Ask 8-figure business owners for personalized advice!

[door123]

I have pet(cat) product that I created from scratch that I sell on AMZ about ~4 units a day. It's has a fairly wide consumer appeal, something like medicated cat shampoo - my value skew is better ingredients, eco packaging

I know you mentioned you only deal with products that are priced at 10X+ the manufacturing cost.
Based on the numbers would you scale this 1 product/brand that I started recently?

If yes, how would you do finance the growth if you didn't have much capital to invest, like nothing over $5K? I am assuming you needs at least $10K investment for inventory and marketing.

My AMZ numbers
10% of my sales are from repeat customers 1st quarter of 2022
YTD units sold 630
Reviews 87,
Sell for $19.95
Current Cost to manufacture in US total $5.5 (currently doing 1500 runs), I could potentially manufacture in China for $1.750 FOB at a 3K run, (quoted by supplier), shipping an 8 oz bottle of cat water
Sell for $19.95
Avg CPCs less than a dollar on Amazon, for search and product placement
Spent $297 on AMZ ppc and generated $981 in Revenue, turned on PPC in the latter part of 2022
1300 units in stock

What have I done so far? nothing really, just reordering more units and amz ppc

 

[Leizer]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

Thank you for offering!

I have a few questions if you don't mind:

1- I want to start my product idea. (Currently I'm in the design process)
I usually try to get some validation about my product so I don't go and waste too much money. After some research, I found My product online. Someone had invented it 2 years before. EXACTLY the same product.
He raised half a million dollars on Kickstarter and later got a deal on Shark tank Australia. At first I was devastated, but then I realized I can still make it by changing it up a bit and solving the same problem in a slightly different way.

I read all the reviews from Kickstarter (People were very upset as he did a crappy job with manufacturing, very cheaply done) SO MY QUESTION, even though this product is not selling anywhere, is it safe for me to consider this proof of concept?
And if yes, how would you advise to go ahead once I have a final product?

The way I see it there are 2 ways: 1 way to start slow create some ads myself and see if I get traction with sales then I take it up a gear or 2
OR, I can go bigger and pay to create a good high quality video for my ads and really go for it (Definitely I lean towards this option, but I have lost money before on other product that never even made it to the market)

Last question is, what is your advise regarding business consultants? Especially for someone in my space (Product creation/Manufacturing/selling)

Thank you very much

 

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[NeoDialectic]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to ask about such a matter, but..

I'm struggling with big-numbers-business-thinking. The thing is, I've worked as a part-timer/freelancer for a few years, and over the last two years I've switched to a style where I co-own two businesses where I'm slightly involved in management (who doesn't), but for the 99% of operations we got people hired, and I also have my small thing here where I'm still involved in terms of working hours, but I also hire staff to take some of those hours off of me, and I'm gradually increasing staff hours.

The thing is, now the style of working is different, but my income is the same as before. All these businesses are service-type, so most of the revenue goes back into paying rent, salaries etc.. I feel like If I want to make good money, I'll have to provide service for the whole town. I'm struggling with breaking away from business patterns where my margin is just a tiny fraction. I'm pretty sure that there are opportunities even within what I'm doing now, but I just can't see them yet.

Services can be very lucrative, just as slim margins can be very lucrative. If you want to make alot of money with those models you need to run large operations. There are plenty of companies making millions but only making scraps on each sale. They are just selling millions of units.

I think you know the answer, you just don't want to invest the mental energy into fixing it. you either need to keep the type of businesses you are running but changes something (like drastically increasing prices or drastically increasing reach), or you need to change to a different business.

If you already have customers... sometimes just talking to them could give you new ideas. It may sound awkward if you aren't the talkative type, but you could literally just ask your questions "hey, I know you let us do X for you. We are looking for more ways we can help our customers, do you have any suggestions on what other services you would like to see from us or what products you would like to see us sell?". You will get a ton of " i don't knows" and a ton of people with their own useless ideas... But you may find a diamond in the rough or a common thread in all the solicited advice. Then provide that value add to them and make sure to set this one up with healthy margins. There are PLENTY of companies that make nearly nothing on their main service/product and all of their millions on the addons.

 

[NeoDialectic]

Thank you for offering!

I have a few questions if you don't mind:

1- I want to start my product idea. (Currently I'm in the design process)
I usually try to get some validation about my product so I don't go and waste too much money. After some research, I found My product online. Someone had invented it 2 years before. EXACTLY the same product.
He raised half a million dollars on Kickstarter and later got a deal on Shark tank Australia. At first I was devastated, but then I realized I can still make it by changing it up a bit and solving the same problem in a slightly different way.

I read all the reviews from Kickstarter (People were very upset as he did a crappy job with manufacturing, very cheaply done) SO MY QUESTION, even though this product is not selling anywhere, is it safe for me to consider this proof of concept?
And if yes, how would you advise to go ahead once I have a final product?

The way I see it there are 2 ways: 1 way to start slow create some ads myself and see if I get traction with sales then I take it up a gear or 2
OR, I can go bigger and pay to create a good high quality video for my ads and really go for it (Definitely I lean towards this option, but I have lost money before on other product that never even made it to the market)

Last question is, what is your advise regarding business consultants? Especially for someone in my space (Product creation/Manufacturing/selling)

Thank you very much

I have a whole thread on execution and HERE is the direct link to the testing portion.

I don't think someone else's success is a good proof of concept for your success. You need to know your spin on the product with your pictures, and your execution model is what drives the sales. Their sales may be all because the shark tank investors are driving traffic from their private sources and they don't get any sales from customers naturally. You can't know that isn't the case until you do your own tests.

With testing, unless you have alot of funds to blow, I always recommend starting with the lowest investment. That may mean creating ads yourself. If it doesn't work and you still believe in your product, you can scale spending from there and increase it to the bigger and better video.

As far as finding business consultants go, unfortunately I do not know enough about that topic to weigh in.

 

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[Danny_Cox]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

Thanks for sharing your time! Was there a moment for you when you realised that you'd escaped the rat race? If so, what was that like? (Working on visualising this for myself as motivation.)

 

[NeoDialectic]

Thank you, you'r very helpful! I was ready to close this SKU down this year.

Do you have any tips for getting your A+ Content approved?

- Increased the price and reapplied coupon that expired
- will add video
- will add a+ content (my content has been rejected 3x times)

Just wondering why you were going to close down the listing? Sometimes it IS worth closing businesses or profitable business down. For example if the liability isn't worth it or if you are killing it elsewhere and this small stream of profit is taking a disproportionate amount of headspace and maybe even taking away from the big streams. But if you don't have alot else going on, why close it? Sounds like it has been mostly autopilot so its an extra $x,xxx a month. A ton of money? No. But that takes care of a theoretical car payment, while you are focusing on finding bigger income streams! Atleast, that's the way we always looked at it.

As far as the a+ content....What specifically did they give for the rejection reason? Sometimes it is as easy as fixing their complaint. Other times they are super vague (I am guessing this is your issue.) If you have tried a bunch of things, I would call them. They are usually relatively unhelpful over the phone. However they can usually open cases that reach departments that will clarify what the issue is. That isn't always the golden bullet, but it can get you in the right direction.

 

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[Zahida A. Khan]

One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

What a wonderful mission!!

I need to do this

I need to follow your lead

 

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[James Mayhew]

Still very much in the idea/design stage, but I'm thinking of a design of mens underwear - specifically seamless ones (I find them irritating), since most are not, and even ones which say they are, are not...
The main doubt I am having is about how much it would really be wanted, since I'm more fussy about the comfort than most. However, I think that if people were to try it, they would feel how much more comfortable it would feel, and perhaps a productocracy could be generated from them telling others about it. I think this could have a lot of potential considering how important the comfort is for most, but it's whether most would currently really care about it enough to switch to a different product - it is a very crowded market in mens underwear.
So the main issue I think is about the total addressable market - which I am currently investigating.
Do you have any other points of view on this?
Thanks!

 

[K1 Lambo]

Yep, that all sounds right!

(Gallardo LP560-2 though)

That's awesome! One of our neighbors bought himself a black Gallardo LP560-4. It's still a headturner, even after all those years! And the sound is truly something else. My goal is also to buy my Lambo one day, specifically an Aventador S roadster in orange. Lambo is like the ultimate fu you car. Sure, there are cars that are a little faster from 0-60 but the road presence it has crazy. Murci is nice as well! Are you happy with the car so far?

 

[James Mayhew]

Check uniqlo’s airism underwear.



When it comes to this we’re biased. We tend to overlook that other brands are already doing this.


( You can’t find seamless underwear on Google, right? )

Yeah I agree that I am probably rather biased to how I feel it to be rather than what most people feel - I bought uniqlo's airism one, but found it irritating - a part of it had the same effect as a seam. I've also bought another 'seamless' one from a different company but it had an annoying seam... I'm buying a different one now to test, but overall, as I said, I need to consider how much the me-bias towards my feeling of it is lowering the potential of the idea.

 

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[Panos Daras]

I'll give this a shot. Idea is for a startup that provides small businesses with no HR presence yet with documentation relating to onboarding, off-boarding, etc. My partner is the HR expert, and I will take care of building the website initially. I've tried to work through the CENTS model to evaluate whether it's fastlane or not and I'm just not sure.

Any advice or thoughts would be appreciated!

Are you still doing this? Please try to find a way to provide more value than other companies eg Slite, SignRequest or Notion

 

[arguino]

Hey @NeoDialectic,

Do you think there's an avenue for an ECommerce-specific ERP? I've looked online and there doesn't seem to be anything like it currently, but I might've been looking for the wrong thing. Something like BaseCamp but specifically for Shopify stores.

 

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[ravinder09]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

Thank you so much for helping us out. We appreciate it.

I have small industrial degreaser manufacturing business in South Jersey. I currently sell directly to Pressure Washing Equipment Distributors, Restaurant Hood Cleaning Companies, and Industrial Tank Cleaning Companies (in 55 Gallon Drums). I am planning on selling my products on Amazon, Walmart, and my own website as well. However, I have no idea on how to approach Amazon or Walmart. I will be super grateful if you can guide me in this process.

 

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[arguino]

I am guessing you talking about building one that integrates better and more intimately with Shopify specifically

From my research, a lot of the integrations are done through Zappier or manually, requiring technical knowledge of the two platforms you're connecting.
I'm calling it an ERP but in simpler terms, I'd describe it as a Store Management Solution.

Core features would be:
1. Task creation and management that is Shopify-Aware which means you're easily able to reference entities in your Shopify stores (Orders, Products, Customers, etc...)
2. Automation of task assignments based on events happening in your store (customer review, new order, failed checkout). Say you have 4 people in charge of fulfilling orders, each time an order comes in, tasks related to that specific order (and products in the order) could be created and assigned to one of the 4 people in your team.
3. Management of long-term goals for the store, create quarterly targets for Key Metrics such as Revenue, Conversion Rates, Customer Reviews and have the progress of these goals be automatically tracked through the integration.

 

[NeoDialectic]

Thank you so much for helping us out. We appreciate it.

I have small industrial degreaser manufacturing business in South Jersey. I currently sell directly to Pressure Washing Equipment Distributors, Restaurant Hood Cleaning Companies, and Industrial Tank Cleaning Companies (in 55 Gallon Drums). I am planning on selling my products on Amazon, Walmart, and my own website as well. However, I have no idea on how to approach Amazon or Walmart. I will be super grateful if you can guide me in this process.

All you do is sign up. Shopify makes it extremely easy to start your own website. Walmart is a bit of a pain to get a seller account and I would recommend waiting till you have something on other platforms. For Amazon, you sign up to a Seller Central account. Then you list. That's it! If you want to sell DIRECTLY to Amazon, that would require a Vendor Central Account. I'm not sure if they would accept you without big brand recognition or history of sales on the Amazon platform, but it's always possible. Regardless, I generally dissuade most people from going the Vendor route as the 3rd party route (seller central and FBA) is usually much better for most.

 

[SPM_ENT]

Looks like @fastlane_dad answered most of your questions. If you have any specific questions about selling your business that would help your business sale, let us know and we can try to answer it.

The more general exit questions, things to look out for, lessons learned, ways to negotiate and more is something that we have on our to-do list to write about. It's a lot more than just a reply post could fit. Sounds like you are exactly the person that the piece would be aimed at helping, so if you have any good topics/questions that you think we should explore in it, we would love to hear it as well

Right on. Let me put some thought into it and put something together. Happy to jump on a zoom call to discuss if that's something you guys would be interested in also.

 

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[Eric5505]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

My name is Eric and I am coming to you for some advice if you can spare a moment.

I’ll try to keep this is as condensed as possible.

I've been given the opportunity to own a small part of a company(25%) my success depends on the ability to do two things quickly.

Recruiting people on a consistent basis. Mostly younger individuals this is perfect for college students.

2. To turn the website into a lead generating juggernaut for attracting new business and taking this company to the next level (1,000,000+ sales)

The product is less than $50 but has a very strong closing rate

I am looking for maybe 4 to 5 ideas for how to get this thing moving in the right direction ….. Fast.

I know that you will need more information to answer this properly please ask away I appreciate your time and advance.

 

[REV5028]

My name is Eric and I am coming to you for some advice if you can spare a moment.

I’ll try to keep this is as condensed as possible.

I've been given the opportunity to own a small part of a company(25%) my success depends on the ability to do two things quickly.

Recruiting people on a consistent basis. Mostly younger individuals this is perfect for college students.

2. To turn the website into a lead generating juggernaut for attracting new business and taking this company to the next level (1,000,000+ sales)

The product is less than $50 but has a very strong closing rate

I am looking for maybe 4 to 5 ideas for how to get this thing moving in the right direction ….. Fast.

I know that you will need more information to answer this properly please ask away I appreciate your time and advance.

Hi, Eric!
I know you're looking for a response from the professional entrepreneurs, but your post reminded me of another thread I dove into yesterday at the suggestion of MJ. Just thought I'd share it with you in case you wanted to check it out until the OPs can get back to you. I wish you the best!

GOLD! - MINDSET - A physicist's guide to learning hard things (and using the scientific method)

So I was responding to a thread, and realized that one problem I see with some folks, newbies in particular, is that they lack a systematic methodology for teaching oneself. This isn’t surprising, as it’s not really a skill that we’re taught early in life. Realizing this, I figured I would share...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

[jeandearme]

Is it okay to ask for a reply on a thread I made or is it better to copy it here?

 

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[Master K. Stone]

Hello @NeoDialectic

Thank you for this thread. Thank you for sharing yourself with people who currently can't give much back.

I've been brainstorming ideas to get started on the Fastlane track with after reading various posts on the website.

I understand that you aren't an expert at everything, but you have more business sense than 99.99% of people. So I was hoping for some feedback.

Here goes...
Idea: Rental system that focuses on kitchen appliances. Specifically immersion circulators.

How (I think) it adds value: The circulators cost $100 -$200 to buy. Most people don't use it more than a few times before it's stored away and forgotten about.

If instead, they rented it for the times they do use it (sort of like a Turo/Airbnb for kitchen appliances) and paid a small fee (~$10/month) that would be the value add. They save money but also get access to a restaurant-quality cooking method only when they need it.

How it would work: A rental website. I've seen similar ones for gaming consoles so I would base it on that.

CENTS framework:
Control: I'd own all the equipment.
Entry: Reasonable amount of know-how is needed for execution, which eliminates 90% of people.
Need: I've seen multiple channels on Youtube, that have 100K+ views. People are at least interested in this equipment though. For many, the price might be the biggest hurdle.
Time: a rental system, which is excellent.
Scale: I have a goal of renting out 20K units a month. I think it is reachable.


I've just outlined the bare-bones idea here. I'd refine it as I go. I just wanted an expert to give some feedback and possibly poke some holes through my logic and challenge my thinking.

Thanks again!

 

[Isaac Odongo]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

Thank you for the opportunity. I tend to gravitate towards online business ideas because a number of them seems can be started with a relatively low cash capital. Besides, some of them are hugely scalable. I have a few ideas which are a need and obey the command of Time and control. Entry requires programming knowledge and practice. Although ChatGPT makes me worry writing code will become and lower the entry level. NB. I don't think I need to keep at a job for ten years to start a CENTS business. But that's what I think may happen if I pursue what other people around my country are pursuing. Therefore, I gravitate to web and Internet.
1. What are the things I need in terms of skills, other resources and necessities to properly execute such ideas?
2. What human or corporate network do I need to scale such ideas?
3. Does it make sense for me who needs to learn programming from scratch to have such business ideas im the field of programming?
4. How much work and time is required to fully execute an idea that involves writing an app?
Feel free to provide information that may be necessary for me that I may have missed in my questions. Thank you in advance.

 

[pavlod3]

My business partner and I recently sold our successful online business for 8 figures. You can see @fastlane_dad intro page here, and mine here. We have had businesses in alot of categories, but have limited experience in old fashion "shaking hands" type businesses. Our primary expertise is online sales, marketing, marketplaces like Amazon (and others), bootstrapping, and mindset. One way we want to give back to the community is by guiding people that are still on their entrepreneurship path.

We figured one of the more impactful ways we can do it is by answering peoples questions publically versus in DM's or personal consultations. So if you want our opinion/advice about your personal situation, we will be happy to read through your questions and give you a personalized answer. But it has to be public. That way everyone can read and discuss our answers. If we don't have experience in a topic, we will let you know.

Thank you for providing this opportunity here.

So I’m 15, turning 16 this year. Me and my friend currently are learning to code and trying to come up with an online business idea. This friend is my only true friend, and has read Unscripted too. I can’t really think about school now, all I’m thinking about is my future, learning to code and the business idea. I have this rushed feeling, as if I have to learn everything in the shortest time possible. The rush to unscripted life. The rush to make money. I don’t know whether I should go and get a job, because the best one I can get is a cashier at a local grocery store.

 

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[Akaushra]

Hey Neo,

Just introducing myself, bc I will probably have some questions in the near future.

Have a good day!

(pretty car)

 

[BellaPippin]

Can you clarify what you mean. Are you asking for advice on handling the logistic requirements when you go from a few sales (handling it at home) to alot of sales (too much to handle at home)?

Yes! Sorry

 

[EngineerThis]

Neo are you still doing this? If so I’d like to ask you about one topic… I’m sure plenty of people have been through this though…

I don’t want to get too stuck thinking about it before I have to cross that bridge but, what more or less happens between the stage in which you are holding your own inventory because you’re just starting and maybe you only have one product, and scaling into something bigger? How does that look?

I’m struggling to find sources of info for this process. If you or anyone have any good book or something please shoot it my way. I’m not even sure of what to look for “stages of scaling a product business” ??

Bella, I'd love to educate you on the product launch process! Read my ad here!

 

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