Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Malcolm Egun. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Malcolm, appreciate you joining us today. Let’s start with education – we’d love to hear your thoughts about how we can better prepare students for a more fulfilling life and career

Honestly, I would challenge the educational system to promote a better focus in financial literacy and entrepreneurship. Speaking from personal experience, my younger schooling days was jaded with subject matter that doesn’t apply to real world economics in any shape or form.

The lack of finance education runs rampant in inner-cities, which holds the greatest demographic of minorities. And in my opinion, this is the reason why most generations remain in poverty..

Malcolm, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

The main problem that I solve for clients is staying fit on an affordable budget. I source products from sporting good manufacturers all over the world to businesses and individuals seeking to get in shape and maintain a good health & wellness balance.

What really sets us apart from our competitors is the emphasis we have on customer satisfaction. We are naturally obsessed with our customers. We make an effort to collect every type of data point from our customer base and utilize good relationship-building practices. These practices come in the form of texting, calling, FaceTime, and direct mail. We have won the hearts of many of our clients due to this methodology.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

My journey, I must say, is a rather unique one. My friends normally joke around and say that it will be turned into a Netflix series one day (laughs).

To give you a shorter version, my story was filled with many setbacks, periods of depression, confusion and insecurity. Why is that? Because I was one of the many millennials that graduated from college and thought getting a job in your field of study was the “American Dream”. Boy was I wrong.

Not only did I leave the career job of my young adolescent dreams six months post-graduation, but I was either fired or blackballed from future job opportunities for the next 7 years. The firing came from me lacking mentorship and a network of internal stakeholders that could vouch for me. And being blackballed came from me witnessing a cultural crisis in every company that I joined.

I was very unpolished and failed at mastering the “imposter syndrome” many minorities succumb to when working in Corporate America. I could never fit in. And for that reason, I decided to take a hiatus from Corporate America at that time and create something that I can own and trail-blaze my own destiny.

It was during this time that I decided to create Frogshop and build my business from the ground up. I didn’t have a rich uncle or any type of savings to carry me through. I went in cold turkey.

To make matters even more challenging, I recently had a child; my son. So with the given circumstances, I decided to go back to a side-hustle of mine I did on the weekends after college. I became a bouncer. I bounced in nightclubs full-time (7 nights per week) to take care of my son all while trying to raise money for my new venture. It was grueling process, but I made it work.

Raising money as a African-American founder in itself was a challenge. I was told “No” or “Not Interested” or “Too Early” over 100x. The resistance met was such psychological torture because the same excuses I received was dismissed whenever a Caucasian founder was up at bat. I’ve had non-color founders in my cohort with no proof of concept close 1M+ in Seed rounds. It was depressing.

But on the flip-side, this experience helped my developed the grit necessary to stay committed to the process of building a company. I didn’t have not one trace of revenue nor customer(s) for 3 years.

Today, the tables have turned. FROGSHOP has grown into a full-scale operation, grossing between 50-100K/month in sales. We were featured in Forbes Magazine, we have sealed partnerships with Tier-1 sporting good brands owned by the likes of Warren Buffet, and we have customers in over 10+ countries worldwide.

And after 7 long years of bouncing, I was able to hang up my badge and tactical gloves for good. Having a natural gift for understanding the capital markets, I was able to get my licenses in buying and selling securities. This helped me to win roles as an investment consultant at top-tier investment firms. The rest is history.

I share all of this to say that your journey is tailor made for your own character development. Don’t run away from the setbacks. Embrace them. Because the lowest moments will serve as the trampoline for the highest ones.

We’d love to hear your thoughts about selling platforms like Amazon/Etsy vs selling on your own site.

My business is an Ecommerce based business. It’s actually ran on three major platforms (Shopify, Amazon & Walmart).

Having a business that has an omni-channel network is very lucrative but takes a lot of work. The business requires lots of backend work, compliance screening, marketing and supply chain logistics. I partner with lot of 3PL companies such as UPS, FedEx and multiple LTL freight carriers. Each sales channel has a science behind its marketing strategy and it must be refined quarterly to stay competitive.

I must say that we are blessed to have a strong support system in our IT (tech) team, VA (virtual assistant) team, and most importantly, our network of suppliers. They all serve a great amount of value to the success of Frogshop.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.frogshopfitness.com
• Instagram: @frogshopfitness
• Facebook: @frogshoptechnology
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/frogshop-llc/
• Twitter: @frogshopfitness
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@frogshopfitness

Image Credits
BodySolid, Inc. York Barbell USA, Ltd.