UnNoticed Rich Robinson

Welcome to this episode of The Unnoticed Show. Today, I am talking to a man who I've known for now 20-odd years, one of my favorite people, Rich Robinson, who is a god to me and is actually calling us from Bali, the island of the gods. Rich Robinson, welcome to The Unnoticed Show.

Jim James, ladies and gentlemen.

Wow.

I was about to kind of scold you. I was like, I know you want to be cool on this podcast, but calling it very awkwardly un-not iced. Like, I guess cool was taken, so you're calling it un-not. And then I was like, oh, unnoticed.

Unnoticed.

Yeah.

And for all the dyslexic guests out there, Richard Robinson, we call him R2, uh, because the man is like R2-D2. He's a machine. He's such a hard worker. And Rich, you've been an entrepreneur, you know, for your whole life. Tell us about what you do, but also how you've built businesses and how you've got noticed so that other entrepreneurs around the world can learn from you how you've done this amazing job of moving from America to Asia and building multiple businesses. Over to you.

Perfect. Yeah. Thanks, Jim. So yeah. So we've known each other for coming on 3 decades now. And we first met in Hong Kong, and that's where I started my career. And indeed, I've had a string of startups that I've been part of. I am part of the mentally ill, the entrepreneurial community. And you and I started the first chapter of the Entrepreneurs Organization in Beijing together. So we know that EO is kind of like Alcoholics Anonymous for entrepreneurs, right? Blow out a candle. Hi, I'm Richard Robinson. I'm an entrepreneur and a long-suffering entrepreneur. And the default setting is failure and the road along the path to failure is absolutely treacherous and miserable much of the time. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? So if the most likely outcome is failure and it's pretty miserable along the way, then you better have a pretty terrific attitude and look at it as a way to build up your skills, experience, and network, and kind of as a vocation along the way. So I've always been such a keen student of entrepreneurship and just tried to take from the ashes, whatever I could from each venture and bring it to the next. And one thing that I brought from venture to venture is this really high-leverage insight that I got when I first started my career in the mid-'90s in Hong Kong, which was being in industry groups. So it is such an incredibly powerful way to, especially when you're starting off your career, but also even later in your career as you enter new areas. Like right now, I'm very involved in Web 3.0, which is, you know, quote unquote, on-chain, like blockchain and gaming and the play-to-earn space. So, you know, there's a completely new frontier. And I'm doing what I did, you know, almost 30 years ago, which is I'm starting like an industry group where bringing like-minded people together. And I have a young person, I was the young person before, who's helping me to organize that. They pull the sled, they do all the work. and bring in terrific speakers. And those speakers come together with the participants of this networking event, and it's all going to come back in person. People love the press, the flesh. And if you wanted to really make a name for yourself and you're in kind of a hub, say you're in London or Beijing or a place where there are a lot of like-minded people in whatever industry you're in, then you kind of, um, you, you find out, you know, 2 or 3 things that you can cross over. Like, for instance, let's, you know, start a, um, a networking event in London for people that are interested in e-commerce from China, right?

Yeah.

Or, you know, let's, uh, let's start some sort of, uh, event in, in Singapore that's, um, around, uh, social media for, uh, business-to-business. And then you start a newsletter, social media, you get in expert speakers, and you do a fireside chat because a fireside chat is the biggest cheat. It's kind of like a panel, but you're the moderator and they don't have to prepare at all. And you just say, hey, what are maybe the 2 or 3 talking points you'd like to do? Talk about their story, their journey, what they're working on now, where they see a few things going. in the future. And then you open it up for Q&A from the audience. And through that, what you do is you bring together a whole group of people from the industry who are very grateful for that. You become kind of a node in the industry. You get to be well-known. Oh, you must be an expert because you're pulling together people around this specific topic. And kind of most importantly is you get to connect with super senior people who are really making stuff happen. And you get to really bond with them one-on-one and be with them on stage and kind of open up opportunities for them. And I'll stop there.

Well, Rich, that's fantastic. So when I went from Singapore to Beijing, I called you and we had lunch. And then all of a sudden, kind of like the whole of Beijing opened up. You're like the uber connector. So you You've used that strategy to great effect. What about for entrepreneurs that are maybe a little bit more shy? Because you've got the ability to stand up. In fact, you even do stand-up comedy, Rich. What about for people that, you know, they say, that's great, Rich, to be a connector and facilitator. I call bullshit.

I call bullshit. I'm an introvert. I'm shy. Bullshit. That's bullshit. That's an excuse. You're hiding behind something. It's like you can bring out your inner extrovert and just be up there. You can practice, right? That's the thing is people are like, oh, I can't be like you. You look at Steve Jobs in the early days, he was a lousy presenter. He was lousy, right? And I'll tell you about a common friend we have, Benjamin Joffe. Remember Benjamin Joffe?

Yes, I remember Benjamin Joffe. Yeah, absolutely.

Like, I would, and I've talked about this publicly and I love the man, right? I really do. He started something called Mobile Monday.

Yes, I remember that.

He asked me to be the first speaker and he was a bag of like tics and, you know, just awkwardness and he was painful to watch, right? When he was introducing me, he didn't think that he had to do that, right? And he'd just never been up on stage before and he's a little introverted but he's got, you know, a really, you know, great personality. And I would go so far as to say that he may be the best presenter on planet Earth when it comes to hardware startups. You just need to get out there and do it more. And the fact is, most of the time people fail before they even start a company, and people fail before they even get up on stage. The number one fear of people is not, you know, cancer. It's speaking in front of an audience, which means, to wit, that if you are giving a eulogy at a funeral, then statistically you would much rather be in the box than behind the podium, right?

That's right.

It's ridiculous. And I can tell you that the number one problem public speaking is not people judging you and just dissecting you and looking at you in such a snide, just cynical way. It's that blue light on their face because they don't give a shit. They're not even listening to you. You've lost them already. Right? And that's the problem is that you have to be you times 2 and you have to learn how to sell. If you're an entrepreneur and you're like, I can't do this, it's because you haven't done it enough. You have to sell to your investors, to people you're recruiting, to your customers, to your partners. Even if you're not an entrepreneur, you have to sell to your boss. You have to get budget. You have to sell to your family, right? You have to learn how to persuade people and to be able to tell a story. And it's like a soft skill that I push really, really hard in the MBA program that I teach at. And it's super important. It's incredibly important and it's a learned skill. There's so many learned skills. The other big learned skill is shit's going wrong because it's going to go wrong. It's supposed to go wrong. And just staying completely calm as an entrepreneur.

And I think the other thing about—

Deep in yourself. It's a learned skill. Yeah.

And I think that's a great one about not limiting yourself, but also about the value of preparation. When I do media training for clients, we can see within half a day, the improvement in performance just by people having prepared what they want to say and what messages they want to get in front of the audience. So Rich, I think you're right to call bullshit on that, but also—

And it's not even just preparation. It's deliberate practice. It's about filming yourself and watching yourself and having people tell you, you got to get rid of that tic and you can't use that word right repeatedly and your body language is lousy and your cadence of your voice is lousy and you completely, you know, talk every second when you're up there because you don't want to actually have any silence whatsoever because then you would be able to actually realize that you're naked on stage and the void of your existence and, you know, the meaninglessness of life all comes at you, right?

Yeah!

Whereas actually, one of the most powerful things to say when you are speaking to an audience is nothing. People look up. Like, when you get comfortable and you're like on the edge of a stage and you're in front of 1,000 people, 5,000 people, which I often do as an emcee at the Web Summit in Lisbon, and you get up on stage and you throw some energy out there, And then you say nothing. Then you look and you can see, you know, 20% of the audience like look up or like give you more attention, right? It's actually an incredibly powerful tool when you really want to make an impact. And there are so many ways to improve that. Executives, entrepreneurs, like you don't learn it in school. You don't really learn it unless you join Toastmasters. And even then, Yeah. People quit that when they hit a certain plateau. It's something that is so incredibly powerful. What are you doing to just have 1% improvement in your public speaking to really make a big impact? And that's how you become comfortable doing that. It's not any sort of innate gift.

Yeah. I think it's a really good point there as well, that it's the practice, right? That you got to keep doing it. Now, Rich, From a practical point of view, if someone is going to think about becoming a sort of a node or a facilitator, should they do that on their own or should they partner with other people? What's your experience and best practice there?

One of the most powerful things that I've done is once you collect enough of those speakers, then maybe, you know, what you can do is, oh wow, there's an industry luminary coming into town. And you somehow reach out to them and say, hey, I have, you know, 6 people in London or Singapore and I can pull them together to have dinner with you and they can give you insights into the industry. And then you go to those people and like, hey, you know what? So-and-so is coming into town and like they're really interested to meet with everybody. That's super high impact and you're just the facilitator of that. I started doing that a lot more and that became incredibly powerful. But public speaking, I mean, the worst part of public speaking is when you have to create some sort of bespoke presentation like that. That's terrible because it takes a lot of time, and oftentimes it's the first time that you're giving it, and it's, um, you know, it doesn't work so great, right? And you don't want to just give your sales pitch. So if you can, if you can maybe build something up where you have some sort of meat, like I can talk about our industry, but with only maybe giving one slide about your company, or maybe no slide, And you're just offering kind of meat to the audience and— but you can practice kind of like stand-up comedy where you do smaller gigs and then you do the stadium show after you practice. That's one. The next one that's a little more challenging but, you know, it's actually okay is to be a moderator of a panel because then you have to coordinate with all the panelists. But the hack there is to— this is what you want to do if you're early on in your career. You go to an event and you say, hey, I want to put a panel together of this sex new, interesting angle in the industry, and I suggest these speakers, and I'll be the moderator, and here's the topics. So then that's juicy. If you're putting together an event, the most expensive thing at an event is an empty seat. So you're organizing an event, you're like, ah, I got to get people to the event. I got to get sponsors. I got all the logistics. And then you may not even know what's going on in the industry. And for you to give them that kind of meat, like, hey, I'm going to put together this panel for you, that's sexy. And then now you can go to those people and say, hey, I have a slot at this big event and I would like you to be a panelist. And they're like, I don't know you, but I know that event. That's great. And then all you do is you ask everybody, all the 3 people and the 4 people in the panel— 3 or 4 is the most. You shouldn't have 5. 2 is too few, I think, right? Or you do one-on-one as a fireside chat. What would you like? What are the 3 talking points that you'd like to, you know, that you'd like to get over that are not about your company? But are both, you know, really interesting in the industry. And then the thing is, is that it's not— when you're moderating a panel, it's not like Little League where everybody has to play. Not everybody has to answer the question. The shittiest thing in a panel is, I totally agree with what she said, and I would just like to— you know, it's like, we're not here to like make everybody agree. We're here to give meat to the audience, right? So, okay, you two have answered that. Let's go. Let's switch gears. And matter of fact, you don't have to be an expert. You have to be really good at just keeping it Like interesting and snappy. And, you know, and then, you know, being a panelist is a little bit easier because then you can just kind of show up and as long as you've prepared well, and then you could do a fireside chat or you could, you know, if you're big enough, you can actually be in the fireside chat. But then there's emceeing events and that's my hack because that's the easiest. All you got to do is show up and go, good evening, Lisbon, or— Hello, Amsterdam! Hello, Singapore! Right? Oh my God, do we have a lineup for you today! You know, our first speaker is so-and-so from whatever. And like, all you do— and like, if you're really flexible and you're comfortable on stage and you bring energy, and then at the end you go, that was such a great insight, that ties into what our panel said yesterday, and you, you just give some color and some industry insight and a joke and just some energy, and you don't have to prepare for shit because they just give you a clipboard and you just You just bring it, but then you're in the speaker's room. But most importantly is that if you're at a big enough event, this is what I found at the Web Summit in Lisbon. I got a 5,000-person stage. I'm meeting people who don't go to the speaker's room, who show up just to be on that stage, and they're in the back for 15 minutes before the show. And now I'm sitting down next to them and go, hey, how are you? I'm the MC. I'm gonna introduce you on stage. Oh, can I have your business card? 'Cause I really like to be able to say your name properly and like, Yeah, you know, just a little background. I'm based in Beijing. I'm a serial entrepreneur here. And you know what? I'd love to say something on stage to introduce you that you would be too embarrassed to say, but it would be kind of fun, like a philanthropy that you support, or maybe you climbed a mountain, or maybe you did something really, you know, skydiving or something, right? I want— and then you connect with them, right? And like, I've built up like Qualtrics. They got sold to SAP for $8 billion, and the 2 founders were on stage and they're like, our 3rd founder is moving to Beijing. Can we put you in touch with him? And I was like, of course. Right? And then I helped him land in Beijing and I became friends with him. And just small things like that. I really, really suggest to go to Principles U. There's a great book called Principles by Ray Dalio. Must read. If you don't have the time to read it, check out his 30-minute video on YouTube where he summarizes the whole book in a very high-end animation. Same animation is used for Principles U and Principles Us. Which he just launched this week. And Principles U is a personality test. And you really need that. One really needs to understand one's strengths and then quadruple down on your strengths. If you look at my 3 strengths, I'm an inspirer, I'm an entertainer, and I'm an impresario. So, I probably shouldn't even have been an entrepreneur, but I'm like—

Yeah. One of those 3 wasn't on it.

But I use all of those skills to really promote my companies and promote my personal brand. And that's an important thing.

And one of the things that you and I did, which you did so well, was EO, the Entrepreneur Organization. So it's also possible to find an organization that doesn't exist in your market, your town, your country, and offer to set that up. Right? I remember with Mobile Monday, for example, I think. And then Web Wednesday, of course, was coming from Europe. So if you don't have the passion or maybe the confidence to set up a whole group, you can always take a group that exists somewhere else and offer to be the host of that and take almost like being a franchisee.

If you happen to be in crypto or blockchain, there's a group that I'm involved. I'm running the Bali chapter. It's called Offchain. Instead of on-chain, it's Offchain because it's in person. And That started by John Hakim, who I started this group called I and I with back in the day.

Yes, I remember.

We had 30 people coming once a month to have drinks. Then we had a speaker come and we had 100 people show up. And then we had this entrepreneur from China show up, small company, 50 people. He was super dynamic. We had 350 people show up to that event. And that was Jack Ma, the richest man in China. But that was in '99, 2000. And he showed up to that event. And we also had Charles Zhang, the founder of Sohu, and all these other great, great speakers. Right?

I remember. Yeah. And we had in the EO, we had the founder of Yoku come along. So Rich, if people want to find out more about you and your energy, and also as an MC or otherwise, how can they find out about you?

Yeah. So you can follow me on LinkedIn, in/RichardRobinson, and also Twitter, Richard Robinson. Yeah, you want to email me? It's richrob@gmail.com. And I'm happy to connect. I'm always a keen connector and kind of a good egg in the entrepreneurial ecosystem. 24 years in China, I'm now in Bali connecting China to Southeast Asia. And I'm writing my first book and starting my first podcast. It's called At the Speed of China, like at the speed of light. My thesis is that 4 years outside of China is a year in China. So 20 years, a generation, is a half decade in China. That's how fast things are moving.

Robinson, joining me from the Island of the Gods. Thank you so much for, as always, your wisdom, your energy, and your friendship. Thanks, buddy.

You too, man. Love and good vibes. Love and good vibes to you and yours. All the best.

Thank you so much for listening to us on the Unnoticed Show today. Obviously, Rich Robinson is someone who is very much noticed. And, uh, and now that he's got over the, the typo in the Unnoticed Entrepreneur, uh, name, I'm sure we'll be seeing more of him. All right, thank you so much for listening.