What’s it like running successful businesses as an entrepreneurial nomad?

In this episode of the Bean Ninjas Podcast, Ronnie Teja, the Founder and CEO of Branzio Watches, joins us to talk about how he built his business from the ground up.

He generously talks about building his team, expanding his portfolio and some tools he uses for the business. There is so much goodness in this episode you really wouldn’t miss it for the world.

In this episode, we discuss:

[03:36 ] Ronnie’s story as an entrepreneurial nomad.

[06:54 ] Starting the Branzio Genesis Story

[10:29 ] He explains how the saying “your success in your career will be defined by the people you meet and the books you read” is true for him and his business.

[11:52 ] Ronnie talks about Chris Bailey’s Book: The Productivity Project

[15:30 ] Getting the first 100 orders in his business.

[19:33 ] His current team.

[22:00 ] Growing from one brand to expanding his current portfolio.

[25:00 ] Top strategies and tools he uses for his team.

[27:50 ] His accounting team and top tip for store owners.

[31:57 ] The importance of marketing strategies and campaigns.

[34:04 ] Words from Ronnie.

Transcription

How to Become a Traveling Shopify eCommerce Entrepreneur with Ronnie Teja of Branzio

Announcer Welcome to the Bean Ninjas Podcast, where you get an all-access pass to see what happens behind the closed doors of a fast-growing global bookkeeping and financial reporting business.

Wayne:

Hey Ronnie. How are you doing today and where are you calling in from?

Ronnie:

Oh, man. I’m having an amazing time here in Bangkok. It’s a great time to be alive. And like we were discussing earlier, Bangkok is on a shutdown for about a couple of weeks. So there’s a lot of people in the DC who come around Bangkok and it’s kick in everything else. So it’s kind of funny that you can’t actually go to new bars; my favourite dance clubs at Nana Plaza are closed; all that kind of stuff.

Wayne:

Yeah. I guess we all have to make sacrifices during this difficult time.

Ronnie:

Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And my heart really goes to everybody who’s suffering during this time, too. I mean, we were talking about, some of us have been based in the Philippines, and Philippines, especially, is hit very hard.

Wayne:

Absolutely.

Ronnie:

And we were talking about what you guys had actually done to help your employees out, and I’m sure that’s something that would not be forgotten by anyone of your employees. And I’m sure some other people are thinking similar measures as well.

Wayne:

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of this comes down to really effective conversations. It’s not something you can ignore. So the more you can own the information that you have a good understanding around; communicate that to your teams so that they’re clear around where things are, but also feel open to share with you what they’re having concerns or where they’re starting to get a bit frightened about things. Honestly, lockdowns or something is kind of new to everybody.

Ronnie:

Yeah.

Wayne:

I know it’s not something I’ve experienced. So just trying to figure out how we live through this has been kind of unique. I know we’re kind of built for this in the sense that we have remote teams. We’ve worked in this fashion since we were founded five years ago.

But I’m seeing in social just a lot of chatter about people trying to figure out how do you move to remote, how do you maintain effectiveness in what is a new style of work for them. And it’s going to be an amazing test like test kicks, right? Like a case study on like working from home.

Ronnie:

Yeah.

Wayne:

We’re all now forced to; people need to adapt.

Ronnie:

Well, yeah. I mean, I’m not going to disagree with you and I think I definitely agree with you. Like we were founded five years ago like yourself. And just having the opportunity to actually work in a distributed team or a remote team, whichever way term you like using. It’s kind of like a boom.

I mean, there’s other companies that have done that. Basecamp; Basecamp has been doing it for 10 years; they’re pretty well known. Then Wrike is another one that’s been doing this for 7 years. So there are certain teams out there and some companies out there. I mean, of course, ECM, even bigger than any company out of the DC as well, which actually have an approach.

So I have a friend who works for Asian Development Bank, which is part of the World Bank, and they were actually talking about the whole process of actually working remotely. And especially for banking where everything is so secured, and you know how exactly the whole process goes.

And he was like, “Look, man. It’s a nightmare to keep our processes together; to keep the left hand over the right hand. How does that happen?” And he said, “So far the processes aren’t broken,” but he says, “You can see cracks in the process,” which is quite [Inaudible 00:03:35 ] right?

Wayne:

Absolutely. So it’s kind of fitty because today, we really had set this up a few weeks back, and we’re really here to share with our audience a bit just about your backstory, your experience as a digital nomad and an eCommerce entrepreneur.

Ronnie:

Yeah.

Wayne:

So I know we’ve connected through the Dynamite Circle; you mentioned the DC. It’s really; it’s a community of digital nomads. Tell me about your introduction to the scene and your experience as a travelling eCommerce entrepreneur. Why and how did you get started?

Ronnie:

Yeah. Well, I started about like five years ago because I was doing; I worked for like various companies in Canada. So just a background with myself, I immigrated to Canada as an adult, so I’m an adult who went to Canada. So we moved to Canada when I was 22. We got the golden ticket; my mom had applied for our visas, so we all came together to Canada.

First, I think I landed on the 14th of May, and on the 15th of May, I got a job working on an Indian radio station. So it’s not just any Indian station, so it’s door-to-door media sales. So like, literally like going door-to-door, and not just at like any; like going to like strip malls full of like Indian stores and say, “Hey, would you like to buy something from the Indian radio?”

And after the fact that I did that across, so basically I had to take public transit like buses and trains so that I could go and do that. So I did that for a couple of years, which is kind of like a heartbreaking experience, but it was nice.

Wayne:

The true hustle.

Ronnie:

Yeah. It is, man. It’s door-to-door sales. Like, you better learn how to do door-to-door sales if you really want to do; you know what like sales is; like you should know how to do door-to-door sales.

But, yeah. I mean, I was lucky after that. I got an opportunity to work at HSBC; big bank, definitely a world bank, man. And I recommend it for anybody who wants to be an entrepreneur. You know, lots of processes, it takes about six months to get a marketing approved, so, of course, I wasn’t a big fan of that. So I was thinking if I’m going to leave this.

But then, I had an opportunity to go work at BestBuy. And BestBuy, I learned a lot about how retail cycles worked; how does retail work. And BestBuy, it was quite a good fit for a personality like mine because everything was just go, go, go, go, go, go, go. So nothing ever stops.

So from 8:00 a.m. to like 10:00 p.m. at night, everything was always on the go. So that was kind of like an interesting experience for me. So I did that for a couple of years. Got an opportunity to move to Australia; worked in Australia for a couple of years working for the Wesfarmers Group. So I worked on Target Australia and then Bunnings, which was coming from a background in retail. So I worked with those guys.

‘Till I had an opportunity to actually like, ‘till I said, “Look. Hey, wait a second. I’ve been doing this for so long. Is there a chance that I can actually run an eCommerce business?” So I had an opportunity to do some freelance marketing like for a watch brand back in the day.

And I said, “Look, I’ve been working on this for so long, making other people m