Inspiration story of 26 years old Thai Billionaire

His name is Aitthipat Kulapongvanich a.k.a Ittipat, a Thai entrepreneur which well-known for his product Tao Kae Noi, a fried seaweed snack sold around the Asia-Pacific countries.

His success story is very inspiring, especially for start-ups.

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At the age of 16, he was no other than a normal school boy that addicted to online games called Everquest. He was doing very well in the game and became one of the best player in his arena. Thus, he managed to get a lot of rare items and treasures that required for character upgrade that other people find difficult to get.

Game players from all around the world, particularly from the US, started to contact him in order to buy his rare items and treasures. Because of this, he earned approximately USD10K monthly. He was in fantasy land.

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At 17, he continued his study in University of Chamber of commerce of Thailand. However, in the same year, his parent’s business facing financial crisis and eventually declared bankruptcy and in debt up to 10million US Dollars.

Because of this, he decided to quit school and help his family. He sold his game ID and for a good sum of money and started to think what he could do with the money in order to be able to help his family.

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He tried to sell food and coffee in front of his campus, invest and sell cheap CD players, all his plan doesn’t work out. He lost a big sum of the money from the money he got from selling the game ID.

One day, he was exploring China Town in Bangkok, he noticed that many people like sugar fried chestnut. During that time, sugar fried chestnut only can get in China Town. Therefore, he had the first business idea, by selling sugar fried chestnut in major shopping malls. Within a year and half, he opened over 30 chestnut stores in Thailand's largest hypermarket TESCO and Carrefour. He was 18.

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However, the new CEO appointed by TESCO Lotus (where over 25 of his branches were located) not allowed him to sell his chestnut in TESCO Lotus because its smoke carried the smell over the mall and dirtied the store's ceiling. So he decided to cook the chestnut outside the mall and then sent to the stores.

The sales of the chestnut dropped vastly by 50 per cent. In order to make up for the sales, he then tried selling other food such as dried fruits and fried seaweed. After a few months, he noticed the fried seaweed over took the chestnut sales and became the best-selling product. Here comes the beginning of his seaweed empire at the age of 19.

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He setup a small team of people working at the kitchen in his house to produce more fried seaweed. To be able to expand his fried seaweed, he decided to move his product into 7-Eleven. At first, the management of 7-Eleven rejected his request because of the packaging of his seaweed product was too ugly (a plastic bag with a sticker).

He spent months to modified the packaging design and eventually management of 7-Eleven satisfied with it and request to visit his factory to ensure the quality of the food and to ensure his seaweed will be able to supply in 3000 outlets throughout Thailand. With just six workers in his kitchen, there is no way he can archive that. He decided to sell his chestnut business to fund to increase the production line and hire more workers.

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Not long after the factory visit, 7-Eleven first order was 72,000 packs of fried seaweed within 45 days. From there, his fried seaweed business boomed. 2 years later his fried seaweed was exported to Singapore and Hong Kong.

At age 26, the product is available in 19 countries including US, UK, Canada and Australia. He becomes the Thailand’s youngest self-made billionaire with net worth of THB 1 billion ($33 million)

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His road to success doesn't come easy. His never-give-up attitudes is for us to learn. He crossed the obstacles step-by-step. The most important is to have the right mindset. You have to believe in yourself on what you want to do, you will be success one day.

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