#322 – Secrets Amazon Doesn’t Want You To Know With Leo Sgovio

#322 - Secrets Amazon Doesn’t Want You To Know With Leo Sgovio Speaker 1: Welcome to episode 322 of the AM-PM Podcast. I hope you're having a great holiday season. And I have a happy new year and get 2023 off to a great start. In this episode, I'm speaking with Leo Scovio. Leo is one of the smartest people in the space. He's one of these guys that likes to know why something is working the way it is. You know, he's the guy that will, as he'll say in the interview, take the radio and not listen to the music, but open up the radio to see how it works. And that's what we're going to be talking about today is unraveling how Amazon works and what we think the future is going to be. Enjoy the episode. Unknown Speaker: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast, where we explore opportunities in e-commerce. We dream big and we discover what's working right now. Plus, this is the podcast where money never sleeps. Working around the clock in the AM and the PM. Are you ready for today's episode? I said, are you ready? Let's do this. Let's do this. Here's your host, Kevin King. Speaker 1: Welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. How are you doing, man? Speaker 2: Hey, Kevin. Good morning. I'm good. How are you? Speaker 1: I'm alive and kicking. I'm alive and kicking. You know, I just heard you recently on the Serious Sellers Podcast with Bradley and I was a little bit jealous. I was like, man, I wanted to get Leo on before Bradley, but Bradley got you first. Speaker 2: That's right. Speaker 1: You know, I was down in my warehouse shipping calendars because this time of year I have a calendar business and what I do is when I'm down there is I listen to podcasts. So it's like mindless work, you know, putting these calendars in boxes and stuff, but I enjoy it because it more than gets me off of my desk and doing something different. And then I catch up on all the podcasts. So I was like listening to yours with Bradley and I listened to a bunch of others. You know, my wife is always telling me like, why don't you just hire that out? It's not the best use of your time. You know, you could get someone to do this for. Fifteen bucks an hour. I'm like, no, you know, I like going down there a couple of days a week and just doing this because it's like my man cave, you know, and it just gets me away from everything. And then I just listen to podcasts and learn stuff as I'm making money. So what's better than that? Learning while you're making money. Speaker 2: Exactly. Sometimes you can just think, you know, of what's your hourly rates, right? When you do things that you just enjoy doing. You're just going to do that because it makes you feel good, right? Speaker 1: Exactly. Yeah, exactly. And like I said, it breaks it up. So it breaks up some of the monotony and You know, there's times where I'm down there like, man, this, I just, man, I should just get someone to do this. This sucks. But there's other times where I'm like, you know what, this is like therapeutic and relaxing. And it's not permanent. You know, it's not like I'm going to be doing it all year long. It's a couple of days a week for a few months. And it's great. It's great for me. But speaking of great, you're one of the probably a lot of people may not know who exactly who you are, but you're one of the greatest minds probably in the Amazon space. You're always on the cutting edge of everything and it always fascinates me with some of the stuff that you come up with but a lot of people don't know that this E-commerce stuff and this is not really your background. You came over from Italy to the US and you were like a big-time DJ in Miami. Isn't that correct? Speaker 2: Yeah, when I actually left Italy, it was 2007. It's because a friend of mine told me that there was this cool place in the States called Miami, you know, where we could go and have some fun here. And so that's really the main reason why I left. Back in Italy, I was DJing, I was in the fashion industry. So just, you know, having a lot of fun. And, you know, Italy is the perfect place for that, right? So when we came here, I originally came to look for collaborations like DJs from the United States to bring over to Italy. And so I ended up staying here for a while. I remember getting just a visa for three months, tourist visa for three months. Then I met a girl. I ended up staying longer. Like obviously I left and then got back into the States because I couldn't stay more than 90 days. But I fell in love with this place. And over time, I actually ended up in Canada instead of the States because I couldn't really stay here. But I discovered a world that was totally new to me, but it was just very fascinating, which is the digital And back then, at the time, it was more about search engine optimization and then all of that, less e-commerce. But yeah, that's really why I ended up in this side of the world. Speaker 1: So how did that happen? So you're working as a DJ doing stuff in the music industry in Miami when you came here and did you just meet somebody that was in that and it fascinated you or were you just like surfing around bored one day at the house and saw some stuff or how did that process work to actually where you got into this digital marketing world? Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it was a little bit more elaborated than that. I left one, I think it was December that year, it was during the holidays and I went to visit some of the cousins that I had in Canada, in Toronto. And they used to own this very large travel business in Canada, similar to Expedia. And I remember visiting their office and I saw a bunch of people behind their computers, like developers working, everyone on the call, like talking to like, December is busy season in Canada, all this snowbirds going to the Caribbean, right? So it was like a busy office. And so at the time I went there and I'm like, what do you guys do here? And they started talking to me about selling trips online and it was done through a website. And this is 2007, like early, like Google was still at its infancy. And, um, and so I went to one of them, I said, what's the highest paying job in this company? Right. And they're like, well, And so I'm like, well, that's what I want to do. I want to learn that job. And so that's really how I was exposed to the digital marketing world. So I remember asking them if I could work in the company. We figured things out. I ended up getting sponsored by the company to work in Canada. And in the meantime, while I was waiting for the papers, I started studying search engine optimization and Google Analytics. And then from Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics, which is more an enterprise level analytics solution. Really, that's how I got into this space. But I was always fascinated by the technical aspect of what's behind a website or these analytic solutions. Never like attracted, like I'm a detailed guy, so I always liked websites that looked great, but I was more interested in understanding what was behind the website, how to build a website, you know, the source code and all of that. Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember when we first met you, I think, was it in Las Vegas, I think. It was me and Manny and Guillermo and we were at like some, I think it was Stratosphere or something like that. And we were out there for, I don't remember what it was. It was a Prosper show or it was something like that. It was like 2016 maybe? Yes. 2017? And then you were there for like some Adobe convention or something. And I don't remember exactly How it happened, but somehow we met up. And I remember when we met up at the Stratosphere, I don't know if you had just gotten into Amazon or maybe you hadn't gotten into Amazon yet, but it was like, I remember me and Manny sitting there like, damn, this guy is really smart. He actually knows his stuff. We need to get to know this guy a little bit better. Do you remember that? Speaker 2: I remember exactly when that happened. And I was there for an Adobe conference. It was happening next door to Prosper. And what got me to you guys, actually to Manny to begin with, was an episode on his podcast. And he was talking Black Hat with Casey Goss. And that episode, I think, was one of the most popular episodes at the time. And so when I was at this Adobe conference, I found out that there was Prosper happening next door. And I said to a colleague of mine, hey, you know, I'm just going to skip it for a few hours. I'm going to go see what this Prosper is all about. And then outside, I met you guys. It was you, Manny and Guillermo. And yeah, I remember that conversation actually was very, very interesting. We spoke about a lot of things and at the time I think it was all about understanding the Amazon algorithm, how to rank products. But yeah, that's how I met you, I remember. Speaker 1: Yeah, and then from there we actually, you ended up coming to, what was it, Hawaii? The Illuminati event, which is now called Helium 10 Elite, but back then it was called Illuminati. And you spoke, you brought your wife, and you spoke at this event that we were throwing in Kauai. And I remember you were up on the stage. It's the first time I'd actually seen you present something and you were just like blowing people's minds. I remember there's like, you know, the women in the audience, because you're a good looking guy, so the women in the audience were like, I just wish he would take his shirt off, you know, and I could just stare at him forever. And then the other, everybody else was just like with their mouth open because you were showing like, I think you played like an audio, like you had like recorded some conversation with some Bangladesh ranking guy that was doing like, uh, you want to show, you know, it's just like you just said about taking apart the radio. You're like, how are they doing this? I got to figure this out. So you like called them under this guys that, uh, that you want to hire them. You didn't really want to hire them, but you want to hire them. And you like recorded this whole call where he was like talking about exactly what he could do with like wishlists and, uh, I had the carts and whatever it was. And then you like took it a step further. You're like, look, look at guys, Amazon, you know, you're always afraid of what they know about you. This is what they know. And you put up some slide like, damn dude. And then you're like showing some other like black hat thing. You're like, you know, don't do this, but you need to know, you know, people were doing this to my account. So you're like, I had to figure out what the heck they're doing, because how do I combat this? If I don't know what they're doing, how do I, how do I counterattack it? So you like figured out exactly what they're doing. You're like, this is how you counterattack it. It was like fascinating stuff and you just blew people's minds. Speaker 2: Oh my God, Kevin, you have such a good memory. I don't even remember some of these details, but I do remember that recording. And you know, one thing about me, some people over the past few years have Got to know this, but, or understand this, but I, uh, it came across sometimes as this, you know, guy that is more into the black hat stuff, the gray hat stuff. But the truth is that I naturally, uh, I generally like to understand and learn how things work because I want to know who is it that I'm actually dealing with, competing with. This is back, you know, in my SEO days. We all know that there is black hat SEO, right? The link building, building blocks, artificially like, you know, manipulate your rankings. In order for me to be a good business owner, a good entrepreneur, I need to understand who's on the other side of the fence. You know, if these people are playing tricks, I need to learn the tricks. Otherwise, I won't be able to succeed as much as go further along as they do. And that's why I repeatedly and constantly try to understand how things work. I expose people. I expose strategies, black hat strategies that other sellers are using because if you're a new seller and you don't know what's going on in the space, you're just wasting your money, your savings that you work hard for. And I feel bad for these people, right? And that's why I try to open people's eyes. Now, obviously, I have fun along the way. That's really fun for me to understand that. Amazon is tracking these things. I remember when I found out that Amazon tracks the sound that your machine makes. Every computer makes a different sound and they call the audio fingerprint. So when you turn on your machine, there's a specific sound wave that your computer makes and Amazon and other websites, they use it to track that specific machine. So if they see that you're logging in an account And the sound that that machine makes is the same and you're logging in multiple ones while they all link them together. You can use different IP. You can use different user agent. But if the machine that makes the sound is the same, you're screwed. And so people don't know these things. Right. But for me, it's just fascinating, you know. Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember like you're always trying to figure like, I don't even know how you figured this out, but I remember last year we were at Howard Tai's event in Paris and there was like a hack contest and we were in this and Howard divided everybody up. I don't know, there's 30 or 40 of us there and he said, all right, everybody, it was kind of disorganized a little bit, but like everybody go to a room, choose a room and just split up and share hacks and choose the best one. And so everybody's like, well, what's, you know, okay, I'll go to this room, go to this room, go to this room. And you and I ended up in a room, it's like six or seven people in this room. And it was like probably the best room in the place because everybody else were in these other rooms and we're in this like one room and there's like four, Four or five of us, you know, I'm known for like the ninja hacks. You're known for some stuff. There's a Matt Altman was in there. There's a couple other guys that really know some cool stuff. And we're like, we get into a room like, shoot, man, I don't know if, you know, if we were in one, any of the other rooms, we would have won that room with our hack, but we're in this one room with like the all-stars and the stuff was just spewing just the, you know, the, the cool little tricks and cool little hacks. And I remember you, I thought I had a good one. I was like, I mean, I'm going to win this, whatever the, He was giving away, what, five grand or something like that or 10 grand. I don't remember what it was. Speaker 2: 10,000 cash, yeah. Speaker 1: It's 10,000 cash. Like, I got this, man. I got a good one. And I give mine and I'm like, all right. Everybody's like, that's awesome. That's awesome. Asking me questions, writing notes. And then you get up there and you're like, I got two, but let me give you the first one. And you get the first one and it's like how to reset the honeymoon period. You know, there's different things that are out there about, but then you had this like, no, everybody's like rolls her eyes. Yeah, we already know this one. What's your second one? You're like, wait guys, wait, wait, wait, let me show you. I have this new way, this new cool way that I just figured out to do this and you showed it. And I was like, Damn, I just lost 10 grand right there and you ended up winning the whole thing. But how did you, you don't have to give it away here because I was an NDA and under everything, but how did you figure that out? Was it trial and error or was it like you heard something from one person and then you tried something and then you put two and two together or how did you figure that out? Speaker 2: It's interesting that you asked me this, Kevin, because that actually method It was discovered by mistake. And then, you know, I appreciate you saying we have an NDA because other people have just shared it and sold it as there was their idea. But it's OK. This method was found by accident because I was trying to actually, like, launch a product. And by mistake, I deleted the ASIN to a flat file. And then when I re-uploaded it, I got assigned a new ASIN. And then I had to figure out with Amazon how to get the inventory back because now the inventory got all stranded. And so, you know, I'm on the phone with the Amazon catalog team trying to understand how to get my inventory back without pulling it all. And then the guy didn't even know if this, what I was suggesting him to do was going to work. And then I'm like, listen, just give it a try. If you have access to this tool, just please merge the two ASINs for me. And then he's on the phone with me and I'm, I'm refreshing Seller Central and it worked. I'm like, I'm like, thank you so much. That's it. You know, you can hang up the phone. And then I went back on Amazon and the BSR had changed. I'm like, wow, this is powerful. This honeymoon just got reset for this, for this product. So then I tried it again, but this time I did it myself. Just uploading flat files, you know, waiting in certain period, you know, like, but there's a specific way of doing it. And it worked again. I'm like, all right, so we got a method. And then that 10 grand was worth it though. Speaker 1: But not only did you win that back in May, but then in August, you came to the Billion Dollar Seller Summit. And I remember you were like, you'd asked me before, Kevin, what should I talk about? Or what should I do? Or how should I present this? And I gave you a few ideas and, and, and tips like people just want actionable stuff. You know, they don't want a bunch of fluff. They don't want a bunch of corporate bullshit or theory. They just want like, you know, Do this, this, this and this and you're going to have this result. And so you put together a presentation of several things like that and you ended up winning the whole thing again. So 2022, I think, has been a good year for you as far as like winning best speaker or best hack or whatever, everywhere you go. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Kevin, thank you. Actually, I always appreciate your advices. And I remember back in 2016, the Illuminati Mastermind, you came to me and said, wow, their information was By far the best, but it went way over my head. And since then, those words resonated with me. I always try to improve the delivery of the content and also trying to understand really what people on the other side, you know, were perceiving my content as, right. And so at BDSS, I try to really use a totally different type of structure for my content so that it was easily digestible, but also actionable items that, you know, broken into different kind of strategies that someone could just take it And implemented back with your team. So winning that to me was a validation point, but also very, very meaningful because the whoever chose the best speaker was actually the audience and not the organizers or, you know, anyway, it was a legit. When, uh, but yeah, 2022 was very, very rewarding for me. Um, just a month or so ago, I also got featured on Forbes. Um, so I, um, you know, I have, I have a very good, um, uh, kind of a goal, uh, for the next year as well. I, I, I, my goal is obviously to try and help as many people as possible because I know it's hard. You know, everyone wants to be an entrepreneur and they want to achieve, you know, good dreams, good financial freedom and all of it, but it's, it's not easy. Right. And I share this with Bradley as well on his podcast, but even like the software space is very crowded. So I have good intentions for next year, but I appreciate, you know, you specifically because you've been, you know, always, even though I asked you to mentor me, we haven't done that yet, but you've been always, you know, very honest with me and a good friend. So I appreciate it, Kevin. Speaker 1: I appreciate everything that you've done as well. How long have you actually been selling on Amazon? When did you actually first start? Did you start in private label or did you start in something else? When did you actually start getting your feet wet on this Amazon game? Speaker 2: Before Amazon, I actually sold on eBay. I used to sell shoes on eBay. I found a supplier from China back in, I think it was 2004. But then I didn't understand back then the opportunity until later 2015 when I found out about private label. So on Amazon, I went straight private label, never did wholesale. And I got into beauty space pretty much right away. My only mistake I would say is that I started selling in Canada instead of selling in the U.S. And it was kind of easier for me because I was based in Canada. My manufacturers were in Canada and so it was just easier for me to just get it from the manufacturer and ship it to the Amazon FBA in Canada. But that was also not as rewarding as my friends that I've been selling in the U.S. So if I had to start again, obviously I would scrap Canada. It's one tenth of the U.S., maybe smaller. And just the U.S. for sure. But yeah, private label I think for me has been always the best kind of way to go and build my own brand instead of promoting other people's products. Speaker 1: When did you actually enter the U.S. market? So you started selling in Canada. How long did it take you before you actually entered the U.S. market with your products and actually started making that the primary focus? Speaker 2: Uh, two years later, that's when I entered into, into U.S. Speaker 1: So like 2017? 2017. Yeah. Speaker 2: Mid 2017, that's when I entered the U.S. And, and right away I saw a huge, huge, huge difference between, um, operationally how the business, you know, was, was, um, running, but also, um, the numbers were completely different. Uh, what took me, you know, a month, uh, you know, to reach, A number in Canada and U.S. I was doing it in a day. And so at the time I understood that. And the problem is that it requires the same amount of effort and time. And, you know, I was just working, you know, 12, 15 hours a day. And so it was a no brainer for me that U.S. was definitely the place to sell, you know, Amazon.com. Speaker 1: Now, right around that same time, too, I'm guessing this probably goes back to you like to understand how things work. My podcast is not only were you selling in Canada and the U.S. your beauty products and your other stuff, but then you're like, I need to know more. And so you actually worked for Vyralaunch for a little while. You took a job with KCO or Vyralaunch. And for those of you that are listening, like what's Vyralaunch? I never heard of Vyralaunch. At one point it was Vyralaunch, Jungle Scout and Helium 10. Those were the three big, you know, they were all competing trying to, Become a dominant player in the space. Now it's Helium 10. Helium 10 is by far the biggest. And the other two are still there. But Vyralaunch basically, for all general purposes, is dead now. You took a role there as like a technology advisor or something like that. Was that just to kind of like get in the inside of the radio again kind of thing? Or what was that about? Speaker 2: Yeah, I met Casey, actually, the Illuminati mastermind. He was one of the speakers as well, if you remember. And at the time, Casey was this, you know, it was a god in the Amazon space. Everyone loved Casey. He had always some, you know, insights into the Amazon ecosystem. Speaker 1: Super smart guy. Speaker 2: One of the sharpest, obviously. And I remember one night having a quick chat with him. And I knew Vyral Launch, at the time Vyral Launch was known for their launches. Speaker 1: That's all they were doing back then. That's why they spoke at a Helium 10 event because they weren't doing software at that point. They were just doing launches. Speaker 2: That's right. And they had a big, big client, which I was following at the time. They were also in the beauty industry and I was following meticulously. I wanted to understand what it is they were doing. Speaker 1: Art naturals, right? Speaker 2: That's right. And so I went to Casey and they said, are these guys doing A, B and C? And at the time he couldn't really talk because they were, you know, his clients. But then he came back to me the day after and he said, we need to talk. So, we exchanged phone numbers. A week later, he calls me and is like, would you like to, you know, join Vyral Launch as head of innovation? We need someone like you, right? And, um, and what he asked me to do was exactly what I was doing from home. Just, you know, in my spare time was my hobby to just, you know, trying to figure out the Amazon algorithm. But this time Casey wanted me to do this for his company and, you know, pay me for it. So, obviously it was a no brainer for me. For a lot of my friends at the time, sellers, they thought I was going back to a 9-to-5 job. But I'm like, you guys don't get it. You know, this is my passion. I like to understand, you know, and this time I'm actually building software with this knowledge. And I helped, at the time, Casey build the What's Today, their keyword research tool. So that, you know, I got a preliminary work, a good, you know, 40, 50% of the kind of like the core, the algorithm of that tool was actually built by myself. With regards to finding the root keywords and building that database of keywords that then was used to seed other ones, which was then turned into the Amazon, sorry, their keyword research tool. But yeah, it was also a very good experience for sure. And Manny was very upset about that because Manny wanted me to be part of William 10. I remember. Speaker 1: I remember. Speaker 2: Yeah. He said, Manny, you're just one week too late. I feel bad now. I don't want to turn my back to this guy. He's a cool guy, right? But yeah. Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember it went from you speaking in Hawaii to, hey, Kevin, on the Helium 10 Elite, Leo's not allowed to come on. Yeah. Because you were working for the competition. And it's like, no Leo right now. Speaker 2: Yeah, it's true. Yeah. And that happened recently as well. But then I was given, again, the white flag. instead of the red card. This industry, you know, it's like that. And I understand and I appreciate people's, you know, passion, obviously, and roles in this community. But it's also very important to be, you know, integral, I would say, and always yourself, you know, like there's always opportunities around the corner. But, you know, sometimes people look at just the dollar sign. They don't look at, you know, ethically or even like, you know, long term what their opportunity really means. And so, you know, like eventually, people like, like you said, you know, they have to make some decisions, for example, putting me on the side for the time being, because you're part of the competition. But, you know, like just, just learning experiences, I guess. Speaker 1: I mean, that evolved into you actually creating your own software, ConvoMat, which we'll talk about here in just a minute. But before we get to that, what do you, I mean, you know a lot of different people in the software space. You worked for Vyral Launch. You know the guys at Helium 10 really well. You know the people at, you know, some of the others out there. Where do you think this is going? There's so much software out there now. You know, there's a lot of sellers that I started selling and maybe selling didn't work out for them or they figured, Hey, this just takes too much money for inventory. And, you know, it's a constant struggle. Let me just go sell digital air and create a software tool, you know, that solves a problem where whether it's inventory or. PPC or influencers or whatever. And now, you know, when you and I first started back in 2015, there's like five different softwares, maybe. And now there's probably a thousand or if not more that are out there. And most of them, you know, probably have 30, 50, 100 members. You know, a lot of them are small. Some of them are successful. But where do you think that's going? Do you think there's going to be a consolidation there? Do you think there's going to be a lot more of that? But what do you think is going to happen with all these All these little tools or do you think there's room for all these little niche tools for sellers? Speaker 2: Kevin, my opinion on this is very, very straightforward. I don't think there is going to be a consolidation simply because each one of these tools are built using different technologies. There are so many different programming languages out there. Only maintaining one tool is very, very difficult and complex in the back end. And now aggregating and consolidating multiple ones becomes a real struggle, especially when you're looking to automate things and make things easier for the seller. Today, we're very used to getting a response, whether it's a purchase online or a software, but we want an immediate response from any kind of tool or interaction that we have on a daily basis in our lives. And that is now possible through technology, of course, but not when technology becomes unnecessarily complex. And that's why I don't believe in necessarily aggregation, you know, from that perspective, unless... You know, that is done in a methodical and very, you know, strategic way. Like what Adobe, for example, did in, you know, by integrating Photoshop with Illustrator and with all of that, you know, required a team of hundreds of engineers. And also it took years. Like Adobe's been around for several years. Right. And, you know, this space right now, it's Crowded, but not, you know, to the level of or to the size of Adobe. Yes, it's very, very large space, the Amazon ecosystem. But like I said, you know, to Bradley once, it ultimately comes down to the seller. There could be a thousand different software solutions out there, but this is not 2016 anymore, right? Where, you know, you launch a software, everyone is looking for the best keyword research tool, the best product research tool. And so as long as you can blow them away with a cool UI and some marketing, you can win the customer, right? Right now, sellers are very, very mature and experienced and they know when the data looks fake. Or when a data point is actually legit. And that's why we see some software companies right now getting a lot of traction because it makes sense, you know, like the story behind it and the data, like everything is making sense. And so the sellers actually believe and then they validate that belief through real data. But coming up with something new today is not easy. And, you know, like unplugging your Allium 10 account to, you know, join another software that is perhaps similar might damage your account instead of helping you because now you're losing all the historical data. You don't know anymore what happened, you know, in 2019 when perhaps your price was a dollar cheaper and that's why you sold 300 units or like there's a lot that goes behind it. And so I think innovation obviously is always going to be needed. But it's not, you know, as easy to innovate as a few years ago, because now Amazon is even coming up with their own tools. Like we didn't have the brand analytics in 2016, 17, 18 until like two years ago, a year and a half ago, we didn't have the query, the search query report. Speaker 1: We used to, if you wanted that information, you'd have to have a connection over, usually in China, and actually pay to get these. Remember, was that 2018? I think it was 2018. Maybe it was 2017. 2018, somewhere around there, there was a hot thing about everybody was paying big money to get all these PPC reports. Backing keywords and stuff out of these leaks that were mostly coming out of China and India at the time. Do you remember all that? And now Amazon is just like giving that stuff to us on a platter. Speaker 2: Yeah. And you know, that's why I think Amazon, it's kind of like, I'm seeing again, just Google, It's a deja vu for most for me. If you've been in the Google space long enough, you're just seeing now Amazon coming up with similar tools and similar data. And so that's why I think that the space now is becoming a lot more mature. And that's why, even though there are a thousand different software companies, some people become loyal to the people behind the software. Like some people work with me because they like Leo. Is my software better than another one? Maybe in some parts, yes, and some not. But eventually, you know, people get, they trust into the person behind the software company. And that's what makes a software like Manny was very successful. I think also for his charismatic, you know, personality, right, in the space. And, you know, even now when he launched the NFT project, just people throw money at him because, you know, they trust him. You know, he did very good in the industry, left a good footprint. But, you know, it's hard to replicate that success over and over, right, in the industry in general. I'm not talking about many in particular right now. Speaker 1: Speaking of replicating success, you basically just launched, I think you just told me, you launched a new product like two months ago and you've already got this product up over $100,000 in sales and you're using not necessarily the traditional method. You can't do the search find buys anymore and some of the ManiChat stuff. People are still doing some of this and it still exists. It's not the big fad and the big craze like it was. So you've got to get more innovative now and you've got to use, some of it is innovation, some of it is just tried and true marketing techniques, you know, and trying to game the system. But you just took a product, you just launched a new product from zero to 100K in about two months and real sales, not like promotional sales or whatever. How did you do that? And I think you developed some sort of tool to actually, can you talk about that a little bit? Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is actually my new product. We launched it I think at the beginning of September and it was a totally new niche for me. So I didn't really have a lot of experience but I truly believed in this niche and so At the beginning, I spoke about this at the BDSS in Austin about the review strategy with Vine. We obviously prepared the listing to be successful, but the strategy for the launch was totally different than the traditional search, find, and buy. We wanted to actually invest a lot more into long-term branding. And, uh, specifically collaborations with influencers. So, uh, we planned this launch, um, very strategically around certain key dates. For example, the prime, early prime that happened in October. Um, and so we scheduled some collaborations, uh, with creators on TikTok, uh, just before that. And I remember we were doing an average of 20, 25 units a day. And then when the influencer posted on TikTok, we went up to 120 and then we kept going up to 150. And then Prime Day kicked in. We did 200 at a point where we just went out of stock. And since then, we haven't been able to ship a good chunk of inventory on a boat. We just kept DHL, you know, like every week because, you know, we're selling so many units that the boat will take too long and we don't want to miss out on You know, this Q4 rush, right? And so we're just shipping every week a couple of thousand units, but that's costing us a fortune in shipment. But yeah, like so what we did, we tried to schedule every week a collaboration with influencers. And that was also done in a strategic way based on their audience instead of just going after the numbers. Speaker 1: What do you mean by that? Speaker 2: The average seller goes after the keyword search volume. They go after the number of followers, right? They just focus on the eye level metric. What I went after was the actual persona that resonated with our brand. And by persona, I mean the audience of these specific influencers. So we took a lot of time to research these people and see what kind of content they posted over the past 30 days, what type of reactions they were getting from the audience. And then eventually we partnered up with a few of them. Which got a really huge, good response from their audience. And in fact, what I believe, I don't know exactly, and that's why we built Convomat Connect. I don't know exactly if the video went viral or somebody else posted it because we, since then the sales never went down. And so I believe that what happened was we drove external traffic, which is something that Amazon is in love with. Speaker 1: From TikTok. Speaker 2: From TikTok. I was also doing some Google ads at the time, Google campaigns. And then, you know, Prime, early Prime kicked in for a couple of days. So the sales kept going up. And I think at some point Amazon was promoting our product via email. Because we kept getting a bunch of sales after Prime. Now, no influencer campaigns, no prime, just a bunch of sales. And so I think they were just promoting these products. I remember Casey Goss used to call this the marketing machine, I think, or something like that, when you basically like now get featured into the Amazon own marketing newsletters and they feature you in some of their advertising material. So that's, I think, what happened. But we constantly now do influencer marketing. The difference is that with the new software that I built now, we have insights. So we have full visibility over what's happening. Speaker 1: So you can you can track the conversions and everything. Speaker 2: You can track everything. Right. So we also have an integration with the attribution. We see even if people have added to cart or page views, but we also see if that influencer video got, you know, featured or got shared on TikTok, sorry, on Instagram or YouTube or somewhere else. And we also now getting traffic from another channel. So this way we can then pinpoint and perhaps go back to the influencer and say, hey, next time you post, forget about TikTok, just go on YouTube, because that's where we get most of the sales from. So that's really what's making now like this being more of a game changer for us, like the analytics and insights behind this type of strategies. Speaker 1: So basically you, just to summarize for this new product, you came out, you first put it up on Amazon and you went and got a bunch of Vine reviews just to get those initial reviews. And then once you got a bunch of Vine reviews that came back good, then you started this influencer campaign on TikTok and a few ads on Google. Yes. Did you run some PPC on Amazon as well? Speaker 2: No PPC at all. Speaker 1: No PPC, no search, find, buy, no sending an email from your house list or something? No, none of that. Speaker 2: None of that. We really didn't have a chance to do it, Kevin, because we ran out of stock and we ordered, I think, the beginning 3,000 units. Then we placed another order of five and then another 10. So we just didn't have time. I couldn't do PPC because I didn't have enough stock. Yesterday I had a call with a guy from Israel. And the strategy is just PPC. And I said, guys, I love what you do, but my mind is completely the opposite. I don't do PPC at all. So I appreciate people that know how to launch products with PPC. But in this case, it was just branding, advertising through TikTok, auction advertising, collaborations with the creators on TikTok. Speaker 1: So how much are you having to pay these creators? Like when you, when you collaborate with them, you give them a commission or an affiliate commission or you pay them a flat up, a flat fee up front or a combination? Speaker 2: So with some of them, we, we couldn't do the affiliates. Now we can, because we come on Connect, we can actually track that. And so we are now proposing them an affiliate commission on top of their collaboration fee. But the lady that really initiated that kind of launch, like that viral activity actually on TikTok, it only costed us $75 for that post. Speaker 1: Hmm. Speaker 2: So to me, that's really a no-brainer. The ROI on that campaign, if I measure it now, It's probably like, you know, seven figures. It's crazy. Speaker 1: It's crazy. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, it was a little bit too manual based on how I like to run things because we literally went through maybe 500 profiles. And God really maybe four or five replies. That's really the pain point today when it comes to working with influencers. A lot of them don't open their messages through TikTok. They don't even receive the message because the platform is kind of broken right now. Unless you're connected, you cannot communicate with them. So it's a little bit difficult to get a hold of them. And a lot of them also use managers, you have to communicate with them, you know, like, so, um, this is one of the reasons why I ended up building this platform because we wanted to make it easier for, um, and I normally build platforms for myself. And then eventually some of my friends like, Oh man, can I use this? Can I use your platform? And then it becomes a SaaS. But I know like I, I always, um, build it for my, for my own business. And to your reaction, this is something I wanted to mention earlier, building software. Like, you know, for people that have failed, maybe doing private label, it's an alternative way to make money. Problem is that I recently hired a developer and he built a similar solution in the past. And when he saw mine, he's like, oh, wow. He said, I can tell that you're a seller. The way you build this thing is exactly like, you know, the UI and the UX is exactly for an Amazon seller. So yeah, like we, I worked on a similar project before and does the same thing at the end of the day, but yours is way easier to use. So, you know, a lot of, I think the software companies also don't succeed because of that because they don't sell on Amazon. They don't go through the pain themselves. Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you. I mean, I think that's some of these big corporations that are doing software. You got a lot of developers that have never sold, don't understand it. And I think it's critical that someone that's developing software either be an active seller or have recent experience as a seller because it makes all the difference. You can just tell. And it's huge. You and I are going to see each other here shortly. It's almost the new year and you and I are going to be speaking at an event in Brooklyn, New York, the ASGTG event that Ed does. That's coming up, I think, like January 10th or 11th or something like that. Have you ever been to this event? Speaker 2: I have. I've been there a couple of times. It's probably one of the most overwhelming events. Speaker 1: Have you spoken at it or have you just attended? Speaker 2: Just attended, yes. Speaker 1: Yeah, so you're in for it. I've spoken at this event like three times and you and I are both speaking at this event. This audience, for those of you who don't know, ASGTG is an event that's put on every year by Ed Rosenberg up in Brooklyn. And in Brooklyn is the largest Jewish community of Amazon sellers out there. Some of these guys are doing wholesale, some of them are doing FBA. It's a very big group. I think there's some statistic like 7% of all sales on Amazon worldwide come out of one zip code in Brooklyn. There's some really big sellers. These guys are intense. They're eager to learn. They're eager to get knowledge. They come to this event. They don't go to a lot of other events. You'll see some of them sometimes at different events, but a lot of them, they just stay in their own community. They stay in their own world. So when you and I come in there, we're like fresh meat. We're like, oh my gosh, you know, some of the techniques that you and I have shared is brand new to them, you know, because they're not exposed to some of these other events by choice. And so when we go in there and we speak on stage, we're blowing minds with stuff. And when you get off stage, all I can say is make sure you go to the bathroom before you do your talk because you're not going to be able to go to the bathroom or get a drink of water for about two hours after the talk because you will be surrounded when you get off that stage by 50 of them. And they'll follow you everywhere you go asking you questions. This event has probably the best buffet in the entire Amazon space. The food there is just over the top. It's a really cool event. It's a one-day event, but it's one of my favorite events to do. You and I are both going to be there speaking. It's going to be awesome. Speaker 2: Yeah, Kevin, likewise, I'm super excited to seeing you. And it's always a pleasure to even chat with you and see what you're up to. But I'm excited about this event in New York. It's my first time speaking at the SGTG. But I remember last year, I agree, the food was amazing. I really enjoyed it. But the level of sellers was by far the best one. These sellers in Brooklyn definitely know what you're doing. They're very advanced and the level of like sophistication and operations behind their brands is just, you know, blows my mind. So I'm not surprised to see or to hear that that zip code in New York is, you know, like probably, what did you say? Speaker 1: 97% of all sales worldwide on Amazon. Speaker 2: That's impressive. Speaker 1: So, if people want to learn more about this new software tool you have for influencers or get in touch with you for any reason, how would they do that? Speaker 2: Yeah, the best way to actually reach out to me is through Facebook or LinkedIn. My handle on both is Leo Sgovio as my first and last name. And if they're interested in ConvoMath Connect, the beta is opening in probably two to three weeks, probably just on board 10 to 15 people for now. And then they can go to ConvoMath.com or send me an email through the website as well and I'll be happy to onboard them. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Leo, I appreciate your time today. This has been fun. We could probably keep talking here for a long time. We'll have to do it again and talk all about the AI and how that's going to influence everything we're doing in e-commerce. We'll have to revisit that later this in 2023 at some point. Speaker 2: Yes, Kevin, let's do it. I think it'll be a fun episode for sure. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, we'll see you in just a few days in New York, man. Have a great New Year and we'll talk to you soon. Speaker 2: You too, Kevin. I'll see you soon. Happy holidays. Speaker 1: All right. Thanks. Speaker 2: Bye. Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed that talk with Leo and myself and if you can make it out to ASGTG in New York in January. You can find some information on their website and meet us in person. I look forward to seeing you there if you're able to make it to that event. We'll be back again next week with another episode. In the meantime, I hope you have a great New Year's and a great start to 2023. I just want to leave you with these words of wisdom before we go as we head into 2023. Remember, the people that you spend time with determines who you become. The people you spend time with determines who you become. So love your family and choose your peers. The people you spend time with determines who you become. Love your family and choose your peers. We'll see you next week. Unknown Speaker: Thank you for watching.