***Official*** Misc Entrepreneur crew thread - What is not started will never get finished

[lockdev]

Share your risks, business ventures, ideas, inventions you're working on, websites, etc here brahs

This is also a place to discuss learning business, technologies, networking, marketing, etc.

I'm personally starting another website that has to do with AI. Will share progress in this thread. srs.

[thaifoon90]

Anyone remember the OG internet marketing thread from around 2011? the guy who made simplyshredded was there and we all looked up to him. We were all starting wordpress sites and hosting with hostgator.

That got me into webdev and eventually the job I'm working now.

[Drop40lbs]

Been watchin Alex Hormozi a lot lately. He doesn't come off as the typical entrepreneurial narcissistic kunt yet can deliver practical messages backed by experience in easily digestable ways. Used to always scroll away on him cuz he gave off Tai Lopez scammy vibes at first. Then I saw some of his shorts that drew me in and now can't get enough of his content.

[nestbrah]

Been watchin Alex Hormozi a lot lately. He doesn't come off as the typical entrepreneurial narcissistic kunt yet can deliver practical messages backed by experience in easily digestable ways. Used to always scroll away on him cuz he gave off Tai Lopez scammy vibes at first. Then I saw some of his shorts that drew me in and now can't get enough of his content.

He's as big a scammer as any of them, just way better at presenting himself.

From what I can tell he had one big success in the gym industry (a sort of MLM scheme with a lot of unhappy customers) and that's it.

He claims to be an incredible businessman/investor but there's no proof of this. In fact, the opposite:

Look into Acquisition.com:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alexhormozi/comments/15hyd0o/portfolio_of_companies_owned_by_acquisitioncom/

Incredible salesman though!

[Drop40lbs]

He's as big a scammer as any of them, just way better at presenting himself.

From what I can tell he had one big success in the gym industry (a sort of MLM scheme with a lot of unhappy customers) and that's it.

He claims to be an incredible businessman/investor but there's no proof of this. In fact, the opposite:

Look into Acquisition.com:

https://www.reddit.com/r/alexhormozi/comments/15hyd0o/portfolio_of_companies_owned_by_acquisitioncom/

Incredible salesman though!

hooj if true

looks like he preyed on naive geeks that thought they could make 350k opening a gym

[nestbrah]

hooj if true

looks like he preyed on naive geeks that thought they could make 350k opening a gym

Yeah and you can often judge the quality of a person by their partner. His wife, Leila Hormozi, is complete trash. A lot of people thinks she's trans but really she just took too many steroids and ruined herself/her voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuTXkRHWcLM&t=34s

In this video she claims a 100 mill USD net worth, and a portfolio of companies worth 500 mill USD, without revealing a single one of them. Scammer couple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sJw0Jgs2dM

[Drop40lbs]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuTXkRHWcLM&t=34s

]

wot da fook i listened to 2 seconds of her/his voice and turned dat shiet off

how tf did he/her get 400k subs

[nestbrah]

wot da fook i listened to 2 seconds of her/his voice and turned dat shiet off

how tf did he/her get 400k subs

He's a fantastic marketer, nothing else.

[Drop40lbs]

Finally passed the 6 figure revenue mark for my brand on a non-December month on Amazon. Yet i'm more anxious than ever. Cashflow is murdering me. I need money ASAP to have inventory for Q4 yet all lenders are backing out. This is the first time i'm running into the cashflow brick wall and it's killing me. But as they say, adversity is the greatest teacher. I took the last week to reflect on what needs to improve.

1. My inventory management is ASS. I go out of stock on every good SKU, EVERY SINGLE ORDER. I've had to raise prices and shut off ads which suck because that kills the algorithm. Never had a good flow of staying in stock order-to-order.
2. Alternatively, i'm way overstocked on chitty SKUs which are killing my cashflow and debt levels. Idc if it's at a loss, i'm getting rid of EVERYTHING this Q4.
3. I'm chasing seasonal products even though if they aren't a good fit for my brand. I'm spending a majority of my time and energy chasing manufacturing and shipping to be on time and prepping marketing. All while neglecting my good products.
4. Fall and Christmas are close to each other. Q4 order, the biggest PO of the year needs to be paid off early October. I can't have a ton of cash locked up in fall products and a ton of dead inventory that needs to be liquidated during peak season. Add in Amazon payment holds. Chit is a cashflow nightmare.
5. Shiny object syndrome. It's become customary for me to launch new SKUs with every order, even tho my research tells me there is a low success rate. Tbf, the dopamine hits different when a new product is successful. Gambling is addicting.
6. Imma beta fuk and let my manufacturers lead conversations and persuade me to buy chit that I don't need. They can get fukd, i'm leading every convo now.
7. My images/content is SHIT. Everything was done by cheap fiverr sellers or myself on canva. I don't even know how I have customers. I'll have no problem spending 30k blindly on a low success rate product line then be hesitant to spend 15 bucks for Canva Pro. Visuals are a bit part of my niche too. Chit makes no fkn sense.

What I plan to do:
1. Luckily through the failures of mass testing SKUs, i've been able to carve out a product market fit for my brand. I'm confident in the framework I have to build off of.
2. My images are trash. Content is trash. Packaging is cool but doesn't fit well with my product. Just a random cool looking package. Trash. Insert card, non-existent. This will be the first place I invest into once cashflow improves. I won't go cheap here.
3. Overstocking on my main products. Margins are healthy enough to do deep discounts if needed. Far easier to blowout excess inventory on a good product vs lighting money on fire advertising a chitty product.
3a. Manufacturers will be late. Boats will be late. Dock workers will be late. Truckers will be late. Warehouse workers will be late. It's time to stop blaming them. Plan accordingly and have sufficient stock.
4. Going DTC and building social media. I've been stubborn af on being Amazon only. I was just being a lazy fuk.
5. No more new product launches for 12 months minimum. Tunnel vision focus on the products that work.

Ok man above, I really needed these lessons you taught me. Now pls fix my cashflow issue it's time now thx

[nestbrah]

Finally passed the 6 figure revenue mark for my brand on a non-December month on Amazon. Yet i'm more anxious than ever. Cashflow is murdering me. I need money ASAP to have inventory for Q4 yet all lenders are backing out. This is the first time i'm running into the cashflow brick wall and it's killing me. But as they say, adversity is the greatest teacher. I took the last week to reflect on what needs to improve.

1. My inventory management is ASS. I go out of stock on every good SKU, EVERY SINGLE ORDER. I've had to raise prices and shut off ads which suck because that kills the algorithm. Never had a good flow of staying in stock order-to-order.
2. Alternatively, i'm way overstocked on chitty SKUs which are killing my cashflow and debt levels. Idc if it's at a loss, i'm getting rid of EVERYTHING this Q4.
3. I'm chasing seasonal products even though if they aren't a good fit for my brand. I'm spending a majority of my time and energy chasing manufacturing and shipping to be on time and prepping marketing. All while neglecting my good products.
4. Fall and Christmas are close to each other. Q4 order, the biggest PO of the year needs to be paid off early October. I can't have a ton of cash locked up in fall products and a ton of dead inventory that needs to be liquidated during peak season. Add in Amazon payment holds. Chit is a cashflow nightmare.
5. Shiny object syndrome. It's become customary for me to launch new SKUs with every order, even tho my research tells me there is a low success rate. Tbf, the dopamine hits different when a new product is successful. Gambling is addicting.
6. Imma beta fuk and let my manufacturers lead conversations and persuade me to buy chit that I don't need. They can get fukd, i'm leading every convo now.
7. My images/content is SHIT. Everything was done by cheap fiverr sellers or myself on canva. I don't even know how I have customers. I'll have no problem spending 30k blindly on a low success rate product line then be hesitant to spend 15 bucks for Canva Pro. Visuals are a bit part of my niche too. Chit makes no fkn sense.

What I plan to do:
1. Luckily through the failures of mass testing SKUs, i've been able to carve out a product market fit for my brand. I'm confident in the framework I have to build off of.
2. My images are trash. Content is trash. Packaging is cool but doesn't fit well with my product. Just a random cool looking package. Trash. Insert card, non-existent. This will be the first place I invest into once cashflow improves. I won't go cheap here.
3. Overstocking on my main products. Margins are healthy enough to do deep discounts if needed. Far easier to blowout excess inventory on a good product vs lighting money on fire advertising a chitty product.
3a. Manufacturers will be late. Boats will be late. Dock workers will be late. Truckers will be late. Warehouse workers will be late. It's time to stop blaming them. Plan accordingly and have sufficient stock.
4. Going DTC and building social media. I've been stubborn af on being Amazon only. I was just being a lazy fuk.
5. No more new product launches for 12 months minimum. Tunnel vision focus on the products that work.

Ok man above, I really needed these lessons you taught me. Now pls fix my cashflow issue it's time now thx

Congratulations man. You can and will do this. What sort of stuff do you sell?

[Drop40lbs]

Congratulations man. You can and will do this. What sort of stuff do you sell?

a niche in the home category (feel like i can get doxxed if I say actual niche)

[nestbrah]

a niche in the home category (feel like i can get doxxed if I say actual niche)

Cool. I used to sell a bit on Amazon in the gardening category but the fees killed me. This was 2-3 years ago. From what I've heard it's got a lot worse.

I made some sales but barely broke even and decided to give up. Couldn't really raise the prices as the product was not very unique, even though it was my own brand, and the competition was intense. Didn't really believe there was a viable path forward.

Decided that if I would ever launch a product again that I'd need to make something more unique and with better potential profit margins. If the product is sufficiently unique, and/or well branded, you can raise prices a bit when you need to and don't need to worry about competitors as much. If your product is too similar to something else out there, and lacks branding, the Chinese competitors will kill you on pricing.

I'm about to launch my new brand early next year. Currently working with China on the prototypes. Three unique, heavily branded products.

I will be selling mostly through Shopify but also considering Amazon, although the fees concern me.

If you don't mind answering:

1. How did you find your products?
2. Do you make your own products or are they white label?
3. Do you have many competitors?
4. Profit margin?
5. How do you find selling on Amazon?

Sounds like you're killing it. Congratulations. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

[Drop40lbs]

Cool. I used to sell a bit on Amazon in the gardening category but the fees killed me. This was 2-3 years ago. From what I've heard it's got a lot worse.

I made some sales but barely broke even and decided to give up. Couldn't really raise the prices as the product was not very unique, even though it was my own brand, and the competition was intense. Didn't really believe there was a viable path forward.

Decided that if I would ever launch a product again that I'd need to make something more unique and with better potential profit margins. If the product is sufficiently unique, and/or well branded, you can raise prices a bit when you need to and don't need to worry about competitors as much. If your product is too similar to something else out there, and lacks branding, the Chinese competitors will kill you on pricing.

I'm about to launch my new brand early next year. Currently working with China on the prototypes. Three unique, heavily branded products.

I will be selling mostly through Shopify but also considering Amazon, although the fees concern me.

If you don't mind answering:

1. How did you find your products?
2. Do you make your own products or are they white label?
3. Do you have many competitors?
4. Profit margin?
5. How do you find selling on Amazon?

Sounds like you're killing it. Congratulations. Any advice would be hugely appreciated.

Yea mane, Amazon is a bloodbath rn. They changed a bunch of the fee structure early this year which fked a lot of sellers. Not only more expensive but it's confusing af. These guys are 8 figure sellers that were the most active in bringing awareness to the issue earlier this year:

Spoiler

https://x.com/michaelpatron0

https://x.com/Molson_Hart

https://x.com/michaelpatron0/status/1777318976042709295

https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1765089558746534387

Tucker Carlson interview: https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1789063487374663835

Documentary: https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1736445626483720324

Yea I agree - if you're bringing something unique, Shopify could be better. Beware when you start to see success tho. It's only a matter of time until the copycats come out. One of the main issues with DTC/Shopify-only brands is you spend a ton to advertise a unique product (which is hard af to do), customers like your offer, then they check Amazon and just buy a competitor's instead out of convenience. You may want to consider getting patents as well later down the line. They won't save you but they can deter a ton of potential competitors. CEO of Ridge Wallet made a post about this couple months ago: https://x.com/SeanEcom/status/1818352268770787372

1. How did you find your products?
Took a whole bunch of advice I learned over the years and got to researching. Kinda all over the place lol.
When I first started my brand in 2021 during covid, the big issue was supply chain and shipping times. Because of this uncertainty, I thought it was a good opportunity to get into Made in USA products which I did the first two years. This narrowed my search down a lot.
The best advice I ever heard on product research is to find a small niche within a big niche. Grocery->Coffee brand->Coffee for those that love America. Black Rifle Coffee Company. The more you can niche down, the easier(and cheaper) it gets to market. Gotta make sure it's backed by demand tho.
Sad to say this is how I started off then got shiny object syndrome with a bunch of new products that don't fit my brand and got cooked. Now i'm working backwards and fixing those damages.
2. Do you make your own products or are they white label?
Private label/white label from China.
3. Do you have many competitors?
Yea, it's a super saturated af niche. But if you niche down properly(backed by demand), I find it possible to take a piece of market share from any niche. My niche is also a designed based category that attracts a lot of designer/visual type people selling in it. I am more of a geeky analytics/data guy and thats been my competitive advantage.
4. Profit margin?
Good SKUs - 20-30% depending on seasonality
Bad SKUs - Anywhere from break even to so bad that I have to pay disposal fees to get rid of em lol
5. How do you find selling on Amazon?
Indifferent for now, but hopeful. There was a noticeable drop-off when Ukraine x Russia happened in early 2022. There's a lot of speculation as to if it's recession or brick & mortar stores opening up but I definitely felt the hit. A bunch of new sellers started during covid which inflated the competition. Also, many sellers ordered large amounts of inventory during that time to prep for the forecasted mass supply chain delays that never happened. Container prices were 5x inflated during that time. Now add it all up and you have a spike in competition, consumers pulling back, overstocked, overpriced inventory bought with increasing debt rates. Many were panic discounting (for good reason) which tanked margins in categories. Experts are saying most of these issues are clearing up now and we will see consumer spend peak this Q4. I believe them.

[Drop40lbs]

Finally got my funding issue fixed. Was a sigh of relief for bout 5 seconds. Got more than I needed so I can work on Q1 order quicker so i'm not late like I usually am every frickin order.
Now time to tackle the 350 next problems in line....

[RetiredBrah]

The ask is coming from him eventually. The course or the seminar or the whatever, as soon as he feels his brand and "good will" are good enough

He used to start his videos with "I have nothing to sell you" and I believe early this year or last year took that out

He has not verified his income in any way, just a random article about selling his businesses that could be fake for all we know

He's doing well though creating a massive following and writing a pretty good book that he makes a lot from. So even if he wasn't actually rich when he started social media he's rich now

He paid thousands of dollars for a private meeting with Grant Cardone, that should tell you a lot about his goals and ambitions

[RetiredBrah]

Yeah and you can often judge the quality of a person by their partner. His wife, Leila Hormozi, is complete trash. A lot of people thinks she's trans but really she just took too many steroids and ruined herself/her voice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuTXkRHWcLM&t=34s

In this video she claims a 100 mill USD net worth, and a portfolio of companies worth 500 mill USD, without revealing a single one of them. Scammer couple.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sJw0Jgs2dM

He also claims that he looks like this with a small TRT dose and that he's never used anything beyond TRT lol

[Paulinkansas]

Had a 2 bedroom rental house that brought in $375 a month. The people moved out and it was vacant. I had recently gotten married and my wife had her house full of her furniture and appliances. We stocked my vacant house and put 4 beds in there. There was a turnaround starting at a local refinery and I was able to rent out the house in 24 hours for $840 a week to 4 guys. Cooking and doing laundry are the main things people like after working 12 hours a day 7 days a week. They stayed 2 months and moved out. Within 30 minutes 4 of their friends called me and wanted to rent it. They stayed 2 months and moved out. Within 60 minutes 3 of their friends called me wanted to rent it. My wife also had a 3 bedroom rental house. We furnished it and rented it out to 9 guys. They had been staying in a motel 60 miles away.

Then we realized that it's not the number of bedrooms that determine a houses capacity, it's the number of bathrooms. So we bought a 3 story bank foreclosure with 4 bathrooms and 11 pipefitters rented it out. Their rent paid for the house in 4 months.

Over the next few years we got up to 26 rental properties for refinery contractors.

My official day job has been doing the drug screens for the contractors when they get to town so that they can get in the refinery. That's when I give them a sales pitch. I hear the same thing every time. "I wish I would have known about your places yesterday. I already paid up more money for a week in a motel." I give them a calendar with scantily clad women and my phone number on it. These contractors might be back in 2 months or 2 years. There are about 5000 previous renters that have my number, so I've given up my official job doing the drug screens but still keep occupancy around 75%.

Here's some tips. 2 guys will never sit on a sofa together, they want their own recliner. A big house that sleeps 6 or more people will never be rented out to 6 guys that are unrelated to each other. It will be a father/son/cousin/brother in law/uncle etc. An extended family. When 2000 contractors come to a town of 9000, all the grocery stores and restaurants will run out of food. Srs. KFC had no chicken. Pizza hut had no toppings, just cheese pizzas. Burger joints had no burgers. Grocery stores had no fresh meat. I'm not making this up, it's a quote from some previous tenants.

[nestbrah]

Yea mane, Amazon is a bloodbath rn. They changed a bunch of the fee structure early this year which fked a lot of sellers. Not only more expensive but it's confusing af. These guys are 8 figure sellers that were the most active in bringing awareness to the issue earlier this year:

Spoiler

https://x.com/michaelpatron0

https://x.com/Molson_Hart

https://x.com/michaelpatron0/status/1777318976042709295

https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1765089558746534387

Tucker Carlson interview: https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1789063487374663835

Documentary: https://x.com/Molson_Hart/status/1736445626483720324

Yea I agree - if you're bringing something unique, Shopify could be better. Beware when you start to see success tho. It's only a matter of time until the copycats come out. One of the main issues with DTC/Shopify-only brands is you spend a ton to advertise a unique product (which is hard af to do), customers like your offer, then they check Amazon and just buy a competitor's instead out of convenience. You may want to consider getting patents as well later down the line. They won't save you but they can deter a ton of potential competitors. CEO of Ridge Wallet made a post about this couple months ago: https://x.com/SeanEcom/status/1818352268770787372

1. How did you find your products?
Took a whole bunch of advice I learned over the years and got to researching. Kinda all over the place lol.
When I first started my brand in 2021 during covid, the big issue was supply chain and shipping times. Because of this uncertainty, I thought it was a good opportunity to get into Made in USA products which I did the first two years. This narrowed my search down a lot.
The best advice I ever heard on product research is to find a small niche within a big niche. Grocery->Coffee brand->Coffee for those that love America. Black Rifle Coffee Company. The more you can niche down, the easier(and cheaper) it gets to market. Gotta make sure it's backed by demand tho.
Sad to say this is how I started off then got shiny object syndrome with a bunch of new products that don't fit my brand and got cooked. Now i'm working backwards and fixing those damages.
2. Do you make your own products or are they white label?
Private label/white label from China.
3. Do you have many competitors?
Yea, it's a super saturated af niche. But if you niche down properly(backed by demand), I find it possible to take a piece of market share from any niche. My niche is also a designed based category that attracts a lot of designer/visual type people selling in it. I am more of a geeky analytics/data guy and thats been my competitive advantage.
4. Profit margin?
Good SKUs - 20-30% depending on seasonality
Bad SKUs - Anywhere from break even to so bad that I have to pay disposal fees to get rid of em lol
5. How do you find selling on Amazon?
Indifferent for now, but hopeful. There was a noticeable drop-off when Ukraine x Russia happened in early 2022. There's a lot of speculation as to if it's recession or brick & mortar stores opening up but I definitely felt the hit. A bunch of new sellers started during covid which inflated the competition. Also, many sellers ordered large amounts of inventory during that time to prep for the forecasted mass supply chain delays that never happened. Container prices were 5x inflated during that time. Now add it all up and you have a spike in competition, consumers pulling back, overstocked, overpriced inventory bought with increasing debt rates. Many were panic discounting (for good reason) which tanked margins in categories. Experts are saying most of these issues are clearing up now and we will see consumer spend peak this Q4. I believe them.

Cool man thanks for the long response. Super interesting stuff especially coming from an experienced seller like yourself.

I looked at the links you sent and what you said about Ridge and it's made me even more reluctant to sell on Amazon than I was before. I've noticed it becoming more and more of a Chinese bazaar every year, and I wonder if this trend is going to continue. Many people I know now say they won't buy quality on Amazon, just cheap knick knacks. So yeah it feels like people are losing faith in Amazon for anything premium.

You said you're looking at going DTC. Are you gonna use Shopify or do you have a different plan for this? I think TikTok is a good path for anything that isn't too complex/expensive.

I appreciate the warning about customers seeing my offer and then going to Amazon to buy it cheaper. I expect this to happen but not for a while as there's nothing on Amazon like what I'm gonna be selling. Everything is very low quality and I'm going for a more premium market. But yeah, when the copycats start coming out I'm not really sure what I'll do then... haven't thought that far ahead to strategise, but the possibility does make me anxious.

I'm curious how you're differentiating yourself when you're buying white label from China. Aren't there a bunch of other sellers buying the same stuff from the same factories? And then you have the Chinese factories directing selling too at a cheaper price, which I see is happening more and more on Amazon now. And that's before TEMU started taking market share by going even cheaper. So yeah, curious to hear more about your strategy if you're willing to share.

20-30% profit margin is very good. You're taking 30k a month profit out of the business, or you're reinvesting everything back in to grow?

How many products do you sell btw? Wondering if you've got some incredible products doing 20k + per month, or more like 50 products each doing a few thousand.

Happy to see someone succeeding in Amazon FBA. The more you read about Amazon/E-com on reddit, the more it makes you feel like it's impossible, so your success is inspiring.

[OriginalGangster]

I think it just comes down to luck. It's just that when success does happen, you can sort of standardise the journey in a bunch of steps. People then think if they follow these steps that they'll have the same result, but it hardly ever works like that. If it was easy to become an entrepreneur, brainiacs wouldn't be teaching business and economics, they'd be making cash money fr fr.

[Drop40lbs]

Cool man thanks for the long response. Super interesting stuff especially coming from an experienced seller like yourself.

I looked at the links you sent and what you said about Ridge and it's made me even more reluctant to sell on Amazon than I was before. I've noticed it becoming more and more of a Chinese bazaar every year, and I wonder if this trend is going to continue. Many people I know now say they won't buy quality on Amazon, just cheap knick knacks. So yeah it feels like people are losing faith in Amazon for anything premium.

You said you're looking at going DTC. Are you gonna use Shopify or do you have a different plan for this? I think TikTok is a good path for anything that isn't too complex/expensive.

I appreciate the warning about customers seeing my offer and then going to Amazon to buy it cheaper. I expect this to happen but not for a while as there's nothing on Amazon like what I'm gonna be selling. Everything is very low quality and I'm going for a more premium market. But yeah, when the copycats start coming out I'm not really sure what I'll do then... haven't thought that far ahead to strategise, but the possibility does make me anxious.

I'm curious how you're differentiating yourself when you're buying white label from China. Aren't there a bunch of other sellers buying the same stuff from the same factories? And then you have the Chinese factories directing selling too at a cheaper price, which I see is happening more and more on Amazon now. And that's before TEMU started taking market share by going even cheaper. So yeah, curious to hear more about your strategy if you're willing to share.

20-30% profit margin is very good. You're taking 30k a month profit out of the business, or you're reinvesting everything back in to grow?

How many products do you sell btw? Wondering if you've got some incredible products doing 20k + per month, or more like 50 products each doing a few thousand.

Happy to see someone succeeding in Amazon FBA. The more you read about Amazon/E-com on reddit, the more it makes you feel like it's impossible, so your success is inspiring.

Amazon announced they are starting a "lower-priced option" category in efforts to fight off Temu. This program is looking to partner with Chinese factories directly and have them produce-on-demand and dropship products to consumers. Consumers would have to wait longer shipping times as opposed to the Amazon Prime quick shipping, but have the option enjoy lower prices if they are willing to wait. Unclear if Amazon is planning to make a separate "Shop Deals" page, show these options in SERP(search engine results page), or God-forbid, start marketing these "low-priced" options directly on product pages. This can really kill a lot of small businesses. https://www.marketplacepulse.com/art...na-marketplace

Seems like you wanted to develop a new, unique utility product hence why I threw out the option to get patents for defensibility. My niche isn't "patentable" so i'm no expert in that area, i'm just parroting stuff i've heard from experts that had similar copycat issues.
I can see how you'd create a "Try this gardening hack" short clip and attract customers with a unique offer. Maybe Tiktok isn't the best channel for this category considering the age demographics? Or maybe there is an underserved market for young people that are interested in gardening/sustainability. Idk just throwing it out there.

I'm in a super competitive niche that is mostly design-based. The largest brands in my category are Made in USA and own and operate their own factories. Eliminate the cost of oversea shipping and their costs are similar to what China can produce. This seems to deter a lot of Chinese factories from becoming sellers themselves. And the design element, knowing how to resonate with consumers deters a lot of overseas sellers.
My initial competitive advantage has been to find underserved keywords that the big players aren't looking at. Everything was a data based approach. Now i'm focusing on going deep into branding and carving out my niche, following, and loyal customers.

As for profitability, I want to emphasize "Bad SKUs - Anywhere from break even to so bad that I have to pay disposal fees to get rid of em lol".
I used to hate when you ask someone "how much does ur business make" and they can't give a straight answer.... but now I understand why lol. It's impossible to calculate. With the importance of the cashflow lesson I learned the past 2-3 weeks, i'm cleaning house and liquidating every product that doesn't fit my brand this Q4, even at a loss. Luckily for me, i've done an absolute piss poor job of inventory forecasting and management with my good SKUs, running out for weeks and months at time. The improvement in cashflow will allow me to overstock on my guaranteed SKUs and boost my overall profitability.

Current DTC plan is to first and foremost, tear down and improve all my content. Packaging design, insert cards, image strategy, etc. I used to think stuff like brand story/brand mission statement were fake and gey but now understanding the importance of why it's needed. Then build out and optimize all the free/low cost channels first. Shopify, Instagram, Pinterest, Email marketing, and my most recent exciting discovery: building a giant list of small brick&mortar shops all over the US that could be interested in buying wholesale and cold call/emailing them. Painful to say i've spent $115k on Amazon ads the past 12 months and yet was too lazy to work on the free channels. The plan is to optimize all of this before going into any more paid ads.

Reddit ecom/amazon is generally a bunch of pessimism from larpers. Wouldn't take much srsly from there. Facebook groups: the free ones are meh, some paid ones are great. Twitter is decent. Linkedin is the best right now and where the big players are hanging out.

[nestbrah]

Amazon announced they are starting a "lower-priced option" category in efforts to fight off Temu. This program is looking to partner with Chinese factories directly and have them produce-on-demand and dropship products to consumers. Consumers would have to wait longer shipping times as opposed to the Amazon Prime quick shipping, but have the option enjoy lower prices if they are willing to wait. Unclear if Amazon is planning to make a separate "Shop Deals" page, show these options in SERP(search engine results page), or God-forbid, start marketing these "low-priced" options directly on product pages. This can really kill a lot of small businesses. https://www.marketplacepulse.com/art...na-marketplace

Seems like you wanted to develop a new, unique utility product hence why I threw out the option to get patents for defensibility. My niche isn't "patentable" so i'm no expert in that area, i'm just parroting stuff i've heard from experts that had similar copycat issues.
I can see how you'd create a "Try this gardening hack" short clip and attract customers with a unique offer. Maybe Tiktok isn't the best channel for this category considering the age demographics? Or maybe there is an underserved market for young people that are interested in gardening/sustainability. Idk just throwing it out there.

I'm in a super competitive niche that is mostly design-based. The largest brands in my category are Made in USA and own and operate their own factories. Eliminate the cost of oversea shipping and their costs are similar to what China can produce. This seems to deter a lot of Chinese factories from becoming sellers themselves. And the design element, knowing how to resonate with consumers deters a lot of overseas sellers.
My initial competitive advantage has been to find underserved keywords that the big players aren't looking at. Everything was a data based approach. Now i'm focusing on going deep into branding and carving out my niche, following, and loyal customers.

As for profitability, I want to emphasize "Bad SKUs - Anywhere from break even to so bad that I have to pay disposal fees to get rid of em lol".
I used to hate when you ask someone "how much does ur business make" and they can't give a straight answer.... but now I understand why lol. It's impossible to calculate. With the importance of the cashflow lesson I learned the past 2-3 weeks, i'm cleaning house and liquidating every product that doesn't fit my brand this Q4, even at a loss. Luckily for me, i've done an absolute piss poor job of inventory forecasting and management with my good SKUs, running out for weeks and months at time. The improvement in cashflow will allow me to overstock on my guaranteed SKUs and boost my overall profitability.

Current DTC plan is to first and foremost, tear down and improve all my content. Packaging design, insert cards, image strategy, etc. I used to think stuff like brand story/brand mission statement were fake and gey but now understanding the importance of why it's needed. Then build out and optimize all the free/low cost channels first. Shopify, Instagram, Pinterest, Email marketing, and my most recent exciting discovery: building a giant list of small brick&mortar shops all over the US that could be interested in buying wholesale and cold call/emailing them. Painful to say i've spent $115k on Amazon ads the past 12 months and yet was too lazy to work on the free channels. The plan is to optimize all of this before going into any more paid ads.

Reddit ecom/amazon is generally a bunch of pessimism from larpers. Wouldn't take much srsly from there. Facebook groups: the free ones are meh, some paid ones are great. Twitter is decent. Linkedin is the best right now and where the big players are hanging out.

Thanks brah for another awesome response.

My first attempt at e-commerce with Amazon a few years back was in the gardening niche, but this one is a sub-niche aimed at women 18-35ish. This one is more lifestyle/style focussed while also being useful. So yeah, your suggestion for TikTok might work for this one. This is actually partly why I chose the product category because I wanted something I could potentially market more organically, through viral videos etc, if the google/fb ads route becomes too expensive.

I'm jealous that your products are Made in USA. I wanted to do the same thing but the prices were just too expensive to make it worthwhile here in Europe, so I'm going to have to stomach the expensive and slow shipping from China/India.

One question that I'm struggling with at the moment is pricing. I've read online on a bunch of forums that your cost of goods, including shipping and warehousing, should be below 30% to have any real chance of success. The remaining 60-70% should go towards advertising and developing/buying new products.

So basically, guidance says you should be buying and shipping for 5 dollars and selling for 20+.

I'm concerned because my realistic cost of goods is looking at 50-60% at the moment for the price I want to charge. I could always increase the price here by 20%, but my gut says it would price out most purchasers.

Any advice for this?

I've always looked for products that could have a big mark up but it seems these are the most competitive and difficult to enter, where the advertising is also the most expensive of all. E.g. supplements.

So yeah, just not really sure how people are able to get such good margins.

[4NIK8R2000]

In 2019 I started a home inspection business. Went to school, took all these tests, started an LLC, got insurance, certifications for all. Covid hit and fuked it all up, I put myself in $40K+ of debt, bought a new truck, all these tools. Everything changed once Covid hit. I was a sub contractor for a few months in 2020, didn’t make crap 💩. 12+ hour days. It was an epic fail. I’m finally crawling out of the huge mound of debt I put myself in. And now still in an office being a wagie. 😐 I would have been better off staying in an office and just saving my money or get a second part time job. I hate being broke, very depressing.

[Drop40lbs]

Thanks brah for another awesome response.

My first attempt at e-commerce with Amazon a few years back was in the gardening niche, but this one is a sub-niche aimed at women 18-35ish. This one is more lifestyle/style focussed while also being useful. So yeah, your suggestion for TikTok might work for this one. This is actually partly why I chose the product category because I wanted something I could potentially market more organically, through viral videos etc, if the google/fb ads route becomes too expensive.

I'm jealous that your products are Made in USA. I wanted to do the same thing but the prices were just too expensive to make it worthwhile here in Europe, so I'm going to have to stomach the expensive and slow shipping from China/India.

One question that I'm struggling with at the moment is pricing. I've read online on a bunch of forums that your cost of goods, including shipping and warehousing, should be below 30% to have any real chance of success. The remaining 60-70% should go towards advertising and developing/buying new products.

So basically, guidance says you should be buying and shipping for 5 dollars and selling for 20+.

I'm concerned because my realistic cost of goods is looking at 50-60% at the moment for the price I want to charge. I could always increase the price here by 20%, but my gut says it would price out most purchasers.

Any advice for this?

I've always looked for products that could have a big mark up but it seems these are the most competitive and difficult to enter, where the advertising is also the most expensive of all. E.g. supplements.

So yeah, just not really sure how people are able to get such good margins.

50-60% COGS is insanely high. By shipping, are you including shipping the product from your warehouse to a customer? Landed cost is typically cost to manufacture + overseas freight shipping.

For a $20 product, the general breakdown is:
$5 landed cost per unit
$5 ship to customer
$5 ads, warehousing, other fees
$5 profit

Ofc, it's just a general breakdown and costs vary widely.

It's impossible to say how price affects customer behavior with just general info. Actually many times it's hard even for experienced people. Sometimes you just gotta go to market and test it. Some categories are extremely price dependent. Others, you can win a higher price with great branding.

Spoiler

My products were made in USA the first 2 years but I switched over to China. My original USA supplier passed away and the factory ended up closing. That was brootal at the time but lowkey saved me because margins were being squeezed hard from recession/inflation/etc. I did go through some other USA suppliers but they were all expensive af and sucked. Here's my COGS list:

2021 China: $4.5/unit landed cost = $3.5/unit + about $1 shipping(overseas shipping was very expensive during this time)
2021 USA 1st supplier: $5.35/unit
2023 USA 2nd supplier: $5.76-$6.70/unit
2024 China (current supplier): $2.50/unit landed cost = $2.10/unit + about $0.40 shipping

Initially when I started, Made in USA made sense because overseas shipping prices were insanely expensive with the post-covid supply chain issues and also many new sellers were entering e-commerce with the fears of covid lockdowns which inflated the COGS price in China. Unfortunately, after my main USA supplier died, I only found one factory that was somewhat close in price. Too bad they were not only expensive, absolute trash with communication, lead times, etc. I'm still recovering from the damage they fuked me with.

Thinking back now, I legit thought it was over for me at that time. All my plans were to optimize and really push as a "Made in USA" brand and I couldn't find a USA supplier. Ended up letting those hopes go and sourcing from China and was pleasantly surprised. Same quality and my COGS drops by more than 50%+ overnight. China was in recession at that time and overseas business dropped a lot after a big spike during covid. Add in that I had a couple years of experience and was ordering higher quantities.

I rambled a bunch lol but the point is, margins need to be created via experience, testing, branding, package size optimization, logistics, and rational negotiations with suppliers. Cast a wide net when asking for quotes and narrow it down to a couple suppliers. Try your best to go factory direct instead of a trading company(middle man). But sometimes you do need a middleman, usually depending on category. The larger factories have bilingual sales reps and others are too small and you’ll need to hire a translator or sourcing agent.

This is just a bunch of general info. Margins in categories and even sales channels can vary widely and there is no perfect guideline to follow. IMO, if your competitors are getting a good margin, I never felt I couldn’t do the same as well eventually.

[Drop40lbs]

Gawd dam mane, there's always a fkn issue somewhere. Now Amazon is suspecting I "attempted to attack competitors via negative product reviews" and i'm pending deactivation. 1st appeal was denied and 2nd appeal is pending. I didn't do shiet SRS. Played everything by the rules. Gimme a break SMH

[nestbrah]

50-60% COGS is insanely high. By shipping, are you including shipping the product from your warehouse to a customer? Landed cost is typically cost to manufacture + overseas freight shipping.

For a $20 product, the general breakdown is:
$5 landed cost per unit
$5 ship to customer
$5 ads, warehousing, other fees
$5 profit

Ofc, it's just a general breakdown and costs vary widely.

It's impossible to say how price affects customer behavior with just general info. Actually many times it's hard even for experienced people. Sometimes you just gotta go to market and test it. Some categories are extremely price dependent. Others, you can win a higher price with great branding.

Spoiler

My products were made in USA the first 2 years but I switched over to China. My original USA supplier passed away and the factory ended up closing. That was brootal at the time but lowkey saved me because margins were being squeezed hard from recession/inflation/etc. I did go through some other USA suppliers but they were all expensive af and sucked. Here's my COGS list:

2021 China: $4.5/unit landed cost = $3.5/unit + about $1 shipping(overseas shipping was very expensive during this time)
2021 USA 1st supplier: $5.35/unit
2023 USA 2nd supplier: $5.76-$6.70/unit
2024 China (current supplier): $2.50/unit landed cost = $2.10/unit + about $0.40 shipping

Initially when I started, Made in USA made sense because overseas shipping prices were insanely expensive with the post-covid supply chain issues and also many new sellers were entering e-commerce with the fears of covid lockdowns which inflated the COGS price in China. Unfortunately, after my main USA supplier died, I only found one factory that was somewhat close in price. Too bad they were not only expensive, absolute trash with communication, lead times, etc. I'm still recovering from the damage they fuked me with.

Thinking back now, I legit thought it was over for me at that time. All my plans were to optimize and really push as a "Made in USA" brand and I couldn't find a USA supplier. Ended up letting those hopes go and sourcing from China and was pleasantly surprised. Same quality and my COGS drops by more than 50%+ overnight. China was in recession at that time and overseas business dropped a lot after a big spike during covid. Add in that I had a couple years of experience and was ordering higher quantities.

I rambled a bunch lol but the point is, margins need to be created via experience, testing, branding, package size optimization, logistics, and rational negotiations with suppliers. Cast a wide net when asking for quotes and narrow it down to a couple suppliers. Try your best to go factory direct instead of a trading company(middle man). But sometimes you do need a middleman, usually depending on category. The larger factories have bilingual sales reps and others are too small and you’ll need to hire a translator or sourcing agent.

This is just a bunch of general info. Margins in categories and even sales channels can vary widely and there is no perfect guideline to follow. IMO, if your competitors are getting a good margin, I never felt I couldn’t do the same as well eventually.

Thanks man. I think maybe I got my terminology wrong about COGS. We're doing three products but I'll give you a breakdown of one of them.

Product 1:

Factory sell to us for 14 USD
We assume around 3-4 USD shipping/insurance (it weighs around 2.5 pounds, although not very bulky)
2 USD import taxes etc
Total landed cost: approx 20 USD

(Hoping the taxes and shipping might be a bit cheaper)

Warehouse takes around 4-5 USD

So total COGS would be around 25 USD

We plan to sell this one for around 70 USD.
Sales tax takes 14 USD (20% of sale price)

We're left with around 30-31 USD to advertise and buy more product... doesn't seem like a lot. Oh actually there's corporate tax on this at around 20%. So that's 25 USD spending money, assuming we don't pay ourselves anything. Business is brutal man. Luckily my other unrelated business brings in some money.

So from that 70 USD sale, only 35% is usable profit, assuming everything goes perfectly. How the hell do you grow with that with the cost of advertising what it is today?

From what I've read on Reddit, this is way below what's needed to really succeed in e-commerce normally. But hopefully that's wrong. We're a premium product in a space of low quality products (mostly Chinese factory sellers on Amazon), but our price is already double the competition. Don't really think we can go much higher.

Our other two products compliment this product, so we're going to try and sell them all in a bundle to improve margins. The other two products are each half the price with slightly better margins. A lot of people have advised me that bundling is the way forward these days.

-----------------------------------

Thanks for being transparent with your pricing breakdowns. How did you get the price so much cheaper in 2024? You seem to have got it down by almost 60%. Did you have to sacrifice on quality to do that?

Also I see you mention 5 USD to ship to customer. Don't you have your customers pay for shipping? We're planning to do that unless they spend over a certain amount then we'll provide free shipping.

Curious how much do you sell each item for?

------------------------------------

Seems it's a total rollercoaster and you just gotta take calculated gambles and hope for the best. Hopefully I can survive the ride.

[nestbrah]

Gawd dam mane, there's always a fkn issue somewhere. Now Amazon is suspecting I "attempted to attack competitors via negative product reviews" and i'm pending deactivation. 1st appeal was denied and 2nd appeal is pending. I didn't do shiet SRS. Played everything by the rules. Gimme a break SMH

Yeah dude... this is what terrifies me. I build a good business on Amazon and then one day they decide to deactivate my account and destroy everything I've worked for.

I've also heard cases of them losing entire shipments of stock and taking zero responsibility for it.

Why aren't you trying to get off Amazon ASAP and go the Shopify/Woocommerce route? I also guess a functioning Shopify store is worth more if you want to sell it than an Amazon store for the reasons above.

I used to want to sell on Amazon but too many horror stories have made me rethink everything.

[Paulinkansas]

In 2019 I started a home inspection business. Went to school, took all these tests, started an LLC, got insurance, certifications for all. Covid hit and fuked it all up.

In January 2020 I had 73 refinery contractors in all my houses. Covid hit. By June I went from 73 to just 1 guy. Tried to cut all expenses that I could. So I cancelled all the trash pick up service with the intention of resuming it when a place gets rented. A place got rented but I forgot to resume the trash service. The trash still was picked up. It happened again and again at other properties. I haven't paid for trash service since 2020 and it is still being collected.

[Drop40lbs]

Thanks man. I think maybe I got my terminology wrong about COGS. We're doing three products but I'll give you a breakdown of one of them.

Product 1:

Factory sell to us for 14 USD
We assume around 3-4 USD shipping/insurance (it weighs around 2.5 pounds, although not very bulky)
2 USD import taxes etc
Total landed cost: approx 20 USD

(Hoping the taxes and shipping might be a bit cheaper)

Warehouse takes around 4-5 USD

So total COGS would be around 25 USD

We plan to sell this one for around 70 USD.
Sales tax takes 14 USD (20% of sale price)

We're left with around 30-31 USD to advertise and buy more product... doesn't seem like a lot. Oh actually there's corporate tax on this at around 20%. So that's 25 USD spending money, assuming we don't pay ourselves anything. Business is brutal man. Luckily my other unrelated business brings in some money.

So from that 70 USD sale, only 35% is usable profit, assuming everything goes perfectly. How the hell do you grow with that with the cost of advertising what it is today?

From what I've read on Reddit, this is way below what's needed to really succeed in e-commerce normally. But hopefully that's wrong. We're a premium product in a space of low quality products (mostly Chinese factory sellers on Amazon), but our price is already double the competition. Don't really think we can go much higher.

Our other two products compliment this product, so we're going to try and sell them all in a bundle to improve margins. The other two products are each half the price with slightly better margins. A lot of people have advised me that bundling is the way forward these days.

-----------------------------------

Thanks for being transparent with your pricing breakdowns. How did you get the price so much cheaper in 2024? You seem to have got it down by almost 60%. Did you have to sacrifice on quality to do that?

Also I see you mention 5 USD to ship to customer. Don't you have your customers pay for shipping? We're planning to do that unless they spend over a certain amount then we'll provide free shipping.

Curious how much do you sell each item for?

------------------------------------

Seems it's a total rollercoaster and you just gotta take calculated gambles and hope for the best. Hopefully I can survive the ride.

$14 for a $70 product ain't too bad I think. Especially if it's truly premium quality. I'm in a far lower cost niche so not too sure how gross margin percentages.
I have products that weigh 3lbs and sea shipping cost is around ~80 cents (But i'm shipping a lot at a time so probably shipping a lower cost). Even then, IMO $3-4 is a super high estimation.
Not sure where you got the warehousing cost but that's super high estimate.
You mentioned ur in Europe, idk anything about VAT tax or Euro Tax. Not sure if you're planning to sell in the US. Sales tax in the US is charged on top of the $70 and remitted. It shouldn't be a factor when determining costs. But again, idk how Europe taxes work.

I'm new to DTC marketing as well so idk what marketing costs to expect. I have heard that it's impossible to market nowadays unless ur AOV is $60+ so I think ur good there.
Advertising cost (TACOS) for Amazon sellers is around 15%. It would be higher for DTC since you don't need to pay the Amazon referral fee (15%).

As for my pricing, when I first started looking for quotes in China, factories were super busy from all the new sellers during covid. It was a good opportunity for them to price gouge all the new people which in turn made Made in USA look more attractive price-wise. When I got quotes again in late 2023, many sellers fell off from the covid spike and China was in recession. Additionally, I came back for quotes after being experienced which was more attractive for suppliers.
Quality wise - it's the same, I also get a free branded box with no extra charge whereas I would have had to pay $1.5-$2 extra in the US for a designed package.

For shipping - I'm sending all inventory to Amazon so have to offer free prime shipping. Amazon charges just under $5 for my product.

$2.10 factory cost
$0.40 shipping (duties included, no tariff)
$4.70 Amazon FBA fee
$1.95 Amazon Referral Fee
$0.10-$0.20 warehousing + other fees

Pricing varies a ton depending on seasonality, stock levels, etc and it will be my first Q4 with these lower prices so that should be fun. It's looking like my price strategy will be:
$12.99 most of the year
$14.99 seasonal(nov-dec)
$9.99 when pushing for ranking (amazon offers fee discount when products are priced under $10. I can still get a 20% margin at this price)

Yeah dude... this is what terrifies me. I build a good business on Amazon and then one day they decide to deactivate my account and destroy everything I've worked for.

I've also heard cases of them losing entire shipments of stock and taking zero responsibility for it.

Why aren't you trying to get off Amazon ASAP and go the Shopify/Woocommerce route? I also guess a functioning Shopify store is worth more if you want to sell it than an Amazon store for the reasons above.

I used to want to sell on Amazon but too many horror stories have made me rethink everything.

Yea it's fked. Omni-channel is the future. Amazon is a big bully. But for the most part, the vast majority of cases eventually get solved as long as you don't do something completely illegal. Their appeal process is just a bitch and requires professional hire sometimes to solve it.

[Briangumble]

The only idea I have right now is to get an FHA loan to buy a house around LA and rent it on AirBnB, and hopefully make enough from that one property to buy more.

I've thought about Amazon FBA, but it seems like everyone is doing that already and I don't know how I can make money if everyone is doing it. Plus there's all these guys desperately selling courses on how to do an Amazon FBA business and that makes me even more wary.

I'd like to do vending machines or ATM machines, but finding locations that don't already have one is challenging.

There's a guy name Paul Alex that sells some type of system for credit card payment services. Basically the theory is businesses have to pay a fee every time they accept a credit card payment, so you have them switch over to your system where instead of the business paying, they charge the fee to the customer, and you get a small percentage of each transaction. In theory it sounds great, if you have a whole bunch of businesses using your credit card payment system and you get a small percentage of each transaction, that's a lot of passive income you can make. But I'm sure the challenge is finding businesses that don't already have a similar system in place, and I'm pretty sure that's going to be almost impossible.

I'm still trying to come up with more ideas.

[Briangumble]

Has anyone bought a business of bizbuysell.com? I've thought about that also but almost everything on there is a lot more than what I can afford.

[nestbrah]

$14 for a $70 product ain't too bad I think. Especially if it's truly premium quality. I'm in a far lower cost niche so not too sure how gross margin percentages.
I have products that weigh 3lbs and sea shipping cost is around ~80 cents (But i'm shipping a lot at a time so probably shipping a lower cost). Even then, IMO $3-4 is a super high estimation.
Not sure where you got the warehousing cost but that's super high estimate.
You mentioned ur in Europe, idk anything about VAT tax or Euro Tax. Not sure if you're planning to sell in the US. Sales tax in the US is charged on top of the $70 and remitted. It shouldn't be a factor when determining costs. But again, idk how Europe taxes work.

I'm new to DTC marketing as well so idk what marketing costs to expect. I have heard that it's impossible to market nowadays unless ur AOV is $60+ so I think ur good there.
Advertising cost (TACOS) for Amazon sellers is around 15%. It would be higher for DTC since you don't need to pay the Amazon referral fee (15%).

As for my pricing, when I first started looking for quotes in China, factories were super busy from all the new sellers during covid. It was a good opportunity for them to price gouge all the new people which in turn made Made in USA look more attractive price-wise. When I got quotes again in late 2023, many sellers fell off from the covid spike and China was in recession. Additionally, I came back for quotes after being experienced which was more attractive for suppliers.
Quality wise - it's the same, I also get a free branded box with no extra charge whereas I would have had to pay $1.5-$2 extra in the US for a designed package.

For shipping - I'm sending all inventory to Amazon so have to offer free prime shipping. Amazon charges just under $5 for my product.

$2.10 factory cost
$0.40 shipping (duties included, no tariff)
$4.70 Amazon FBA fee
$1.95 Amazon Referral Fee
$0.10-$0.20 warehousing + other fees

Pricing varies a ton depending on seasonality, stock levels, etc and it will be my first Q4 with these lower prices so that should be fun. It's looking like my price strategy will be:
$12.99 most of the year
$14.99 seasonal(nov-dec)
$9.99 when pushing for ranking (amazon offers fee discount when products are priced under $10. I can still get a 20% margin at this price)





Yea it's fked. Omni-channel is the future. Amazon is a big bully. But for the most part, the vast majority of cases eventually get solved as long as you don't do something completely illegal. Their appeal process is just a bitch and requires professional hire sometimes to solve it.

Cool man appreciate the reassurance. Sounds like you've got a really good thing going.

Btw how many products do you sell? As I said I'm starting with 3, but planning to build it up. Not sure what the 'right' amount of products to sell is really before it starts getting impossible to manage.

Cash flow is another concern of mine. I'll be putting in an initial 20-30K USD for product and marketing, but if the products start selling well I'm not sure how I'm going to scale. Any advice on this too?