Today we’d like to introduce you to Bao Le.
Hi Bao, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
Gundam Kingdom officially opened on October 27, 2017, but my story with Gundam started many years before that.
I first became familiar with Gundam through playing Super Robot Wars when I was still living in Vietnam. Around 2000, after moving to Houston with my mother, I remember visiting Hong Kong Mall on Bellaire and seeing a Gundam store there. They had so many completed models beautifully displayed, and I was fascinated. I could stand there for a long time just looking at everything.
At the time, spending around $50 on a toy was considered very expensive in my family, so my mother did not want me to buy one.
In Vietnamese culture, children usually receive lucky money, or “lì xì,” during Lunar New Year. I saved my lucky money until I finally had enough to buy a Gundam kit. I actually didn’t tell my mom because I was afraid she would get mad at me.
The funny part was that when I got home and opened the box, I realized it wasn’t an action figure at all. It was a model kit.
I had never built a model kit before, so I remember looking at all the runners inside the box and wondering what I was supposed to do with them. I didn’t have proper hobby tools either, so I borrowed one of my mom’s small nail scissors and used that to build my first kits.
Some of my earliest builds were the MG GP03 and HG Wing Zero Custom.
When I finally finished them, I remember how satisfying it felt. You start with all these separate pieces, and little by little you build the body, the arms, the legs and the head until eventually you have something complete sitting in front of you.
That feeling stayed with me.
From then on, I started saving money to buy more kits. Later, when I got older and started working, I began learning more about Gunpla, collecting kits and building more seriously.
Before Gundam Kingdom, I spent about two years repairing computers and selling Japanese stationery. I never had a background in business, and I never really thought of myself as someone who was going to become a business owner.
The motivation came from the hobby itself.
The more I built Gundam, the more I started thinking that it would be amazing to have my own Gundam store one day. At that time, Gunpla was nowhere near as popular in our area as it is today, and I couldn’t find many stores around Houston, especially near me, that specialized in Gundam model kits.
So eventually I decided to take a chance and see if I could make it work.
The truth is, I had no idea how to open or run a retail business.
People sometimes ask me, “How did you know how to open a store?” And honestly, I really didn’t.
I just started asking people questions, researching online and learning one thing at a time. I had to teach myself about inventory, pricing, purchasing, expenses, profit margins, suppliers and all the numbers behind running a business.
In the beginning, I made plenty of mistakes. Some were expensive, and there were times when I lost money because I simply didn’t understand the business side well enough yet.
But whenever something went wrong, I tried to figure out why. If I realized there was something I didn’t understand, I researched it. If I made a mistake, I tried to learn from it and improve.
That process of learning by doing has been a huge part of my journey.
When Gundam Kingdom first opened in 2017, it was very small. I wasn’t sure whether the business would succeed, so I didn’t want to start too big.
We had only about two shelves and around 20 kits for sale.
Because I had already been collecting and building Gundam for years, I displayed some of my own completed models in a cabinet so customers could see what the kits could look like after they were built.
In the beginning, I did everything myself. I was at the store seven days a week.
One of the biggest challenges was simply getting people to understand what Gundam was.
During the first year or two, many people who walked into the store had never heard of Gunpla before. Our store was next to a restaurant, so customers from next door would sometimes walk in just because they were curious.
A lot of people would look at the Gundams and call them Transformers.
So I would take the time to explain the difference between Gundam and Transformers and show them that these were model kits they could actually build themselves.
There were also Gundam fans who already knew exactly what they were looking for. They would find us through Google and come in because they were excited to find a physical store where they could actually see and buy Gundam kits.
Finding suppliers was another major challenge.
Gunpla distribution in the U.S. was much more limited at the time, and I had to figure most of it out myself. I searched online for Gundam wholesalers, reached out to Japanese stores, stationery shops and gift shops, and tried to find anyone who could help me source products. A lot of the inventory also had to come from Japan.
Eventually, I found a wholesale website that happened to be preparing to close down. They were selling Gundam kits at very good prices, so I was able to purchase a larger amount of inventory from them.
Little by little, the store started growing.
The biggest turning point came during the COVID period in 2020 and 2021.
People were spending much more time at home and were looking for hobbies and activities they could do by themselves or with their families. During that time, we suddenly started seeing a lot of new customers.
Our store was still very small, and there were days when it became so crowded that there was barely room for people to walk around.
That was probably the first time I really felt that Gundam Kingdom could become something much bigger.
Before that, I had even considered going back to school and running the store while taking online classes. But after seeing the community grow during that period, I became much more confident about committing myself to the business.
Today, one of the things I’m most proud of is simply that Gundam Kingdom is still here, nearly nine years later.
Before starting this business, I went through different jobs and different things in my life, and I didn’t always stick with something for very long.
Gundam was different.
In some ways, building model kits taught me something about myself. You start with hundreds of separate pieces, and you have to sit down, focus and keep going. Slowly, everything starts coming together until eventually you can step back and see what you created.
I think building Gundam Kingdom has been very similar.
I started with two shelves, around 20 kits and some of my own models in a display cabinet. I didn’t know how to run a business, so I learned piece by piece. I made mistakes, learned from them, adjusted and kept going.
Along the way, I’ve met so many people, made friends and watched a small Gundam community grow around the store.
That part means a lot to me.
I still remember the feeling I had after finishing my first Gundam, and I like being able to introduce someone new to the hobby and hopefully give them some of that same feeling.
That is also why displays are still such an important part of Gundam Kingdom today.
When someone walks into the store for the first time, I want them to look around at all the completed models and feel the same excitement I felt when I walked into that Gundam store in Hong Kong Mall more than 20 years ago.
Looking ahead, I hope Gundam Kingdom continues to grow. I would like to expand our online presence, explore wholesale in the future, and continue developing the store into a place where people can discover the hobby, build, learn and connect with other Gundam fans.
I still don’t feel like I know everything about business, and I’m still learning today. But when I look back at where Gundam Kingdom started and where it is now, I’m proud that I kept going.
Nearly nine years later, I’m still building it piece by piece — just like a model kit.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, it definitely has not been a smooth road.
One of the biggest challenges was that I started Gundam Kingdom without a business background. I loved the hobby, but loving Gundam and knowing how to run a business are two completely different things. In the beginning, I had to teach myself almost everything — inventory, pricing, purchasing, profit margins, expenses, accounting, suppliers and even understanding which products I should or should not bring into the store.
Because of that, I made a lot of mistakes along the way. Some of those mistakes cost me money. There were times when I bought the wrong inventory, didn’t understand the numbers well enough, or made decisions that I would handle very differently today. I learned that in business, sometimes the lesson comes after you have already paid for the mistake.
Another major struggle in the early years was finding reliable suppliers. Gunpla was still a much smaller hobby in our area, distribution was limited, and I didn’t have a network of people telling me where to buy products. I had to search online, contact different Japanese stores and wholesalers, ask questions and figure things out myself. Sometimes just getting enough inventory into the store was difficult.
Building a customer base also took time. When we first opened, many people didn’t know what Gundam or Gunpla was. Some people thought the models were Transformers. So part of running the store was also introducing people to the hobby and helping them understand what made model building different.
There was also the personal side of running a small business. In the beginning, I was doing everything myself and working seven days a week. When you own a small business, there really isn’t a clear line between being the owner, the salesperson, the buyer, the cleaner, the customer service person and the person responsible when something goes wrong. Sometimes you are all of those people at the same time.
There have been many moments when things did not go according to plan, and there are still challenges today. Costs change, the market changes, customer habits change, and online competition is always there. I’ve learned that owning a business is really about constantly adjusting.
What helped me keep going was learning not to look at every mistake as the end of the road. When something went wrong, I tried to understand why it happened, learn what I was missing and improve from there. Sometimes I learned quickly, and sometimes it took making the same type of mistake more than once.
I’m still learning today.
I don’t think running Gundam Kingdom has ever been easy, but looking back, the difficult parts are also what taught me how to become a better business owner. I didn’t learn business from a textbook. Most of what I know came from experience — trying something, making mistakes, fixing them and continuing forward.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
Gundam Kingdom is mainly a hobby store for Gundam model kits, plastic model kits, tools, paints, accessories, and some other collectibles.
For me, I never wanted the store to feel like a place where people just come in, grab a box, pay, and leave. I want people to be able to look around, see the finished models, get some ideas, and maybe find something that makes them want to start building.
One thing I really like about the store is the displays. I have always enjoyed looking at completed Gundam models, even before I opened the business, so I try to have a lot of finished builds around the store. Sometimes a customer sees a box on the shelf and it may not mean much to them, but once they see the finished model, they understand why the hobby is so fun.
We also get all kinds of customers. Some people have been building Gundam for years and already know exactly what they want. Other people walk in and have never built a model kit before. Sometimes they don’t even know what HG, RG or MG means, so we help them pick something that is good for their first build and explain what tools they may need.
Over time, we also started carrying more than just Bandai Gundam kits. We have third-party model kits, hobby tools, paint, accessories, and other things that model builders are interested in.
Probably the part I enjoy the most is meeting people through the hobby. Some customers have been coming to the store for years, and now we also see parents bringing their kids in and showing them Gundam for the first time.
I just want Gundam Kingdom to be a comfortable place for people who like the hobby, whether they have been building for 20 years or they are opening their first model kit.
What were you like growing up?
Growing up, I was always interested in games, robots, electronics, and things I could take apart, figure out, or work on.
Like a lot of traditional Asian parents, my parents hoped I would grow up to become something like an engineer or a doctor. I actually studied electronic engineering for about two years, but after a while I realized it just wasn’t something I really enjoyed, so I decided not to continue with it.
After that, I started repairing computers and laptops. During that time, there would sometimes be slow days when I didn’t have many customers, so I started buying Gundam kits and building them while I was at the shop.
That was when I really started getting more into the hobby.
At first, I was just building something here and there, but then it became something I wanted to do all the time. I kept buying more kits, learning more about them, and building whenever I had free time.
I think that also says a little bit about my personality. I’ve always liked working on things with my hands and figuring things out for myself. I didn’t grow up thinking, “One day I’m going to own a business,” and I definitely didn’t have a plan to open a Gundam store.
It just happened slowly. I found something I really enjoyed, kept doing it, and over time that hobby became a bigger and bigger part of my life.
Looking back, it’s kind of funny because I started out studying electronics because that was the more traditional path, but the thing I ended up sticking with was something I first did just to pass the time between laptop repair customers.
And eventually, that hobby became Gundam Kingdom.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://WWW.GUNDAMKINGDOM.ORG
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gundamkingdom/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gundamkingdomUS
- Yelp: Gundam Kingdom
- Other: https://TIKTOK.COM/@GUNDAMKINGDOM
