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What It's About
If you don't find a global shipping and fulfillment solution ... maybe you should build one!
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Working with a team? Kais has some great advice, “Empower the people that surround you and learn to delegate. In no time, your team will be able to take ownership and become subject matter experts.”
Fun Fact
Kais has been the mastermind behind three different side hustles. After moving to Hong Kong eight years ago, Kais started his first business. Being in the perfect place to start a business, Kais saw his location as an opportunity. Since then, he hasn’t stopped hustling!
Notes from Chris
Episode 1024
An IT professional working in Hong Kong, Kais Khadhraoui’s new venture sought to provide a solution for a problem he encountered while building his original side hustle. In 2012, he started a mobile and travel accessories company, based largely on his prime location—close to suppliers in China. It was then that he experienced the common pain points of small business that the next project would seek to address. Kais and his business partner kept a small stack of inventory at home, shipping out orders as they were received. But, as the business grew, they quickly saw sales jump from just a handful of orders a day to hundreds per day. Naturally, this called for some re-evaluation around fulfillment. So, as the story goes, if someone else wouldn’t build it, he would. Knowing the pain points of his potential customers because he WAS a potential customer, he developed a way to solve the issues they faced. Things like shipping, dealing with providers in different time zones, or being unable to provide consistent service to customers would be a thing of the past. He’d become a bridge between sellers and providers … so he called his new business Fulfillment Bridge. It began as a one-man show and nothing more than his time and spreadsheets. But after talking with fellow business owners who needed help, Kais knew he would have to scale the entire system to something that could work across countries, even continents, use one or many warehouses, and still fulfill orders using one single system. Less than ten months later, Fulfillment Bridge had become a self-sufficient business generating around $40,000 per month. With the rapid interest, Kais decided to shut down his original side hustle, the travel accessories company, so he could focus solely on the new one. One of his proudest accomplishments is the company culture he’s built. In three years, he has only lost one employee to a different opportunity. With a flexible working environment including video calls and the option to work remotely, his team members are content and connected. He continues to re-invest most of his company’s revenue to help them grow. Looking ahead, he’s set a goal of arranging a team trip to Thailand when they reach their first million dollars in revenue.MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Fulfillment Bridge: Looking to fulfill and ship globally? Learn more about Fulfillment Bridge and their services from their website.
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