AS 1: When Should I Start Amazon Private Label

What’s up guys, Its’ David Aladdin, the host of AmzSecrets. A new podcast, that I believe needs to happen, in which we delve deep into the analytics of Amazon, we not only discuss fundamental concepts, but we push hard proven science and facts behind amazons search algorithms, review algorithms, and data driven techniques that we can use to boost our sales. This is AmzSecrets. GET READY. GET SET. Lets go.

So because this is the intro, I’d like to tell you about myself. At heart, I’m an engineer, I went to Florida State University, where studied and graduated my bachelors in Civil Engineering. This was in 2010, and during recession, finding a job was miserable, and eventually I found one.

I got a job with my local government in water utilities, specifically the SCADA systems. This is what controls directional flow, analytics, and all the metrics and controls that brings water to yours houses irrigation etc.

Two years goes by, and I’m working my butt off, every day. I would go to wake up at 6am, get to work by 8am. Work till 5pm. And when I got home, I’d start working on my web businesses, which still today, stand. This was 6 years a go. A lot has happened since.

So at the time being that this is the depression, the government not only kept me at entry level, they also refused to pay me government benefits. This wasn’t limited to me, but it was was to every new employee that was joining in. It was they’re way of hiring employees without officially saying they were employees. We we’re known as job bankers.

At the 2 year mark. I had enough. I went to my boss, and human resources. Me being 24 at the time, approached two men who were double and triple my age and said. Here’s the deal. I’ve been working my butt off. I believe I not only deserve a higher wage of 55k/year, but I want my benefits as well, which was worth about 20k in benefits every year. This would be a huge upgrade in both my pay and lack of benefits, which bothered me.

If you’ve ever worked at any government facility, you’ll know that there are people of all ages that work there in similar positions who do 10% of the effort and work that you, while getting paid way more than you. So doing this approach, I was confident in what I diserved and I went out and asked for it.

So what happened you may be wondering… I was in the office looking at a 65 year old human resources guy, and a late 40’s boss, and explaining to them, justifying to them why I deserved this. After I was done talking, the human resources guy says, David, you’ve been here for 2 years, your one of our hardest working guys. Here’s what we can do for you, we can get your paygrade to what you want but we can’t give you the benefits. That would require going to the board of county commissioners and getting approval, and that can happen in a year or so down the line. I told them, Okay, I have a lot to think about, and they looked surprised. That night I wrote my resignation letter and sent it to my boss. Boom.

It was the craziest, hardest decision, I’ve ever had to make. However at the time, at 24 years of age, like I said earlier, I would wake up at 5am, get ready for work, work till 5pm, come home, and start working on my web businesses. I had enough leverage, to “almost quit” my job, while making a good income on the side. This helped me transition to going full time on my businesses.

I’m not saying you should quit your job and jump into uncertainty. I had a small business bringing in 20k/year. It wasn’t much, but I knew if I had the full hours of the day, and the full strength of my mind and body, I could grow that business to become much larger and greater.

In the past 4 years, and since I quit my job I’ve built a very successful web development company called vBSocial, where we build software for big and small companies.