This founder grew his business for 15 years, exited, and got into a different niche

A photo of Kent Wu.

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.

Kent Wu was the founder and CEO of Airsplat.com, a large airsoft retailer in the US (airsoft is a sport similar to paintball that uses spherical plastic pellets and airsoft guns). He recently exited from the company and launched his new venture called Milk and Eggs.

Milk and Eggs is a farm-direct artisanal fresh food delivery service that is currently expanding in Southern California.

In this interview, Wu shares his exciting entrepreneurial journey and the key insights and lessons he learned along the way.

Who is Kent Wu and what do you do for a living?

“So, I guess you could call me a serial entrepreneur. [I] started my first business in 2001. We did relatively well for about 15 years. We made it into Inc. 500 about, I think, four or five years in a row, and also made it into Internet Retailer’s Largest 500 Internet Ecommerce. So, I started that back in 2001, exited that—or sold it—in 2015. It was about close to 15 years.”

Let’s just run through what the first business was like.

“The first business was called Airsplat and we sold airsoft guns, paintball guns. We focused on shooting sports—anything tactical, anything shooting. It was predominantly male, but it was a lot of fun for I guess a lot of us, including the people inside the company.

“Airsoft [involves] little plastic pellets—6 mm in diameter—military simulation […], a lot of role playing, a lot of sportsmanship, a lot more shooting. It’s very strategic. Paintball is much more tactical and speed ball is a force on force. We sold both, so we were intimately familiar with both sides of the equation.”

How did you get into this sort of business? Tell us about your early days as an entrepreneur.

“I was not an avid player on either paintball or airsoft. I had played both once or twice.

“Really what spawned the company was, in 2001, […] the dot com bubble had blown up. There was a minor recession during that period, specifically in the ecommerce space. I had gone to school specifically [not for] computer programming or computer science. It was more cognitive—user interface design—somewhat peripheral to computer science. But I still ended up being in the IT industry.

“At the time I was [at] AOL-Time Warner, in the You’ve Got Pictures department. It’s the forgotten child of You’ve Got Mail. It was fun. It was pretty cool. I was there for a short time and the recession came around and they essentially closed our office […].

“I spent a few months looking for a new job, and my decision at the time was ‘OK, I’m going to give this a good try.’ And out of necessity, I can’t sit around idly forever. So, I told myself, ‘After four months, if I’ve found nothing, then I would just start my own business,’ because I really had no choice.

“I remember [after] two months, a friend had come to me and said, ‘Hey, have you tried this thing called airsoft? It’s really cool. It’s just like paintball but it’s better.’ [I] looked at it and said, ‘OK, wow. This looks pretty cool, so let’s try selling this.’

“I felt like there was opportunity—at least in this space. I feel like I was very fortunate, very lucky to have been at the right place at the right time—noticed an opportunity and really just took advantage of it.”

When you said, “I’m going to do this entrepreneurship thing,” how did that conversation go with your parents?

You had US$20,000 seed. What was the business model?

Was there a point when you felt like tossing in the towel?

Why did you decide to sell your baby that you grew for 15 years?

What was the strategy on being acquired?

Tell us about the new business.

How did you come up with this idea?

Who do you look up to or draw inspiration from?

How do you want to be remembered?