My Ads Guy Makes $42,000 Per Month Playing With Money. I'm in the Wrong Business

[Guest6x3pod4]

I recently hired a META/Google/TikTok ad agency to run ads for my e-commerce. One guy who handles 21 accounts. I pay him 2K per month and allow him to spend an additional 5K per month in ad spend.

Am I missing something or is this guy making BANK?

And if so... is this the hottest career path to pursue right now??

 

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[Kybalion]

I recently hired a META/Google/TikTok ad agency to run ads for my e-commerce. One guy who handles 21 accounts. I pay him 2K per month and allow him to spend an additional 5K per month in ad spend.

Am I missing something or is this guy making BANK?

And if so... is this the hottest career path to pursue right now??

Why don't you try running your own ads to see how fun "playing with money" is?

 

[Guest6x3pod4]

Why don't you try running your own ads to see how fun "playing with money" is?

Oh I’m not hating. I gladly pay him. I hate numbers and analytics. But anyone who remotely likes those things should follow this career path!

 

[Kybalion]

Oh I’m not hating. I gladly pay him. I hate numbers and analytics. But anyone who remotely likes those things should follow this career path!

Oh, ok. I've heard some people say all you need to know is "the right button to push" and anyone can run the ad, so when you said it's playing with money I thought you might imply the same sentiment.

It's definitely an awesome career path for numbers and analytics people.

 

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[Devilery]

I recently spent about 6 months in an agency specializing in paid advertising for e-commerce brands. It's tough.

Sure, maybe they weren't #1 globally, but the backend process is so much more than - taking a picture, adding some graphics, 2 lines of copy, interests - whatever is relevant to the brand, profit.

We launched at least 30 ad variations for each brand, often 50 or more per month. 90% of these ads were not profitable although they looked almost exactly the same. Every week we came up with 2-5 new angles per client. We had multiple ads per each awareness stage (5 in total, excluding scaling and promotions ad sets). Then, ad creatives take so much work, clients need to do professional photo and video shoots (which they usually can't easily do), graphic designers need to hustle full-time, and video editors need to hustle full-time ($$$).

It's a never-ending process of testing, scrapping, tweaking, and scaling. For larger brands, it's easier, they are trusted and can generally run promotion ads only but reaching new people for smaller brands is tough unless they have serious cash to invest in production and testing.

How much return are you getting investing $7K a month? The $2K service fee seems awfully low, can't imagine getting much more than a few Canva designs and IG reel style edits per month with little to no optimization.

 

[Paul David]

It's not for me. Might be making good money but churn rate will be high for him.

 

[Guest6x3pod4]

I recently spent about 6 months in an agency specializing in paid advertising for e-commerce brands. It's tough.

Sure, maybe they weren't #1 globally, but the backend process is so much more than - taking a picture, adding some graphics, 2 lines of copy, interests - whatever is relevant to the brand, profit.

We launched at least 30 ad variations for each brand, often 50 or more per month. 90% of these ads were not profitable although they looked almost exactly the same. Every week we came up with 2-5 new angles per client. We had multiple ads per each awareness stage (5 in total, excluding scaling and promotions ad sets). Then, ad creatives take so much work, clients need to do professional photo and video shoots (which they usually can't easily do), graphic designers need to hustle full-time, and video editors need to hustle full-time ($$$).

It's a never-ending process of testing, scrapping, tweaking, and scaling. For larger brands, it's easier, they are trusted and can generally run promotion ads only but reaching new people for smaller brands is tough unless they have serious cash to invest in production and testing.

How much return are you getting investing $7K a month? The $2K service fee seems awfully low, can't imagine getting much more than a few Canva designs and IG reel style edits per month with little to no optimization.

I create the content myself. I'm fairly good at video production and we rarely push graphics because my videos kinda kill it. Typically, 7K per month spent yields around 60K in ad driven sales. It's definitely something that only works with good content and much to test like you said.

 

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[Devilery]

I create the content myself. I'm fairly good at video production and we rarely push graphics because my videos kinda kill it. Typically, 7K per month spent yields around 60K in ad driven sales. It's definitely something that only works with good content and much to test like you said.

Cool! That explains it, content creation is the most time and money intensive part. That's an impressive return, congrats!

 

[The-J]

I recently hired a META/Google/TikTok ad agency to run ads for my e-commerce. One guy who handles 21 accounts. I pay him 2K per month and allow him to spend an additional 5K per month in ad spend.

Am I missing something or is this guy making BANK?

And if so... is this the hottest career path to pursue right now??

I do this but I don't have 21 accounts lol. I do OK, fits my lifestyle at this point in my life.

I like numbers and analytics. I like keeping records of changes, ups and downs. I keep my clients well informed about results. I love the strategy part, too. It's not a ton of work but then again I don't have 21 accounts.

I hate looking for UGC creators for ad creative so I partnered with an influencer agency that does this for me. Starting to think this was the best move I've made in years, they send me all kinds of work.

I recently spent about 6 months in an agency specializing in paid advertising for e-commerce brands. It's tough.

Sure, maybe they weren't #1 globally, but the backend process is so much more than - taking a picture, adding some graphics, 2 lines of copy, interests - whatever is relevant to the brand, profit.

We launched at least 30 ad variations for each brand, often 50 or more per month. 90% of these ads were not profitable although they looked almost exactly the same. Every week we came up with 2-5 new angles per client. We had multiple ads per each awareness stage (5 in total, excluding scaling and promotions ad sets). Then, ad creatives take so much work, clients need to do professional photo and video shoots (which they usually can't easily do), graphic designers need to hustle full-time, and video editors need to hustle full-time ($$$).

It's a never-ending process of testing, scrapping, tweaking, and scaling. For larger brands, it's easier, they are trusted and can generally run promotion ads only but reaching new people for smaller brands is tough unless they have serious cash to invest in production and testing.

This is standard operating procedure for social media advertising. The more creative you have to test, the better you'll do in the long run. 5-10 per week seems to be the sweet spot. This is also why getting a source of UGC creators is so important: there's so much talent out there. But it takes a while. Either you're spending on creators, or you're spending on video/graphics creation.

So do the math: 30 creatives per month * 21 accounts = 630 ad creatives per month, and that's just the visuals. Still gotta test copy and headline variations. Still gotta test on-page experience. Still gotta test funnel flows. The work doesn't stop, ever, certainly not when advertising on social media.

Also, scaling is hard. Scale too much and you're reaching audiences that won't care about your offer. Try to double your budget today and see what happens to your ROAS. (Don't actually do this lol)

There's an art to handling other people's money like this. Some people want to push, push, push, and then they wonder why they sold out so quickly and can't run at the same volume until they get more inventory. Others are very skittish and need to be emotionally convinced to put a little bit more budget, even if ROAS is very profitable. Good ad buyers understand what that money means to that client.

I always wanted to have a big budget to play with & take a percentage off it. I'm sure agencies with these kinds of clients like having them. But that was me being selfish.

---

I don't think every single client of his pays him $2k/mo. If he's anything like me, he has some that pay in the hundreds (super low touch low spend accounts and/or white label from other agencies) and some that pay WAY more than $2k/mo (full service type accounts). He might be making more than $42k/mo. He might be making less.

Personally I've shifted to doing work for other agencies, mainly because selling in this space is pretty difficult.

Why is selling difficult? You're competing with so many agencies and freelancers that all promise the moon and stars, steal each other's case studies, lie about their results, and then when it comes down to doing the work, they get lazy. They test a bunch at the beginning and then slow down their tests when they get a few winners. What's worse is that prospective clients all have been burned by agencies in the past!

I create the content myself. I'm fairly good at video production and we rarely push graphics because my videos kinda kill it.

Scale up. Your ROAS is solid but I hope your margins are good (ROAS only matters wrt margins anyway). You're not in the wrong business. Content is the hardest part and your content is good. Keep your ad guy, keep paying him $2k/mo. 2 years from now you'll be profiting way more than $42k/mo and your ad guy will be begging for a percentage of your revenue/ad spend lol.

Do you trust your business's ability to scale? If you need to place bigger orders, can you do that? Can you get the cash you need to place bigger orders? Can you increase content production to 30 creatives a month?

Advertising is not the hardest problem to solve in business but for many companies, it's the most pertinent. That's why I, and your ads guy, can make a living.

 

[Thiago Machado]

Personally I've shifted to doing work for other agencies, mainly because selling in this space is pretty difficult.

Why is selling difficult? You're competing with so many agencies and freelancers that all promise the moon and stars, steal each other's case studies, lie about their results, and then when it comes down to doing the work, they get lazy. They test a bunch at the beginning and then slow down their tests when they get a few winners. What's worse is that prospective clients all have been burned by agencies in the past!

Agree 100% with everything you posted. It shows that you really do this for a living in an ethical way!

I worked in PPC for 3.5 years and recently switched to a more senior and strategic role. I've been wanting to get some clients on the side though.

When doing work for other agencies - are you pitching them directly or just applying to contract roles?

You're spot on with the competition. I'm competing with everyone promising the world and their "proven results", so prospecting has been a little tough. So far, most clients have come through referrals / relationships.

 

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[MakeItHappen]

I recently spent about 6 months in an agency specializing in paid advertising for e-commerce brands. It's tough.

Sure, maybe they weren't #1 globally, but the backend process is so much more than - taking a picture, adding some graphics, 2 lines of copy, interests - whatever is relevant to the brand, profit.

We launched at least 30 ad variations for each brand, often 50 or more per month. 90% of these ads were not profitable although they looked almost exactly the same. Every week we came up with 2-5 new angles per client. We had multiple ads per each awareness stage (5 in total, excluding scaling and promotions ad sets). Then, ad creatives take so much work, clients need to do professional photo and video shoots (which they usually can't easily do), graphic designers need to hustle full-time, and video editors need to hustle full-time ($$$).

It's a never-ending process of testing, scrapping, tweaking, and scaling. For larger brands, it's easier, they are trusted and can generally run promotion ads only but reaching new people for smaller brands is tough unless they have serious cash to invest in production and testing.

How much return are you getting investing $7K a month? The $2K service fee seems awfully low, can't imagine getting much more than a few Canva designs and IG reel style edits per month with little to no optimization.

Any advice for finding a good agency for paid traffic? How do the clients make sure they aren't screwed? Do they just monitor the acquisition cost?

I create the content myself. I'm fairly good at video production and we rarely push graphics because my videos kinda kill it. Typically, 7K per month spent yields around 60K in ad driven sales. It's definitely something that only works with good content and much to test like you said.

This sounds very good. How good are your margins on the 60k?

 

[Guest6x3pod4]

I do this but I don't have 21 accounts lol. I do OK, fits my lifestyle at this point in my life.

I like numbers and analytics. I like keeping records of changes, ups and downs. I keep my clients well informed about results. I love the strategy part, too. It's not a ton of work but then again I don't have 21 accounts.

I hate looking for UGC creators for ad creative so I partnered with an influencer agency that does this for me. Starting to think this was the best move I've made in years, they send me all kinds of work.



This is standard operating procedure for social media advertising. The more creative you have to test, the better you'll do in the long run. 5-10 per week seems to be the sweet spot. This is also why getting a source of UGC creators is so important: there's so much talent out there. But it takes a while. Either you're spending on creators, or you're spending on video/graphics creation.

So do the math: 30 creatives per month * 21 accounts = 630 ad creatives per month, and that's just the visuals. Still gotta test copy and headline variations. Still gotta test on-page experience. Still gotta test funnel flows. The work doesn't stop, ever, certainly not when advertising on social media.

Also, scaling is hard. Scale too much and you're reaching audiences that won't care about your offer. Try to double your budget today and see what happens to your ROAS. (Don't actually do this lol)

There's an art to handling other people's money like this. Some people want to push, push, push, and then they wonder why they sold out so quickly and can't run at the same volume until they get more inventory. Others are very skittish and need to be emotionally convinced to put a little bit more budget, even if ROAS is very profitable. Good ad buyers understand what that money means to that client.

I always wanted to have a big budget to play with & take a percentage off it. I'm sure agencies with these kinds of clients like having them. But that was me being selfish.

---

I don't think every single client of his pays him $2k/mo. If he's anything like me, he has some that pay in the hundreds (super low touch low spend accounts and/or white label from other agencies) and some that pay WAY more than $2k/mo (full service type accounts). He might be making more than $42k/mo. He might be making less.

Personally I've shifted to doing work for other agencies, mainly because selling in this space is pretty difficult.

Why is selling difficult? You're competing with so many agencies and freelancers that all promise the moon and stars, steal each other's case studies, lie about their results, and then when it comes down to doing the work, they get lazy. They test a bunch at the beginning and then slow down their tests when they get a few winners. What's worse is that prospective clients all have been burned by agencies in the past!



Scale up. Your ROAS is solid but I hope your margins are good (ROAS only matters wrt margins anyway). You're not in the wrong business. Content is the hardest part and your content is good. Keep your ad guy, keep paying him $2k/mo. 2 years from now you'll be profiting way more than $42k/mo and your ad guy will be begging for a percentage of your revenue/ad spend lol.

Do you trust your business's ability to scale? If you need to place bigger orders, can you do that? Can you get the cash you need to place bigger orders? Can you increase content production to 30 creatives a month?

Advertising is not the hardest problem to solve in business but for many companies, it's the most pertinent. That's why I, and your ads guy, can make a living.

DEEP F***ING VALUE right there^ Thanks bro. All makes sense. Starting next moth we will increase our daily budget another $50 per month (currently $175 per day) I will keep feeding him creatives and work off of the high converting ads for more insight as to where to go.

 

[Guest6x3pod4]

Any advice for finding a good agency for paid traffic? How do the clients make sure they aren't screwed? Do they just monitor the acquisition cost?


This sounds very good. How good are your margins on the 60k?

On the 60K I'm at a solid 50% margin after ad spend and shipping (free) (e-commerce product). I have a little overhead with one full time employee and other expenses but as far as costs built into our products.. 50% after marketing.

 

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[Guest6x3pod4]

It's not for me. Might be making good money but churn rate will be high for him.

I think I will have him come speak on video and i'll ask him.

 

[mattes]

I recently hired a META/Google/TikTok ad agency to run ads for my e-commerce. One guy who handles 21 accounts. I pay him 2K per month and allow him to spend an additional 5K per month in ad spend.

Am I missing something or is this guy making BANK?

And if so... is this the hottest career path to pursue right now??

I thought you're about to say you pay him $42k per month... Which is possible with rev. share deals if he delivers $500k+ in sales per month.

My wife and I do email and SMS marketing for ecom and $2.5k-5k/m seems to be a good investment for our clients.

 

[amp0193]

And if so... is this the hottest career path to pursue right now??

The grass is always greener.

I always said I wanted to get into software so I wouldn't have to carry inventory.

But would I rather have @Ravens_Shadow 's 7-figure payroll? No thanks.

Service businesses sound attractive, but I think scaling is a lot tougher than scaling e-com.

 

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[Devilery]

Any advice for finding a good agency for paid traffic? How do the clients make sure they aren't screwed? Do they just monitor the acquisition cost?


This sounds very good. How good are your margins on the 60k?

I wish I had a better answer but I don't think there's ever a 100% safe bet. Most of the clients we had in that agency got a positive return, those who didn't could be at least partly blamed - they didn't/couldn't help with content creation, wouldn't implement any of our suggestions in their stores, were doing little to no product development.

However, among those setting up for their first launch, we had one client whom we couldn't get profitable after months of working with them - we built new landing pages and did high-quality video shoots, but it just didn't work as the product science was questionable.

Great agencies will be picky; if they believe it could work, they should be able to set specific metrics based on past results. If not, they will tell you - hey, we're not a great fit. Then, within the first month, you would see if they are on track or not.

If I were you, I would ask for a trial period, one month testing the waters, no long-term contractual commitments, ask for a clear list of items you need to provide (good agencies don't do creatives on Canva, they pay UGC creators, photographers, videographers, editors, etc.) - this is the most expensive part - content creation. I ask my clients to provide these materials as I don't have a production team, and I wouldn't run ads for anyone if our only option was Canva and basic product photos. Then, ask for KPIs - figure out what CPL/CPC you can work with to be profitable.

Btw, I'm not taking up paid advertising projects, I'm not qualified to do so lol.

 

[Guest6x3pod4]

The grass is always greener.

I always said I wanted to get into software so I wouldn't have to carry inventory.

But would I rather have @Ravens_Shadow 's 7-figure payroll? No thanks.

Service businesses sound attractive, but I think scaling is a lot tougher than scaling e-com.

Very true. But as an e-comm seller who holds inventory I will say this. In service business you can start making money straight away if you market halfway well. All my cash flow goes straight back to larger MFG orders. Meanwhile my guy makes 42K/Mo with maybe $350 in software. And we both work about 30 hrs a week.

 

[MitchC]

On the 60K I'm at a solid 50% margin after ad spend and shipping (free) (e-commerce product). I have a little overhead with one full time employee and other expenses but as far as costs built into our products.. 50% after marketing.

Wtf

I know the j said not to but double your budgets and see what happens

See if you can air ship the product to get lead times down

Or just ship straight from china to your customer

See if your supplier will give you terms to get your stock levels up enough to scale

Use an Amex card with 0 interest for 90 days to fix cashflow

Get on facebooks terms to fix cashflow even more

Get a loan if you have to

Shits a rocket why are you setting budgets at 5k a month and only increasing a little next month

Targets should be spend as much as you can profitably,

Or sell this many units per day at lowest cpa if stock is limited

 

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[Guest6x3pod4]

Wtf

I know the j said not to but double your budgets and see what happens

See if you can air ship the product to get lead times down

Or just ship straight from china to your customer

See if your supplier will give you terms to get your stock levels up enough to scale

Use an Amex card with 0 interest for 90 days to fix cashflow

Get on facebooks terms to fix cashflow even more

Get a loan if you have to

Shits a rocket why are you setting budgets at 5k a month and only increasing a little next month

Targets should be spend as much as you can profitably,

Or sell this many units per day at lowest cpa if stock is limited

All great points but these things apply to business trying to pump and dump... as in Who TF cares about quality, mfg cost and customer support.

Yes, you are right... we should and are scaling. But I have had years where I tripled in growth but something always gets F*** up. Mainly quality from China. I can easily cash flow a 100K order with cards and shopify capital but unless I'm sure MFG will give me at least 91% quality, im sending good money after bad.

I did 1M gross last year and aim to so 1.8M Gross this year. My 5K a month in ad spend has me on track for that because we also get sales from organic traffic and wholesale. Also the spring time and Christmas are insane. Going for a monthly average gross around $130K is doable with 5-7K/MO ad spend and organic traffic.

 

[The-J]

When doing work for other agencies - are you pitching them directly or just applying to contract roles?

No pitch, I've just talked to a lot of them recently. They get a million and one emails pitching white label services so don't be one of them. I offered to give them leads that I got in exchange for their leads. Turns out some agencies want to pay a commission, other agencies want to outsource the work. (Thank Johnny boy for that tip lol)

Wtf

I know the j said not to but double your budgets and see what happens

See if you can air ship the product to get lead times down

Or just ship straight from china to your customer

See if your supplier will give you terms to get your stock levels up enough to scale

Use an Amex card with 0 interest for 90 days to fix cashflow

Get on facebooks terms to fix cashflow even more

Get a loan if you have to

Shits a rocket why are you setting budgets at 5k a month and only increasing a little next month

Targets should be spend as much as you can profitably,

Or sell this many units per day at lowest cpa if stock is limited

Lmao I missed the part of his margins! Yes I agree. But the ad guy (if he's any good) will ramp up to 2x over the course of a week or two

OP is skittish and probably thinking cash-basis. Get cash. Get inventory. Get good credit terms. Test your back end sales systems and improve them. Scale to the moon. You got this bud

 

[The-J]

All great points but these things apply to business trying to pump and dump... as in Who TF cares about quality, mfg cost and customer support.

Yes, you are right... we should and are scaling. But I have had years where I tripled in growth but something always gets F*** up. Mainly quality from China. I can easily cash flow a 100K order with cards and shopify capital but unless I'm sure MFG will give me at least 91% quality, im sending good money after bad.

I did 1M gross last year and aim to so 1.8M Gross this year. My 5K a month in ad spend has me on track for that because we also get sales from organic traffic and wholesale. Also the spring time and Christmas are insane. Going for a monthly average gross around $130K is doable with 5-7K/MO ad spend and organic traffic.

When was the last time you went to China to visit the factory? How many mfg's do you know of that can make your product? What kind of credit terms can you get with the factory? What is your QA process like, are you just shipping from China to your 3PL without any interfacing with the product?

Years ago I worked with a company that scaled rapidly and had an entire order of inventory destroyed at sea (super bad luck), had to pause ads for an entire month. But that didn't kill the company, it barely left a scratch. Why? Good credit terms, an extremely profitable business model, high return orders, and a bunch of backup inventory to fulfill returning customer orders.

You have other problems to solve my friend, but I'm confident you'll be able to solve them.

 

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[Guest6x3pod4]

When was the last time you went to China to visit the factory? How many mfg's do you know of that can make your product? What kind of credit terms can you get with the factory? What is your QA process like, are you just shipping from China to your 3PL without any interfacing with the product?

Years ago I worked with a company that scaled rapidly and had an entire order of inventory destroyed at sea (super bad luck), had to pause ads for an entire month. But that didn't kill the company, it barely left a scratch. Why? Good credit terms, an extremely profitable business model, high return orders, and a bunch of backup inventory to fulfill returning customer orders.

You have other problems to solve my friend, but I'm confident you'll be able to solve them.

Went to China 9MOS ago and plan to go back with the launch of our newest cargo strap in 3 MOS. I have 3 MFG on the hook who can do it but to say they can do it is a curveball.. Visiting, training, negotiating and minimum orders of 30K+... you can really only afford one at a time.

Credit terms with the factory are 30% down 70% before shipment. They still won't do a net 30 or anything similar.

We ship products to our warehouse/3PL in the US who inspects the packages for .25 a unit, therefore end customers get 99% quality.

Banks are still c***s at my level and frankly, after reading profit first, I'd rather focus on good cash flow and scaling healthy than immense debts and terms just to say I own a 40M company but still take no distributions.

My goal this year is 1.8M gross. Pay myself 70K. Write off some of my lifestyle therefore 70K is enough. And perhaps a 50K-100K disbursement at the end of the year for my wife and I... Maybe that will get me laid.

 

[MitchC]

Went to China 9MOS ago and plan to go back with the launch of our newest cargo strap in 3 MOS. I have 3 MFG on the hook who can do it but to say they can do it is a curveball.. Visiting, training, negotiating and minimum orders of 30K+... you can really only afford one at a time.

Credit terms with the factory are 30% down 70% before shipment. They still won't do a net 30 or anything similar.

We ship products to our warehouse/3PL in the US who inspects the packages for .25 a unit, therefore end customers get 99% quality.

Banks are still c***s at my level and frankly, after reading profit first, I'd rather focus on good cash flow and scaling healthy than immense debts and terms just to say I own a 40M company but still take no distributions.

My goal this year is 1.8M gross. Pay myself 70K. Write off some of my lifestyle therefore 70K is enough. And perhaps a 50K-100K disbursement at the end of the year for my wife and I... Maybe that will get me laid.

Not sure if I missed something but are you booking inspections in china before they are shipped?

I don’t see why scaling or ordering more units would result in a worse customer experience?

Do not do a Shopify, PayPal etc loan, I have never heard of someone having a good experience with those, I really don’t see why if you can fund a much larger order with cash why you wouldn’t do it

Customer service shouldn’t be hard, that’s just good product good delivery times and good SOPs.

You’re using a 3pl so scaling distribution is easy.

 

[The-J]

Credit terms with the factory are 30% down 70% before shipment. They still won't do a net 30 or anything similar.

This might not be applicable to you but Flexport might be able to help you place bigger orders. That might be a "next year thing" though since if you're gonna hit $2M this year the orders might not be big enough for Flexport's terms to make sense.

Taking out a loan for proven sellable inventory that you make double your money on isn't stupid or risky, it's smart and is a much less risky bet than using it to finance ad spend or employees. But don't think of it as a loan, think of it as a way to pad cash flow. You'll pay that shit back quick.

Every day you don't have to pay helps significantly. Also you may want to shell out for inspections in China but I can't really advise on this (maybe @Walter Hay could?)

If your plan will get you to $2M and you're sticking with it, then consider that your resource planning problem isn't gonna go away in 2025. You'll just be making bigger orders and you'll have the same damn issue. But at least you'll be able to pay yourself a salary!

As an aside to other people reading this: when I said "advertising isn't the hardest problem to solve" this is what I mean. Ecommerce looks easy until you actually have to figure out how to pay for inventory to fulfill increasing demand. Currently dealing with this right now with one of my clients, but we're almost out of the woods (boat should be arriving next week)

 

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[amp0193]

Very true. But as an e-comm seller who holds inventory I will say this. In service business you can start making money straight away if you market halfway well. All my cash flow goes straight back to larger MFG orders. Meanwhile my guy makes 42K/Mo with maybe $350 in software. And we both work about 30 hrs a week.

Yeah you can make money straightaway, by trading your time for money, but there's a pretty hard barrier to cross for scale (getting skilled employees to replace yourself and them some and systems in place). That same barrier eventually comes into play in e-com, but further down the line as you can get pretty far with minimally skilled team members.

E-com slower upstart, but easier to ramp up, depending on the category, and with fulfillment systems in place, and making money 24 hours a day. And the better your gross margin, the faster you can go (and the lower it is, the more you gotta sock away for increased order sizes.. as you mentioned).


Grass always greener, every business model has challenges, anything worth doing is hard.

 

[geegee7]

I thought you're about to say you pay him $42k per month... Which is possible with rev. share deals if he delivers $500k+ in sales per month.

My wife and I do email and SMS marketing for ecom and $2.5k-5k/m seems to be a good investment for our clients.

hey... how do you find leads for your ecom email services? I'm doing the same thing here and getting leads has been tough

 

[biophase]

On the 60K I'm at a solid 50% margin after ad spend and shipping (free) (e-commerce product). I have a little overhead with one full time employee and other expenses but as far as costs built into our products.. 50% after marketing.

How does this turn into $170k profit ok $1.8m? Something doesn’t add up.

So $900k is COGs and marketing. $720k is full time employee plus “other” expenses?

 

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