Name: Victor Doan.
I am a watches lover, so I decided to create my Timepiece brand which features what I like and corresponding to my personality: Heavy Design but Minimalist, quality material, Military Look. My brand has 1 year now, it is running pretty well and you can take a look at it on my website victordoan.com.
That's pretty much all about my business profile.
Today I get a good team running my business, so I can take more break, spending time with my son and family, learning things like blockchain, thinking about future business, sharing good values with friends, and living a simple happy life! 😇
My IG: vbyvictordoan
