Adam Torres and Barron Zuo discuss CES.
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Show Notes:
Listen to CES (Consumer Electronics Show) coverage. In this episode, Adam Torres and Barron Zuo, Head of E-commerce CPG at AliExpress, explore and CES (Consumer Electronics Show).
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Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and today I am in Las Vegas, Nevada at CES, the world’s largest tech show and Baron. Baron is a return guest on the show. Baron, first off, welcome man. Thank you, Adam. Glad to be here. So last time we worked with each other was in Beverly Hills.
We were on a panel. Yeah. We were talking about some of the things you were doing with AliExpress. Sure. Maybe just start off with a little bit about your background and what brings you to CES. Yeah, no problem. So I have been in the U. S. and also international trade for over a decade. Mm hmm. And in the past, I have been working with Indiegogo, a crowdfunding platform.
I have been working with WeWork Labs, helping new tech products to go to market strategy. And of course, Alibaba Group in general, Aliexpress. com to help those brands, to help those really trending products to land in the U. S. market, retail market smoothly. So that’s the short intro of my background.
And we have seen so much, Opportunities and also exciting trend over here in CES 2025. So definitely love to share that with you, Adam. So first, what brings you to CES? Of course, you know, gotta be here, right? Thousands of thousands of new tech, exciting products and especially, you know, over two thousands 20,000, I believe maybe for this year, the visitors from all the world.
Wasn’t it amazing to see all the people? Absolutely. Like everybody’s back. C US is back, like everything’s open and it’s packed. Exactly. After COVID, you haven’t seen so many entrepreneurs and also, you know, company CEOs come to the Vegas. So Trends, what have you, I know we’re on day, what, three right now, I think we got today and the rest of today, I should say.
And then tomorrow we got one more full day. What, what have you found that stuck out to you so far? What’s been interesting? Yeah. You know, for the past three days, I probably walked like 10, 000 steps per day. So we have definitely seen a lot. You know, going through like Sayta 360, going through Anchor Booth, going through Sony, you know, among all those booths you’ll be able to see a lot of fantastic new tech.
But if you really want to highlight a few mm-hmm . Ai, AI plus everything is definitely top trend, you know, among all the products. Yeah. You know, you got IGC applications, you got AI voice apps. You also got AI powered voice recorder. You know, transcribe everything about AI. The second is, of course, AR is coming back because we always want to add a bit of additional assistance on the glasses, on your wrist.
So you need a kind of a personal assistant tools, which kind of be a great companion with your AI. You know, product that you are wearing the third trend is, of course, you will be able to see a lot of new energy related clean tech Kind of associated with all the smart tech in your home and garden. So I think those three trends are actually What we’re mostly interested in and that’s could have, you know, quickly turn into a great consumer product, which could, you know, means great growth potential in the consumer market.
What’s an example for those that are at home that like on the home and garden part, like when you think tech, you don’t necessarily always think home and garden. So like an example, maybe something you’ve seen or otherwise. Yeah, definitely. It doesn’t have to be a company, but any technology. Yeah, sure. If you really walk through, you know, Venetian, the convention center, or you’re walking through, you know, LVCC, you will be seeing a lot of, for example, like pool cleaners, or you will see a lot of you know, grass, lawn robots.
But those are definitely is going to, you know, relieve you from all the heavy duty of the daily work to clean your mansion, your house. And on the background of those amazing product, which could, you know, anywhere between 1, 500 to two grand a product, you know, in the back end is like AI, you know, like a geofence, to have the smart tag and also a lot of smart sensors to tell where a dog is and where the, you know, kind of the, the regard that you should go with.
And that’s definitely a kind of necessary part nowadays. To your home living, you want to make it smart. You want to, you know live in there. You don’t have to take care about, take care of it, you know, for several weeks and all the work get done. Yeah. And so when we used to watch movies when we were kids, right, growing up and you saw the smart homes or the really like high tech stuff and you think like, it’s going to be like one day or et cetera, but now you walk around these, these aisles and you see it, right?
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And if you really have the time to, you know, to. Observe how the poor robots actually navigate. You will be able to see from, you know, three years ago or actually the first poor robot, if my memory serves, actually appears around 2019 CS. And nowadays it’s just, if you check out the route, it’s much smarter, much smarter, more energy efficient.
And smaller in size and definitely cheaper. So that’s how technology in combination with great tech, tech application could actually transform your life. Yeah. Now, Baron, for full disclosure, this is my first time to CES. I’ve been told for many, many years, like Adam, Go to CES, like Mission Matters needs to be here.
And I’m pleasantly surprised that all the people that told me to come out was, they were right. I should have come a long time ago. So for you talking to other people out there, why should they be here next year if they didn’t come this year? Oh, well you know what, you know, every year you know, and by the way, we don’t get paid for that.
All right. We’re not selling tickets, but I was just so impressed. Paying at a full price. There you go. Yeah. So cs, no doubt, that is kind of a center of the consumer tech world. And over here you’ll be, you’ll be able to see the trend. Mm-hmm . You’ll be to see a lot of really writing Rising Star at the Eureka Park.
You know, check out, you know, the Kickstarter and also in Google Pavilion, you’ll be able to see a lot of amazing product going through crowdfunding, you know, getting introduced to the tech world. And you are also gonna see a lot of tech giants. You know, LG you know Sony, you will be able to see, you know GE’s work.
You will be able to see Amazon. What is it doing? That’s definitely tell you where the tech, where the product is going to be three years later. Right. Yeah. And also on the floor, on the sauce hall. You know, West Hall, North Hall, you’ll see, you know, what is it going to be on the market for the next six months.
So from there, if you are a real entrepreneur, you will be able to catch the trend. You’ll be able to link, connect with your business partners. And if you are also an investor, you know, there’s a I’m browsing around my my, my WeChat feed and also my Instagram feed. feed all the investors. All the investors, no matter if you are like a consumer tech investor, your AI investor, your SaaS investor, you, they all come to see us because there’s kind of a mix of a group of entrepreneurs here.
But most importantly, if you want to, Are a entrepreneurial guy, no matter you’re working at the Fortune 500 or you’re a self starter, especially you are, you know, mission matter listener, you want to be in that community to really catch this trend. So the next 10 years, where are you going to be? You should be here to witness all those.
And most importantly, connect with the community together with me and Adam, you will be able to secure a great knowledge of what CES actually represent. Yeah. And I think one of the things you mentioned that I was. Super impressed as a first time attendee was that the organization of all the different halls and places you can go to.
So like, maybe you have a very specific interest in investing in design or you have a very, or you want to see, like you said, like the big, big companies like the LG lab, huge budgets of R and D and all the other things like leading the way. Right. So you get to see like the fun stuff. You get to see the stuff that you’re like, wow, that’s going to be the prototype that who knows what’s going to come out in the future.
And, but then you also get to see like, Oh, you know, maybe I got a little, a little ideal I can do here. Maybe I have some other things I can make a deal. And I can bring a product in, or I can get into import export, or I can link with another entrepreneur or the events may be outside that are not happening during the day, but like the dinners, the, the networking parties, like all that stuff.
Stuff like it, there’s a whole ecosystem, like a community around it. The whole ecosystem here very well said. And on the daytime, you will be able to, you know, check out all those tags to actually feel all those products to make the connection. But at night, actually, when you grab a beer or get a wine with a group of like minded people, normally we’ll gather a night, you know for two events or even three events.
And if you’re crazy enough, enough after midnight, you can also get a party going on. You’ll be able to chat actually in very honest opinion about a certain product, about a certain trend. Actually, that’s where the actual deal happens. Yeah, that’s where actually people connect. And for three days in a row, four days in a row, you will be able to actually see the whole ecosystem.
And after you get back from CS, actually, you already have the next six months of action plans. For example, We are meeting with one AI voice recorder company. Mm-hmm . And we’re also working with another ai eyeglasses, very similar to revamp, but I would say that texts much better . So they will you know, announce their product in Q2 this year, and they are going to be on the, you know e-commerce platform and also on their GC sites.
Very exciting news and for us, we’ll be able. To start to work with them at the beginning of their life journey and of you name it, you know, marketing campaign, all kinds of DTC effort and you know, influencer test, affiliate marketing effort. So that’s how we help them. We empower them and eventually they will grow.
Everybody get away. Yeah, it’s amazing. Last question, Barron. If somebody wants to follow you. Follow, connect and follow your journey or otherwise. How do they do that? Well, connect with Mitch Matter community, because I’m sure we will also have another fantastic events and also podcasts in the near future.
And of course you can search Barrington on LinkedIn. Happy to connect with anyone who need help both the product side, product development side. And also E Karma side. We’ll be happy to share that through Adam and also Mission Matters community anytime. Fantastic. And for everybody watching, just so you know, we’ll definitely put the link to Barron’s LinkedIn in the show notes.
So if you want to connect, feel free to do so. And if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t done it yet, hit that subscribe or follow button. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re bringing you new content, new ideas, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well.
Hey, Barron, man, appreciate you coming on. Absolutely. My honor. Thank you, Adam. Thank you.
