Chinese Shed Balloon Factory

A story about two brothers from New Zealand who, with no experience, moved to China at age 18/19 to build their own toy factory.

"We went to China and slept in a bush outside the airport because the airport lights were too bright. We had no money, so we were on our own. Instead of finding a manufacturer, we built a factory on the side of a river with wood and a hammer. We found this mom to make us food for 30 cents a day, and she knew people who could work in the factory.

Our first product was a hot air balloon toy, but we learned you can't export that - it's literally fire in a tiny can. So we found another toy that was selling and ruthlessly copied it. We made a shitty version because we didn't know anything about manufacturing.

We got sued for $2 million because we copied someone's toy. We couldn't afford lawyers, so I found this guy Chad in Colorado - who eventually got disbarred - and paid him $50 to put his name on legal documents while I did all the work myself by Googling.

To sell the toys, I made a list of every retail buyer in every region of the world and emailed or called them every day. The Walmart buyer - I emailed her daily until she finally sent the two most beautiful words: 'send sample.' We got a $30 million order for 2 million units, when we were only doing $150,000 a year in revenue.

My brother didn't come back home for eight or nine years - he just slept on the factory floor. We lived on a dollar a day. McDonald's was our Christmas treat - we would cheers our fries and say 'Merry Christmas bro.'"