George Tran is an Author

George Tran is not only a programmer, an internet marketer, an entrepreneur but also an Author.

The man who didn't know any word of English before has actually written two books where copies are downloaded, forwarded and shared by a lot of small business owners today.

The first book he wrote was "The Social Marketing Manifesto". It was designed to both demystify social media and help you grow your business using social networking. Because social media has changed the way people communicate.

The second book he wrote was "The Social Mobile Marketing Guide for Small Businesses" (released January 2013). It talks about SoMo Marketing or Social and Mobile Marketing. As most people now use smartphones, customers are no longer just numbers on your mailing lists. They are empowered, and they want to be engaged. They want to talk to you, talk about your brand, and to each other.

George Tran Today

So where is George Tran now?

After his retirement, he invested heavily in real estate and a number of internet start up ventures like SocialSAM. But it didn't turn out good because George Tran lost everything and was forced to near bankruptcy. Besides it was also the time of housing bubble. 

But in late 2012, he embarked on a new venture called Mango Tree Mobile. It is a platform to help small businesses transition into mobile marketing. 

George Tran's Professional Background

George Tran is a hard worker.

He believes that hard work can help you accomplish anything.

After graduating from college, he worked for Symantec Corporation. It is the makers of Norton Utilities where he became the Symantec's supervisor of technical support for all of Asia Pacific. This was when he was still 22 where he quickly rise from management also.

With Symantec’s new technical support operation in Oregon, George emigrated to the US in December of 1993. There, he was responsible for the implementation and roll out of Symantec’s worldwide support customer tracking system. He was working and studying MBA that time also. But eventually he quit Symantec to focus on his studies. 

Applying what he learned on his graduate studies, George started his path of entrepreneurship with a company called GTA Technologies. It offered web hosting solution. It was also the first to offer free ecommerce and shopping cart solutions to the online community. He quickly accumulated over 10,000 merchants using this free ecommerce solution. 

And seeing the opportunity to innovate, George created a new information system to help online marketers.   With a goal to ease the challenge of building the world’s first shopping cart system that integrates an affiliate tracking system as well as a sequential autoresponder system together, 1Shoppingcart.com was born. 

But at the time of creating 1Shoppingcart.com, George was embezzled by his employees that made him over $20,000 poorer because of credit card debts.

But he never gives up. He continued to built the whole system in 3 months, programming the whole system on his own. A testament that he is truly a hard worker. This task would take a team of programmers to finish in period of more than 6 months.

Reaping the fruits of his labor, 1Shoppingcart.com quickly became an industry standard. It was embraced by tens of thousands of online marketers.

But in 2002, George Tran sold his interest in 1Shoppingcart.com to his partner, Rob Bell and retired at the age of 32.

He then spent travelling around the world, a dream of living financially free. 

George Tran's Academic Background

George Tran is an academically good student and a geek.

When he was still in high school, he graduated among the top 5% of his class in Arthur Phillip High,  a disadvantaged inner city High School. He spent most of his time doing programming and reading books.

When he reached college, he of course took a geek course degree which is Computer Science. He studied in  Sydney University which is one of the most prestigious universities of Australia where he graduated in 1991.

And when he started working, his quest for learning didn't stop. He studied Masters of Business Administration (MBA) at the University of Oregon and graduated in 1997.

George Tran's Humble Beginnings

In an interview conducted by Kean Wong on The New Millionaire Show, you will learned that George Tran has a really extraordinary journey when he was still young.

He was born in Saigon, Vietnam. So basically he is an Asian, Chinese by decent and Vietnamese by birth. And then he migrated to Australia in 1979 as a boat refugee after his family fled the Vietnamese Communist invasion.

He was only 8 years old that time when that horrible experienced happened.

They snuck-out in the middle of the night and left through a little river boat. No map and were just guided by the stars. They were wandering for many days and were robbed by Thai pirates not only once but thrice. They took everything that they have including the engine. Good thing, they were found by a West German tanker.

And at the age of 9, he arrived in Australia. Literally with only clothes on his back and he didn't know any word of English.

It must have been really hard on his part considering its a new environment and a new culture. A lot of adjustment has to be done. But he thrives because for him, it's not a hindrance.

Our First Meeting

It was 3 years ago when I first met George Tran. 

A friend and former colleague introduced me to him. He said he needed some help about work and since I am also available that time, I positively answered. 

On our first meeting, he asked me a little about life and work experiences. We were on Skype call that time and when he heard a background noise about chickens, he was so delighted. As if a child remembering the simple and good old memories he had. And I can still remember how he giggles and reacted, "Oh, you have chickens there?" 

Little did I know that he came from Vietnam. He was only 9 years old when he arrived to Australia. He was boat refugee and only have a clothes on his back and didn't know any word of English.

I am so amazed.