Digital Social Hour - From $38K to Millionaire: The King Ice Success Story | Cuong Diep DSH #583

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

From $38K to Millionaire: The King Ice Success Story! 💎🚀   Join the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly as we dive into the awe-inspiring journey of Cuong Diep, the visionary entrepreneur behind King Ice. 📈✨ From escaping the comfort zone in Norway to bootstrapping his way in the U.S., Kong's story is packed with valuable insights on ambition, sacrifice, and resilience.   Don't miss out on Kong's rollercoaster ride from being a chemical engineer earning $38,000 to building a multi-million dollar empire in hip-hop jewelry. His path is filled with unexpected twists and turns – from confronting a Dear John letter to outsmarting a controlling business partner! 😱✊   Tune in now to uncover how Cuong leveraged grit, determination, and a relentless pursuit of opportunities to transform King Ice into an iconic brand. Get ready to be inspired by stories of perseverance, game-changing partnerships, and the ultimate hustle!   Watch now and subscribe for more insider secrets. 📺 Hit that subscribe button and stay tuned for more eye-opening stories on the Digital Social Hour with Sean Kelly! 🚀   #DigitalSocialHour #SeanKelly #Podcast #ApplePodcasts #Spotify #KongDF #KingIce #EntrepreneurJourney #SuccessStory #HipHopJewelry #From38KToMillionaire   #38KToMillionaireJourney #StartingFromScratch #SuccessfulEntrepreneur #VietnameseEntrepreneur #ImmigrantStory   CHAPTERS: 00:00 - Intro 0:41 - How King Ice Started 4:33 - Leaving Your Comfort Zone 6:09 - Starting King Ice 8:15 - The Importance of Due Diligence 14:06 - Apply to be on the Digital Social Hour Podcast 19:34 - Upcoming Releases 21:14 - Best Collab King Ice Has Ever Done 22:34 - How to Land Big Collaborations 24:34 - Importance of Customer Service 26:20 - Outro   APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://www.digitalsocialhour.com/application BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail]   GUEST: Cuong Diep  https://www.instagram.com/mr.kingice https://www.kingice.com/   SPONSORS: Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly   LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Home ownership is your gateway to long-term financial stability. And in the St. Louis area, Guild Mortgage is offering up to $6,000 to help you buy a home. Guild's gateway to home ownership assistance can be used with most mortgage programs, even down payment assistance programs. Our St. Louis community lending team is here to help you apply. Go to guildstlouis.com or call 314-238-0174 to get on the path to home ownership today. Guild Mortgage Company. Equal housing opportunity.

NMLS number 3274. Yeah, I finished my last year of education in Oslo. Got my chemical engineering degree. And I got a dilemma. Either go to U.S., go back to school again, find the girl that dumped me, or be in the comfort zone work in Oslo chose to come to US that's my first step

of doing things that I want to tell you you have to leave your comfort zone to seek for some of the opportunities wherever you guys are watching this show

I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode. Ladies and gentlemen, someone I've known for a long time, founder of King Ice, Kong Diep here today. Thanks for coming on, man. Thank you. Thank you for the invitation. Absolutely, dude. Yeah. You've been someone I've

watched for my whole journey into entrepreneurship man what you've done with king ice is super impressive so congrats thank you it's been a long journey we've been doing this for 20 years now yeah not a lot of companies i read some stat i think 95 of businesses go out of business within 10 years or something so the fact that you're still here after 20 and you're killing it still is hats off to you and you started off like bootstra hats off to you. Appreciate it. And you started off like bootstrapping, right? Financing on your own?

Yes. You know, there's a lot of sacrifice you have to do to come to this level. Each step, there's opportunity for you to recognize it. And then what you do is some people see opportunity come in and come out, but they don't jump into it. I started a long time ago to actually leave my comfort zone and then seek out for something that's different. It went back all the way to Norway. I used to live there. That's why my accent is still there. I used to live in Norway for 20 years.

Damn. I didn't know that. Long story. My Vietnamese background after the Vietnam War ended, we were refugees and a lot of people want to come to America.

We end up in Norway, which is not a bad country to grow up in. It's safe. It's rich in oil and Norwegian salmon. So they take care of all the people here.

Free healthcare, free education. That's the comfort zone. And then coming over here to America, I had to leave my family for love. I came here. That's one of the reasons why I came to the US. For love, you said? For love, yes.

Follow someone that I admire and love at that time. Wow. Was it a girl or was it like a mentor? It? For love, yes. Follow someone that I admire and I love at that time. Wow. Yeah. Was it a girl or was it like a mentor? It was a girl, yes. We dated in Norway. She actually applied for school in the US.

And you know, international student, you have to apply for like a year ahead. Yeah, yeah. So in between the time she was waiting, we dated. I met her. We fell in love. She was waiting, we dated. I met her. We fell in love.

She was my first Vietnamese girl. Before that was all Norwegian girls that I dated at that time. So I felt connection. Vietnamese culture, ate the same food. Family had the same background. Fought the communists and all that stuff. Yeah. That was chemistry.

So when she left me me she gave me a little letter in Oslo we were supposed to go out and date she gave me a letter but the sister came out instead

and said oh my girlfriend and the sister said sorry my my sister's not gonna be here read this letter it would explain you everything

this is six months into the dating yeah with her and that letter it told me that she's on the airplane going to us and they didn't want to continue with the relationship dang so you chase her out there yes that was uh what do you call that letter uh dear john letter would you call that let's see that movie so that wasn't stopping you so So you chased her out there. Then what happened? Yeah, I finished my last year of education in Oslo. Got my chemical engineering degree.

And I got a dilemma. Either go to US to study again. Or I got a job offer too in Oslo as a chemical engineer. So either go to US, go back to school again, find a girl that don't meet or be in the comfort zone working in Oslo after graduation.

I chose to come to US. That's my first step of doing things that I want to tell you. You have to leave your comfort zone to seek for some of the opportunities. And I came for love to US.

Go back to school again luckily she didn't have a new boyfriend she didn't no she was still in love with me wow so i found it again so you got back together and are you still together yes now we have two kids together dude that's legendary's legendary. That's so beautiful. And did you speak English when you came to the US? Not that much. Wow. That must have been tough. Vietnamese and Norwegian is how I grew up with. Yeah.

So I went back to school. But as an engineer after graduation, you know, average salary at that time, 20 years ago was $60,000, $70,000 for new college students with chemical engineering i needed the visa to stay or else i have to go back to norway again yeah so i put myself in a position to get that job taking up a sponsor my uh my h1 visa so I put myself at 38,000 instead of 60 to 70,000 in the average.

Yeah. And I got the job. Wow. And I got the visa to stay. And you were making 38,000? 38,000. That's crazy. And how long did you have to stay there

for the visa to last? So the SAO was not my main focus. I just wanted a visa and I got the job. And after three years as a chemical engineer, I found out I don't want to do this type of work

for the rest of my life. It's a boring job, secure job, but I'm in the corporate rat race all the time. Yep. And it didn't go anywhere. So I started my side business

doing jewelry. But first, before I did jewelry, did african artifacts called jamaican tobacco pipes those two things didn't work out my third trial was jewelry and it worked it worked actually sold on ebay my first sale ever on ebay back then 20 years ago was popular yeah i i caught the tail end of it yeah i used it a little bit it was it was a great feeling getting that first sale online right and then um on the side business we needed uh someone with a jewelry background would also

can put money into the business we were broke. My business partner and I were my roommates at that time. Derek Bile, African-American, right? Born in Beijing. It's an interesting background too. So we didn't have any money, but we know where the jewelry district in LA is.

There's toy district, fashion district, jewelry district. We made a business card with two names on with the address. We knocked on doors around this area in LA. No one wanted to open the door for us. There's one African-American guy, one Asian guy, two strangers knocking on their business,

wanted to do business with them. We should just say that we know how to build a website. We can sell jewelry on the web we can bring your family business to the web even though we never did anything like that

before besides from eBay yeah and a lot of the companies in downtown they have jewelry high-end jewelry

diamond and gold they get paid in cash and all that stuff right to have it safe at the end of the day they put all that valuable stuff inside the whole guns inside there too yeah i've seen some of the safe before loaded with guns loaded with cash and money and gold and diamond

all from selling jewelry all the selling jewelry right but they see two strangers knocking they don't want to think you're robbing them exactly you have a business appointment and all that stuff didn't have it until i think two or three weeks into non-stop knocking on doors i think we're not going everyone's doors in downtown jeweler district until one guy opened the door he's a third generation juror and his family business has been doing business in miami chicago and la yeah he wants to bring the business to the web but he didn't know how to do it and here comes two idiots pretending that they know how to do it yeah destiny man and so you say okay come into my office in the talk and they say where do you live are you married can i come and see where you live and all

that stuff he asked you guys this yes he came and made sure that we uh trustworthy people wow stable people i love that man because people don't do their due diligence on their business partners you have to you have to yeah so we he found us at that time we live lived in Ontario, still students, and they came and interviewed us. And they said, okay, I'll be your third partner, and here's the business deal. Since you don't have any money, you can take all you want from my inventory, sell whatever you can, but you have to pay me $8,000 per week, $32,000 per month. That's the deal. Take it or leave it. But if you can sell,

you can always return it because you're going to use his inventory to sell. Right. Yeah, nothing to lose. We shook his hand and he became our third partner. But one thing he told me

on the first meeting, which I didn't like too much, he said, I live in Beverly Hills. I have a lot of experience. I have a lot of money. So you guys listen to me. From now on.

That didn't stick with me. He's my third partner. I want to start my own business, be my own boss. Yeah. Not to have another boss. So two years in the game, I noticed he

promised a lot of things. Never delivered. Controllers like with two young broke

students. And I said, why do I have to work for someone else now? At that

time, I quit my engineering job. Three years as an engineer. Started

this jewelry business. And i decided to get rid of my third partner which i had to take home equity loan to pay him off damn yeah so you were all in you had no other choice to make this work yes exactly eighty thousand dollar uh balance that we had i used that home extra line to pay him off. Wow. So you were very confident that this would work out?

Yes, but I didn't like the idea of having a business partner that would become my boss because I wanted to have my own business.

Agreed. Yeah, that's not a good relationship. If they're your partner, it shouldn't be a boss relationship. Right. If you're 50-50. Right.

But he had like all the cash and all the money he had that luxury uh comfort life that he wants to control us but um at that time yes um he built a new website because we kicked him out yeah he built a new website to compete with us similar product lower prices that was his first attempt to kill us second attempt to kill us

he reached out to all the contacts from the jewelry district and said Kong and Derek is no longer with me either you work with them or you work with me so all our vendors in downtown

they all dropped us they all dropped them? they all dropped me wow yeah and you were the new guy he was there for three generations yes

they chose you over him yes so he compete with the website kill all our contact and the last thing he did which is interesting it's

they call it keyword stuffing this black hat strategy that you can manipulate google search I've heard of it so you stuff like certain keywords so your website shows up when people google it and what he did was he put white text on white background so since we do the jewelry he put sterling silver jewelry

sterling silver jewelry sterling silver jewelry all sterling silver jewelry, sterling silver jewelry, all pages, white text on white background. So we didn't even see it. We didn't even see it. Wow. Until Google came over, the robot crawled over our website and noticed we were doing illegal black hat strategy. And immediately we were banned. Damn. You got banned off Google?

Our website got taken down. Oh my gosh. And you found out he did it? He found out he did it after we did an IT... We hired an IT company to do a research or a website.

Wow. How did he have access to edit it? Because he was one of the partners. Oh, so you forgot to revoke it after you... If you forgot to remove the... The login and all that stuff. Damn. Yeah. the partners oh so you you forgot to revoke it after you if you forgot to remove the login and all that

stuff damn yeah ex-partners can get a little bit crazy jealous

you know it's part of the game yeah have you guys forgiven each other since or we sometimes occasionally

meet him in downtown but at that time after they tried to kill us through all these various strategies, we decided, okay, now,

fuck downtown LA. Fuck the middlemen. Let's go straight to the source. Because people in the Jura district, they also buy from the factories overseas. Why not work with those companies directly? Smart. Cut out the middlemen. Yes, that not work with those companies directly? Smart. Cut out the middleman.

Yes, that's what we did. In 2007, we started working with overseas factories directly. Higher margins, less headaches, probably quicker turnaround. Are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? Well, click the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys yeah that's cool and what was that first winning product for you guys that took off so we did women jewelry with a little bit of portion of the collection of the inventory we had we call it hip-hop. It was at 10% of the inventory was hip-hop jewelry. 90% was Chanel, Tiffany, company lookalike women jewelry. Yeah. That 10% of hip-hop end up generating 70% of the income.

Wow. 78% of the income, that little portion of inventory. So we said, forget about other women jewelry. There's too many companies focused on women already. Why don't we just focus on men? But the jewelry we're going to make is not any type of men. It has to be hip hop,

street wear type of focus. That's what we started to do. A new branding, we call it ourselves King Ice at that time, 2007 2007 we changed our name changed our focus that's when we started developing our king ice brand by working on our own that third boss is gone have a focus on doing hip-hop jewelry that time nice and are you still solo or did you find partners i still have my my second partner, which is my roommate, Derek

Belay. Got it. At that time. We still do business together. Wow, that's cool, man, because it's very rare that the guy you start with is the one you finish with. Right. We went to the same school, have the same interests. Nice. That's cool. He's a great partner. And now you've got some of the biggest IP and brands in the world

doing collabs with, man. Right. I think it's those steps that I told you, you have to come out from the comfort zone. We were sponsored for one of the events for the game, a listening party. He had a new album called The Jesus Piece. So he wanted King Eyes to be the sponsor. So we did The Jesus Piece necklace

and all these hundred VIP guests that came in would get that Jesus piece in relationship with the new album called the Jesus piece. And there was Snoop. Snoop Dogg came in and all the celebrities came in and in the VIP lounge. And since I have that wristband being a sponsor, I got to meet him. Cool, man. And you got to make a death row records chain recently, right? Yes, so I got to work with him and his entourage people, not directly with his business

partner, but his homies. And those homies, you know, they hang around Snoop, they claim they are their business partner, they claim to be the manager and everything but most of the guys are just carry his bag i guess yeah i guess so many of those those managers you know you never know who the actual manager is yes and we work indirectly with snoop at that

point yeah but everything we give to sno, we have to give that friend of his jewelry at the same time. Right. Sometime the friend of Snoop out bling Snoop sometimes. I see

the guy wearing all the massive jewelry but Snoop didn't wear that many. He kind of overshined his boss. And he came asking for more and more

and more stuff. And until I told him enough is enough. I like to work with Snoop, but not with his friend. So I cut him off. So you cut off his friends? I cut off Snoop indirectly. Because I'm working with him indirectly.

So I cut off his friend. I said, this is giving him a Snoop free jewelry and his partner free jewelry. Nothing came back in return. So I cut him off. And then a couple of weeks later or a month later, Snoop called me on the phone. He said, I don't know what happened to you and my friend, but from now on, you work with me directly. Wow. Yeah.

Here's my phone. So here's my phone number. So just lock me in. That's dope, bro. Yeah yeah that was 2015 wow look at you now doing collabs with them that chain was really cool the death row records one um yeah that happens all the time in hip-hop i thought i was dealing with uh 21 savage his manager one time but it was just some fan some fans sent him jerseys and they just blocked me i mean it's a weird space navigating it you know there's so many people trying to be like almost like a parasite on on top of a celebrity trying to make money all the yes men around them trying to make people calling me trying to say hey um i need to get a hold of snoop because we

just paid fifty thousand dollars for a guy for a company to take pictures with Snoop. Snoop didn't show up. Jeez. Snoop was not aware of it. No one knew anything about this guy, but it was just a scam using Snoop's name. Yeah. A lot of people did that. Some guy did it with Ronaldo, scammed like $100,000.

Cristiano Ronaldo? Yeah, because he followed the scammer. I don't know why. And then the guy was like, yeah, I'm best friends with him. Just wire me the money and he'll post to you guys. He did wire the money.

Yeah, $100,000. That's crazy. And Ronaldo probably doesn't even know about it because he's got 100 million followers. He probably doesn't answer DMs. Right. Yeah, it's a lot of scams you got to watch out for.

Any upcoming releases you're excited about? Yeah, so Tiffany and Company just released Pokemon, right, last year. And that was

quite interesting because Pokemon normally don't release jewelry. So they picked two companies. It was Tiffany and Company

last year and this year we released with King Ice. It's a big deal for us. Wow. So we have with King Ice. It's a big deal for us. Wow. So we have Naruto as well.

I love Naruto. That's a classic. I've seen every episode. I've seen Naruto Shippuden as well. That's a great IP, man. I hope, yeah, once it's released, you'll be the one

to get the first set. Wow, I'm honored, dude. Yeah, I love all your stuff, man. It's so unique, which is why I love what you do because a lot of drawers sell the same things like you used to do. But you've carved a lane honor dude yeah i love all your stuff man it's so unique which is why i love what you do because a lot of drawers sell the same things like you used to do but you've carved a lane and it's cool we're gonna do a fortnight as well wow that's so cool yo deal a few deal i'm very selective

where i pick this time because before i have to chase them. Yeah. I want to work with those companies and then they only ask for money guarantee, MG, upfront guarantee. But now it's the other way around. They come to me now and I have the chance to be selected who I pick for this year, next year. So it'd be a fun way to do business since the table turns around now.

That's amazing. Yeah, those MGs are killer sometimes. I've heard super high. Marvel asks for $100,000 if you want to work with Marvel. Just to even work with them. Yes. And then they want royalties. Yes.

All that stuff. Yes. Wow. I mean, it makes sense. I mean, they're a multi-billion dollar company, right? Yep. Plus you're chasing them too. So you have to pay out front to get in.

Yeah. What's been your favorite collab you've done so far? The interesting was 7-Eleven. Believe it or not. The Slurpee? The Slurpee and 7-Eleven. The grand prize they give out every year during July 11. Hence, 7-11.

Yeah. They did a huge marketing campaign and they pay us a big chunk of money off front to develop a jewelry for them for their grand prices and whatever we saw

on our website. They didn't even ask for the royalty to be paid to them. Wow. No permission because they didn't care about how much jewelry we sell.

They just care that we do our own promotion on our website and do our own reach to promote it. And we managed to get Snoop Dogg wearing 7-Eleven. Wow.

Jamal Chase wearing it during the Super Bowl game. Not Super Bowl, during the football game. Yeah. He said, I'm always open. He reached the ball, grabbed it, ran to the touchdown zone in that Super Bowl during the football game he said I'm always open he reached

the ball grabbed it ran to the touchdown zone and he showed his 7-11 he said I'm always open

that's so funny man it was a great marketing campaign for them yeah they every year they seem to crush it

with that 7-11 day where you get the free Slurpees I see it all over social media that day that was the fun collaboration the second one is of course Death Row Records he's always on top with Snoop Dogg I see it all over social media that day. That was a fun collaboration. The second one is, of course, Death Row Records.

He's always on top with Snoop Dogg. He's a very cool guy to work with. That's awesome. I've also seen you do Sonic the Hedgehog, Halo, Wu-Tang, Pac-Man. I mean, you've got some of the biggest IP in the world, man. Now you're saying Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh! It's incredible. Thank you. It's a secret

to it to where to find those people that's uh i can tell you that it's a licensed show if people want to listen to to find out where they're going to find those uh collaboration opportunities yeah it's a licensed show believe it or not i use linked. LinkedIn, those people that work for big company, they always have a profile on LinkedIn. Wow. And you can find those people. That's a good technique because that's a slept on platform, right? Most people think of Instagram and TikTok, but LinkedIn is, I think, for older people usually, right? Even the target store that you want to work with. For example, my background was Zoomies.

It has 600 plus stores. If you go to the financial records, you can see all the board members, all the people, the VIP people on Google Finance. Just reach out to them one by one and represent your brand and say, hey, I want to work with your company. I have this type of product. And sure enough, they responded. The CEO of Zoomies said, hey, I have a buyer. I can send the buyer over to you to look at your product. Wow.

The CEO responded? The CEO from Zoomies. That's a multi-billion dollar company. Tom Cameron, yes. Damn. He told the buyer to go and look at King Eyes. That's so cool,billion dollar company. Tom Cameron, yes. Damn. He told the buyers to go and look at King Eyes. That's so cool, man. And that's how we got the business.

Yeah. That was through Google Finance, through LinkedIn, that route. Yeah, see, people aren't even willing to do this outreach, right? They think it'll come to them. But you need to put out some energy too to get some back. Right, exactly. And that's cool to see you do that even this late in the game, 25 years in, you're still willing to put your ego to the side and do some personal outreach. Because most people, they get comfort in the success they have, right?

Right. In the last stage where we are right now, having those business opportunities to work with big brands like Fox or Disney or Ycom, CVS or Snoop Dogg or the retail

partner we have also I prefer not to chase anyone else besides the people we have

already or the company we work with already it's better to pay attention to the

existing partners to work to maintain the existing partners, to work to maintain the relationship, instead of chasing new relationship and new business opportunities. I think this is the stage we try to maintain what we have. That's why you won't see me doing more trade shows. I might go to ComplexCon. The licensing show is to exhibit a product,

but no more sales team out there selling a product no more. Yeah. We just work with existing partners. That's super important to keep your customers happy, right? Sometimes business owners get excited by the revenues coming in and then they lose that customer service angle. Exactly. You have great achievement already

just after you managed to build that relationship. That's why you maintain that over many, many years to be able to present a new product, go and visit the headquarters instead of chasing another big cat. You have a couple of big cats already.

That should be enough. How many big sharks are you going to try to find? Yeah. Yeah. That's important, man. Well, Kong, it's been fun. Anything you want to promote or close off with? I just want to thank you, Sean,

for inviting me over here. Of course. We've been good friends for a long time. You've been quite fun to follow. I'm actually happy to see you succeed in your business as well. Yeah, it means a lot, man, because I know you were here for me. I don't know if you remember this, but you came on my first podcast six years ago. I did?

It was over Zoom. Over Zoom. It was so bad. I was bad at interviewing, and it was over Zoom. It's actually still released, but yeah, I was looking back. Look how far you've become. I i know six years later man so i appreciate your support and you always send me really cool stuff dude so thank you so much anytime yeah thanks for coming on and thanks for watching guys as always see you next time