Roman Khan: The Ecommerce Logistics Play Worth $10 Billion

**Sean Frank** (0:00)
Roman, tell us why Hong Kong is the capital of the consumer world. Why should I sell everything and move there?

**Roman Khan** (0:06)
I love it. We jump straight into it. No intro, nothing.
I think for e-commerce operators, I do think it's the Holy Grail and the Mecca. I feel like eight out of ten people watching this pod is probably making some in China or close to China, and nothing beats being closed to your supply chain. Number one. Number two, I just think Hong Kong is such a livable city, compared to most other cities. You have incredible beaches, insane nature, really good international schools, if you have young kids, and amazing childcare. Yeah, it's just very, very good. Every time I come to America and I see my rich friends with young families struggling, I'm just like, oh my God, I have people with half their income living like kings in Hong Kong. So I think that's my sales pitch. You should totally move to Hong Kong.

**Sean Frank** (0:57)
What I'm really interested in is you just do a big event in Hong Kong, hundreds of brands showed up, billions of GMB, and I think you're right, that if you're making stuff in China, like Hong Kong, people speak English, it's very livable, it's very safe, and you are 20 minutes from your supplier and not 20 hours. So I think it makes a ton of sense. But I want to hear what's been going on in your world. You're buying brands, you're selling brands, what's new? What does Roman want to talk about?

**Roman Khan** (1:24)
Yeah, quick context. I used to buy brands for a living and then I grew them and then I sold a couple of them, DTC brands. I paused that late 2024 So three years ago, I started hosting big e-commerce summits around the Canton Fair. So maybe people don't know what the Canton Fair is. It's a bi-annual trade show in Guangzhou, where factories come together across multiple categories. It's so big that there's three phases to the Canton Fair. And all of my mentees from Enterpass or my friends would pass through Hong Kong on the way to Guangzhou because the direct flights to Hong Kong are so great to Hong Kong. So I started hosting this event three years ago, trying to find acquisition targets. That's how it all came about.
And by the end of the first event, I was just like, you know what? This is really fun, throwing a party in my hometown. And it just became a thing. So I paused buying companies in 2004 I've been hosting these nonstop since post-COVID.
And it's just become a thing where it's a party for myself and my friends in Hong Kong.
So we get together for three days. I just had one last month where we had 65 e-commerce operators show up, maybe 20 non-e-commerce operators. We had like Ali Abdaal and Izzy, the YouTube influencers. And then we had a bunch of private equities show up. And we had a three-day summit where we just ran through workshops, enjoyed Hong Kong, we rented a huge boat to get out on the water, and just had a good time.

**Matt Bertulli** (3:05)
What are you hoping to get out of this, Roman? It's like you're going through all the work to bring all these people together, you're no longer buying companies. So it's fun, I hear that.
But the content seems pretty awesome. So what's the plan for you?

**Roman Khan** (3:18)
Yeah, I'm hosting another one in October. I actually should do the plug right now, because probably by the time people watch this, I'll have a URL on p21.io. So go check it out, sign up for the summit. What I get out of it is like an incredible network. So for me, every time I come to New York or San Francisco, I always leave super inspired. I want the same impact in Hong Kong. For me, change starts at home, so I want to have a real impact on my hometown, like Hong Kong. That's actually the primary driver for me right now. But the second thing is like I just learn a ton. So the average revenue among the participants were 72 million US. All of them are bootstrapped, except for one like Suri, this toothbrush company, maybe two. Two were not bootstrapped, the rest were bootstrapped.
The average age of a business was four years. The average person attending was like 27 So it's just an incredible group of people. Exceptional operators who are really in the weeds of things. So I just learned a ton. So we can go through the agenda and who we had come talk. So at Steve Chen speak, he's in my chapter in YPO. He's the founder of YouTube, like in the PayPal Mafia. So he was one of the keynotes. It's pretty incredible. He lives in Hong Kong.