#709 - Starting An Amazon Business From Scratch in 2025

#709 - Starting An Amazon Business From Scratch in 2025 Speaker 2: You guys have been hearing about our brand new series Scale Stories that just launched. Well, today we are going to meet our first contestant on Scale Stories, Natalie, and learn about her story and about what is in store for her brand new product launch. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is the show that's a completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we have an aspiring serious seller here. She's planning to be a serious seller, and we're actually going to be watching her journey. She was our first, I guess you can say, contestant participant in our brand new, just released last week, Scale Stories. Welcome to the show. How's it going? Speaker 1: Thank you. It's going really well. Just get more and more excited as the journey goes on becoming a new seller and can't wait to launch. Speaker 2: Where are you located? Speaker 1: I'm located outside of Columbus, Ohio. So we moved from Columbus, Ohio to more like country rural side over in Hocking Hills. It's a nice like scenic area. Lots of outdoor activities I can do when it's nice enough out. Speaker 2: Are you originally from Ohio? Speaker 1: Columbus. I was born in upstate New York but raised in Columbus, Ohio in a suburb. Speaker 2: Did you ever go to college out there? Speaker 1: I went to OU Lancaster. So I went to a branch of Ohio University and I went to the one in Pickerington just for a year. My college experience is never, I kind of failed both times. I made it one year for each, each attempts and just decide I want to work full time and try to get as much business knowledge as I could just by hand, by doing it. Speaker 2: I actually didn't even get my degree until 10 years after I graduated high school. I just went straight to working myself. You've always been an aspiring entrepreneur. We're going to get more into details in your story in our series. And by the way, guys, if you just want to go right to this new series, it's kind of like for those who have been with Helium 10 for a long time, we had something called Project X before. So it's almost as if this was like a season two, but it's a completely different story, different series. So go to h10.me forward slash SS and that should take you to our first video in the series, which is kind of like the way to meet Natalie. But we're going to do a little bit of that here so we can get a little bit more of your story for those who Who might not have time to go to YouTube, but this is not your first kind of like aspiration to be an entrepreneur. So how long have you had this like entrepreneurial bug, would you say? Speaker 1: Well, my I remember my first dream started it started with being a fashion designer from the age of four. I wanted to design clothes. I wanted to be successful with fashion. And then shortly after that, whenever I understood more about business, I guess I don't know what age it was, but I just I wanted to be a have business with I have businesses with fashion and stuff, so have a brand, have a design line and whatnot. From there, it was more my late teens and 20s where I started filing LLCs and getting more into starting a business. Besides Dorsey Delivered, my Amazon FBA business, I've only had one other business where I Well, I've made business, made money from Dorsey Delivered yet, but I've only had one business out of the handful that I've registered that have made, that's made money basically. Speaker 2: Okay. All right. And what, what attracted you to this kind of like way to sustain yourself as opposed to, you know, Working a 9-to-5 or going through some program to become a nurse or any of the other million occupations out there that are what some might consider more traditional. Speaker 1: Right, absolutely. So for me, it was more a matter of wanting to forge my own path and kind of be more what I saw as in control of my fate, my destiny when it came to career and the lifestyle I wanted to live. Now, I do work a W-2 job now, so I'm not fully transitioned out of it, but it is something that I'm certainly... Speaker 2: It's not your aspiration. That's like not like your life goal. Yeah. Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. So I'm definitely trying to get there and I've never given up. It's something that I keep rebounding from and keep trying again. And I'm really hoping I'm gunning for this Dorsey Delivered to be my way into entrepreneurship. Speaker 2: Okay. Now, how did you get into the Helium 10 ecosystem? Because, you know, you weren't selling on Amazon, but you obviously must have seen our casting call. So I'm just curious how you and that even got on your radar. Speaker 1: Yes, so I ended up purchasing a training program I'm from a Amazon seller and in that he was saying that you need to go to Helium 10 and you need to sign up for a subscription from them to go further in the program and so I did that and I started getting marketing emails and one of the marketing emails I noticed it said there's a casting call and I was like, what's this? And I just looked at it. I don't know. I want to say it was like a weekend day or something. And I looked at it because I wasn't working at the time. And I was like, I'm going to jump on this right now. And within like two minutes, I just recorded the video out back on the patio and submitted it. Speaker 2: All right. Now, wait, this wasn't Clarence's program, was it? The FBA? Speaker 1: It was not. But the funny thing is, I actually, Clarence is someone in the past year that I've reached out to. And I think at the time why I didn't go through with his program is because I didn't have that amount of money to set forth with it and to put towards Amazon FBA. But I told Clarence, I was like, I'm pretty sure that I reached out to you in your DMs about working with you or learning from you. Speaker 2: And just worked out that he was one of the mentors on our Scale Stories too, completely coincidental, but it's a small, the Amazon world is small. And so you learned about this, like how we were doing a casting call, basically for those who don't know, who might not have heard my episode with Zoe last week, where Where what we did was we put out on our website like a casting call. We're like, hey, we're looking for somebody who's not sold on Amazon or even necessarily online before, who's interested in us kind of like showing you the A to Z of it, but open enough to talk about your own story and be willing to share your journey with everybody. And that's not Something that I think most people would do, a lot of people like to stay private. They don't want to be in front of the camera, but you were down to take this challenge. So what inspired you to be like, because like I said, this is not something normal that normal people are like, oh yeah, sure, I'll go on TV in front of hundreds of thousands of people and talk about my struggles and my journey. So what inspired you to do that? Speaker 1: I don't know. It sounded really interesting and I was like, let's see where this goes. I'm someone who, when I see an opportunity, I'll jump on it. I don't know where it's going to land me, where I'm going to end up, but I'll see where it goes and we can go from there. Just make it work. It's turned out to be a great decision. Like I said, I can't wait until we launch and we go from there too. Speaker 2: Awesome. All right. Obviously, you had no idea necessarily what to expect. You were going to be on camera and we were going to have a film crew. Was there any surprises when you got there that first day of filming at the Helium 10 office? You thought it was bigger or smaller than you thought it was or a little bit more intimidating and less intimidating, like a full hair and makeup team and 17 cameras and stuff. What were some of your thoughts you were going through before we even started filming? Speaker 1: It was really interesting that the hair and makeup team kept coming up to me and fixing me and doing all this. They're like, I'm just going to adjust this, I'm just going to get that, let me get this, let me fix your makeup. All these things I felt, it just was an interesting experience. I would have to say the part that really blew me away about Helium 10, the whole production team, is the fact that When I was, I don't know if you remember, when I was telling my story at the beginning and I got really nervous, I was like, hey, everyone, I need a minute. And I went to the production room and I was like, I think I need to take my boots off, my heel boots, I think I need to take these off. And just how everyone was so accommodating and like, no, take a minute here, go in here. Just take a few, you'll be fine. And everyone was just so kind. It was so great to work with everyone because they seemed to really understand that like, I don't do this. This is not something that I do on a daily basis. It's new to me, but everyone was so accommodating. It just, it was a blessing. It was such a nice thing. Speaker 2: Awesome. You got especially nervous in the beginning, which is understandable. You're not a paid actress or anything. We didn't hire Screen Actors Guild to come on here, but that ties into a little bit of that vulnerability you showed about You're talking or you're getting emotional about, you know, talking about your story and especially the obstacles you face. And there's no, I mean, I'm not going to say there's no two. A lot of people do share similar obstacles, but there's literally hundreds of thousands of different obstacles that different people have when trying to make money, when trying to start a business. And for some people, it's just. Money, you know, for other people, it's, you know, the country they live in, you know, might not have the same opportunities as others, you know, there's just a million out there. But, but your story, you know, like very well could resonate with a number of people out there. So can you talk a little bit about what. What were some of your struggles on why you haven't been able to successfully launch your entrepreneurial journey so far? Speaker 1: Absolutely, Bradley. I'd love to talk about that. This topic is near and dear to my heart. It brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it. Tears of gratefulness that I'm here today to talk about it. At 15, I was diagnosed bipolar after a major depressive episode of just Hard times and for me, although I've been diagnosed, I'm 36 now, though I've been diagnosed more than half my life. There's still, you still never know what a day can bring and what that may look like. So there's things that I've implemented to make my health, my mental health better and especially in the past few years. Before I say drinking or something like that, I would do that and maybe my health falls worse. When it comes to starting a business, often I'd be in what's called a manic episode, which is like an elevated state of mental health. I would be manic and I'd be like, let's start this business. It's just like out of nowhere and I would file it and attempt it but then I crashed afterwards into a depressive episode and there's no way I can sustain that and it wasn't a well thought out idea. So for me, it's been a struggle to be in a balanced state of mental health for a while and for now, I've been in a balanced state of mental health for a few years. And this is now the right time to do it because it's easier because I'm not going up and down. But my struggle in the past was definitely the fact that I wasn't paying as close enough attention to my mental health and taking care of it and realizing that, hey, maybe now this isn't the right time. Maybe I should wait until I have some stability under my belt until I bounce back from a depressive or manic episode. Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah. So I mean, again, that's pretty unique, but a lot of people out there, you know, you're not the only one with those things. And so that's, I think, especially why it's good that you're willing to put yourself out there because the people who can relate to that are definitely going to be especially inspired. The rest of you, maybe 97% of our audience, that doesn't relate to, but still, I think it should be relatable because like I said, everybody's got their own struggles and things that could stop somebody and make it easy for somebody just to say, nah, I'm not going to do this. I don't have the circumstances because of X or Y, but hopefully they take inspiration from you like, no, I'm not letting this stop me. I'm going to do whatever. I have to get in front of a camera and open up to the world and I'm going to get special help with doing it. I'll do it. And I think that attitude is important to have for anybody trying to be an entrepreneur. So thank you again for that. Now, we brought in a few mentors. And by the way, guys, next week or actually this week, I think, you guys will be able to get on A live Ask Me Anything. We're going to do a podcast live where we interview your three mentors who we brought in from different countries in the world and who have helped countless sellers out there get started. Alright, so if you guys want to participate in this live broadcast where you're going to be able to ask her mentors questions live, and Natalie, you can sign up too and maybe surprise your mentors live on the air, but everybody go to h10.me forward slash ssama1. Alright, Scale Stories ssama1. A-M-A, Ask Me Anything 1. And we'll do a live recording. It'll be a live podcast. We don't do that very often. We're going to do it this time. And the first part, I'll be, you know, trying to like kind of like recap their experience from the mentor's point of view about Natalie and her episode. But then you guys will be able to ask any questions, you know, if maybe you're starting off or you want to ask some of the best practices or ask some questions about the episodes and behind the scenes stuff. You guys will be able to do that too. So again, h10.me. If you're just happening upon this episode weeks or months from now, you'll be able to see the replay on this very podcast page as well. Going into that, we started off the episode. We got your backstory. And then, you know, the mentors started doing some research based on what was interesting to you. Like, and that's not always can we sell something that we're passionate about. I've given this story about I'm very passionate about sumo wrestling. I used to be a sumo wrestler myself. There's not much demand in America for sumo wrestling related memorabilia or things of that nature. So it's not just because, oh, because I'm passionate about something, I'm going to be successful selling it. No, you've got to have demand. But that being said, it's always best to be able to sell something that you are somewhat passionate about or could become passionate about. And so what we did in that episode, As the mentors were getting some of your backstory and seeing some of the things you're passionate about, that was what they used to guide the data-driven part of product research, using Helium 10 and stuff. Do you remember, not the actual product. We're not going to spoil the products since not everybody has seen it yet, but some of the ones that didn't make it, that they had found some products, I believe, that could have been potentials that we ended up not going with, but that were, I think you had never even knew was a thing. Do you remember some of those? Speaker 1: There's one from Clarence. There's a couple I'm thinking of. Am I allowed to say that one? Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. Speaker 1: Okay, so one was the Cauldron. Unknown Speaker: Do you remember that one? Speaker 2: Yes, the Cauldron. Speaker 1: Yes, that was interesting. Speaker 2: I was like, hey, I might want to sell that because that sounds like a witchy thing, like a coffin shelf. That would go with one of my brands. Speaker 1: Exactly. Speaker 2: Do you remember any of the other ones? Speaker 1: The other one was the tea kettle, the assassins, that was one. I still don't understand that. I don't get it. Speaker 2: I don't either. But man, we saw some assassins tea set or whatever it was that's selling like thousands and thousands of dollars a month. But yeah, like you said, you know what, I'm not sure this is a completely great fit. For me, plus there's some other issues, like very breakable and stuff like that. So we went through this process, guys, where we saw some different products that seemed like in one aspect could be opportunity, but that's what product research is. It's not just like laser focusing on just one and only thing, but find four or five, 10 different ideas and then validate it. And we played the scale or fail game to validate that. You guys will have to watch the episode to actually see that. But anything about that part that was interesting to you about the product research part and some of the ways that they found these opportunities for you? Speaker 1: Well, about the products themselves that the mentors provided, it was interesting to see the different types of products that each mentor provided. One went more in line with what they currently sell and what their niche is. One went along with what more in line with the things that they thought that I could go with. The other was more just like what sells, what data points say is going to sell. I thought that was very interesting when it came to that aspect of the whole picking the product and stuff anyways before we even did the scale or fail. Speaker 2: Yes, yes. And that's I think that's a part that that people sometimes maybe overlook the importance of making data driven decisions and finding, you know, and that sounds like, oh, let me just go to the bestsellers list on Amazon and see, see what we're so see what works out. Now, um, what was the budget? And we're here to talk to you about the budget that we had originally given for you and what we're going forward for your launch. Speaker 1: I want to say it was like $5,000, right? Wasn't it originally $5,000? Yeah. Speaker 2: And then what happened? Speaker 1: That got doubled. Speaker 2: So you've got a $10,000 budget. But again, that's not a magic number, guys. I mean, if the budget stayed at $5,000, we absolutely would have been able to launch a product. But we wanted to do a little something for Natalie. We're like, Natalie got to cough up another $5,000. Actually, Helium 10 is covering all of this for the first one. She's going to have to do reorders and stuff like that. A lot of you already can have a $10,000 budget, and so you're going to be able to follow this blueprint. But guess what, guys? If you have a $5,000 budget, you can still launch products. I did this one case study years ago. I called it Project 5K where I had $5,000 and I actually launched 12 products for less than $5,000 total. It was very cheap ones like straws and stuff like that, but still, I just wanted to prove that it was doable. I just launched four products myself on some of my Amazon accounts, again, very similar to those where all in it was probably like less than $5,000. So it still is possible to make money with less, but The ceiling is not as high. So when you do have a $10,000 budget, now we can target products that probably retail for about $40 or more. And then we can also have a little bit more profit margin. You know, we haven't launched your product yet. It's in the process of being ordered. And this is going to be an ongoing process. We'll definitely reach out to you. But remember the plan? Are we only launching you on Amazon? Speaker 1: So TikTok is another one. I was told by a person at Helium that possibly Walmart might be a thing, but I don't know about that, but that's just something that was possible. But TikTok shop is the other main one. Thinking about selling on TikTok Shop? Or maybe you are already in it and you're ready to scale. Unlock all of Helium 10's brand new TikTok Shop tools with our Diamond Plan. Everything from bulk Amazon to TikTok listing conversions to instant Amazon MCF fulfillment. Best of all, you use the code TT10 to get 10% off Diamond for six months, even if you've used a coupon before. So go ahead and upgrade and let Helium 10 do all the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on what really matters. For more info on our new TikTok shop offerings, visit h10.me forward slash TikTok. I'll see you there. Speaker 2: So TikTok shop, you know, possibly Walmart. That's how it is nowadays for e-commerce. You know, like when we did Project X as season one, we only were launched on Amazon and six years ago, that was all you needed. Nowadays, guys, if you're thinking about launching, it's not just about Amazon. You should be launching on TikTok at the same time. I remember when we did some breakout episodes with you, we got you approved, or not we got you approved, you got yourself approved within a day on TikTok. This is not something that's all like, It's going to take some month-long process to get approved on a platform. Hopefully not. In some cases, there might be extra things that they might need. So that's going to be part of the plan as well. Any other things that you can talk about, about the experience of being on the show or things that were interesting to you that you didn't know? It doesn't have to be all positive and rainbows and unicorns. Something that scared you like, oh man, I didn't know this was involved in this. Anything at all you can talk about? Speaker 1: Well, that last part you just said about scaring you a little bit. I was thinking at first when you first said that there's nothing that scared me in terms of the filming process and the process of being a seller on Amazon, but something that I didn't realize are the Amazon events that these mentors take part in as well. These networking events and stuff. I'm in sales and I like some aspects of networking for sure, but there's some... I can just see myself at an Amazon conference just being like, what's going on? So that was one aspect where I'll have to dive deeper into it and see if that's something where I feel I need to be positioned at for my business and maybe I'm sure it's a fun time and a good time you learn a lot but that was one thing that made me a little apprehensive to think about that I might take part in the future. Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, not everybody's a people person, you know, some people always people think I am, I am, but that's just my, my, my job to do it. But if I had to choose, like, I would just stay in my room. I don't want to be around a whole bunch of people. But yeah, you like you can actually learn a lot by going and networking at events. And, you know, I have people I met at my first ever Amazon networking event that are still in my network today, almost 10 years later. Um, any comments about your mentors? Speaker 1: It was really great to see that some of them have already known each other. They already had that working relationship with each other. That was really cool to see that they've been brought together by this experience as well. It's cool to see the different experience, not levels, not that, but like the ranges of time that people have been involved with Amazon. That was really cool to see from like six years to like basically double digits. It was really interesting to see and just to learn of their expertise and what their brands typically sell and stuff. It was really nice to hear and it's kind of like niching down is what I kind of learned in one aspect. Speaker 2: Awesome, awesome. Now, this wasn't just a one episode thing and we actually filmed about like five or six more episodes right after the first one where we actually broke apart with Leo and did some more in the weeks. The first episode, that link I gave you guys, h10.me forward slash ss, that'll take you to the main episode. But then, that's probably I don't know how long it's gonna be like maybe 30 minutes or 45 minute episode. You don't start an Amazon business in 30 or 45 minutes, even with a lot of Hollywood cuts. You know, it takes a lot of work that needs to be done. And so we filmed some like, breakout episodes as well, where we go a little bit more into the weeds, and we're still gonna film more like once the product is actually here, we're gonna do another episode where We're going to show the actual making of the listing. We planned out how she's going to do the photography for her images. We talked about what it takes to set up a TikTok. We talked a little bit about what kind of advertising strategy. Once the product is actually here, we're going to have more episodes where we are going to go in and show the step-by-step. And so the point of this all, guys, is we're trying to show as much. And again, thanks to Natalie for being open. We're going to try and show as much of Natalie's journey as possible because Even if you guys out there are not launching the exact same product, and I hope you guys don't, please don't become Natalie's competitors out here on this, but you're going to be able to follow this blueprint because what we wanted to show is that we can take anybody out there who has never sold on Amazon, 2025, 2026, And still go from zero to hero, hopefully. And I'm sure we're going to have some obstacles. Who knows what's going to happen in the coming months as we launch this product. But we're going to show you the obstacle. We'll keep it real. If the product makes a million dollars, we're going to show it. If the product, like all of a sudden, 75 competitors come on and sales are very low, we're going to talk about it because these are real things that can happen. But we're positive that if Natalie sticks to it, We're going to help her too. She's going to have success online. I was about to say on Amazon. No, online because it's not just about Amazon. I hope everybody out there is looking forward to it. Do you have like a goal yourself of, hey, I want to get this much like in profit eventually each month for you to be able to quit your like day job? Speaker 1: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So it's not even just that. It's my husband and myself because what's riding on this is that, I'm laughing but this is so serious, the future of having children. Like I'm 36. If we're going to have babies, we need to do it soon. So how I view it, my ideal vision is both of us being able to live off of the online income. And that means also going through Freedom Ticket on Helium 10 with my husband and going through that. So he can understand that process and stuff of selling online. So for me, we're looking at about like $8,000 net. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: So if you can, out of this online business, get $6, $7, $8, $9,000 a month profit, take home where you can take to the bank. Obviously, you got to have some that eventually gets invested back into the company. Then you guys would be able to quit day jobs and kind of do this e-commerce thing and raise a family. I love the goal and that's That's the reason why people do this. People are not doing this out of charity like, oh, we're trying to make Amazon's pockets richer. No, you want to sell online because you're trying to reach a certain goal that you have for yourself. Some people just want a side hustle. Some people want, hey, let me get a college fund or something for my kids in the future. Some people want a fund to be able to take a few vacations a year. Some people want to replace their day job. It's all of the above. There's no right or wrong reason for selling online, but it's important I like that you have a number in mind and it's not $60,000. This series is going to take us a little bit longer. Speaker 1: 20 to 30 in sales, K in sales. Speaker 2: To be able to get that profit. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, that's good. And so for everybody else out there who hasn't started yet, think about that. What is your goal? Why are you trying to get in e-commerce? What are you trying to get out of it? Have that goal in mind because it's going to make the journey a lot more clear of what you're going to have to do. So Natalie, again, thank you very much for being willing to come on the show. Everybody right now, by the time you're watching this episode, all of her episodes or the main episode should be on h10.me forward slash ss and then somewhere in the description there, you're going to be able to go To see the breakout episodes, all right, and for any Helium 10 member, you'll be able to see those too, but those are going to live on our website. So if you can't find, if you're a Helium 10 member and you don't know where some of these breakout episodes are, just reach out to customer support and they'll be able to direct you guys or look in the description of that first YouTube video on the Helium 10 YouTube channel. And I'm sure the link will be in there to be able to watch all, I think it's probably like six or seven episodes total. That we did with Natalie. But again, this is not the last you're going to hear from Natalie. We're going to be recording later on this year. Next year, we're going to follow up and see how the products that she's launched has done. And we're going to follow her. You guys are still seeing episodes that we do about our coffin shelf that we did way back in 2019. And so that's how it's going to be. But Natalie, thank you again for coming on here. And we look forward to following your journey. Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you so much, Bradley. Speaker 2: We'll see you guys later. All right.