The Private Label Movement

Nate Lind is a successful online seller that doesn’t just focus on Amazon. He has created relationships with affiliates to continue to push his products. Nate is insightful as a seller, a coach and entrepreneur. He’s here to share his knowledge with Jonathan on today’s episode of the Private Label Podcast.

While Nate was pursuing his degree in media art and animation he discovered he enjoyed the pursuit of obtaining the business much more than the website development and production. he not only really enjoyed it, but he was also really good at it.

After graduation, Nate worked for the FAA in D.C. He had the most hellacious commute to work and he likens it to a soul-sucking experience. During this time he read Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki and it changed his life.

“I wanted to own my own business. I wanted to have passive income.” – Nate Lind

The book inspired him to get out of the blood-sucking quadrant of ’employee’ to owning his own business and enjoy passive investment income. Nate went from graphics and websites and video production to flipping houses.

Nate went online and joined the Rich Dad forum at the time to network with other entrepreneurs. he found a group of investors that had money but no time. As a young guy, Nate had time but no money.

“I want something with mass appeal…is lightweight and can ship easily around the world…and I can create a story and brand around.” Nate Lind

The investors were his mentors and he was the apprentice. Nate worked really hard for the investment group. He was literally knocking on doors to see if people would want to sell their house. Amazingly to Nate, they did. He had learned to leverage other people’s money to benefit both sides and to scale.

In 2008 when the housing market crashed, due to forces out of Nate’s control, he was out of a job. Now he’s got a mortgage, a family and a kid on the way. He took jobs at various financial institutions to put food on the table.

“I always start with private labeling. I dont’ want to be the first customer product of a strange niche.” – Nate Lind

Drawing from his experiences working the housing market, he was able to craft resumes for himself that resonated with corporate employers. He went from $68,000.00/year to $125,000.00/year and work remotely and avoid the horrible commute by the age 0f 31.

The success he was having working for others again sparked his interest in investing. Nate started looking around to see what was available. His first investment was with a direct response campaign manager.

To hear the rest of Nate’s story about success as an online seller and as an affiliate, download and listen to the episode!

Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed Nate Lind on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

Chakra wanted to get his education in the US and borrowed money for his flight. Landing with barely any money in his pocket, he had to work several odd jobs to get him through college. One of these included a NASA project.

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Thanks for tuning in and we hoped you enjoyed Chakra Yendapally on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners, send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Mark Lewyn is a 6-figure Amazon seller and founder of Patently.io. He began his career a journalist and soon realized he needed to change directions as the technology and the internet grew. His software enables Amazon sellers to research patents to help them find new products to launch.

Mark began investing with a few startups and over time found his way to the world of Amazon selling. In 2015, Mark launched his first product, darts, on Amazon.

His strategy was looking at the data and he was amazed at how many darts they sold on Amazon. He had never even played the game nor has he since.

You don’t want to violate anyone’s patent, ever. – Mark Lewyn

He took notice of the issues with darts and thought he could fix the problems. His first product was a significant success that gave him the encouragement to try it again and again and again.

Mark had been investing in startups and liked the idea of not having to go out and raise a lot of money. He’s made a lot of mistakes along the way but he’s been right more often than wrong.

For his product research, Mark uses Jungle Scout a lot. Once he narrows down a product he does a little bit of research for that specific product.

During his research, he’s come across really high-priced products that were expensive relative to what they were. For instance, an airline seatbelt for kids. Essentially it was a glorified seatbelt for kids.

The seatbelt sold for $80.00 and they were selling a bunch because there was no competition. Mark Lewyn quickly figured out it was expensive because it had a patent on it.

There are two major types of patents…design…and utility patent. – Mark Lewyn

He looked at the patent and it was about to expire. He found a manufacturer that was selling the same thing for $5.00 on Ali Baba. If he would have taken the Ali Baba product and sold it on Amazon, it would have been a mess of trouble with patent lawsuits.

Mark launched his product on the day the patent expired. He was following the law and was able to capture a lot of the margin the guy who was selling it for $80.00 was capturing.

There’s always a bull market somewhere; there’s always a new opportunity. – Jonathan Gabriel

He kept coming across products that were similar in that their patents were about to expire and began to build a database.

To hear how Mark Lewyn uses his database to increase his sales and expand his product line, download and listen to the episode.

Connect with Mark Lewyn.  He’s happy to chat and answer your questions!

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Thanks for tuning in and we hoped you enjoyed Mark Lewyn on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners, send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes.

Many Amazon sellers consider selling overseas to increase their market. Today, John Cant of Rising Sun Commerce tells us why Japan is so great for Amazon sellers.

John Cant lived in Japan for five years from 2005-2010. In terms of Amazon, Japan was books and music driven Recently it has really changed.

Japan is now third biggest behind the US, German and has just overtaken the UK in terms of Amazon sales. Rakuten used to be the largest online provider in Japan but now they are about on even grounds as Amazon outpaces Rakuten’s growth.

Minimalism wins stateside and in the UK but in Japan the more information you can cram onto a site and the brighter the colors the better. Rakuten follows that design style.

John’s friends in Japan say they like the ‘calmer’ look of Amazon and that’s part of the push from Rakuten to Amazon.

Japan has always had a really good infrastructure. You can get around really quickly and now Amazon offers Prime Same-Day in many of the larger cities like Tokyo.

Because Amazon Japan is growing quickly, it’s not a very saturated market. It’s much easier to grow steadily and with less risk.

Officially from Amazon you are supposed to have Japanese packaging. If you’re new to the market and just testing it out, you can put in a Japanese flyer and still be ok.

The flyer provides a nice customer experience but at the same time, you are not having to re-design all of your packaging.

The buying decision is made on Amazon and from the customer’s point of view. If the goods arrive as expected and as ordered on Amazon, they don’t need packaging in their own language.

To hear the rest of what John Cant has to say about selling in Japan, download and listen to the episode!

Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed John Cant on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners so send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes!

What would you do if overnight, your profits went from millions to zero? This happened to Rob Kosberg. Rob ran a hundred-million-dollar real estate company when the recession hit and was forced to reinvent himself. Today, he’s the founder and CEO of Best Seller Publishing and he’s proud to say that he’s found a way to leverage his expertise to positively impact others.

Rob was raised in Washington D.C. where his family owned Texaco gas stations on Pennsylvania Ave. He got his start as a car guy watching his dad and grandpa build and race cars out of the garages. It wasn’t the traditional path to becoming an entrepreneur but it had planted the seed for Rob.

While working through college, Rob got his real estate license at the age of 18. He was on the phone all day hustling through the for sale by owners and expired listings. By the second month, he was the top agent and was questioning his path to law school.

“Don’t write an autobiography or memoire, no one cares…put your story into the needs the pains the challenges of your ideal client” – Rob Kosberg

Like most entrepreneurs, Rob has never worked a single day in his degree. Because of his success in real estate, he did not attend law school and instead continued in real estate working for his dad from 18-22.

He made the leap to the largest mortgage lender in the country. Due to the leap, he was able to expand his opportunities and income. As an entrepreneur of sorts, he controlled his destiny but in essence, he was still working for someone else. That lead to opening his own real estate, title and mortgage company.

Nobody anticipated a 60% drop in real estate values. Roughly 10 years later, South Florida still hasn’t recovered. His company was crushed and he was pouring 100’s of 1000’s of his own money into the company to keep it afloat until the market turned around. The only loans at the time were government funded and Rob’s company was doing none of that.

“The fun part for me is the engagement with people…wanting to get books to do something cool for their business…keeps me motivated and excited.” – Rob Kosberg

He went from a 100-million-dollar a year company to zero. If it had only dropped half, Rob probably could have survived.  The death knell was he could no longer finance loans.

To hear how Rob Kosberg reinvents himself, download and listen to the episode!

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Thanks for tuning in and we hoped you enjoyed Rob Kosberg on the Private Label Movement. We love hearing from our listeners, send us an email, follow us on LinkedIn, Join the Movement on Facebook and subscribe to the show on iTunes.