The David Aladdin Show - Building Billion Dollar e-Commerce Companies, Amazon Private Label, FBA, Shopify, Woo, Retail Products - AmzSecrets

The David Aladdin Show - Building Billion Dollar e-Commerce Companies, Amazon Private Label, FBA, Shopify, Woo, Retail Products - AmzSecrets

By David Aladdin: A fan of The Amazing Seller, Amazon Private Label Podcast, FBA Seller, Amazon, Silent Sales Machine, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, Scott Voelker and you.Business
Download on the App Store

The David Aladdin Show - Building Billion Dollar e-Commerce Companies, Amazon Private Label, FBA, Shopify, Woo, Retail Products - AmzSecrets episodes

  • AS 68: Suspended on Amazon and what to do. Advice with CJ Rosenbaum
    Today I’ve got CJ Rosenbaum on the show. He is the founder of AmazonSellersLawyer.com, a law firm focused on Amazon sellers.  Cj wrote the book: the Amazon Law Library.  There firm spends the majority of their timing helping suspended sellers obtain reinstatement of their selling privileges.



    In this episode, you'll learn:

    * How to get suspended on Amazon
    * Common reasons why sellers get suspension
    * Get to know CJ
    * How to fight against IP issues related to suspension
    * Brand competition trying to shut you down
    * How CJ became a lawyer
    * Diversifying your Amazon business
    * Multiple accounts on Amazon, and whether it's a good or bad thing...
    * What the difference is between suspensions and bans
    * Who handles seller suspensions now
    * The multiple levels of seller suspension
    * Combatting IP Claims
    * Combatting seller suspensions
    * What works and what doesn't work for seller suspension
    * Trademarks, patents, seller suspensions
    * Highs and lows of CJ's journey

    And much more!

    Get in touch with CJ
    http://www.amazonsellerslawyer.com/

    Also worthy must-watch related to Suspension from the AmzSecrets show:
    See how I got suspended and then got unsuspended on Amazon, all in the same day.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  Great to have on the show, CJ! Can you tell us where all begin?

    CJ ROSENBAUM: Sure! Hey, Dave, great to be on the show! I love, love what you are doing! Powering people, powering people to be successful. You really could be the lion. I mean, there’s no opportunity ever in history of commerce that’s being provided like Amazon provided. Anybody with a cell phone and a credit card access to 80 million customers, it’s unheard of. I am really, I am really excited to be here!

    What we do is we help seller when they get suspended. That’s probably 80% of our practice. We help people when they get suspended for what inauthentic, or you sold as new, or listing problems. That’s probably 40% of our time. Another 40% is spent dealing with intellectual property complaints. You know, a brand owner, or brand manager, or a big corporate America reaches out and they say you don’t have the right to sell their product. We deal with them. And we stay in toe-to-toe with the big firms and the big corporations, because the vast majority of those complaints are bullshit. And I hope my language is okay for your audience.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  Perfectly fine!

    CJ ROSENBAUM: The vast majority of these intellectual property right complaints that you get are nonsense. Most of you are not taking the Nike solutions sticking it on a hat, or coping someone else’s verbiage and therefore there’s no IP basis, no intellectual property infringement. And they use the Amazon system and the flaws in the system, to get people in listing suspended. So day in and day out we get those complaints retracted by these companies who are using trademark bulling to hit the small people.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  And do you see a lot of these like major companies like take a… I mean, you are talking about Nike and… Did they have more leverage using their big brand presence versus smaller companies?

    CJ ROSENBAUM: You know they don’t. In fact they have more liabilities actually, you know. Because let’s take a big brand, you know, like Cisco, or HP, or Samsung. And they make a complaint, and when you stand up to them, you say: hey, you know what? We know it is nonsense, and you know it is nonsense. They have lawyers on staff and those lawyers know they are going to have to withdraw, or they going to encore liability.
    57 min
  • AS 67: Amazon Highjackers and Trademarks with Suzi Hixon
    Today I’ve got Suzi Hixon on the show, she Suzi Hixon has been practicing intellectual property law for 13 years, and specifically trademark law for 11 of those. She's been a private label seller on Amazon and knows the obstacles sellers face on the Amazon platform.



     

    What we discussed:

    * How to protect your amazon trademarks
    * Why Amazon Brand Registry helps in Brand Gating
    * What products are easily highjacked?
    * Who are these Amazon highjackers?
    * Are all Amazon Highjackers bad?
    * How to confront an Amazon Highjacker
    * How to not confront an Amazon Highjacker
    * How Amazon Highjackers are on the rise
    * Mistakes sellers do when highjacking occurs

    And much more!

    Contact Suzi Hixon:
    https://www.theprivatelabellawyer.com/

    David Aladdin:  Great to have you on the show Suzi, can you tell us a little more about yourself?

    Suzi Hixon:  Thankyou David, thank you so much for inviting me, I am happy to be here, happy to talking about trademarks and protecting your brand on Amazon, a little more about me, you do most of the important stuff but I live in Kentucky on a farm and I practice law from my back porch. So I guess that’s the thing that kind of makes me unique attorney, I don’t work for big law firm, it’s just me and my chickens, I don’t like them help me in any way but they do…yeah but that’s just a little more about me kind of personal stand point.

    David Aladdin:  I feel like so that the farm life is a lot slower, I hear like everywhere else outside, do you have that same kind of feeling like the life moves slower than the rest of the world.

    Suzi Hixon:  Absolutely, yeah, I have lived in bigger cities and on farm and further more I kind of wanted to move back to the city but very recent I do kind of appreciate the slower lifestyle but when I first moved back like if I go somewhere on the road and they were really like going slow I would just go speed up, go faster but now I am so like oh my gosh I’m like the slow one on the road now. So I definitely think that there are times it moves a little bit slower.

    David Aladdin:  You mentioned that you were practicing law on the farm like what made you want to practice law to begin with?

    Suzi Hixon: It’s a really good question, well it goes back 13 years ago, I graduated from law school in 2003 so probably got my edge a little bit from there but I was biology major in college and honestly I got to go to a little bit of art school and I really didn’t know what I wanted to do so I kind of extended this education to 3 or 4 more years so that’s why I went to law school, I had a science background, I was able to take the pack of law for a couple of years and it wasn’t really a good fit for me, after I prosecuted 5 pack of applications so, it’s so boring, I couldn’t handle this.

    I got involved in trademarks and that was 11 years ago so. I don’t really know if that answers your question why I wanted to. 11, 12 or 13 years ago when I was practicing law, being kind of working remotely wasn’t something people thought about then you know it wasn’t probably until 5 or 6 years in practicing law that it was like wait a second why am I chained to this desk at my law firm, what is happening like I didn’t know my life would be like this you know I would explain this to people that I worked with that they don’t understand most part that practicing law can be done from any location, you know with internet I can work from a different location to provide the same services to my clients.

    A lot of law firms proportion still have the fancy marble floors, leather bound books and all that good stuff but I well thought that a lot of my clients you know especially that ...
    54 min
  • AS 66: Product DIY for Amazon Private Label with Filip
    Today I’ve got Filip Valica  on the show, He has been a mechanical engineer for 12 years, designing, testing, and building products from cradle to grave. He has worked for a broad range of companies – from mom-and-pop small businesses to some of the largest corporations in the US.



    What you'll learn?

     

    * How to design products for Amazon Private Label
    * Design strategy
    * How to build better products
    * The entire cycle from beginning to end of product design
    * Filip's entreprenuership journey
    * Working with existing cashflow
    * Research and Development techniques
    * Patents, Provisional and non-provisional, what's the difference?
    * How Filip went from a full-time enginner to full-time entreprneuer
    * Design and Development Pitfalls
    * Adding value to your ideas
    * Investor discussions for products
    * Patent risks and ripoffs

    And much more!

    Get in touch with Filip:

    http://theproductstartup.com

    DAVID ALADDIN:  Great to have you on the show, Filip! Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

    FILIP VALICA:  Sure! I guess in short I’ve been an engineer, as you said, thanks for the introduction; I’ve been an engineer for the last twelve years. I am married with one daughter.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  Awesome!

    FILIP VALICA:  And recently I was laid off for my full-time corporate gig where I was doing managing like RND teams and product development. And I’ve been, I guess, pivoting over to doing my sight business full-time.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  So, you’ve been an engineer for twelve years. I am an engineer as well, so I totally get it. Pretty much Filip has gone through some of the toughest educational courses the World has to offer!  How did that go for you?

    FILIP VALICA: I needed it!

    DAVID ALADDIN: What was your experience?

    FILIP VALICA: Yeah, I didn’t like it all, because I was… I am not a traditional student, I guess, that really enjoys school and does well. A lot of the guys that were in engineering with me, you know, loved all the theoretical type classes. And for me, I was just really hands on. And so, I either did really well in classes and got A’s, if they were like project based, or I got Ds and Cs if I just didn’t enjoy it, because I didn’t do the work.

    DAVID ALADDIN:  Was it… Didn’t Einstein get Cs as well?

    FILIP VALICA: Yeah, I wish I could compare myself to that! But no, I mean, I think, you know, I didn’t… and I didn’t even know myself that much back then, you know. I definitely did it because I enjoyed taking things apart and putting them back together, and learning about how things worked. But there was a lot of other stuff that went into engineering that I just didn’t, you know, find valuable for me.

    AVID ALADDIN:  Just for the audience listening… The way engineering is setup, you are not supposed to get A’s on the courses. You actually do it, so that you… The average student, or the majority of students actually get Cs and Bs, and then you have that one student that’s allowed to get an A, and it’s pretty like stacked against the odds. So, I don’t know… Was it kind of like that when you were growing up…not growing up, but like in school as well?

    FILIP VALICA: You know, I think some of the people that I went to school with did really well, they did exceptionally well, you know, they were really the type of people that could go out and drinking the night before, and party, and sometimes even go have a beer during lunch before the test, and still like wreck the curve. And was the guy that was like spending three/four hours a night on homework every night and just struggling to keep up in some class...
    1 hr 3 min
  • AS 65: How my entire account got suspended on Amazon, and how I was unsuspended, an Indepth Story
    A king has fallen. My entire  account got suspended on Amazon.

    My heart instantly froze and felt like a giant rock. If I was 45 I probably would’ve had a heart attack. It felt like a vacuum of pressure was sucking my heart toward my stomach. All the horror stories you hear… there are true. Survivors are a few and far between. This an in-depth story of how I just got suspended, and then how I got unsuspended, all in the same day. Not even I, sir david was immune to wrath.



    This is the AmzSecrets show, with your host David Aladdin. A battle but was lost, but the war is just beginning.

    Today’s podcast is sponsored by  AmzSecrets.com VIP. We build powerful tools to supercharge your Amazon listings.

    I recently had a listener email me in regards to vip and they said:

    Looks great David.
    I admit I have not joined the VIP yet,  however looking at the video it was the first time I understood the VIP is beyond a forum with secrets,  but actual tools you have developed.

    I love listing to your podcasts too.

    Best,
    -Oded

    His email was good feedback. The question is am I explaining the product as best as possible? This question not only applies to AmzSecrets VIP, but it made me ask myself this question about my private label products. Am I explaining the product as best as possible? Does the end customer understand what is for sale? They say the average person spends 7 seconds on a website, deciding whether or not he will buy or leave. So you’ve got 7 seconds to inform them, or lose them.

    Today’s episode, episode 64 – How my entire account got suspended on Amazon, and how to get unsuspended.

    It began like this.

    I finally decided to upgrade my phone, and I went to Verizon. I got a new phone and number and began the process of changing my phone numbers for my accounts including Amazon.

    At 5pm, As I went into seller central, I changed my phone number for notifications, customer support, and  my business phone number.

    Literally the second I changed my business phone number, my account gained the red notification bubble inside of seller central. It said “You selling privileges has been suspended.”

    I hit refresh, and the red bubble is still there. This isn’t some mistake. I then go to my inventory, the 17+ sku’s I have in there, and I click on each one, and see if they are still active.

    None of them are active any more. I go to my store front, and look there, and my storefront is quickly evaporating with only 2 SKUs on it now. …  refresh F5! And then none. I went back into seller central, and now, seller central looks more different…worst.

    A massive notification bar inside of Amazon sprawled across the top that said

    “Amazon has suspended your account. Please refer to the email from Amazon to learn more about the status of your account.” In white and red.

    I was in complete horror. Words cannot describe it. I thought of my manufacturers. I thought of the 4 ocean shipping containers floating across the ocean on their way to Amazon FBA. I thought of the air freight shipment that I have already paid for, ready to deliver goods for 4th quarter.

    I am the real santa clause, as mentioned in episode 57, AmzSecrets.com/57, except they had taken my raindeer.

    I feel like I’m a pretty calm dude, especially in the face of disaster. But when this happened, I was shocked. I felt destroyed.

    Immediately I went to seller central forums. I started querying in rapid fire, 100 characters per minute questions and variations of instances to see if others had the same issue. Keep in mind this was all at the same time,
    22 min
  • AS 64: How to Source from China Smarter with Sam Boyd
    Today, we had Sam Boyd, live from China come on the show! He is an American living in Asia. After working in product development, he founded his own sourcing company called Guided Imports in Shenzhen, China. He’s Focused on assisting importers of all sizes to navigate the often treacherous waters of Chinese manufacturing.



    What you'll  learn:

    * How Sam moved to China and start a business as an American
    * How Sam built and expanding his sourcing company to 10+ employees
    * What was his decision to go to China
    * How pricing and quality match up when purchasing in China
    * What QA/QC is important and how to do it
    * The eco-system and insights of China
    * How things are done in China
    * How he's changing the game
    * Manufacturing in China, how to get goods from China
    * How to source product from China
    * How to get inventory from China
    * How to do everything from product development, to storage, to fulfilment from China
    * QC Inspection tips and secrets
    * How to ensure a manufacturer is real
    * How to market a product, source a product, manufacturer a product and all in between

    And much more.

    Get in touch with Sam
    GuidedImports.com

    David Aladdin:  Great to have you on this show Sam. Can you tell us a little more about yourself?

    Sam Boyd:  Hey thanks David for having me here, yeah great introduction, a little more about myself is I grew up in US, north east close to Philadelphia, and I ended up moving to china where I started my own company, sourcing company. Originally before I started my own company I was working with product development company out in Shenzhen and I just didn’t like having a boss and what happened was I left the company and I basically ask my assistant who was working with this product development company to come and join me where I was going to start my own company from my kitchen table.

    My goal was to set out and have a sourcing company where we helped people get products manufactured in china and then ship it all over the world. And that was the company that grew from the kitchen table to a small office and then we continued to add on more employees. About a year ago, what we recognized was that there are a lot of people who are looking into products manufactured in China and it’s very easy to get attached to these big fish people who are doing stuff with retail, big box retailers and the wholesale.

    There is not a lot of help for Amazon sellers. So what we found was if we offered a service that’s little bit more transparent than the traditional sourcing services that were out there that we would be attract Amazon sellers, we would be able to help them out and really allow them to grow their business by offering a full purchasing office in china. So that’s what we have been focusing on.

    Our company is still a small company, almost all of us are based out of china and you know we just continue to grow and continue to figure out more and more ways to help a lot of eCommerce and Amazon sellers and that’s really the generally a gist of things.

    David Aladdin: A lot of listeners are kind of wondering, how did you decide to end up in China, how did you decide to live there, you know how long do you plan to live there?

    Sam Boyd:  To answer your last question, how long do I plan to stay in China, my answer always is till I am sick of it and there’s always ways you can get tired of china but when you look at it, its where businesses is especially for e-Commerce this is the best place to be for. So probably until I can really set things up and I can completely get out of the country full time and have full team operating it or until another country becomes the next China.
    58 min
  • AS 63: Discounted Reviews No Longer Allowed on Amazon – Amazon Ban[Official Post]
    Discounted Reviews are no longer allowed on Amazon. Announced on October 3rd by Amazon’s Chee Chew, the VP of Customer Experience for Amazon. WHAAAT?



    This is perhaps the biggest change to the Amazon Platform since I started selling on Amazon and in this episode, we go into all the implications this will have.

    This is the AmzSecrets show, with your host David Aladdin. War is in the streets!! And it’s up to us to keep our armies in line, and stand strong in the face of whatever happens. Some days are tougher than others, but no matter what, we never back down. Welcome to the show. New intros every day.

    Today’s podcast is sponsored by  AmzSecrets.com VIP. We build powerful seller tools, to supercharge your Amazon Listings that help you sell more.  And they keep getting more powerful. You can get your invite to the platform at AmzSecrets.com

    Today’s podcast, episode 63 on Discounted Reviews and how they’re no longer allowed.

    Wholly cow. Whatttttt. The Amazon game has been changed, and I believe for the better, although I do say that with pain.

     

    For the past 2-3 years, sellers would give review groups their products for at a major 99% discount, in exchange for an honest review. The reviews were great, we could test new inventions, test new product launches, and get our product to the masses.

    If the entire world was white hat, this process would never have stopped. However, the system had it’s flaws. For one,  some sellers abused review giveaways, giving sometimes 1000s of units away to fluff their review count. Others used it to build velocity to affect their best seller rank.

    Most sellers used It though  to get valuable feedback, get their product launched. In fact there are hundreds of courses, some that cost thousands of dollars to join in, that teach this very thing. They are probably peeing in their pants right now because their entire “game plan” they have been distributing for beginners has been demolished. Flipped on it’s butt. Knocked out of the park...

    Can you blame them though…Discounted reviews WERE ONCE, a legit method of launching a product. Don’t get me wrong.

    The Heavy Cost to New Sellers with Discounted Reviews No Longer Being Allowed

    However, according to reddit,  I am reading dozens of comments of newbies right in the midst of the crossfire that has just happened. Dozens of them are about to launch 2-3 sku’s and have just purchased thousands of dollars worth of goods.

    Now their launch is completely botched. Unlike some of the more savvier marketers, who have customer email lists built up of their brand, and customer data access via Facebook and beyond, these newbies don’t have that and are sitting in hot water. Literally.

    Just to put it into real context, here are exact things

    “That's a bummer, I'm a seller with my first private label product, and I was going to be doing this as every course out there teaches this method.”

    “As someone with $15,000 spent on 2 new SKUs getting there next week:

    As someone with an advantage over others in my space because I have a following, a marketing background and we're actually growing as a brand outside of Amazon, this could be a blessing in disguise for us.

    It'll shake things up for sure, we all saw this coming.

     

    This is also what I'm thinking. Nobody is ever going to gain any traction in even a minimally competitive niche any more. Good luck to anyone trying to sell a new supplement!

     Yep, say goodbye to half of the humble braggers on this subreddit and ASM pages.
    17 min
  • AS 62: How to Use Influencers to grow your brand – In Depth Analysis
    Today’s podcast, episode 62: How I used Influencers to grow my brand. I started an experiment with influencers back in epsidode 57. AmzSecrets.com/57. . I asked 10 influencers to grow my brand. 5 influencers, accepted. 3 have so far posted their results.



    You know, when I was in Highschool, I never considered myself to be one of the popular kids. I played the sports, had friends, but wasn’t like THAT KID who was the jock.  I thought I was done with that. But now a days, the popular kids have morphed into a new form… their called influencers.

    Influencers are sneakily changing the game of marketing. Some of these guys wield armies of followers. Convince the leader to join your war, and his army will follow him.

    And so that’s been my experiment. Now before I get into the experiment results themselves, let me tell you theres easy ways to recruit influencers, and really hard ways.

    So initially I went on Youtube. I love the concept of someone creating a youtube video for my products, and started my search. And this is the harder way…

    I was browsing through by category searching for influencers with at least 100,000 subscribers. Most influencers will have in their description, or profile, a business inquiry email. I got about 8  different influencer emails with my requirements…and then emailed them this curated response. It was targeted, yet able to send out to multiple youtubers, without taking a big chunk of my time:
    Hey John Doe,

    We like your videos, and we think the style would fit well with our brand.

    I am the founder of This-BRAND startup, and we are interested in potentially being a sponsor for you with free gear but also money too.

     Let me know if you’re interested.

    David
    Founder of This-Brand Startup.

     

    Then I closed my outlook, forgot about it, and went back to work…

     

    A day later, and responses started coming in.

    It was so painful to get responses. It turns out, most of these guys, have “Agents…or… Head of Influencer Divisions…or Managers”, that instead of directly reaching a particular Youtuber, they have some guy in a corporate office managing them.

    Theres a major play going on right now. Influencers are being scooped up by these agent advertising companies and leveraged against companies. They’re being herded like cattle into pens, and sold to the highest bidder.

    I got responses back that we’re like this:

    Hi David,


    I hope you are well + enjoying your week!

    Thank you for reaching out to John Doe. He seems like a excellent fit for your “THISBRANDSTARTUP” and I would love to explore this opportunity further.


    Are you free tomorrow at 11am EST to discuss?

    Thanks

    In my head I’m thinking…why are you talking in third person. Oh…your not the youtuber I contacted, your some other guy.

    And this happened a lot. The problem with dealing with a “manager” versus the actual Youtuber is it creates a middleman that needs to make money.

    No longer can you give $100 to the influencer and your product, for free, with free shipping. The manager wants his cut too. Not only that, they’re chasing after bigger deals.

    So is contacting youtubers individually worth your time? Most likely not.

    So my next step was to skip that route and apply to FameBit, Tomoson. Both of these services offered influencers with little to no overhead charge. They automated the process of finding influencers who knew what to do, didn’t ask to setup phone calls to discuss influencer business…that’s just time consuming. and kept the influencer in check with profiles depicting their reputation.

    Next,
    15 min
  • AS 61: Why Trader Joes is Not Only Surviving, But Thriving
    So I went into Trader Joes today to buy flowers for my friend’s girlfriend. I figured if I got the best white orchids earthly possible, she would fall into my arms, and leave him. Yep I was pulling the sneaky SWITCH-ER-OO.



    In all honesty, he’s actually out of state. Today was her birthday, and I was actually on a mission for him to surprise her with flowers from me.

    At first thought, I was going to go to Walmart. But my actual girlfriend, said, TraderJoes has way better flowers than both Publix, Walmart and they’re also cheaper. So I was intrigued. I’m not a big fan of Trader Joes mainly because it doesn’t have everything I want..like Walmart or the “Publix shopping centers” that we have here in florida.

    And so I journeyed to Trader Joes, some 5-6 minutes away. As I’m pulling into the parking lot, I noticed just a huge flurry of activity. Trader Joes, was extremely busy. The parking lot was packed to the brim. Customers walking back and forth, left and right. What is going on here!

    I  walk in through the front door, and literally I’m hit with just a massive presentation scenery. Orange pumpkins as I walk in. Fresh flowers and scents to the right. Fresh produce along the walls. Literally,the greatest presentation of products that I have ever seen. There is something happening here that Walmart, Publix, Shop-in-stop and every grocery store I’ve ever been to is missing. There is literally magic in that store.

    I felt like I was in Hogwarts, and experiencing a different world. It was why the store was churning like a well oiled engine. The funny part about it, the experience is duplicated around the United States. Some how, Trader Joes has figured out how to build a massive corporate chain while creating the feeling that you are in this thriving home-town market place.

    I bring this story to you guys because this is truly a magnificent brand. It’s a brand of culture, thought, and art, crafted into an experience of buying groceries. Theres a reason why my girlfriend loves Trader Joes, over these other brands.

    Trader Joes has found a weakness in the market. They goal is to bring back the love and feeling that you get when market, rather than a corporate store like Walmart.

    If you go into Walmart, and then you go into Trader Joes, you’re experience is completely different. Besides the presentation of the products, I also noticed something I’ve never seen in grocery store

    The employees behaved entirely different. In Walmart, it looks like every employee hates to work there. They look miserable. No offense, but if you’re a Walmart employee just admit it.

    In Trader Joes, the employees morale is off the roof. They are all over the place like Santa’s Elves. Adjusting man made labels on each product. Some are working in the flowers section. Some are giving fresh coffee tastes out. And each one of them is doing is with a sort of energy, of santa elf energy. It’s hard to explain with words, but I think I was just in Santas workshop.

    There is a trickle down of quality from Trader Joes all the way to the employees. When you start your brand with expectations high, quality high, the spirits go high, and the experience of shopping is brought back, to an enjoyable experience.

    The point is, LETS BE the Trader Joes. Lets build brands full of magic, where customers fill our store fronts, and come back for more. It’s definatley possible, but it starts with your first product, and culture that YOU as a founder create.

    Now for your Amazon News Flash briefing

    What does this mean David?

    I think Amazon has finally woken up a sleeping giant… Walmart is this huge juggernaut, that has now woken up. Jet.com bought for 3 Billion. I believe this FlipCart transaction will go through as well.
    10 min
  • AS 60: 5 Words Nathan Latka Used to get an 8 figure exit – Acquisition Advice
    Nathan Latka  came on the show today, and shared quite a few golden nuggets as well showed us his ambitions moving into the future.  He’s got a business podcast – called The Top Entrerprenuers. He tried to buy success magazine for $5m. Sold first business, Heyo, after raising $2.5m and hitting $5m in revenue in Feb 2016. He then Acquired company another company called send later.



    What you'll learn:

    * How to go through an acquisition
    * How to prepare for an acquisition
    * Strategies to get the most out of an acquisition
    * What 5 words Nathan Latka used during his acquistion
    * How Nathan grew Heyo to 10,000 paying subscribers and got it acquired
    * Expanding and scaling, vision into the future

    And much more!

    Contact:
    Nathan Latka

     

    David Aladdin: Welcome to the show Nathan,

    Nathan Latka: David, what’s up Man, I am excited to be here. I told you better be comfortable on the show so let’s have some fun.

    David Aladdin: You are nervous?

    Nathan Latka: No, Nathan Latka never gets nervous

    David Aladdin: David Aladdin never gets nervous. Alright! Can you take us to the beginning before things got crazy? Let’s hear more about you.

    Nathan Latka:That’s a big question, I will keep it very brief, because time is valuable because 19 years old, studying architecture in Virginia Tech, quickly heard fifth years complaining that we are not getting jobs so I said screw, I am not putting myself five years, spending ridiculous amount of money on college education and not having a guaranteed job. I stayed up at my dorm room, rock at my girlfriend Christmas boxers and pre sold 73 grand worth of Facebook fan page. So my PayPal account was just exploding and eventually I decided to drop out, grew the business to about 30 grand a month in recurring revenue.

    This was a SaaS business, Software as a Service, margins were through the roof, way higher than the most Amazon obviously products because there was no cost of goods sold outside of very little server cost. Then it kept growing to about 90,000 a month through recurring revenue. We then raised 2 million dollars from a Forbes billionaire named RJ Kirk at pre-money evaluation of 8.5 million dollars which brought our funding to about a total of 2.5 million. A lot of our angel investors were really the smartest in the world, I am talking about folks like David O’Connor, TechStar, many, many say the best investors in the world.

    So we grew that to about 10,000 monthly paying customers, 5 million in revenue, 25 employees and sold that in February in 2016 in this year. So I got to tell you it is big, it was exciting and that’s kind of story in a nut shell.

    David Aladdin:Let’s go a bit deeper, we have got a small amount of time, about thirty minutes to get everything understood. So you got this business and you grew it to 10,000 users. Even before how did you even get to the first 1000 users?

    Nathan Latka:You know I make this clarification, many people lie, how many customers do they have and they say 10,000 and they lie, there are too many users they have which many times most are free, like we have 10,000 paying customers. People give us their credit card that we are billing every month, none of this baloney about users verses customers; 10,000 paying customers.

    David Aladdin: And currently I think it’s 29.99 a month, what were you guys charging at the time, was it the same?

    Nathan Latka: Average revenue per user per month ranged between $30 to $300.

    David Aladdin: And 300 was like the enterprise?

    Nathan Latka: That was the agency plan, enterprise.

    David Aladdin: Alright so that’s pretty awesome,
    23 min
  • AS 59: How Ryan makes 500k/yearly revenue selling on Amazon FBA, Writing Books
    Ryan Reger came on  the show today and details his successful Amazon business, but his true passion is helping others build their business.  He is the author of Real Wholesale Sources, Private Label the Easy Way and co-author of  Beyond Arbitrage.



    What you'll learn:

    * Ryan Reger's journey into entreprenuerialism
    * How he started in craigslist then learned about FBA
    * FBA strategies
    * How craigslist changed over time
    * Conferences Ryan reccomends
    * How to stay in stock properly
    * How to start private label with very little money
    * How you can use replenishment alerts
    * Strategies for focusing on what your doing and why it's so important
    * Wholesaling techniques
    * Books Ryan has written
    * Furniture and big items, shipping, delivery logisitics
    * Mindset

    And much more!
    Contact:
    Ryan Reger | Book: Privatelabeltheeasyway.com

    David Aladdin: Welcome to the show, Ryan.

    Ryan Reger: Thanks David, glad to be here. I’m going to check out that key word King, I’mwriting that down when you were talking so.

    David Aladdin: Yeah, it’s awesome. Yeah, welcome to the show.

    Ryan Reger: Thanks.

    David Aladdin: Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself.

    Ryan Reger: Yeah so, I started in 2008. I was running a political campaign up in Indiana and we lost in that year so I moved to Texas. I knew the only two things were happening, that I was moving to Texas and I was getting married and so I had followed a guy named Jim Cocker who I knew you just had on your show, not too long ago. My mentor I read his book "Silent Sales Machine" back in 2002 or 2003 and I’ve always been interested in an online business and running a business for myself and so didn’t really make sense until that point, when I didn’t have anything else to do or to turn to. My mother in laws and wife had some whole sale sources of furniture and they were doing a very part time on Craig's list, putting ads just in local Dallas Fort Worth area. And so I told my wife, "I think we can really make this a business" as you guys know you need to get a job and so.

    David Aladdin: You know that’s actually...

    Ryan Reger: What's that?

    David Aladdin: That’s the problem, when you have a wife before you start the online business.

    Ryan Reger: That’s right.

    David Aladdin: You have to marry after the online business.

    Ryan Reger: That's right. Well actually to be honest, to be in fairness with her. She was actually pretty supportive. She say's "you know what, she did say that you know you can totally do this Craig's List thing with furniture. I would like for you though to at least look for a job as well and so I did do that but my heart was really in the business and so. The lord blessed it David and grew. In 2009 we did 250 thousand in sales just in furniture, just on Craig's List, just in the Dallas Fort Worth area. It was a lot of hustle though. I was driving, going to the hold sell warehouse to get the furniture and drive it to the costumer. My father in law allowed us to borrow his open air trawler. So I hooked it on the back of my wife's two, 97 Toyota forward runner and hold it all over Dallas Fort Worth and delivered furniture and it was. Man I can’t imagine doing that now but it was a great start. In 2010...

    David Aladdin: If you think about it, like.

    Ryan Reger: Yeah?

    David Aladdin: Before we both got into this gig, we had regular jobs.

    Ryan Reger: Yeah.

    David Aladdin: you were in the politic realm and I was...

    Ryan Reger: Oh you did too?

    55 min

About The David Aladdin Show - Building Billion Dollar e-Commerce Companies, Amazon Private Label, FBA, Shopify, Woo, Retail Products - AmzSecrets

From the publisher's feed

We interviews top notch guests on his quest to build a billion dollar e-commerce business, Amazon Fba, private label, Woocommerce, Shopify, retail, private label bus