alright guys today I have on a guest
Kevin David Kevin what's up man how's it
going today
what is up Greg it's always so nice to
talk to you my man let's not waste any
time let's get right into it let's start
off with a quick introduction once you
tell everyone a little bit more just
about who you are sure yeah so my name
is Kevin David I graduated college about
five years ago straight out of college I
went into kind of like the normal job
role per se kind of like what's your
expected to do at least what my parents
were expecting me to do you know to get
a normal job out of college kind of to
go the corporate route get kind of the
safe you know benefits salary and just
what society has kind of deemed as
normal and so I got a job at a company
called PwC which is one of the biggest
accounting firms in the world and then I
switched to Facebook where I was doing
consulting work helping to build out
their FTC privacy program and I actually
discovered gray first of all out of
anyone on Amazon and he's kind of who
introduced me to you know what was
possible to Amazon FBA kind of how to
replace the you know quote-unquote
normal job and the normal kind of
nine-to-five that a lot of people have
you know considered to be what is a
normal path to take after college so I'm
very grateful to Greg and I'm always so
happy to talk to him and Hugh you know
to actually go through some of this
stuff and so I'm just trying to give
back to everyone now that I have had
some success things on FBA cool okay so
three one you went to college you
graduated how long did you work or do
still work like a normal typical
corporate job so I did about three years
I spent a year at pwc
pricewaterhousecoopers and then I spent
about two years at Facebook and
graduated four or five so I've been
working 100% for myself for about two
years now
thanks last three months of my job at
Facebook and you know don't tell Mark
Zuckerberg but I was actually working a
lot on my amazon and some of my own
businesses kind of while I was still in
that nine-to-five mode I was really
focusing you know all of my nights and
all of my free time and my breaks and
lunch and everything kind of devoted to
Amazon FBA and you know trying to free
myself a little bit more to get toward
that digital nomad lifestyle that I was
really you know wanting to achieve why
did you even want to become like a
launch
like you probably had like a pretty nice
salary at Facebook you know like a lot
of people that's like their dream job
would be like to work for like the
Google or Facebook or whatever else like
what why were you looking for something
different
leaving Facebook behind leaving kind of
very hard for me and I'm sure it would
be very hard for anyone like I remember
one day they changed my oil in my car in
the parking lot for free and that same
day I went to the doctor's appointment
at the doctor's office
at Facebook for free and I was like what
is going on with this yeah Mark
Zuckerberg is incredibly smart he
realized that these people the calliper
a person that would be working at
Facebook or these companies could create
businesses on their own so they're
trying to make you as comfortable as
possible to stay right but there's just
always kind of a fire that was burning
inside me and I think a lot of
entrepreneurs and a lot of people have
it where you know you just you never
really want to work for anyone else like
you want to create something of yours
like a your own baby and grow it into
this you know real life thing because
it's a really beautiful thing when you
turn something from an idea into an
actual real life business and you know
doing what you've done including like
four jungle Scout creating like
employees and jobs for people like that
it's a beautiful thing starting
something for yourself and I think you
know a lot of your viewers and a lot of
people understand that it's just not
quite the same for some people unless
it's their own and that's kind of where
I was coming from and you know why I
knew that I had to start something for
myself so what are your friends and
family think about you when you were
telling them hey I'm gonna go quit
working for Facebook everyone's dream
job to go do some Amazon thing I'll
start this off with a preface I love my
family and my parents they're so amazing
they did everything for me they are a
little bit more conventional I think
just generationally it's much more
common to you know kind of be accustomed
to that normal nine-to-five get a job
get the job security save for retirement
and things like that and you know I
personally have strong opinions about
that anybody who has seen or heard
anything I've said kind of knows that
they were supportive of me but I think
like a lot of entrepreneurs experience
kind of from their family and friends at
first it's kind of like are you crazy
like what are you talking about and then
once you've made it it's kind of like
hey Kevin how did you do this like let's
talk again it's kind of like the life
cycle of being an entrepreneur at first
everyone's like wait what's wrong with
you and then once you've done it and you
kind of proven it to yourself into
everyone
then everyone's kind of like hey how do
you do that can I do it too so did you
start something on Amazon before you
left your job or you quit one day and
then started so I wasn't actually
technically selling on Amazon but I was
working on my business because so you
know for those of you who don't know
much about Amazon FBA for those of you
who do there's kind of like a period of
time where you kind of need to get
things going it's kind of the building
stage where you're you know doing your
product research using jungle Scout
doing your due diligence finding these
products that are going to be successful
and it just kind of takes time to find
it to source it from manufacturers in
Alibaba right to get it actually created
at the manufacturer and then to ship it
into the names on FBA warehouse and so
kind of like that one two three month
lag period that a lot of people do
experience was the same for me and so I
kind of started full-time you know about
a month and a half before I actually
left and then I left the first week that
I started getting sales on Amazon
because for me it was it was just a
medium in my very first week I was
making $1,000 a day and we were at 62%
profit margin so right when I saw that I
put in my notice and I said hey guys I'm
I gotta go I love you for everything
you've done but you know I just got to
try something on my own so kind of the
day I left cool so were you scared
though that'd probably kind of scary too
right and like with it with the business
you have to reinvest like cash back into
it like did you have some savings or
you're just like willing to take bold
decisions like that or what I mean
that's a great question and you know the
answer to it and what I tell you know my
friends and people that I help with
Amazon FBA is I tell people that it's
good to have kind of a safety net that
you can afford to have a you know a roof
over your head and food to eat for kind
of a three to six month period if you
have you know a six month cushion where
you're not gonna starve and you're not
gonna like freeze to death out in the
cold you know that's enough with Amazon
FBA reinvesting is very important right
because when you build the
infrastructure kind of to create these
products then they become equitable you
know things that you actually own and
build value because you as you continue
to build reviews and you build those
barriers to entry and competitive
advantages for other people to try to
you know come into your niche it truly
becomes more and more valuable the
longer these listings are created so the
more you you know the more you can
create now as time goes on they become
more and more valuable which is you know
there
valuable when it comes to if you ever
are going to sell your account and many
more considerations but for me it wasn't
really a big deal so you just quit this
the dream job at face buy you started
making a thousand dollars a day
what uh what kind of were you doing
private label or a wholesale or retail
arbitrage or what tell us a little bit
more about what methods you were using
this on Amazon so I'm a big fan
just entrepreneurially about doing a
research upfront because anything you do
entrepreneurial II is going to take time
and a lot of people I think rush into
things or they can rush into something
before kind of doing their due diligence
right so I'm not the type of person
that's gonna dabble into all of the
different methods right I'm not doing
tactical arbitrage I'm not doing retail
arbitrage I'm not doing online I'm not
doing wholesale so I looked into each of
those different options very closely
before I decided where I was going to go
all-in and in my opinion and in the
opinion of a lot of other very
successful entrepreneurs on Amazon FBA
private label is really the place that
you can create the longest term most
profitable sustainable business that has
like the kind of equity that you want
creating something that you know has
value if you do ever want to sell or you
know a variety of other different
factors just like for example wholesale
in my opinion is you know it's possible
to be successful in it but Amazon is
created in such a way where they
leverage sellers against each other kind
of to give you those bargain-basement
prices and so if you have you know no
brand recognition or you know luxury
type packaging or anything that you're
differentiating yourself from a private
label perspective wholesale can kind of
just be like you know a race to the
bottom in some in some ways in my
opinion it's just it's much more
difficult to have the profit margins
that you're looking for unless you go
the private label path so I just went
100% all-in on private label I've never
even dabbled in the other ones after
doing a significant amount of research
as to where I wanted to focus my efforts
so sounded like things started off going
really well
tell us about some like the hardships
that you went through or some like the
little four stories so some of this
stuff for me was not necessarily what it
would be for other people but I decided
to launch with some friends because you
know we were in kind of the same place
in our lives and there was three of us
it was somewhat complicated as far as
like Amazon FBA specifically has a lot
of
moving pieces so like and when we were
each launching our own products in one
account it was very difficult to you
know account for all the different
expenses and revenues and which was
coming from which in which you know PVC
expenses were to hit which person so it
was difficult at first kind of learning
how to be on a team with people
especially from an accounting
perspective you know with any
entrepreneurial venture whether it's
Amazon FBA you know affiliate marketing
if you're doing a startup it doesn't
matter what it is if you're creating
something on your own there just are
things that happen there's all there are
things that come up there are things
that go wrong and so you know a very
vital portion of being an entrepreneur
is kind of dealing with that and I
remember one specific situation where
our our inventory got basically stuck in
the Chinese customs and so we just had
no idea what to do because we were brand
new you know we didn't really have what
I think is the most important part of
being successful on Amazon FBA which is
that kind of community right like the
jungle Scout community whatever
community that you do join you know
having the people in the same situation
as you have been through these same
things who've actually kind of
experienced you know all the different
problems that can come up in any
business it's so vital and having a
mentor or just people who kind of are in
the same spot and so you know when that
happened I got super active on all the
Facebook groups right I was hunting
everyone down I probably messaged you
like five times and you never saw but I
was basically just reaching out to
people and saying hey my stuff is stuck
at the Chinese port what should I do and
so I finally got a hold of someone who
kind of experienced that before he had a
contact that actually worked at that
specific port that we that we worked
with who spoke English and it was so
much easier and so much better to kind
of get that done and it's just an
important lesson for any entrepreneur
that nothing can actually stop you
nothing unless you let it right so like
nothing I never felt in my Amazon FBA
journey you know hopeless or anything I
just as an entrepreneur you kind of have
to get over that right so you have to
just figure it out no matter what and
that's why having a good team and a good
community is so important so do you
still have partners with your business
no so I actually bought out my two
original partners from our original
Amazon account and I am partnered with a
new partner full-time who actually has
50%
a chef of all of my different Amazon
accounts and so he he runs a lot of the
logistics I found out early that my
personal strength was not in sourcing I
don't really enjoy personally doing the
sourcing dealing with the manufacturers
in that aspect of the business and so he
was much more willing more better
whatever people want to call it at doing
that and so he decided to do that he
handles the product photography I find
all the products and I do the PPC and so
we have kind of a nice little split that
we've worked out to cater to our
strengths I'm much better at the more
analytical kind of creative portions of
it you know because finding products and
doing PPC is as much as an art as it is
a science I'm sure you know that as much
as anyone I think finding people to work
with if you do like working with people
well and to kind of play off each
other's strengths is very important what
types of advice do you have for people
about partnerships because they can be a
tricky thing it sounds like you probably
learned some really good lessons can you
share some of those with the listeners I
think working with people is very
important I think doing it for the wrong
reasons though is something that you
should be very cautious of I don't think
you should partner just a partner right
you want to find people first of all
that you trust because I've been very
fortunate I've never had a partner with
any type of like bad situation where
people were like stealing or doing
anything like you know malicious I've
never had that so I can't speak to that
but I have had partners that kind of
were more just partners for the sake of
partners because we were friends
rather than actually necessarily adding
kind of a synergistic element where one
plus one equals three you know what I
mean so I think it's important to
understand what your strengths are and
to really like literally write that out
because it was it was super important to
me like I've kind of always been like
yeah you know I'm okay at doing this or
that but you don't really understand it
until you kind of plot it out like what
am I good at what do I enjoy what do I
need help with and then kind of you know
work from there in your network or you
know just go out and bother people like
the first the first way that I even
found Greg was you know just
relentlessly messaging him and his whole
team until he finally responded so we
find these people and if you have
strengths play to them and find people
who you know have strengths as well and
play to that and
if you're gonna form a partnership you
know specifically with Amazon FBA I
would say from a very pragmatic
perspective odd numbers of people is
much more difficult especially if you
have your own individual products just
because there's you know there's storage
fees and fulfillment fees there's PPC
and it's very difficult to trace all
that down individually so if I was gonna
do it again I would say you know
fifty-fifty a hundred percent of the way
where you share all costs and you share
all revenue it's just much much easier
yeah I think those are all really good
points and I like that you brought the
point again about the two people with
skill sets I really compliment each
other I was used to be very guilty this
I still am a little bit about like kind
of short-term thinking you know so you
think like oh be fun to work on this
with my buddy you know for the next few
months kind of see what happens it's
like well you have to kind of think
about from day one if this does turn out
to be quite successful do you have kind
of like you know some written agreements
in place and stuff and will you guys you
know do your skill sets kind of
complement each other or well so think
about that
all right cool so you know some great
insight into your business sounds like
you have a good partner now that really
complements your particular skill sets
you want to give us a little insight and
like where the business is at today
either like revenue numbers or how many
SKUs you have or anything like that
I personally decided early and I'll give
kind of a little you know liability
prefix here I personally have a strong
feeling about obfuscating or at least
mitigating and spreading out risk so one
of the inherent risks with Amazon FBA is
that Amazon has too much ownership right
like if they if they deem you know an IP
infringement or you know any number of
different things that could you kind of
bring the hammer down on you as a seller
it's very important to in my opinion to
kind of spread that risk and so I
decided early to kind of create multiple
Amazon accounts and so Amazon will let
you have one additional one to two
additional accounts which they say is
okay right and so we'll just go from
here saying that I have three accounts
and so kind of the the revenue numbers
that we were kind of going for early was
a thousand dollars a day and since we
hit that almost immediately really our
kind of mentality changed about that and
so we we were trying to get okay let's
get to 2,000 a day how many
eske use do we have to add to get to
2,000 a day and so you know it happened
kind of slower at first but once we
understood and once we kind of had the
logistical infrastructure supply lines
in place and kind of the know how it
ranked up much faster so we went from
initially launching seven products that
wants 15 months later we are at I think
a 70 for SK use spread across a number
of different accounts we're doing you
know 10 grand a day give or take and
then during Christmas obviously it's
significantly more more than that just
for any seller on Amazon q4 as I'm sure
you know your your viewers have seen is
it's absolutely insane for a lot of
sellers especially if you have any type
of gift orientation so if you have
holiday specific you can expect to 210
times sales for q4 for Mother's Day for
whatever your specific niche is related
to and so we do much better during q4
but you know give or take is spread
across all the accounts between 10 grand
a day give or take you know that's
amazing congratulations thank you it's
an incredible and after two years time
right all right about 16 months and that
was the day we launched so I was
learning for about two months before
that so it's been you know a year and a
half two years since we kind of really
devoted ourselves to the Amazon FBA
world yeah talk to us for a minute about
a cash flow because when you scale at
that rate I've found and most people
find that cash flow and having cash and
best new inventories like one of the
most difficult parts if you've any tips
or advice or anything you talk about
with that you know this is definitely a
common theme that a lot of people
struggle with when I was first starting
I had the same struggles you know one of
the best ways that I have found right
and this is again contingent you know
you kind of have to know yourself
because some people can get credit cards
and they can be completely responsible
with them and use them like in a
beautiful you know way that builds
businesses and some people are not
necessarily as responsible with them so
you have to know yourself but I knew
myself I knew that I you know I was
getting these credit cards specifically
for purpose and so I got a 0% 15
month APR interest-free credit card kind
of which is that's possible way to get a
loan in my opinion because not only are
you earning the rewards points that let
you travel for free right but you I
think you and I could probably talk
about traveling for free on credit cards
for another interview for an entire
interview but you know if you can get a
15 to 22 month zero a PR card which is
very possible and it exists you know
it's it's very easily attainable in the
United States that is what we use to get
started on Amazon FBA and you know if
you can if you have a reasonable credit
score you can get a fine limit if let's
just say for example that you're not
from the USA or you don't have good
credit credit score you don't have that
option available right there's always
additional options PayPal lending and
cabbage are two options that I've heard
of people using I think cabbage has a
little bit more predatory of a lending
rate but from the research I've done if
you aren't available to get or if you
aren't able to get those 0% APR credit
cards then PayPal lending was generally
the best rates for people that didn't
have those other options once you kind
of start to get some sales Amazon pays
out every two weeks you can just
basically immediately reinvest that into
new inventories so just don't let it
stop you I guess is my point there's
always a way even if you have to you
know borrow money from friends and
family add I don't suggest that because
I like to keep it all kind of
accountable to me but the point of the
the point of the matter is don't let it
stop you no matter what right cash flow
is just another hurdle that you have to
solve it's an entrepreneur so then if
you do if you go to the credit card
route were you paying with with were you
getting your aspires to accept paypal or
jews like that ali pay or so trade
assurance and all the internship playing
through those i don't personally do that
just because i'm kind of brand committed
to paypal like it's not like i do it for
like some reason like that i have you
know heard horror stories about all i
pay or anything like that i think if you
are going to go the trade assurance
route and the Ahly pay route an
important thing to note is communicate
with your supplier in the Ahly chat
because what they review if there ever
is anything kind of you know that goes
awry they review those chat logs right
so they can see exactly what you asked
for the specs and things like that
if you are gonna go the trade route
trade insurance route instead of PayPal
make sure you actually communicate in
the Aldi chat the Alibaba chat because
if anything does go wrong it could save
you down the line I use PayPal
personally the fees and rates and things
like that are generally not that
different and just as an aside so people
know when you do pay with a credit card
there is generally an additional fee
associated with PayPal or whatever it is
just because it cost more for the you
know creditors and the trans actors and
all the different people involved to
actually facilitate that transaction to
do that but I would actually argue that
at least for the sample for the 30% it's
actually worth it to pay that fee
because you know if for whatever reason
let's say that Alibaba or PayPal denies
your claim like you say hey like they
stole my money they didn't give me
anything whatever PayPal you know if
they do deny that you have a second
route a second plan of action to dispute
it with your credit card company which
gives you that additional kind of safety
net if something were to go wrong yeah
that's a good point I really thought
about that before but I will give you
like two layers of assurance especially
if you're using like AMX like Amex still
like side with the cardholder like any
day you know I actually had a situation
kind of early in my career that would
have been devastating right because one
one terrible situation where you lose
that 30 percent not only or do you have
you lost that money but you probably
lost a lot of passion and momentum that
you were building creating this business
because you're saying hey like I just
got screwed I can't do it anymore right
so don't let that happen to yourself for
take those extra precautions spend that
extra you know 2.5% or whatever it is
because I actually literally had a case
where PayPal decided against me because
the the manufacturers snuck in this like
little quote that you know somehow
voided our ability to make a claim on
goods and services and I dispute it with
my credit card and I got the money back
so it's like just it's worth it to you
guys
2.5% is definitely worth saving your
entire investment so tell us a little
bit more about that tell us about that
the problem we ran into at the factory
if there's any lessons we can learn from
it sure so there there's a there's a
specific phrase that I think this
Factory must have been trying to fraud
people with that if you included it
in a purchase order note in a PayPal
transaction I think it was like it was
something about a custom orders I can I
can go back and find the exact verbage
yeah I don't think this is a very common
thing so you know anyone who's watching
this don't think that you're spies
trying to screw you over on PayPal or
anything like that but they must have
read the Terms of Service very closely
and they slipped in kind of a term that
basically voided the guarantee that
goods and services provides on PayPal
and so when I made the claim they you
know they read that purchase order note
that somehow avoided PayPal ability to
side with me but it didn't matter
because I just disputed with my credit
card they sided with me they forced it
out of the PayPal of the you know
fraudulent Chinese manufacturer and I
got my money back literally within like
a few days when if I hadn't of pay that
extra 2.5 percent you know I may never
have even gotten started on Amazon
because it would have been such like a
devastating situation you never got the
products at all or there was problem the
quality issues or so there was there are
some quality issues basically what we
were seeing looked nothing like what we
were expecting so again it doesn't
happen very often but like you know
great talks about in is million dollar
cake study and like you know some of the
other guys who are out there doing you
know good work on Amazon it's incredibly
important to do things in a in a
succinct and systematic way and what I
mean by that is inspections right so
just because a manufacturer sends you
like a beautiful-looking high quality
sample does not necessarily mean that
the mass order produced units are going
to have that same level of quality which
is why it's so incredibly important to
actually you know make sure that you're
doing your due diligence getting an
inspection from a third party right it's
only like a hundred men a hundred
dollars a day for a one person to go out
for an entire day and they'll check like
specifics about you know if it's
electronics they'll check very specific
things that you outline and like they
have a set of standards for the most
part right I share a specific inspection
service that I use but I'm sure you know
you you could share one as well it's so
important to do that because they can
take a look at all this stuff in China
without you having to actually travel
all the way to China and look at this
stuff so just get an inspection take it
from me never ever skip out on that
hundred dollars cuz it's so again it's
so worth it seems like you
through some hurdles but overall it's
been very positive and I'm sure part of
your your attitude is a big part of that
we're um tell us a bit more about today
like how your life has changed because
of you deciding to make those career
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