Hello, everyone. It is that time for the JMOR tech talk show. Where we answer questions about technology, explain the way they should work and why they don't sometimes. And now here's your host, John C Morley.
John C Morley: Hey everyone. Welcome once again to the JMOR tech talk show. Great to be here again, Marcus. Thanks for being here. How are you doing this evening?
Marcus: I am doing outstanding John, it is pretty good to be with you today as well. Another great Friday. We have made it to the end of the week.
John C Morley: Yeah. I don't know where the week has gone. Where's the month gone. We're going to say where's the year gone pretty soon, we are in January. So we can't really say that. We can say where did 2020 go. But you know, speaking about word of things, go and you know, people talking and communicating, you all know what this is? An iPhone, and I bet you've probably done this before Marcus. You ever send somebody a text before on your phone?
Marcus: Yeah, I have. And we think once we send a text out, that's it.
John C Morley: Well, you know, cause that's how people were trained. You know, you just send a text and you're good. So it's not so much problem with the iPhone, but it is in a second, but on the Android it's even more serious. So imagine you sending a text, whether it's a phone number or some password, and you think that it's secure, but really it isn't because somebody could actually intercept that text right in midstream. That'd be a problem.
Marcus: That is a huge problem. I mean, can you just imagine the things that like are getting sent un-encrypted?
John C Morley: Yeah, I can absolutely imagine it because I can tell you this, that on the iPhone if you click on settings, there's something here. You're not going to see it from my phone, but if you go to where it says, you can basically just, you'll get the blue. So that's a good way of knowing that you're sending an I message. Whether that's a picture or whether that's a text. Now, suppose you don't an iPhone. Well, there's ways around that. You actually can do what I still do because a lot of people are sending messages that actually do not have an iPhone. So I downloaded a program not too long ago. It's actually called telegram. You might've heard of it. It's a free program and it's getting so much exposure right now. I can't tell you every day, my phone is like, congratulate such and such. You just joined telegram. I'm like, who's this. And they're like part of my regular contact. So they're starting to scare people because when you text on an Android phone, it's not secure. And if you don't enable the IMessage feature, it's not secure on the iPhone. So you can get telegram, you can get signal, you can use WhatsApp, also so do Apple facetime. I really like telegram. There have not been any annoyances of telegram. You even have the ability to set up whether it accesses your contacts, whether you're using the microphones, Siri search yes or no. Do you want notifications to pop up on your screen? So when I click on that, do I want to see a screen sounds, badges, etc. Do I want to use cellular data for it? But what I like about telegram the most is that when you're using the program it's really easy to use. It has nice icons on it. And when you're actually typing a message, it actually will say like Marcus is typing and you'll literally see it. Now when they send the message, you'll actually get a green check mark when you send it. When you get the second green check, it'll let you know that the message was received.
Marcus: Yeah. Just like the IMessage. So this is great because they saw a like you said, you know and as an Android user myself, I try to avoid at all costs, you know, using just a regular text messaging. I definitely, you know, use all other options as best as possible to stay off the radar, so to speak. When I'm on, you know talking, saying, you know, doing anything, you know that's like I would consider a private conversation.
John C Morley: Exactly. Let just suppose that you went to Europe or you went overseas. So texting really doesn't work with a lot of carriers overseas, so you can use Skype. There's a lot of other programs, now signal's done by Microsoft. I'm not really crazy about that, but I actually like a telegram. I started using it several months ago. It's free. There's no pop-up ads on telegram. And there's just a lot of great things with it. I mean, you can set languages, there's chat folders. You can not only do texting on telegram, but you can actually have different types of communication. So not only can you just do texting, you can have voice communication. So that's a nice little device, nice little program for you. And it's really starting to catch on. The other nice thing about it is on telegram, telegram surpassed 500, and I am going to show this to you, 500 million active users the other day in the last 72 hours. So that's more than 24 million new users around the world. Thanks to this new milestone. They have made it possible for users every day to be popping up on telegram. And I'm starting to see people like, why are you on telegram? Oh, I'm concerned about such and such. And my friend said they downloaded it, or, you know, my son said he downloaded it. Okay, I just didn't think you were savvy to like, want to use it. So telegram is free. You can get it from the app store or the Google store really easy. So again we're always talking about keeping yourself secure and it's a freeway. It won't cost you any money. So if you are going to send those personal messages, do make sure you use it, but why should somebody be knowing your business? I mean, something as simple as you know, we're leaving for vacation. If you might not think that's a problem but suppose an unscrupulous person in the area finds it. Wow. I guess tomorrow's the best night to rob them because they won't be home. Remember robbers do want to break in when you're not home because they don't want to confront you, most smart robbers that is. I'm not talking about the beginners. I'm talking about the advanced, because those are the ones that are going to circumvent your alarm system, no matter what kind of security you have. So again, I don't say this to scare you. I say this to caution you, all right. So definitely check out those programs, telegrams, signal, WhatsApp, and apples facetime, of course, many of you are familiar with that. You do need to have an Apple ID to use Apple facetime. So that's important. You heard of Wikipedia before, right?
Marcus: Yeah. And happy 20th birthday to them, you know, this week.
John C Morley: Yes. Happy, happy birthday Wikipedia. So it becomes apropos to talk about them today. Everybody talks about people on their birthday, either with like a jiving them or, you know, kind of wishing them well. But you know the thing about Wikipedia is, you know, they were thought of as a joke for a long, long time. Oh, they are that want to be website. But you know, Wikipedia is interesting because you could get a Wikipedia page right now, but I'm going to caution you. Go to Wikipedia right now and start applying for some small pages and probably main pages too, but theirs is a problem with that. Suppose I don't know, you have an argument with your friend and now your name is up on Wikipedia. Anyone can comment on Wikipedia. Oh, he's an idiot. He didn't give me back my stapler. So now your laundry is now on the entire web. So be careful about setting up a Wikipedia account for yourself because you may get yourself in hot water. But the thing about Wikipedia that's really interesting Marcus is that Wikipedia is this wealth of knowledge, not just useful information, but a lot of useless information or what I like to call trivia, great conversation starters on dates or ones that'll probably leave you in the car if you talk about them too long. But so sites like YouTube, Amazon, Apple, and Google are now starting to really rely on Wikipedia to get answers to different questions.
Marcus: Yeah. It's kind of Ubiquitous.
John C Morley: Ubiquitous.
Marcus: Ubiquitous, because they're using it to like actually flag conspiracy videos and news stories. And now, you know, when you use Alexa, Siri search to answer questions, it's like, it's sort of like almost like a reference point, you know, and if you were in high school or college, you know, they will caution you about using Wikipedia. So it's kind of ironic.
John C Morley: Well, you know, the thing about it Marcus is that see people were against Wikipedia because they really didn't have a stable backing and they didn't really know how well the data you know, was put together. But even though people put the data together, because you remember it's a whole bunch of people that are doing it. They have found that most of these people are putting quality data out there. And for Google, Amazon, Apple, and YouTube to be using it as a reference, that's almost like saying that if we don't know a word, we go look it up in Miriam Webster's dictionary. So we're starting to put maybe not as much faith as we do into Miriam Webster, but they are starting to give it I guess, a higher scale of recognition.
Marcus: It does rank really pretty high when you search for things. And that is one of the most popular things about it. It's free of ads and it operates through donations. So I do applaud them for that.
John C Morley: It's a great thing. And it was actually set up because a lot of times you have a word, you have a concept, so you can create a word about something on Wikipedia and that's great. Or maybe you have a concept, or you have a business idea. That's great. But I don't encourage people to put their name there. Because if you're an author and you have a website, that's one thing and you can control the content. But when you put something on Wikipedia, it's a place where people can just publicly post about you, good or bad, or maybe lies.
Marcus: So with that last comment, John, I just got to ask you, so do you feel like they're living up to their goal to making it a wildly assessable encyclopedia? Despite that comment?
John C Morley: I think they're really working hard because see, you don't get a main page Wikipedia overnight. You can apply for a branch. You'd probably get that pretty quickly. And then I'm not going to say you're just going to get a Wikipedia right away. They're really going to look to see that makes sense to give you something. And I don't think that Wikipedia wants people to air their dirty laundry or X-rated content on there. I think it is designed to really provide knowledge and be like an encyclopedia in the electronic format. We all remember Britannica, encyclopedia Britannica and other encyclopedias. And then they went online, and it just made it so much more enjoyable because people could get the 3D experience and they could hear things and see things. And it just made people want to learn more. But with that thought you know, and a lot of things evolving. We have a recent alumni from space X who has a brand-new startup. I'm not sure if you heard about this.
Marcus: This is my first time hearing about it to be quite honest. But once you drop me over the story, I looked it up and I see that what they are doing really is going to help people make better diet decisions.
John C Morley: Yeah. So what they're going to do at least, or what they're saying right now is they're going to be able to tell you what your Realtime metabolism is. I think that is incredible. There was a company a while ago that I actually purchased and I thought it was going to do this, but it really didn't. You would take breaths, so many breaths every so many hours. And it would try to give you a status of your metabolism, but really it just gave you like a one, two or three or four. It really didn't give you much, it was expensive device. It was couple hundred dollars. It was a really cute looking device, but it really doesn't do anything. Great. It kind of tells you whether you're doing something right, or you're doing something wrong, but it really doesn't give you any guidance, almost like a fad. But I think this startup that they're working on is going to be pretty amazing because, you know, they're getting all these people on board to want to do this. And, you know, being a let's say a former engineer of Mr. Ellis' company you know, it's going to be interesting and you actually can do a lot. Because think about this, he launched this to build this LA startup. It's like this new ecosystem that the space X alumni, and he's trying to create, if you will assist them, like you said, that's going to teach people how to eat better. And it's going to use AI technology. I'm curious to know how it's going to work and is it really going to deliver what you and I expect is going to give somebody value to change their life? Or is it just going to give somebody a number? Because the product I bought a few years ago was terrible. It was a great, sexy toy gadget, but it didn't really do anything nice. It talked to me, linked to my phone, but it really just didn't do anything for me. And I think that's sometimes a pitfall a lot of times that we fall into is that we want to buy the new technology. We want to test it out. But the funny thing about this Marcus, there was no return policy on this, it was 12 days. But you really couldn't start getting to know the system for like 60. So how can you offer a return policy for 12 days when you're not happy? I don't know. So it's going to be interesting, we will follow the trends on, you know, where that's going with that alumni person and see what's going to happen. But I think it's definitely going to be something that has never, ever been done before. And we'll just have to keep following that but being able to measure your metabolism and for those of you that don't know that's actually your body's a system that actually gets rid of your food and actually turns it into energy or to fat. And so if you know that if you eat a cookie or you have a drink, a glass of soda or water, hopefully, which has zero calories, or you have that water that somewhat flavored with 30 calories or something, you will know what kind of energy needs to be exerted to burn off that set of calories that you've just consumed. So I think it's going to be pretty priceless.
Marcus: This is definitely going to be a trailblazer type of intervention that's coming our way. When you think about things like diabetes, it is a huge problem in America. So I'm looking forward to it. I'm excited about it. And to be able to do this in real time, we can really take a more holistic approach about what we want to do for our bodies.
John C Morley: My only concern is how they're going to do it. Are they going to have something that you're going to put on you? Is it going to be something very simple or is it going to be something very evasive? I'm hoping it's just going to use some type of scanning technology, but I don't know. The other device uses breadth and bases on the type of breath that I take, they can tell basically how much I’ve consumed and how many calories I burned. But I think the technology Marcus was there, but in this particular device that I had, they just didn't push it to really analyze. But I think the breath is the key to unlocking our metabolism.
Marcus: That makes a lot of sense.
John C Morley: So speaking about technology and things that are, you know, blazing all over the world with different let's say a raise of interest levels and things that are going to be in the future. We have an interesting guests coming up that I want to share with you. So there's a gentleman, his name is Tino Go. We're very fortunate to have him on our show today. He's actually the founder of Baru Furniture, but what he did was not just become an internet retailer of custom furniture. He works with cabinets and millwork manufacturers throughout the United States. And he lets you manufacture pretty much a custom piece of furniture with a variety of options using CNC machines, which are really robots. And if you're wondering what a CNC machine is, cause I'm sure you're probably going to ask me to what is, what is a CNC machine? Well in English you know, what a CNC machine is. It's a computer number control system and it follows a specific program and can make cuts punch things, a whole bunch of stuff it can do. And it does it in the same way every single time. So we call it a robot, but the older term for a robot was a CNC machine. And we've had them for years and years, and years and years, but now they're becoming a lot more robust in what they can do. And we don't really refer to them as CNC. We refer to them more as a robots. So what he was able to do is he allows these companies that basically had downtime on their, he calls it the CNC machines and he has worked arrangements with them so that he could buy time to basically manufacture furniture by using his app, which is pretty neat. He has founded Baroo and they deliver custom home furnishings to consumers and Go discovered that ordering a custom bookcase was downright medieval. Thus, his app was born. Please help me welcome to the stage Tino Go from Baroo furniture.
Good evening, everyone. John C Morley here with the JMOR Tech talk show. And I'm very pleased to have Tino Go with me today. A serial entrepreneur that is helping us understand something that is starting to cross many people's paths, whether you're in business or whether you're a consumer that needs these products. How do we actually digitize the manufacturing supply chain? We're going to learn a little bit about that through some of the things that Tino has done and is continuing to do himself and with his company. So I have to ask you this Tino whenever we talk about any of these types of things, what got you so passionate and wanting to follow this particular area in business?
Tino Go: Yeah, yeah. So essentially it boils down to two reasons. First of all, I looked for a bookcase for a particular corner of my house and I couldn't find one. And when I investigated how to get it made, I discovered it was a medieval process. And that was super frustrating to me. How we'd have to succumb to these antiquated processes in the 21st century. The second thing is my profession, or my expertise is in corporate finance and how to restructure organizations do end up with better financial results. And I knew that there was a lot of automation out in the world that could be used for this just in time custom manufacturing, that should be able to be used to their ultimate purpose, making things for people who want products. And so that, that was how I came into this idea and I knew that these machines were available, and we should be able to talk with them through our computers, through the internet. You're muted, John.
John C Morley: Very interesting story about how you got on this interesting path. And as you, you know, now we're probably working through some of the challenges and tribulations and growing this. I have to ask you, so what is it your company is creating and when we say creating are you doing anything with local jobs? And is this having any specific effect because of the current pandemic or not really?
Tino Go: Absolutely. Absolutely. We've discovered, we're reinventing, we're using augmented reality to reinvent, radically reinvent manufacturing. At the same time, we're supporting our hometown businesses. We're helping to create hometown jobs and we're saving the environment. And so the way we're doing that is we are letting buyers select the product. They want to customize it directly on their computer, or in augmented reality. And when they place that order, we're digitizing those consumer, those customer specs for the product and translating into the code that drives CNC machines. These are robots, robots that are located in our hometown custom shop or millwork work millwork workshop. And so we're using those idle machines to bring back production jobs to our hometown from our hometowns, from overseas factories. And so, in our first category wood furniture, if we have the whole market, we will eliminate $9 billion of logistics costs, and we are redistributing that to local manufacturing services. So that way we can charge the same price, but we're just reallocating the cost structure.
John C Morley: Now, Tina, you, and I know what CNC machines are, but many of our viewers do not. Could you give us a, maybe a quick 32nd bird's-eye of what is CNC manufacturing and how does it work in a nutshell?
Tino Go: Yeah. CNC machines. They are robots. They're instructed to do what they what the manufacturer wants them to do. And so if you think about it, it's kind of,it's like sending, it's like sending a word document to a printer, you know we are sending that machine, the instructions, how to cut wood. And it cuts the wood that we feed the machine.
John C Morley: Very similar. I think for our audience to maybe understand when you go to the malls a lot of times, and you see these people making caps, or you see them making embroidery items. Now it's not on the exact same level, but I guess it's a very similar concept because you are taking some information not as complex and sending it to different areas that actually has the machine, instead of printing with ink, it actually prints with thread.
Tino Go: That's exactly it, that's exactly it.
John C Morley: Similar to our 3d printing, which we're starting to see now too, where 3d printing is printing with different types of polymers, plastics, and even certain types of metal now that is becoming quite cost-effective, isn't it?
Tino Go: Yeah. And so that's the whole point. I mean, everyone wants something different in their home or in their office. And we are allowing them to, with a few taps of their phone to take our pre-engineered product and customize it to the size, with the materials, with the components they need as an individual buyer. And we are taking those instructions from the consumer and translating them into instructions that run the machines.
John C Morley: When you say instructions, because while the people again are not engineers, and maybe you're not carpenters or builders, when you're saying instructions, you're basically referring to choices or selections that people make on your website or your app. Am I correct?
Tino Go: Sorry. That's exactly it. Sorry. So when someone wants to buy a or, and entertainment center, for example, but they happen to live in New York. And so they needed five inches more narrow, but they wanted 10 inches higher, so they can maximize their space for example, or maybe they live in none in a 1920s, the legacy home, and they need a different size to fit the spot that they've got. That's what we're allowing people to do. They take any of their products, the ones that they love, and we're allowing them to customize it. And we're taking those customization instructions and translating them into manufacturing instructions.
John C Morley: So it's like the refrigerator. Now we can actually flip the door on the refrigerator, but a while back, you couldn't have the refrigerator opening to the other side. So you had to build your kitchen, I guess, for a right-handed person and not left-hand. So I guess that was something that changed with just-in-time manufacturing, but, you know, as you're doing this, this is just amazing to hear about this, this new type of technology and how you're embracing it. I bet you're probably facing some challenges with this and I have to ask what's the biggest one that you've probably had to overcome and are there any that you're still wrestling with right now?
Tino Go: Yeah, the biggest challenge was to get people to imagine that this could even exist. It's never existed where you can you know, until now where you can just or there's something custom made and have it delivered in a couple of weeks. And so getting people to imagine and understand that this is possible was the biggest challenge. And then but now people are understanding, you know, we're operating and selling in 12 regions of the US. So you know, we sell, and then we set up a manufacturing partnership in that region, in that city. And then so our next challenge is, the fact that we're kind of constrained on the budget on the marketing budget.
John C Morley: I guess, you know, whenever a company is starting out, there's always different things, whether it be cost or whether it be planning or trying to do things in a way that's going to make sense, what's going to work right for everyone, not just for the consumer, but also for the business, because if it's not profitable, as you know, being in the financial industry you don't do something if it's not profitable, right? You don't do something to make it easier for someone, even though we want to help people, right. If it's not profitable, well, why do we want to have a business for it? My other question I have for you. So now that you've explained some of the challenges, I like to know what is, let you say your biggest strength right now that you bring to our marketplace.
Tino Go: Our biggest strength is that we can provide for buyers exactly what we want and deliver it in under two weeks. It's made them their hometown. We're providing local labor, and we're saving the environment for those who are attuned to this situation of environmental harm. And yeah, that's pretty much it. We're a supply chain solution. And by being more efficient, we're providing those businesses much higher profits than they normally earn from the regular rate.
John C Morley: So if we want to look at this from, I guess, a cost perspective, because that's how everything always evolves, right? What is the ultimate problem that you're solving for people today? Whether it be businesses, whether it be consumers, what is that real problem you know, break down to.
Tino Go: Ultimately, it's personalization. When you want to buy something, you know, exactly, you know, you have an idea of what you want to buy and you just want what you want and currently to buy furniture, you have to find something you want. And then often if you're space constrained or style constraint, you know, what you choose to buy is the least offensive solution for the problem you're trying to solve. Or often a lot of times you just can't find what you're looking for. And that buyer experience is just what we're solving for. And on the manufacturers side manufacturers, our manufacturing partners, they're generally earning about 10 to 20% profits, unit profits on their work. We're actually doubling or tripling those profits. And we're still saying at the consumer price level that they expect, that's all, that's all because we've eliminated so much of the transportation and inventory handling in the existing industry.
John C Morley: So that's all because of, I guess, a combination of the just-in-time manufacturing and I guess, utilizing the machines so that when these machines that are normally working in a typical day, they're not working 24/7.
Tino Go: No, in our manufacturing partners, they're generally only working two hours a day.
John C Morley: so they're happy when you can give them a price. Maybe it's not the full price that they would normally make, but I'm sure they're happy to have that cost. Especially if they're leasing these machines.
Tino Go: They are elated. And actually we are paying them their list rate for a low volumes, but they're dropping when we pay that much, they are dropping 80% of what we paid them to their pre-tax line.
John C Morley: Is there anything right now that you wish, and again, of course, you're very grateful for all these people that are helping you. I would definitely be. Do you wish there was something that they could do for you that they're not doing right now?
Tino Go: The manufacturing partners?
John C Morley: Yes. The manufacturing partners. Is there something that you wish they would be able to do to make your process a little bit easier?
Tino Go: No. Our existing manufacturing partners, no, because we've taken our process down to a level where it's almost effortless for them. You know, we go straight to the shop floor, we deliver the materials for them and buy and deliver the materials for them. And, you know, ultimately what do I wish they would do is you know, they could promote what we're doing. It would give them additional business also. So that would help both of us.
John C Morley: I guess, in terms of manufacturing. So you actually buy the product for them, you send it to them and then they just make it, am I correct? So they really don't have to do any thinking other than you're sending the instructions, which are already made for the machine that really don't have to do anything. They just have to load the raw material into the machine and make sure it's loaded properly and maybe do a cut sample and then they're ready to run. And am I correct?
Tino Go: Yeah, that's right. And the process is so robust. They don't even have to do that sample because it's, yeah, it's plug and play.
John C Morley: Is there a certain time for, I know because many years ago I helped design the system for Stanley. Is there a, at that time it was like one every million blades, which is a lot. But back then, you know, that seemed great. Now that's a low number. What is the test rate? Do you know, like when you're making this, how many units that you have to calibrate for, or that's not even a thing that you have to worry about?
Tino Go: No, the software is robust enough now, and it simulates perfectly. And then the machines, you know they work even poorly maintained machines work well, within 32nd of an inch.
John C Morley: So anyone could operate these machines, whether they're out of high school, whether they have a degree they don't need a lot of training to operate these machines. Am I correct on that?
Tino Go: That's correct. We are doing all of the thinking and we are delivering the ready to go machine code.
John C Morley: So this sounds really awesome. I'm sure more people are going to be taking advantage of this, this great new process that you're bringing to the market. I have to ask you in the challenge question, you know, whenever you have something like this, there's always a limit. And I always have to ask that because that helps us to expand into, you know, go further. What is the limit? What can't we manufacture this way? Is there any type of product or item that is going to be a little bit of a problem, at least right now, and why?
Tino Go: There are very, there are actually very few limits. Each machine class has limits on what it can produce, but you know, you have other machines that will curve you know, a bust of Abraham Lincoln if you want. So it's truly limitless.
John C Morley: So basically, I assume the only limit might be the material, cause there's obviously some limits to what the CNC machines can work with. Am I correct on that? Would be metal or wood.
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Tino Go: Yes. You have woodworking machines, or you have metal working machines or you have...
John C Morley: plastic.
Tino Go: Plastics.
John C Morley: So I guess the biggest challenge I probably would hear is that you have to decide how you want to make this and that's something you decide and then you get it. Basically, this is a fabrication process. So manufacturing and fabrication are the same thing, but because you can do it just in time, you don't have to waste that raw material. And you're able to do that for other jobs. You don't have to stock, I guess, a lot of this raw material, because I assume a lot of the supplies are very similar. Am I correct?
Tino Go: Yeah. We're only specifying the supplies that are available already in distribution quickly, quickly available, quickly delivered.
John C Morley: This may be a stupid question, but how many I know you said you give a lot of choices, let's just take, what's one of your popular items that you have. Is it a desk or chair? What's one of your popular? A desk. So, how many roughly customizations could I make on that desk and what are some of the types? Not so much that I can move left so many inches, which obviously yes and no, but what are the other types of, let's say benefits as a feature to me as a consumer or to me as a place that try to wholesale these, to let's say a place that needs furniture. What do I have at my disposal to choose from besides color?
Tino Go: You know let's start with the dimension. So if you can change the dimensions of a product, height with depth, 20 inches in each direction, you know, you have 8,000 size variance, and then you multiply that by material selection and color selection and the hardware choices. So for every product model that we offer, you could, you know, we could have 20,000 different variance, skews if you want to call it that. And so to the customer, they can choose any of those variance. And it's a very customized experience to them.
John C Morley: So it's almost like, you know, like you said, go to a website, picking the options you need. So somebody doesn't really need to know the skew. They basically look for the desk, is that correct? And then they, or they say, I'm looking for this size desk and then it comes up with things that are in that range?
Tino Go: No. You choose the product you want. Color the dresser. You use, either our app or a measuring tape to determine the size you want it. And you place an order for that size in the material you want. And we deliver it in under two weeks.
John C Morley: Now, does the consumer pay for this right at time of order? Or do they pay a part of it? How does this get billed to the consumer?
Tino Go: Yeah, they paid for it just like they would buy from Amazon. They paid for it and we deliver it in a couple of weeks.
John C Morley: In a couple of weeks. So somebody orders something, does it matter where they are in the country or you have pretty much places all over the people can order?
Tino Go: Right now we're in Metro areas of the country. As we get sales, you know one of the things I do is my first communication as you are our first client in that Metro region. You know, it may take us a little bit longer than two weeks. And so, but generally we establish manufacturing partnership in that Metro area within a few days of the order.
John C Morley: So they can go online, customize. They actually get to see a 3d, like a 360 view of the item. Is that correct? They can actually rotate it, very similar to like you see a lot of technology, you can pivot it to see exactly yourself holding it pretty much.
Tino Go: Absolutely. They can download our app and see the product in augmented reality in their space.
John C Morley: So this is quite remarkable because, you know, when you think about manufacturing, you always think about limitations to how many you have to produce to get the right cost. And with this, I can actually build something and actually get that same discount that I would if I was going to a large manufacturer and they would normally making in a traditional means. But because of this method, you're able to lower the costs. I'm assuming this is also going to help people, businesses that want to even lower their costs that would already be cheap. They could get even lower if they still want it to use this method too or no.
Tino Go: What we are eliminating from our cost base is the global transportation and the management of inventory. And so those are non-value-added costs. So what we've done is we've taken that 50% cost reduction and we'd reallocate it to higher quality materials, local manufacturing services. And so the customers getting a higher quality product at a market equivalent price.
John C Morley: So, we've talked about a lot of things for consumers and for businesses. Is there anything we haven't really shared is in terms of benefits to the consumer and the business? Have we talked about anything or is there anything else that we've left out to a benefit for the consumer and to the businesses that they may take advantage of using this particular process?
Tino Go: Well, the businesses for example if you're talking about business buyers, they can reduce their lead time because normally to outfit the office is in the weeks and months of timeline, and we can reduce that lead time, you know, to the, until to a minimum of two or three weeks. And so that has all kinds of operational benefits in the sense that it reduces the risk of the build-out, for example. In terms of consumers, they get a better-quality product. It's customized just for them. It's made quickly and delivered from a hometown facility. So if they have any problems with it, you know, we know we can fix it with, you know, being a hometown facility.
John C Morley: So you got a guarantee right there with their purchase. What is the guarantee for the items? Is it like 90 days? Is there a term period on the warranty or no?
Tino Go: Yeah, we're offering a two-year warranty and a 30-day return policy. Even though it's custom made, if they don't like it, we'll refund that 90% of the purchase price.
John C Morley: That is pretty neat. Now, when you talk about all this mass customization and custom mass production, because that's really what you're doing. You're doing custom mass production at affordable prices with people's own personalization and customization, right. 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Now they don't make it 24 hours a day, but you can go at 3:00 AM in the morning or have a latte and do it at nighttime. You could do it right after breakfast. So I guess time is great because nobody wants to go to these different furniture’s. Some of it starts with an I, some of it starts with a T and although they're very nice, they're time consuming. And I think you've got a great time now with COVID because people really can't shop the way they did before.
Tino Go: Yeah. I've been noticing that a lot of our orders are happening around midnight actually.
John C Morley: And I guess that's no surprise because people are busy during the day. I say that there are two types of time for business owners. Basically there's revenue generating time and there's non-revenue generating time. And if there's something you're doing, and it doesn't have to do with making revenue. Well, you want to make sure it's in the non-revenue generating time, or that's probably going to get that business owner to not be too happy with you or not schedule you. So I think those are important points, but also when we talk about this there's something, I think call, is it industry 4.0, is that the standard?
Tino Go: Absolutely. So industry 4.0 or what they call the also the fourth industrial revolution is the next evolution of manufacturing or where, well, the first industrial revolution was the mechanization of through water and steam power. The second industrial revolution culminated with widespread mass production methods that was enabled by widespread train networks and the Telegraph. The third industrial revolution occurred in the eighties and nineties when computers became, when they became common and there was more and more digitization of business processes and you know, business processes and practices. The fourth industrial revolution is taking all of those separated individual, but digitize processes and connecting them into systems and ecosystems, if you will, to cooperate. And that's what we're doing. We're taking cellular phone technology and augmented reality and connecting it directly to a manufacturing facility and the underused robot CNC machine to produce customer goods on demand.
John C Morley: So it sounds like you have a great plan here and you have a great vision with, you know, where you're going with the company. What are your plans next, you now? Obviously, this is something you're going to keep developing. I'm sure the supply chains, you'll keep developing. What's on Tino's roadmap to do next?
Tino Go: We are in the process of scaling revenues in two regions where most of our sales are occurring anyway. That's the San Francisco Bay area and the New York city region, you know, and eventually we're going to scale our sales there, improve our gross margins. And then we'll, you know, focus on all the other cities that where we already the heads sales and where we will get sales in the future like Chicago and St. Louis and, you know, Austin. And eventually the goal is to once we have, once we're ready, we can globalize our infrastructure because globalization just requires a brand-new website in the local language and new supply relationships, these machines are everywhere in the world.
John C Morley: So it's pretty easy to scale and they speak everyone's language because the machines are pretty much just like oxygen is everywhere or other types of machines like mixers. You can get them everywhere. So this is becoming something that it's not going to be hard to find as the years you know, go on. Question comes to mind, being another serial entrepreneur that you are, I would like to know what can you share with our viewers? What lessons did you learn by doing all this stuff that you've done, obviously being in a business and then going into your own business, what have you learned and what can you share with other serial entrepreneurs that maybe want to get started, but really aren't sure because they don't know what's going to happen.
Tino Go: That is nature of starting your own thing. You never know what's going to happen, but you keep going down the path. And there's a book called the Alchemist that tells a story about someone that goes on a journey. And as they keep going down on the journey, you know lucky breaks happen over time and they meet new people that help, or they come across some lucky event that helps on the journey. And so entrepreneurship is a lot like that because you meet people who want to help, who love the business, who want to buy products from you, and it's all starts with that. You know, the previous step that you made the day before that continues your journey.
John C Morley: I always say Tino, that you know, first of all, if you're going to be a serial entrepreneur, you have to throw away the clock. If you are a person that's going to punch nine and out five, well, don't be a serial entrepreneur. Because the hours are not on nine to five. They're not a banking schedule. So if you can't deal with that, bye. The other thing I tell people is that, except for, you know, we have to make some investments, you have to take some risks. You need to understand that you have to play a little bit and you have to have your plan and what you're going to do, but you have to play and try things. And if it doesn't work well, okay, don't get frustrated, just retool and try again. Maybe don't throw the whole kitchen sink away, maybe just change the faucet or change the color of it, you know, and maybe you'll have something that sparks.
Tino Go: That's exactly it. It's a series of experiments. It's like, was it Thomas Edison that discovered the 100 ways not to do things?
John C Morley: Yes. Yes. He only found 999 ways that the light bulb that didn't work, 999 ways that the light bulb you know, did not work. So I think a key thing is knowing where you want to go. But the last question I have for you, Tino is what would you say are three characteristics that you need to have, or traits to be an entrepreneur in today's economy?
Tino Go: I think it helps to have a, to know who you are as a person and is professional. And then, so that way, you know, whom you need around you as a team. You know, I’ve got almost 20 people on that surround me. Each one is expert in their fields. And but each one is very different from me. So that way there's not so much overlap in what we're doing. And so there's a good, you know, good separation of responsibilities. Good ownership. And there's also good, there's also good cooperation because everyone brings their own expertise to the table. Yeah, it's, I mean, there are so many things, you know I would always seek advisors because you can't know everything. And so John and you know, each time we talk, I get insights.
John C Morley: I think that's what fuels everybody each day to live our own mission. A wise person once told me something. And you know, if everyone in this world likes you a hundred percent, not that that's a bad thing, but it's not a great thing. No, not that people hate me, but if everyone in this world likes me a hundred percent of the time, know what that means? John's not bringing his A game and I'm not being competitive enough. So if everybody likes you for what you're doing, you're not working hard enough. And I don't mean working hard enough. You're not being creative enough. If you got those people that don't like what you're doing, that's good. That's a good thing. It's these people that are fearful that you might get ahead. And they just don't like that.
Tino Go: You know, most of the world, I think are happy doing regular jobs, 9-5 jobs and not challenging the status quo. There are some of us that feel compelled to challenge the status quo either because of how we were made or it's a combination of that's the way we're made. Plus we see an opportunity.
John C Morley: Tino, this was really interesting learning from you and also about your vision and your financial background, and also how you took all these pieces to, I guess, a big enigma and kind of put them together into something that makes sense. And I know our viewers definitely appreciate all the insights you've brought with us tonight. Is there anything you'd like to leave with our viewers before I say goodbye to you today?
Tino Go: Sure. We are selling stock in the company on Wefunder, wefunder.com/baroofurniture. And for as little as $250, you can buy ownership in our company.
John C Morley: And $250, is a one share of stock?
Tino Go: $250, it's not one share. Well, the current valuation is $4 million pre money. And so $250 that will you a lot, but it will give you piece of the company none the less.
John C Morley: That is great. So if you want to be part of history, ladies and gentlemen, you can check that out. Once again, Tino, thank you very much for your time, really enjoyed having you on the JMOR tech talk show. We wish you a very happy, healthy 2021. Now that we are in a brand-new year, great time for new visions, great time for new types of ways of doing things. And most importantly, to do them faster, better, cheaper and with greater results for the ROI. Again, it has been a pleasure. And again we wish you all the best with your company and with selling your stock and with all the new visions that you're putting forward in this amazing new journey that you have started not too long ago.
Tino Go: Thank you, John. Thanks to everyone. And I'm available at tino@hellobaroo.com if anyone wants to contact me.
John C Morley: Great. Thank you again, Tino.
Wow. What'd you think of that? Marcus
Marcus: That was just great value. Once again, slam dunking it. Really appreciate it.
John C Morley: Thank you so much Tino, you know, and the thing about Tina that I have to share with you is that he came from the financial world, and he basically didn't start a furniture making company. He took a process, and he automated it, and then he was able to have local businesses be able to use their downtime to basically make money. Now he did negotiate a lower price, but if you're paying a lot of money for a machine every month and it has lots of down errors, I'm sure people would be more than happy to get something for the machine because it's sitting there with dead weight. So I think this was really a remarkable, an ingenious idea that he had. And it's just fascinating know that he came from the financial industry and he became tired with the way things were running. And he was frustrated when he went to buy that bookcase. So a lot of times, you know, when you're working for a company, even though your degree might be in that, that may not be what your passion is, ladies and gentlemen online. So you really have to pay attention to what happens and what unfolds in your life because that nine to five job or what you signed up for a few years ago may not be what you're destined to do.
Marcus: I think that's the biggest message that we can pull out of this. And that is so important.
John C Morley: It is. What was the thing that stood out to me the most was how it's not about making furniture. It's how he took a process, and he automated it, and then put into an app.
Marcus: That's brilliant.
John C Morley: It was very brilliant. So you can actually, you can go to his website and you can actually you know buy stock in his company. I think his company is definitely going to go somewhere. He's spoken in a lot of different places and he has a really revolutionary concept that I believe is going to be, I'm going to see a founding pillar for where we're going to be going in manufacturing in this new decade. I think he's really setting the bar to where we're going to start going.
Marcus: He's definitely leading the way, and he's definitely an innovator here.
John C Morley: And these are the kinds of people that we like to have on the JMOR Tech show that, you know, are innovators, that are leaders or the are beginners in their field. And just, you know, taking a risk, especially when it comes to technology, but to come from the financial industry and to just do a complete 360, it was a lot of learning that has to happen for that as well. Speaking about learning you know, Bitcoin, Oh, around $140 billion Marcus is either lost or stolen in Bitcoin digital wallets.
Marcus: This is truly astonishing. This is just a lot of loss of money here.
John C Morley: And the thing is, you forget your password. You're done. There's no 1-800 number and Oh, well, we'll be happy to reset your passwords, you can get your million back. That doesn't happen. There is no customer support, when you get a Bitcoin wallet, you're on your own.
Marcus: That's the way it is. And I don't think they're planning on changing that because the whole key was privacy, but I'm wondering what's going to happen to all of this lost money.
John C Morley: Well, the thing is the money that went in there and they purchased, and that was lost. You have to realize that the wallet, the one who has the wallet, they're actually the ones getting the money. So even though it's lost, it's lost to you or I, because we're the ones that have the wallet, but we're not the bank. So, the bank is not really involved. They love to have a few people year lose a million or a hundred million dollars, right. If you were the one managing that bank.
Marcus: Wow. Just imagine that, we are just essentially just helping the banks. Not the banks per se
.
John C Morley: In traditional banks. And I have to tell you that none of this is FDIC insured.
Marcus: Exactly.
John C Morley: So in other words, you're on your own.
Marcus: Yeah. There's no best practices for financial institutions as out to, you know, help you with custody of the digital assets or anything.
John C Morley: You know, it's not like, you know, we have a consortium like we do, you know, with computers. And I think the whole point is that they're probably never going to have anything like this. And I don't know why. I guess I don't know why it's being allowed to be continued when it's causing such a problem. You know what I mean?
Marcus: Yeah. There's even programs out there. It has a locking you out, you know, after like so many attempts and that's just bananas.
John C Morley: Oh, I know. Imagine you not being able to get into your wallet because you forgot your password. And now you can't remember your 17-phrase reset code. It's not like the consortium's we have for security on the internet and computers and things like that. It's not like that. I think we need to have one in Bitcoin, and we need to have one in IOT. I think we need a governance set up. I think that's definitely something that should be put in play. I don't know if we're going to see it anytime soon, but I think what should happen in blockchain is it should be done away with for money. And it should be used as a validation system for records, healthcare, etc. But it should not be used to put money in. And this way if there is an issue you can call in and get the wallet reset, but it's strictly for credential information, but not for money.
Marcus: I agree with you. Because even last year we started seeing that the questions popped up on the IRS. They were asking you, you know, how much do you got in Bitcoins? And in all of those different type of weird questions. And, but yet there's people losing it. How can you report it?
John C Morley: There's no way.
Marcus: So it only makes sense to just completely get done with this. You know, so people who’s following the craze right now, get in on it right now and then pull out immediately.
John C Morley: You got people right now, Marcus, that are spending their savings on building they call them rigs, computers. They put them in their bedrooms. They're probably louder than a vacuum. And they have like four or five of them. And rather than going to get a job, they build these things. And maybe each one of these might make, don't lose your chair $40 per day. So if you got four of those working for you, okay. You know, you could do the math on that $160, but you got to pay electricity on these things. So what are you down to? $120 bucks a day, and then you got the, what if the machine breaks down, but everyone is just so crazy. It was almost like the R and D, the Dungeons and dragons. You remember that years ago? It's almost like that, but worse, what's it reminds me of. So in new technology, we have a robot that came out that I kind of like, it's called the bot handy.
Marcus: This is cool. CS, right. Without you know, some of the newer bots that is out there. This is great. And from what I hear, it also can, pour you up some wine?
John C Morley: Yes. On your date, it can actually pour your favorite beverage. So the Samsung bot handy uses just the right amount of pressure to grab items in your home. So how does it do that? Well, it has several sensors on it that allow it to know what type of material is actually picking up. And then it's programmed to know how to hold it, how much pressure to give it or not. And just a really interesting thing. So, you know, it has a, almost like some eyes on it. It's a one-armed robot. It can pick up a dish towel. It can load dishes in your dishwasher without breaking them. And yes, it can even pour you or your date, a glass of wine.
Marcus: There's got to be a of people jump into this just for just the look of it. I think, I think it's going to be very trendy, a very sexy item, you know, as John, you know, I got to steal a word from you to describe check tech and the whole security aspect of it. I think that's phenomenal.
John C Morley: Yeah. I think it's interesting. But I am very concerned about a couple things. So this robot communicates, it has access to the internet, so probably connects to your home router. How do you think it's going to connect? Unless they have some type of chip in there. They don't specify that, but I'm presuming that it's going to connect to your home router wirelessly, and it's going to be sending information back and forth, but here again, it's going to be sending data. What kind of data? Is there a microphone on board? There's cameras onboard? Where's that data going to be stored? What server? Because this robot, I don't think is going to have the intelligence to operate unless it's connected to the cloud.
Marcus: That makes a lot of sense. And with all things that's going, you know, being transmitted and transferred into the Cloud, there's always opportunity for the crooks to come in and snatch it out.
John C Morley: Those bad actors. And that actually uses AI, artificial intelligence to recognize and respond to your behavior. So that means it has to know a lot of information. It can't store all that information on that little, tiny stand that it moves around.
Marcus: No, it can't, you know, this is, as you so predicting, there's going to be the need to really specify how it protects from the bad actors.
John C Morley: So this is a perfect example, Marcus, we talked about it with a gentleman just a few weeks ago you remember from Asia, where we learned you know, from Mr. Weaver from Asia, Carl Weaver, and we were talking about, and he was saying the word that we've used a lot in the show, governance. Which is that something needs to be put in play, but we've talked about this too, before. This is just a big IOT. It's part of the internet of things world. And when things sit on this edge and they compute and they process data, where is the data getting sent? And if it's getting sent to a secure area, is that place being secured? And is other people touching that data? The best way to describe this to everyone is that let's pretend I have a glass of water, it's not pretend. Now I got a sip of water. So this bottle here right now, if you can see the way it is, if let's just say I was to take this and I was to pour this into a glass, okay. And I was to take a sip out of this great big bowl. Now you're also sipping out of the same bowl, so how do we keep this from getting contaminated? How do we keep our germs, how does that happen? So think of it like that, because the germs are not going to be isolated. It's not like there's a filter that's keeping my section of water filtered from your section of water.
And that's, what's going wrong with edge computing and distributed computing is that they forgot about security. They just thought about convenience, flexibility, power, artificial intelligence, and affordability, but they never talk about security. We're going to keep watching them, Marcus.
Marcus: Yeah. We're going to have to, and like so many other things when it's rush like this and everybody's just trying to look cool. It's a recipe for disaster at some point. And there's going to be a lot of regrets in the long run.
John C Morley: that's the problem. Everybody wants to make that you know, wants to make that quick buck. But it's going to be interesting. And a lot of people were saying that this bot robot is, they feel it's a bit creepy. I guess, because it kind of looks like a person, it has one arm on it, and the fact that it can do human-like tasks. That's interesting. And now they actually came out with another product alongside the bot handy. It is the AI announce. So the bot handy features have creeped a lot of people out, it has two adorable eyes that people say, and it can even change its expressions. And they say most peo