How this American founder went from Wall Street to China

Photo credit: Pixabay.

This article is part of Tech in Asia’s partnership with The Jay Kim Show where we publish the revised transcripts from the show’s podcast interviews with top entrepreneurs. This is heavily revised from the original show transcripts. For the full interview, go here.

Mike Michelini runs Global From Asia, an agency that helps ecommerce companies set up cross-border businesses in China. I sat down with him to learn more about his story.

Michelini used to work at Wall Street for a while, and during that time, he was side hustling. That was even before that term actually existed. He was involved very early on in ecommerce, sourcing goods from China and selling them online on sites such as Ebay. His business got to a point where it made sense for him 10 years ago to actually physically move to China and set up shop.

Here’s my conversation with him.

Who is Mike Michelini?

My name is Mike Michelini. “American Internet Dude” is kind of what I write in some of my social media profiles. I’ve been podcasting a few years now on Global From Asia and China Business Cast. I love creating content. I blog a lot and do all kinds of content creation to help businesses in China and Asia.

I’ve done a host of different businesses. I mostly talk about ecommerce, online businesses, and online marketing, and currently, I do an accounting business. I also have some books and online courses, and conduct a yearly conference cross-border summit.

What made you leave Wall Street and start off on your own?

I thought I always wanted to be on Wall Street. I remember the movies, the cool stock trading floors, and the action. I was attracted to the energy. The funny thing is I have an engineering degree because my dad was an engineer and my parents didn’t want me to get a business degree. So, I actually went through engineering school, but as soon as I got out, I got into Wall Street.

The funny story is the company wanted me to work in the technology department. But during the interview, I told them I don’t like to do technology but trading. The hiring manager was like, “You know that I hire for technology and I can only hire for technology.”

Somehow, they liked that I was honest, so I came back for another interview at Deutsche Bank (I picked Deutsche over Goldman Sachs). I thought I would make as much money as I could. I didn’t come from a family of entrepreneurs, so I thought I had to get a normal job. I always wanted to start my own business, but I thought I had to do it later. I thought I had to get a college degree, a resume, an MBA, and then I could start a business.

It was the first day of orientation at Deutsche Bank and I was sitting next to a guy who had turned his senior design project into a mobile app (I’m still good friends with him). It was a mobile checkbook.

I wanted to help him, so I started digging into web server analytics and email lists. This was 2003 and I was so amazed at the power of the internet. I was helping him boost his ranking in the app system for iPhone and Android, and this was Java J2ME on non-Verizon. It was so complicated, but I loved being able to help how people could find the app and download it.

I was so in love with marketing online with tech, so I went back into tech while I worked part time at Deutsche Bank. Then, I got into my own business in 2004 and learned a lot by making tons of mistakes. I had to go through compliance with Deutsche by telling them about my startup because I didn’t want to sneakily do my business. But nobody—my family, co-workers, college friends—knew anything, and I was just making mistakes like crazy. It was so hard to leave the company because the money was so good—that’s the hardest thing. I was on MySpace, hustling with other entrepreneurs, and it was crazy.

When I had to make the decision to move away from my job and do what I wanted to do with my life, I wrote down three pluses and a minus of the decision.

What made you move to China?

What do you have in store for 2017?