Kim Lato - The Hustle Behind Kimstore

This week on Hustleshare, host Ron Baetiong sits down with Kim Lato, founder and CEO of KimStore, the Philippines' longest-running and largest electronics e-tailer. Kim shares her incredible 19-year journey from selling cameras on Multiply as an 18-year-old college student to building an e-commerce empire that survived platform shutdowns, customs controversies, family tragedy, and a global pandemic—emerging stronger each time. Episode Timeline: 00:02:06 – Kim's hustle: Building KimStore.com from scratch 00:06:41 – The Fil-Chi way: financial literacy from age 12 00:09:04 – Launching on Multiply: from hobby to side hustle 00:11:25 – Early fulfillment: LRT rides with cameras to meetups 00:14:15 – Wild Wild West: ghosting customers and cash-on-delivery struggles 00:16:36 – 2008 financial crisis: choosing full-time hustle over job hunting 00:19:29 – Building the first team: CSRs and in-house riders in Tondo 00:21:52 – Riding the group buying wave (Groupon era) 00:24:18 – Go Negosyo feature: "I want to be the Amazon of Electronics" 00:29:02 – When Multiply shut down (2013): pivoting to Facebook 00:35:17 – 2015 tragedy: Dad shot 8 times in inside job holdup 00:36:45 – Finding God: the turning point that changed everything 00:42:36 – Lazada and Shopee: competition or opportunity? 00:48:10 – COVID-19: The breakthrough year (2020) 00:52:35 – Building brand equity vs. just selling 00:54:02 – Delayed gratification: first car after 9 years 00:56:01 – Finding purpose beyond the hustle "I wasn't really certain about what I'm doing, but I took a leap of faith that I think this is something worth pursuing. I think we could make this big. And that really helped me do this in a bigger aspect." Resources: Website: https://www.kimstore.com Facebook: KimStore (3M+ followers) Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kimstorePH/ Links/Sponsors: OneCFO: https://www.onecfoph.co/ Hustleshare is powered by Podmachine Listen to our brand new podcast: Founders Only HERE Diamond Supporters: Sarisuki, PayMongo, SeekCap, Shoppable Business, Qapita, GoTyme Bank, Sprout Solutions, UNO Digital Bank. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.