Desmond Lim

Intro: (00:00:00) Hey guys, welcome to Asian Hustle Network Podcast, my name is Bryan and my name is Maggie! We interview Asian entrepreneurs around the world to amplify their voices and empower Asians to pursue their dreams and goals. We believe that each person has a message and a unique story from their entrepreneurial journey that they can share with all of us.

Bryan: (00:00:00) This week we have Desmond Lim founder of Workstream we’re super excited to have him on the show. This guy is the definition of a Workstream hustler. He’s a Harvard graduate. He started his company; we want to hear a lot more about his story. Desmond grew up in Singapore and now we all live in the Bay area I’m super excited to have him. Desmond Lim, welcome to the show.

Desmond: (00:00:32) Thank you so much, Bryan, for having me, I’m very glad to give a good yell and to be able to share more.

Bryan: (00:00:40) We’re super excited to have you here, but before we dive deep into the Workstream, we want to learn about who are you. We understand that you grew up in Singapore and your parents worked hard to give you the future that you needed to succeed. That resonates with both of us too and is the reason why we started Asian Hustle Network. So, we want to hear more about your story.

Desmond: (00:01:04) Yeah, thank you so much. Maybe I could just start by sharing if y’all a bit more about me and my parents. I think that is a great, really great way to start and if you have any other questions, we can go on from that during that sound good? 

I found my first business, right after high school to pay for college. My parents are both hourly workers. My dad is a driver and my mom helps him. My dad’s been driving for the past 40 years and my granddad came from China as well. The story is, he came to Singapore when he was 17 and he only had $1 in his pocket and soon started a very big family.

My dad was the fourth oldest among the kids. So, my dad joined the workforce early and did my mom, they both only finish fourth grade. Right after high school, my parents didn’t want me to go out to school. They would say, hey, you should go out and find a job because that is the way that we have learned right. But I saw all my HS friends, they were all going to school. I couldn’t pay for it yet. So, I just my very first business was teaching math and science. So, I set up from this and so I started to call people to see if I can help them to teach math and science.

I must have called  50 to 100 students and finally got my first job. From the very first student slowly grew to a small group that consist of  5 to 10 students. I went on to grow the group to more than 50 students. 

And after that, I started to be strategic and match the students together. I started to match, some of my friends who were keen to teach, to do some of my students. So, there was my very first business. I created in our sales to pay for our college, back home in Singapore, and when I was in college. It was very fun, but it was so very challenging having to hire people.

Bryan: (00:05:29) I want to hear about the story it’s a lot of great things that I can see why you’re so successful already. It’s just the way we’re also brought up as you mentioned before, your grandparents had $1 come up and it makes me happy and I always feel when you’re down to your last resource, you become more resourceful because we have to survive. You do things you will never do because you have a family to take care of.

And that’s reminiscent of my own family. So, my parents escaped the Vietnam war and when he came over here, they were living off $25 and nothing. At that time, there were about 21, and 22, and my sister and my brothers were born. Yeah, and you have to spend $25 to take care of the entire family to my dad and made some money.

Yeah. You keep telling their stories. If we can live off $25, You can live off for much less than that. And you have to be longer telling me what you spent it on. It’s not a case of water. It spent some spent the money on instant noodles and they used to have over the last, so that’s reminiscent of your story and the way that we were brought up.

The other thing is your parents, finished up the fourth. My mom finished up to third grade and, my dad did up to sixth grade. You probably won’t let me; they probably won’t let me talk to you about this right now. They’re hey it’s, there are other things that it brings to the table too.

It’s even though the education is not that high, the way they look. It’s very holistic. It’s very, hey, you can do anything you want. Don’t let and I love your hustler mentality. You paid for yourself during college. That’s amazing. We’re used to, we hear about from people we look up to and you’re one of the guys you looked up to.

Maggie: (00:07:28) This requires a lot of grit and a lot of hustles. So that’s yeah, you can appreciate that.

Bryan: (00:07:33) The way you’re running your business right now, right? You draw upon every single experience you ever had in your life to run this company. Whenever you’re back against this wall, you’re, hey, manage 50 plus people in my restaurant before I met us 50 students, this is doable. I’d done this before. I did much more with so little money. I did so much for so little knowledge. That’s true knowledge and the credential.

Desmond: (00:08:11) This is great, thank you so much for sharing that. I’ll just share a bit more then, II sold that business my senior year and I went out to work and finance. I was at Merrill Lynch for the three years back in Singapore and I save up for those three years so that I could come to the US for school.

I always had this dream and hope that, hey, I’m going to come to the US. Because there’s so much more I can learn right. So I came to the US in 2010, and I say that the years from Merrill where I would say so-called pushed the hardest in terms of trying too actually.

Hustle and try to save my money. I pretty much went through school without spending so much money because I work as this RA at school. So, I was living at this MIT frat house and they gave me room and bought it, which is great. So, I’ve put in, I have a place to stay and then I managed to get this half scholarship.

So, I paid for the other half with my savings. I managed to find a place at school where I can work where can run my startup from.

Yeah, so it was great. I had a good setup such that, even after when I finished school, I was able to have some savings to work on my current business. So, I feel like there’s always all this news about how you have to hustle. You have to go into that.

You’re trying to start your own business. I think that is not real. I think people should think about how can you create enough cushion and these savings so that when you come out to do your own business you don’t, you can yeah right? Yeah. So that was really why that truck school.

And then I moved out to the Bay area in 2016. I’m about to Palo Alto because my wife was based here. She was going to school at Stanford business school. So, I came out to be with her and I’ve been here since, and working on my current company is late 24/7. Now we are a team of about 40 people.

Maggie: (00:11:07) What was your thought process, moving to San Francisco, coming from Singapore, a whole new place, what were your thoughts? Just moving, did you know exactly what you were going to do when you moved here, or, were you kind of just in the process of meeting new people and deciding what you wanted to do, deciding, how you wanted to start your business?

Desmond: (00:11:33) Yeah, that’s a good question, Maggie. I first came out to the bay in 2007 for this school trip when I was still in freshman year. I came out for a one-month-long trip. We went through about eight to nine companies like Apple, and Google, and I think that trip when I was still in school. That changed my mind.

I always have thought that I have to come back here someday to kind of start my own business. I think there was always a dream that I had for more than 10 years, but I knew that things don’t just happen overnight right. I mean there’s kind of the one single piece of advice that I love to share is that people have to learn to be patient trying to build something takes time right. You need to be focused and work on something for quite some time. It can be months and years and some to them, five to 10 years. So, I think I was focused on that. So, when the chance came for me to move out here, I was just very clear that I should come out here and one fun fact was that I feel very thankful because even though.

When I came up through the Bay area, in 2016, my wife was going to Stanford. So as her spouse, I went in and took about 10, of all the classes for free. Yeah, because I would just walk into the class and my wife, she will write to the, to the province, say, hey, Kim, my spouse, see in the class, handle the classes for free. My wife always jokes that I know even more folks than her because I had time right, she was I have free time and I was just always, and this school cafe, I’m trying to meet with people at the chat. So, some people may think that, hey, it is not right for you to do so, but I felt fine because I was able to create value for my peers and friends. 

Bryan: (00:14:13) I mean, again really good points. I think you mentioned that you’d have to enjoy the process. I think that nowadays we see a lot of situations where people are watching too many movies and they’re oh man, I can be successful overnight. That’s not the case at all. You have to continually be focused to have a lot of patients you said, and enjoyed the process.

It’s gonna take a long time for your vision to become reality and that plays into the passion part too. How passionate about the subject. I can usually feel the same way about it every single morning for the next three to five years. And you have to ask yourself that question, and I like how you spend your time well.

You knew for the fact that your wife is at Stanford graduate school and you knew the kind of value that it could bring you guys as not just for your wife, but for you, you’re okay instead of just sitting at home and doing whatever you’re attending classes with your wife and you’re finding value from it. So, whatever return you got from those classes is infinite because you never paid any for it.

Desmond: (00:15:29) It was very good and even for my current idea, it came out from some of these classes.

Bryan: (00:16:01) That’s extremely valuable too. It’s, you never let a minute go by, that’s, I think it resonates with a lot of people. What is the Asian Hustle Network too, it’s like, oh, people always think that the opportunities are never my coming my way, I don’t have enough love, I’m not smart enough. I can do this. I can’t do that. But opportunity. Or never limited only your mind is as soon as you remind more, you make something happen. Yes, and you go work, you talk to people that expand your horizon. Yeah.

Desmond: (00:16:36) When I first came out to start my current company, Workstream. I must have a pitch to about 50, or 60 companies before the first one says yes. I went door to door in the streets of this Palo Alto, and I just went through every single shop and tried to talk that, hey I would love to ask you a few simple questions about your current hiring process.

Bryan: (00:17:15) Yes. I love it. I love the hustle mentality and the fact that they kind of remind me and Maggie too, and we’re hustling for a little bit shameless. We don’t care what people are thinking about us have to do to succeed. That’s the only way to feed it there’s hustle and there’s consistency and patience. But the missing ingredient is grit. You have to push through no matter how much force pushes back. Yeah. That’s yeah.

I mean, that’s an amazing story. And having you come from Singapore to Boston, to Harvard MIT, to here to sitting in classes, Stanford, getting ideas what is this? ask me around because I love this story so much. And then let’s dive into workstream two. We want to hear more about it. We know for a fact that listening to all your previous speeches. It’s a three, $370 billion industry.

And you’re using an AI-driven platform to predict the best matches for roles. That’s crazy. This interview that we watch was in 2018. So, you want to see how the platform has changed, adapted, and has grown over the years of course.

Desmond: (00:18:52) Thank you so much. I think what we are working on is this AI-driven hiring of self-aware that is rehabilitated. We will have a wide range of clients from restaurants, hotels, healthcare, supermarkets, and more. The truth is, about 60% of all people who work in the US are hourly workers. It’s a very big space. There are about 80 million of them. So, but that’s been a ton of stuff built for people who work, not in this role.

I mean, most of us today are built for people who work in this office. I bail for people who work in tech, think about stuff like June slack, workplace. So, it was false. I mean, do you think someone who runs a chain of these cafes will want to use your software? They could, but it is not built for them, right.

So, we see there’s a huge gap guy in consult software built for nonoffice workers. We all call it main the main bottle of people who is in this space right. So, all of our current workflows are texting. Everything is all built on a phone. The is, so a lot of this automation in our software that can help you save your time, right? So, that is really what we are doing, trying to use texting mobile workflows and this AI to source for more people and to be able to screen and onboard people faster. Today we will with a few hundred brands from jumbo juice, subway, merit, F1, patient, and mall. So, we showed you have a pretty broad base off of this client that we know.

Maggie: (00:20:42) Yeah, well, I think that’s amazing. I think that’s prevalent because, with text messaging, that removes the onus from the employer, right. Because, employers may forget, to follow up with the employee and maybe, well, you forget to get back to the employer, and just having that AI and just having like text messages automatically sent out to the candidates. I think that removes a lot of the burden involved in hiring processes.

Bryan: (00:21:10) You’re creating a larger audience. I think this, as you mentioned, when your speeches before, everyone, uses their phone, not everyone uses the computer. It has access to a computer which asks, ask access internet and the website. I think essentially what you’re doing inherently is you’re targeting a larger work base who may or may not speak English that well. That’s extremely valuable, especially given the COVID-19 situation that we’re all-seeing application is extremely essential for most people to be able to become employed now on the next job.

And, we want to do our part to make sure we promote your business to our meeting as our podcast. And Asian Hustle Network is currently almost 50,000 members. Push that through and get more people to understand the power of a workstream. Yeah. And awesome thank you so much.

Yeah, that’s our goal too and as you mentioned before, this is a $370 billion industry that you’re targeting, the gate, the way that you guys are rapidly moving is really quick just looking at your seed investments and going through your venture capitalist funds and raising that. That’s amazing, it’s so fast and I’m involved with the angel investing side time in the Bay area. I see your work. I see everything that you do. So very impressed by that. So, you have a lot of people in the Asian Hustle Network that want to learn about this process. So, you kind of walk us through your story too.

When you first started the workstream. Oh, what was the idea? The light was a prototype lie before you raise your first seed investment because you have some really big seed investors just in Khan and all the Asian, you know?

Desmond: (00:23:15) Thank you so much. So, when people think about trying to build software startups, they always think about, hey, I need to go and hire a team.

So, I’ll find people who build the first version of the software. People think that I have to spend so much money the truth is it is not true that it’s many ways that you can pass, but if people have a real need for what you take off, I think I always tell all the other founders to think about what is your and VP, right?

If you are trying to sell something, online, maybe y’all are trying to, trying to sell clips and you want to go get this online. I’ll have a simple landing page where people can email or text or think about what is the, you know, so-called cheapest MVP. Then you can try to start because the main thing is you have to test whether people want to buy one right. If you go and spend six months hiring a team of five software people who built your software and you call it that to pass it, people will say, hey, this is not why I won. Then you have to go back to change everything and it is not just money. It is time, right? So, what is the least amount of work you can do to come up with something to test?

And you can test. In several ways, one way is thinking about why don’t people are willing, and able to pay for what you have to give is that’s right. If people are open to giving you that email, if people can give you that time, all those, treat staff, people have a real need for what you are trying to go. So, I think that was pretty wide early on. I went out to talk to a few hundred clients trying to learn about why those pinpoints, trying to watch how they hire people.

I found that many of them will use Google sheets, email, and law to manage hiring, which was the valley. So, me and my teammates, I came out with these wireframes and maybe about four to five days. So, we use a sketch as free software to come out with these white frames. And next, I used, these wireframes with no code at all, to show it to this client and say, hey, this is what we drew up.

If you click on this button only or lead to this other frame, tell me what you right. So, this was phase two. So, in phase one, phase two, and often this feedback, I must have done this at least like five to seven times to try and get more feedback before me and my teammate, and put up the very first version of the software.

And then we had our first client in a few weeks off. So that was redeemed the whole flow of us coming out with the very first. The sharing of the software. When I went on to raise my first round of funding, I have some tips that I can share. And if any other members I can through talk to me about trying to raise funding, I’ll be very glad to share more because I think trying to raise funding, it’s a lot of art and science.

But when I do raise funding, I had about 10 paying clients. So not that much and sometimes I tell the fondness that if you’re running a silver company sometimes it’s better to not have so many clients when you call it the ratio, a trial of this finding because when you have 40 clients or so it is not so much, but it is not low.

People would almost have to track your growth, which is very hot, right? Because your cup is always had your, your cup always has to be right but when you haven’t launched yet, you have some pain clients, but you have a strong team. You have a strong market product. You can sell them off, like what things can be right. So, there was how we raised our very first round of funding. And after that, since then we have skipped through a few hundred clients. Yeah,

Bryan: (00:27:42) That’s cool and for our listeners that don’t know what MVP is the minimal viable product. So that’s the model where you, before you build anything, you want to see if it works, before you like Desmond said before you dedicate a lot of time, money, and resources to this, you want to see if this is a product that your customer even wants. And a lot of good points to that. You understood your pain points. The customer pain points That’s a great indicator of a good founder, if they came to you, you didn’t know what the pain points were and then they would have an issue if I was gonna invest inside you.

Maggie: (00:28:18) I think it’s important because as you mentioned, a lot of these companies have mostly hourly workers, for example, like restaurants, it’s very hard for them to see why they need to integrate software, right.

When they could just link out to the candidate, in in-person by phone. So, I was wondering, how did you go about, proposing that idea to them and making them understand, to fill the void and fill the gap and make understand this is something that could improve their processes and hiring candidates. Even before you show them the software, even before you showed them the demo, how, how were you able to convince them that this is something that could improve your processes?

Desmond: (00:29:06)  One thing that we often do is always look at ourselves. Open-ended questions, try to ask them, hey, tell me more about our current process, tell me what you wish could be better right? People always wished something could be better. What are some things that you love about the way that you do things down? What are some things that you don’t like, right? So, by asking such an open-ended question it sells me well, because the Client who I talked to, or would share some of the lights and paints that she has. right. Because there are always things that you wish could be better all right and so there’s one thing that I do. The second thing that I did in the very early days, which is much harder to do now is to go and watch how they do it. If I could stand right next to them and see how they do things. 

It is so fun. But when you see someone do it on, she spends like two hours trying to go on to 10 of a system and she’s thinking I’ll find a good way at a good price. You already know that she doesn’t like it so much. She stinks like it, right? So, this is the same case for hiring people who may say, hey, no, I love to go to every percent to call every single one. But when you watch their face to face, it is very different. So, what someone thinks and what someone does is very different. 

Maggie: (00:31:00) Very true that’s similar to like a lot of companies who, follow their processes and think that their processes are perfect because they don’t see it from a third-person perspective. But when you have a third-party person go and, see how you work, you can see oh, I can see there are voids in the processes. There are gaps in the processes.

Bryan: (00:31:22) Most of the time when you’re presenting a new idea, Sometimes the customer doesn’t even know that they need the product. Even we’re guilty of that too. Our day-to-day routine, we don’t like to change our day-to-day routine. We make one adjustment that improves the entire process. Dude, when did we do this before? It was amazing. And that’s the entrepreneur, you had to show them that we need this product, but their life would be improved by it. That’s something that we’ll see use it. They can’t live without it. And that’s cool. And then, and then you mentioned that you’re wireframing too.

I think most people, especially early entrepreneurs would be or tech entrepreneurs would be hey, I need a working demo. I need my code to work. I need this not to work. Otherwise, people will never invest in me and you here, you are telling us you don’t use the national product yet. You need good wireframing can be done.

Through your PowerPoint slides to is that you have to just show where the redirect buttons are and what they do now. You’d be more fancy hire a software engineer to do it so much fancier if will hire a software engineer to do it, right.

Desmond: (00:32:44 If you get someone to spend an extra three to six minutes to build a software and is wrong, right. And you have to call back to rebuild everything again. So, people always think about money, but time is key.

Bryan: (00:33:02) You brought up a really good point that I think most of the perception of tech companies in the Bay area, it’s that we raise a lot of money and then we burned it off quickly. We read a lot of articles about other companies or more well-known and then you see stuff happening too. We work, wow, this company grew too fast. What a strong financial model. And what you brought up earlier is a really good point because you don’t have to grow quickly at the expense of picking up more debt. Cause that’s a dangerous move, especially if it 19. And the fact that you’re overly leveraged and you don’t find a way to sustain yourself with a profitable margin, you’re going to seem quickly.

Desmond: (00:33:50) That is very, very true. That is very I think we have me and my daughter, fondest, max and Dave when we first launched the company, we all didn’t get paid for the first six months. We were just trying to make sure that this works first. We didn’t care about paying all the self on the stand and they helped us to focus. 

Bryan: (00:34:12) Yeah. I really, liked that that financial model is super, super smart by the way. Now I know why you guys are progressing and growing during this.

Desmond: (00:33:50) Thank you so much. And I think that is a good plan for this hiring trend. You would see that many people used to hire, even though I would say like restaurants, hotels hiring last, but if you look at other sectors, like supermarkets, healthcare companies, hiring drivers. Those are still hiring quite a bit and I think in the coming weeks and months, many of these businesses, are not trying to prep through. We open so that is something that we are very keen to be helpful to a team strive to.

Maggie: (00:34:57) Speaking of COVID-19, I know, much of the inspiration behind workstream was, unemployment rates were very low and now the unemployment rates are increasing at this time. How do you think the hiring processes for a lot of companies are changing? I know a lot of people are trying to come out with ideas and ways to make hiring processes, much faster for, people who have lost their jobs. How do you think from your perspective, the hiring processes have changed now due to COVID?

Desmond: (00:35:29)I think that is one of the strengths of our software, right. Being able to help people to get hired faster sometimes on the same days. If not in just a few days, Jessica is of our software trying to use text-based hiring software. That’s the very first point the second point is yes. I think there are much more people trying to look for jobs, maybe more on the job, job seekers, and jobs for the moment.

All of those can be done through software, true to the phone by people can sign without a finger from the foil. Wow. Yeah. So, all this is an anchor and every single step is done via the phone. So that is going to save time, right.

And I think the point I have to make is always self. What helps you to practice this? Contact list hiring. So, you can, you do not have to meet them to screen them and to get them to sign paperwork. So, all those can be gone from home. So, you run much less risk of having to meet them face-to-face.

Bryan: (00:37:14) Yeah, loved that pivot to, like you were pivoting you’re readjusting, you’re adopting. At what point when you were raising your seed money, did you realize that you should hire your first employee? Because it seems you guys moved the lightspeed, two and a half years, threes. I, this fast, I realized you need to hire that first employee. And once you realize that you have to grow and hire 40 employees.

Desmond: (00:37:44)I think if there are two people, we hire one with someone to do UI UX to do design because I found that even though I could draw some of these wireframes, someone else could probably draw them better than I. So, we found someone to draw that. Then next we hired two more software engineers to work with one of my founders to have built this off faster.

So, you will see the trends of these software companies. It is in the Lee days, I would say for the first five to 10 hires, it is almost going to be focused around the product like UI UX, design, and software engineers. And you will probably have one to 2%, one of the farmers who would 

And that was my role. I closed the first hundred clients, for us on my own. I was jumping on. Zoom costs just justice, I guess maybe about a shelf that then costs like, just like this every single day, which was about half an hour or more, and now it’s shorter software than what you would do. It’s always doing that for almost six to nine months. Every day is having back-to-back costs and that was how I closed the first hundred clients twice. So, I would say those were the early days of how we were able to push.

Bryan: (00:39:12) Wow. That’s amazing. Like a nasty, you secure your financial models than from there you went to venture capitalist money. Right. And you start. Then, as for our listeners you have to know that things start in order, we’re just going to go straight to venture capitalist money. 

Desmond: (00:39:44) I never liked to come on through rates funding. I always think of when you do want to raise funding is when it will come off to you. right? all my fundraising is, has been finished in about two to three weeks. So, it was all quite quick, but I really pack every single day, very tight, right. I must have pitched at least 32. 40 people, but you’re all very back-to-back. So, I was able to create like four more when I was out to raise funding.

I was saying, hey, I have these creative phobics when I’ll raise funding. So, I was very clear about that. So that was very helpful, but you shouldn’t go out to fundraise for, hey, let’s raise funding first so that I have the money to build something I didn’t get. It’s not the right order for sure to come up with something that has some value as a few paying clients and that people can see that, hey, there’s some value there, then people would see it.

Bryan: (00:40:41)  Well, that’s, that’s cool to hear that, too, and some of the questions that we get when an Asian Hustle Network is when people start raising money, they’re not sure how involved they want their early investors to be. How have you dealt with this problem? I don’t know for a fact that you’re just starting with an idea, you bring it on angel investors, they always have something to say about the product. How have you dealt with that situation?

Desmond: (00:41:07) I’ve been quite lucky early on. We took care to choose the right fit of people who could be there when we want them to help. So, people have been generally quite hands-off, but when we have things to honest, they will, they will be lost. So, I think you should be very careful about who you choose. Panera is very key, right? Because once we are in your cap table, it is hyper-change. So, on my end, what I do is every Mon I was sent out one, to audit funds and audit in Joe’s who give me money was sending it out at the end of the month.

And that has what vert off on me in terms of this is very strict. Preface with all my clear metrics, product launch, product changes, and team and highest. So, I will do that every single month with a very fixed structure on this day. Because it is very tough for you to jump on, call us with everyone. Because if you do that every other month, you have no time, to do the real work, right. So that was what I’ve been doing now for the past two years and it’s been going well.

Bryan: (00:42:21) So that’s, that’s good, good point. You bring it up too because I think when you’re an early entrepreneur, it’s something that offers you money. yeah, I’ll take it, you have to find your fit. Like this person will be for a long time and you want that chemistry too. It’s not just the chemistry where it’s a co-founder at the chemistry was your early investors too, because having a good relationship with them can mean the world to like the next level. Now you’re constantly arguing with your angel investor and you’re in trouble. Yeah. So yeah. I just want to bring a tip out to all the Asian Hustle Network, like throwing stuff, the first hole or cash comes your way. It’s very tough.

Desmond: (00:43:10)I think that is very true. Yeah. Good point.

Bryan: (00:43:15) I mean, we’re nearing the end of the podcast. We’re extremely, extremely excited to have you here and learn so much about your journey. So, what’s the next step? What, where do you see yourself in five years and 10 years from now?

Maggie: (00:43:29) What are your goals for the workstream?

Desmond: (00:43:33) I think we are still very early, to be honest, we are still very early. There’s just so much for us to learn. I believe in our team’s mission, right? A small one and 80 million Ali folks in, in the US and the knows, want to do billing hourly workers are a huge space and there’s just not enough Silva built to sell them better right. So, we are really on this very strong focus and very strong.

Mission to help them to be able to not justify work better, but to manage, our current workflows better too so that is really what we hope to do. Try to try to start, from us and try to create impact and change both local businesses restaurants, hotels, healthcare companies, and law, but it also creates change for many of those quality folks.

If you asked me five to 10 years, I hope to be able to just you be on this mission. I’m trying to bring it back there actually what, Bryan was trying to share early on. I think it is very key to find something that you strongly about, I often tell folks that I was really lucky at the age of seven.

I found my first love of basketball. So, I’ve been playing monkey ball from I was seven until I was about 25. Maybe it went to, I was about 24 then I think for the next four to five years, I was very lost to be very honest. I was trying to find out what’s my next love, because. Great old. So, I can’t, I can’t keep playing spots.

Right. So, I spend the next four to five years trying to figure out what to do. I work for many people for free. I talked to them, many people, one-on-one coffee chat. I just worked for free for folks but Trudet treats your volume on five days. I find out why we want to do so. I’ve been trying to build my current company for the past three years. And if you thankfully share the iPhone is something that few I can do, but it makes 5, 10, 20 years, and more so,

Bryan: (00:45:56) Wow. That sounds awesome that you found it.

Bryan: (00:46:06) It’s a journey you’re going to have your highs and your lows. You’re not, you’re going to normal to feel lost, and being lost can be defined in two different ways. You can take it back the way you can take it a good way. you can take it as a way to reinvent yourself, to figure out what your true passion is sometimes it’s just the universe putting you on the right path. You have to believe that that’s sometimes that’s the case, you have to look back and be like, whoa, I’m so glad I was lost in that time because if it was not lost, I wouldn’t have met this person this way.

Maggie: (00:46:44) It varies with every person. Some people find their passion when they’re seven years old or some people find their passion when they’re 40 or 50, it depends. It’s everyone has their journey. Everyone has their path.

Bryan: (00:46:57) There is no apple out personally, anyone you take life and your journey, your own pace, wherever you feel comfortable. Cause you realized as soon as you move at a pace that you’re not comfortable with, you make a lot of mistakes, you can keep things you want to achieve.

And then that creates a sense of unhappiness because you’re not doing things the way you should be doing them. Your case. I mean, we’re super excited and really happy to have your Asian Hustle Network podcast. Thank you so much for your time.

Maggie: (00:47:30) Then we just wanted to ask one more question for all of our listeners of the Asian hustle network podcast. You know, what is one message that you want to share with all of our listeners? One message that you want to share with everyone, just the go-to message for everyone listening to

Desmond: (00:47:52) People can decide to help you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. People can always just email me Desmond at this actual workstream guy So, people can always do this, we all come and come to Facebook to find me, in terms of the message. I think what I always love to think about is what the mind can conceive and like belief, it can. Chief right today is guys like my so-called slogan that I hat since young. So, I would just love to leave this with the group.

Bryan: (00:48:26) That’s amazing. That’s amazing. Thank you so much.