Massive Scale Cross-Border Amazon Arbitrage

[Andy Black]

Your daily updates inspired me to start doing the same (on LinkedIn). I'm enjoying it and it seems to be inspiring others to take action too judging from the replies.

More importantly, I think it's something I can do forever, and it forces me to summarise what's been done, the results, and what I should do next.

So thanks!

 

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[GoldFibre]

Your daily updates inspired me to start doing the same (on LinkedIn). I'm enjoying it and it seems to be inspiring others to take action too judging from the replies.

More importantly, I think it's something I can do forever, and it forces me to summarise what's been done, the results, and what I should do next.

So thanks!

You're welcome

 

[Jemmalee]

Your daily updates inspired me to start doing the same (on LinkedIn). I'm enjoying it and it seems to be inspiring others to take action too judging from the replies.

More importantly, I think it's something I can do forever, and it forces me to summarise what's been done, the results, and what I should do next.

So thanks!

Told you I'd come back!
Now I've stopped posting on LI!

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (35 / 20)
• Get first paying customer for IndexFast

5-7am​

• Woke up to seeing four new registrations, although it looks like two people registered two email addresses each. Maybe there is some message I can put up to handle this case, like 'Not seeing your sites? Maybe they are linked to one of your other email addresses' And then provide a link to sign up a different address.
• Read through the new server logs and found two new errors to handle
• Fixed each error as best as I could understand from the log, which took about an hour
• Checked the new users some more and it looks like between all four they were only connected to one site on GSC and had no sitemaps, which makes my tool unusable for them. The email addresses made these people seem like small business owners - the one site was a photography business. So I think it will be beneficial to provide some information on how to set up properly
• Built the backend for feature to let users submit a sitemap from my app, but didn't have time to make the UI.

5-8pm​

• Completed the feature for submitting a sitemap - there were a lot of different paths to take and error conditions to check
• Handled an edge case in the UI - sitemaps that have no URLs
• Doubled the ad spend from $15 to $30 per day - I want more people interacting with the site to give me more data
• Broadened the keyword reach a bit
• Added a helpful guide if the user logs in and has no sites

• Added an 'I need help' button when there are no sitemaps against a site, and then linked to the start of my FAQ
• Disabled light mode because the landing page looked terrible
• Reviewed competitor sites to see what I was missing
• Added an FAQ to the home page
• Cleaned up the navigation in the app
• Added more items to the feature lists of the plans

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (40 / 20)
• Get first paying customer for IndexFast

5-7am​

• Turned my alarm off to try to sleep in but woke up at 5am out of habit anyway
• Looked at Google Ads and neither campaign has been spending since yesterday morning. Maybe I changed some settings and Google is recalibrating? Nothing is paused and there are no warnings on the account. I'm supposed to get my first customer by today, but that's going to be tough with no ads running.
• Added metadata tags the the home page and structured data for the FAQs
• Added a sitemap file
• Went through my sitemap submission flow with my own sitemap and found a bug
• Fixed the bug, added better error handling

Some possible to-dos:

• Don't loop if all URLs have been checked when scanning
• Improve error messages when there are API errors
• Update/prune URL table when sitemap file changes
• Rework UI:
  • First get a list of all the sites on your account and the number of pages
  • Then select which one you want to index - free accounts can only choose one
  • Then start the auto-indexing, with a limit on the number of pages
• Contact the people who have signed up and ask them for feedback
• Sign up for Bing ads
• Improve landing page more

9-11am​

Spent the entire time working on a cleaner and simpler onboarding experience. The current UI is too complicated already.

I am going to make it one button click and a lot of things happen automatically with visual feedback about what is going on. Once it’s working I want to record a video of it for the landing page. Maybe I will also record YouTube videos on how to use the product.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

Weekly Update​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (40 / 20) DONE
• Get first paying customer for IndexFast FAILED

So I worked nearly every free moment I had this week. Including my full time job this was an 80+ hour week.

I didn't get my first customer yet and failed that goal. I was running ads and got a lot of good insights whenever someone signed up, because I could see what errors they were getting in the logs and I could inspect their data in the database.

The ads paused after I increased the budget and added more keywords, and now it's been two days without any impressions. It should restart soon.

I made a ton of progress on the product itself in the meantime and also am learning a lot about all the stuff that needs to be in a SaaS - payments, subscriptions and user management.

One thing that has been going through my head is that with these new skills I could potentially make a custom store selling my Amazon products and replace the Shopify store. This would be a game-changer because Shopify caps the number of product variants you can upload per day, but in a custom store it can just read everything dynamically from my DB, which has tens of millions of products.

Making a complete store is a pretty big project, though so I'm going to continue with IndexFast for a while and use it to learn as much as possible while also hopefully building up a nice revenue stream.

Here are my goals for the coming week:

• Work a total of 20 hours
• Complete the new onboarding experience

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (2 / 20)
• Complete the new onboarding experience

12-1pm​

I had a discussion with my international logistics supplier. They are going through some management changes and the new management wants to change the business model.

The bad news is that my current operational SOP won't be possible after some time. The good news is that they plan to ship everywhere, and will be better positioned to assist me with expansion if I built a global store.

Combined with what I'm learning about Stripe, I think this leads me to my next project - a custom store that ships worldwide and has tens of millions of SKUs.

I would guess I have until at least the end of the year before I have to switch operational SOPs, but if I get the store ready they can support me much earlier.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (6 / 20)
• Complete the new onboarding experience

5-8pm​

• Google Ads started running again and there were a few more sign ups
• Provided an informative error message if the user registers but declines to give permission to the two APIs I need
• Added a note to the Sign Up screen letting the user know that the app will not work properly without accepting the permissions
• Continued working on my new idiot-proof interface. It's already looking much better and I think it will have a much more intuitive and informative flow for the user. The below screenshot is all functional on the 'happy path' so far:

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (10 / 20)
• Complete the new onboarding experience

5-8pm​

• Got five new sign ups today. One user had no sites on GSC, the others did but had no sitemaps, and so they couldn't use the tool, which relies on sitemaps.
• Continued building the new onboarding experience, handling submission limits and making a dashboard page to link to after finishing the onboarding.
• Looked at some SEO info on my keywords and the traffic is pretty low. It's so low that I'm a little suspicious of the published revenue figures of the competitor site.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (16 / 20)
• Complete the new onboarding experience

5-7am​

• Was a bit stuck because I wasn't sure how I wanted to improve the experience next, so listed out some to-dos.
• Handled edge cases in the new onboarding:
  • No sites
  • Finished inspecting every URL, but have submissions remaining
• Added back button to allow scanning multiple sites

The alternate flows still need some adjusting, but I think I'm pretty happy with where it's at and will deploy this new version in the evening.

5-8pm​

• Many more clicks and sign ups today. Some people even submitted URLs - this was on the old flow.
• Saw that another person signed up without providing the required Google account access, so added more messages about that
• Simplified the new flow and replaced the old one finally.
• Added more error handling.
• Made a mistake with DB migration and took some time to rectify it
• A few minutes after fixing the DB someone came on and submitted six unindexed URLs. Looks like this person does digital marketing for local real estate companies in the US
• For some reason my GTM conversion events aren't getting recorded. I have one on sign up that should be triggering - need to debug this tomorrow.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[maverick]

@GoldFibre nice UX. What do you use for your UX/UI design?

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Current SaaS MRR: $29

5-8pm​

Got my first paying customer last night!

She is a photographer in the US who has a site for her business, and she signed up for a $29 per month plan.

The billing management is not fully complete, nor do I send any emails when people sign up. So I think I should work on those things next.

It also doesn't keep your site indexed and only works when you are logged in. I need to use their OAuth details to persist to a script that will keep working on your site even when you aren't logged in. I can probably continue to use my home laptop for this, the same way I run my Amazon bot for free, rather than incurring more costs on Vercel.

• Added a logging utility to help me pinpoint where my logs are coming from when I see them in production
• Added 'cancel plan' function if the user is on a paid plan. This took a while because I have to work with web hooks and connect it to the web client somehow. I learned even more about Stripe through this process. After adding this I felt a bit less bad for my first customer.
• Debugged the lack of conversion events getting to GA and wasn't getting anywhere. Things work differently now with GA4, and my experience was with the older version of GA. I saw a few different options but then finally decided to use standard events instead of custom events.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

@GoldFibre nice UX. What do you use for your UX/UI design?

I just get an idea in my head and code it directly.

 

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[GoldFibre]

​

Current SaaS MRR: 29 USD

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (23 / 20) DONE
• Complete the new onboarding experience DONE

6-7am​

• Started making a script outside of NextJs to auto-index the sites of paying customers

5-6pm​

• Continued working on that script. Didn't have as much time as in previous days this afternoon due to a company function after work

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

Current SaaS MRR: 29 USD

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (25 / 20) DONE
• Complete the new onboarding experience DONE

2-3am​

• Fixed a performance issue with importing orders to my Google Sheet

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[GoldFibre]

Weekly Update​

Amazon revenue is continuing to climb, although I'm not 100% sure the reason. The number of orders is exactly the same for the past three weeks, but the total profit is much higher.

I hit both of my goals for last week:

• Work a total of 20 hours (25 / 20) DONE
• Complete the new onboarding experience DONE

I even got my first paying customer and now have an MRR of $29.

The product is still incomplete and there are still errors coming in the logs that could be handled more gracefully in the UI.

Next week I'm going to polish and make the first 'complete' version of this thing. Goals:

• Work a total of 20 hours
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios
• Activate auto-indexing background feature
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events

 

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[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (3 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events

5-7am​

• Inspected the Vercel logs and found a few different error messages from live users
• Fixed a timeout issue on the main app page
• Fixed a new bug that I introduced when I fixed the fulfillment sheet updating for Amazon
• Handled an auth timeout with a clear toast message
• Handled missing permissions, sitemaps and urls errors with clear toast messages

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

Since yesterday I started listening to some motivational audiobooks again because I thought I was going soft. I cut out my time-wasting habits of playing mobile games and reading the news. I need to fill the spare time with something else. It isn’t always possible to be coding, so I decided I will write and sort out my thoughts during these times instead.

Some things I should be doing but am not:

• I need to submit some appeal for Country 2 but have been putting it off. There is a risk that the account gets deactivated if I don’t do it soon.
• I need to stay in closer contact with my account manager.
• I need to pay my bill for seller support.

My business partner in some other venture is asking me to take the lead on one of his opportunities. It could be big but it wouldn’t be something where I could take a salary big enough to quit my current job. I’ll speak to him tomorrow in more detail and see if there are any options that make sense.

Once IndexFast is in a good place, my next project is most likely a custom, independent store front for my Amazon business. I can make it worldwide from the start with millions of products, so the scale is there. The logistics solution is also there but more expensive than my current SOP.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (10 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events WIP

5-7am​

• Checked the logs and didn't see any new errors
• Created a UI for the auto-indexing background feature and then ran it for my one paying customer

4-8pm​

• Set up a free business email: hello@indexfast.app
• Set up an account at Postmark for sending emails. It's in a manual review now
• Installed the 'mailing' npm library and modified the demo welcome email to be about IndexFast
• Added code to send the welcome email once a new user is created in the DB

Here is how it looks:

• Discovered that this broke NextJS somehow and then spent a lot of time debugging and finally reporting an issue on Vercel that they are recommending an incompatible library on their official guide
• Tried the same with another react email library and it also broke NextJS. I found a workaround though and sent a test email to myself, although the styling was missing. I restored most of the styling bit by bit but it still needs some work to finish.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

[Bounce Back]

So been in react world for years now and I honestly feel there are actors coopting the library and generally have a weird feeling about its future....

With that being said why are you even using Nextjs? I get it is all the rage these days but I have seen way more use cases to stay tried/true then move react over to server side rendering for added complexity.

 

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[GoldFibre]

With that being said why are you even using Nextjs?

This is just what I'm most productive with, since I have used it at my full time job for years.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (14 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

5-8pm​

• Cleaned up the welcome email format, added error handling, and then deployed the change
• Created a 'thank you' email for when users upgrade and implemented it
• Discovered a bug when trying to upgrade if you already have an active plan

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

There were a couple of big orders today, so the profit was a new record. However, I'm always worried about the big orders because the impact of a single return is much higher.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (17 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

12-2pm​

I had lunch with a few of my friends who are successful entrepreneurs, one of whom I have partnered with before. I talked about my goals with them and they asked some good, probing questions. They are impressed with the Amazon business, especially since it has no capital requirements and just generates cash.

One of them wants to partner again on something new. It is something like a concierge service for planning and coordinating a very specific high end travel experience. Since he already has another related business he has the local knowledge and can source the manpower and vendor relationships. I would handle running the operations, the marketing, and the tech.

The ticket item per sale is very high and has a high variance - usually between $10-40k, and the total market is over ~3b USD annually and is seasonal. It's unclear what the working capital requirement might be, because customers pre-pay, but you also need to book inventory in advance for high-season. Competition is fragmented and not very modern. There is no real online experience.

This would be a lot of work and hustling and there is a ton to learn, since I know pretty much nothing about this industry.

I came away not ready to commit to anything seriously, but wondering what is the best way to validate this idea and how I should compare it to other options I have.

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[Bounce Back]

Since he already has another related business he has the local knowledge and can source the manpower and vendor relationships. I would handle running the operations, the marketing, and the tech.

I know you don't seem to be seriously considering but if you did I sure hope your equity is much higher than his lol - that seems very lopsided.

 

[GoldFibre]

I know you don't seem to be seriously considering but if you did I sure hope your equity is much higher than his lol - that seems very lopsided.

We didn't discuss the terms yet, but I have more than one successful partnership with him already and I have always felt the deal was more than fair for me.

 

[GoldFibre]

​

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (18 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

I did not feel like myself today. Was totally exhausted even though I slept well last night. I left work early, slept another two hours and still felt exhausted.

My friend tested my site for me and several important issues for me to fix. I should be able to complete that tomorrow quickly.

8-9pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[GoldFibre]

​

Current SaaS MRR: $58

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (20 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

4-6pm​

• Fixed a bug with displaying charges on the billing page
• Fixed a bug with creating new users
• Fixed the behavior of one button in the end-state of the site scanning
• Started working on adding a lower price tier and got wrapped up in refactoring some of the components in-between
• Got paying customer number 2 just an hour after fixing those bugs

 

[Bounce Back]

#2 feels big - congrats but keep it up!

 

[GoldFibre]

Current SaaS MRR: $58

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (22 / 20)
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

9-10pm​

Transactional work.

 

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[GoldFibre]

Weekly Update​

Current SaaS MRR: $58

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (22 / 20) DONE
• Apply graceful UI handling of all known errors and scenarios DONE
• Activate auto-indexing background feature DONE
• Add emails for sign up and upgrade events DONE

It was a high profit week, mostly due to one big day that had a few large orders. I got my second SaaS customer as well.

There is more that I want to do with this little SaaS before looking into other things. So I will make this my goal for next week:

• Add lower tier option
• Improve upgrade flow to provide more info
• Fix conversion tracking

There is a lot more that could be done, but I think these are the high priority items. Once these are in place I'll take a harder look at the marketing spend and see if this can be profitable overall.

 

[GoldFibre]

Current SaaS MRR: $58

Weekly Goals​

• Work a total of 20 hours (1 / 20)
• Add lower tier option
• Improve upgrade flow to provide more info
• Fix conversion tracking

9-10pm​

Transactional work.