China, every mention
316 scenes · ← back to China
tap a year for its mentions
every year anyone Guy Raz 253Mei Xu 27Larry Liu 10Kim Vaccarella 10Carlton Calvin 10Steve Holmes 9Sara Menker 9Randy Hetrick 8Lloyd Armbrust 7Vicky Tsai 5
Verbatim, from the transcripts: the passages where China comes up
Bogg Bag: Kim Vaccarella. The $100 Million Business She Almost Abandoned
- ▶ 2:08 Guy Raz Her first big shipment arrived from China, about 30,000 dollars worth of product, and most of the bags were defective.
- ▶ 24:01 Kim Vaccarella You manufacture in China, right? 9 times in the scene
- ▶ 31:20 Guy Raz You got to put an order in, in China, or maybe you had already put the order in.
- ▶ 49:27 Guy Raz But this time you were actually going to visit, you were going to fly to China for the first time. 4 times in the scene
- ▶ 52:47 Kim Vaccarella And after a little bit of posting, one woman replied and she was having a, she makes a breast pump bag and she was having her breast pump made at a factory in China and offered to make an introduction.
Advice Line with Daymond John of FUBU
- ▶ 34:30 Seema Sangavi Why is it made in China?
Bobbie: Laura Modi. How a Baby Formula Startup Took Market Share From Two Industry Giants
Advice Line: "Strategy Sessions"
Advice Line with Chris Riccobono of UNTUCKit
Catalina Crunch: Krishna Kaliannan. From Homemade Keto Cocoa Puffs to Breakfast Aisle Breakthrough
- ▶ 58:28 Krishna Kaliannan So we had, due to the tariffs on, on, uh, China, the price of, of monk fruit went way, way, way up, and it was like an extra 85,000 dollars a pallet for us to buy monk fruit.
e.l.f. Cosmetics: Joey Shamah. The Dollar Store Formula That Built a Cosmetics Giant
- ▶ 12:43 Guy Raz So you have, uh, you identify a manufacturer in China, and how many, how many SKUs are you going to, how many different products you're going to make?
- ▶ 45:06 Joey Shamah So, I got on a plane, and I went to our factories in China. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 46:15 Guy Raz So it's the fall of 2006 and Joey is in China scrambling to fulfill an unexpected surge in orders. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 54:52 Guy Raz You don't, no calls with China.
Advice Line with Susan Griffin-Black of EO Products
- ▶ 32:01 Dominic Wyndham-Giddens We've shipped as far as China.
Build-A-Bear: Maxine Clark. A Former Shoe Executive Launches a Stuffed Animal Empire
NVIDIA: Jensen Huang. From near collapse to becoming the world’s biggest company
- ▶ 1:26 Guy Raz If NVIDIA were a country, it would be one of the five richest in the world, just behind the US and China.
- ▶ 50:56 Guy Raz And that conversation is not happening in China?
- ▶ 52:42 Guy Raz I mean, what part of that, let's just say that scenario is not realistic, that it would be destructive for China as well, because our economy really depends on, on the U.S. market.
Room & Board: John Gabbert. A Broken Deal, a Family Rift, and the Birth of a Furniture Giant
- ▶ 40:57 John Gabbert And we determined that the only advantage you have making it in China is wages, right?
Advice Line with Jonah Peretti of Buzzfeed
- ▶ 26:15 Andrew Bruce Um, I actually just got back from China and was designing a few accessories to release this year and plan on building out with product variations and having certain product lines
Beautycounter: Gregg Renfrew. She Built Beautycounter to $1B… Then Got Fired From Her Own Company
- ▶ 36:08 Gregg Renfrew I really wanted, uh,
Advice Line with David Neeleman of JetBlue
- ▶ 17:34 Jeff Pyjack Um, right now in 2026, we're franchising both domestically, uh, and internationally in the country of China.
Shep and Ian Murray: Vineyard Vines. A Stale Product Transforms into a Lifestyle Brand.
- ▶ 16:22 Shep Murray And so we found a silk importer, and all the silk comes from China.
Advice Line with Eric Ryan of Method returns
- ▶ 27:44 Ben Forrest Uh, I actually turned everything off, uh, to, to go right to China. 2 times in the scene
KIND bars: Daniel Lubetzky. From peace in the Middle East to a $5 billion snack bar
- ▶ 57:55 Daniel Lubetzky And we told the gentleman, thank you sir, but we're not ready to go into China. 5 times in the scene
iRobot: Colin Angle. How The Roomba Became a Household Icon
- ▶ 45:53 Guy Raz So I'm assuming you were, you were producing these in China, right? 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 58:11 Colin Angle China does. 4 times in the scene
Scrub Daddy: Aaron Krause. How a Failed Experiment Became a Billion-Dollar Sponge
- ▶ 1:01:18 Aaron Krause They're writing these articles about how bad the economy is, and how many people are losing their jobs, and that China's taking all our jobs, and we might go into a depression.
- ▶ 1:23:04 Aaron Krause We found the company in China. 2 times in the scene
Square: Jim McKelvey. He Lost a $2,000 Sale, Then Built a $10 Billion Company
- ▶ 49:25 Jim McKelvey Well, I basically lived in China until I figured out how to build everything at the absolute lowest cost that I could figure out.
Spinbrush: John Osher. The Electric Toothbrush That Sold for $475M
- ▶ 23:23 Guy Raz Being made in China at the time, or not, not yet? 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 26:35 Guy Raz So, you acquire the rights to these spin candies, and, and, I mean, you, presumably, you knew that they could be made pretty cheaply in, because you'd already been making products in China.
- ▶ 29:17 John Osher I, I knew we had made millions of these spinning lollipops, and that, uh, we became experts in small batteries, motors, and gears in China. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 44:05 John Osher They were not particularly a strong company in China.
Netflix: Reed Hastings. “We’re Not a Family.” The Provocative Idea That Helped Build a Streaming Giant
- ▶ 1:13:06 Reed Hastings Uh, then we did Latin America, and then country by country in Europe, and then in 2016, we did the whole world ex-China.
HOKA: Jean-Luc Diard and Nicolas Mermoud. The “Clown Shoe” That Became a $2B Bonanza
Advice Line with Serial Entrepreneur Mark Cuban
- ▶ 3:33 Mark Cuban And so we can make generic pills here in the United States cheaper than what we can buy them for from India or China.
- ▶ 43:05 Mark Cuban Are you buying primarily through China or where? 3 times in the scene
Taylor Guitars: Kurt Listug and Bob Taylor. From $3,700 Shop to Global Icon
Gymboree: Joan Barnes. How Building a Beloved Brand Nearly Destroyed Its Founder
- ▶ 48:42 Joan Barnes Um, the woman who had done our clothing, her husband was the GM of the gap, so he knew all these people in, in China that could manufacture for us, you know, and she did a great job designing our first line.
- ▶ 1:19:04 Guy Raz By the way, even though Gymboree is nowhere nearly as big as it once was, it's still doing pretty well overseas, especially in China, where there are hundreds of play centers.
SkinnyDipped: Breezy and Val Griffith. The Flourishing Snack Company That Almost Failed
- ▶ 41:45 Val Griffith In the, like in the garage, like in the basement, in, in very flimsy boxes that, you know, came from China.
Exploding Kittens: Elan Lee. How cat-themed Russian Roulette changed game night forever
Advice Line with Scott Tannen of Boll & Branch and Jamie Siminoff of Ring
- ▶ 30:03 Chris McElroy Went to China probably 20 times.
Meridith Baer Home: Meridith Baer. She Started Over at 50 and Put Home Staging on the Map.
Hydro Flask: Travis Rosbach. How a thirsty surfer changed the water bottle industry
- ▶ 2:29 Guy Raz The painstaking hours of research and reverse engineering, the risky trip to China to find just the right manufacturer, the improvising and jerry-rigging that went into making a first prototype.
- ▶ 20:14 unnamed speaker We had a client who would go to the Canton Fair in China and he would help his customers find factories to build their products. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 25:37 Guy Raz So it's 2007, and Travis is in China, where he's finally found a factory that might be able to make him a vacuum insulated water bottle. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 46:30 Guy Raz He spends all of November in China watching them being made, but when he gets home, he's in for a shock.
- ▶ 56:13 Travis Rosbach I help do advising for companies that are looking for building their products in factories in the States or in China, but I'm also looking to do another bottle company as well.
Gymshark: Ben Francis. From pizza delivery to billion-dollar fitness brand.
Nuts.com: Jeff Braverman. From Corner Store to Snacktime Powerhouse
- ▶ 47:37 Jeff Braverman Think about when you go on Amazon, you buy a light that breaks the next day, but like it's vendor Q B Z A Y, you know, whatever from China.
Advice Line with John Zimmer of Lyft
- ▶ 26:49 Terri Levy Um, we're importing from China and Pakistan. 2 times in the scene
Advice Line with Tony Xu of Doordash
Poppi: Allison and Stephen Ellsworth. From Farmers Market Vinegar Drink to $2B Soda Sensation
- ▶ 58:20 Stephen Ellsworth Of essentially air, empty aluminum cans all the way from China, just so we could fulfill, uh, the demand.
Carlton Calvin: Razor. The wild rise, collapse, and reinvention of a mobile toy empire.
- ▶ 12:12 Carlton Calvin Most of toys, you know, there was a whole, there's a whole business back then of importing toys from China that were kind of unbranded, and, like, talking parrots and all kinds of stuff, and he would do that.
- ▶ 16:05 Carlton Calvin So I had a Chinese friend, and they said we eat scorpions in China, or they eat scorpions in China. 6 times in the scene
- ▶ 23:17 Carlton Calvin And so I did, and I didn't have a way to make the yo-yo, so I started to make the yo-yo itself in China. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 30:48 Carlton Calvin China.
- ▶ 34:21 Guy Raz And these were making, they were making them in China? 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 40:53 Guy Raz They were just cranking them out in China.
- ▶ 1:07:43 Guy Raz Because everything you make is coming from China, basically. 2 times in the scene
Advice Line with Mei Xu of Chesapeake Bay Candle and Blueme
- ▶ 1:08 Guy Raz You told us about how you came from China to the U.S. after being trained as a diplomat, and then you wound up starting a candle company, Chesapeake Bay Candle, and you actually sold that company for seventy five million dollars to
- ▶ 3:02 Guy Raz May, I know, I remember when you came on the show, we talked about how early on, you know, sort of, you know, back before you were designing your own candles, right, when you were still importing them from China, there was a point where…
Advice Line with Steve Holmes of goba Sports Group
Advice Line: Scaling Strategies
Tecovas: Paul Hedrick
Advice Line with RJ Scaringe with Rivian
Substack: Chris Best and Hamish McKenzie
- ▶ 14:14 Hamish McKenzie I did end up going to Hong Kong, and my logic was, this was 2006, and China was on the march. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 40:59 Guy Raz Hamish, he had been writing about China, um, and he agreed to, because I guess this was a free blog that he was writing, and he agreed to join Substack and to start charging.
Whisker/Litter-Robot: Brad Baxter
Hexclad: Danny Winer
- ▶ 1:53 Guy Raz Danny Weiner, one of the founders, discovered the pans at a trade show in China back in 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 33:06 Danny Winer And I go to show up to walk into this hall and there's just 30 Chinese soldiers there and they've got their guns there and they won't let me in.
- ▶ 1:09:49 Danny Winer The cookware, most of the cookware is made in, in China, actually.
Advice Line with Andy Dunn of Bonobos
Vizio: William Wang
Advice Line with Peter Rahal of RXBAR
- ▶ 23:48 Eric Rukiski And one of the things has just been like trying to keep up inventory from a financing perspective, because I'm paying for everything upfront before it, we do build in China, uh, before it leaves China. 2 times in the scene
Advice Line with Joe Gebbia of Airbnb
Boll & Branch: Scott and Missy Tannen
Advice Line with Sadie Lincoln of barre3
Groupon and Descript: Andrew Mason
- ▶ 15:24 Andrew Mason Um, there'd been a little, like, movement in China that we read about where people were going into local businesses and seeing if they can negotiate TVs at a discount if 20 people buy them at the same time.
Banana Republic: Mel and Patricia Ziegler
SmartSweets: Tara Bosch
- ▶ 13:07 Tara Bosch So I would design them, and then I found a manufacturer in China, and then just started selling them directly to students and had a little site.
On athletic shoes: Olivier Bernhard and Caspar Coppetti
- ▶ 47:19 Guy Raz When you went to China initially to get the shoes manufactured, from, from what I've read, you were told by people that your design drawings and your schemes were impossible to make these affordable. 2 times in the scene
- ▶ 51:26 Guy Raz Oh, you had, you had like a local, like a, you had a local agent, presumably in China, and you were like, come on, you got to get these shoes to us.
American Giant: Bayard Winthrop
- ▶ 2:49 Guy Raz The company could make a lot more money by simply outsourcing to China or Vietnam, but that would defeat the purpose of the business.
- ▶ 22:04 Guy Raz And they decided to move it to China.
- ▶ 32:48 Bayard Winthrop If you go to China today and you and I want to launch a, let's say, a jacket business, we can go order a 100,000 jackets in pink and 250,000 jackets with a hood in orange, and we can do a turnkey, just write the order.
- ▶ 1:00:42 Bayard Winthrop So, so the cost of labor in the United States compared to China is, uh, they're not really comparable. 3 times in the scene
- ▶ 1:17:50 Bayard Winthrop And to be clear, if you make stuff in the United States, you get the human rights benefits, the environmental benefits, the worker safety benefits that are baked into domestic law in a way that if you make it somewhere else, like…
Dave’s Hot Chicken: Arman Oganesyan
ECKO UNLTD and COMPLEX: Marc Ecko
Therabody: Jason Wersland
- ▶ 47:47 Jason Wersland Her and my, my brother and my dad knew her, and she was from China.
- ▶ 50:07 Guy Raz Angela knows a guy named China Bob, and China Bob has connections to Chinese factories, where Jason is trying to find a manufacturer for Theraguns. 2 times in the scene
Advice Line with Pete Maldonado of Chomps
- ▶ 26:54 Brandy Shelton Whether that's India, Kenya, Sri Lanka, China, Japan, and so it works now because we're just doing a couple of 100,000 kilos a year in tea.
CrunchLabs: Mark Rober
- ▶ 55:54 Mark Rober And then in June, 20, 20 two, we hired a couple more people, someone to help with like logistics and buying and sourcing from China.
Weee!: Larry Liu
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