From $38K to Millionaire: The King Ice Success Story | Cuong Diep DSH #583

Yeah, I finished my last year of education in Oslo.

Got my chemical engineering degree and I got a dilemma.

Either go to US, go back to school again, find a girl that dumped me or be in the comfort zone, working in Oslo.

Chose to come to the US.

That's my first step of doing things that I want to tell you.

You have to leave your comfort zone to seek for some other opportunities.

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And here's the episode.

Ladies and gentlemen, someone I've known for a long time, founder of King Ice, Kong DF here today.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Thank you.

Thank you for the invitation.

Absolutely, dude.

Yeah, you've been someone I've watched for my whole journey into entrepreneurship, man.

What you've done with King Ice is super impressive.

So congrats.

Thank you.

It's been a long journey.

We've been doing this for 20 years now.

Yeah, not a lot of companies.

I read some stats.

I think 95% of businesses go out of business within 10 years or something.

So, the fact that you're still here after 20 and you're killing it still is hots off to you.

Appreciate it.

And you started off like bootstrapping, right?

Financing on your own.

Yes, you know, it's a lot of sacrifice you have to do to come to this type of level, uh, east steps.

There's opportunity for you to recognize it.

And then what you do is some people see opportunity come in and come out, but they don't jump into it.

I started a long time ago to actually leave my comfort zone and then seek out for something that's different.

It went back all the way to Norway.

I used to live there.

That's why my accent is still there.

I used to live in Norway for 20 years.

Damn.

I didn't know that.

Long story.

My Vietnamese background, after the Vietnam War ended,

we were refugees and a lot of people want to come to America.

We end up in Norway, which is not a bad country to grow up in.

It's safe.

It's rich in oil and

Norwegian salmon.

So they take care of all the people there.

Free health care, free education.

That's the comfort zone.

Wow.

And then coming over here to America.

I have to leave my family

for love.

I came here.

That's one of the reasons why I came to the U.S.

For love, you said?

For love, yes.

Follow someone that I admire and I love at that time.

Wow.

Was it a girl or was it like a mentor?

It was a girl, yes.

We dated in Norway.

She actually applied for school in the U.S.

And you normally international student, you have to apply for like a year ahead.

Yeah, yeah.

So in between the time she was waiting,

we dated.

I met her.

We fell in love.

She was my first Vietnamese girl.

Before that was all Norwegian girls that I dated at that time.

So I felt a connection.

Vietnamese culture ate the same food, family had the same background, fought the communists and all that stuff.

Yeah.

That was a chemistry.

So when she left me,

she gave me a little

letter in Oslo.

We were supposed to go out and date.

She gave me a letter, but the sister came out instead.

and said, oh, my girlfriend.

And the sister said,

sorry,

my sister is not going to to be here.

Read this letter, it would explain you everything.

This is six months into the dating with her.

And that letter, it told me that she's on the airplane going to the U.S.

And she didn't want to continue with the relationship.

Dang, so you chased her out there.

Yes, that was, what do you call that letter?

Dear John's letter, what do you call it?

I've seen that movie.

So that wasn't stopping you.

So you chased her out there, then what happened?

Yeah, I finished my last year of education in Oslo, got my chemical engineering degree,

and I got a dilemma.

Either go to US to study again,

or I got a job offer too in Oslo as a chemical engineer.

So either go to US, go back to school again, find a girl that dumped me, or be in the comfort zone, work in Oslo after graduation.

chose to come to US.

That's my first step of doing things that I want to tell you.

You have to to leave your comfort zone to seek for some other opportunities.

And I came for love to U.S., right?

Go back to school again.

Luckily, she didn't have a new boyfriend.

She didn't?

No, she was still in love with me.

Wow.

So I found it again.

So you got back together, and are you still together?

Yes, now we have two kids together.

Dude, that's legendary.

That's so beautiful.

And did you speak English when you came to the U.S.?

Not that much.

Wow.

That must have been tough.

It's a Norwegian is how I grew up with.

So I went back to school.

But as an engineer after graduation,

you know, average salary at that time 20 years ago was $60,000, $70,000 for new college students with chemical engineering.

I needed a visa to stay.

Or else I have to go back to NOAA again.

So I put myself in a position to get that job,

sponsor my my H1 visa.

So I put myself at 38,000 instead of 60 to 70,000 in average.

And I got the job.

Wow.

And I got the visa to stay.

And you were making 38,000?

38,000.

That's crazy.

And how long did you have to stay there for the visa to last?

So the salary was not my main focus.

I just wanted a visa and I got the job.

And after three years as a chemical engineer, I found out I don't want to do this type of work for the rest of my life.

It's a boring job, secure job, but I'm in the corporate rat race all the time.

And it didn't go anywhere.

So I started my side business doing jewelry.

But first, before I did jewelry, I did African artifacts, college Jamaican tobacco pipes.

Those two things didn't work out.

My third trial.

was jury

and it worked it worked actually sold on eBay my first first sale ever on eBay.

Back then, 20 years ago, it was popular.

Yeah, I caught the tail end of it.

Yeah, I used it a little bit.

It was a great feeling getting that first sale online, right?

And then

on the side business, we needed someone with a jewelry background who also can put money into the business.

We were broke students.

My business partner and I, all my roommates at that time, Derek Billet, African-American, right?

Born in beijing it's it's uh interesting background too

but um

so we didn't have any money but we know how where the jewelry district in la is

this toy district fashion district jewelry district we made a business card with two names on with the address we knocked on doors around this this uh area in in la

no one want to open the door for us There's one African-American guy, one Asian guy,

two strangers to knock going to business, want to do business with them.

We just say that we know how to build a website.

We can sell jewelry on the web.

We can bring your family business to the web, even though we never did anything like that before, beside from eBay.

And a lot of the companies in downtown, they have jewelry, high-end jewelry, diamond, gold.

They get paid in cash and all that stuff, right?

to have a safe.

At the end of the day, they put all that valuable stuff inside.

The whole guns inside there too yeah i've seen some of the safe before loaded with guns loaded with cash and money and gold and diamond all from selling jewelry over selling jewelry right but they see two strangers knocking they don't want to open

them exactly yeah you have a business appointment and all that stuff didn't have it until i think two three weeks into

non-stop knocking on doors I think we knocked on everyone's doors in downtown jewelry district until one guy opened the door.

He's a third generation juror

and his family business has been doing business in miami chicago and la yeah he wants to bring the business to the web

but he didn't know how to do it and here comes two idiots pretending that they know how to do it yeah destiny man and so you say okay come into my office and they talk and they say where do you live are you married Can I come and see where you live and all that stuff?

He asked you guys this?

Yes.

He came and made sure that we trustworthy people,

stable people.

I love that, man, because people don't do their due diligence on their business partners.

You have to.

You have to.

Yeah.

So he found us

at that time.

We live in Ontario,

still students.

And he came and interviewed us.

And he said, okay, I'll be your third partner.

And here's the business deal.

Since you don't have any money, you can take all you want from my inventory, sell whatever you can, but you have to pay me $8,000 per week, 32,000 per month.

That's the deal.

Take it or leave it.

But if you can't sell, you can always return it because you're going to use his inventory to sell.

Right.

You have nothing to lose.

We shook his hand and he became our third partner.

But one thing he told me on the first meeting, which I didn't like too much, he said, I

live in Beverly Hills.

I have a lot of experience.

I have a lot of money.

So you guys listen to me

from now on.

That didn't stick with me.

He, my third partner, I want to start my own business, be my own boss.

Yeah.

Not to have another boss.

So it's two years in the game.

I noticed he promised a lot of things.

Never deliver.

Controllers like with two young broke students.

Yeah.

And I said,

why do I have to work for someone else now?

I actually, at that time, I already quit my engineering job three years an engineer yeah

started this business jewelry business and i decided to get rid of my third partner which i had to take home equity loan to pay him off damn yeah so you were all in you had no other choice to make this work yes exactly eighty thousand dollar uh

balance that we had i used that uh home equity line to pay him off.

Wow.

So you were very confident that this would work out.

Yes, but I didn't like the idea of having a business partner that become my boss because I want to have my own business.

Agreed, yeah.

That's not that's not a good relationship.

If they're your partner, it shouldn't be a boss relationship, right?

Right.

If you're 50/50, right?

But he had like yeah, all the cash and all the money.

He had that luxury, uh, comfort life that he wants to control.

It's but

um

at that time, yes,

um, he built a new website because we kicked him out.

Yeah.

He built a new website to compete with us.

Similar product, lower prices.

That was his first attempt to kill us.

Second attempt to kill us.

He reached out to all the contacts from the jury district and say, Kong and Derek is no longer with me.

Either you work with them or you work with me.

So all our vendors in downtown, they all dropped us.

They all dropped him.

They all dropped me.

Wow.

Yeah.

And you were the new guy.

He was there for three generations.

Yes.

They chose you over him.

Yes.

So he competed with the website,

kill all our contact.

And the last thing he did, which is interesting, it's they call it keyword stuffing.

This black hat strategy that you can manipulate Google search.

I've heard of it.

So you stuff like certain keywords.

So your website shows up when people Google it.

And what he did was he put white text on a white background.

So since we do the jewelry, he put sterling silver jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, all pages, white text on white background.

So, we didn't even see it.

We didn't even see it

until Google came over, the robot crawled over a website and noticed we were doing illegal black hat strategy.

And immediately we were banned.

Damn, you got banned off.

Our website got taken down.

Oh, my gosh.

And you found out he did it?

He found out he did it after we did a IT.

We hired an IT company to do a research

website.

Wow.

How did he have access to edit it?

Because he was one of the partners.

Oh, so you forgot to revoke it after you.

If you forgot to remove the key,

the login and all that stuff.

Damn.

Yeah.

Ex-partners can get a little bit crazy, jealous.

You know, it's part of it.

It got ugly at the end.

Yeah.

Have you guys forgiven each other since?

We sometimes occasionally meet him in downtown.

But at that time, after they tried to kill us through all these various strategy,

we decided, okay, now

fuck downtown LA.

Fuck the middleman.

Let's go straight to the source.

Because people in your district, they also buy from the factories overseas.

Why not work with those companies directly?

Smart.

Cut out the middleman.

Yes, that's what we did.

In 2007, we started working with overseas factories directly.

Higher margins, less headaches, probably quicker turnaround.

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Yeah,

that's cool.

And what was that first winning product for you guys that took off?

So we did women's jewelry

with a little bit of portion of the collection of the inventory we had we call it hip-hop and was that 10 of the inventory was hip-hop jewelry

90 was chanel tiffany company lookalike women jewelry yeah that 10 of hip-hop end up generating 70 of the income wow

78 of the income that little portion of inventory So we say, forget about other women jewelry.

Too many companies focus on women already.

Why don't we just focus on men but the jewelry we're going to make is not any type of men it has to be hip-hop street aware uh type of focus

that's how that's what we started to do uh a new branding we call ourselves king ice at that time 2007.

we changed our name changed our focus that's when we started developing our king ice brand by working on our own

that third boss is gone have a focus on doing hip-hop jewelry at that time nice and are you still solo, or did you find partners?

I still have my

second partner, which is my roommate, Derek Billet.

Got it.

At that time, still, we still do business together.

Wow, that's cool, man.

Because it's very rare that the guy you start with is the one you finish with.

We went to the same school, have same interests.

Nice.

That's cool.

He's a great partner.

And now you've got some of the biggest IP and brands in the world doing collabs with, man.

Right.

I think it's those steps that I told you.

You have to come out from the comfort zone.

We were sponsored for one of the events for the game, a listening party.

He had a new album called the Jesus Piece.

So, he wanted King Ice to be the sponsor.

So, we did the Jesus Piece necklace, and all these hundred VIP guests that came in would get that Jesus Piece

in relationship with the new album called the Jesus Piece.

And there was Snoop.

Snoop Dogg came in and all the celebrity came in and in the VIP lounge.

And since I have that wristband being a sponsor, I got to meet him.

Cool, man.

And you got to make a death row records chain recently, right?

Yes.

So I got to work with him and his entourage people, not directly with his business

partner, but his

homies.

And those homies, you know, they hang around Snoop.

claim they they are the business partner they claim to be the manager and everything

but most of the guys i just

carry his bag, I guess.

Yeah, I guess so many of those, those managers, you know, you never know who the actual manager is.

Yes, and we work indirectly with Snoop at that point.

Yeah, but everything we give to Snoop, we have to give that friend of his jewelry at the same time.

Right.

Sometimes the friend of Snoop outbling Snoop sometimes.

I see the guy wearing all the massive jewelry, but Snoop didn't wear that many.

He kind of overshine his boss

And he came asking for more and more and more stuff.

And until I told him, enough is enough.

I like to work with Snoop, but not with his friend.

Absolutely.

So I cut him off.

So you cut off his friends?

I cut off Snoop indirectly, since I'm working with him indirectly.

So I caught up his friend.

I said, this is

giving him a Snoop free jewelry and his partner free jewelry and nothing came back in return.

So I cut him off.

And then a couple of weeks later, or a month later, Snoop called me on the phone.

He said, I don't know what happened to you and my friend, but from now on, you work with me directly.

Wow.

Yeah.

Here's my phone.

So here's my phone number.

It says log me in.

That's dope.

Yeah, that was 2015.

Wow.

Look at you now doing collabs with them.

I thought chain was really cool, the Death Row Records one.

Yeah, that happens all the time in hip-hop.

I thought I was dealing with 21 Savage, his manager one time, but it was just some fans.

Some fans sent him jerseys and they just blocked me.

I mean, it's a weird space navigating it, you know.

There's so many people trying to be like almost like a parasite on top of a celebrity, trying to make money.

All the yes men around them trying to make money.

I hear people calling me, trying to say, hey, um, I need to get a hold of Snoop because we just paid $50,000 for a guy for a company to take pictures with Snoop as new.

Snoop didn't show up.

Jeez.

Snoop was not aware of it.

No one knew anything about this guy, but it was just a scam using Snoop's name.

Yeah, a lot of people did that.

Some guy did it with Ronaldo, scammed like $100,000.

Christian Ronaldo?

Yeah, because he followed the scammer.

I don't know why.

And then the guy was like, Yeah, I'm best friends with him.

Just wire me the money and he'll post to you guys.

He did wire the money.

Yeah, $100,000.

It's crazy.

And Ronaldo probably doesn't even know about it because he's got 100 million followers.

He probably doesn't answer the DMs.

Yeah, it's a lot of scams you got to watch out for.

Any upcoming releases you're excited about?

Yeah, so Tiffany and company just released Pokemon right last year.

And that was quite interesting because Pokemon normally don't release jewelry.

So they picked two companies.

It was Tiffany and Company last year.

And this year we released with King Ice.

It's a big deal for us.

Wow.

So we have Naruto as well.

I love Naruto.

That's a classic.

I've seen every episode.

I've seen Naruto Shippuden as well.

That's a great IP, man.

I hope, yeah, once it's released, you'll be the one to get the first set.

Wow, I'm honored, dude.

Yeah, I love all your stuff, man.

It's so unique, which is why I love what you do because a lot of drawers sell the same things like you used to do, but you've carved a lane, and it's cool.

We're going to do Fortnite as well.

Wow.

That's so cool.

Yo-Gi-Oh!

I feel deal.

I'm very selective who I this time because before I have to chase them,

I want to work with those companies and then only ask for

money guarantee, MG, upfront guarantee.

But now it's the other way around.

They come to me now and

I have the chance to be selected who I pick for this year and next year.

So it'd be a fun way to do business since the table turns around now.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

Those MGs are killer sometimes.

I've heard super high.

Marvel asked for $100,000.

If you want to work with Marvel, just to even work with them.

And then they want royalties.

Yes.

All that stuff.

Yes.

Wow.

I mean, it makes sense.

I mean, they're a multi-billion dollar company, right?

Yep.

And plus, you're chasing them too.

So you have to pay up front to get in.

Yeah.

What's been your favorite collab you've done so far?

The interesting was

7-Eleven, believe it or not.

The Slurpee?

The Slurpee and 7-Eleven, the grand prize they give out every year during

July 11 and 7-Eleven.

They did a huge marketing campaign and they pay us a big chunk of money up front to develop a jewelry for them for their grand prices and whatever we saw on our website.

They didn't even ask for the royalty

to be paid to them.

Wow.

Because they didn't care about how much jewelry we sell.

They just care that we do our own promotion on our website

and do our own reach to promote it.

And we managed to get Snoop Dogg wearing 7-Eleven.

Wow.

Jamal Chase wearing it during the Super Bowl game, not Super Bowl, during the football game.

Yeah, he said, I'm always open.

He reached the ball, grabbed it, ran to the touchdown zone, and he showed his 7-Eleven.

He said, I'm always open.

That's so funny, man.

It was a great marketing campaign for them.

Yeah, they every year they seem to crush it with that 7-Eleven day where you get the free slurpers.

I see it all over social media that day.

That was a fun collaboration.

The second one is, of course, Death Row Records.

He's always on top with Snoop Dogg.

He's a very cool guy to work with.

It's awesome.

I've also seen you do Sonic the Hedgehog, Halo, Wu-Tang, Pac-Man.

I mean, you've got some of the biggest IP in the world, man.

Now you're saying Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!

It's incredible.

Thank you.

It's a secret to it, to where to find those people.

I can tell you that's a license show if people want to listen to to find out where they're going to find those uh

collaboration opportunities yeah with the license show

believe it or not i use linkedin

linkedin those people that work for big company they always have a profile on linkedin wow and you can find those people

That's a good technique because that's a slept on platform, right?

Most people think of Instagram and TikTok, but LinkedIn is, I think, for older people usually right

even the target um store that you want to work with for example

my background was zoomies yeah 600 plus stores

if you go to the financial uh records you can see all the board members all the people the vip people on google finance

just reach out to them one by one and represent your brand and then say hey i want to work with your company i have this type of product

And sure enough, they responded.

The CEO of Zoomies say, Hey, I have a buyer.

I can send the buy over to you.

Look at your product.

Wow.

The CEO responded.

CEO from Zoomies.

That's a multi-billion dollar company.

Cameron, yes.

Damn.

He told the buyer to go and look at King Eyes.

That's so cool.

And that's how we got the business.

Yeah.

That was through Google Finance, through LinkedIn, that route.

Yeah, see, people aren't even willing to do this outreach, right?

They think it'll come to them.

but you need to put out some energy too to get some back.

Right, exactly.

And that's cool to see you do that even this late in the game, 25 years in, you're still willing to put your ego to the side and do some personal outreach because most people they get comfort in the success they have, right?

Right.

In the last stage where we are right now, having those business opportunities to work with big brands like Fox or with Disney, with Ycom CBS, with Snoop Dogg, all the retail partners we have also.

I prefer not to chase anyone else beside from the people that we have already or the company we work with already.

It's better to

pay attention to the existing partners to work to maintain the relationship

instead of chasing new relationship and new business opportunities.

I think this is the stage we try to maintain what we have.

That's why you won't see me doing more trade shows.

i might go to complex gone

uh the license show is to exhibit a product but no more sales team out there selling a product no more yeah we just work with existing partners that's super important to keep your customers happy right sometimes business owners get excited by the revenues coming in and then they lose that customer service angle exactly you have great achievement already just well after you manage to build that relationship that's where maintain that over many, many years

to be able to present them new product, go and visit the headquarters instead of chasing another big cat.

You have a couple of big cats already, yeah.

That should be enough.

How many big sharks are you gonna try to find?

Yeah, yeah, that's important, man.

Well, Kong, it's been fun.

Anything you want to promote or close off with?

Um, I just want to thank you, Sean, for inviting me over here.

Of course,

We've been good friends for a long time.

You've been

quite fun to follow.

I'm actually happy to see you succeed in your business as well.

Yeah, it means a lot, man, because I know you were here for me.

I don't know if you remember this, but you came on my first podcast six years ago.

I did?

It was over Zoom.

Over Zoom.

It was so bad.

Like, I was bad at interviewing, and it was over Zoom.

It's actually still released, but yeah, I was looking back.

Look how far you become.

I know.

Six years later, man.

So I appreciate your support.

And you always send me really cool stuff, dude.

So, thank you so much.

In time, Sean, yeah, thanks for coming on, and thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you next time.