|
The Transcript from
the interview |
| HATTIE: The man we'll first meet came to this country from Hong Kong to study physics at UCLA. Just before he completed his PhD, he made a major career switch from physics to toys. HATTIE: Here we are on the edge of downtown Los Angeles. This particular area is called Toy Town, and it was started by one entrepreneur who believes in bringing competition together. CHARLIE WOO (Mega Toys, Los Angeles): Yeah. And when I started we were the only one on this street. HATTIE: In the late '70's Charlie Woo and his family had just come to the United States. His parents opened a restaurant, but discovered it was too time-consuming. Using their contacts in Hong Kong, and bringing their four boys into the venture, they opened ABC Toys. Their goal was to manufacture and distribute toys to the smaller wholesalers who could not get products from the big toy makers. They found their niche and didn't even try to compete with the likes of Mattel. They bought rundown warehouse buildings and started encouraging others to rent from them and get into the same kind of business. Now there are more than 500 wholesale toy dealers within a few blocks of one another. CHARLIE: We were out there by ourselves, and a customer would have to come a long way just to buy from us, but when you create a wholesale district, and then when a customer, when a buyer comes to that area, they would come from one place to another to comparatively shop, and maybe they would end up buying more. HATTIE: (Voiceover) The Woo family has the contacts to design, manufacture and import toys, and sell to their customers at very low prices. CHARLIE: The word spread, and I had customers coming from all over the country and Mexico and South-Central Americas, to come to our place to buy. So I made sure that everybody that I do business with us, can make a profit. HATTIE: (Voiceover) In 1989, Charlie and one brother spun out of ABC to form MegaToys, and this year they will do $15 million in sales with 30 employees. CHARLIE: My brother and i felt that there was still potential for growth, and there were still areas that we could go into, because of the changing global-trading environment. HATTIE: When did you begin to hire other people? CHARLIE: When we grew to about $8-to-$10 million, then it became very difficult for the family members to do everything by themselves. When it was $2 or $3 million dollars, I used to get up in the morning and talk to customers and sell the items, and at night I would try to balance my books and keep the records, and sometimes I don't get to sleep until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. Sometimes I constantly had to remind myself that I cannot be in everywhere at once. I have to let other people do some of the job, and I have to find the people that I trust and get hands-off a little bit, and let them grow into that position. I think that's very important. At the beginning stage, I would find people greedy, fresh out of college, and eager to learn and eager to impress, but when you grew to a certain size, you do need, you know, people that are experienced, people with expertise. HATTIE: All right. Now what are the problems of a family business? (pause) He's not telling! CHARLIE: Having the whole family operate a business out of the same office, it's not easy. Sometimes the family members have to understand when one member make a decision, good or bad, that is the decision that the family has to live with. HATTIE: If I came to you today, Charlie--I'm young, I have a little bit of money, I want to start a business. What kind of advice would you give me? CHARLIE: Whatever type of business you are thinking about getting into, you have to understand the market situation and the potential for growth, and what are the problems in the area, and what are your potential customers, and are you capable of maintaining a customer base, and would that customer base disappear? My business is import-export and merchandise. And, for example, when I started the business, I had contacts in Hong Kong that were toy manufacturers. Right now there's no manufacturing in Hong Kong. Everything moved into China. And when I stopped buying from Hong Kong, then I moved my part buying to Taiwan, Korea, Japan, but now to China. Maybe in a few years it will be Mexico or Vietnam. So the dynamics of the market keep changing, and the business situations change all the time, but the opportunities are always there. Sometimes we have to be here, trying to find out what the consumer taste is all about, and then we do the design work and we would go overseas to the manufacturer and sort of supervise the production. HATTIE: You do do that, now? CHARLIE: Yeah, yeah, we have to do that. It takes a lot of hard work, and perseverance and stubbornness, sometimes. If you believe in something you have to go at it until you get what you want. Mr. WOO (Charlie's Father): (speaking in Chinese) HATTIE: (Voiceover) Charlie didn't leave his father stranded. The 80-year-old senior Mr. Woo continues at his own pace of $10 million a year. Here's what I learned from Charlie Woo: first, there is no substitute for hard work and long hours; second, control the process from idea inception to delivery; and third, don't be greedy. Old phrase, new meaning: "Lock and load" was originally a military term. Now it means: "Let's make a decision and get on with it." "A person can do anything. Desire is creation, is the magical element in that process. If there were an instrument by which to measure desire, one could foretell achievement." - Willa Cather HATTIE: As we go, remember this from Willa Cather: "The end is nothing. The road is all, and success is less interesting than the struggle." |