#37 - Mastering Amazon FBA

I built and sold in Amazon FDA business. For me, no VC money, no employees. I was working full time. I started with $5,000 in my little Chromebook.

Building on the back of Amazon, and it has a risk we can talk about that, but it also has this huge scale and leverage you can generate. All right, I got the great first product, this is gonna be awesome. Looked for enough demand, but not so much competition. I've done all my product research, and I sourced it out of China, I get this logo off the fiber, like I feel like I already got the right pieces in place, and I get it in, I launch it, and it is a total fail.

I got burned so bad the first time, I'm hurting because I do not wanna stay in the career, so I'm feeling like so much is riding on this, and it's just gotta work. Once I got a little taste of it, it was like, okay, now it's on. That first year, it had almost six figures in revenue. It almost didn't feel real until it deposited, and I'm like, oh my God, people are really buying this.

The hardest thing to overcome was really my own self-doubt. I mean, it felt like every order I placed, I was putting my whole net worth on the line. It was crazy, we put the business on, and within, I'm gonna say a week or 10 days, there were seven full price or higher offers. People can access these types of businesses, and with a pretty small bet, like they'd rate a life-changing business with themselves and their families.

To carry something from kind of hygiene your head, to building it, to scaling it, to selling it, you know why? Pretty asymmetrical, like I said with $5,000 in terms of the seven-figure business. Five million is not a million. 10 million.

20 million is a million. 20 million is a half a billion. It's around you. 150 million dollars.

One or two people in a bedroom actually with threats to these giant multi-million dollar companies because you have creativity and you have nothing to lose. Add another zero up to that price, buddy. Add two more zero. Five.

First person. Really. Every week we sit down with self-made millionaires and ask them, how did you do it? I didn't start a podcast.

I started my own personal business school and the teachers are the successful entrepreneurs behind the biggest brands and businesses that we find today. I wanted to know the real stories, all the details, like how did you get your first hundred customers? What did it feel like in shit with the camera? I asked them, how'd you spend your money now that you're rich?

And what would you do if you were starting over from scratch again today? If you're like me and you want to own your own business, instead of living a nine to five job, this is the podcast for you. The hustle presents my first million. Paul, what's up, man?

How are you? You flew in today? Today, right? Last night.

Wait, last night. I was excited for this. You were your listener who is on the show. Is that correct?

Exactly. That's the new American dream. I love the show. I reached out to you and here I am.

Yeah, and I liked your story because you did something that I think not a lot of people, well, I'll put it differently. You built a Amazon FBA business. And I've seen a lot about FBA, but the people who tell me about FBA are always selling me something for FBA. And so I hate that.

And I like just talking to people who, if you're telling me you got rich, then you probably don't need to sell me something for $999 type of thing. Exactly. And so I'm excited to talk to you because you built a successful Amazon FBA business and you're here to tell the tale. What made you want to do this?

Well, for me, when I was learning the business podcast where everything like podcast, Facebook groups, Reddit threads, I feel like I've gotten so much from podcasts. So hopefully someone will get a little bit inspired or educated. Like you were listening to them or you went on them and that's how you know it. No, listen, listen.

There's this guy named Manny Coats who does an Amazon podcast. He never met me, doesn't know me. I mean, I probably have no million dollar business without him. So there's all these people who have been really influential via podcast that it's fun to come full circle and say, here's my story on a podcast.

Right. And so what is your story? Okay, so we're here in my first million. How did you make your first million?

Just let's start with the basics. So I built and sold an Amazon FBA business. Okay. And let me, I can give you kind of the scoops.

So FBA people don't know is essentially selling on Amazon, right? So that gives you access to the most powerful things out there, which is millions of Amazon households, prime customers and Amazon's distribution network. So say we want to create a product, Sean, you know, cell phone case, Sean's cell phone case. We put your handsome face on there.

We can list it on Amazon. All right, reach millions of prime households. When someone buys that product, we're going to use Amazon's distribution. They're going to do a pick back and ship and we don't have to do a thing.

And then we get paid. The net of reaching all those customers and having their distribution means we can scale up a huge business, a seven figure business, which is one person. Like for me, no VC, no employees. I was working full time.

I started with, you know, 5,000 bucks in my little Chromebook. Like, so building on the back of Amazon, I mean, it has its rest. We can talk about that. But it also has this huge scale and leverage that you can generate.

I love it. And so FBA stands are fulfilled by Amazon for what we're talking about. And it's similar to other e-commerce businesses, but Amazon is your, in this case, it is the main selling channel for you. Was it the main selling channel?

It was the main selling channel. And then secondly, Amazon is the sort of back at house. It is the sort of pick back and ship so that you can focus on growing the business and not just the operations. I have to hire staff and get a warehouse and do all the other things in order to fulfill your orders.

Right? 100%. You know that. And so what, what were you doing before you started this business?

Yeah. So I was, so I started the business in 2016. I'm about 10 years out of school at that point. I'm kind of reaching this inflection point where I was really not happy and following kind of the right path, quote unquote, the right path.

What's the right path? Well, you know, you kind of are whether society or whatever else. You kind of hear this throughout. You go to school, like I went to school, I studied accounting.

I got my CPA, worked for, you know, good firms. And at the end of it, I just wasn't that engaged or happy. And I got really scared. Like, you know, I'm early 30s, mid 30s.

I was just going to be my next five years. Is this is this is this all there is? And that scared me so much. Right.

And I was where the fire of like, there's got to be like, I got to go to my own life raft out of it. Because you were winning the normal game, right? Go to school, get a good job, do well in that job. And that's a scary feeling when you're like, I'm winning, but I feel like I'm losing.

Yeah, it totally is. Yeah, it's a really scary. It's sort of like this dissonance in your head. Like I thought I was doing the right things to win this game.

And it's not like I was financially that far ahead either, because like, you know, you end up getting a decent car, a nice house. And now you have a kid recently. So it's like, wait a minute, I don't even like playing this game. And I'm not really getting where I thought I was going to go.

So that's kind of what spurred like, it's sort of an hour, and every time we're going to be having a kid in the near future. And I mean, as you probably know, like having a kid and starting something or they're hard to do at the same time. So I felt like, all this pressure, like I got to go and I got to go. Now I get something going.

And so do you remember what you do you remember the sort of the day? You made that decision or you really felt like, OK, I got to do this? Well, it really comes back to these pockets. Like I said, I mean, everything from kind of marinating the Tim Ferriss world.

So this guy, like I said, Manny kind of learning all that. And then I can see myself like, I can see myself doing this. And you don't need an insane amount of capital. Like I'm living in Minneapolis.

I'm not out here going to pitch to VCs. It's like it felt attainable. Like I could I could start it. And I said, you know, the thing I like about Amazon is it's pretty asymmetrical.

Like I said, $5,000 in terms of some figure business. So it feels like, hey, I'll make a small bet. That's going to really sting if this thing just goes to zero. But I can pick my life up and keep going, even if I lose every dollar put into it.

Right. And you, what were you, I like this question. What were you making before you quit your job to do this? What was their salary as a, as a gay?

Is that right? What's that what you're doing? Yeah, it transitioned to finance. So I think I want to say I was making, I don't know, 105, 110 low low.

And then in Minneapolis. Yeah, it goes pretty far. It's like, it's a comfortable life. And like I don't want to say I'm ungrateful or come off like, you know, totally out of touch.

But I just on the inside of the day, like I had on the pill, like I just didn't feel fulfilled. So yeah, so it was comfortable, but it just wasn't something was missing. Right. And so, okay.

So you do this. And by the way, we're not going to be able to say exactly what the product is or exactly the company name for, for sort of non-disclosure reasons, because when you sold the business, you agreed to keep things confidential. But we'll talk around it. And I think more importantly than the specifics of what your product was, it's the mechanics, right?

It's the mindset you had to go into it. It's how you figured out how to actually build this thing. It's the mechanics about what it means to be to sell online. And then lastly, sort of the, the happy ending, which is being able to sell this for seven figures.

And now, you know, you're, you're, you're, you've sort of achieved the thing you set out to achieve. So talk to me about getting it off the ground. So you decide I got to do something. Yeah.

And then you're inspired by these podcasts. What does that really mean? First, did you start it as a side hustle or did you quit and go, go full on? First, I started a side also.

I wasn't, you know, I was optimistic, but not so optimistic. I was ready to stake my whole future on it. So I started on the side. My first product, I can, I can say what that was.

I started with this, you're a pouver coffee. Yeah. Same as it's good. Yeah.

So I started with this accessory for poor coffee and it was made out of wood. And I thought, like, I've done all my product research and I also like to choose things that were kind of trending upward. And this seems sort of like a hipster like cool thing. It's going to keep trending and growing.

Like, all right, I got the great first product, poor for coffee stands. This is going to be awesome. And I, you know, I source it out of China, I get this logo off of fiber. Like, I feel like I got the right pieces in place and I get it in, I launch it and it is a total fail.

It flops. It's, it turns out products made out of wood, can break. They can crack. And that's what happened with this.

And I'm getting one star reviews on Amazon, I'm getting all these angry customers. So I'm feeling pretty defeated at that point. I was able to, you know, I probably put $5,000 in, maybe about $4,000 out of it. So I took like small loss.

But how much time did you put into that? Maybe three months. Three months. And I learned it was like, you got to test run.

I got so much learning out of that from how to source out of China to how to, you know, optimize a product on Amazon to deal with customers that like the learning was invaluable. And if I kind of quit there, obviously would never hit the second product, but like without that, I might not ever, you know, but I would grow it to what I did. So, so I take a hit there and I'm down kind of looking at my wounds and visiting my parents in Arizona and we start talking and they casually are mentioning what turns out to be my next product now. Right.

And I think you mentioned this recently on the podcast. Like I was, I'm a big believer in like the notes app and like observing everything. Like we filter out so much. And I was kind of in this frame where everything I was doing, I'm like, this business, could this be a business?

And I'm going to put in the notes app and I'm going to come back to it. I want to see what happens with it. And this was. I relate to that.

Yes. Yeah, I got priority of them. You know, at least that in my phone. So you can turn your brain into a scanning machine for opportunity.

You can. If you're wired, if you start thinking that way, you won't even have to try your brain will just start seeing everything. Your friend will be telling you about something you couldn't give less of a shit about what they're telling you, except for the fact that you're like, huh, is that, is that made in China or so? So far, so do you buy multiple?

These are just want to, you know, you start assessing the business of everything. It's so true. You start deconstructing it like, wow, I bet I got it. I try not for three bucks.

I bet it's, it's, uh, you just got to flip the switch because then all of a sudden you do that and then you can marry it up. So there's these great tools. You can do research on Amazon to kind of see you're looking for. So let's talk about some of those tools.

So you start to get this idea of like, what about this product? What about this? What's the first step of research for you when you're like, okay, how do I figure this out? Is this good or bad?

Yeah. So there's a couple of tools and essentially what you're trying to do is look for enough demand, but not so much competition, right? So there's sort of this sweet spot. Like if you have no demand and you don't want to stand there, but no one's going to buy it.

And the opposite is true. So there's a couple tools, helium 10, jungle scout, if people want to learn about those, go check them out. They're great tools to learn, you know, what's selling on Amazon. So this product is your one and like, all right, I hear about it for my family.

It looks good. Let's, you know, fire another shot here and see what, see what happens. So I run the same play. This again, it's 2016, I put now my $4,000 I have allocated for this into it.

And the $4,000 is going mostly towards the minimum order. Exactly. Yeah. Yep.

So I think I ordered 500 units at the start, which was the minimum order. Right. Find my supplier and Alibaba. Right.

I'm up at, you know, 9.10 PM at night talking on the phone, trying to, you know, come off is that I have half a clue what I'm doing. And you're a private labeling of products. Private labeling of products. You weren't saying let's invent something together.

You were saying, I want that. Was it, did you even modify it? Or are you like, I want that. But here's my brand logo colors, et cetera.

I did some modification. I think, especially now, you got to do more than just be a total me to the modification. It doesn't need to be big. So like for me, I added something to my product that literally cost me 10 cents.

I think, you know, say my product costs seven bucks and with this little addition of seven, 10. But the thing is you're trying to increase the perceived value of your product. So if I have product A and product B and I've got something else and product B that that A doesn't have, I might pull a bunch of buyers from that for the low, low cost of, you know, five, 10 cents. Yeah.

So there was slight modification, but it wasn't like a refram, you know, inventing stuff, doing all these sketches, nothing like that. It was like, let's get some nice branding and let's make appealing to people online. All right. It's 2020 new year.

It's going to be a big year. And you know, we had to come in with some new awesome partners. So for January, we were partnering up with Microsoft and my first million. That's right.

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All right. Great. Let's get back to this episode. And now for anyone who's ever tried to source products from China or Alibaba or overseas in general, there's the natural sort of like there's language barrier slightly.

There's the biggest things. Trust. Right. So how did you have any missteps in terms of sourcing the product or bad experiences where they should be something and it's junk?

Did you? How did you navigate that? No, that was. I was really scared about that at the start because you the way you pay 30% to start production and then 70% when production is complete.

And I thought, you know, they're going to just take my money and run over here from the B10. The best is it'll just be unanswered. So honestly, it's like, you know, there was never anything like that. Like, you know, there's always little quirks and little quality things.

And you know, you ask for something and you get something else. Like that's just part of the future of the beast. But there was never any big, you know, big problem. So it's just, okay, so you get this product source and we can say it's a what's the sort of generic way we can talk about the space you're in.

We can sell this different categories. And Amazon's we can say it's in the sports and outdoors. The sports and outdoors category sources product. You you spend about how long to do that.

That takes a month that takes a month and a half about a month. And how does round two go? So round one kind of got your ass kicked. What happens around two?

So round two. So I think I get the product up the fall of 2016 and then, you know, come Q four is the prime time for selling online. It can blow your mind the amount of sales that can occur. So so I've got the product on there.

My expectations are fairly low because of what happened around one. And it takes off pretty much from the jump. There's some different things you kind of want to do to get the wheel spinning. But that first year, partially or 2016, it almost six figures in revenue.

So for someone going from zero to something that I was like, wow, this is this is huge. I mean, there's, I'm not sure if you sold an Amazon or C, but there's a seller app. And I was like checking and adding just refreshing that thing like constantly. Right.

And it almost didn't feel real until the deposits hit and like, oh, my people are really buying this product. So that's when it was like, this could really be something. And then kind of the rest of the journey was doubling down and trying to just grow it from there. So that sounds amazing.

And if I'm listening to this, I'm like, oh, hold on, I feel like the magic step of like how the order started coming in. Like, what was that? What did you do to get it off the ground in terms of the marketing or acquiring customers? Yeah.

So on Amazon, you need to be at the top of page one. If you want to get sales in the organic rank, there's a couple of different ways you can get there. It's harder now than it was that. And this is somewhat like the gold rush days of Amazon that I was starting.

And so it's a different time and easier than it is today. But you need to get to the top of page one. So a lot of times people will cut the price of their product pretty heavily, which will basically entice people to buy the product. And then you get into good graces of Amazon's algorithm.

You start moving up to the top of page one. So long as your product's good and your service is good, you can stick there like. And what did you notice for the algorithm? What did it favor?

Was it reviews? Is there anything else return rates? What did it like? To me, the two big variables are reviews and price like if you have good reviews and your price competitively, like you're going to be in the good graces of the algorithm.

So those are. Those are. Did you lower the price initially to get going? I lowered the price initially.

You know, and I got some initial reviews. There's all sorts of funny business going on right now with reviews. But back then, you know, I did it the right way to engage in any of that funny business. I got all these legitimate reviews and it just started smaller.

Wasn't that much competition then versus now a lot of things are still a ton of opportunity. Amazon, you can grow a huge business today, but it is a little more saturated and competitive now. So month one, you run what you did. One was that, which were saying six figures?

That was. No, that was the first like three months. Okay. Yes.

So month one, I want to say was like 10 grand. And then it starts to ramp and then it starts to ramp. And it gets into the holiday season. And how are you feeling at this time?

I'm like, I'm just pinching myself because I got burned so bad the first time. And like I said, mentally, I'm in a place where it's like, I'm just, I'm hurting because I do not want to stay in the career. I mean, it's just not the right fit. So I'm feeling like so much is riding on this.

And it's just got to work. And once I got a little taste of it, it was like, okay, now it's on. Give yourself a certain amount of time. It's like, all right, I'm gonna give myself six months to try this.

If I don't do this, I can get my job or did you just say I'm doing this and what? Well, I got my job, right? So I was still at my job. So it was kind of, you know, if I was single in my 20s, maybe I would have been a riskier, but I was, we were expecting a kid and, you know, I was at a mortgage payment.

So it was like, I can't be irresponsible. And how was it going to work that day when you're like, well, I'm doing, you know, 60 grand a month right now in my, my side hustle. How was that? Very difficult.

Very difficult to focus. Oh, I have to say, you know, I was a professional. I hope I like to think through and through, but I can't lie. Like my, you know, my output or what I gave for the company probably wasn't right.

Everything that I could have just because, you know, it was so exciting. Like something else could be hitting here. And so how long did it go before it did end up going full time? So 2016, when I started in the fall and kind of ramped up in the 2017, like halfway through 17 is when my son was born and also I left the company.

So that was a big, a big moment there. And 17 was just over seven figures in sales. So that's when it really started kind of ballet. Like this is a legit business.

You're always a little bit like, is this real? Is this going to be tomorrow? And then after you see it kind of run, it's starting by time. It's like, okay, I think it is and I can, I can step away and do it.

So what's a healthy margin on a business? You do a million in sales for an Amazon FBA business. What's considered good, bad mediocre, whatever, like give us a sense for the margin. You should be looking for what you actually get to keep out of the revenue.

Yeah. Yeah. So I target about 25% is good, I would say. Right.

PPC costs, advertising costs have been creeping upwards. So I think like there's not a ton of like high sales spots anymore. We're going to be able to pull that margin. But 20, 25% is pretty realistic.

And you were advertising on Amazon itself. Absolutely. Advertising is key on Amazon as well. And you can do, you know, like Google, you can get on Amazon, the most powerful shop in the world, then on a keyword and be the top resol, you know, your sponsor, but you are at the top of Amazon.com for whatever keyword you want to get and reach millions of people.

So that's, that is serious power. And so at your, let's say, when you were in your stride, what percent of your sales were coming from the sponsored link versus organic? So it was probably 70% organic and 30% sponsored. Yeah.

And what were any sort of key things you did that were, because what I like about your, what I like about what you said so far is there's two types of stories. There's the founder is a genius. It's like I was a genius for coming up with this idea. I invented this thing that didn't exist.

And then when I was marketing this, I came up with this genius idea to do something. Nobody else was doing. And then there's the other one, which is more like reality, which is founders, not an idiot. And founders, not an idiot says I did basically all the obvious things you would expect me to do.

And I did them well and I did them consistently. And then I succeeded and didn't require and sort of active God in order to do it. Were there any founders, genius moments? Because so far you've told me a lot of the other one, which is sort of not fumbling the ball.

Were there any unconventional things you did or tried that worked? You know, not really. I think that's the appeal of this business is that the hardest thing to overcome was really my own self doubt. And at the start, I was really uncertain.

Like, I'm just, I'm a fool. I'm going to lose this money. And I was telling my wife about this idea on myself. I'm going to take 5,000 bucks and I'm going to send it to China and bring product in.

And like she, you know, very loving and trying to be helped from the start. But saying like, are you looking at it like she would any business, trying to poke holes in it. And I remember saying like at this point, like, please, just be a chirritter because I'm already kind of hanging by a thread, like on my own belief in it. So just like, tell me I can do it.

And then like once we get this ball rolling, then like, you know, come on in and help me with some of the tactical stuff. But but no, there was no big thing. I think the biggest thing is like it's all so much of stuff is right there on the internet in Facebook groups on podcasts on Reddit. Like if you seek it and you really want to go out there and do it and actually take action and you know, do more than kind of just look at it and talk about it.

Like it's there if you want to learn it. So the business like this, I mean, five brand is a lot of money, but it's not, you know, gonna sink someone or gonna take someone forever to save the type of money. Did you go visit your manufacturer? I did.

Yeah. How many times did you do that? And when did you do that early in the process as you grew or to vet them? So I went, I found the manufacturer in Alibaba.

And then as I was finding them and coming out of this business, I actually had a trip book to go over to the Canton Fair, which you don't know the Canton Fair. It's like the world's biggest fair with suppliers over in China. And it was insane. I mean, anything you ever want to source was over there.

So I was going over there thinking I'm going to find all these products. I'm going to start my empire. And that was really cool. And I love being over there.

The Canton Fair is like, I forgot the numbers like 800 football fields long or something crazy. It's the biggest expo for manufacturers to meet sort of buyers. Exactly. Yeah.

So I went over there. I didn't actually find my supplier there. I kind of had him on the line ahead of time. But it was still a really good educational experience kind of both the C different suppliers learn more about the culture, just kind of gate like in the in the headspace of doing business with China.

But then I did go visit my manufacturer a couple of times. And yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, the first night, I think he just wanted to mess with me. He took me out and we're eating street food like he bought me spiders and crickets and all these things just to just see, you know, what I would do.

I played around his hands. Yeah, there's a great game. I'll fuck with the American. Yeah.

He played it well. But it also I felt like going there, some meant the relationship further. So like you get, you know, maybe a little bit better pricing, a little bit better look at make sure you get the qualities right. So I think it's such a relationship game with suppliers, like whether they're going to prioritize your members or someone else's and all sorts of things.

Are they supplying for your competitors too? I believe so. Yeah. I mean, that's the case for a lot of a lot of these buyers.

Yeah. You know, they're putting out putting all sorts of products and slapping on different labels. So yeah, they are pretty certain they were. So you went and you cemented the relationship.

You spent some time together. Great. So you did that. The other question I had was you talked about, you know, the more successful you get, the bigger your orders need to get.

And so you're always in this cash poor business, you know, asset rich game where the business is growing, your asset is growing, but you continually pouring out money before it comes back. And so I talk a little bit about how you manage that. Did you do anything with the line of credit or anything like that? Talk about some of the mechanics.

Yeah, that was I went under estimated that you're your spot on. I was really a tough component of it. And you feel really poor, even though you're like, I'm showing you profits on paper, but like the money is back out of my bank account. So I really just did it based on the profits of the business and drawn them down to, I mean, it felt like every order I placed, I was like putting my whole net worth.

And the line, which was a scary feeling, but it was kind of necessary to keep feeling the growth of the company. So Amazon offers a line of credit once you get some establishment that interest rates pretty high. Like, but you can always pull on that or once you've been up and running a while. But for me, I just poured the profits right back in.

Gotcha. So let's do the formula. So what on one side, the inputs, so five grand is what you put personal capital into the business. Right.

Time. So you started this sort of late 2016, you sold when early 2019, early 2019. And so let's call it two and a half years roughly. Right.

Are these the types of things that you'd be doing a million bucks and sell for 10 or a million bucks and sell for a million? Yeah, so usually about a three multiple. Yeah. Three of you.

So it's a love relative to other businesses. It's a little multiple, but you're also aims on the risky animal to be on. So like I think the How did that decision to sell come up and that was so hard because I really liked like this. Was like the first job.

If you were never felt like, I love this, like I love doing this. So the idea of selling it was hard. And I didn't when I started this. It was all about I want free from my flexibility and want to be around with my son.

Is here. I want to be in commute and these meetings. I want like the actual time to be here, but also kind of a mental health and mental clarity to be present as well. So, but as I built it and got bigger and bigger, it seemed like, all right, this is the right thing to do for my family, if we can sell this, this would go a long way.

So I started. Because there's risk, right? That was there's risk. Yeah, Amazon risk.

Amazon can take you out in a moment's notice for something very legitimate, something not legitimate. So like, I mean, I would have nightmares at night, like, hey, what if I wake up tomorrow and I have the email from Amazon and I'm shut down and I gotta go through all the hoops and who know, like, so that just felt really scary and like there's probably a lot of upside left on the table, like maybe, you know, like the folks that bought the company for me, they can turn around and sell it for five X in a few years and that would be, I'd be thrilled if they do that. But for me, it was like, to bank the win. The win just felt like the right thing to do.

And you also mentioned when we were chatting before we came on here, the sort of other risks that are in a business like this with physical inventory, you know, you're putting a lot of money into inventory, what happens with a bad batch, what happens, you know, so talk a little bit about that, the other risks that you saw besides the Amazon sort of competition or algorithm changes besides that, what else was there? Yeah, so it's, you know, when I started, I was bringing in 500 units, it's pretty small, like I said, 5000 bucks at the start, but it's a very cash intensive business. Growing is great, but that means your next order from your supplier is gonna be that much larger, right? So it went from these tiny little orders to, you know, 40 foot containers that have, you know, quarter million dollars worth of inventory in them.

And if something goes wrong with that, that's like, I'm sunk. So there's also like every shipment you have this, there's low grade fear that like, you know, this is container gonna fall. It's just container gonna fall off the boat. And then like my business is done.

So, you know, to mitigate that, it felt responsible too. There's just various risks, you have all your eggs in the basket. So. How'd you go about selling it?

What happened to that? So I used, you had Joe Bally and from Twilight brokerage. I used them, they were fantastic. I never sold a business, I didn't know this world.

We're clean. That's just like a pretty big thing that people mess up. People mess up. That wasn't an issue for me.

And yeah, it was crazy. We put the business on and within, I wanna say a week or 10 days, there were seven offers, full price or higher offers, which was just like mind-blowing to have that too. So that was a super nerve-wracking process and also an exciting process. And you went back and negotiated with all seven or took one of them, what'd you do?

Yeah, so there's negotiations. So it's like, I think when I walked into it, it's like, well whoever names the high number, I'm gonna, you know, you know, that's what I'm gonna take, right? But when you get into it, you realize some people are, like the guys that buy my business, I had just a good connection with them and I thought they would really do a good job running the business. Like they knew what they were doing.

They were really capable. They seemed honest, straightforward about things. There's other people who were a little bit like me a few years ago, like they were awesome, but like they were still sitting in their cubes somewhere and they never touched e-commerce or Amazon. I was just afraid like if they inherit this beast and like things, you know, go bad.

Like I don't know what that looks like. So I wanna make sure I pass this someone that you thought what you thought you could suit or what do you think would happen? If it was who cares, right? You sell this business before?

Or sorry, the business just came out of nowhere. You built it, you sell it. I don't know. Maybe it wasn't a rational thought.

I'm really not sure. I mean, the other piece was the transition too. It's like if people know e-commerce, Amazon, it makes life so much easier. They just pick it up and run versus if it was someone that never touched this, it would have been a lot of investment.

Yeah, part of it probably was just an irrational fear. Like they're gonna check this thing up and somehow, it's all gonna get unwound and it's gonna be like a bad joke on me or something. You know, we've only known each other for 30 minutes maybe. But I really like your personality because you're a nice humble guy, you're a smart guy.

But B, I think it's cool to see somebody who's not Mr. Mr. Pravato, who started a business. I actually think you're quite risk-averse.

You just take very practical, pragmatic steps to approach this business and get the outcome you wanted without being sort of hero entrepreneur. And there's a lot of hero-entrepreneur stories out there because that's what sells. I'm taking crazy risk. That's a great story.

What I like about your story, because it's a great story to me, is that you were more of a conservative guy. It sounds like to me. You're like, I got beat up my first time, but you lost only 1,000 bucks in three months. It's like, that's not it.

That's the cost of entry for business. But the way you were approaching it, I think really is very, I think will be very relatable. If I'm listening to this, I'm like, okay, this is not like this guy's from some totally different cloth than me. He's not some alien species that has this different, no fear gene.

It's not that your regular person did a really awesome business. And I really like that. Cool, yeah, thanks for it. I think it's really the truth.

People can access these types of businesses and with a pretty small bet, like create a life-changing business for themselves and their families. So I think I would encourage a lot of, if you feel something inside, you go for it and try it because you never know what can happen. So you sell and you do, is it a clean deal cash in the bank or you got to do a seller note and sort of take money? It's mostly a clean deal with a small seller note.

Okay, yeah. And so money hits the bank. What happens? What's on your own that day?

It was, I think it was, going through the process was so stressful that when it hit, I was just like this big relief. And it just felt like, like I had run like, you know, an ultra marathon from like kind of birthing this little business out and then carrying it for a few years. And then the culmination of it was just like pure relief. Oh, and it felt really good.

There was no like, you know, big part. It was nothing maybe like you'd think when someone sells a business and they see some figures dropping their account. It was just like a big exhale. And so you see it coming to your bank now and what changes for your life, right?

You said you could be a year. By that point, I see if you had had your child. Yes. And so what changes in your life?

What did you change in your lifestyle? Tell us about what that's like. Yeah, I mean, it really was, is a blessing. It was and it still is a blessing.

Just, you know, well, if in and of itself to me isn't kind of the end game, but it's what the money can enable. And like my son's two and a half now. And like the freedom and the flexibility and the relationship I have with him, like it wouldn't have been possible had I still been working, you know, my normal nine to five. I have your time.

I have the time and I have, I'm just present like really happy and open to be with us. It's been the best thing that's ever happened to me right now having our son. So that honestly, just kind of that time and freedom has been the best thing. It's also giving me the gift of just being able to sit back and reflect a little bit.

Like what do I want to do as far, you know, do next? What type of dad do I want to be partner? I think for me, like I was just on this treadmill, you know, going, going, going, I'm working, I'm traveling, I'm trying to get groceries in the house. You just go in all the time and you don't like this allowed a little bit of space to just step back and think like what do I want to do next?

What do I want to do with my life? You know, so that was a real blessing. I think a lot of people don't have that luxury to do that. And so you talk about asking yourself that question.

I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it right now. What I want to do now, sale comes through. You have that sort of anti-climatic day where you just feel relief.

You don't go do anything. Like I remember talking to Michael Burche, he's like, probably the third, fourth episode and you know, he's still just business for crazy money, like $850 million. And they went to a movie, like him in his life, like a $10 tickets movie because he was like, I don't know what to do. We haven't seen a movie in a while and I love movies.

Let's go watch, you know, they went and watched Forgetting Sarah Marshall. So what did you actually do that day? Oh man, I honestly, I think it was such an unremarkable day that I can't, I think my son was home from his school. And I feel like we just like watched, you know, Mr.

Rogers or something and like hung out and like when you're hanging out with a little kid, like you're going to a whole different headspace. So it wasn't, yeah, it was just a normal thing, which is actually totally fine and how I would have liked it. So it was pretty chill day. And you said you started to ask yourself what do you want to do again?

So you had option one, which a lot of people would take, which is great. I got to win. I know how to do this now. Next time if I did that, I'd be way smarter at it because I know all these new things and they jump back in and try to, you know, sort of exploit this opportunity again.

You didn't do that. I really want to, like I liked this, but I feel like it was sort of a chapter in my life. And like I did it. I started, I learned a ton and I don't know if I have the energy.

So like knowing what I know now, like you got to really want it to carry something from kind of the idea in your head, to building it, to scaling it, to selling it. Like you got to want it deep down like every single thing and keep grinding, keep grinding. And I honestly don't know if I have that in me anymore for an Amazon business. So I'm doing a little bit of Amazon consulting, which I really like because I'm actually, like when you do an Amazon business, it's kind of a lonely existence.

Like it's just you, you're throwing your suppliers, but you're just kind of rolling solo for most of it. So it's been fun. I've been working with some companies to help them. So I'm just pretty cool.

And I'm trying to get into the content space as well, kind of leveraging. So like I said, I'm a former CPA and personal finance nerd, like building online businesses. So I think Sam talked about like, Hey, if I was starting something new, I'm going to weekend business, go build the content site. These guys are, you know, neurod wall or whatever they're doing doing well.

So I saw the same thing. I felt the same thing as him. So that's kind of my next thing. Yeah, shout it out.

What's the website I was reading it this morning? I'm away. Yeah. Yeah, of course it has a name.

So it's still kind of in those early days, but the thought is like personal finance nerd, I've learned a lot from podcasts and online. So I'm trying to like, pull all these things together and put a site out there that people are going to want to make money, saving money, financial independence, like that became a big thing on this journey too. Like, all right, if you really want freedom, you got to get financial independence and financial freedom. So talking about some of those things.

So we'll see, I mean, it's such a crowded space and it's a hard thing to do as far as like stand out and get eyeballs on it. But I'm starting at the same place as I was before at zero and give it a shout out. And I really like to write and I hope we'll see what happens with it. So I think it'll get thousands of visits just from saying that, say three times, well, fan.com, well, think about it.

People will listen because I think you touched on the right thing, which is financial independence. I regret naming this podcast my first million now because the gimmick kind of is interesting at the beginning, but like, then you're stuck with the gimmick because it's hard to change your name. But the intention is never really about making millions of dollars. What people want is a great life.

And the good thing about what money can provide you is that freedom, the financial freedom to live life on your terms, whatever those may be. For you, it might be hanging out with your kid. It might be writing. It might be consulting.

It might be skiing. I don't know what I like, but it enables the freedom for the lifestyle you want. And I think it's really fundamentally what people want and are realizing that, you know, job is one option and it can get you to financial freedom, but it usually gets you there when you're 65. And if you're willing to trade 21 years, 21 through 65, then that's a path that's trying to test it.

But a lot of people are now realizing, especially as the Internet opens up all these new opportunities, that you can get financial freedom much faster and in a way, maybe that's more in line with you and who you are. And once you have that financial freedom, you can play the game differently because every month you don't have to sort of wonder, where's the paycheck going to come from? And so I like that you're teaching that because I think that is probably the most important thing people can learn in terms of career or finances is that one principle. 100%.

Yeah. It took me a long time even to realize that I was not really chasing money for the sake of money, but then once you get going, you're like, I'm sure you've heard of the 4% rule, which is if you can, if you're burned right, essentially is, say, 40 grand a year, you need to save a million bucks, 40 grand, 40 grand, 4% of that. So you kind of can quickly do this math. Like, all right, here's what I need to achieve.

Like 4% rule helps you figure out what's your number where you would be financially free. Exactly right. And it comes from your month of burn rate, which most people don't even know. That's a good one for us to figure out your burn rate.

And so, say, do you track your burn rate every month? You know, I'm not like hardcore, but you have a rough sense. Yeah, definitely a rough sense. So like, there's definitely like a number like, hey, if we get to, you know, this number, like we can live a comfortable life, like we're not going to be like, you know, taking months long vacations to, you know, most exclusive places in the world, like we can be very comfortable with a very nice life.

And like, that was the goal and we're pretty much at that goal amount. It feels like really, really nice. And so you said a new goal now or what happens? You know, I don't know.

I guess so because you got to keep moving forward and doing something, but it's new goals a little bit more like do something that's interesting. Like, I also want to figure out like I feel like in my life, I'm you know, mid like 30s, I don't have done like very little to ever like give back or like do anything positive for the broader world. So somehow I want to do that because I think like that will feel really good and those are the types of things that kind of stick with you and really matter. And that's been a big, being a parent just like hearing about someone else more than you care about yourself.

Like actually feels, it feels like really good. It feels great to love someone that much contribute that much. So I think like there's must be some nugget there that there should be some other other things to do than just keep chasing money, keep chasing money because I don't know how you end that game if you just continue to try to do that. Do you do you know much about Tony Robbins?

You've ever followed him or listened any of his stuff? I've listened to him, but I'm not not like it. I know people that are. So I'm deep in it.

And basically you go from like I don't know of him and I'm skeptical. It seems like just another motivational speaker. It's kind of where I am to be. Yeah.

That's the normal. And then like you take two steps forward and you're in the cult. There's like there's no in between I feel like with him. And so I would say one of his events.

He has these events where he'll sell out you know, 5,000, 7,000 people will come to this event called unleash the power with it. He has lots of cheesy names because he's like, you know, older and built his fame on like the in commercial days. So a lot of like cringy stuff like that. But his content is very good.

And he two things stood out to me one just for context, which is even if you're not into the content, it's just fucking amazing to see. This guy is the best public speaker I've ever seen. I would say he's the best public speaker on earth. He is able to hold 10,000 people's attention for four days straight from 9 a.m.

until 9 p.m. with no breaks in between. So I think he's a little bit more of a fan of the content. He's like, you know, he's like, you know, most people can't sit through a two hour movie nowadays.

They're attention wanders. Like watch what happens in these next four days. And it's true. People are like wired.

They're like connected to him. It's really crazy. So just from a, wow, that's a, that's what an effective speaker looks like. That is the Mike Jordan speaking.

It's cool. It's cool. It's the scene just to take that. Before he retires.

And when you're talking about your goal and the fact that you know, you got to come up with a new goal, he talks about this. He's like, you know, you're going to reach what you achieved. If you put the work in, you're going to reach what you achieved. And you're watching it happen.

You're going to move the goal post back. And some people see that as a defeating thing, but he has a very simple phrase, which is progress equals happiness. And I've really found this to be true, which is you are your happiest when you feel a sense of progress towards whatever it is. If you start to lose the weight, you will feel happy.