#349 – Mastering the Amazon Game: Fernando’s Insights for Growth to 9-Figures

#349 - Mastering the Amazon Game: Fernando’s Insights for Growth to 9-Figures Speaker 1: This is episode 349 of the AM-PM Podcast. This week my guest is Fernando Campos. He's an OG when it comes to selling on Amazon. Been doing it since around 2014. He's grown a company to 8-figures and exited it. He's grown on his way to growing a company to 9-figures now. He's also grown a software company in the space and sold it just a super super smart guy and the way they're doing things on this on this way to 9-figures is not what everybody else is doing. Everybody else is focusing on creating brands and avatars and all that kind of stuff. But that's not what they're doing and he's pretty confident that he's going to be able to hit 9-figures doing it a slightly different way. He'll talk about that and more. And don't forget this summer. I'm debuting the billion-dollar sellers newsletter. It's 100% free for listeners of this podcast, so be sure to go to BillionDollarSellers.com and put in your email address and name to get on the beta list so you can be one of the first to get this brand new newsletter. It's going to be chock full of advice and tips and strategies and hacks for e-com and Amazon sellers. BillionDollarSellers.com. 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: Fernando Campos, welcome to the AM-PM Podcast. How are you doing, man? Speaker 2: Good, Kevin. It's great to see you. It's been a long time. Speaker 1: It has been. We were just talking before we started that it's been at least four years, I guess, since we saw each other at an event. But I think we've known each other a little bit, or at least known of each other a little bit longer than that. Speaker 2: For sure. Yeah. Yeah, it's been too long, for sure. But yeah, it's nice to see your face. Speaker 1: When did you actually get into this whole e-commerce game? I know you've been in it since I have pretty much, so at least 2015 or did you start before that? Speaker 2: We started in 2014 actually. Towards the end of 2014 is when we actually got into Amazon. Speaker 1: It was like three of you that were partners or something, right? Speaker 2: So the actual our physical products business was just Nick and I. But and then I think what I guess what built more of like I guess our identity within this space was when we did Seller Tradecraft with Anthony. And then so we were partners specifically in Seller Tradecraft and then kind of pivoted that or kind of leveraged that audience specifically to help us grow Pixel 5. Speaker 1: So what was Seller Tradecraft was training, right? Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah, it was like a kind of started like with a bigger Facebook group and then we kind of built out the YouTube channel as well. So it's kind of a community and then we I started kind of marketing a course, which did pretty well, actually. We were pretty excited about it. But when we kind of got the opportunity to start PixelPhi and partner with Leo Limon, we realized the bigger opportunity was to build the SaaS product. And so we kind of diverted most of our resources and effort towards that. Speaker 1: So you kind of just wound down the seller trade craft and focus it more on the SaaS product. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, we still were pretty engaged with the seller trade craft community for a long time to kind of help kickstart Pixelify and drive a lot of the awareness specifically for Pixelify. But we stopped actively promoting the course and try and then naturally just kind of I think one on one replaced the other in terms of like our effort and focus for sure. Speaker 1: That software came out of a need that you saw in your own business because you guys were doing 8-figures, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, we were well into the 8-figures at the time. Speaker 1: And so you saw a need when you're launching products and stuff or some some things and it's called deep linking, I believe, just weren't registering or weren't working right when you could be on a mobile device and go into an app or something like that. That was part of it, right? Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. So, I mean, I think at the time, well, you were allowed to do super. You are, I guess it was not necessarily you were allowed, but People were using super URLs pretty consistently. And so I think there was just always questions around what's the best super URL. And so I think what Pixelify did really well was it made it extremely easy to create a new super URL, but then also allow you to pixel your audience, which was math. Speaker 1: You could put like a Facebook and a Google pixel together and so that you could retarget them on those. Speaker 2: Exactly. Speaker 1: Yeah, those channels. Speaker 2: Yeah, which was huge. And then it was also coinciding with kind of like the rise of many chat. And so I think that was also huge at the time in terms of people trying to figure out chatbots. So and then, you know, again, having like the deep links, like you were mentioning earlier, where it would natively open, let's say the Amazon app was really helpful, so that if you're having a conversation with someone through messenger, then instead of them clicking on a link, and then having To go to the browser and log into Amazon, which is obviously going to create a lot of friction, then a deep link would automatically open the Amazon app natively on your iPhone, which makes it a much better customer flow. And so that was a lot of what we were well-known for at the time. Speaker 1: That's a problem that still exists today with Amazon. Amazon does the attribution. They'll give you that 10% bonus if you put some certain tags and link it over to your storefront or whatever. But that stuff, people are complaining it's not accurate and a lot of times it doesn't work on mobile because there's no deep linking. Totally. So a lot of people are like, I'm only getting half of the sales I should be. Maybe I'm just better off just being an associate, an affiliate and taking commission off of everything that's put into the cart rather than just the 10% off of my stuff and because I'm missing half of it already. And it's a valid argument. I know some people that tested that and they said, yeah, to heck with attribution. I'm just going to be an affiliate. And if someone adds my product to their cart, I'm attribution. I get that 10%. That's nice. But at the same time, if they also go and buy a TV, I don't get any piece of that versus if I'm an associate or Amazon calls affiliates associates. If I'm that, I get a piece of that. And so they did the math and they're like, we can actually make more money By not being an attribution, then if we are doing the affiliate stuff and so they quit. Now Amazon, that may change if Amazon fixes the issue with like the deep linking, maybe those numbers will change. But yeah, that's one of the problems right now. But that's cool how you guys were able to solve that. So how did you actually get drawn into this e-commerce business back in 2014? Did you just see a webinar somewhere and say, hey, I'm going to jump on this? Or what brought you into it? Speaker 2: So my business partner and I came from tech. And so we'd both done well. Like, you know, I was employee number two and then the head of sales at like a Y Combinator backed company back then. And so I got basically paid to learn how to start a business. You know, everything from hiring salespeople to account managers, like helping with marketing. I think being there that early basically gave me the confidence of like, okay, I can start a business for sure. And then, you know, Nick was one of my best friends. We'd worked together prior. And so we knew that we wanted to go into e-commerce because a lot of our closest friends had done well, whether it was on Kickstarter or on their own e-commerce platforms. And we knew kind of as business guys that we would do better in e-commerce than we would in tech, not being technical, not being able to develop software. And so we knew that overall, we were going to be an e-commerce for like for the next kind of company that we build. And then and then truthfully, we kind of messed around with like our own Shopify website for about five months. Speaker 1: But really, you tried to develop your own type of yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: Website to actually be your own marketplace kind of thing. Speaker 2: Exactly. Yeah. Kind of our own retailer, you know, kind of buying products at wholesale, um, and then, and then reselling them like through, uh, their own platform, which was okay. Um, you know, we, we grew our users really quickly. I think we were growing like, I don't know, five to 10% week over week. But when we, when we modeled out our numbers, we just realized like, oh man, to going back to making like, I think a hundred grand a year, which we were making more than that at the time, like prior to quitting, but like just going back to that, like kind of minimum, I guess, quality of life, it was going to take 18 months. And then I was like, I'm going to run out of money way faster than that. And so we kind of put the, The passion project kind of on pause and we're like, okay, we just need to make money. And so we had heard of a lot of people making money like buying and selling on eBay, uh, which is kind of funny now. And like in hindsight, you know, and there was like Tara peak and you just kind of hear people doing well there, but, and then, so we started researching that model and then. You know, as we kind of, um, we're starting to research it a little bit more, like we get an Amazon package, uh, uh, my business partner's place. And then he brings it inside and we just kind of like look at each other. It's like, wait, why are we going to sell on eBay? If we buy everything on Amazon, it's like clearly where Everything is moving and then so at the time we were like, I don't even know if you can sell on Amazon truthfully and yeah, basically we kind of Googled around found like, you know, there was like the amazing selling machine at the time and like what we didn't like take the course we ended up kind of watching a lot of like YouTube and then hiring our coach specifically in the early days that really helped us kind of Get started in the space, but that's kind of how we fell into Amazon. Speaker 1: And that evolved over a number of years into 8-figures or do you guys were pushing 9-figures? Speaker 2: We've hit cumulatively 9-figures, well into the 9-figures, but like annually, we've never hit 9-figures yet. Soon, hopefully soon. Speaker 1: Now you're still running that business, right? Or have you sold part of it? Speaker 2: So we sold a lot of our home and kitchen brands back in 2020. And then we also sold Pixelphy in 2021. So we've exited those two. And then now we're building more of a portfolio of supplement brands. And then we also have the agency Marketplace Ops. Speaker 1: So even after selling those two, you're still on pace to hit with what's left hit 9-figures. Speaker 2: So we actually sold pretty much everything back then and then restarted and then yeah. Speaker 1: Okay. So you took a whole exit and then it's like, all right, let's now we know what we're doing. Start fresh. We've got some good capital behind us. Speaker 2: Yeah. We kept a little bit. We kept like a small piece, but and then and then, yeah, we've rebuilt. Yeah, the supplements portfolio, so it's a little bit more cohesive versus before we were in all these different categories. And then, yeah, now we're still a long ways away to get to 9-figures, but we're definitely into the 8-figures. And yeah, that's what we're building towards. Speaker 1: So in the home and kitchen brands that you sold, were those to aggregators or strategic buyers or who did you? Speaker 2: Aggregators. Speaker 1: Aggregators? How are those brands? Have you checked in on them? How are they doing now? Speaker 2: They've done really well. You know, I think we were really focused on just the US market. Where they had the capital to expand to other international markets. And so I think they've done well. It was a great product line. It had great reviews and great margins, truthfully. And so they were able to do really well with just more time and attention. Thankfully, we didn't build one of those brands that kind of like plummets by 50% overnight. And so, yeah, I think with kind of with global reviews and everything, they were able to do really well. Speaker 1: So was that brand, was it like, did y'all put a lot of effort into the branding or was it just more like, let's just find some stuff in Home and Kitchen that sells and we can dominate on? Speaker 2: Yeah. Good question. It was more of the latter. Yeah. Speaker 1: So we, we, it was more of a hodgepodge of products rather than a true like branding effort. Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say we're not necessarily the best at like creating like a true like omni-channel brand yet. It's something that we definitely want to focus on, I think. Uh, but yeah, I think as of right now, we're definitely like I'm experts on Amazon. And so I think when I think about it, you're kind of two primary goals, right? As an e-commerce brand, it's one is you're increasing... And I didn't make this up. I actually just learned this from a YPO buddy the other day, but that was really insightful. You have two goals as a CEO, right? You have one to increase your cash flow and number two is to build a moat. And there's very few things, especially when you're in the early stages that are doing both because naturally like you're kind of investing in your cash flow in the short term to build your moat for the long term, if that makes sense. And so. I think we're at the point right now where we're starting to like divert more resources towards like that like long-term moat. But I would say like 80-90% of our effort is really just focused on increasing that cash flow. And so that's typically what we've done and just kind of how we think about things. Speaker 1: So with the supplement brand, you're still just focusing, you're saying you're still just focusing more on the cashflow than actually truly bringing it into a someone, an avatar or lifestyle or something like that. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think as of right now, but we do have the advantage that we have like multiple brands. And so some kind of make more sense to, to build like a buyer persona around and create community and try to get to like the, you know, thousand true fans, things like that. Uh, but yeah, I would say all of them right now are like more Amazon native brands, I would say. Speaker 1: So why did you go into, after selling, why did you go into supplements? That's one of the most difficult, hardest, cutthroat... A category has huge margins on paper. You buy a bottle of something for a buck or two and sell it for 30 or 40. But by the time you add in a $50 PPC cost on each one, I mean, yeah, you can make it if the people stick with it or buying it every month, I guess, lifetime value. But what made you guys to say, you know what? To hell with it. We're going to go in here and we're going to compete where all the nasty guys are. Speaker 2: Yeah. You know, I mean it can be nasty. I think you're totally right. I think, you know, I think there's certain categories that are worse than others for sure. Like, you know, I, I think always like the CBD category, the, the keto testosterone boosters, those have always been really notorious. And so those aren't really the ones that will like play in. Uh, but I think, When it came down to is we really liked the consumables idea just naturally because you have repeat purchases, you have more predictability. And then, yeah, like you said, supplements have great margins. So that was a big piece. But then there's also we had like really cool ideas of how to differentiate. We like the I can repeat order like frequency where some products, you know, maybe in consumables might get ordered once every four months, every six months, maybe even every nine months, uh, where supplements, we saw that based on the data that we have, it's actually reordered a little bit more frequently. And so we were pretty excited about all those kind of pieces. And so that's kind of why we moved into it. Speaker 1: So when you're launching a new supplement, how do you forecast that? If you're launching a new supplement, I'm just saying it's a testosterone booster. I know that's not what you're doing necessarily, but let's say it was. I'm going to go into this field. I think I've got good margins here. I've got a good product. It's made in the USA or whatever with all natural ingredients and all that kind of good stuff. And I go into it, and I see the cost. And I know I'm not going to make any money on this initial sale on Amazon. The only way I'm going to make money It's on future buys, but I'm not sure how often people are going to buy this. One, I don't know if my product is better than anybody else's or what if other competition comes in and undercuts me and people switch because it's the same ingredients. How do you forecast that out to know this is a good risk or this is a good we should we should give this a shot or you just give it a shot and roll the dice and cut what doesn't work? Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's more of the latter. I think it's actually really similar. In a sense to launching a home and kitchen product or any kind of one-time purchase product that you would typically buy from China, you might start with whatever, 3,000, 5,000, 7,000 units, just depending on your size and how big you're going into the product. But I would say, Yeah, in terms of forecasting, which is a great question. I mean, we're just looking at the daily sales rate and how that's changing over time. And so naturally, as the product becomes more and more mature, then subscribe and save is helping you stabilize or increasing your floor in terms of sales, right? Because you have more and more subscribers, ideally, as long as you're delivering a good product. And so I actually do think it helps a lot with product predictability in the long term, obviously. But in the short term, when you're trying to figure out that initial order, it's pretty much the same thing as if you're ordering a product from China. Speaker 1: Are you selling these just on Amazon or you also sell them on your own website where you can maybe get the lead off of Amazon, use that as the lead gen, and then send them over to your Shopify for all the recurring to where you don't have to pay all those Amazon commissions and everything. Speaker 2: Yeah. We're really trying to focus better than we have in the past. But yeah, really trying to focus on the channels that we're best at. And so we don't really do any like off Amazon like channels, not even Walmart, which I know would be like the easiest next step. Don't do Shopify. Don't do Amazon or sorry. We don't do Shopify. We don't do Walmart. And we're really just focused on on scaling our Amazon strategy right now or like presence. And then we'll probably build out like a more specific DTC team eventually. With that kind of increased cash flow, but then again, helping us build that moat for the long term. Speaker 1: Is this you and Nick again on this one? Speaker 2: Yep. Speaker 1: So are you looking, are you trying to build this to sell it? Are you, are you building this to support a lifestyle and you've invested and put away all the money from your exits or what's the goal here on this one? Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a good question. Speaker 1: Or you just want to make a difference in people's lives and give them the best health they could possibly have. What's your, what's your goal? Speaker 2: You know, I think we don't really have any intention of selling right now. I think we, I really focus on building like a great company. I mean, we've had a lot of the same team members like kind of throughout the exits, which is really cool. We've worked together for a long time. And truthfully, it's just like a like a sports team. Right. We just get better and better at working together, like working through problems. My relationship with Nick is stronger than ever, but then also with a lot of the people that have worked with us for five plus years, going on some going on six now, which is really cool. And so I think, yeah, there's nothing really that either of us are that excited to go sell and go work on something else. We don't have that next like project truthfully. And so, yeah, I think a lot of the motivation now comes from I'm from taking care of the team, like creating a better lifestyle for them. I think, um, helping them hit like, you know, kind of financial milestones or, you know, helping them like buy their first homes, stuff like that. Uh, but yeah, I mean, I think also for our customers, like, yeah, I think this is like the best way that we know how to like create change, I think in terms of like healthy habits and, you know, can we create better content around that, create better products. And so I think all of that is really kind of what drives us at least right now. Speaker 1: I think there's a lot of truth and validity what you're saying. Double down on what you know. You're saying you're an expert on Amazon. That's what you know. We're not going to try to figure out Walmart right now, Shopify right now, because if we take the same resources in that same time of our people and yourself, And put that to Amazon, we can get more value squeezing Amazon than we can going over to Shopify or Walmart, which is a valid, a very valid concern and a reason why a lot of people maybe shouldn't be trying to spread themselves too thin. But on the flip side of that, people say you have all your eggs in one basket. If Amazon gets finicky with you, you're down and you have nothing else to go to. But I always say that nothing else to go, if you are on Shopify or Walmart, that's not much to go to in most cases. So it's not like you might still laying off a hundred people, you might lay off 90 if you're on Walmart or Shopify. But what do you see that's different now versus when you started? How has this Amazon game evolved over the last nine years since you started? Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's a good question. I mean, it's night and day, right? I think, yeah, ultimately when we started back in 2014, 2015, basically anybody with a pulse could probably do pretty well. I think the bar was pretty low. And then I would just say it just gets more and more. Competitive, but the opportunity also becomes bigger over time. And so you don't need to have whatever 30% market share over a category. Maybe 10% is bigger today just because like Amazon is so much bigger. And I would just say That just like I think the stuff that kind of worked back then obviously doesn't work as nearly as much now. Obviously, you can't buy reviews. You can't do superheroes. You can't do nearly as much like gray hat tactics. And so it's now way more important than ever to find a balance between, yeah, again, like optimizing for cash flow and building that like long-term moat. Um, and then figuring out how do you, um, yeah, how do you build teams? How do you like build like a strong brand identity identity? How do you, um, yeah. Yeah. How do you navigate this more challenging and competitive landscape of Amazon for sure? Speaker 1: When people always are asking what, and when they, when they see sellers like yourself, they're, they're just crushing it. They're like, what's working today when it comes to launching a product and getting reviews? I mean, like you said, a lot of the things in the past you can't do anymore. What are you seeing that's, that's working? Is it just sell more and just play the odds game that a 2% of the people are going to review? Or is it, um, And when it comes to launching, especially in the supplements space, that's difficult. It takes some money and a good list or a lot of advertising or combination of the two. What's working for you guys when it comes to launching and getting reviews? Speaker 2: Yeah, good question. Yeah, reviews is tough, honestly. I think You know, what we've done, a big switch that we've focused on is really getting better at product quality, like right out of the gate. Our process is a lot longer now than it used to be. And so we're doing more focus group taste testing. If it's a liquid, we just really dot every I, cross every T in terms of the products. In the past, especially when we're doing a home and kitchen brand, our KPI was we need to launch 15 products a month. And so naturally, if you're trying to just hit that many targets, you're not as focused on product quality. You're just really focused on placing orders, getting them shipped here, creating listings and letting them go live. And so I think now, You know, we're, yeah, again, really just making sure that the product will organically get good reviews. I think in certain categories, you can use Vine, which I think is really helpful to get that initial, like whatever, 20 or 30 reviews over time. So then that can help. But I think besides that and like the automated rating requests, like there's really nothing else that you can truthfully do that's not going to be like basically black hat. And so but I think the important thing that we really try to do is again, like really focus on product quality right up. Like right out of the gate and also just really differentiate the product. And so where you know before like actually I was a huge proponent of just like me to products or these commoditized products that didn't really have as much differentiation. But now, obviously, it's just such a different space. It's way more competitive. A lot of really sophisticated D2C players have moved on to selling on Amazon because of the iOS 14 update. And so it's just a way more saturated space. And so you just need better, more differentiated today. Speaker 1: You besides Amazon aren't you lending your brainpower to a few other groups like in there's an influencer marketing company or something and You also have was a marketplace ops which helps a lot of bigger brands do stuff you're involved in Other than just your own Amazon account and selling You're also involved advising some other people too, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, so I Yeah, Maven Reach is an affordable like influencer marketing agency that works with a lot of like direct-to-consumer brands. My wife started that and so I advise and just kind of help her and just, yeah, made it like some early introductions, but she runs that. So I'm, yeah, more of an advisor, not a like active participant. And then, yeah, I also co-founded Marketplace Ops, which is like, yeah, an Amazon strategy firm as well. Speaker 1: That's been running a while though, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, since 2019, maybe. Yeah, so we've had it for, yeah, what is that, four years? Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. So, yeah, it's gone well. Yeah. We've I think, you know, at the time is interesting. Yeah. It was really hard to raise funds like for like a like pure play Amazon e-commerce brand. Right. Like like Thrasio hadn't really like fully like announced like super huge at the time. And so there wasn't as many ways to get I'm like lines of credit. And so I even remember like talking to like a bunch of lenders to get like acibated loans or like ABLs, which is like the more traditional way of getting lending for physical products brand. But because our inventory was an FBA, they wouldn't use that as part of the calculation in terms of how much collateral you have. And so we had very, very few options specifically for getting like bigger lines of credit, even though we're doing like, I don't know, 30, 35 million a year. And so basically, my plan was, okay, well, let's build an agency. It'll leverage a lot of our team. It'll help us improve our operations and our process. And now we have all these external stakeholders naturally. But I think the long-term vision is that MLX makes itself financeable. And so basically, if we have whatever, an extra 150K coming in free cash flow coming from the agency, Then we can deploy that 150K towards launching new products. And then we can scale from whatever, 10 products a month to 15 products a month without an issue. A lot easier said than done, I will say. Truthfully, building an agency is very, very challenging. But yeah, it worked out in the end. I think it ended up being a great investment in terms of time. But yeah, completely different business for sure. Speaker 1: So if you were starting, if someone came to you and said, hey, you know, that seller tradecraft that you had for a while, that was pretty good. You guys were really good teachers. Let's start that back up and teach people what they need to know now. What would be different now to a new person that's listening to this, that's just getting started in this game versus what you taught back then? How would the approach be different or the mindset be different or what would you, is it a matter of needing more money or more focused on branding? But you said you do guys really don't focus that much on branding or what would, what would be different? Speaker 2: You know, I think I, I think the biggest thing, Oh, I think you differentiate somehow. Right. And I think you can differentiate through brand and like who you're targeting specifically. You can differentiate through your product. And then at the time, truthfully, back in 2018 when we launched that course, I don't think you really had to differentiate in any way. I think you just had to go after a very small category where the products were doing 5 or 10 grand and you'd be able to do pretty well as long as it was a pretty nascent category. I think now you do have to differentiate. So I think that would be my biggest piece of advice is either really focusing on the segment like the customer base or differentiate your product in a way that really actually makes sense, not like some like useless innovation or change that no one cares about. And then I mean, for sure, I would increase the capital requirement. Yeah, and I think one thing that I just want to know is I think we have a lot of experience building companies, building brands, and I think we have a very intentional strategy of building brands later down the line. I don't know if that's actually great advice for the majority of your listeners, truthfully. And so I wanted to throw that out there is that we have a very specific game plan where we're trying to go to 9-figures, right? And we think this is the best If your goal is to hit 7-figures or maybe even 8-figures, then that might not be the same steps that you should follow. You know what I mean? But I would say actually, to be fair, I wouldn't start investing in brand until you're over at least 3 million in revenue, personally. Yeah. Yeah, I think 3 million is a good threshold where you can start looking at it. But up until then, you should be launching more products and just really focusing on the channel like Amazon and in getting to that, whatever that is, like 250K a month in rev. Speaker 1: So one of the things you've been doing since 2014 is you're working with partners. A lot of people do this on their own. They have a goal on their own. How important do you think it is? Or what are some of the challenges sometimes or the benefits of actually working with a partner? Speaker 2: Oh man, I mean there's so many benefits. I think... Over time, you find each other's groove and you naturally gravitate towards specific things. For us, Nick and I had pretty similar skill sets, truthfully. I think he had maybe a little bit more experience with marketing. I had a little bit more experience with building teams and sales. But at the end of the day, we're both business guys. We're both new to e-commerce. And then just over time, we gravitated towards certain things. I liked thinking more about the future a lot more, building teams, thinking about who we needed to hire, a lot of the finance and product development. And then, you know, he enjoyed like a lot more of like kind of the operational side of Amazon, right? Like the launching, like advertising, like the design and everything that's like super crucial to making a product successful on Amazon. And so I think Yeah, I think it's hard to be a jack of all trades. I think there's a ton of examples off the top of my head, like of people that have built crazy 9-figure businesses as solo entrepreneurs. But I think it's more rare. I think it's very, very difficult to become a master at all those things. And I think it's harder if you're doing it today versus like someone that started in whatever, 2014, 2015, like we did. I think the challenge is obviously you have to learn how to communicate a lot better. You have to obviously trust more. You have to hold each other accountable. I think there's a lot of other unspoken challenges, but overall, I think it's a lot more enjoyable. I think it's great when things are good, you have someone to celebrate with. When things are bad, you have someone to commiserate with. But yeah, I wouldn't trade it for anything. Speaker 1: Like you said, one of your skills is actually growing teams and stuff. And that's something that a lot of sellers stumble on. They can get to that 1 million or maybe 5 million figure fairly easily if you have a general concept of how to sell on Amazon. But it's taking it to that next level. Once you hit that 10 million, 20 million, 50 million, 100 million, it becomes a different animal. So how, what would be your advice to people that are growing right now that are maybe they're, they're just on that rocket ship and on that, that curve up, what, what do they need to look out for? What, what's most important when setting up systems and SOPs and teams or what should they be really focused on that to maintain that, that, that growth to hopefully large eight or nine figures? Speaker 2: Honestly, in my opinion, Like, yeah, I think, you know, getting into 3 million, I think you should be hyper-focused on Amazon. That's just my opinion. You're not really investing in brand. I think that's like the early side of when you can start really investing in brand, thinking about whatever social media and all that kind of stuff. I think, but truthfully getting to 10 is just like how well you prioritize truthfully. Like how well can you focus on introducing More great products to your customer base and optimizing your existing, especially your best products to drive up sales over time to get you to 10 million. And I think you can do that with a really, really small team. And it won't be that crazy. I think as you start trying to go to like 20 to 30, things like that, yeah, you obviously need a bigger, better team. I think where a lot of people kind of Make mistakes, yeah, that I've seen is, yeah, again, chasing too many rabbits and they don't execute well. Maybe they focus on Walmart and eBay and whatever, MercadoLibre, and all of those combined add up to like 1% or 2% of Amazon because they're trying to diversify. But like you said earlier, it's like even if they all add up to let's say 10% of your business, which would be a massive success, is that really diversified because if something happens to Amazon, you're still losing 90%. And so that's not really a, that's not really diversification in my opinion. And then I think the next piece is that they hire people. You know, often people hire people in the Philippines or in India, and they are just so excited, like the salary is so much lower than like a U.S. hire or Canadian hire, for instance. And they hire people that are underqualified. And then they end up just doing the work themselves. And they're like, oh, you know, I'm not good at building teams. And so they kind of write it off versus kind of like learning. You know, it's just like, you know, if a product failed the first time, you're going to learn. Hopefully you'll launch a second one and try to learn from that. And so I think the same concept with hiring where you get better at it over time, figure out who's a good employee, who's actually driven and can help take things off your plate. But I think as you You know, as you scale, you put in stronger managers, you really invest in them, you keep them happy. And then they like really take care of your business. And I think that's like where things really flourish. I think a lot of people will make arguments around, you know, you hire for skill or you hire for like I'm personality and aptitude. And like, you know, I think obviously having to compromise on either one is not a good situation. So I think you should hire for both, truthfully. But I think in certain situations, there might be there might be like a lack of management. You know, Amazon still do space. There's not as much talent out there. Right. And in that situation, like I would actually Go against the popular advice, and I would hire for management experience. When I say management experience, I'm not saying you're a player coach, you're a team lead, and you're still doing the job. You're a senior manager. You've managed 10, 15 people. You are not doing execution work anymore, but you know how to structure OKRs. You know how to set KPIs. You know how to fire people. You know how to train people. You know how to really do things because so many first time founders don't have that experience. And so they're kind of learning it on the fly. And so you want someone that can really like compliment you in those other areas. And I think that ends up being like one of the big changes that people don't want to hire people that are maybe more knowledgeable than them because like, you know, the kind of imposter syndrome or whatever. But I think that ends up being like the biggest limiting factor is just that you have a cap. And when I mean you, like, you know, any entrepreneur has a cap. And if you keep hiring worse people than you and training them, then they're not, they're going to be a percentage of you. And like, you know, maybe 50%, 60%. And, and I think if they're not, if you're not hiring people with like a diverse backgrounds, then your team is just kind of staying like flat. It's not really like improving. Speaker 1: So you got to basically get out of your own way and set your ego to the side. And that's the key to getting those higher milestones and that higher growth is pulling together a team. And like you said, they don't necessarily, some of the team doesn't need to have e-comm experience. They need to have more people and management experience. Totally. And systems experience and way beyond what you may have as an entrepreneur. They've been doing this for years. They may be older than you, you know, if you're young in this. There's nothing wrong with that. And I think a big issue too is for a lot of people like we said earlier you're working on the business not in it. It's actually letting go because when you're the entrepreneur that started it from zero and you invested your own $10,000 of life savings and you borrowed from your uncle and you got this whole thing going and you're robbing Peter to pay Paul, you know, eating ramen noodles and sleeping on the couch for a while. It's hard to let that your baby and it's hard to let that go and let other people mess with it. And I think that's a big stomach block. A lot of entrepreneurs have in the space. Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah. I couldn't agree more. I think the letting go is again, because you probably don't have good enough people or you have maybe trust issues, whatever. One of the two, I guess, but like, yeah, I think it just comes down to the quality of the people that are reporting to you truthfully. Um, but yeah, I think it's, yeah, you're totally spot on as you just kind of have to get out of the way sometimes and, um, and, and hire the right people. Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, Fernando, I really appreciate you taking some time today to share your story and share some of your thoughts and everything. It's always great to talk to someone that's had great success like you and comes from the background that you came from, to build up your companies. It's awesome having you here, man. Speaker 2: Thanks so much, Kevin. Yeah, I really appreciate it. It's been a long time. Yeah, I think it was one of the, not necessarily super early guests, but with Manny back in, I don't know, probably 2017. So it's cool to be here again. Speaker 1: And now here you are again. So yeah, we have to look up that episode. If you want to hear how Fernando was different back in 2017, go pull up that episode on the AM-PM Podcast archives and you can probably hear a whole totally different story on that one. That would be great to actually check that one out and then listen to this one and see what may be in the future for you as you sell. If people want to reach out to you or find out more about you or some of the stuff that you're doing, how would they do that? Speaker 2: Yeah. I post mostly on LinkedIn, so you can just add me. Yeah. Fernando Campos. Or if you have any specific questions or anything, I'm happy to try to help. You can just email me at fernando at marketplaceops.com. Yeah. Always try to get back to people. Speaker 1: Awesome. Appreciate your time, man. Thanks again. Speaker 2: Yeah. Thanks so much, Kevin. Great seeing you. Speaker 1: I always say there's lots of different ways to make money selling on Amazon, and Fernando and his partners are pure evidence of that. They're not creating a true brand. They may pivot to that, like he said, but it's not a true brand with an avatar. They're just looking for opportunities. That's how he sold his other two businesses, like he talked about, the home and kitchen, and that's what they're doing right now with their supplements company. So it's an interesting take on a slightly different way to actually build a business on Amazon than what most people are talking About right now, but nevertheless He's super smart and is scaling this thing like crazy So it's great having him on the episode and my little Nugget of advice this week that I'm in this episode with kind of falls in line with what Fernando was talking about when he was talking about those the stumbling blocks a lot of sellers have when they're trying to Get to that eight or nine figure level, you know, you can't scale what but you can scale who and You can't scale what, but you can scale who. Who you hire to take you to the next level is all the difference. Just like Fernando said, who you hire that can take you to the next level can make all the difference. Have a great weekend and we'll see you again next week. Unknown Speaker: I'm growth.