Shadowing Practice: He Quit Banking to Sell Bubble Tea — Now It Makes Over $500 Million A Year - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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I decided to quit the corporate life
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I decided to quit the corporate life
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and a lucrative career in banking to go all in on trying to build Gong Cha.
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A funny story was that the CEO asked me to see him and say,
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which bank are you going to?
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I went, actually, I'm not going to a bank.
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So what are you doing?
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I'm off to do bubble tea.
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And he thought I was absolutely insane.
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Yeah, that's where it all started.
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This is Martin Berry, founder and chairman of Gong Cha Global.
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He's the brain behind the company's global expansion,
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growing it from a regional favorite into one of the biggest brewers in the business.
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What started as a small tea shop in Taiwan in 1996 has now become a bubble tea empire,
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with over 2,000 locations across 30 countries.
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When you're struggling to want to start a business,
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you think you have to invent the next light bulb.
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If you're waiting for the right time,
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it's never going to come.
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It never feels comfortable to make the step from getting a salary every month to then going and becoming an entrepreneur.
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And you need to take the leap of faith and you need to just go for it.
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There are three numbers to watch out for in Gong Cha's story.
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1996, the year that Wu Zhenhua,
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Gong Cha's original founder, opened his first tea shop.
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2.5 million, the amount spent by Martin to open his first five stores in Korea,
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expanding the business into its fifth market.
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And 578 million, the company's system-wide sales in 2024.
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This is Founder Effect.
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Martin grew up in the countryside near Melbourne.
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Since childhood, he's had the entrepreneurial bug.
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We didn't necessarily have a lot of money.
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So probably one of the funny stories was it was coming Christmas time
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and we had these trees just that were around the property that we lived.
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And so I quickly mocked up a little ad
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and went to the local grocery store and stuck a sign up saying Christmas trees for sale.
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And some guy turned up
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and I think was a bit shocked at a 10-year-old boy meeting him at this location with a saw in his hand.
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So I think I got $10 for selling him a Christmas tree that was publicly owned on the side of the road.
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Martin only became more enterprising with age.
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When it came time for university,
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he didn't have the typical student experience.
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At just 19, he stepped into his first full-time corporate role.
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And by graduation, he had developed quite the head start.
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a university presentation which was meant to be for graduates.
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And I snuck into the auditorium
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and I was listening to all these companies pitch as to why these graduates should join them.
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And so at the end of the presentation I went up to the HR director and said hey listen,
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you know, I would love to work with you.
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She said, yep, put in your graduate application.
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I said actually I'm not a graduate,
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I'm a first year, but I'll work for free.
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And they said, okay, when you graduate come back and we'll give you a job.
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And I was like, no,
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why don't you give me a job now and I'll sort out the university.
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And I just managed to make it work by studying night school and weekends to complete the degree.
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And so I think starting early,
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you know, that really helped me a lot.
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By 21, I had a degree and a couple of years experience that got me off to a nice start.
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By his late 20s, Martin's banking career had skyrocketed.
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He had managed multi-trillion dollar balance sheets and worked in offices around the world for companies like Citi,
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Barclays and Standard Chartered.
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And yet, despite his early success,
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Martin's entrepreneurial itch came back.
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Times got a bit difficult for me in financial services.
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I realized after working hard for quite a long period of time that I didn't really like the corporate system.
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I didn't like its lack of entrepreneurialism.
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I started to then look around for opportunities to build a business.
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Martin experimented with a few business ideas,
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but it was in January 2011,
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here at Singapore's Vivo City Shopping Centre,
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that he discovered the next chapter of his life.
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One day we were living in Singapore and I was going for a haircut.
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I passed past this store and there's this huge queue of people and I was like,
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this looks interesting.
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What is this?
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Gong cha.
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I wonder what gong cha is.
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So I decided to join the queue.
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Tick number one was, okay this queue's moving quite quickly
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so velocity and turnover tick two i get through the queue
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and i was quite surprised to see that actually the store is quite small
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so tick number two was from a capital expenditure perspective this
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mustn't require a lot of money to actually build one
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and i start seeing what they're making i thought okay water plus tea leaves
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and some ice from a unit economic standpoint tick this must be quite popular
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and quite profitable so then i eventually get to to the front of the queue.
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I asked them for what their best-selling drinks are.
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See, there's only two people working in the store.
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And I was just completely blown away by the business model.
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I just thought from a financial engineering standpoint, it was incredible.
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From there, Martin dove into due diligence and visited several other Gong Cha stores to sample their drinks and observe foot traffic.
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He brought the idea to his wife,
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who ultimately became the co-founder of Gong Cha Korea.
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I went back to my wife and said,
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are you familiar with this brand?
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She said, yeah, yeah, I drink it now and again.
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I was like, do you think this would work in Korea?
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She said, actually, you know what?
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I think it could.
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I went and obviously sampled all the other brands that existed,
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which largely all came from Taiwan.
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So I had a huge amount of conviction that Gong Cha was the best tasting and had the best ingredients.
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In June 2011, Martin flew out to Taiwan where he met Gong Cha's original founder and landed the master franchise rights.
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At the time, Gong Cha was just in four markets.
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Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, and the Philippines.
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Martin expanded the bubble tea business into its fifth, South Korea.
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By April 2012, Martin and his wife opened their first Gong Cha store in Hongdae, Korea.
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And within a few months,
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they opened four other locations across Korea using a total of about 2.5 million in life savings
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that the couple had amassed through their banking careers.
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It was quite terrifying, to be honest.
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We opened the first store,
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and if you build it,
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they will come, does not apply.
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So my strategy was, I'm gonna put a Gong Cha,
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the first five stores, next to Starbucks.
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And if I can get one in 100 people that are going into Starbucks to come and try a Gong Cha,
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then I've got a business.
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Thankfully social media was just starting to sort of kick off then.
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So people would post it on Facebook, post it on Instagram.
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Come three months into it,
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we were getting queues on a weekend that sometimes were like 250 people deep.
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And it was like, it was just manic.
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Then ironically, I was working behind the counter of one of the stores.
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And I said to my wife,
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I said, why is there two older guys in suits sitting in the front of our store?
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That's not our demographic.
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Eventually they came up and introduced themselves and they were representing one of the top three department stores in Korea.
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And next thing you know,
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they offered us like 30 locations.
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In June 2012, Martin signed a deal with Hyundai which allowed him to open Gongcha locations within their department stores across Korea.
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This deal was Martin's first big break in expanding the business.
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It was literally just over 12 months from launching once we'd got to the 50 stores.
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So we decided to open up franchising and that's when the business just absolutely boomed.
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One point we almost became more like a property real estate company,
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helping people find great locations and helping them develop the stores.
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So literally from first store to three years later, we had 300 stores.
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As the business scaled, investors came knocking.
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In 2014, private equity firm UCK Partners acquired a controlling stake in Gong Cha Korea.
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Then in 2017, in partnership with UCK Partners,
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Martin led a reverse acquisition and acquired Royalty Taiwan,
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the owner of Gong Cha.
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So all of a sudden,
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it's starting to take off in different markets,
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which then just filled the fire for people from the U.S and all over the world saying,
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we want to take Gong Cha to our market.
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So then, yeah, we went through a very rapid period of expansion in terms of opening up all new territories,
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starting to go to the U.S.,
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starting to go to Mexico.
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And that's
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when we started to go from being sort of a regional
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Asian brand to starting to truly break out with the potential to become a global brand.
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Today, there are over 2,000 Gong Cha stores across 30 countries globally.
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In 2024, the business brought in over $570 million in system-wide sales.
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Helping drive that growth is Paul Reynisch,
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global CEO of Gong Cha Global,
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a franchise veteran with almost 30 years of experience at brands like Subway and Burger King.
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Paul first met Martin in an unexpected way.
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The irony behind how we actually met each other was
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that I got back involved in sort of running the business again for a period of time.
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And I was recruiting the CEO of Asia.
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And you happened to be a referee for that person.
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Yeah, I know Danny well, yeah.
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So that's how we first met each other, wasn't it?
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I was just fascinated by the business model.
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You know, I've done this for 30 years in different brands,
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but Gong Chao is great.
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You know, the simplicity, the quality,
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the authenticity, and then the opportunity to get scale globally.
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I thought, well, hey, that is a franchise concept I know I can sell.
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What started as a reference call became a partnership, built on shared ambition.
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You know, wouldn't it be nice to take a brand from Asia and truly make it global?
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And that was something that excited both of us.
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While Martin helped spearhead the company's expansion,
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he recognizes that it was a team effort which turned Gong Chao into the global brand it is today.
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I'm just a player in this journey.
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I didn't create it from scratch.
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I see myself more of a custodian of the brand,
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and I want to see this brand go on to much bigger things
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and truly sort of win one for Asia for a change.
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You know, this life, this brand changed my life, my family's life.
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I have a duty to help it realize its full potential.
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And we're sort of just custodians in the journey of that.
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In 2019, private equity firm TA Associates acquired a majority stake in Gong Cha Global.
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Marta remains involved as co-founder,
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chairman and a shareholder today.
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The journey from corporate to entrepreneurialism is I think 100% of people fantasize about it and very few people actually do it.
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So I think there's never been a better time for people and it's never been easier.
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Once you've got a well-baked plan,
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it's never going to be perfect.
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and it's time to just go for it and don't look back,
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you know, and have that fear of failure in your head
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because it'll drive you to finding ways and solutions to make it work.
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But yeah, if you aspire to be an entrepreneur,
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there's no time like now.
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Today, Martin is building a new venture,
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Be Me Wellness, a supplement brand,
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and he runs Launcho Ventures, an AI venture studio.
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He also has a strong passion for racing and does so professionally alongside his son.
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I think fortunately for me,
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you know, I've built my life into a position where I'm in control of a lot of things,
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but I don't think that's healthy.
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So I love having something that still scares me.
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I love being able to challenge myself.
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So chasing 20-year-olds around a circuit keeps you young,
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keeps you focused, makes you work hard.
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You know, my son, who's 16,
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has been racing in F4,
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and so it's a passion we share.
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My dream is that he and I will race at Le Mans 24-hour together one day if I don't get too old,
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because there's nothing better than getting in a car, no phone, no distractions.
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I just got to focus and so I find it quite therapeutic as a result.
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Context & Background
This transcript features the inspiring journey of Martin Berry, who transitioned from a successful banking career to establish a thriving bubble tea business, Gong cha. His story highlights the entrepreneurial spirit and the challenges of leaving a stable corporate job to pursue a passion. Berry’s experiences serve as a valuable case study for those looking to engage in English-speaking practice, especially in business contexts. The dialogue illustrates key concepts such as risk-taking, market analysis, and the importance of persistence, making it a great resource for learners aiming to enhance their vocabulary and fluency in entrepreneurial discussions.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “Take the leap of faith.” - This phrase encourages individuals to step out of their comfort zones and embrace new opportunities, especially in the context of business or personal growth.
- “It doesn’t feel comfortable to make the step.” - This expression resonates with anyone facing challenges in their career transitions, emphasizing the emotional hurdles involved.
- “I had conviction.” - Having conviction refers to a strong belief in oneself or one’s ideas, which is crucial for effective speaking and persuasion.
- “Social media was just starting to kick off.” - This phrase is relevant in discussing modern marketing strategies and the role of social media in business growth.
- “It was quite terrifying.” - A relatable sentiment during significant life changes, ideal for expressing vulnerability in conversations.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To effectively practice English speaking using this transcript, follow these steps for shadowing:
- Read Aloud: Begin by reading the transcript aloud to familiarize yourself with the vocabulary and overall context. Focus on the natural rhythm and intonation.
- Listen Carefully: Watch the video or listen to the audio. Pay close attention to how Martin articulates his thoughts. Note any phrases that seem important for your IELTS speaking practice.
- Repeat & Shadow: While listening, pause the video and try to repeat what you hear as closely as possible. This is essential for practicing pronunciation and fluency in shadowspeak.
- Record Yourself: After shadowing, record your own voice mimicking Martin's delivery. Compare your recording to the original and make improvements where necessary.
- Engage in Dialogue: Once comfortable, discuss the themes of the transcript with a partner or language exchange buddy. This practice enhances conversational skills and reinforces what you've learned.
With consistent practice using these techniques, you will enhance your spoken fluency, prepare more confidently for your IELTS speaking practice, and cultivate a rich vocabulary relevant to entrepreneurial discussions.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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