[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to B2B Breakthrough. I'm your host, Ciara Christo, and I've got a little bit of a different format for you today. Now we're not doing any interviewing. We're looking back at what a year 2025 has been and it's not over yet, so hang in there.
We've faced a lot of challenges together looking at you tariffs, but more importantly than that, we've learned from one another, whether that was on this podcast, in some of the videos that we've created together on the stages at Co Create, or even over coffee.
So thank you for bringing those stories to the T.
Thank you for sharing what's important to you so we can bring better services.
But today we're going to talk about some of the heavy hitters and the stories that they shared on the stages at Co Create. Between London and Las Vegas, we had folks joining us from Shark Tank, the Dragon's Den, the Marvel Universe, the Olympics, the World Cup. So I'm going to leave you in the hands of Quo Jung, president of Alibaba.com to talk a little bit about turbulence. Welcome to the B2B Breakthrough Podcast. I'm your host, Ciara Christo.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: If I had to choose one word to describe this year's headlines about SMEs and global trade, it would be turbulence.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: But here's the truth. The headlines don't show.
You are already living with turbulence every single day.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: And that static courage should be the real highlight for entrepreneurs. Turbulence is not just breaking news. It's not breaking news at all. It's daily life.
You ask yourself, am I connecting with my customers?
Am I relying too much on one supplier?
Am I falling behind in AI error?
And beyond that, time zones, shipping delays, surprise costs. Many of you still do everything all by yourself.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Researching, listing, packing and answering complaints. Yet despite it all, SMEs never stop.
You believe you can make it.
This year, 25,000 entrepreneurs applied to Co Create pitch just in one month.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Different industries, different roles, but one truth.
New thinking. Create breakthroughs.
You are not just surviving turbulence, you are rewriting the playbook.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Yes, disruption affects everyone. But those with a competitive edge can still win. Every small improvement raises your chance to succeed.
[00:02:59] Speaker A: Now, if Kuo set the mission, Lori drew the roadmap. It was standing room only when Lori Greiner took the stage at Co Create in Las Vegas to share her origin story. She packed in a ton of gems in this session, so definitely go back to YouTube and watch the full session. But for now, who doesn't love a clear Cut. Formula for success.
Here's Laurie in brief.
[00:03:20] Speaker C: My journey was I came up with an idea and I said, I'm going to do it. And I set forth on figuring out every single thing, from soup to nuts, on how to get it made. I had no experience, and I just figured it out. And I think anybody can do that. I think that when I first started with my product, every entrepreneur and you all, I know, know this. Everyone thinks their idea is the best thing since sliced bread, right?
We all do. It's in our natures. When I came up with my first product, I thought it was going to be a big hit. But there were many reasons that are concrete reasons as to why. And I think that you have to look for these things. So the first thing was there was nothing else out there like it on the market. I think it's very important that you try to be unique and different, that there's a void for it, that it solves a problem. Problem solvers are some of the best products out there because you need it. It's not a want.
Does it appeal to a big, broad, mass audience? The bigger your consumer, the broader. Like, if all women can use it or if all adults can use it, the better. And can it be made at an affordable price? These are the kinds of things that are so important because you might have a great idea, but if you can't manufacture it or you can't manufacture it affordably, and then I think it's really important, too, to do some market research.
And today you don't have to hire a firm. You don't have to do anything. The Internet, social media allows you to really do your own guerrilla market research and figure out, honestly, is it something that people really need and want or don't ask family and friends, they're always going to tell you they love it, even if they don't.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: So I think that those are the things that help you to know, and those were the qualities that were in my first product.
[00:05:07] Speaker A: If Laurie gave us the roadmap, then Darrell showed us his heart. He didn't just wait until everything was perfect. He just started.
And that decision changed everything for him.
Here's Darrell.
[00:05:18] Speaker D: It was like a few years ago, y'.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: All.
[00:05:19] Speaker D: I remember standing to my bank account, and it was a modest $10,000 in my savings.
And I had a mountain of doubt, but that fear wasn't something that I could personally ignore.
And, you know, I know some of you guys feel that exact same doubt too, here.
[00:05:37] Speaker D: But that's when I knew I couldn't Wait until I was ready.
I had to start and then get ready.
[00:05:48] Speaker D: So personally for me, I leaned to my passion, which is men's grooming.
Because honestly, I didn't see myself on the shelves. I would go down the aisles. They were packed with innovative, great products for women. But men typically feel like an afterthought.
So personally for me, I wanted to change that.
[00:06:08] Speaker D: So I launched my very first company, which is King's Crowning. And I didn't want to just sell products, but I wanted to create a space where men could prioritize their well being.
And here's the truth.
King's Crowning only scaled because of Alibaba.com.
[00:06:24] Speaker D: Every side of line product that we launched, it came through Alibaba.com the suppliers, the packaging, the relationships.
I spent months building community through DM conversations, comparing vendors, negotiating late nights doing that. I sourced packaging through Alibaba.com, but most importantly, I trusted my gut when the risk felt extremely high.
And that grind was actually my business school.
And Alibaba.com was the classroom that made scaling possible for me.
[00:06:59] Speaker D: With King's crowning our first year, we actually hit six figures. Now, I thought I was set, but business is actually never static at all.
We had tons of competitors, they came in the market, prices dropped, and I got pretty complacent in my company, my business.
And I learned in this key trying time that I was too attached to the solution and I forgot my real mission.
Fall in love with the problem and not the solution.
And that mistake cost us market share.
But I chose to fail forward.
[00:07:40] Speaker D: I was taught that failing forward isn't just a motto. It isn't a motto for me. It's the way that I've moved through business and in life.
Crown Skin is a bold fusion of cologne powered skincare created to redefine what men's wellness could be.
And my team and I, we actually wanted to break the stigma. We wanted to make it normal for men to invest in their skin. Their confidence, their well being, and most importantly, pivoting saved my business.
And once again, Alibaba.com was right there.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Next up, a fan favorite, a superhero, a storyteller, and a true believer in the power of entrepreneurship. He reminded us that ideas are easy, but it's execution that takes the real courage. Here's Simu Liu.
[00:08:26] Speaker E: Having come from where I came from and having gone to business school, I always felt like I had a business mind and an entrepreneurial mind. And it's helped me at a lot of points in this kind of Creative career to be able to frame the industry in the way that someone with a business background would be able to. And I think it's really helped me make a lot of decisions and also just keep an important perspective.
But at the same time, yeah, I think it's a muscle and it's an itch that continuously I found, wanted to be scratched in a way. And while I didn't necessarily want to be in a cubicle every day working as a professional auditor, I thought, you know, it would be really, really awesome to be able to help build businesses and build businesses with entrepreneurs that I really cared about. And I really felt, you know, creatively, philosophically aligned with. And so, you know, being where I am now, having the, you know, the privilege of having a platform, of having resources and having the ability to spotlight people, businesses, whatever have you, you know, I kind of feel like, of course there's some sense of responsibility of like, okay, the world has given you so much Simu. Like, how do you.
In what manner and how do you see yourself giving back to the world?
And, you know, a big part of that, I think, is helping to build things from the ground up. And that's why entrepreneurs love what they do, right? It's the idea of creating something from nothing, of building. Building businesses, building ideas. And it's just something that I always really, really jived with. And. And so, you know, especially I, you know, we talked a lot about my years of struggle. I know a lot of entrepreneurs are in the midst of that struggle. And if there is a way for me to help an entrepreneur, a founder, you know, take even the first few steps forward or to help create the math of, you know, the luck and opportunity and preparation, like, just to help them come to that crossroads a little bit sooner, I feel like that's already a huge value add. And so, you know, you know, for example, a business like Mila, which is a soup dumpling company that I'm the chief content officer of, an investor and also, like a very, very proud customer of, it was a business that nice. A couple of people ordering meal in their fridge. That's really good.
[00:10:51] Speaker E: You know, I was just really, really inspired by the founders, by their vision, and, you know, wanted to get involved very early on and then found that we had a really fantastic working partnership and just kind of we're off to the races. So it's something that I continue to be really passionate about. It's why I'm here today.
And I can't wait to. Honestly, I can't wait to listen to Some of these business pitches, some of the investors that I speak to that I admire the most, they actually say invest in the founder, not necessarily the business.
And obviously it's an adage and it's kind of tongue in cheek because of course you have to believe in the product to some degree. But I think what I've learned, you know, seeing businesses rise and fall, many of them I've invested in personally, is that an idea will only get you so far, you know, and oftentimes we see a business and we're like, oh, I had that idea once, you know, and that's an easy thought to have. But just having the idea is maybe one step in a 2000 step journey of, of the other 1999 steps are all execution and strategy. And so the founder is what informs the execution and the strategy. Of course an idea can be good, but if you don't believe that a founder has the wherewithal to execute, it takes a lot, right? It takes grit, obviously.
You know, I have to consider, is this the founder that's going to like, really honestly like put in the hours and truly believe in their own product, in their own business, and also in their own capabilities.
[00:12:28] Speaker E: And also.
[00:12:30] Speaker E: Can they believe in themselves in a way that is also.
That also leaves room for a certain level of humility, you know, does. Is a founder able to adjust, able to identify critical feedback, to absorb it and to actually implement change? It's a lot harder than I think people realize.
And, you know, not only do I see it in, you know, founders, entrepreneurs of like cpg, everyday business, I see it in the entertainment industry as well. You know, it's very, very hard for us to pivot and to respond to what's happening in the marketplace in real time. And so just the ability to do that, the self awareness, the humility, but also the like underlying passion and the grit and the combination of all those things that make a founder special. You know, I know it's so. It's so easy to say, right, but those qualities in a fountain are extremely rare.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: She's a Dragon's Den favorite. She's the leader behind a crafting empire. And she didn't succeed by fitting in. She succeeded by proving every doubt wrong. And she showed us all that being underestimated isn't a disadvantage, it's a superpower. Here's Sarah.
[00:13:40] Speaker F: The one thing I will say is being underestimated is definitely a superpower.
I think people see it as a real negative thing. You know, you go somewhere and especially being a woman, being younger than Other people in the room being the person who sounds like this, which means the rest of the country assume you aren't as smart as they are. And actually going into any other room and people having those misconceptions makes the glory of proving them wrong all the better.
And so I used to go into any room and I used to think, just because that's what you think of me doesn't define me and who I am and what I'm going to be. And I'm going to prove you wrong. And I think that drive to want to prove other people wrong is what set me off on this, on that path. And resilience.
And trust me, do not underestimate resilience. And I always say this as an entrepreneur. What defines a brilliant entrepreneur is they just have more resilience than the people who couldn't hack it. Okay? The fact that you are sitting here today, whether you're thinking about starting your own business, you're driving your own business forward, you are getting out there and doing it, how many other people will say to you, oh, I've got an idea for a product, or I've always wanted to run my own business. And it never goes any further because that's all they have is a dream. They haven't got the passion, the vision, the drive to actually get up and make that dream a reality. Whereas what you're doing is you're taking the bull by the horns. You've got all the tools at your fingertips. You are taking it and you are owning your own destiny. And you are going out there and proving to everybody, don't underestimate me, because I'm going to take the world and I'm going to win. And it's that passion and vision that's going to take you forward in life. So let me tell you, doing it 20 years ago was a hell of a lot harder than what you're doing today and doing it now. So I remember I'd invented this product, the Enveloper, and we had the patent, we'd made a prototype out of mdf, and I wanted to go and get it tooled and made in plastic. Now, if I was doing that today, now, and we actually do this, we have teams of people who use Alibaba.com for all of our supply and sourcing. So you can go on there, you can find suppliers, you can send samples, they can send samples, you can start building relationship.
Twenty years ago, I didn't have any of that, and I had no idea how to take that step forward in that leap And I went to have it quartered to be made here in the UK. And I remember £30,000 is what it cost me to get started with that product, and I didn't have 30 grand. I was a student. This was my side hustle in my last year at uni. So in the absence of having that cash to get started, I actually had to make our first products out of mdf. I went back to the people who'd made the prototype and they made them in MDF for me. The first 30,000 envelopers that we sold were made in MDF by the little joinery in our village. And my sister came home from school every night and blew the sawdust off them, put the little stickers on them, put them in a jiffy bag, and that's how we sold them. And was that the product that I wanted to be selling, that I wanted to be proud of? No. But it got me started.
And then once I'd sold 30,000, I'd made a quid profit on each one. I used that money to reinvest in having it tooled in plastic. I then used the money and the profit I made from that to reinvest in the next product I'd invented, by which point I started. I mean, I remember having to get on a plane and fly out to Hong Kong to go out and try and meet suppliers out on the ground. Whereas I look at my teams and, you know, we'll come up with a new product that we want to develop now, we'll come up with the concepts for it. We literally go to your platform. We can see hundreds of suppliers right there in front of us. You can build dialogues, you can start and build relationships, and that for so many small businesses. Whereas I had enormous hurdles to jump over. You've got a pathway to success laid out in front of you. And I just think there's never, ever been a better time to be an entrepreneur and get stuck started. The access to be able to build the difficult part of this in the supply chain. You guys do 95% of the work and open up this amazing career path to thousands of, if not millions, of aspiring entrepreneurs that otherwise wouldn't be able to get there.
[00:18:03] Speaker A: Now we're going to kick it over to two icons from two very different backgrounds. Both have stared down pressures that most of us will never face and have turned it into impact and incredible leadership.
This part is for anyone who has ever considered giving up, which I think is most of us.
Here's Rio Ferdinand and Eric Leshevec.
[00:18:22] Speaker G: I think you Got to prepare for and be ready and expect down times, negativity, failures, because this is all what is part of the journey. I think that I don't know anyone who's been super successful from sport or from business who hasn't got failure stories.
So failures don't mean the end of the world. It doesn't mean stop, it doesn't mean you have to pivot, but it doesn't mean that you've got to build yourself back up, build the confidence back up to go again. But I really do believe like build yourself up to expect failures and problems because that is normal and that will happen.
That's a certainty.
[00:19:01] Speaker H: How about you, Eric?
[00:19:03] Speaker I: Yeah, well, when you try to do something big, you always are near to the failure because you take a lot of risk. And the only way to win big is not to be afraid to fail and to lose everything.
So I think that what helps you to take all the risk is the conviction that even if you fail, even if you lose everything, you will always have the possibility to rebuild. Because the real value that you have, the real richness, it's not money, it's your capacity to make money. And so if you have trust in yourself, then you will be able to go through all that.
[00:19:47] Speaker H: Yeah, no, totally. So I feel like to your guys point, right, I think failure also build resilience in a sense where you require resilience to really be able to face that. So really let's also talk about resources, resilience, but because you both leaders, right. In your own respective field. But leadership isn't built in comfort, right? It's built when things fall apart, when there's major challenges. And Rio, you kind of been through that at different level, right? I think probably it's near to your dear heart that you know from the losing the Premier League title on the finals, right. For 2012 in the last minutes, right. But coming back the very next season and winning it again, right. And then also you share very publicly about your personal loss and then you really be able to open that up, right. About, you know, the challenges that you went through. So those moments demands a very different kind of strength to go through that.
So can you share a little bit? What did that teach you about kind of resilience and how to rebuild what seems. That seems impossible at that time, which I can imagine.
[00:20:57] Speaker G: Yeah. There are two different types of resilience. Obviously losing the Premier League on the last day with the last kick of the ball, that's. That's the type of resilience and where you go away and you think, right, we're going to rebuild and go again. And there's a determination, there's a consistency, a desire to come back.
[00:21:17] Speaker G: And the resilience. When I lost my wife and my mum very close.
[00:21:22] Speaker G: In time, that's a different type of resilience. That's like drawing on the inner strength to kind of wake up every day to get out of bed. You've got three children, three young kids, and getting up and showing them it's not about giving up. And there's a purpose to why I'm getting up and you are the purpose. So. So it's drawing on the right things for you in them moments to keep you going, to keep the wheels moving, to then have a chance of succeeding again is important.
[00:21:52] Speaker H: Yeah. I mean, I feel like to your point, that kind of resilience, it just takes that special strength, right, to really be able to go through that bump, but at the same time kind of build the character of that person especially. I think that can really relate to a lot of entrepreneurs that we have here. Right. Because, you know, they face so many different types of challenges, but be able to navigate that. I think just exactly to your point, kind of takes that different type of ways to look at resilience. Yeah. And Eric, I think your world is very different, right, from sports in a sense. But I can imagine the pressures, it's just as real, right. You know, Ledger, as you co found as a co founder, right, you've been through what you might call kind of industry storms at that time, major crypto downturns and you know, some major, you know, we'll call like incidents, right. That put a huge pressure on your company's.
[00:22:54] Speaker H: Confidence, right? People, users, confidence in your company.
So how do you kind of manage that kind of incident then be able to have that resilience to kind of go through that?
[00:23:06] Speaker I: Well, you know, it's a lot of work, but also it's a lot of sacrifice because when you need to navigate all these storms, you have teams, you have a lot of people, you have raised a lot of money, you have investors and you are facing a lot of difficulties. And you need to show that in a way you are the captain, you are here, you are trying to do everything, even in facing the adversity.
And so basically you put all your energy onto that. So the resilience is here, but at the end you have a price to pay. And I did a few years like that, years of sacrifice, and at one stage I had to stop.
I quit Ledger as a CEO and I had to. Well, the price was that my body was just out. I went to the hospital, I get a heart operation.
So yeah, in fact, everything has a price and at some point you have to pay for it.
So yeah, resilience is also a way of sacrifice.
[00:24:13] Speaker A: This year you redefined what's possible. The only question is, how are you going to achieve your next big breakthrough in 2026?
Well, we hope to see you at Co Create. We hope to keep sharing your stories on the podcast. We hope to keep meeting you. So reach out, tell us what you've been through, tell us what you're looking for.
I think we can help each other out.
In the meantime, from all of
[email protected], i wish you and your loved ones a very happy and healthy holiday season.
B2B Breakthrough is produced by Alibaba.com to find out how Alibaba.com is empowering its content customers with the tools, services and resources they need to grow their business, visit Alibaba.com and then make sure to search for B2B Breakthrough on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you find your podcasts. Make sure to follow us so you don't miss future episodes. On behalf of the team
[email protected] thanks for listening.
