How Kevin makes $100,000/year selling this product on Amazon FBA
In this podcast episode, host Emanuel Ruiz interviews his longtime friend Kevin, who earned $100,000 in his first year selling a single product on Amazon FBA. Kevin explains why he left a sales job after a Performance Improvement Plan and chose Amazon FBA, describing his product research process with Jungle Scout, the failure of a gender‑reveal confetti cannon (hazardous‑goods shipping, market saturation, low margins) and the success of his current bestseller that generated $25,000 in its first month. They discuss the critical role of Amazon PPC (sponsored products, brands, displays, retargeting), inventory and cash‑flow challenges, and the difficulty of forecasting initial order quantities. Kevin shares his plans to launch a new brand, grow inventory, and eventually sell his existing brand (Trapped) by building revenue streams and profitability. The conversation ends with practical advice for new sellers—reserve cash, avoid rushing, expect roller‑coaster margins, and treat roadblocks as filters—plus a shout‑out to community helpers and Kevin’s Instagram handle.
Chapters
Hey, how's it going, YouTube? This is Emanuel in Los Angeles, and we have our very first podcast set up here. I'm excited because one of my true friends, closest friends, oldest friends from middle school, it's going to be Kevin. So Kevin's right over here, and Kevin actually makes $100,000 a year and primarily from one product. Is that right?
That is right.
On Amazon FBA. So it's going to be jam-packed with a lot of information as far as how he picked this product, why he picked this product, how he got into Amazon FBA. And basically his goal, his goal going forward, because it's only been one year.
Only one year. Literally this month is, uh, when I started everything.
Yeah, that's insane. So tremendous growth in one year, baby. I wish I was in that position when I first started Amazon FBA, but obviously this interview is not about me. So Kevin, take the mic. Uh, let me know, let the people know who you are and how you even got started with Amazon FBA.
Yeah. Uh, like Emanuel said, I'm one of his oldest friends. So thank you so much for having me. Thank you for your guidance and help that you've been there through and through. Every time I needed something, you answered the phone.
Fun fact, fun fact. Me and Kevin were actually voted best friends in middle school.
That is true.
That's insane.
We were inseparable. So we had a really good relationship.
So very long friend.
I want to thank you for that. You've been super helpful through the process. But yeah, I've always wanted to get into Amazon. It took me a long time to say, fuck it, I'm going to do this. And the reason why I said fuck it was I got placed on a PIP at work. I do sales and it was a stupid, stupid reason. And to me it was just a slap in the face. And after that, I never wanted to be—
What is PIP?
Performance Improvement Plan. So if you don't, you know, get your sales up or you don't do XYZ, they're going to cut you loose. And my sales were good. It was just a hindered relationship with a sales manager that, you know, we just didn't see eye to eye. And it was a slap to my face. So I said, you know what, I have X amount of dollars and I'm going to go for it because I don't want to feel this way ever again. And I don't want to live in this rat race in a sense. And I want to have my own boss and time and do the things that I actually want to do.
Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, there's definitely a lot of different things as far as side hustles are concerned. Like why Amazon FBA though?
I saw it being the future and Emanuel was doing it at the time. He was in it at least 3 years and I've seen the results. I see the things he's been doing. I was like, all right, cool. Like, you know, I have some guidance. Um, even prior, I was going to do something with an old boss a year ago and we just, it just fell through. Like we just never said, let's do it. Let's actually go forward. We, we got samples and everything, but we just never said like, all right, send it, you know? Um, but yeah.
Okay. So walk me through that first step as far as you starting Amazon FBA. Obviously product research is a main component of it. How did you choose your product? And if you're comfortable going ahead and saying it, more power to you. But how did you decide on the product that you're going ahead and selling?
Yeah, so I decided I was using Jungle Scout. That was the biggest resource. Every single night I was just researching every most random product that I thought about, seeing the profit margins, how many people are selling it, the results, the reviews. I took a really deep dive and I decided on 2 products. One is my bestseller. And one that's not currently live anymore. So there's definitely, you know, it's a hit or miss type of situation, but you really just need to take that chance and risk to get to where we're at in a sense.
Yeah. So that failed product, why did it fail? What was the product?
It was a gender reveal cannon with confetti. And the biggest issue I had overcoming was shipping because it was considered a dangerous good. I did not know about this prior to making it. Emanuel said, it was like, I'm gonna let you take your risk, but I don't think this is a good product. And I thought it was a really good profit margin. I thought it was going to be great. But after realizing it, the market is saturated, we couldn't really tell the difference. And it was price point battle, which one's cheapest and ad spend as well. So once you considered all that stuff, the profit margins weren't fully there.
Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I use saturation too. Like you mentioned saturation, I feel like a lot of products on Amazon FBA are fully saturated. Like there's so much competition. Especially this year, I feel like a lot of Chinese sellers, I don't know if that's the right term to go ahead and use Chinese sellers, but there's been a lot of sellers from China going ahead and listing on Amazon FBA and kind of, you know, doing different types of black hat tactics to do that. But that's great. I mean, you're open enough to say that, you know, not everything, you know, succeeded, but talk about that one product that did succeed. I mean, has that always throughout this last year, has that always been your best seller or?
It always has. And it's what was crazy is The first month I did almost $25,000 in revenue off that product.
Wow.
And I'm going to contribute that to Emanuel helping me with my PPC. You know, getting started, the full profit margin wasn't fully there. It was slim to none. But you expect that for a brand new product. You're going to spend the money to, to build it up and get to where you want to be. And now it's almost tripled from where I first started.
Yeah. And I remember helping out Kevin through, throughout that whole process. Um, and the reason why he mentioned before that I didn't think it was a good idea with the gender reveal product was because it's hard to brand a product like that because, you know, somebody that's shopping for a gender reveal, um, they're not looking for the actual name brand of a product. They're actually just looking for the cheapest price or something that kind of fits their criteria as far as doing the gender reveal for people.
Right.
So I felt like building a brand, something that people can return to, remember the name of it. Um, would be more of a beneficial, especially on Amazon. So, uh, so yeah, so you said that you sold $25,000 that very first month and that's contributed to, you said fully Amazon PPC?
Fully Amazon PPC. It blew my mind. Second month I did about the same and I sold out right away and I wasn't ready to purchase, to have another purchase order, um, because Amazon kind of keeps your money. For the first month when you first start. And it took me about 4 or 5 months to get my whole second order in.
That's insane. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why it's always, you know, a gray area as far as like, how much do I order for that very first order? Because, you know, you don't know if the product's going to fail like that gender reveal product or it's going to succeed like this one making $25,000. But I always feel like it's better to start off low, test out the market, and if it sells out, perfect. You know that it's going to be a game-winning type.
Yeah, even, even now I'm still having a hard time with shipping and lead times. And my bestseller is currently out and it's going to currently be out of stock for probably 2 or 3 weeks. So it's, it's growing pains, you know, and this is still my first full year, first 8 months now in this business. And I'm still learning.
Yeah. I mean, you're going to be going through those same type of issues even when you're a big seller, man. Like I, I have products right now that I cannot keep in stock. It's insane. Um, but going back to advertising, it's, it's, it's insane how you can compete with bigger brands out there just based on knowing how to do Amazon PPC, because people don't know that there's different ways to do it. You can retarget people, you can do sponsored brands, sponsored products, sponsored displays. Um, so there's a variety of different ways how you can really compete with the big dogs. You know, on my YouTube channel, I like to name the products that I sell because people can literally look up the strategies that I'm using, um, to better help them. But there's Literally, it's like an open book. You need PPC to survive.
And kind of to chime in on the big dogs, I saw a big dog doing $1.4 million in sales a month, and I was like, I can have a piece of this pie. And I am having a piece of this pie, and it contributes a lot. And you just gotta go take the risk sometimes.
Yeah. And like you mentioned before, even if something's very competitive— he mentioned the gender reveal— but even something like where his current niche is at right now, it's truly really, really competitive. All you need is a sliver. Like, you don't, you don't need to go ahead and take half of the pie or the majority of the pie. As long as you can have a sliver like he's doing right now, he's contributing. He's going ahead and making life-changing amounts of money now, more than ever he dreamed of. Um, so that's always great. But let's take it back. You mentioned you were having issues sometimes with cash flow issues with Amazon. So take me through that. Like, how does it feel like to have those cash flow issues? And is it stunting your growth? And what are you doing about that?
Uh, it is stunting my growth a little bit, but this is a fault that I have on my own. I want to continue to build a brand, continue to drop more products, so I feel like I'm getting ahead of myself and going forward too fast sometimes. So you got to find the right balance of putting some money in your pocket, paying off the stuff you need to pay off, finding out the reorders instead of just going crazy and getting a new product every single 2, 3 months, even though that it is paying off. Um, you gotta learn how to manage it correctly.
Yeah. And I told, um, Kevin this from the very beginning. Uh, you're not— well, he is, 80% of his sales come through one product, but it's always testing out new products. You know, you want to be able to go ahead and have multiple products that are selling very well because some products can be seasonal and this and that. So that's great that you're always going ahead and testing. So take me through like the first year now. So you did so great this first full year of you going ahead and selling on Amazon. How does the next 12 months look like for you?
Personally, next month I have this— I'm working on another brand that's going to be coming out within this month. So I want that to be the main focus. And the current brand that I have now called Trapped, I'm going to look to sell it and make a good profit off of it and continue to grow the other business that I'm going to— the other brand that I'm currently going to grow.
Okay. So what are you doing as far as positioning yourself to sell that business?
I am building my brand. Getting more stock, more products in. You know, this is kind of the fault as well that I kind of talked about, but I'm building the brand to have more revenue streams to make the brand look more appealing, building out the sales and revenue and net profit. So once I am ready to sell, the purchaser can see that.
No, definitely. I mean, it's been great. So if you were to start all over again, what are some things you would have done differently? What are some things that, you know, maybe it's nothing, right? But what are some things that you think that you could have done differently if this is someone that's viewing this for the first time? They're launching a new product for the very first time. They don't know if it's going to be good, going to be bad. What's your piece of advice?
Have some reserve cash. Just because I was out of stock for almost 4 months, and it's a big chunk of revenue that you're missing in building the brand that you can start off with. The other thing is don't be so— don't be in a rush. It's not going to happen overnight. The profit margins are going to slowly increase, decrease, go up and down. It's going to be a roller coaster, but always be calm. Control what you can control is what you always say. And there's always a fix to whatever happens. Amazon comes with a lot of problems sometimes, a lot of removal of your listings and complaints and things like that. You just got to take it one thing at a time and you're slowly going to continue to grow and get better and learn from your mistakes.
Yeah, and definitely, I know we didn't touch on it much, but When when he was getting started with his products, I remember there was a lot of roadblocks. He sold a product or he's selling a product that you know needs to have certain certifications and you know it might be considered hazardous. And I always told him the more roadblocks there are, the better it's going to be for you because at that first roadblock some people are going to quit. The second roadblock more people are going to quit. That third roadblock they're going to forget all about this type of business. You know so I think you know having going into a niche that you might not think is you know. like a battery or electronics, something like that, where people tell you to stay away from, um, whatever your interest is, go ahead, go ahead and still do it regardless of all those different types of roadblocks you might be facing. Because again, the more roadblocks you go ahead and have, um, the easier I feel like it's going to be with, with Amazon FBA.
Yeah. And even with the removal listings and roadblocks and things like that, I was freaking out and all it took was a message to my supplier and he was like, yeah, I always had this. You should have just asked for it from the beginning. And after I was like, oh my God, it was that easy. And it was fixed the next day.
Yeah, definitely. So again, I think this was short, sweet, especially as a new seller being in Amazon FBA for 12 months and having the success he has, uh, is not usual. Right. So I would want to go ahead and pat Kevin on the back for that because it's all him. Uh, obviously he went ahead and said that part of it's, you know, because of me, but he's the one that decided to go ahead and take that leap of faith. And I'm always here to go ahead and help. So I just want you to go ahead and know that as well. But any final things? How can people find you if they want to go ahead and follow you and follow your day-to-day?
Yeah, I'd want to give a special shout out to Roy, Emanuel's friend and our friend here too. He's been a very vocal point in the last 3 months helping me with my PPC. I still work a 9 to 5. It's something that I kind of want to do because I make good money there and he's taken a lot of relief off me to help me grow this business as well. Um, but you can find me at KJMuller43 on Instagram. I'm always there supporting Emanuel as well. So you can see me on his comments or likes. So just give me a follow.
Yeah, so definitely. So we talked about going ahead and selling your business as well. So I'll go ahead and link a video right up there talking about, uh, different forms of how I purchased and how I went ahead and acquired a business from somebody else as well. So if you guys are interested in selling your business, go ahead and check out that video up there. But until next time, guys, peace.
