Inside Africa’s Fastest Growing E-Commerce Movement | Nikhil X Noaym

When you don't have a problem in your day, that means that your day is not productive if you're not solving problems in that day.

What did you think when a random Indian kid bugging you on Instagram?

My thoughts was be like, this guy really want to change his life, he really want to learn.

What's a good mindset for entrepreneur? Like many people still don't understand.

Fall in love with failure. So you have to fail again and again and again.

Now you are becoming technically an Amazon in Africa. I mean, how did you get to where you are? It's really good product.

We need to get really a big shipment of it, and then we buy a really big shipment of it and we send it to this country.

What is that big mistake that we can avoid?

Now, doing the things more faster, like, uh, you start having all these thoughts in your head, you get into the loop. One of our main goal is to be like the next Camelot in Africa.

What's going on? What's going on, everybody's actually listening to this podcast? First of all, guys, welcome back to another episode of The Nikhil Sai Show which is hosted by me, Dini Gilsahi. And guess what's going on today? I'm back with another amazing entrepreneur interview. This is a very special one, and I'll tell you the reason. Like, I've interviewed a couple hundred people on this podcast so far. Amazing 7-figure entrepreneurs, 8-figure entrepreneurs, even 9-figure, even billionaires for a reason, who are actually jumping on this podcast. But the guest today who is jumping on has been my special mentor. He was the one who got me kickstarted into the online journey. I was this guy in college trying a lot of stuff and I couldn't really find things that work online and I didn't even make so much money online ever. So it was really confusing for me and I was directionless and I just didn't find another salesperson who sell courses. I really found a mentor who shook hands, who was there to support, who was providing personal guidance. And it was insane. There's a lot for us to dig deep into. You see all the awards behind me, the ClickFunnels awards. Like he was the one who introduced me into ClickFunnels. Like he was the one who got me into Russell Brunson's Grant Cardone's 10X event, which I watched. I was like, holy smokes, now I know funnels. And I built Funneling Media from there. So let's not waste any time. And actually let's welcome my original mentor that got me into digital marketing, Noam Ben. Hey, Noam. Hello.

How are you doing? It's a very good day to be here with you in your podcast. I'm really proud of you. Like it's really amazing the past few years that we've been like talking together and all of that. Thank you.

Absolutely, brother. So, I mean, so fun to like— back in the day, I'll tell you the quick story. We'll make it very organic. This is not a typical podcast where I'm interviewing and asking all the strategy. I want to really dig deep. Like, I saw an Instagram post back in the day, right? I was just getting out of the situation where I wanted to change my life. I was building that mindset. I started watching Gary Vee, Grant Cardone, Dan Lok back in the day. These were posting a lot of content and I started liking those self-motivation posts. And I started seeing a lot of self-help posts. And there was a post particularly where it said something very good in the quote, but then in the bottom section, in the comment section, it said like, if you want to make $100 a day, comment me or something like that. Like, you know, and I did comment and somebody DM'd me saying, hey, you should follow Noam. You know, he has an amazing course. Then I DM'd you from there and then you sent me to a webinar. Then I couldn't pay the full price for the webinar. I clearly remember. Then I started bargaining with you like, hey, this is all I have. Like, can I buy? And I remember you saying, hey Nick, I'm not selling potatoes. That was the exact line you used. Like, I don't bargain. This is my course price. But then you were kind enough to get me in at a very, very, very low upfront cost, which allowed me to get in and become hopefully one of the best students you had so far. Is that about right? What's your side of the story? What did you think when a random Indian kid bugging you on Instagram to give you your course access? What was your thought? Exactly.

So my thoughts was be like, uh, this, like, uh, this guy really want to change his life. He's really want to learn. And what I liked about you back then is that I want, uh, I was giving you tasks. So at first I said, I can, I wanted to give it to you for free, but I said, hey, if you pay just, I guess you pay just $20 and it was like $500 or $1,000.

Yeah. So $50, I remember that's kind of what I paid, but it's crazy.

Yes. So. When you pay something, you do what it's going to take to achieve the goals. What I was really amazed about you is that I was giving you tasks and 99% of people, when you give them tasks, they don't get back and do their tasks. Or like when you see like a strategy, you don't implement it. What I liked about you is that you was implementing the strategy and you came back to me asking me for questions. So that's what I really, really liked about you. And that's what, where the mindset comes in. It was having really, really good mindset at that age by doing hard, like by being hardworking student and by implementing and failing. And after a lot of failures, you achieved your first sale, second sale, and then it went, it kept going until like, look where you are right now. Like, I'm really proud of you.

Like, Appreciate that. Appreciate that.

Not many people.

Yeah, I mean, this is so much fun for a reason because this is like the humble beginning, right? Like, I had no clue, and I'm pretty sure I was a very annoying student, meaning I asked so many questions. I was trying to call you, I was trying to text you on Messenger and Instagram. You were like, Nikhil, I'm not active on Messenger, but you gave me your WhatsApp number, and that's when you really took personal mentorship. And I really appreciate that because We could see like how students show up. The mentor has interest in them, right? Like one of the reasons any program I join, I become hyper successful is because I show up, I take tasks, I do, and then I report back to the mentors. Right. So talk to us, like, I remember watching your course where you're talking in the horse field behind horses. You record your courses about how marketing works, the online business works and stuff like that. I still remember. And you give some very important mindset modules about being an entrepreneur, having focus and stuff like that. Right. And you built and scaled multiple businesses to different stages. And I saw you as my vision because you are nomading, you are traveling the world. Like every time, like even right now you're in the ocean, you're on the beach, you're having fun, right? Like, I love that. I love that lifestyle. Like I'm traveling and I've been to a dozen countries in the last one year. It is so fun to see you, you know, see that person and then we become that person as well. Right. So tell us, uh, Noyam, like walk us through. What's a good mindset for entrepreneur? Like many people still don't understand the game of entrepreneurship from a mindset standpoint. And you're one of those people who I believe have very strong intentions, good moral values in building a business. So talk us through your mindset of how to become a successful entrepreneur.

Yeah. So firstly, like most of people think that they need to succeed like the first time, or maybe if they start something, they say like they don't know what it takes to be successful. So in order to become successful, you have to fall in love with failure. So you have to fail again and again and again. And after the first failure, second, third, and fourth, you start learning. Like when you start taking step by step, you start learning and you gather this learning and then you start seeing your first results. And then this is where the mindset comes in. Like when you have a good mindset, you understand that it takes time. It's going to It's not going to happen overnight. And also you have to become a problem solver. So when it comes to entrepreneurs, in order to become an entrepreneur, you have to solve problems. You have to handle problems every day. So when you don't have a problem in your day, that may, that like, uh, that means that your day is not productive if you're not solving problems in that day. So by solving problems and by seeing, by making action, And moving forward, of course, in the right directions. So by, and when you start failing, you will start knowing where is the right direction. Like, that's why every month and every week you should like do revision on yourself, see where you're going, if you are on the right path or not, if you're doing the hard work in the right path or not. So this is the most important thing. So yeah, solving problems.

And it is so fun to like come back to the fundamentals of just like be ready to fail and keep solving problems. Like if you just do those two things, you know, I mean, yes, the sky's the limit from there, right? Now talk us through, like you have built businesses, right? Like several businesses, not just one type, right? Like you, you liked that entrepreneur spirit of building multiple businesses at a time. Regardless of what business you're building, you build freedom-based businesses. You're always traveling, you're, you're in the ocean. I see you swimming every day. I see you in Bali in a week and then Malaysia in the other week. It's so fun to see you. Walk us through, why is it important for you to chase freedom? Why, why not sit at a desk and like just be doing the boring task? Why do you choose to build businesses that gives you a lot of time freedom and location freedom?

Yeah, exactly. So this is the point where the hiring is, uh, is very important to you in your business. So when it comes to building a business, when you start getting results, of course, At first, you start seeing your first results, you start making a good income, and then in order to get into the other level, you should hire people that do the work that you do every day. So like that's the, the, the time that you're going to spend is by, by seeing your vision, by brainstorming what you're going to do in your business. So like that, you can move your business into other levels. By hiring, you can have more time to focus, to, to, to go travel the world, to do whatever, like, you want. Like, life is so short. Like you have to enjoy it. Like we are right now in our 20s and 30s. This is the time where we have to spend good time, travel the world, not sitting just one desk. Like, of course there is some people that they have some visions, some specifically like some billionaires that like, you know, they hustle 24/7. So, so in my vision, like I, we, I would love to hire like other people that will do my work for me and myself, I will, I will focus on improving the business, of course, by traveling the world. Like you can stay also Bali, for example, for a month, you can focus, you can have 2 hours, 3 hours, 5 hours a day, just swimming and then the other 6 hours working. So you will have more freedom by doing that. And also this is thanks to the internet who was able to offer us this freedom and we are really appreciate by being in this era.

Yeah. I love that. Right. Like this was never possible. Like when you are just farming your land and trying to grow some crops, you can't just go swimming on a beach. Like you have to be at the crops back in the day, or you have to hunt animals to eat. This was back in the day, like in the BC time. Right. But now the internet allows us to make money online and, you know, do all this fun stuff. Now, like my journey was with you, right? Like that's how I got into online marketing. I don't know the, F in the funnels back in the day. Like you were the one who introduced me to Russell Brunson. You were the one who showed me like ClickFunnels. Like I was so scared about the $97 per month price back in the day for ClickFunnels. I was like, I can't pay for this tool. I still remember that time. Now tell me your story. How did you find, because you're young, like you're 27 if I'm not mistaken, right? Yes. Like I was 19 when I came to you. That was like my, me actually starting with you. Now when I came to you, like you were also young. It's not like you're super old. You were like 22 or 23. Like in that range, but you're already successful. You had a very successful digital marketing business. You had a good, decent recurring revenue. You built huge marketing list back in the day. Tell me your story. How did you get into online marketing? How did you find— because it's not that you're from Morocco, if I'm not mistaken. You're not from the US, you're not from this big UK, or like this big top one country type of stuff. You're from Morocco, but you still figured out some online stuff. You found a way to make money, and now you are becoming technically an Amazon in Africa. That's quite interesting. We'll get into the e-commerce stuff later on, but give us the backstory. Like, how did you get into like finding your own entrepreneurship journey? How did you get to where you are?

Yeah, of course. So a funny story. So, uh, at first I got into internet marketing by seeing an ad. It was a scam ad, you know, like those ads. I was like 16 or 15 years old. Or like, I saw an ad of, it's a scam. Like it tells you put in $200, it will be $20,000. And as a teenager, I believed that and I didn't have the money. So I was searching, uh, like at that stage, then I start searching how to make money online, how to, uh, like get free stuff online that like, this is before searching how to make money online, how to get free stuff online. So I started being amazed and I started talking about my, like, start talking with my family about that. And they start saying I'm insane. Like, like back in 2014, '13, like '15, people don't believe this stuff. Like, it's not like nowadays everyone knows how, like, there is a bunch of courses, all of that, all advertising. Then after that, I started searching about how to make money online. Then I come up with a lot of different ways to make money online by like Amazon Associates back then, tried like doing some AdSense, like when you build a website and you do all these banners on the websites and all of that, and also by doing affiliate marketing. So at first I failed at affiliate marketing, then I came back to doing other stuff, then I came back to affiliate marketing. So, and I didn't have the money to spend on advertising. So what I was doing is I was doing free strategies by sending messages to people and convincing them by And the message is, then I get the money, I gather this money, I start reinvesting into advertising, then I scale the business. So it was a long journey. So yeah, that's my story of why, how I discovered.

That's crazy. I mean, when I saw your course, you were talking about so many traffic sources on like email, like in a solo ad. And like back in the day, there were so many sources, right? Like JV partners or like Instagram messages and then like content creation and Facebook ads.

Yeah, back then was a lot. Like a lot more of some ways that you can, like for example, Instagram mentions, like you can bypass algorithms and put mentions on the comments on the post and the people will receive notifications. So it's what back then was a lot. And also right now it's still with AI and everything, you know, like it's still powerful.

There's always a way, like the one who wants to do the work, he always will find the way, right? Then there is the complainers, the other piece, the 90% of the people who say, oh, Instagram is tough. There's too many people. So I clearly remember I came to you, right? And I saw the course and I was like, I'm like, oh, there's email marketing. I need a list. Oh, there is ActiveCampaign. I can't pay for it. Oh, I need ClickFunnels. I don't have the money to pay for it. I have like all these problems, but you told me, you gave me a line like, hey, pick one source, like just do one thing which you can do, right? Then I just created Instagram accounts and I created a lot of them. Like I still have those accounts, like hundreds of accounts actually. And I posted like 7 times to 15 times a day on all those accounts using automation tools with one phone. I didn't even have a laptop back then and I was just DMing people on scale. I mean, it's like when people come to me and say, I can't do 100 outreaches a day. My immediate question is, I used to do 2,000 people outreach using automations and Instagram DMs back in the day. Like, that's how I made my first $25. Like, you know, that's the commission I made for the first sale. Now people come to me and say, oh, my client is worth $10,000, but I don't send messages. I'm like, that's so stupid. So like, you taught me the focus back in the day. Like, don't focus on all the traffic, pick one. Why do you think is it important for business owners? To pick one channel or one way of doing business? Why not just do multiple things and get confused?

Of course. So by focusing on a lot of different ways, for example, let's say you're focusing on getting Facebook ads and doing TikTok ads and doing all of the different things at the same time, and you're not even like knowing how to run it. So you're still learning in the learning stage. So what I recommend, pick one thing and the reason why to not get distracted. So, so like that, you will hammer on it, know all the strategies, all the loopholes of it, like the secrets, like you will develop your own strategy because there is a lot of different courses that teach people how to do Facebook ads. And, but when you start implementing it, different thing, you can't learn by just watching. You have to do it yourself. And by doing it yourself, you start doing it your way. And this is where the most important thing comes in. When you start developing your own strategy and you start doing your own testing, your own, so you, you like, this becomes like you start doing it naturally. You start just, I click here, do they analyze this? I should do this. I should do— this is specifically done like for you. Like if someone use your strategies, it will not work for them. Like, because maybe it will work, maybe it's not, but you developed it like to work for you. So that's the reason why you should focus on one thing, you develop it until you master it. And you start getting results from it and you scale it into the level that you can't add more, then you can start adding other things. Why you're going to learn a new thing, but you can get double, triple, 10x the results by just you keep doing this.

Yeah, that's pretty cool. I mean, that brings back a very clear agenda on why it's important to focus as an entrepreneur. Now tell us about the secret businesses you're building that's going to make you millions and millions of dollars. Now you're building the Amazon of Africa. I can't get into more details than that because you're the guy who doesn't post. You don't like showing off. You just keep making money and you're silently rich. I like that. And, you know, I kind of brought those principles with me. I'm very minimalistic as well. I don't show off my wealth. That's not my core value. But tell us about building a successful e-commerce business, what it takes, from A to Z. Yeah.

So in order to build an e-commerce business, like e-commerce specifically with cash on delivery business. So cash on delivery is a business that you, people don't pay with cards. So they pay after receiving the product. So we sell in Africa in multiple different countries in Africa. So we get like inventory from China. We have a team in China that checks the quality of the product. So like that, we will not waste the time because it's not with like the typical e-commerce that you know, that you, you just get the sale and you just buy from AliExpress or from your supplier and buy piece by piece, you send it. No, we buy a whole inventory. We can buy 1,000 pieces at once and we send it to those countries. And then if it arrives and the orders are not coming in, we lose. So like, uh, the inventory will stay there. So that's why we do our testing. We, we see if the products get sales, then we send it into those countries. And when it arrives, we have a team there that we ship, we send it with the shipping company from China to those countries. We have a team there that, uh, do the rem— like they get the products from the shipping company. And then we start sending orders. We have a team there. We have warehouses there. They store our inventory there. And then we start sending orders. And when you start sending orders, there is a team that calls those orders. And then like they say, maybe someone wants it today, someone wants it the next day. And then we schedule a shipment. Then it got sent to them. And then they gather the money from them personally, like in person, they hand the money to them. And then they gather, our team gathered the money and then we get the money from them. This is the business that we're doing. In Africa. And this is like, well, nobody's talking about it. It's really, really hard to do it right now in Africa. There is so much problems in Africa when it comes to deliver the product to them, you know, like it's Africa, the roads are not structured. It's really hard to get the, like the shipment to them. And also there is a lot of different problems. If I start talking about them, I like, we're going to stay for hours, but Yeah. So yeah, this is how to build when it comes to how to build this business. Like we went there, we created a team, we started doing our testing and we started running this. And I can say right now for the next upcoming 2 years or 1 year or 2, we can start offering people all over the world to sell in Africa without being here, being in Africa or, uh, uh, because like we can buy their inventory from them. Ship it to those countries for them and then deliver it to the customer, to their customer for them and gather the money and then send to their bank.

Nice. So you're like the Amazon. You're like, you're like the Amazon of Africa. That's the vision. That's pretty cool. I mean, I can only imagine, like, I mean, it's, we take it so lightly, like when you're in Dubai or when you're in like US or other countries, you, you go and you buy things, but the trust exists. You put your credit card there. It's just so easy, right? You buy things online, like. It's so easy. You could dispute or, you know, get a return very easily. But in Africa, like sending a shipment, like the customer might not pay you or the seller might not even send you even when you pay the, you know, as a customer, there's so many problems. So it's a complex problem that you solve. And for context, people who are listening, this is not some dropshipping, I'll ship from China, click a button and done type of business. Like he actually has gone to those countries. Set up an offline store, like offline, like location, like a warehouse, stores the materials, check the quality and start shipping it. When I saw the problem they're solving, holy smokes, this is a complex business. But again, looking at the scale it can go into, it makes a lot of sense. Now tell us like why, why is it even important to start a cash on delivery business? Why can't I come in, for example, in African market and start doing dropshipping? For example, like the gurus say, the typical guru suggests like Buy from China and sell in any country, make profits. Why is it— why don't you think that funnel works in Africa?

Yeah. When it comes to Africa, people don't pay with credit cards. That's the first thing. And the second— and the second thing, people are not going to wait for like a month for the shipment to arrive because there is some competitors, there is us there, like that will ship to them within 24 hours. And you know, in Africa, like it takes a month for the, like, for a piece to arrive. And also it's really hard to ship to them. If you want to go there and do all these problems, it is possible, but it's going to take you years. Just by dropshipping, you can't, you can't just dropship and get you like, get sales and be profitable there. It's impossible.

I mean, I could imagine it's going to be not dropshipping, it's going to be drop missing. You drop it, the package misses, you can't even track it anymore. It's, that's definitely, you know, a few things happen in Africa, right? I mean, big countries with no infrastructure, that's definitely a big risk. Now in terms of scaling, like there is a huge risk in scaling these type of businesses where you're buying inventory, right? Like you're buying inventory and if the inventory is not sold out or if you buy more inventory than the existing demand, you will be left with that inventory and it's a big loss. And that's what I've seen with a lot of e-commerce entrepreneurs. They build good scale, but then they buy inventory and they get stuck up. Their cash flows become an issue. Like there's a lot of problems, right? Now you talked about something very interesting, which is testing. You test the market, you see if the customers are buying before you place the order. Walk us through your process on how do you validate if the product has demand before you make a big purchase?

Yeah, exactly. Because we have our calculation. There is a lot of calculation when it comes to cash on delivery. It's not like the dropshipping. You do just the products cost to ship and then the advertising and that's it. No, there is a lot of different things. There is like, uh, products cost, there is a shipping from China, there is some, a lot of different fees. We calculate all of that and then we run advertising. When we run advertising, we see that also we, when, when we get orders, those are not paid orders, those just leads. There is still team that calls them. And also there is still another metric, which is confirmation rate. And there is the delivery rate. Confirmation rate is by, for how, from 100 people, how many of them are going to confirm on the phone that they really want the product and the delivery rate. It's after confirming how many of them are actually going to deliver, be delivered, and give the money. So when we start testing the first shipment, of course, we can't buy a big shipment first. We buy small first before buying the small shipment. We validate if we got a good number of leads. That means even if the confirmation is low, we are profitable. So when we start sending the first shipment, we start seeing the product is moving so fast. Then we buy, we know that it's really good product. We need to get really a big shipment of it. And then we buy really big shipments of it and we send it to this country. And the, if we see the first shipment, it's arrived, it's going slow. We just start going slow. If we buy like, for example, just 300 pieces, and then if it runs out, we send around pieces. And by scaling in those countries, we have a lot different countries. We sell in a lot of countries, so we sell a lot of different products. You can see like, like 50, 100 products, each product getting 50 orders, one product getting 150 orders, 200, one product getting just 5, 100. So you understand that. And if you gather all of this, like, it's like, for example, Amazon have really good selling products and low selling products. So that's how it works as well. That's how we do it. And also we manage risk. There is, there is a thing called risk management. So by managing the risk, by understanding your numbers, it's really this business. If you don't understand your numbers, you can, you go broke really quick.

Yeah.

So when you unders— when you re— when you manage the risk of like the, the, the number of the pieces, the, the, you, you go strict on the metrics. If If there is a metric like, kind of don't get it. So when you understand your metric and also still, when we use all of this, we still have inventory that don't get sold.

This is normal.

This is, and we have a team that brainstorm how to make these products, like how we can sell it. So we have some strategies, maybe we create new creatives, new videos. Of these products, sometimes it goes really fast by creating just new videos. And there is sometimes you just stop a product and just people for some reason, they don't buy that product at that time. And after just 2 months, you run it again and you start getting orders like normal. So, and there is, for example, you sell it in other countries, you get it from this country, send it to the other country. This is like how we do it. And this is how we manage the risk of having this stock in our warehouse.

Makes a lot of sense. That's quite an intensive process. It's not just like image creative testing, but there's literally more to what you just mentioned, which is the backend of the whole business, which we'll get into. Now, like, I have a different set of questions for you, Noyam, if you're open to it. Like, talk me through, like, the tools you're using on a daily basis to manage your productivity and projects. What kind of tools do you use? Are you still using ClickFunnels? Are you— Are you using ChatGPT? Like give us the tool list that you're using every day.

Yeah, of course. I'm using, when it comes to the platform, I'm using Shopify because with ClickFunnels, we are using cash on delivery. There is, it's not optimized for cash on delivery. When it comes to Shopify, there is some apps that we use to, to have our Google Sheets connected and our system connected to it. And the other hand, we use as well. We use RDP, which is like a laptop. We use Incogniton. Incogniton, if you know it, like it's a fingerprint browser because in order— I have like 20 different, 20 different ad accounts on Facebook, on TikTok. I have a lot of different ad accounts. So I use Incogniton to create multiple browsers for, for that. I use Contabo for creating a new laptop. I use a proxy. Which is, I forget their name, I guess, uh, yeah, I forget the name. They, I just get charged from my card that I forgot about.

Rich people problem. You don't even know what you're paying for. So that's fun. I remember like when I tried to scale a marketing offer we were running back in the day under your mentorship, I wanted to run ads and my ad account got like, bam, shut down once I launched my ads in no time. And then you showed me like. You have to do this incognito thing and then you have to have your proxy, you have to have your virtual laptop. I was like, oh my God, I would just rather like, you know, that's my story. I built some funnels for that offers that I was running. Then I was like, I like the funnel building part more than the offers and selling people on Instagram DMs. Let me just sell this because it's a valuable skill. And then COVID hit, everybody wanted to go online and the boom came and we built what you see here, the Funneling Media brand. Everything happened, you know, from there. So fun to see overall. So that's pretty interesting in terms of tool list. Walk us through your daily routine. I know you are traveling, you go country to country, but if you're in Morocco, right, and you're sitting in a place, what would your routine look like? When do you wake up? What do you do? I know you're a fit guy, you know, you look muscular. You challenge me to work out as well. So it's pretty fun. So, so tell me about your routine.

Yeah, of course. When, yeah, so at first, after I wake up, I have my breakfast. So I can't do like any task without having my breakfast. So, uh, and then my coffee. Then after that, I see like, uh, what's going on because I see the team, uh, the new updates, the shipments from different countries, uh, if it's arrived or not, the team, the strategies that we have. I see the confirmation, like when the team starts confirming the orders, I see the delivery, how is the delivery, if I need to tell them to push for delivery and all of that. And then after, like I go to do my workouts. So when I have my workouts, like, then I go out, like maybe like when you see me on story on the beach or somewhere, then I come back and then I see, uh, I do have a partner, like, uh, who is, his name is Mohammed. I can say hi to him from here. So, uh, yeah. Uh, we talk, we see different, uh, Like strategies that we need to implement, uh, like the tasks that we need to do tomorrow, what we need to tell the team to do, uh, that's by, uh, after the evening, by night, and then my day is off.

Yeah. I mean, pretty, pretty, pretty routine dialed in work and it is fun. You can do it from any beach. Sounds like the same words. Yeah, that's, that's the advantage of it. Now I know you're still in your 20s, so, but I'm still going to ask it anyway. If you could go back and talk to the 19-year-old, 20-year-old version of yourself, right? The young Noam who is still figuring out the online thing and trying to make business, right? What would be the number one advice you would give yourself?

The number one advice is just, uh, by like hiring more sooner and by keep doing what I was doing.

So.

I was doing really great job. So I was not like change something. It's like a journey. So like that, I have to go through it and everyone go through a journey, some mistakes, of course, that we have within the journey. So by hiring, I would have like gone more, give more goals more faster. So yeah.

Makes, makes sense. I mean, it's, it is really a journey, right? You just have to follow the process. And that's pretty cool that you mentioned that. Now tell me, what's your life's biggest achievements? What, what do you think like that was like, oh, that was a moment, right? Like that type of thing.

Yeah, of course. So it's really hard to get into this market of Africa. We've been like minus a lot. Like we went into the zero and we need to keep spending from our pocket to get this going. It's really, really hard. Like, I'm really proud to be one of the first people in the world to go to those countries and to start doing e-commerce on it. Maybe in the next upcoming few years, you start like seeing people talking about it, but I'm really proud to be one of the first people to build a really strong brand in this, uh, countries. So yeah, I'm really proud of myself.

I mean, it's not just about the fact that you entered a market, which is very tough to break into. I mean, I can only imagine what compliances you need to go through and what kind of stuff, regulatory approval you have to go through to get your shipments even off the dockyards to, you know, coming into your locations and whatnot. Yeah. But it's also how you're impacting thousands of people's lives get better with the quality products you're delivering, right? Like they don't have the, you know, whatever the chargers, the cables, the electronics, or the items that you're selling in Africa. I'm assuming it's pretty hard to find these products, right? And you're able to, allocate these resources to make their lives better. I mean, it's incredible, you know, and I believe that's a very good work overall. What is the next big goal you have, Noham? Like, what are you trying to achieve in the next few years?

Yeah, of course. So one of our main goal is to be like the next Amazon in, in Africa, in the countries that I'm selling in. Our main goal is to our name to be heard in every single home in those countries. So we are on the path on doing it. We've got hundreds of thousands of orders in those countries. So we are, we are moving forward in achieving this goal in those countries. And, uh, we are, we are on our way.

I love that, brother. I mean, this is the thing, right? When you have singular focus, I think nothing can stop you. It's just you versus you. It's just about execution.

Yeah, of course. And when you mentioned Yeah. And when you mentioned like high quality products, this is our main focus because when you sell crappy products, people don't buy from you more and more and more. And when we focus on getting the customer and by sending them more SMS campaigns, so we could, we have huge data, we can keep getting them back, keep getting them back. So that's what we want in order to achieve big numbers like the Amazon or something. We need to offer really great quality. And this is where we see some People do like a mistake in the e-commerce world by selling just $1 products for $50 and they scam people and they can't move forward by doing that. So truly you need to sell high quality products and you offer really great service. Yeah, you can get away with this. If you sell $1 product, you make money, but you will not stay for longer. So if you want to stay, you need to That provide really high quality products to offer really great customer service, offering refunds and all of that.

Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. I agree. I think you can only bluff once and once a customer comes in, the only way you could gain their trust is delivering what you promised at a very high quality. And you can't build a brand otherwise, right? Many dropshipping companies or stores, they have very short time span because they're a trend or they do, like you're saying. Cheap quality product at very high margin and it won't scale.

Yeah. They say like a good customer that got a great customer service, he tell it to just 2 people. Really mad customer that you offered him really bad customer service, he tell it to 10 people. So also a lot of people will know your bad customer service really quick when you start offering a bad service.

No questions. No questions. I mean, I see brands crumbling every day making these beginner mistakes. But I'm glad we are trying to make this world a better place by building great businesses that offer good solutions to other people. Let's get to the next question. I'm sure like along the way you've learned a lot, you made mistakes and all that stuff. But if you have to save us from making the same mistake that you already made, what is that big mistake that we can avoid?

Yeah. Big mistake is procrastinating. Like is not doing the things more faster.

Yeah, sure.

By saying, hey, should I do this?

Should I not do this? Yeah, yeah.

Should I do this? Like, uh, you start having all these thoughts in your head. You get into the loop of watching just videos, like by moving one level to the other, we start overthinking a lot. So you should just jump in and you start making the mistakes and you move forward more faster.

Yeah. I love that. I mean, people underestimate, like if somebody is running a business, you assume that they don't have procrastination, but in reality, business owners have more procrastination because now you have stakes. You can lose more if you make a mistake. You don't want to move. You want to be in that constant stagnation because that's more comfortable. But I am guilty of that procrastination too, but appreciate you sharing that. What inspires you, Naeem? Like you made your money already in your early 20s, but you still show up. You solve these big hard problems, hiring people, creating complex data structures, building development, and like making this African e-commerce business successful. What inspires you? What is the reason you even show up and do all this work?

Yeah, like you mentioned, by when you have the money, you have, you can help more people because we have a percentage of the money that we make. Give for charity with all of that to make the world a better place. So in order to make the world a better place, you have to have enough money in order to achieve that by being able, because the real happiness is by giving. It's not just by making money and traveling the world. You, you have no purpose in life because this is the real, like the purpose of life by being happy. It's just by giving, seeing happiness in other people and also by making the world a better place and by helping your family and moving forward in life.

Appreciate that. I have a quick question. When I keep you posted with every milestone I mentioned, like, hey, I'm starting my marketing agency now. I'm like, hey, I got my first funnel building client. Hey, I just made my first $10,000. Hey, I won my 2 Comma Club, right? Like one of these, you know, like you were like, what was your mind like? What did you thought? Like, okay, this kid I met like few years ago, like what did you exactly think about me?

Yeah, I was really amazed. Like, I was really blown. And I was like, when you start come up to me, like, at first, I start seeing you achieving milestones. Hey, you receive, you made your first $25, your first sale. Then after you made $1,000, then after it kept going. Then you told me about, you made your first $5,000. I remember you bought a home or something. Then I start really amazed. I, I really knew that you would achieve big things because once you achieved the milestone of $1,000, I knew that you're going to make it because not many people make $1,000 online. When you make your first $1,000 and it's really hard, like the strategy that you used to make the first, your first $1,000, it's really hard.

That was the toughest $1,000 I ever made.

I know what it takes to do it. It's really hard when once you've done it, I knew that you're going to achieve other things, you made the first $5,000, then kept going, kept going, and really amazed by what you achieved. I'm really proud of you.

Yeah. I mean, I should totally mention, right? Like there's many other mentors in my life, but like, you know, the first one who always introduced you into the online space is always that special person. Right. So I have this habit, like everybody who was a significant part of my life in learning and mentorship, I go back and report my progress, right? Like, hey. I'm moving to Dubai. Hey, I'm entering the US. I'm speaking at this event. I'm getting this award. Like, I just share these wins because, like, I mean, it creates a movement for us to, like, it creates that affection between, like, the mentors and, you know, the mentees. And I believe it's very important. Like, when my students come up to me or my clients come up to me and say they're my student, I feel really good. That it gives a purpose for me to show up every day and do the work, right? So now I don't even know if you offer any mentoring right now, but if somebody is watching and they want some help from you, what should they do? Are you still selling your Instagram course? No, no, no.

I'm not, I'm not selling any courses right now. I'm really focused right now on just my business. If someone wants just some questions, I can answer it like for free. Like they can just send me a message on Instagram, Noaim Ben, and then they can just reach me out and I can help them if they want an answer of a question, maybe when it's regarding TikTok ads. I'm across all different channels, Snapchat ads, YouTube ads, how to get away with brands, with e-commerce, all other stuff related to email marketing, SMS marketing. Yeah, I'm more glad to answer their questions completely free.

Yeah, that's, that's so fun to hear. I mean, this is where you see people have income intentions, but then there's people who have impact intentions, meaning you don't really care about money anymore. You just love the game of helping people, and that's the stage you are in. And we really appreciate the opportunity. So guys, if you want to connect with Noam, you could check out his Instagram. That's how I got rich. So again, I'm not saying you will become rich by working with him, but it's a pathway. You know, it's about the work you do after that, right? But again, I didn't stop with Noam. I just continued to reinvest in mentors and continue my learning. We have such a good working relationship. I always show him what's working for me. He always shows me what's working for him. We have this mutual partnership and there's so many more things we are working on, we'll work towards. It was so much fun having you on, Noam. Thank you so much for jumping on and sharing us your journey. If you have to conclude the podcast and leave a few words of wisdom, what would you like to leave the audience with?

Yeah, just if you want to start something, just start. In order to get into other levels, you should just hire people to do your work for you. And in order to focus on scaling the business, and all that, and people that really want to start, just don't watch a lot of videos. Just don't keep consuming content. Keep doing stuff. Like you just have to go there and do stuff. Um, if you want to achieve something in, in order to get like to get into other levels, you need also to don't procrastinate a lot. You need to implement and start hiring and start searching, maybe have a mentor, uh, that achieved more than you in your space to guide you how to achieve what he achieved or how to get into other level at least. So this is my main word that I need to tell them.

Such a good advice. I clearly remember your course. I mean, I'm going back to it because it was very basic course, but it was very fundamentally good, right? Like it was exactly talking about, you were talking about the same thing. Like, hey, don't watch the whole course. That's exactly what you said. Don't watch the full of it. Watch what you want and go do it. Like, you know, like, yeah. One traffic source, like just do one thing, right? Like, hey, if you want to do Instagram because you don't have money, just go do it. Like, don't overthink it. Don't watch the whole course. You don't need email marketing if you're not doing it, right? So that was, that was really helpful. But I agree with like the continuous learning and aspect of hiring more mentors. Like for me to go from like no income online to starting my digital business, you know, you were helping me out. But then for me to get to a 6-figure level with agency stuff, I had a different mentor. For me to get to a 7-figure level in the agency level, I had a different mentor. For me to build the companies I'm building and help my clients generate hundreds of millions of dollars, I have hired many, many more mentors and invested a lot and to get here. So I believe that continuous learning curve is very important. Once again, thank you so much for making the time. You, I know you don't do this usually. You don't show up on internet and share your business secrets and share your advice. Thank you so much for doing this for our audience. You're a very special guest. Yeah, I really wanted to bring you on from long, long time and finally we made it happen. Guys, it's really hard to catch this guy. He's traveling, he's different countries, he's making money, he talks to no one. Like, that's the life you want. He's in the beach, in the ocean, and then like, you know, having fun. It's so fun to see him. Uh, but thank you so much once again.

I appreciate you having me on this podcast. I'm really thankful for that. And, uh, it's really— I'm really proud of you for what you achieved. Uh, yeah, thank you.

Yeah, glad. Hopefully, guys, you enjoyed the podcast session. And that's me and my first mentor who helped me to get my business online. And, you know, find an O.M. Ben for your life. That's my biggest suggestion for you. You always need mentors with right intention. Every mentor I've worked with really had true intentions. Again, money is a byproduct. When me and him worked together, we made a lot of money together. That's not the point. The point is having that genuinity of relationship, not just looking at you as dollar value, but actually as a real person that they want to impact. That's one thing I always look for in mentors. Like I was so scared to invest and like, I'm so glad I did it. Like, even though it's a very small amount, that just started my journey. Right. And if you are yet to invest in any mentors, like instead of watching a movie on the weekend or going out with friends and partying, invest in mentors, you know, it could be anything, just join their school group, pay for their course, whatever that is, do it. And don't just do and wait for them to do your stuff. Like Noam probably had many customers. Our mentors, and you know, they probably haven't achieved what I achieved because I did the work. And that's the difference, uh, you know, which I want to mention. Like, don't just buy information, like execute and, you know, be in the attack mode. But once again, I'll leave you guys with that. I'll be back with another amazing podcast guest. Thank you so much, Nayan, for joining us today, and, uh, appreciate you.

Thank you.

Have a good one. Bye-bye, guys.