How to Start an Amazon Business Today
Ten years and hundreds of brands later, what would you do if you were starting from zero? The hosts put it to the test: what to sell, where to sell it, who to hire, and which mistakes are worth skipping.
In this episode: A walk through the key decisions of launching a product business today: what to sell, where to sell it, who to hire, how to win your first customers, and what to watch in the numbers.
Key takeaways
The non-sexy product often makes more money, and you need to fall in love with the building, not the product.
Start where customers already are, usually a marketplace like Amazon, master one channel, then expand.
Profit and cash flow matter more than revenue, and the best test of demand is asking strangers for cash.
Timestamps
00:00 Intro: starting a business today
02:38 Decision 1: what would you sell?
05:51 Five criteria for a good product
07:07 Finding product data
08:05 Where to sell: go where the customers are
09:42 How Amazon has changed
10:51 Team: AI plus experts, not early hires
12:56 Getting customers: founder-led content and AI tools
16:22 Where people trip up
18:12 Mistakes: profit, cash flow and finance
20:44 Test demand with strangers
23:10 Book recommendations
The detail
Pick a boring product and keep the five criteria in mind. Car interior fabric lining and tea towels are both multi-million businesses. The filters: easy to ship, works as a subscription, cheap to buy and premium to sell, a healthy margin, and room to build a brand. Know your cost of goods before you commit. Our episode on scaling an 8 figure Amazon business shows what this looks like in practice.
Sell where the traffic already is, and hire experts instead of training newcomers. A great product on a website with no traffic effectively does not exist. Winning one marketplace first, here reaching number one in the category within about six months, is what opened the door to supermarkets. Hiring inexperienced staff meant two years of training before they were headhunted, so experts and freelancers are the better route. Our side hustles and testing fast episode goes deeper on validating ideas.
Build an audience, then protect your cash. A founder with a phone camera can build real reach on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn, which is why founder-led brands are taking over. The biggest regret is finance: a £1M business making £100K to £200K profit beats a £5M to £10M business making little, and being profitable on paper does not mean cash in the bank. Hear more in the Amazon cash trap.
Work with us
Planning a launch and want expert eyes on it before you spend? Get in touch.
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