#743 - From Childhood Friends To An 8-Figure Amazon Matcha Brand

#743 - From Childhood Friends To An 8-Figure Amazon Matcha Brand Speaker 3: Imagine going from childhood elementary school friends to building together an eight-figure matcha empire. Today, we are going to talk to two people who did just that. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I am your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And this is a little bit different because usually the next thing I say after my intro is, and I'm in this part of the world today, but what we did today, we actually have somebody coming from the other side of the world here to the Helium 10 headquarters here in Irvine, California. And we've got who are affectionately known as the Matcha Bros almost, but I'm going to go ahead and let them introduce themselves. Not the first time they've been on the show, but it might be the first time you're hearing from them. So let's hear from you guys. Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Sam and I'm one of the co-founders of Naoki Matcha. So we are a matcha brand that offers matcha from different regions of Japan to people all over the world, but mostly the US. So we are from Singapore and first time in Helium 10 Studios here in Irvine. Speaker 3: Awesome. Speaker 2: Hi, so I'm the co-founder of Naoki Matcha as well. I've been working with Sam for a very long time. Naoki Matcha has been growing throughout the years and more recently with the increased demand of matcha, we think that there's a lot of room to grow. Speaker 3: Awesome. Awesome. Now, they kind of humbly introduced themselves, but they've basically built a matcha empire that's spanned worldwide almost, and it's really great to have them here on the show. But I want to go back, if you guys don't recognize from their accent, from Singapore. Is that where both of you were born and raised? Speaker 1: Yeah, we were born and raised in Singapore. Speaker 3: And what did you guys go to university for? Speaker 1: Oh, so I went to university for law. Speaker 2: For law? Yeah. Speaker 1: And I practiced as a lawyer for like a couple of years. Amazon and e-commerce was always like a side hustle that I tried to do in my last year of college. I continued it while I was practicing law for two years and then after that, there was COVID and then I realized that this little business that we started has gotten some legs and I think it's time to make a choice and so we chose this. Speaker 3: What did you study? Speaker 2: I studied business in Singapore. After that, I went to work in a Southeast Asian e-commerce giant known as Lazada for about half a decade or so. During this time, I was building Naoki Matcha along with Sam. Speaker 3: How did you two meet? Speaker 1: Oh, we met like in primary school. So when we were like 10, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, 10. It's been a long time. Speaker 1: So we were in like the same schools and then after that we kind of like parted ways for a little bit. Then we reconnected in university. Speaker 3: Did one of you steal the other's girlfriend or something? Were you even parted ways? Were you falling out or just kind of drifted apart, you mean? Speaker 2: No, we just went to different high schools. Speaker 1: Oh, okay, okay, okay. Not that I know of. Speaker 3: So around, was the matcha what you guys, your first venture on Amazon and e-commerce on your own or was there other things that you were doing before then? Speaker 1: We first, I first heard about Amazon, selling on Amazon in like 2015 and then I told Sing about it and then we're like, hey, let's try something, right? So the very first product that we sold was this like teapot made of glass. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: And this was from China in 2016. So we're just like, it's literally like you just type in glass teapot in Chinese into Alibaba 1688. And then you get that product, we'll buy it and then we'll just send it to the US and then it's sold. So that we did that for like nearly a year. And then there was like, you know, that first, that first sale was like, this is like a huge dopamine hit. So then we're like, oh, this is so exciting. So we tried to continue to grow that. But along the way, then we realized that, you know, it's not so easy because it's kind of like a generic product. And then it's very easy to copy. And it's just not sustainable. So over the next few months, we wound that down. And then we started looking for more products to sell. Speaker 2: And I've always liked green tea. We had some experience in matcha, so we decided to try doing that, knowing full well the difficulties of communicating with the Japanese on getting good Japanese matcha. We knew that that would take some time, so we took a shot and took the time to learn about the category over time. Speaker 3: What year was this? Speaker 1: This is like late 2016, I think. Speaker 3: Late 2016. Okay. So early on. Yeah. Now, fast forward to 2025, last year. Was that your biggest year of sales? Like, are you guys growing or it's like maybe, you know, during the pandemic a little bit higher or what was your biggest year? Speaker 1: So last year was the biggest year. Speaker 3: Okay. And you know, I'm looking, anybody can see Helium 10 numbers and the numbers that Amazon shows. It looks like you're a pretty strong eight figure brand. Is that an accurate assessment? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: Awesome. Awesome. You're first year, what did you guys do in 2016? How much? Speaker 2: For the entire year, about $10,000 to $15,000 only. Speaker 3: Wow. So it was a slow ramp up there. Speaker 2: It took some time to get to the traction of where we are at today. Speaker 3: Okay. Now, you had said you liked matcha and green tea yourself. Was that the main thing? What were some of the things that didn't make a cut where I'm sure you guys were having these conversations like, hey, we're not going to be in the glass teapot business forever. What should we get into? What were some of the other things that you guys were considering and how did you just land on the matcha idea? Speaker 1: If I remember correctly, we were trying different home and kitchen stuff. Speaker 2: Yes. Speaker 1: So, you know, random stuff, right? From like cutlery to like, I think, you know, like drinkware, just cups of different sizes, different materials. And even I think, what else is there? Speaker 2: Well, we did those double walled glass, which was seen to be high value. The problem was that the things kept breaking and it was quite a challenge because no matter how much we tried to pad the packaging, it still found a way to get broken along the way. Speaker 1: So after all these attempts, we were thinking what is safe and A high barrier to entry and then we'll try it, but we'll do it right and hopefully that kind of is more lasting, right? We narrowed down on grocery and then we're looking at like, you know, grocery is like pretty low margin, right? But we're looking at coffee, tea, and then we're talking and then Sing was like, just randomly mentioned matcha. So I went to look it up online and then I saw like, hey, this is an interesting category and product. And it was like small enough for us to try. And that's what we did. Speaker 3: OK, excellent. Excellent. Now, in that first year, as you guys were really slow ramping up and obviously that wasn't replacing any day jobs at that time. What made you stick with it? Did you get worried at a point like, oh man, this is not growing as fast as we thought, but obviously you didn't give up. So talk a little bit about your mindset during those early days. Speaker 2: To be fair, I think Sam and I are of the same mind with regards to this. We knew that we wanted to have our very own thing going. But we were kind of patient about it. So if things did not take off as fast as needed, we would have been perfectly okay with it as well. So what we really focused on the first few years was ensuring that our product was well received by the market and any feedback was taken extremely seriously. And during that time, it would take quite a bit of effort to explain to the Japanese factories that we were in contact with To get them to understand that these characteristics or these taste profiles need to be edited. Matcha is an agri product. It takes time for new cycles of tea leaves to come in, to be tweaked, and Yeah, being patient helped, but definitely getting product feedback and changing the taste was a very important part of our growth. Speaker 3: Now, like you said, the first product was easy. Hey, 1688.com, Alibaba, just look for whatever, stick a label on it. You can't find good quality matcha on 1688 or Alibaba. So what was your process of finding a supplier? I'm assuming it was from Japan from the beginning that you did that. So again, a little bit of a barrier of entry, not just like, let me look on a website and buy something. Walk me through that process a little bit. Speaker 1: Oh, it was like an absolute grind. So we'll just like search on Google, like Japanese matcha wholesale and all that kind of like search queries, right? And what we did after that was We just emailed everyone and asked, hey, we're starting this thing. Do you have any matcha to sell us? We just did it the hard way. We call it digital door-knocking. So a handful of them replied and we found some time to take some time off and go to Japan to visit them. That was how it got going. The first lot that we bought was just like 10 kilos, so 20 pounds, I guess. Speaker 3: Right now we'll show for people watching on YouTube some of your beautiful packaging and stuff that you have on your products. Was that how it always was? Like even in the beginning you had really nice packaging and branded and stuff or did you start off kind of more generic? Speaker 1: I think it is like 80% similar. Speaker 3: So that's important. I kind of figured that would be the answer but I think the lesson here is when you guys are starting off, don't skimp on packaging. Hey, let me just stick something in a brown bag just to start. You want to have that good brand impression from the beginning, from the get-go. What marketplaces did you start with? I assume it's Amazon USA and then over the last almost 10 years now, where have you guys expanded to? Speaker 1: We started on Amazon USA and then we tried briefly Amazon Singapore when they launched but it didn't really work out and then we went on to the popular e-commerce marketplaces in Singapore. That's like Shopee, Lazada. And then we tried Amazon UK. And then as we were adding more marketplaces, we kind of found, I guess I want to call it like a little bit of product market fit in the U.S. And that's when the growth really took off. And so after that, we were really focused on the U.S. marketplace and just growing market share and climbing the bestseller ranks. Speaker 3: Do you have your own website too? Speaker 1: Yes, we do. Speaker 3: When did you start that? Speaker 1: The website, we started from the beginning, but it was more like a signpost to say, hey, we're here if you want to buy on Amazon. But the website was always not the priority until maybe last year. So last year was the year where we managed to become the best sellers on Amazon. And then you can't go higher than that, right? So then the next thing we decided to do was go and start to get some sales on the website. Speaker 3: So now, out of all the marketplaces, I would assume, goes without saying, Amazon USA would be number one. What's two, three, and four would you say for you guys? Speaker 1: Okay, two, I think is Shopee Singapore. Speaker 3: Wow, really? Speaker 1: Yeah, really. Speaker 3: That's amazing. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: Huh. So I would assume you're the number one matcha in Singapore, Shopee as well? Speaker 1: They don't have bestseller. Yeah, but you got to be like, if you do some digging, then you can make the argument. Speaker 3: It's such a small, you know, number of consumers there. The fact that you could do that kind of volume to make it number two. Okay. And then three and four? Speaker 1: Three and four is probably the website in the US and then four is. Speaker 3: What is on your roadmap for future marketplaces that you plan to launch on? Speaker 1: In terms of future marketplaces, I think TikTok is looking very interesting. TikTok in the US especially. In Singapore, we're trying it but it's a small market. That is the main, and of course I think we still have a long way to go for our own brand.com. So yeah, I think the work continues for brand.com as well as exploring TikTok. Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome. Did you know that in seconds you can find all the keywords any product on Amazon was ranking for in the last couple of years? Or find out where any product got sales from, from brand analytics data from the last five years? Or get exclusive private trainings that used to cost $400 a month All of these plus more is available now on the Helium 10 Diamond Plan. Upgrade with this special 20% off coupon code SSP20. No contract. You can cancel at any time. Once again, use code SSP20 to get the Helium 10 Diamond Plan that helps brands so much it practically pays for itself. When do you guys remember discovering Helium 10? Around what year? Speaker 1: Okay, so this is like way back. I think this is when ManyQuotes was still doing AM, PM podcast, right? So that the tagline is still stuck in my brain. Speaker 3: How cool is that? Yeah, exactly. Speaker 1: So yeah, that was like the first time. Then at that point in time, I think Cerebro was a new product feature. And that was actually very helpful as we were expanding our SKUs. Speaker 3: So how would you use Cerebro in those days for a new product launch? Speaker 1: If I recall correctly, it's like the reverse Ace & Suits, right? Because we were trying to gain market share, so we're looking at what the top sellers were doing, looking for search terms, and then, you know, Working that back into our PPC campaigns and trying to be a bit more strategic about how we're running the PPC and all that. Speaker 3: Now you guys, as you got bigger and your team kind of like taking over things more, then I think you actually went away from Helium 10 and then recently came back. What are some of the new features of Helium 10 that brought you back? Speaker 1: So I think the biggest and most attractive new feature for us was the search query performance. Where we are at now, I think brand search is something that we're paying very close attention to. Previously, without this feature, what you had to do was go on to Brand Analytics, basically go in every so often and download the search report to reconcile them manually. So right now, I think with this new feature, it looks It looked very promising, so we tried it. And then we realized that, yeah, I think this is going to save the team quite a lot of time. Speaker 3: We can talk all day probably about Helium 10 strategies, but what about non-Helium 10 strategies, just general things that you guys are passionate about, something that you feel you guys are doing a little bit unique that's also contributed to your growth? Unknown Speaker: Right. Speaker 1: So I think something interesting is that now we're active on Instagram and we run meta ads, obviously. To this day, I would say 95% of the content that we produce as a brand is all done in-house. Speaker 3: Interesting. Speaker 1: Yeah. And even with AI-generated content and all that, I do feel strongly that there still is a role for production talent and strong creatives done by humans. in a brand studio, because that's the way you can have the most control. Speaker 3: Do you guys have your own brand studio in Singapore? Speaker 1: Yeah, we do. It's a tiny little one, but it works. Speaker 3: Okay. Talk to me a little bit about your makeup. Some people who are just starting, they might aspire to be an eight-figure brand, but obviously, you guys run the company, but you're not just two people anymore. What kind of positions do you have on staff? Who's part-time? What's full-time, etc.? Speaker 1: We have a team of about 20 people split between Singapore and Japan. In Japan, the team is focused on procurement and supply chain stuff, which is what Sing is in charge of. For myself, I hit up like, you know, all the product designs and marketing and growth stuff. So in Singapore, that's where most of them are. You have a social media team as well as a media buying, a small media buying capability there. And then you also have just, you know, e-commerce, data people and stuff like that. Speaker 3: Interesting. Interesting. Let's talk a little bit about the supply chain side. I heard, this is kind of funny, I didn't know about this, but there was even a supply chain shortage of matcha recently. How did you manage that? What exactly happened and how did it affect your business? Speaker 2: So I think beginning around the end of 2024, there were some news articles coming out showing that matcha was getting limited in supply. And if you were to visit the Kyoto tea houses at that point in time, you would find that you would not be able to buy much of any matcha there at all. So, it turned out that because of the increased demand for the whole of 2024, people were either stockpiling matcha or… That's just a funny thing, like people thinking about, you know, stockpiling toilet paper and stuff during COVID, but people were stockpiling matcha because of the shortage. And there were some bad actors that decided to even resell some of the matchas. So, the Japanese teahouses take did not like that. And what they did was they limited sales to ensure that The buyers were real matcha drinkers. And that shortage continued lasting all the way until around 2025 in September. And the reason is because the new crop of matcha green tea leaves come at around April, May and June. And once it's harvested, it takes time for it to be processed and delivered to the market. During this shortage period, because Sam and I were quite focused on supply chain and that was one of the key focus for us growing as a business, we thought that we would be immune from that problem. It turned out that when other people went out of stock, they would come and buy from other brands who had enough supply. So, we were constantly going to our suppliers and asking them whether there was just a little bit more, which I'm sure many other brands are doing. But because of our strong relationship with our Japanese factories, it turned out that most of our SKUs were in stock, like 90% of the time. The ones that really went out of stock for a couple of months at least were the high-end matcha, which was what was experienced by all the Japanese tea houses in Japan as well. Speaker 3: Did you guys raise prices at all during this time? I'm assuming your cost went up. Speaker 2: I think I'll let Sam talk a little bit more. For pricing, we were quite adamant on not raising our prices. If you recall, in 2025, that's when the tariff situation happened. That hurt everyone. We had to make a decision on whether we wanted to raise our prices or not. We chose not to raise our prices for most of 2025. And when we did, it was only by a small amount to show that it's clear that it's for cost reasons. Speaker 1: So on Amazon, I would say not everyone increased price and if they did, then just buy a little. But what we saw on the D2C world was that people were really increasing the prices. They were just increasing it without too much concern. So that was interesting. Speaker 3: What was the culmination? Now things have settled. Are you guys Because of the decisions you made and keeping that brand loyalty and maybe not raising prices, did that have a good long-term effect? Do you think that helped you gain market share even more since everybody else was raising prices and doing things like that? Speaker 1: I think surprisingly, people are quite brand loyal. But I think our customers They want this quality at this price. We want to make sure that we honor that and we try to keep the prices as stable as we can. I don't think there was much switching around. I think it's more like switching around when you see higher prices. Of course, some brands are going to increase their prices by 50% and then you're going to lose some of that. But I don't think they necessarily just go to a cheaper place. They just shop around or maybe they just stop drinking matcha. For us, I think we're very clear that we have a customer base and we just want to keep them happy. And if more people come from other brands because they're looking for something else, we don't really want to be the one that looks cheaper. We want to win them on our merits. Speaker 3: You guys had said in the past you've been focused a lot on upper funnel marketing. What forms of that are you guys doing? What effects has it had? Speaker 1: This one is interesting because we see a rise in branded search on Amazon, branded search queries. So the question that we asked ourselves and my team asked themselves is, what motivates this increase in branded search? So we've been looking at a variety of sources for upper funnel. One of them, of course, so for a while, I think we were trying out Amazon DSP and one of the products that they're trying to sell is like an upper funnel solution, right? And videos on, is it Spark TV? Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, Prime TV and there's another one. I forgot, it starts with a U or something. Oh yeah, the other free one. Speaker 1: Yeah. So they have that and they have, I mean, Amazon DSP has inventory everywhere. And then of course, meta ads, Instagram. And the latest one that we're going to explore is TikTok because TikTok has its own checkout as well as like a huge upper funnel. I mean, it's videos, right? Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 3: What's the early returns that you're seeing on it? How has that changed profitability? Was there a temporary time where profitability went down because now all of a sudden all this new budget is going to that, but has it had good long-term effects? Speaker 1: At least on the meta side, we do kind of see... Meta and Amazon don't talk to each other, so we can't really prove it officially. But we do see some kind of correlation between the meta spend and brand searches on Amazon. So we do know that there's some kind of lift and that's where we are. So I think if when we spoke maybe like two, three years back, we'll be like, you know, 99% Amazon PPC, right? But that split, of course, is changing and will continue to, I guess, swing more in favor of like non-Amazon PPC over time. Yeah. Speaker 3: Interesting. Okay. What's the future hold for Naoki Matcha? Speaker 1: I think we just want to be one of the best sellers on Amazon, but there are other marketplaces where we're not known at all. Matcha is a very niche category. I think For us, we are very confident in matcha as a category. I think more and more people are choosing it as an alternative to coffee. So even if matcha takes over just 5% of coffee's market, that is huge and that's the trajectory that we're going in. So we want to be in a position to, on the supply side especially, to make sure that we are able to supply that demand when the time comes and as it comes along naturally. And whether it's going to be mostly online or maybe in retail or maybe in food service, we want to be there to do that. Speaker 3: I was just in Japan a couple weeks ago and I was doing a baseball card show actually and it's in the Asakusa area, which is right near the Sensoji Temple. And there's this We've got a bunch of market stalls there, and I don't know if you guys have ever been there, but that must be like a matcha hotspot because there are places there where you can get matcha beer, matcha ice cream, matcha stuff that I cannot imagine. What are some use cases? Matcha beer is not exactly a common thing, but people who are buying your product, millions and millions of dollars of your product, they're not just pouring it into drinks. What are some other use cases of matcha? Speaker 1: I think mostly it's still drinks. Some people like the flavor, so they make desserts out of it, like cakes, ice creams, smoothies, things like that. But mostly it's still drinks, and it's very much like a morning ritual type of thing or something that they make in the office. So in Singapore, it's very surprising because our friends who work will tell us, like, hey, I saw your product in my office pantry. Some of my colleagues make matcha drinks after lunch and that replaces their post-lunch coffee. I don't know what to say, but it's interesting. Speaker 3: That's one of the best feelings of being an Amazon brand owner is sometimes just stopping and thinking, like, how many people are using your product just around the world and seeing, like, going to somebody's house and then seeing it there at somebody's office. It's such a cool feeling. Speaker 1: Yeah. My team did, like, a little estimation last year and for 2025, I think, we calculated that more than 800,000 people. Speaker 3: Wow. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: So, by definition, it's like one in, you know, whatever, you know, 20 households in America or something like that have Naoki Matcha in it. Amazing. Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing. Speaker 3: Speaking of that, How big of a role does subscribe and save play? Have you guys ever looked at the numbers of how many people just put on replenishment your product? Speaker 1: Subscribe and save is actually quite a big deal for us. It fluctuates. Last year, there was a bit of patchy data, but generally, you have 20-23% subscribe and save. Speaker 3: That allows you to maybe spend a little bit more on some of your advertising knowing that maybe you lose money on that first sale, but you make it back over time. Speaker 1: Exactly. Speaker 3: How would you describe Helium 10 to somebody who doesn't know about us? I'm going to hire you for the day to be a Helium 10 marketing manager. Speaker 1: Okay, I would say that Helium 10 is a software that can take you from your first sale to eight figures. Speaker 3: Ooh, I like that little catchphrase right there. Very nice. Speaker 2: That's pretty accurate, I would say. Speaker 3: You've mentioned using search query performance. You've used it on your own and then obviously you've used it with Helium 10. How are you leveraging just that data point in general? Obviously, you wouldn't even care about it with Helium 10 if you didn't find value in the data point. So how does that help your brand make more money? Speaker 1: So I think it's important for us because Meta and Amazon don't speak to each other, right? So you're relying on a lot of proxy metrics to determine whether there's any link. And one of the things that we find is helpful is to just look at, you know, is there an increase in branded search? And if there's an increase, then you can kind of do like a, what do you call it, holdout test and all that kind of stuff, right? Yeah. So that's been helpful. Speaker 3: How do you decide when you launch a new product? You're all matcha. You and I were talking about it. I wish you guys would do some Naoki Ube because I'm a big Ube fan. Maybe that's the future. You don't just have one SKU. You have multiple SKUs. How have you decided to launch that product and how can and does Helium 10 play a role to do some research before you decide, hey, let's go ahead and invest in this new line of products? Speaker 1: Well, if Helium 10 can find a way to do any kind of post-purchase survey, that would be awesome. Speaker 3: I'm talking about before then. How do you even get to decide what the new product is? Different pack sizes or a different flavor or a different style? How do you decide? Speaker 1: I think last time we were looking at the search terms and for size, people would search bulk bags. 100g, 3oz, whatever it is. That's kind of how we looked at it. Also, I think you get a lot of search terms where you say matcha for something. That's the initial tell that gives you the signal that, okay, I need to get matcha of different price ranges and quality so that I can serve these different customers in different segments. Speaker 3: Search query performance tool Cerebro. What are some other Helium 10 tools that you guys have used? Speaker 1: So I also tried this thing Analyzer last time. Speaker 3: How would you use that one? Speaker 1: So I think it really is just to see like, you know, look out in the early days when you're trying to get a sense of what the customer is looking for, right? Then you can see like, you know, the reviews good and bad. You can see whether there's anything that you want to optimize, you know, because you're still You're still trying to play catch up, so you'll need to look at competitors yourself and from there, optimize your listings further. Speaker 3: How are you looking at competitors? What kind of things are you looking at? Their creatives, their keywords, obviously, you mentioned with Cerebro and things like that, but what kind of competitor activity affects what you guys do at Naoki? Speaker 1: I would say that it's about the quality of the product. Of course, you know, keyword, velocity, search terms and all that, those are important for the online side of things, right? But for us, it's really important to kind of get a sense of where that product quality is at, because that is something that we can actually directly change based on our supply chain, right? Speaker 3: So you buy your competitors' products? Speaker 1: All the time. Speaker 3: Okay, wow. Okay. What was something you learned? Was it a taste of something that they had or a pack size or just something in their packaging that really inspired you? Speaker 1: Usually it's taste. Because that's something that you can work on the supply end to kind of tweak around. Speaker 3: How do you do that? Do you send the sample to your factory and say, hey, how did they get this to taste like this? Speaker 1: I wish it was that simple. Speaker 2: Yeah, because this was the initial phase of our business, which is around 2016 and 2020, where we were tweaking the taste. I mean, During that time, we would try to mix matcha powders on our own just to check out how the taste would be like. The main issue is that just because you taste like A plus B would logically be something, it's not the case. It's just completely different. So you have to actually go to someone who knows tea really well for you to get the taste changes that you like. So, for example, if a customer would prefer something a little bit more grassy or more roasty, that is something that the Japanese factories can work with. It does come at certain kind of compromises as well, whether it is price or another taste, texture, as well as taste characteristic. And those are all decisions that we have to make. So what we tend to do is that we buy our competitors' products to see what kind of taste it's like in our eyes. And then we've got to explain that to our Japanese factories that this is something that is getting more and more traction. And sometimes they will look at us and say, why? Because this is not the taste that the Japanese like. Speaker 3: It's very different though, the Japanese matcha, like what's popular there compared to America. Speaker 2: Exactly. So that does take several steps. Speaker 3: How do you manage your communication? Do you speak Japanese? Speaker 2: I do speak a little bit of Japanese. Enough to impress but not enough to... Speaker 3: That's all. That's all. But then so like is that something like that's why you also have the Japan team like they can speak English well and then they're obviously Japanese so then there can be like a translation going on there? Speaker 2: There are a lot of technical terms for tea that we probably would not have a good way of translating on our own or whether through Google. So it's best to get someone who's native to really get the point across. Speaker 3: Going back to Cerebro, I think some newer sellers, they can understand that this is almost not something that saves time, but it's literally humanly impossible to be able to see all of The keywords that your competitor is ranking for or advertising on. It's not even something you can just pay. Hey, let me get an army of 15 VAs who are going to be doing that. Explain the benefit of that. You know, like, like how does that, you know, eventually probably like if you don't use a reverse async tool like Cerebral, you know, like through advertising, of course, you'll be able to discover keywords. But, but is there a way to kind of like put a monetary value on time savings or being able to start from day one with those with those right keywords? Speaker 1: Yes, definitely. If you're just going to go in blind without any prior research, maybe you're just going to run ads on all the keywords that you think are relevant. But if it's a competitive category, then what you find is that you may need to bid super high on those big keywords. And when you do that, maybe your product is new, your brand is new, you're not going to be as efficient on the conversion and you're probably going to pay a lot of money for those learnings. Whereas you could always just shortcut that process by going to Cerebro and then you get an indication of how much this is going to cost me. And then when you see that, then you're like, okay, maybe not today. I'll go for like lower hanging fruit first. And then only later then when I have a more established brand and product, then I go after these bigger keywords. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: Awesome. Speaker 3: So, now that this whole supply chain issue happened and maybe it's leveled off or it's better now, but now you guys know that, hey, this can happen at any time. How has that changed the way you guys operate? Are you guys keeping safety stock at all or how has that affected your business? Speaker 1: So, one of the big things that we've been doing is we're trying to insert ourselves earlier and go a little bit upstream. So, we are Getting facilities to store the raw materials as well as contract out the processing, grinding the leaves into powder. And then the storage of the powder and packaging. We're taking most of that, trying to gradually take that in-house so that we have more control over the final quality and also that allows us to get raw material from more places rather than just the handful that we already do. Speaker 3: When you say in-house, like you actually have your own facility now in Japan or you just control it or what? Speaker 1: We're working on it. We're working on it. Speaker 3: Interesting. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 3: That's going to be cool. I mean, I go to Japan like every other month. Now, in the future, I'll be able to just go there and there'll be a Naobimachi building right there or something. Speaker 1: Countryside maybe. Speaker 3: Yeah. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 3: Is there places in Japan that's like Hey, known for the matcha or like where… Yeah, definitely. Speaker 1: So, Kyoto Prefecture, Uji is like the birthplace of matcha, right? And so, Kyoto is very big on matcha and down in the south, Kagoshima, that's like the southernmost city in Japan, they're a very big farming prefecture and they are very heavily focused on tea. And a little bit up north, Fukuoka, they also have a very strong tradition in matcha. Speaker 3: Interesting. I think something that's important, regardless if you manufacture Japan, China, and that you guys have done well, is making sure to have good relationships with the factory. Of course, gone are the old days of like you guys did in 2016. Hey, let's just go find this teapot factory on Alibaba. Never talk to the owner directly. Never visit their factory. You could have been fine, but nowadays, it's really important. What's your advice for people regardless? Maybe they do find their product on Alibaba originally, but talk about the importance of having that relationship with your factories. What's the benefits of that and what are some ways that people can do that maybe without physically being able to visit the factory in China? Speaker 2: Last I heard, because of the demand surge, a lot of the Japanese factories and tea houses are turning away people who are interested to buy for their own sale. But if you do manage to get a Japanese tea company who is interested to work with you, then the right way is to recognize that the Japanese factories have a certain way of doing things and it will probably be different from how you're experiencing a distributorship relationship in the US. So the right way is to sort of trust that they have your interest in mind and to work through the issues slowly. So a good example would be during the shortage, if you wanted like 10,000 units and they only managed to produce like 2,000, The right way is to ask them how they can get to the 8000 and to help them by introducing new relationships that you have had with other people in Japan and to solve the problem together. The wrong way would be to hold them to the contract, which is what I guess most people would do, and to sort of like threaten them because what the Japanese would do is they would tend to close up. And when working with you in the future, they will be even more conservative with the volumes that you request for. So next time if you ask for like another 10,000 units, they would say, I can only make 5,000 for you. And they would be very adamant about it because they like to manage the expectations of their buyers very strongly. So work closely with them, be patient with them and recognize that trust goes a long way on both sides of the aisle. Speaker 3: So, obviously I'm not a big Helium 10 fan, but You don't need necessarily Helium 10 to have success. There's plenty of brands out there who have never used Helium 10 and they have success. Even you guys, you had one away from Helium 10. It's not like your company died or anything. What would you tell people who they've already achieved some kind of success? Maybe they're a seven-figure, maybe they're eight-figure and they didn't use Helium 10. How can Helium 10 still help them? Because now you guys came back to Helium 10 and you could see the growth or potential that can be. What would you say to those people? Hey, you've already achieved success, but. Speaker 1: This is why you still might be able to need a company like Helium 10. I think what I would say is that Helium 10 is a company that always tries to give new features and they're always trying to bring more value to the subscribers. So yeah, it may not work for you at this point in time, but you shouldn't write it off completely and you should continue to learn what they're doing as we did because there could be new features that are going to be applicable to you. So you should always kind of keep them in your radar. Speaker 3: Awesome, awesome. All right guys, congrats on all the success going from childhood elementary school friends to Naoki Macha Empire. 2027 guys, my goal is I want to see on Amazon Naoki Ube. Alright, that's like my thing. I'll even invest in that. We'll do it together because I'm very passionate about Ube and I want you guys to conquer that next. But thank you guys for coming on here and flying all the way from Singapore for this and look forward to seeing future success for Naoki Machi. Speaker 2: Thank you.