Dollar-a-Day Founder Bootstrap

A story about a founder who moved to China and lived extremely frugally while building his business.

"This white guy moved to China and literally lived on a dollar a day. McDonald's wasn't even a regular thing - it was our Christmas treat. We would go to McDonald's and for years I remember saying 'Merry Christmas bro' as we cheered our fries.

I used to eat half the fries and take it back and say 'Hey there's only half the fries in here, you guys jipped me' to get a second serving. That was our treat.

We built a shed by the river in China to make hot air balloons. Then we learned you can't even export hot air balloons - it's literally fire in a tiny can. So we had to come up with a new toy. We found another toy that was selling and ruthlessly copied it. We made a shitty version because we didn't know anything about manufacturing.

My brother didn't come back home for like eight or nine years - he just slept on the floor of the factory. I slept on the floor too, except when I had to go sell."