In-Depth with 7-Figure Amazon Seller Matt Kostan

In-Depth with 7-Figure Amazon Seller Matt Kostan Speaker 2: Hey guys, welcome back to Seller Sessions, friend of the show. Matt Kostan is back but today we're going to be doing his in-depth where we chart the history of the entrepreneur. The wins and of course some of the losses and the return to winning etc etc. You've obviously seen Matt when he's been on Main Image Monthly. But I like to do these in depth because you get to know the entrepreneur a lot more and we end up charting and adding a timeline to the rise to their success. Matt will also be at the revamped Seller Sessions Live May 10th where we'll be using an adapted VARK model. Where you get to learn in real time. So we're shaking up how education is done. You'd all be working off your own workstations and we're all working in collaboration. So it's not the usual speaker format. But that's by the by. The most important thing now. Welcome to the show, Matt. Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me. Speaker 2: Cool. All right. So, yeah, so you're kind of on the spot now. We're doing the in-depth series. A lot of people give great feedback. We've done many over the years, but there are points where It's not always possible because there's you have to kind of wait for the entrepreneur to get to a certain stage. So I think we've been around long enough now. A lot of people know you are. And of course, you've been winning hack competitions, etc. So first thing I'm going to do is let's take it back, back to your childhood. Like, were you born an entrepreneur? Were your parents entrepreneurs, etc? Speaker 1: Yeah, so interestingly enough, no. So my parents were not entrepreneurial. My dad had the same job for like 30 plus years. But what happened to him was kind of the typical thing where you think you have this loyalty to a big corporation and when the corporation got bought out, he got laid off. And I really think that kind of set something in my mind where like, I don't want that happening to me. So I think that kind of inspired a lot of the entrepreneurial stuff that I've been doing as of late. Speaker 2: So let's take it back. Like, you know, at school, were you into education or did you get annoyed with it? Because a lot of entrepreneurs I speak to, while some would say they did OK at school, they found it a bit boring, to say the least, and they couldn't wait to get out. Speaker 1: Yeah, so I mean, I was always really good at like memorizing textbooks, right? So I have had like a photographic memory where, you know, ask me a question, I could tell you what page it was on in the textbook. So I initially started actually going into the sciences, the biology, but I hated being so isolated. So I started I went to university and I was in the science program just having to focus it on the lab work and that sort of thing. It just wasn't for me. And I think what also kind of sparked the idea was I actually worked at – it's Best Buy in the US, but it was a different company called Future Shop. It was actually pure commission-based. And that's what kind of got me into, well, hey, pure commission. I had to work for my money and that's kind of what paid for university. So one thing that, and then speaking with my dad too, like one thing that he really instilled in us, I have an older brother, two younger sisters, is that like, If you need my help, you need whatever, I'm here for you, but I believe in you enough that you can just do your own stuff, that you can pay for university, you can do whatever. Just go out there and make it for yourself. It was a lot of tough love. Understanding and seeing just how working that job, pure commission, that also gave me the spark of like, well, this is much more interesting, much more fun making these commissions and working versus school where it was more like, hey, head down, you just got to do the textbook stuff. I ended up switching from sciences, so I did two years of sciences. I switched over just for management, for a management degree, Bachelor of Commerce, just because I was thinking, well, hey, I should at least have, I've already done two years of this. I might as well kind of see it through and yeah, and just get it on the books so that I have it. Do I think anything that I've learned in university has actually helped? For the entrepreneurial side of stuff, not really because entrepreneurial is just like doing, seeing what works, like not being afraid to fail, just kind of like do all the things, seeing what you like best and seeing what actually moves the needle. But I do think the university side of things does give you that discipline, which I think I lack a lot of, of just like, you know, scheduling and making sure that you get stuff done in certain times and that sort of thing. And it also helps you learn how to think as well. So am I ever going to use advanced calculus for physical sciences? No. But was I exercising my brain and kind of understanding, like, using it as like a muscle? Yeah. So I think that's more more applicable. But yeah, that's that's kind of like how I think about education. Like it's it's kind of it's good to have in your pocket. But is it actually practical? Typically not. Speaker 2: Now, I think there's a few sides to it. Right. So At a young age, when you go to university, you get to meet new people, you're in new crowds, you may be leaving your hometown, right? It teaches you discipline and structure. You've got to go to class, you've got to get up at this time, you've got to study for this. So it gives you them structure of life skills. It also, in most cases, teaches you how to be a good employee, not an entrepreneur. We do need these skills, right? You need to be structured and not everyone could be entrepreneurs or you won't have any staff. But I'm not big on the education system either. I think it could do with a complete overhaul when you think everyone's been sitting in the classroom in a similar structure for over 100 years. Like things have changed. Formats have changed. Mediums have changed from black and white TV all the way through. But teaching needs disrupting, I think, in order to be tailored to the needs of the person that engages them to get the best out of the person. You know, I don't think anyone's landed on that. But this put a timeline next to it. Harold, what age are we at now? You've just left university. Unknown Speaker: What year are we talking? Speaker 1: I don't even know. I'm almost 40 now, so you do some reverse math, I can figure it out. But it feels like it's been so long. That's actually a problem too. It's been so long ago that I don't even know. But yeah, obviously over 15 years or so, And then actually fresh out of university, I landed a job in the pharmaceutical space. And it was a very small pharma company. I don't even think when I joined they even hit a million, which is super small for pharma, right? I was the marketing assistant. What was interesting though is I wasn't assisting anybody. There was no one else. So it was, hey, here's the marketing assistant title just so we don't have to pay you a big salary, but you're going to basically run the show for the pharmaceutical products. And I took it because, I mean, out of university, it's like, hey, I need a job, right? I got to start doing the things. But I feel like that was a great, honestly, it was a good role because again, Being such a small company, I got to kind of pretend to be an entrepreneur and kind of do whatever I wanted, more or less. And something that I did for them, I remember, was back in the day when WordPress was a thing. I mean, it's still a thing, obviously, but it was more like the thing, the way to build websites. I started building out direct-to-consumer sites for all the brands, the products, and it did hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales that they didn't have otherwise. And that really got the attention of the CEO. And then he started putting me on more and more projects. Speaker 2: So basically, you really straight out of school, you went into marketing. So it's when we look at when we press forward to today, we'll get into that in the timeline. So you went there, you developed all that, you caught the attention of the CEO, what was next? Speaker 1: Yeah, so the CEO was great. He ended up putting me on probably projects that more so like senior people would be on. So I was able to travel with him. One of the main things that the pharmaceutical company did was bring products from Europe into North America and get them licensed. And I was able to go with him into these negotiation meetings and figuring out which products to bring in, that sort of thing. And I remember I loved it. It was like, wow. It was like, You can do anything. You can grab a product in there, do a licensing deal, create your own brand in North America, sell it, and then watch it grow. I even remember watching him negotiate in a boardroom where someone asked for some fee and he did this thing where he just stood up. He's like, I'm not paying this fee. You drop this fee or I'm walking out the door. And I'm there like 20-something like, what do I do if he actually walks out? I guess I have to walk out without it, right? It was one of those things. But it really opened my eyes to At a young age, what's possible and how badass it is to be able to run your own business and call the shots and basically tell people what you want. Speaker 2: Yeah. And so where was your next move after that? Obviously, you've worked up in that area. Where do we go next? Speaker 1: Yeah, so that company got sold. After working with them, we grew it to millions, that sort of thing. Didn't have any equity, so that's where I was like, ah, I should have done something there, right? So that's when I joined another software startup, this time with equity, and helped them on the technical side. You know, pharmaceutical is great, but your hands are really tied to the creative aspect where, you know, when you're selling software. You have a lot more freedom and flexibility. So, I joined the software company and wanted to kind of get a feel for what, you know, how to run a startup, right? And at the time, there was only four of us. And to this day, they're at like 60, 70 people and it's like an eight-figure software company. Speaker 2: So, are you just, I know that you lead programming teams, but are you a software developer as well? Speaker 1: Yeah, so not at all. So conversational, which is helpful. I think my strength comes into breaking down like sometimes things, I mean, everything is complicated, but being able to break down the complicated and just make it palatable for not even just the developers, but just being able to explain certain things like, hey, high level, this is what we want the software to do. This is the end goal for the customer. How do we do that in the best, most efficient way possible? And then spending a lot of time on one thing I learned with the software company that I joined at the time was like there's like making things easy, like the UI, UX side of things is huge. Right. And that's something that I've taken with, obviously, for the ventures that I'm working on now as well. Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, is that what I like to do? I call it framing. It's not possible to do. I always look at anything we build if it's in house or Now with the advisory role at Datadive with the engineering team. The thing for me is always what can we build where you press that magic button and it does everything. That's impossible. It's a framing because my thing is you can do it in 40 steps or four. So how do we get to four? It comes as close as possible to the framing of pushing the button so people don't have to think because that's where feature creep comes in as well. There's too many things to focus on. So I'm like you. I'm not a programmer, but I do like to break everything down and really refine it. And I think that's how you have to train your brain to do some of these things. So where is next? So you're at the software company that's still going today. You've got a bit of equity, you've got a bit of a taste for it. What did you do next? Speaker 1: Yeah, so interestingly enough, the software company, they wanted to, well, they do inventory software and they kind of, not just on Amazon, but they do it for like any type of company. At the time, they were focusing more so on wholesale distribution, which is still a big part today. And one of the ideas I had was like, hey, let's just build out a brand or build out an actual physical product brand that we could blog about, YouTube about, and that sort of thing. And actually, with that idea going on, at the same time, I was also working on my own thing as well, where I was actually doing distribution for Groupon, like those big daily deal sites. And I was actually one of the biggest distributor. I was the biggest distributor. I think it was in Canada for Groupon, if I'm not mistaken. But everything was drop shipped. Right. So it was all like people ordered off of Groupon. It basically just came from China. And that was it. That there was really not much. Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at 2008 to 2011, Groupon was huge. It was that was the first deals thing that everyone copied that model, because, you know, in Silicon Valley, like the copycats come along. But Groupon was the blue ribbon, wasn't it? Speaker 1: At that time, it was the one. Yeah, it was the one if you could conquer group. And then obviously there was like a thousand copycats, which actually still drove a lot of revenue to that to that business. But what I loved about it was the split testing aspect. So because you have access to like, you know, hundreds of thousands of shoppers and essentially I was able to like, you know, they'd be like, Matt, we need a deal for this week. I could put on the deal and then two weeks later I could put the same deal on, but I could tweak it a little bit. One of the tweaks just for example, was just adding a silly brand name that I just made up. So I was selling a watch, had no brand name. It's all generic Chinese products that we're selling on Groupon. But then the next time I did the deal, same product, same product images. The only difference was literally a made-up brand name. And that deal outsold the first one, which everyone had already been exposed to, like three or four to one. So that really got me interested on like, well, hey, there's something with this branding thing. There's something here. And then based on that experience, I pitched the software company at the time. They weren't too keen on it because they were keeping in mind they were a much smaller company back then. I was the only person in marketing. They didn't want to spread me too thin. So I ended up, you know, with the knowledge that I had with, you know, how to build websites and like doing the split testing with Groupon, then it was, OK, well, how do I make my own brand? And that's where we're. Yeah. And. It's not just like, hey, all of a sudden you understand how to build a brand. It's like, how do I do it? And I was inspired by a lot of the Kickstarter projects where literally you just put the thing out there and you get feedback from people. You basically build it in front of people. Speaker 2: So this is pre-Amazon. So Kickstarter is your first foray into with your own brand. Do you mind sharing? What was your first Kickstarter? Speaker 1: Yeah, the first Kickstarter was actually on Indiegogo, but it was a mosquito repellent bracelet and I knew that it would sell well based on we sold similar products on Groupon and it was one of the bigger sellers. So we kind of had the benefit of testing there as well. But didn't really do much competitor research. It was just like understanding that it's sold on the Groupon platform like, hey, we could probably sell it on Kickstarter. And what was interesting was, yeah, like building it in front of people, you get that feedback, you get that, like what people like, don't like, that sort of thing. Also being involved in software, I was doing There's a concept in software obviously called user testing. So actually watching people how they navigate your software and understanding where they get stuck. They don't understand what that button does, that sort of thing. And what I was doing back then was actually sending people using usertesting.com and sending people to like my prototype pages and asking them like, why wouldn't you buy this? You're basically uncovering the objections, right? And that research was like paramount, right? Like once I understood all of those things, then shifting it over to Amazon, it became very, very successful. That brand in one year, it did over a million dollars in that one year that we ended up putting it on Amazon. Speaker 2: So putting the timeline against this, what year was the Kickstarter and then you obviously migrated on to Amazon because it's been 10 years or so since you started on Amazon, right? Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's about 10, so this was about, I want to say 10, over 10 years ago, I'd say. And these bands actually weren't the first product. So actually, now I remember, the first product they ever sold on Amazon, because the daily deal sites were great, but it was kind of like a full-time job too, because every day I had to come up with a new product idea to drop ship, that sort of thing. So I really wanted the reoccurring revenue. I wanted to just set it up once, have it keep selling, good to go. So that's where kind of Amazon came into the picture. The first product they ever sold on Amazon was – and keep in mind, I'm not an Apple guy at all, fortunately or unfortunately. But at the time, they were shifting over the connection on all the iPods. They didn't have the iPhone back then, but it was mainly for the iPods where it was like the 32-pin connector to the mini one that they have today. And a lot of people had bought those docks so they needed a converter to go from that old big pin connector to the small one. All I did was go to Alibaba, find these connection or these converter devices, threw them up on Amazon, didn't have a brand or anything to it. I already knew with my experience with SEO, with the websites, that sort of thing, I had a decent idea that keywords were important and being able to describe it as a 32-pin dock connector converter bubble, whatever it is. That was wildly successful. So within, I mean, relatively speaking to the time, so within weeks I was doing thousands, thousands in sales and that got me hooked. I was like, wow, there is something here. And yeah, then it was like, I'm all in. This is what I got to focus on. Speaker 2: So I'm guessing, just putting it together, this is probably around, the Kickstarter is about 2013-14. And then around 14, 15, you started on Amazon. Speaker 1: About that, yeah. Yeah, I would say about that. Speaker 2: So how did you find out? Because everyone had their route into Amazon, right? So everyone finds their way in somehow. What's the story that brought you to Amazon? Speaker 1: Yeah, it was really just the frustration of doing the daily deal stuff. It was like what way can I get the reoccurring revenue without always that input of setting up the deal and figuring that out. And it was just like investigating. Obviously, eBay at the time was still a decent player, but eBay just felt more like beanie babies, one-off things, that sort of thing. And then the next logical one, obviously, Amazon was still huge back then as well. And I think what actually sealed the deal for me was the FBA program. Like, hey, I just send my stuff to them. I don't have to fulfill it. And they could actually fulfill it cheaper than what it would cost me to ship. That was mind blowing and yeah, I was all in with that. Speaker 2: So year one, let's say 14, 15, Amazon, did you say you hit seven figures in year one or is that the brand across all platforms? Speaker 1: So no, that was just that product in just over a year. It was like at a million dollars for that year. Speaker 2: Yeah. And then let's move into 15, 16, what we're doing here. Speaker 1: Yeah, so then it was I mean, you know expanding getting other products as well. So For that mosquito hat, it's an interesting story with that mosquito product We were actually doing so well that we were outranking Like the big the big guys, right so you can imagine like Johnson & Johnson that sort of thing Randomly, the supplier just went dark on us. They ghosted us and it was like, what's going on? I don't know exactly what happened, but months later, that same person messaged me on whatever platform it was at the time. I was like, oh, I'm so sorry. I left that company, but while I was there, I had to agree to not reach out to you anymore. And I'm like, what? What do you mean? And it turned out that they said some big US company actually bought the factory and then changed the factory around and basically made it so that we couldn't produce the product there anymore. So I don't know if it was just coincidence. I don't know the details on it. But I mean, we did find another factory. We did end up selling a lot of it afterwards as well, too. But once you run out of stock on Amazon, that's like pain, right? And then on top of that, then there was new regulations coming in as well, too. So at the time, I mean, back then, Amazon was pretty much the Wild West. But yeah, new regulations kind of came in. We couldn't As a Canadian, we couldn't sell in the pesticide category and it got really complicated really quick. And then we kind of just let that product kind of sunset. So I can tell you about a failure as well. We did try another product where it was a mosquito repellent tent and also a sun tent. And the products were amazing. We had a custom design and it worked exceptionally well. Pricing was great. Margins were fantastic. I thought this was going to be a $5 million product, right? I went out of my way to try to explain how to fold it up because this is a big tent. So it's one of those where you kind of throw it, it opens up, it's like eight feet long, you can go in there, blocks the sun, that sort of thing. And then we had models that had mesh as well too. So if you're camping, whatever, you just want to chill in the tent, it's almost like a tent basically. But the issue was No matter how easy I made the instructions, videos, you name it, people couldn't figure out how to fold it back together. And that was the nail in the coffin for the product. So once you start getting those negative reviews, everyone knows it's very hard to come back from that. Luckily, I didn't make a huge initial run, manufacturing run on it. Yeah, that was pretty painful because in my heart of hearts, I knew it was going to be a successful product and maybe if I kept, you know, figured trying to crack the code on that. But yeah, no, we ended up just liquidating it and kind of letting that one sunset as well. Speaker 2: And I mean, if there's 16, 17 period, you could get reviews a lot easier. It was a little bit more Fluid in order to get reviews then to kind of try and recover something. So it must have been pretty devastating to not be able to get ahead. Do you see what I mean? Because back then, you know, I'm not saying that you should do it, but you were able to get reviews to offset some of the negatives until it hits a tipping point. Right. And it goes beyond reasoning. But now you couldn't get anywhere near that. It's like there's almost impossible in terms of terms of service to get a product to turn back around like you could back then. Speaker 1: I remember back then. So the way I got reviews back then was, so obviously, yeah, like you could do the review groups. And to be honest, I never dabbled in that side of things. But what I did do was you would actually get customers' phone numbers. And I would make it a point to call, especially the early people that are buying, call every single one. Don't ask for the review directly, but try to build that relationship, that sort of thing, and get feedback. At the end of the day, it's all about the feedback. And unfortunately, the feedback was like, don't have the patience to figure out how to do this, forget it, that sort of thing. So yeah, that was one of the ones that didn't go according to plan. Speaker 2: So what was next we're talking 17 18 where we now and how many brands because we've not specified we've mentioned products But they under the same brand or different brand. Speaker 1: So those are those are two brands, right? So there was the mosquito pollen brand there was the tent brand and then around that time issues when I started a travel brand so my wife and I love to love to travel and my philosophy was kind of like I Maybe I should start making products that I wanted. So with the Mosquito Band, I wasn't the target market. I wasn't the person that makes the buying decisions. I wanted to create a brand for myself that was more fun and more like exactly what I wanted. And actually what started that It's a very simple product but like one time, there's some celebration or whatever and my mom actually bought me one of those M&M candies luggage tags, right? And it was the most ridiculous looking thing ever. But you know, she was being cute about it. She was like, oh, then you'll never lose your bags, that sort of thing. And that's kind of what inspired. I was like, okay, this is great. But then I was also like, well, I'm traveling a lot for business and like I can't really have this obnoxiously big I'm an M&M luggage tag, so I started kind of looking into, yeah, are there any kind of business luggage tags, that sort of thing, and I feel like I went really deep into it. In terms of luggage, it's such a commodity of a product, but I saw that there was some opportunity in there to create something for a specific kind of person, like create it for myself, like make something that I would want. And it turns out that resonated really well. So that's the next brand that kind of took off. And that was based on obviously what I liked as well, but then also understanding what others liked. And I've done some Kickstarters for that brand as well. And yeah, basically launched a line of travel accessories. Speaker 2: Okay, so we're 18-19. This is two years before COVID hit. You're in the travel area. What did you scale those to in that period? Speaker 1: Yeah, so again, there's seven figures. Not as quick. It didn't hit seven figures as quick as the mosquito repellent because these are just kind of like smaller accessory things. But I think what I did well with that brand, and I still have the brand today. I absolutely love the brand that I built. But I also understood the power of acquiring customers and having people on that email list. So something that I built with the software knowledge is also like when they... So it's a luggage tag. So when they get it, there's a serial number on the luggage tag. They have to register it via email. So now by default, it's built into the product that you register it with your email and they get a free lost and found kind of service. So that was a cool kind of thing that I don't see a lot of sellers doing. But there's a huge opportunity for that like building in some sort of like build getting the email into the actual product itself, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. Speaker 1: So yeah, those brands or that brand was always consistent, always successful. And then COVID hit, right? Speaker 2: March 28, 20, 18th, 19th, 20th of March, that period. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: What was it like when it hit and being in travel? Because I've got a few friends that got to get the game in there. Speaker 1: I've never opened my Seller Central app before and seen zero before ever, right? In years. But there were days where it was literally, literally zero. Because keep in mind, I'm doing luggage locks, luggage tags, passports, wallets, that sort of stuff. And yeah, no one's traveling. So I'm like, oh, this is not good. What I did do for that brand, I launched another Kickstarter. So at the time, people were buying those no-touch tools. So they look like a key, like a large key that you can kind of hook onto a door, pull it open, push the pin pad at the ATM, typically made of brass, because brass is supposed to be more like antibacterial, that sort of thing. And, um, it was becoming a big, it was becoming a big, um, uh, a big category like overnight. Right. Um, so I was like, okay, I'll do that too. I already have the goodwill of the, uh, the customers that have bought my travel products. I have all their emails. Um, let's see what I can do on this. So instead of just, um, uh, well, And then also with that email list, I'm asking them like, well, hey, have you bought one of these? That sort of thing. Trying to get ideas of how to develop a new kind of product. And basically what came out of that was a design where the product itself was more like a Swiss Army knife style. So it was basically, it would cover the hook, the thing that pressed the buttons, it would actually fold into itself so that you're not, say, putting the germs back in your pocket or in your purse or whatever it is. So basically uncovered a slight differentiator that seemed like a good thing to launch. I threw that up on Kickstarter and in 30 days, it did just shy of $100,000, which was pretty cool. And obviously, a lot of that was from the goodwill from the existing customer base. Threw it up on Amazon after the Kickstarter and yeah, it started selling right out of the gate. It started selling really well as well. People were buying them as gifts. Corporations were buying them in bundles to give to their staff, that sort of thing. So I thought, hey, this is another like really, this is gonna be another million dollar brand. But, you know, the regulations on that changed as well. They started considering it a pesticide and all this nonsense. And I also figured the product was going to be short-lived anyway. After COVID, nobody's going to be going around with this keychain to open doors. So I let that lay as well. But it was a nice kind of boost to, you know, to that brand to have something kind of going. This is also where Product Opinion kind of came into existence. So during COVID, you know, sales aren't happening. Oh, I also dabbled in Tesla car accessories too as another brand during COVID. And I was lucky that I had somebody that That one I haven't really shared that much about but that one was interesting because I had someone do one video for a product and it did like $20,000 on Amazon just based on his one video. He had a bit of a Tesla community and that was kind of a cool thing too. But yeah, that's when I started thinking about, well, hey, you know, I've done all this stuff with qualitative research before. I was using usertesting.com. Why doesn't that exist in the Amazon space? Why don't Amazon sellers talk to their buyers or talk to shoppers? I've had a lot of success in that, so can I bring that to Amazon sellers? I did a prototype for it and we had it in a mastermind group. The feedback was really good. People were liking it and that kind of became what it is today where we're doing consumer insights for Amazon sellers with Product Opinion. Speaker 2: You know what, it's interesting because I've been, as you know, it's like I've been pushing this. Someone called it a narrative. Unbelievable. They called it a narrative. I went, what? A narrative is understanding your customer objections, having the ability to fix them, and then your conversion rate goes up. I think the problem is when you've been given a framework. So since 2015, there's proven strategies. There's this way of doing things. There's templates. And so it's alien for sellers to do what is termed as proper conversion optimization. That isn't just Amazon. It's proper conversion optimization in any field, in any industry. Do you understand? And I think it's been a struggle for people. But most of the top sellers do this right. And that's why they make a lot of money. Obviously, the product is key. But I think it's one of those things where It's been hard to get people to understand because it's not sexy, it's not a hack, there's not like a moonshot that appears at the end of it. Does that make sense? I think it's got so much better now, but for a period, because it was alien. It was like, well, I don't get it. I don't understand it. I'll just look at post-purchase reviews, you know? Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. Like you said, testing isn't necessarily sexy. I mean, you think test, you think school, it's like, ugh, do I want to do that stuff? And what we're trying to do with Product Opinion is make it as easy as possible, as affordable as possible, and really dial into making it systematic. How do you get repeatable results? By following a template, by following a framework. So it's qualitative, concept, contextual, right? And following that is what leads to understanding the objections, getting the conversion rates, and everything else falls into place once you have that. Speaker 2: Do you know any 7 or 8 figure sellers that don't do testing properly? I'm sure there's a few that are very product led and very good at product and don't do that. I think a lot of the top guys, they're all like main image, they're all over it. Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely. It's funny because we have a shared person that I know that doesn't, I'm trying to bring her into the testing sphere. Speaker 2: I know what you mean. Yeah. Speaker 1: But yeah, no, once you're at that, once you're at that caliber, and the thing is like, all the big brands do this. So with Product Opinion, I've been lucky to work with some really, really big brands. Like you would know them, they're on the shelf at Costco, that sort of thing. This is what they do. They do this day in, day out. They'll test everything and anything. One particular brand even has a statistician on staff, so full-time just to make sure the tests that they're doing are valid and set up correctly, that sort of thing. And again, Amazon sellers don't necessarily have to go that far to hire someone to do the stats. But having the mindset of like, and getting the ego out of the way of, you know what? We don't know what's best. Let's test it. Let's just try it. And get into that culture of, you know what? Shoppers know best. Let's see what they say. Because at the end of the day, some data, some directional is better than nothing, nothing at all. And when you're going in blind, you're just guessing. And yeah. Speaker 2: Absolutely. So moving back into the timeline, we're talking, you launched Product Opinion in 21, 22? Yeah, around there, around there. Speaker 1: It took a good year of like just private beta testing, making sure that, because it's also chicken and the egg. Like you need, obviously you need brands, but then you'll obviously need the shoppers, the people on the panel to give you the insights. Speaker 2: Yeah, so going along there, 22, so you had the travel brand literally took a nosedive like nearly every single travel brand and the first time that you've seen zero in your account for years. How long did it take you to bring in that other concept that we were just discussing earlier that you had to move fast because of, I'm assuming most of your revenue was coming from the travel brand at that point or was it split across other areas? Speaker 1: It's split across other areas, but obviously having a lot of success previously added some padding, I guess, so to speak. So I wasn't in an all-out panic, but it was a lot of working towards Figuring out what to do with that brand. But luckily also, Product Opinion started getting a lot of traction as well. So with the traction on that, with COVID as well, once it was kind of more or less diminishing, Travel space came back in a big way, right? People were super eager to get going again and the sales were like three times. I mean, it didn't make up for like the two, three years of more or less zero, but the sales were like much, much bigger than they ever had been previously, which was nice. Speaker 2: Yeah, because we had limited track, because I did, I traveled when you could travel, but there's so many restrictions, so many tests, I think mid to late 21 really, because I remember when we did, we couldn't do Seller Sessions Live and I moved to date six times, cost me a fortune, but we were the first out the gate in the October of the 21, I think it was, but we had a window because we wasn't sure whether They were going to go back into lockdown that December. They didn't, but there was always that risk, you know. But I kept moving the date because no one knew it was going to be about two years, yeah? Speaker 1: It would happen, yeah. Speaker 2: But that's when I think the travel started to come back as well, wasn't it? Because people were able, from about August, there was a period where it opened again, then I think it closed again, and then that Q4 of 21 is where it really picked up. Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly as well, too, but I think, yeah, definitely towards the end of 2021, 2022, yeah, it kind of picked up. And the other lucky thing, you know, speaking back to the frameworks that we've came out with, I mean, it's not just obviously based on my brand. I've been really lucky to connect with world-class agencies like Dorian, which we know. He was very early on using Product Opinion and being very vocal about what he wanted to see, what he didn't want to see. And he introduced us to a lot of other brands as well, too, that he's been working with. And they're world-class, million-dollar, seven-, eight-figure brands. And we were able to kind of come up with these methodologies, you know, based on feedback from multiple brands of every kind of size and caliber. Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I don't know enough of them. And obviously people do this internally and they're at their own teams or higher in. But I think in terms of people, I know Dorian's probably the GOAT when it comes to main image and he's been doing it for years. Right. So do you know any others that has his level of consistency of what he produces for main images? I don't think we do, do we? He's like on his own. Speaker 1: Yeah, I know. Honestly, he's like the man. There's another agency as well, too, Zonfoto by Vadim. He's on the money as well. He knows what he's talking about. And I've seen some like crazy and not just And not just like a lot of people will hear it. A lot of the strategies that have already they cover all these. Speaker 2: Yeah. So it's like swing tag that you see it on LinkedIn all the time and we both know it's like you can have all the the. All the proven strategies loaded into the same image and it just looks absolutely terrible because the execution plays a role and I think what happens is they go, well, if you add this to the image, you do the call out, you do this, this, and this, and then your conversion rate will double. It doesn't. It just simply doesn't. Speaker 1: So then you Frankensteined it, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, it gets Frankensteined and it's terrible. So yeah, it's funny because We live in a culture of proven strategies and do this and this will do this to conversion rate. But they did it to their conversion rate on their product in that category at that time and date with that competition. Do you see what I mean? And I think we need to let people know it's like I said to you the other day about this. With the IMG pop that we've built, so it pops the image, so it doesn't do anything to the image. It upscales, does a reflection and retouches and it does it really well, right? And the problem is we did it on one of the client brands who had more like a Pantone color to the finish. Even though the image looks better, it was brighter and it was done tastefully. It was not over saturated or anything like that. It looked really good. Every test failed. Speaker 1: Yeah. Speaker 2: So the consumer didn't want it to look more finished, if you like, in terms of the retouch and stuff. And that taught me a big lesson after testing since 20 2008. I started getting into conversion optimisation and that really threw me because it's like we've not moved any objects. That's not optimisation. Basically, it's upregulating the quality of the image, a reflection, right? And then all the tests fail. All of them. Speaker 1: And yeah, you never know until you test. And something else that I've learned, and I had this experience too, is like when you're a brand creator, inherently you have an ego, right? Because you're creating this thing. It's your baby, basically. But the most successful creators understand that they have to get out of their own way, right? Like, yes, they can direct it and kind of polish this and that, but they have to be open that other people might think your baby is ugly and be open to that feedback. And I've seen it both ways where people that are receptive to it, they're like, hey, whatever, let's just make this work. That's usually the go-forward position for a lot of successful brands. But I've seen it the other way, too, where, you know, people just want to do what they want to do and stick with it. And so be it. And sometimes that's a that's a success. But, yeah, more often than not, you have to let your ego out of the way, out the door. Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a there's a guy with the godfather of conversion optimization, which no one in our communities ever heard of. When I ask, do you know they are? And he's like, this is the godfather, Pete Larger. He had a phrasing called HIPAA, highest person's opinion. It was like abbreviated as because they will go in and then the CEO go, I know my business. I know this. Let's do this test. We're going to do it like that. And then the test will come back because the results didn't come out the way he was expecting. It was the opposite. They'd ask for retesting because they're trying to get to the point of no, no, no. Keep doing it until I am right. Do you understand what I mean? No, that's wrong. Don't retest. Speaker 1: It has to match me. Speaker 2: Yeah, it has to match my opinion. And yes, so that's where the hippo terminology comes from. But it's also, we've discussed this about self-esteem, like you invest so much into your product, getting feedback, it can Be tough, love and brutal at times, but you can look between the tone of the voice, right? And extrapolate from that and turn things around because you are firing in the dark if you're not testing because it doesn't guarantee you can solve the problem. But if you know what the problem is, you can at least attempt to address the problem to see if you can solve it. Sorry, we're going off a little bit. We're at 23 now. So how many brands are we running at the moment? Product Opinions, Motrin, along one side. Speaker 1: Yeah. So there's another brand that I work with, with the original software company still to this day, which recently crossed over seven figures in sale this year. So there's that one that I've been playing with. That one's interesting though too because it was on Amazon and then I removed it from Amazon and now it's more of a Shopify play. Speaker 2: So maybe you don't want to discuss users and that but what's the growth been like from Product Opinion? Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's been growing well. I mean, obviously, everything is – I can tell you that we did double from last year, but obviously, it's relative to what the absolute number is. For this year, we're actually looking to four times it. We got together and kind of spoke what we think is possible. Especially because with Product Opinion, we haven't actually done any traditional marketing and we haven't really focused on SEO or paid. We've never done a paid ad. We haven't paid for sponsorships. But that is something that we want to explore this year. And I think we could actually, yeah, make some big, you know, have a lot of traction. We won that Golden Seller Award, which is pretty, pretty darn cool. And I think we have the traction and momentum to make that happen for next year. Speaker 2: Yeah, so just as we come to the top of the show, I ask these at the end generally, but the road as an entrepreneur isn't always a straight road and we only hear about the failures once you can talk about the success story, if that makes sense, because of that 10-year overnight success thing. What was been your darkest hour before dawn? Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good one. I mean, and to be honest, I've been very blessed and very lucky. But there were, I mean, there's always like that self-doubt. There's always that like imposter syndrome, right? So it's like, wait, am I actually as good as people perceive me to be? So that always kind of creeps up. I think it's natural. To be honest, like, In general, I try to be very, even when, so for example, like COVID happens, my brand goes to zero. My gut level reaction is like, you know what, I'll figure it out. I'll launch the Kickstarter. I'll try to do this, do that. I think that philosophy and kind of attitude of, you know what, I control my destiny. I can, you know, no matter what the world throws at me, I will figure something out one way or another. I don't know where that confidence comes from, to be honest, but I have that thing in the back of my mind. I think the other aspect that keeps me going forward, even when things are tough, everyone that has kids, once you have kids, you just realize that you're not doing this for you anymore. It's not. It's like you're doing everything for them. That has been such a driver and has been such a, you know, those long nights, whatever it is, it's like, you know what, I'm doing it for the munchkins. So, yeah, that's kind of, I don't, yeah, and I thought about this as well, too, and I can't, I've been lucky enough that I don't, can't think of like one kind of big dramatic moment, but I think just having that positive attitude as much as possible, which is not easy. It definitely comes into play and you need that as an entrepreneur because things are going to go. I remember one time I had skids of products seized by the Canadian border agency or whatever it was. At first, it's like this is going to be bad, but you know what? In the end, it worked out. We figured it out. We made it happen. Speaker 2: Money or legacy? Speaker 1: I need both. Right now, it's legacy. I'm blessed enough that money hasn't been a concern for some time, but I don't take that for granted. I understand that it's not easy, but there has been thought about what am I leaving behind? How are people going to remember me by? I think that it's shifted. Obviously, money is a necessity, but it's shifted from that to legacy, to leave something, leave the world a better, you know, everyone says it, but leave the world a better place than what it was before. Speaker 2: How would you like to be remembered? Speaker 1: I like this one. It's deep. I want to be remembered as someone who's genuine, who really goes out of their way to help people. I know that's generic, but there's a lot of people that don't have that. They're just doing things for whatever reasons. At the end of the day, for me, it's like if I can make other people's lives better, I can contribute in that way, whether it's selling on Amazon or even just like playing squash with someone that needs someone to play squash with. And I mentioned that too because I just recently joined a squash club and there was someone that hadn't played squash in like years, he's an older guy, and that kind of inspired him to get back into it again. And I felt really good just chatting with him, sharing stories, that sort of thing. And that's what to me life is about, just making people feel better, making people feel good and helping them out. So yeah, I want to be remembered by just being able to contribute and to be a problem solver as well. I love it when my kids come to me with problems because then it's like I get them to try to solve it, but then talk them through it, that sort of thing. And yeah, at the end of the day, it's a good question. But yeah. Speaker 2: That's your in-depth. How do you feel? Speaker 1: Cool, yeah. Speaker 2: To go back on their stuff, you know? You go back through things, kind of piecing it together, you know? Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. I didn't think I would get so emotional on the, on the, what do you want to be remembered by? But then it, like, it was like my, like, picturing at the funeral, that sort of thing. Like, what are people going to say? What are they going to... Speaker 2: What in the day no one's going to be talking about your money your successes or anything if you knew what I talk about your character. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Things that matter like really bad money's important it's a tool and stuff but there's certain things as you get older that you know. You that you make adjustments to what aligns are important like your children and stuff like that No one wants to be broke or anything or foul. We're not saying that but what happens is you make adjustments that The true things come to the surface that really matter if you don't mean Yeah Well, I'm looking forward to working with all you guys for the next five months. We've got a lot of work to do for The new format for Seller Sessions which is in collaboration. So what's the best way that people can reach you? Speaker 1: Yeah, so easiest way is just Matt at productpinion.com. That's my that's my email and Yeah You can check us out there as well Excellent guys. Speaker 2: Thank you for joining us today Go and grab tickets sell a session live May 10th one day intensive We cover everything from launch to relaunch in a structured format. We're working off an adapted VARC model, which helps you learn and retain in real time, walk away of SOPs, et cetera, et cetera. We've sold out last five in a row. So hopefully we sell out number six as well. With this new format, you get your own workstation and everyone will be helping you in real time. So kind of trying to Shake up that format of education. You know, it's great. You can go to a conference and write notes and stuff. But, you know, there are times you're going to forget those or you're contorting yourself trying to take a picture without falling in someone's lap and the slides go past. But we've kind of been designing something from the ground up. So everything's built from the ground up and it will be steady flowing throughout the day. Demonstrations. You'll be doing hands on stuff and following along. And yeah, I think once we get this tied down, I think it's going to be pretty special. So join me again next week. Take care of yourself and your family. Much love and I'll see you again soon.