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Temu is everywhere, promising that you can shop like a billionaire buying $10 wireless speakers, $12 sneakers, $20 drones and other cheap gadgets, clothes, backed with the promise of free shipping, 90day returns, 30day price adjustments, and deliveries within 2 weeks. But Temu isn’t the first to sell generic, unbranded, massproduced Chinese products online at radically low prices. Before Temu, there was AliExpress and Wish who both went to market decades ago with the exact same value prop, unbelievably low prices, and wacky advertising.

Wish was the earliest entrant into this space and the SFbased startup was once one of Silicon Valley’s darling unicorns. It all begs the question how exactly do these companies stay alive selling $510 items online? In this episode, we’ll cover the business of selling cheap Chinesemade junk online through the rise and fall of Wish, the persistence of AliExpress, and the sudden emergence of Temu and how all of this ties back to greed, growth and Silicon Valley.

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0:00 The Dollar Store Platform
8:20 The Rise & Fall of Wish
16:32 Irresponsible Burn
30:50 Fool Me Three Times