Ecommerce Success Story: $500m College Dropout Nick Mowbray

Evening 👋

I just came across the story of Nick Mowbray, a New Zealand entrepreneur doing over $500m in annual revenue from selling toys.

How he did it was insane.

The year is 2003.

Nick (18 at the time) drops out of school and moves to China to start a toy company. Imagine just up and moving to China! He’s accompanied by his older brother Mat (23). They don’t speak the language. They have a few contacts they met online. That’s it.

The boys take a $20,000 loan from their parents and use it to pay for an injection molding machine (what you need to make new physical products out of plastic).

From 2003-2005 they struggle.

They learn the business.

They unknowingly break IP law (classic teen behavior, am I right?).

But they work relentlessly.

7 years down the line, they create the “Robo Fish”, a mechanical fish that swims in water. Their business really takes off.

Walmart takes interest, and revenue climbs even more.

The company is Zuru Toys.

And it made this family one of the wealthiest in New Zealand.

I draw 3 main lessons from this:

– taking risk sometimes isn’t all that “risky”. Worst case, they would have lost $20k and moved back home. Yes, that’s bad. But is it existential? No. Jeff Bezos advises that if a decision is reversible, prioritize speed. If it’s irreversible, then it’s best to think long and hard. Moving to China was a reversible decision

– it took 7 years of “swings at bat” to find a hit product that skyrocketed the business. Consumers can be fickle, and even the best product developers get it wrong sometimes. Be patient with yourself and know it may take a while to get a hit

– the boys wanted control over manufacturing so that they could improve on the customer experience. This sort of “vertical integration” is where things are headed

I hope this has been a nice bit of inspiration to start the week!

Let’s create some generational wealth like Nick, here.

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