June 10, 2019

#66: Robert Luo, CEO of Mi Terro, on Selling a Company for $300K, Getting 450% Funded on Kickstarter, and Creating Eco-Friendly Products to Save Our Planet

34 minutes

Robert Luo graduated from USC Marshall School of Business with a degree in Bachelor of Business Administration.

Robert started his first company when he was 20. It was during the time when he decided to take a gap year after my sophomore year in college. Robert’s company developed a mobile application called Ubi, which allowed users to send messages and videos with Bluetooth. It was a unique and stressful experience at the time. The company failed to deliver the app 5 times before the official launch, which resulted in $30,000 extra expenses. Luckily, after the official launch, the app gained 5000 users within the next 6 months. By the time I sold the company for $300,000, the app had over 10,000 users.

After returning to USC, Robert immediately began to draft ideas on how to start next. He eventually came up with two ideas. The first idea was starting a green fashion brand that creates sustainable and recyclable products to reduce fashion waste. After 14 months of research, customer discovery, design, and experimentation, they launched the product, Mi Terro CDS, to Kickstarter in February 2018. Mi Terro CDS is the world’s only bag made of recycled ocean plastics and cork. The campaign was a big success. We were fully funded within 22 hours and later concluded the campaign with 450% funded. Because of our great product and business model, they won $5000 for the USC New Venture Seed Competition. Robert is also running a green software company called Reo2. The Reo2 app rewards users for reducing carbon emission by planting trees on their behalf.

Robert Luo was a Forbes Under 30 Scholar and a candidate of the LA Business Journal’s “20 Entrepreneurs in Their 20s.”

Show notes at:

https://www.justgogrind.com/podcast/

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