What's up, Dtcpod? Today we're joined by Kian Golzari, who we all know from Sourcing with Kian. So, Keon, why don't you kick us off, tell us a little bit about your background in Sourcing and supply chain, how you got started, some of the brands you worked with, and just a little bit more about yourself.

Sure. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me. It's a pleasure to be here. And, yeah, I've been living and working in China since 2010. So twelve years now. And in that time, I've designed, sourced, developed, and manufactured over two and a half thousand different products. And that's led me to work with different brands, retailers, and licenses such as the NBA, the Olympics, United Nations, Ministry of Defense, a lot of big box retailers in the UK. Europe and the US.

As well as helping Source and Coach and help Amazon private label sellers and shopify sellers as well. So it's a wide variety of different experience from loads of different retailers and licenses and brands that I've produced for. And a lot of people ask me, like, well, how do you supply the MBA and how do you supply the big Amazon sellers and shopify sellers and stuff like that. And it's really just from the common denominator is being able to really understand how to get the best factories, how to get the best prices, how to get the best quality, how to get the best terms. And that was learned from spending so much time in China with the factories. And not only China like other countries as well, but yeah, so happy to kick it with you guys today and talk about all that sort of stuff and deliver some actionable value that you guys can apply to your business today.

No, we're super excited for it. So why don't you take us back? What was your background before? How did you get into the whole sourcing and supply chain game? Before you started sourcing for the NBA Olympics and all these major brands? Where was your start? How did you get to know these factories? How did you get to know the whole processes in and out?

Yeah, sure. So I was really lucky because growing up, my dad started his passion is like camping and outdoor. So he was going to China about like 30 years ago when they were coming out of a communist rule and he was helping factories. Hey, this is how we make products, this is how we like our products in the west. And then so he was working factories initially. So when I was like five years old, six years old, my dad was going to China. And it was not what it was like today. It was like literally farmland and stuff like that.

So he would always come back from China every six months and he bring back these weird little gifts and all that. So as a kid, I was always curious, what does my dad do in China? What are these weird things? I can't wait to go one day. And he would also bring over Chinese suppliers to the house because they would visit. I grew up in Scotland, in the UK, chinese suppliers would come over to the house, they would bring gifts, they would stay at the house. And I was just chatting to these suppliers as a kid. So when I graduated university, I went to university in Glasgow and Scotland and also did a year abroad at University of Miami. And when I finished university, my dad was like, hey, do you want to come to China? Do you want to learn the supply chain stuff? Because we had a medium sized business called Highlander, which was just camping and outdoor products. He was like, do you want to come China with me? I was like, yeah, absolutely.