When I was 24, I launched my very first commodity trading company on the side of my day job. In this video, I'm going to give you the full story: how I found my first supplier, my first customer, and how I funded my company even though I had no money at the time. You can learn from my massive mistakes that almost sunk me and the company right from the beginning. And I'm not kidding—right from the beginning. But first, let me give you a little bit of context so you can better understand where I come from.
I'm Damien, a former commodity trader born and raised in Switzerland, the largest commodity hub at the time. I was a couple of years into my full-time job at a commodity trading house and was slowly transitioning from an operator role to a trading role. This meant I was starting to find suppliers, find customers, and close deals. I loved it. I was working extremely hard but loved every second of it. Being in the market is so intoxicating. You feel like a king. But something was off. I hated asking for time off, whether it was for a two-hour appointment with a dentist or a week off to explore a new country with my girlfriend. I hated it. I would always wait until the last minute to ask for time off because it made me feel small, less of a man. I mean, I'm a grown-up—why would I need anyone's permission to do whatever I want with my time? On the other side, I was overdelivering in my job, but that feeling of needing to start my own company kept growing. So, I did.
Mistake No. 1: Not Sticking to What I Knew
At my day job, I worked with African commodities such as sugar, milk powder, edible oil, and cocoa products. I thought starting a company remotely related to what I was doing would be weird. This was Mistake No. 1: not sticking to what I knew. I should have stuck to a field I knew would work, where I had all the contacts. Retrospectively, I should have just talked to my boss and said something like, "Listen, I'm working 10 hours a day at your company, so please let me work a couple of hours on mine. If there's a deal or some money to be made, maybe we can split it or find an agreement." I'm sure she would have accepted.
Mistake No. 2: Chasing the Perfect Commodity
Instead of sticking to commodities and regions I knew, I spent weeks looking for the perfect commodity-like products that lay at the intersection of those four criteria: no link with Africa, no foodstuff in containers (because I had no way to finance a vessel), and not traded on a futures exchange (because those markets are way more competitive). I ruled them out even if it was almost 10 years ago. I still remember all the research I did on those weird niche markets: cotton waste, piston cast, petflakes, and processed animal waste. Believe me, you don't want to know what that is. After months of researching and hitting a wall, I thought, "What am I doing here? Am I really thinking I'm going to find a deal on the web? What the hell, Damien, come on."
The Breakthrough: Finding the Customer First
I switched gears. Instead of looking for a commodity and then trying to find a client, I looked for the client first and then the commodity they wanted. This small idea unlocked everything for me. My wife's cousin, Adriano, had a small business importing gloves for construction workers in Brazil from China. He had a Chinese partner who handled all the due diligence, finding the right factories and sourcing the products. I thought, "Hey, China needs a lot of raw materials. Let's see if there's anything we can do." So, I called Bruce (not his real name, but stick around and you'll see why I don’t want to use his real name). We hit it off immediately. He was like, "Sure, I can try to sell raw materials to the factories we source from. It makes sense." Within two weeks, we found our first customer. Reflecting on that, it’s absurd because Bruce was only 20 years old. How he convinced someone that we could sell something is beyond me.
The Opportunity: LDPE and HDPE
The Chinese factory needed two different products for its garbage bag production: LDPE (low-density polyethylene) and HDPE (high-density polyethylene). These are types of plastic widely used for everyday items. Remember, this story takes place between 2013 and 2014 when crude oil prices were above $100, making virgin plastic very expensive compared to recycled plastic. Bruce checked the prices of LDPE and HDPE in mainland China, and I checked prices overseas. We found quite a healthy price difference, so there was maybe something to do. After hundreds of emails and phone calls, I found two suppliers willing to ship their products to China: one in the UK and the other in Thailand. The UK supplier offered a 25% gross margin, and the Thai supplier offered a 15% gross margin. I was over the moon.
Mistake No. 3: Ignoring Red Flags
But I was so ecstatic and stupid that I couldn't see the biggest red flag of all: 20% gross margin on a back-to-back deal, buying FOB, selling CFR, with a commodity-like product in a market you don’t know is not possible. If something seems too good to be true, it is. Mistake No. 3: when something is too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.
The Financial Plan
The financial plan was simple: the Chinese client would pay 30% prepayment. I had to pay 100% against the document from the UK supplier. I needed to find 15k to fund the goods for two months, and between my different credit cards, I was able to do it. Yes, I know, credit cards. But wait, there’s more. In Switzerland, you need 20k to set up a limited company, and I had no money. So, I had to find someone to lend me 20k to set up the company and do the deal. Instead of finding a partner to fund the operation, I took all the liabilities on myself. Mistake No. 4: share the risk. Taking all the risk myself set me back years in my financial journey.
Due Diligence on Suppliers
Back to the suppliers. I had to do some due diligence because I wasn’t going to send a lot of money without checking them out. I started with the UK supplier and bought a ticket from Geneva to London. But as soon as I announced my visit, the supplier became weird. He said things like, "I don’t have enough HDPE right now. Wait a month before visiting." That was a red flag. Meanwhile, the Chinese customer was getting impatient, asking if we were a real company and wanting the goods. I couldn’t postpone my visit, so I went to London. The supplier didn’t show up to pick me up, so I took a taxi to the recycling yard. But it was closed, and I spent the night in a nearby village.
The next day, I discovered I was getting scammed. My contact wasn’t part of the company—just a random scammer on the web. The people at the recycling yard were confused about why I was there. I felt terrible, wasted money on the trip, and had to explain the situation to Bruce. I went back to Switzerland, trying to reassure myself that the money wasted was nothing, thinking I’d make millions with my new company.
The Thai Supplier and AQSIQ Certification
Now, I had another problem: conducting due diligence on the Thai supplier. I was running out of money and days off from work. I remembered a friend with a team of Thai employees in Bangkok and begged him to send someone to the recycling yard to take pictures and ask questions. My friend’s employee made a report, and everything seemed fine. I found someone to lend me the 20k to set up the company, issued the contract, and sent the invoice to the Chinese customer. The money arrived in my account. I thought I had the Midas touch. But I was wrong.
Everything turned to chaos. We organized the shipment, sent the required documents to the Thai supplier, and his answer shocked me: he didn’t have the AQSIQ certification required to export plastic to China. Bruce’s client claimed they could import without the certification, but I knew the goods would be stuck at the port. This would bankrupt my company and me. I called off the deal and returned the money to China, suspecting Bruce didn’t reimburse the client. Mistake No. 5: trading must equal value creation. If you can't derisk the transaction for your supplier and buyer, you have no value. They can bypass you and transact directly. For a sustainable trading company, bring value to both sides.
When I was 24, I launched my very first commodity trading company on the side of my day job. In this video, I'm going to give you the full story: how I found my first supplier, my first customer, and how I funded my company even though I had no money at the time. You can learn from my massive mistakes that almost sunk me and the company right from the beginning. And I'm not kidding—right from the beginning. But first, let me give you a little bit of context so you can better understand where I come from.
I'm Damien, a former commodity trader born and raised in Switzerland, the largest commodity hub at the time. I was a couple of years into my full-time job at a commodity trading house and was slowly transitioning from an operator role to a trading role. This meant I was starting to find suppliers, find customers, and close deals. I loved it. I was working extremely hard but loved every second of it. Being in the market is so intoxicating. You feel like a king. But something was off. I hated asking for time off, whether it was for a two-hour appointment with a dentist or a week off to explore a new country with my girlfriend. I hated it. I would always wait until the last minute to ask for time off because it made me feel small, less of a man. I mean, I'm a grown-up—why would I need anyone's permission to do whatever I want with my time? On the other side, I was overdelivering in my job, but that feeling of needing to start my own company kept growing. So, I did.
Mistake No. 1: Not Sticking to What I Knew
At my day job, I worked with African commodities such as sugar, milk powder, edible oil, and cocoa products. I thought starting a company remotely related to what I was doing would be weird. This was Mistake No. 1: not sticking to what I knew. I should have stuck to a field I knew would work, where I had all the contacts. Retrospectively, I should have just talked to my boss and said something like, "Listen, I'm working 10 hours a day at your company, so please let me work a couple of hours on mine. If there's a deal or some money to be made, maybe we can split it or find an agreement." I'm sure she would have accepted.
Mistake No. 2: Chasing the Perfect Commodity
Instead of sticking to commodities and regions I knew, I spent weeks looking for the perfect commodity-like products that lay at the intersection of those four criteria: no link with Africa, no foodstuff in containers (because I had no way to finance a vessel), and not traded on a futures exchange (because those markets are way more competitive). I ruled them out even if it was almost 10 years ago. I still remember all the research I did on those weird niche markets: cotton waste, piston cast, petflakes, and processed animal waste. Believe me, you don't want to know what that is. After months of researching and hitting a wall, I thought, "What am I doing here? Am I really thinking I'm going to find a deal on the web? What the hell, Damien, come on."
The Breakthrough: Finding the Customer First
I switched gears. Instead of looking for a commodity and then trying to find a client, I looked for the client first and then the commodity they wanted. This small idea unlocked everything for me. My wife's cousin, Adriano, had a small business importing gloves for construction workers in Brazil from China. He had a Chinese partner who handled all the due diligence, finding the right factories and sourcing the products. I thought, "Hey, China needs a lot of raw materials. Let's see if there's anything we can do." So, I called Bruce (not his real name, but stick around and you'll see why I don’t want to use his real name). We hit it off immediately. He was like, "Sure, I can try to sell raw materials to the factories we source from. It makes sense." Within two weeks, we found our first customer. Reflecting on that, it’s absurd because Bruce was only 20 years old. How he convinced someone that we could sell something is beyond me.
The Opportunity: LDPE and HDPE
The Chinese factory needed two different products for its garbage bag production: LDPE (low-density polyethylene) and HDPE (high-density polyethylene). These are types of plastic widely used for everyday items. Remember, this story takes place between 2013 and 2014 when crude oil prices were above $100, making virgin plastic very expensive compared to recycled plastic. Bruce checked the prices of LDPE and HDPE in mainland China, and I checked prices overseas. We found quite a healthy price difference, so there was maybe something to do. After hundreds of emails and phone calls, I found two suppliers willing to ship their products to China: one in the UK and the other in Thailand. The UK supplier offered a 25% gross margin, and the Thai supplier offered a 15% gross margin. I was over the moon.
Mistake No. 3: Ignoring Red Flags
But I was so ecstatic and stupid that I couldn't see the biggest red flag of all: 20% gross margin on a back-to-back deal, buying FOB, selling CFR, with a commodity-like product in a market you don’t know is not possible. If something seems too good to be true, it is. Mistake No. 3: when something is too good to be true, then it’s too good to be true.
The Financial Plan
The financial plan was simple: the Chinese client would pay 30% prepayment. I had to pay 100% against the document from the UK supplier. I needed to find 15k to fund the goods for two months, and between my different credit cards, I was able to do it. Yes, I know, credit cards. But wait, there’s more. In Switzerland, you need 20k to set up a limited company, and I had no money. So, I had to find someone to lend me 20k to set up the company and do the deal. Instead of finding a partner to fund the operation, I took all the liabilities on myself. Mistake No. 4: share the risk. Taking all the risk myself set me back years in my financial journey.
Due Diligence on Suppliers
Back to the suppliers. I had to do some due diligence because I wasn’t going to send a lot of money without checking them out. I started with the UK supplier and bought a ticket from Geneva to London. But as soon as I announced my visit, the supplier became weird. He said things like, "I don’t have enough HDPE right now. Wait a month before visiting." That was a red flag. Meanwhile, the Chinese customer was getting impatient, asking if we were a real company and wanting the goods. I couldn’t postpone my visit, so I went to London. The supplier didn’t show up to pick me up, so I took a taxi to the recycling yard. But it was closed, and I spent the night in a nearby village.
The next day, I discovered I was getting scammed. My contact wasn’t part of the company—just a random scammer on the web. The people at the recycling yard were confused about why I was there. I felt terrible, wasted money on the trip, and had to explain the situation to Bruce. I went back to Switzerland, trying to reassure myself that the money wasted was nothing, thinking I’d make millions with my new company.
The Thai Supplier and AQSIQ Certification
Now, I had another problem: conducting due diligence on the Thai supplier. I was running out of money and days off from work. I remembered a friend with a team of Thai employees in Bangkok and begged him to send someone to the recycling yard to take pictures and ask questions. My friend’s employee made a report, and everything seemed fine. I found someone to lend me the 20k to set up the company, issued the contract, and sent the invoice to the Chinese customer. The money arrived in my account. I thought I had the Midas touch. But I was wrong.
Everything turned to chaos. We organized the shipment, sent the required documents to the Thai supplier, and his answer shocked me: he didn’t have the AQSIQ certification required to export plastic to China. Bruce’s client claimed they could import without the certification, but I knew the goods would be stuck at the port. This would bankrupt my company and me. I called off the deal and returned the money to China, suspecting Bruce didn’t reimburse the client. Mistake No. 5: trading must equal value creation. If you can't derisk the transaction for your supplier and buyer, you have no value. They can bypass you and transact directly. For a sustainable trading company, bring value to both sides.
