Escaping Employment – Small Business Interview with Greg Mercer of JungleScout

The Small Business show. Episode number 79 for Wednesday, August 10, 2016. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here at businessshow Co. The show by, for and about small. Small business owners here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in Lafayette, California, I'm Shannon Jean. How are you, Dave?

I'm good, man. How are you?

I'm good, I'm good. My voice is a little torn up from hanging out with Axel and the Guns N Roses guys last night.

Yeah. Did they ask you to sing?

Oh, yeah. Always, Always, Always.

You were there to hit the high notes, right?

Yeah, I screamed so much, I could have. I'm pretty sure I sang everything anyway, so it was. It was. It was a good time. But, hey, today, you know, we're joined by Greg Mercer from Jungle Scout, which is a service that I stumbled on maybe about six months ago and been following along. And Greg, thanks for, for joining us today.

Absolutely. Dave and Shannon, I appreciate you having me on. I'm excited to be here.

Yeah, man, very cool.

Yeah, it's good. I'm gonna chat as long as my voice holds out. But, Dave, if you hear me, you know, crackling up, I got your back, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate it. So, so. Hey, Greg. So tell us about Jungle Scout and the products and services that you. You guys offer.

Yeah, absolutely. So Jungle Scout itself is a product research tool for Amazon sellers. So we help Amazon sellers find profitable products to sell. So that's where we started a couple years ago. Now Juggle Scout is actually kind of the parent company to a suite of software products for Amazon sellers. So now we have a review kick, which is to help Amazon sellers get reviews. We have Fetcher, which is currently in beta, which is profit analytics and accounting for Amazon sellers. And then our newest tool is called Splitly, which is AB testing and again for Amazon listings. So, yeah, that's where we're at now. So a suite of tools to help Amazon sellers do better.

That's awesome. And I can attest because I'm a subscriber and I use the product and we were talking earlier before the show, you know, we don't do a lot of the fulfillment by Amazon stuff, but, man, the data available with your analytics and your software is fantastic. Just for anybody that's doing any kind of business on Amazon, it's fantastic.

Yeah, it's always cool to kind of like dig in there and you can look, you know, like what's trending well and what's kind of hot this season. That. So I love Looking at that. It's fun.

Yeah.

No, that's great. And how long has Jungle Scout been around? When did you start it?

So we're still young, a little less than two years old.

Wow.

Yep.

That's great. And so did you work for someone else before? What was the impetus for the launch? Give us a little background on that.

Yeah, so actually just a few years ago, I guess that'd be three or four years ago now. I had a corporate job. I went to school to be a civil engineer, got a job as an engineer when I graduated after a couple years, I figured out that just wasn't for me my whole life. I had a strong entrepreneurial spirit, wanted to start my own thing. So I escaped the corporate world by selling physical products and selling on Amazon from there. It's kind of a scratchy own itch type story of how I just couldn't find a good product research tool to help me make educated decisions. What is selling well? And that's how Jungle Scout was born.

Very cool. All right, so you're actually, I don't know if Shannon told you, if you noticed when looking at the archives, but you're actually the second small business owner that we've had on that started a business inside the Amazon ecosystem. We had Doug Sasserman of Repricing, which, which it sounds like offers a perfectly complementary service to what, what you do here. But, but he was very, very similar training and very, very similar path, albeit I think, I think he's maybe eight years in or something. But, but very, very similar. So I'm gonna ask you the same question that I think I asked Doug. I know I've asked it to him. I think I asked it to him on this show. So. And this of course is coming from someone, me, who has built businesses inside an ecosystem that is in the Apple ecosystem. Right. So there's some bigger company that sort of defines the path that my business might be able to walk at some level. So how is that working inside the Amazon framework? I mean, if Amazon were to close tomorrow, your entire business at least has to change dramatically. If not, you know, like, go away and a new one has to come out. Not that Amazon's going to go away, but what's, you know, what's that been like, kind of walking that path with Amazon for two years? Are they good partners?

Yes. This is a really good question. And yeah, you know, if you're going to. I forget how the old saying goes, but, like, hit your wagon to a train. I think Amazon's a pretty good one. To attach yourself to. But actually taking that like one step further to kind of like the mental or psychology behind it is I personally think that a lot of people really worried about selling on one particular channel or being in one ecosystem that you're pretty reliant on. Personally, I think that's an old school type of thinking. Back in the day, we'd work these jobs and we'd stay there for 30 or 40 years and pension, whatever else, especially in tech. Now everything's moving so quickly that I think it's more important to just teach your skills to be able to start a physical products business, to be able to start a software business. Even if Amazon goes away and Jungle Scout goes away one day, I've learned these skills that I can apply to anything. It's not a major worry of mine right now. I think it's a really good market to be in the Amazon space. I'm pretty happy with how things are going. I don't lose sleep over it.

Yeah, no, that's good. And that makes sense. I think you're totally right and you're looking at it the right way. You've learned all these valuable skills. If you need to do this again somewhere else, no problem. I mean, sure, a little bit of work, but you actually know what to do as opposed to inventing the wheel and all of that. Yeah.

If there's anyone listening that's kind of like scared about starting something because they're very reliant on a channel or an ecosystem, my advice to them would just be get going. You know, I don't think you'll ever look back.

Well, it's like, like any business, you're better off serving a niche. And so, I mean, you could just look at this as your niche, right? Yeah, it's a pretty good niche.

Yeah. And I, and I think that, yeah, the adaptability is the key thing. Right. You started off, you know, with physical products and doing deals and, you know, entrepreneurial thing, getting going. And then, I think, you know, quickly. I don't want to put words in your mouth there, but quickly realized, hey, you know, there's a real. I don't know how to get this data. No one else is doing it. We, this is how we should do. And you know, you guys adapted your whole, you know, business model to help out other people trying to do the same thing.

Yep, exactly. Right.

No, that's, that's very cool. So when you guys, let's go back to the start when you, when you first got started and you're rolling out and you know, you left your job. You're. Or maybe. Maybe you didn't do it. Maybe you still had your job. But talk about the transition from employee to, you know, business owner and employer. When did you kind of think, hey, this, this. This might work?

Yes, I was actually able to replace my income from my side hustle at the time, which was selling products on Amazon. I was able to make just as much money per month from that as I was as my engineer. And then that's my wife and I kind of had a deal that, okay, once I get to this point, I can quit my job and I can focus on this full time. Looking back, I wish I had done it a lot sooner. But of course, in hindsight, you have a. You can look at things like that. But the transition was awesome. You know, I wasn't very fulfilled in my old job. I'm actually like a terrible employee just because I wasn't motivated.

We say that here a lot. Too patently unemployable.

Yeah, so I'm a terrible employee. So then all of a sudden, I had this drive and motivation to, like, really do well in my own business. So all of a sudden, you know, like, I was really excited to wake up in the mornings, get started on it. I was perfectly happy staying laid up, staying up late at night working on it. So it's a great fit for me personally.

No, that's great. And, you know, I also want to recognize you made the comment, you know, you had a deal with your wife. Hey, once we reach this benchmark, then we're going to launch out, and we've talked about that on the show over and over again. Is having that support system in place makes it makes that transition so much easier and more fulfilling than you have that?

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

It also gives you some accountability, which is a good thing, and to more than just yourself, because you can kind of convince yourself of anything.

That's true. That's great. So, and so when you first start out, were you doing, like, retail arbitrage stuff or were you doing your own product line on Amazon?

Yeah, so when I first got started, I was sourcing products from wholesalers or resellers. So, you know, I wasn't doing the retail arbitrage thing, which, for those of you who aren't familiar, that would be like buying clearance items and then reselling them on Amazon. I wasn't doing that. Instead, I was just going to the wholesalers who were selling, you know, already created and branded products and buying from them and then reselling on Amazon and I quickly learned that on. Particularly on Amazon, it's kind of. It's kind of a tough thing to do because there's a whole lot of other people doing it and there's only one. Unlike ebay, on Amazon, there's only one listing per SKU. So if there's 10 people selling that same product, there's 10 people that are all kind of like rotating through the sales and competing on price to have it $0.01 cheaper than the next guy. I pretty soon found out that was a really cutthroat way of doing it. And then I started to spot this trend of other people on Amazon were private labeling their own products, just like Walmart or Target, whoever else have been doing for a long time. And then with a private label product on Amazon, all of a sudden you're the only one selling it, selling that particular sku, so you have your own listing. And then all of a sudden, it's not as much competition. You can put more work into, like, better marketing for that particular listing and so forth. And in my opinion, that's a much better business model on Amazon right now.

That makes sense.

So how did you. How did you. How difficult was it to make that transition to start white labeling your products? I mean, obviously you had to find different suppliers or at least work with the same suppliers differently.

Yeah, so it was a little bit of a learning curve for me because before I was sourcing from these wholesalers in the U.S. now all of a sudden, I'm communicating with factories in China, trying to figure out how to import stuff, figuring out how to design packaging and so forth. But all this stuff's easily Googleable, right?

You can see that's really how you did it. Did you have a friend or a mentor or anything? Or did you just let your fingers do the walking on Google and of suffer through it alone.

Just suffered through it alone.

That's inspiring. No, that's. I mean, that's good. Yeah.

Yeah. So just, I'm just. I'm. I'm a big fan of kind of like, you'll figure it out once you get to that point. So, you know, at first, like, I figured out, okay, I found all these factories on Alibaba, I'm communicating with them. And now they're like, hey, can we have your packaging design? I was like, all right, well, let me Google how to do packaging design. And then it's like, all right, we're ready to ship your goods. I was like, oh, crap. Well, let me figure out a someone who can get these goods from China in The us for me and so forth.

Yeah, that's awesome.

So just like the service you provide, there's a lot of other people that provide the various services you need and it pieces all together to, to be a supply chain for you.

Absolutely.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

What I love is supply chain in with Google in three easy steps. There you go.

And one thing I really like when I first, you know, came across Jungle Scout is you did a thing, a collaborative product launch where you really walked everybody through, you know, a whole series of, you know, webinars and videos of basically what you just described, how you did it and, you know, really shortcutted it. And I thought the key focus points that really struck me was not just focusing always on price, you know, making your listing better than, you know, how to just continually improve the experience for the customer so you don't just get killed on price. And I, you know, we talk about that a lot on here on the show and it's, it's fantastic.

Oh yeah, I'm a big fan of that. Always adding more value or making your product a little better or even if you just include an ebook or nicer pictures or whatever as opposed to competing on price. I think that's the worst thing you can try to do.

Yeah, yeah, that's an easy trap to fall into, especially on Amazon, trying to get, you know, move up that.

And, and did you, did you have Amazon, like, did you ever. When this stuff was finally shipped from your, you know, Chinese factory to, to wherever it was going, did you have it shipped straight to Amazon and they did the fulfillment for you, or were you warehousing this stuff in your garage?

Yeah, good question. So all my products, I use the FBA model, which is fulfillment by Amazon. So when I was getting my initial shipments from China, like, I didn't really know what to expect is my first time doing it. So I had it shipped to my house to inspect the goods and then ship it to Amazon after I kind of learned what I was doing a little bit better. Now I just use a freight forwarder so they actually handle the whole thing for me. So I just notified my freight forwarder when the goods are ready and about a month later it shows up at Amazon's warehouse. I never see or touch those products. So actually a lot of my new products I've never even personally seen or held in my whole life.

Jungle Scout is just one of the businesses you run. You've got this other thing where you're still selling your white label products.

Yeah, that's exactly Right when I first started Jungle Scout, I kind of put it on the back burner. The great thing about the Amazon FBA model is it's. It's pretty passive or systematized. Once you get going, all you have to do is kind of just restock your goods. Amazon's handling the pick and pack and shipping and customer service. My freight forwarder is handling the shipping. The factory already knows what to create, so it's pretty easy once you get going. So I put it on the back burner for a year when Jungle Scout just started. Then within the past six months, I've started to ramp up that business again. I've launched quite a few new products lately.

Very cool. What kind of stuff do you sell?

I sell like, everything under the sun from, like arts and crafts goods to lawn and patio products to. I'm ordering, like a few small appliances now and just like everything in between. That's great. Yeah. The neat thing about Amazon is, like, you don't have to, you know, it's like if you're starting your own e commerce site, you'd want to, like, pick a particular niche. You know, maybe it's beach supplies or what have you. You know, with Amazon, like, people are just going there, searching the search bar for whatever they're looking for. So it's like, it doesn't matter. You know, as a seller, you can sell, like, just totally different stuff. So. Yeah, I just use obviously my own product research software.

Yeah, well, right, exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're your, your best customer and beta tester. Right?

That's exactly right. Yeah.

That's killer. I love that. And smart. Yeah. And I think, you know, you made a comment in one of your, you know, videos or, you know, and online, it talked about what type of product to pick. And it was, it just really struck me. It's like, you know, if you tell your friends what you're selling and they think it's cool, that may not be the product to be selling. You want to be a little more obscure and, you know, that's kind of where the opportunities are, the niche. And I thought that was a great bit of advice because especially, you know, you try to get it, oh, I'm gonna get in the electronics business or I'm gonna do. This is gonna be so cool. But the competition can be really stiff in there.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So I just like, you know, now like all my friends, my family, and everyone selling on Amazon. I know, but so like, one of my friends, dad just like emailed me a couple Days ago. And he's pretty familiar with like the eye care niche. I think he did sales in there or something and he was like, you know, I wonder about selling these few products. I just kind of tell them that's actually the worst way to go about starting being like, hey, I already know what I kind of want to sell instead. I'm a big fan of just going off what the data tells you because we have all the data now. You can just filter by and see exactly what's in high demand with low competition and whatever else criteria you have. I highly recommend everyone just sell what people are already searching for and what's not very competitive instead of what you think is cool.

Yeah, I think that's great advice in general. Not just with your business, but looking at the analytics and the data to be sure that whatever you're going to do, there's enough demand and opportunity out there.

Yep, exactly.

So hey, so when you're getting started, we always tell these stories and everybody on the outside thinks, oh, it's so smooth, man. Look, he just nailed it all along the way. But from the inside we all know that's not true. We're always making mistakes and we're big fans of them here. What do you think is the best mistake that you made, you know, along the way with either with your FBA or launching Jungle Scout? That really taught you a good lesson.

Oh man, I have so many mistakes. I don't know which one to choose.

But you and me both, brother.

Actually I do know a good one that I kind of got burned on a little bit. I don't want to happen to anyone else, so I'll tell a little bit about it. But long story short, like whenever you're hiring a, this is specifically true, I think for hiring developers or hiring someone who's going to be creating content for you or images or whatever else. If you're hiring a developer, I'd highly recommend to get in writing a non compete and a non disclosure. Especially if you have some proprietary stuff going on. The funny thing about software compared to other businesses is at the end of the day it's just some source code which is easily just copied and pasted into a new program. So you definitely want to make sure you don't ever get burned by your developers from that. And then also just for legality reasons, if you're having people write you blog posts or create custom animations for you, whatever you want to make sure to get in writing that it's a work for hire and you own all the copyrights to that. Before you hire everyone, just spend five minutes, you just download a template online or whatever, send over to them, get them to sign that and that can potentially save you a lot of headaches down the road.

That's good advice, man. And I don't think we've heard that on this show before. So that's. And Dave, you know, you've had a lot of experience on the software side. I'm sure you will attest to that being very important.

It is. But you know, the thing is, I've found that difficult going, you know, across the lines between all of the various countries in the world. If you're hiring somebody in the US that kind of contract, first of all makes a lot of sense and secondly is enforceable. Right. But if you're hiring someone, I've used a lot of offshore folks in Russia and Romania and you know, I feel like I could put them under any kind of agreement I want and they would happily agree to it. And if they wanted to screw me, they just go ahead and screw me.

Right.

You know, I'm just, I don't think they would even think twice about it. So my feeling is, yeah, put that agreement in place, place and, but, but know who you're dealing with and make them be friendly with them. Right. So that they don't want to screw you. And I. And my experience has been that people in, especially in Russia, man, that friendship bond is more important than anything else and it has to be true. You can't fake it. But if you make, you know, if you can truly make friends with, with the people that matter, it, you're good for life with, with.

Yeah, and I absolutely agree with that. And also part of the contract though is whether it's like you said, it'd be very difficult to enforce a lot of these things in most of the countries in the world. But I think it's also good just to get upfront what your expectations are as far as whether they're allowed to share this or work for the competitors and use similar code and whatever else. I think just having it in writing, whether it's enforceable or not is a good first step and I think a no brainer for like how little time it takes.

Yeah. Oh yeah, no, there's no reason not to do it. But you know, I guess my advice would be don't feel like that's the, you know, a contract to me is always the last step. It codifies the relationship that you've already agreed to, right?

Without a doubt.

Yeah. You know, so More stick with it, you know. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

It makes sense. That's cool. So, you know, we talk a lot about success here and, you know, how to measure it, and, you know, financial success is obvious. You know, what we're. Everybody's looking for and trying to create, you know, great environment. But, you know, what's. How do you really measure your success? You know, we might be. We talked a little bit before we started, and you're doing the digital Nomad thing and traveling around the world, which is, you know, sounds awesome. Maybe that's part of your measurement of success, that you can do that. You know, what do you look at each day to say, yeah, we're on the right track and we're being successful, running a successful business.

Yeah. This is a really good question, and it's something I've been kind of thinking about a lot lately. So as far as, like, I'm pretty young in my entrepreneurial career, like, my owning my own business career, and at first, all I could think about was escaping my job. That was like, the first level. After that, I was like, I just want to be financially free so I don't have to worry about money. I can live a very comfortable life and never worry about money. Then it's like, after you've hit that, then you really start to think, like, what is it that really makes me happy? It's like, what am I actually doing with my life? I always thought, like, oh, man, if I could just make whatever 5,000 or $10,000 a month, I'd be so happy. But then once you get there, it's like, that actually doesn't bring you happiness. Yeah. You don't stress out about the dinner bill or anything, but it's like, so. So it's a good question. I don't think I have a great answer for you yet, but it is something I think about a lot lately. And lately I've been realizing that kind of teaching and doing these types of podcasts and the webinars and writing content actually brings me a lot of satisfaction and joy. And especially the comments we get back from people when they send in success stories and like, oh, man, this webinar, this launch series or whatever helped me quit my job and thank you for inspiring me and this and that. That makes you way happier than any of the money I get out of it. So, yeah, that's definitely one thing. And then I'm kind of, like, trying to dig deep and figure out what else makes me happy right now.

Well, that's. I mean, you can tell That, I mean, just from looking at your content, following your videos and the webinar stuff, I can tell that makes you happy because you're good at it. And you always got a smile on your face. And, you know, that's a big deal. And I think it shows in the transparency. And even when you make mistakes, you know, there's so many. I mean, there's a lot of service out there, people trying to sell subscriptions and this software and this will do this and work this magic. But what I love is when you're like, ah, hey, we screwed up with this one. So now we're gonna have to go back and change or do something like that. So I think it's apparent that that's one of the things that makes you happy.

Awesome.

Yeah, it's very cool. So looking back at, you know, when you got started, and maybe it's with your FBA business or with Jungle Scout, you know, we all like to look back, say, wow, if I could just give myself this bit of advice, you know, what would you tell yourself? Or if maybe even looking at it a little differently, along the lines of somebody else who's sitting there on the fence, you know, the guy that's still in the miserable corporate job. Not that they're all miserable, you know, but we really know, us guys, right? We really know, you know. So, you know, what bit of advice would you have for yourself or for that person that's, you know, on the. On the fence, so to speak?

Yeah, so the advice for myself or same people, if there's kind of on the fence, would I just wish I started way earlier. So, like, when I was first getting started or before I got started, for me, it was like so much of a mental game. I was just like, yeah, you know, I would, like, listen to his podcast, read the blogs, everything else. It's like, yeah, he was able to do it, but I don't think I could do that.

Or.

So for me, it was like so much of a mental block. Like, oh, you know, I don't think I can actually do that so forth. So I just wish I had, like, the confidence back then that, like, I do now. Like, now I see, like, I don't ever see, like a challenge. I feel like I can't like, overtake, you know, or like, at least, like, research, like, how to figure it out, ask someone, whatever. So that. That'd be my advice. Just have confidence in yourself. Get over that mental block. Just get started, get going, you know, move yourself forward to where you would like to be.

Yeah, that's great. That's a. Just a great bit of advice. Just start, man.

So many people give that same piece of advice, but it's. It. The thing is, it's not easy until you do it. And then you look and you're like, God, why did I wait?

It's so stupid.

The person that gets in your way the most is you absolutely get out of your own way.

Oh, yeah. You spin it and you spin it, you know, like. Well, like, you say there's a. There's something I'm missing. I can't make that happen. But it's a. I mean, it's like this massive barrier, but once you get through that first part of it and have some success, you know, whatever level it is that you're happy with, you know, things just kind of start coming into place and you build your confidence up, you know, over time.

Yeah, for sure. I'll see it with a lot of, like, new Amazon sellers that would just be, like, so, like, stoked when they make their first sale. And to me, it's like, well, you've only made, like, $4. But, you know, for them, it's like. Like they've proven to themselves, like, I can do this. This actually works. Yeah. You know, and then after that, it's like, the sky's the limit for him. So, yeah, just got to get started and make that first sale and the tenth and hundredth sale and so on.

Well, and that's the thing, right? You know, you're working a corporate job and you have this mentality that the sky isn't the limit. You know, 3% next year is the best I can. I can think about. Right. If I stay in this same job, I do the same thing, I'll get 3% more next year if my review goes well or whatever that number is. But it's not. It's. It's a hard transition just psychologically to go to. The sky's the limit. Of course, you know, the floor is the ground, too, so you got to be a little. You got to be. You know, you got to worry about that a little bit. But. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I.

And I think, like you mentioned Greg, you know, the person who made the four bucks, you know, everybody. And this is one of. Why I asked this question on the show. Everybody's definition of success is different. And from following along, you know, follow the Facebook group and everything for, you know, the fba, everybody is doing. Each person is doing a different thing. Somebody's just trying to make a little extra money on the side somebody's trying to launch an empire, you know, and everything in between. So, you know, build on those successes at whatever rate you know you want to.

Yeah, absolutely. You know, some people are plenty happy to maybe just offsetting their car payment each month or whatever else. And that's awesome. You know, it's like I think a side hustle is a great way to get started or maybe even that's just your long term play, which is cool too.

Yeah, no, that's great. So, Dave, you have any other questions for Greg today?

I don't. Thank you so much, man. This has been great.

Yeah. Hey, Greg, tell everybody what's the best way to learn more about Jungle Scout and your other companies?

Yeah, the best way is just to hop over to junglescout.com we kind of talked about earlier, but we have like a great free resources section, some free tools you can use, tons of content that if you want to get into the Amazon space, it's a great area to check out. If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the blog. I'm pretty active about going there and answering everyone's questions in the blog. So. Yeah, that'd be the best place to find out more.

Right on. That's great. We really appreciate you here. I wish you a ton of success and we'd love to have you come back on, you know, with Update us from time to time and how things are going.

Absolutely. Thanks again for having me on. I appreciate it.

You bet.

Yeah, man. All right, folks, you can find more about greg@junglescout.com as he said. And of course you can find. Find us at businessshow co or at facebook.com businessshow co. Let us know what you think. We'll talk to you next week.

Have a great week, everybody.

Thanks again, Greg.