Journey of a Tech Entrepreneur with Jack Liang, Founder of Coral Global

Introduction (Jack Liang, tech entrepreneur journey)

In this interview, Alan Olsen, CPA, MBA discusses the journey of a tech entrepreneur with Jack Liang. Mr. Liang is the, Founder of Coral Global and a renown activist.

Transcript:

Jack Liang

I was running ads since college and one of my ads for my restaurants have like, over 100,000 impressions with just $50. And I went in to speak to their team on how I was able to accomplish. So after that they wanted to recruit me. And Harvey work on the Instagram small business ads team.

So yeah, they eventually, after some negotiation, some back and forth, and me from as a Brooklyn kid growing up in the, you know, the city to seeing like this bay area campus at Facebook. I was just blown away.

So yeah, I dropped everything. I hired a manager to run my restaurants I moved to the Bay. And I was a startup advisor for meta and worked on the Instagram small business ads team.

Alan Olsen

Hi, this is Alan Olsen. And welcome to American Dreams. My guest today is Jack liing. He is the co founder or the founder of coral, global drift Jack, welcome to today’s show.

Jack Liang

Oh Alan, thank you so much for having me. I met you about a week ago and I had so much fun chatting with you. So I think I’ll enjoy this very much.

Alan Olsen

It was a good experience. I were at that conference that was on longevity and AI and we had dinner together with her I guess it new technology, growing, growing heart side of living cells and transplanting so the world is getting exciting for us, although that as we go through this world right now, changes is part of the landscape.

And so I want to spend a few minutes today as we visit together learning about your background and how you arrived at the point that you are today and why don’t we start Jack with give us a history from from college on

Jack Liang

During college was interesting. I actually didn’t get accepted to any colleges out of high school, I was an athlete, I went to community college for one year, I started doing really well. It’s called BMCC. And that transferred to NYU School of Engineering. Before engineering was really a major subject.

And during that time, a lot of people weren’t really taking engineering. And when I went to college, I kind of had to innovate on like, how to pay for college, I was, you know, I paid my own way. And one of the ways I paid for college was to party promoting.

So I would go to different restaurants, bars that were vacant on a Friday and Saturday evening, I would ask if I could rent it out the following week, they would agree we would negotiate some sort of deal. And then I would run some ads on campus and throw parties. And that’s how I met a lot of people.

And people started becoming really nice to me helping me with class helping me with my resume helping me get my internships. So I would internet companies like Coca Cola, Goldman Sachs Rovigo investments as a Swiss investment company. And when I graduated, I worked at my first tech company called all recipes.com.

That was the biggest food website in the world. And what I noticed while I was working, there was a different food trends, different search trends. And I saw a spike in pokey searches. So what I did was I, I went to some of those restaurants that I was talking to back when I was in college.

And I opened up my first restaurant in, in Union Square in New York, when I was 24 years old. And at that time, we were the 11th highest grossing restaurant for all square customers. I ended up doing over $3 million that first year. And I opened us i in two years. I have seven restaurants. And during that time,

Alan Olsen

What type of food are you putting into restaurants?

Jack Liang

So mostly it was fast casual is poke a I had a croissant behind me, which is like a Vietnamese sandwich. I had a cafe. And I have a pancake concept. So just a bunch of random concepts. My one of my goals was to own 100 restaurants at that time. completely unnecessary goal. I think most of it was out of like ego.

But I quickly learned that I did not want to be in the restaurant space. It was very difficult. Very challenging.

Alan Olsen

I imagine that that got even more challenging during Covid

Jack Liang

Yeah, COVID I had to shut down almost all my restaurants. And, you know, one of the things that happened while I was working at restaurants was I realized what I was really good at. And one thing was, you know, a lot of these tech companies were reaching out to us reached out to us to learn more about what problem mistake itself for us.

So square and Uber Eats, they would try to talk to me. And I would talk to the engineering team and tell them like how they could do a better job, what they could do better for us. And then Facebook reached out to me about how I was running ads. And if you remember, I was a party promoter.

And I was running ads since college and one of my ads and for my restaurants had like, over 100,000 impressions with just $50. And I went in to speak to their team on how I was able to accomplish this. So after that, they wanted to recruit me, and have me work on the Instagram small business ads team.

So yeah, they eventually I, after some negotiation, some back and forth, and me from as a Brooklyn kid growing up in the, you know, the inner city to seeing like this bay area campus. At Facebook, I was just blown away. So yeah, I dropped everything. I hired a manager to run my restaurants, I moved to the Bay.

And I was a star visor for meta and worked on the Instagram, small business ads team.

Alan Olsen

Well, it’s moving you from the engineering. So you graduated from NYU at that engineering degree? It’s amazing, because you had an up and running business while you’re in school.

Jack Liang

You know, there was a lot of people who were in that in that advertising and party promoting space. But I just saw, like, Facebook ads were very new. And I felt like I had to take advantage of that.

Alan Olsen

You know, you So Jack, you’re you come across as a true entrepreneur, which you’re looking for what problem needs to be solved. And so you can put a solution.

It and you’ve done it across the board and in different industries, engineers typically are showing the processes but your mindset is a little bit unique in terms of solution oriented first, and then putting processes second. Yeah. Let’s roll up to where you’re at today, entrepreneur, what what type of things are you currently involved in?

Jack Liang

Yeah, so while I was working at Instagram, some things that I was very interested in was finding business partners to work with. So during that time, I would help people build websites, you know, on the side, and for as a hobby, and I kind of just started getting paid for it, you know, from a few friends.

And then as soon as I left Instagram, I had someone offered me a contract where I would build their app for them. And they gave me over 30k a month. And that was very shocking to me, I was like, wow, that’s a that’s a quite a bit. And they kind of saw a need in the market.

Because when I was working on the Instagram ads team, I was on the back end side. So working on the ads manager, and seeing how every little thing combined with the user interface and how everything was challenging with the payments in the background processes and the user experience everything kind of intertwined.

And that’s very similar for a smaller, medium sized business. So I left Instagram, I had a client that paid me 30k to essentially put all their processes in one place, because they have 18, it was a dentist with 18 offices.

And they had to had all their customers in one dashboard, have their internal team also being able to view the dashboard and run payroll, and, you know, for HR and just have everything in one place.

And and that was a very big deal for them. They actually got over 1000 more bookings appointments on the app than they did on the phone. So something as some as easy as that can completely change the business.

Alan Olsen

So, so right now COVID came. How did that impact you?

Jack Liang

Yeah, COVID COVID was, it was tricky one because I’m Asian American, I think a lot of people. The rhetoric was like Asians brought COVID over, and I experienced a lot of racism. Just seeing that across the board. It was quite devastating. You know, there’s like a 400% increase on Asian Americans being attacked.

There’s also a increased in in depression and suicide rates for Asian Americans. Actually, suicide is one of the is the leading cause of death for young Asian American adults. And I’m starting to see that as I’m becoming an older man and seeing a lot of the The people in my life end up taking their life and it’s quite sad. And yeah, actually,

Alan Olsen

that is sad. It did. So it seems like that’s it. It’s just not in inside the Asian America, I think that whole trend is prevalent in a lot of depression. Yeah. That split because of the tremendous amount of change and pressure that’s put on for adapting degrees, you know, so thank you for sharing that.

And I think you’re not alone in in the feeling of what’s out there. But, you know, as you’re going through, you know, life. Have you had this entrepreneur side that you founded a company Coral Gables, or global Yeah, yeah. And how did that how did that come about?

Jack Liang

Yeah. You know, like, when I was working Instagram, people were asking me like, Oh, can you help me build my website? Can you help me build an app and, and slowly, I kind of just started building and I, and then eventually, I couldn’t keep building everything myself. And I had to hire a team.

And one thing led to another, and then I started getting some high profile clients, I did a lot of Gary V’s football players. I did Bella deeds, you know, NFT project.

So like these, like celebrities were reaching out to me. And like one thing at a time, I just started taking in some clients, I started building, and then now I have a full engineering team, my business partner who was a former Instagram engineer, and he quit with me as well. And, you know, I get to kind of work from wherever I want.

And I’m able to, you know, provide a real service and a real need for a lot of businesses. And it’s really fulfilling.

Alan Olsen

Jack, how did you find your mentor in life?

Jack Liang

Yeah, that’s a good question. I, I always wanted some sort of father figure because, you know, my, I don’t blame my dad, but I know that my dad, you know, came from a different generation. And he doesn’t speak English. My both my parents don’t speak English. And he was working like six days a week in another state.

So I almost never saw him. And I always, you know, valued and admired families that or were my friends that had this, like father figure who was going to their basketball games and, and coaching their sons or playing sports where their sons and I never had that. So I that was kind of always what I always wanted.

And, and eventually, when I’m when I was in the Bay Area, I met teeth. And Keith, kind of became that father figure for me, Jesus, his name’s Keith Ferrazzi. I read his book. And then I met him a month later. And then I told him, Hey, I read your book. It was amazing. We kicked it off. And, you know, he’s absolutely changed my life.

Alan Olsen

And so how did Keith connect with you as a mentor? How did you use that?

Jack Liang

I automatically, I kind of told them everything I was working on. And he he kind of took a step back. And he was like, why are you doing these things? Like, make me made me pay attention to my why my intention.

And I realized, after years of doing a lot of personal work, a lot of the reasons why I was doing what I was doing, trying to open 100 restaurants, trying to succeed different ways, was because I was I didn’t, I felt very insecure. And I was trying to prove to my dad that I was worth something.

And, you know, a lot of the work I was doing came from a place of pain, instead of a place of joy, instead of a place of love. And, and I think she’s really helped me realize that.

Alan Olsen

Jack, you do a lot of the meditation. Can you expand on why it’s important to you what you find through doing that?

Jack Liang

Yeah, I you know, I grew up in Brooklyn, New York. It was like a zoo. Right? It was like, Yeah, I had ever I wake up I hear the car is out the window, I hear the honking. I hear people screaming, I hear like people walking it was like, you just never I never had time to spend time with myself without any distraction.

And then I find yoga and I do yoga to keep in shape and to stretch. But after yoga, there’s like this, like 10 minutes of laying there. And you just lay and that is a state of meditation. And I kind of fell in love with that. That 10 minutes when had nothing to worry about when I was deeply relaxed. And I started meditating.

I’m finding that I would actually receive a lot more answers when I was meditating about myself than what anyone could really coach you. Right? So I’ve now meditate two times a day, every day for the last two, three years. I feel like, whenever I’m going through an issue or a challenge, I want to spend a lot of time by myself.

And then the wisdom, the downloads that I get while I’m in that space. It’s profound. Like I would, I would sometimes sit there and ask, like, Hey, what should I be doing? And just have that question, and sit for 10 minutes? And then the answer would come to me.

And it would feel like a divine answer, and it feels like it came from somewhere else. And then I would execute, and it would be like, Whoa, like, how, how did that happen? It was like, You should talk to that person in the room.

Alan Olsen

You know, I want to expand on this little bit more to that guy, I’ve done over 3000 interviews, and entrepreneurs, starting businesses and and what I have found is that to be an entrepreneur is a gift. But it’s a gift from God from God.

And more often than not, yeah, the entrepreneurs will relate spirituality, divine intervention, though, they’re trying to find a solution out there. And so they’ll go to God and prayer and just like you outlined it, it is it is not their thoughts, but it’s, it’s divine intervention, say, you know, Jack, try this go talk to this person.

And, and so to call it for what it is, is really a connection with God and spirituality. And, and that, that is truly a gift. So I appreciate you sharing.

Jack Liang

I think, you know, a lot more people can tap into it by just spending time alone with them. And God was, you know, I think Steve Jobs talks about it a lot in his book. Yeah, it’s also one of the one of the reasons why make cheese you know, God was like, You should go to those events. Okay,

Alan Olsen

I’ll have people come on the show, they’ll tell me that middle of the night, they had a dream exactly what they’re supposed to do. So they woke up in the morning, they started disruptive technology that, that bless the humanity and you know, companies going public.

And in so I think staying with the connection, especially in this world of change, right? It is so important. I want to I want to move into the the business side, what is like so you were Instagram you? You ran across Keith started your business, what what was it? Like? What was it like when you got your first paying customer?

Jack Liang

I almost felt like I was doing a favor to a lot of people. So they weren’t paying me that much. I knew I was worth a lot more. But I was trying to prove to myself and the market that I was worth more by executing, right. So the first few paying customers was just enough for me to, to get the job done. Like the websites just get it done. Right.

The like, paid me by my time and I was very, very generous. I didn’t know my own worth, I didn’t charge a lot. But when I first I had my first high paying customer, it really changed the trajectory of my life.

Like it showed me what was possible and showed me like, Hey, I could take on 4566 More customers that are paying this much money and now I’m on a on a path to becoming a millionaire. And it was like That’s it. Like that’s it like just five customers that are paying you the same amount and you’re a millionaire.

And it’s like whoa, that that shift in my brain is showing me what’s possible. So I started doing that I just started seeking the same exact customer who had the same exact problem and finding more of him and her and that’s what I did.

I just spent all my time doing that and I had my and then I showed my business partner it was possible like a beach scene a few more of these people and and we have a we have a multimillion dollar business changed everything as

Alan Olsen

Well said so, Jack for, the world that we live in the rapid amount of change you have AI coming in yet longevity solutions there’s just a lot of stuff out there with that flowing river of data. What advice would you have for a person getting ready to put out their own shingle?

Jack Liang

Yeah, I think, you know, back then when they were saying if you weren’t if you’re not using tech, or social media, like your businesses is, is going to be left in the dust I think now we have to prioritize how are you going to be tech or social media first.

And when I start a new business, or when I coach clients on how to launch their business, it’s like what is your social media strategy? And what is your tech stack and without those and there’s a lot of sources resources to give you access to different tech stacks and to use their platform or use their social media platform.

So as but as long as you have a strategy and it doesn’t have to be complex, right? We just need to be tech or social first.

Alan Olsen

Well Jack, I appreciate you being on today’s show. It’s fun having you with us hearing the insight you know how you got to where you are today and that person wants to reach out and say hey, I want jack on my team how would you go ahead and contact you

They would reach out reach me by email at Jack@Coral.global. Once again, it’s Jack@Coral.Global. On my Instagram. It’s my name, Jack Liang.

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