I bought his Amazon FBA business...

Hey, how's it going, YouTube? This is Iman Los Angeles, and I'm very excited about this interview today because we're going to be interviewing Pravin. And Pravin is an individual that took his Amazon FBA business and was able to accomplish the goal of actually selling his business. So in this interview, we're going to go from him launching a product, him scaling that product, and ultimately selling this, this actual brand for multiple 6 figures. And funny enough, I'm actually the person that purchased the business from Pravin. And the actual products that we're going to be discussing and the brand we're going to be discussing, Pravin actually had a unique way of actually doing product selection. So it's not the same thing as far as plugging in some numbers on Helium 10 and Jungle Scout. So it's going to be very, very interesting. And before we even get started with the interview, me and Pravin both went ahead and used Empire Flippers to buy and sell the Amazon FBA business. And I have included an affiliate link down below. And I know everybody really hates affiliate links, But Pravin and I have agreed that whoever signs up with our affiliate link will be able to have a strategy call with them. So if you are considering either buying or selling an Amazon FBA business, go ahead, sign up with the referral link down below, and we'll make sure to go ahead and put you on the books as far as having a phone call with us before you're ready to take that step. But let's go ahead and introduce Pravin here and bring him in. He's been in the green room. So here he is. And Pravin, I know that we're going to be discussing a lot today, but I kind of want to you know, ask you that first question is tell us a little bit about yourself and how you even stumbled upon Amazon FBA in the first place.

Of course. It's good to see you, my friend. It's been a while. Yeah. A little bit about me. So I'm from Vancouver, Canada, born and raised, and I've been in real estate pretty much as long as I can remember, as soon as I turned 18. And I always wanted to do some sort of online business, even though I was super successful with real estate. So Whether it was, I remember when I first moved out to downtown Vancouver, my roommate was a software engineer and I would just come up to him every week and I'd be like, we'd have a brainstorming session on trying to figure out some sort of app idea. So it started with that. And then I stumbled upon Amazon through some ads on Facebook and I tried to learn it myself a little bit. But back then I think it was 2019, 2018, all the YouTube videos were very vague. They'd like tell you some information, but Unless you really bought a course, it was very hard to put together how to exactly launch a business, at least from my perspective. And then pretty much I actually got into it by stumbling. There was an Amazon guru that worked out at my gym, so I saw him at the gym and I was like, hey, you're the guy that I see on the ads. And then he was having a webinar that weekend and he said, if you want— or sorry, a seminar. He's like, if you want to come by the seminar, just come by. And yeah. Yeah, then I went to the seminar and during the seminar he had one ticket left for that weekend's course. And during the whole seminar, I pretty much just stood up and was like, yeah, I'll take that ticket. And then that was the story pretty much. And then from there, took the course and just started working on it from there.

Okay. And then based on the course, because I know people are kind of reluctant to sign up for courses, do you think you wouldn't have started Amazon FBA if you didn't have that course or you still would have done it regardless?

That's a good question. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I was as well, right? For the longest time, every time before you buy a course, you're always thinking, is this going to work for me? I don't know. It's like, it's $2,000. That's a lot of money, et cetera, et cetera. So I was the same way. But after taking that course and really pursuing the business, now when it comes to courses, I'm like, if it's going to help me get where I need to get, for sure. If I didn't take the course, I would say 95%, I probably wouldn't have started because It's just too hard to piece together the information. You can try your best and go watch all these YouTube videos and there's these step-to-step guides, but there's always small little nuances that you don't know. And those are the ones that usually stop you, right? Like you get stuck on this one little thing, you can't find the answer, then you just give up on the business. That's from my personal experience.

No, yeah, definitely. I mean, you can never— there's no one-size-fits-all ever in Amazon FBA because there's always something that goes wrong and you have to kind of put out the fire each and every single time. Even with an experienced seller, uh, there's always different problems that arise. Um, but yeah, definitely. I believe you. You don't know what you don't know. Right. So definitely a course. Um, that's how I got started as well. But let's talk about your brand that you went ahead and sold to me. Right. Which is Maverick. And I'll go ahead and put it on the screen right now. Um, here it is. Right. So this is Maverick. It's a gym accessory, chest bags, basically everyday use. It could be used as running chest packs. So again, I mentioned earlier in this video that you kind of went on a unique path as far as launching this product. So can you tell the viewers exactly what you went ahead and did?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

So when— so we launched that first product of that brand back in 2020. And at the time it was during COVID when all that stuff was going on and everybody was having to work out from home. And essentially, so I saw that similar chest— I saw a different brand selling that similar chest pack. but it wasn't on Amazon. It was a big, big worldwide brand selling this product and I liked their product and then I noticed it wasn't on Amazon. So I just had the idea, well, what if I just make that exact product and put it on Amazon?

And then another— Yeah, definitely. I think it's so unique. I'm sorry to cut you off because there's all these YouTube videos out there that say plug in these certain criteria into Jungle Scout or Helium 10 and whatever has the most reviews and less competition or whatever it might be, whatever, you know, gurus say. So again, it's just out-of-the-box thinking of seeing something that's off of Amazon that's doing tremendously well, building a brand out and just basically doing private label on that and bringing it onto Amazon and making it 10 times better.

Absolutely. The one difficult thing though is with that strategy is you have to, it's hard to know whether that product is doing super well, right? Because sometimes there's a lot of brands that have a specific backpack or something, whatever they sell, you don't, it's hard to know like how much money are they actually making with that product, right?

Yeah.

So that's where I don't, maybe, you know, I don't really know how to find that out. The only thing that I had to go with with this product was one that I really liked it and it was very expensive and I thought, well, if I can essentially bring the cost down, right? 'Cause I think that there's the, this brand was selling this specific product for like $140 where I felt like we could probably make it and sell it for like $30 or $40. So yeah, that's the one thing is figuring out if it is in demand. I noticed with that one product too, it was going out of stock a lot on the website, on that web— on that business's website. So that helps. But—

So you know exactly that there's demand because they're selling out constantly?

Yeah. From what I could piece together, that was my assumption.

Okay. And you had the business for how long before you sold it?

So it was about— so it was about 2 and a half years. Um, but so my first product was a complete failure. So it wasn't even part of this brand. It was a completely different product. And that was like the first 6 months of failing and learning. And then we launched Maverick. So it was about 2 years from when we started Maverick to selling it.

Got it. Got it. Got it. And has your goal with Maverick ultimately to sell it like you did, or kind of walk me through the entire process of you deciding to sell this business and how you got ready for that?

Yeah, great question. So when I started Amazon, I didn't even know you could sell your Amazon business. I had no, absolutely no idea. Um, for me it was just like, I just wanted to start making some extra cash flow every month. Like, you know, even $5,000 or $1,000 extra a month is a lot, right? So, um, I had no idea you could sell it. Um, I just was trying to build something extra on the side because like I said, I do real estate full-time. Um, so it was just something that I would spend a few hours on every day and trying to build something up. Mm-hmm. And it wasn't until I think a first, a whole year into our business, one of my friends here in Vancouver, he mentioned that he had just exited his business. And then I started asking questions like, what, you can do that? And then anyways, then I heard about Empire Flippers and essentially I started looking into Empire Flippers and I saw all the businesses for sale and how much money they were making, etc. And then that's what got me interested. I'm like, holy, because at that time we weren't making a lot of money. Um, but profit, at least like revenue, we were making decent, but profit was very low because obviously we just kept spending money and I was learning as I went. Um, but yeah, then once I saw what some of these businesses were selling for, it kind of gave me a little bit of a target. I'm like, holy, like we could exit for this amount of money. So that's when we had the idea. So definitely, and it was never from the get-go that was the, that was the plan at all.

Yeah, no, no, no, definitely. I mean, again, Empire Flippers, I think Has been around for a little while now, but just personal experience as far as buying businesses. I know around 2021 when we first or 2020 when we first started thinking about buying businesses, if you didn't have your money inside Empire Flippers to make a down payment, there was no way you were getting a solid business, right? And 2021 was the same exact way. And I think the softening happened in 2022 where you know listings started staying a little bit longer. People were able to agree on terms. Something we agreed on terms as well. But with that—

So with Empire Flippers, do they want you to— are all the sellers— sorry, all the buyers pre-approved on there?

Yes.

Do they want you to have the money? They do. So you need to have the money in your account there, or at least show some sort of bank account.

Yeah, you have— there's different criteria. I mean, you can even have credit, or you can even take out a loan on SBA. Um, to buy these businesses out, but they do require some due diligence as far as you showing bank statements or showing any type of money you might have in stocks or a CD or anything like that. And they'll go ahead and pre-approve you. Usually whatever you might have, they'll go ahead and be more generous as far as what you can go ahead and unlock. But it's not like somebody that has $1,000 in their bank account can unlock a million-dollar listing. No. Right. And, um, I think Empire Flippers works too because it does product research a little bit easier as well. So if you are launching a new brand, You can see what is for sale and what has been successful. So again, this is just more advice as well. If you do have that money and you want to start from scratch, Empire Flippers could be a route where you can do product research. But again, it gets a little bit difficult because just because, you know, Pravin was successful in a brand doesn't mean you might be successful, right? There's a lot of moving parts in Amazon FBA.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay. So as far as like, I mean, I'm sure you're aware, you know, you're a real estate agent of the environment and the economy and whatnot. And everything kind of was booming at a time. And we saw the softening when interest rates started going up. Do you think that you missed the boat? Do you think you would've got more if you would've sold in 2021? Or are you happy right now that you sold the business? Or what are your biggest drawbacks as far as selling the business?

That's a good question too. So it depends because, so as you know, with selling your business, it also depends on, I think it's a 12-month rolling average of what your revenue or what your profit is, right? So timing-wise, we couldn't have been any sooner for sure because once again, like I said, the first year we weren't really making that much money profit.

Mm-hmm.

So it wasn't until the second year around that we started making profits. So we actually did wait a while because we wanted to get our average up, uh, because we had some lower months and some higher months. So timing-wise, I mean, yeah, for sure I did see the, the interest rates spiking and it worried me a little bit, as it probably did a lot of people. And I thought the market was going to soften, and it did, like you said. I think some of the businesses were selling for like 50x multiple, right? Like, and was it 60x at some point too?

And yeah, it was even more than that. I remember when I wanted to sell my business, Factory Laced, I was going through a lawsuit at the time, so I couldn't sell. But I had that growth rate. The thing is that what determines the multiple is how, how big your growth rate is, right? If you're growing exponentially, obviously people are willing to pay a little bit more for it as opposed to like a declining business or a stagnant business.

Yeah.

But yeah, people were selling for like 70 times monthly multiple. Like I've seen it as crazy as that.

Yeah.

Wow. Obviously this is a different video for a different day, but there was like an article on Bloomberg that said all these aggregators were— their valuations were dropping so much based on Amazon FBA because, you know, they bought a business for, you know, generating, let's say, $100,000 a month in profit. And now that we're in 2022, 2023, and, you know, everything is softening, their valuations plummeted. And a lot of these people, you know, had loans. Right. So in order to go ahead and refinance the loans, now they have a bigger interest rate. So they all got together like on Prosper and wanted to create one big aggregator just so they, they can't be forced to sell the businesses because then the valuations will crater even more. But again, that's just a different, you know, video for a different day that maybe we'll go ahead and, you know, you know, bring on together.

Yeah, well, I think everything at that time, like even the real estate market, was just like there was people were paying ridiculous prices that made absolutely no sense at that time.

Right.

So, um, but yeah, to answer your question timing-wise, no, we didn't really think about it too much.

Yeah.

Um, you know, we could have waited, of course, too, because as you know, like, the business was trending in an upward trajectory. Um, but like I said, you know, I think we made the— I made the best decision that I could at the time with information that I had. Um, and I thought it was a good time also because, like you said, people want to buy businesses that are going up versus Trying to sell them when they're on the way down, right?

No, no, 100%. I completely agree with that. And you know, sometimes as an Amazon FBA owner, you kind of see like hindsight's always 20/20, right? But you have to understand that a lot of Amazon FBA sellers, all their money is tied up in their business, right? A bunch of inventory is tied up, and sometimes it's hard to take money away from the business when you have to constantly keep on improving the business, coming out with new products, coming out with more. So you're in this constant cycle where yes, you might be valued and yes, you're cash flowing, but at the end of the day, you can't see that money, right? So, so again, you're only able to see that money once you actually sell the business.

Yeah. Yeah. That's what, that's what I learned. Like I said, so it was, it was a learning experience from the beginning, right? But that's one thing, because a lot, I feel like a lot of people when they get into the business, they think, holy, I'm just going to make, you know, $100,000 or, you know, $100,000 a month, $30,000 a month profit. That's going to be amazing. But you don't know. You got to keep reinvesting into the business to keep growing it, right?

Yeah, yeah, definitely. So take me along that process of you actually listing your product. Like, how does that work out? Like, what does Empire Flippers require you to have ready?

So I can't remember all the exact details, but I do know it was it was very streamlined. I do. I did have a good experience with them for sure. Essentially, I just remember applying to the website, and they'll just walk you through everything you need. And it's not. I was expecting some some more difficult things, but they do a lot. I don't know what like AI they have or softwares they have, but essentially I think if you give them the login or some sort, they'll pull all the information for you.

Oh, really?

Yeah. You just have to provide them with your costs of like the products, uh, etc., um, like how much you're actually paying for the products, your shipping costs. But as far as like how much profit you're making, they find all that information out for you. Um, so I had a very pleasant experience with them. Yeah, I thought it was very, very easy. It wasn't stressful on my part whatsoever, which is, I think for anybody selling anything, that's the best part, right? You want to make it seamless.

So I know that with Empire Flippers, you don't get to ultimately decide your list price. So how does that even work out? How do they determine the multiple and how much you're going to list your product for?

So from what I remember, they give you a range. They say, this is what we think your property's valued at, or sorry, not property, your, your business. And essentially, I, I'm pretty sure you can— from what I remember, I think they did let me decide, like, what— here's what we think, what would you like to list at? As long as I think you're reasonable or within that, close to that, I think they, they would have been okay with me asking a certain amount or, um, asking a lower amount as well and maybe trying to go for multiple offers. I think as long as it's within the range.

Got it. Got it. I think I think it's difficult because I know with Empire Flippers, from what my experience as a buyer is that you can't offer more than list price for a business. You can offer different terms. So if the business goes up, then you can offer a little bit more, but it will be more of an incentive based. So yeah, that's that's what's always confused me about Empire Flippers is the fact that you know you can't offer more than list if you have multiple buyers for the business. Did they go over?

I didn't. I did not know that. No, I did not know that.

Yeah, it's basically the first one to wire the money in, um, to kind of secure the business, um, basically gets the deal. I mean, the thing is that as a, as a buyer, I'm assuming, or as a seller, I'm assuming you're able to purchase— you can choose which offer you want to accept. Because if one's offering you full cash value up front and somebody else is trying to do terms, then obviously you would want to pick the person that's, you know, giving you all that money up front. But yeah, you cannot offer more than list price. That's kind of like their their their rule there, which I always thought was kind of bizarre.

So you're better off trying to ask a little bit of a higher price then because or else you're leaving some money on the table.

Yeah, as you know, man, like with when we purchased your business, we were tooth and nail with you as far as negotiations. So maybe if you would have started off at a little higher price point, we would have you know we we would have you would have got a better asking of the actual business. Yeah, but yeah. So so let me let me take you through this. I mean that first day that your your your listing was live on Impact Flipper. Like how anxious were you? How how was like the feelings within you as far as like hey, I'm ready to sell this business. And did you have any like not regrets, but were you still running your business as if you weren't going to sell it?

Absolutely. Yeah. No, absolutely. Like we we threw it up there with it wasn't it wasn't one of those situations where it's like we have to sell it. Let's just get rid of it. I need this to sell. It was let's throw it up. Let's see if it sells. If we can get a good price that we're happy with, then. I'll do it. But if not, it's it's not the end of the world, right? Like I would definitely still operate in the business just like normal, like nothing was happening. Anxious? I mean, I wouldn't say anxious. I would say excited. I was when when it went up, I was excited to see what would happen with it. Like if we would get anything. So yeah, it wasn't too much anxiety. It was more just excited. Let's see if this works, right? Because at this point, like I said, I was still I'm still. Until the business actually sold, it almost didn't feel real.

It's like a real estate transaction, right? Until you actually go to closing and you, you know, hand those keys over and you get that check, it's not really real.

Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, and like I said, I'm in that business, so I never try to— I never count my eggs before they're in the basket, right? So it's just— yeah, that's how it goes.

But how was it that first day though? Like, like, how's that, uh, that Monday morning when it gets listed? How was that day? Like Did you get a lot of people to have interviews with or how was it like?

No. So, I mean, like I said, it was just you and one other person that reached out. I can't remember when, like, did you reach out on the first day or did you? I think you waited a couple of days, right? Like the third.

I don't, I don't quite remember. I just knew that yours was a huge growth. So as far as like profit and revenue, like year to year, you're like something crazy, like 500%. And I thought to myself, like, we need to get this business today. And when we had that first interview, you're like, oh, it's only you and some other business that's interested. So I was completely surprised.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think at the time a lot of people were scared, right, with like the current economic situation. But so you can see the growth on the— like, as a seller, that is one of the metrics it shows you?

Yeah, yeah. Let me actually like kind of log in so everybody knows exactly how that kind of looks like. Um, yeah, but yeah, you're able to see growth. Um, so let me go ahead and sign in before I shared the screen.

Are you still currently looking at businesses?

Always, always, always. We're constantly always trying to look. So as you can see right here, right, like the past 12 months, this profit has declined 21% and revenue has declined 10%, traffic declined 2%. So I know that's like AI generated and they're able to go ahead and see that. But you are able to see as far as revenue is concerned.

Yeah.

And I knew yours was something like this, right? Like a growth rate of 377% and revenue up 134%. So you're able to go ahead and see something like that with, with any business that's listed on Empire Flippers. So again, that's why it was my surprise that, you know, nobody was interested. But like, as you mentioned before, maybe it was just one of those things where the environment caused it to be something like this.

As you know, right, when, when everybody's buying and then everybody wants to jump in the pool, and then as soon as something happens and people step back, even though everybody knows that You should— that should be the time you're buying. A lot of people, like a muscle reaction, they end up doing the same thing, right?

So yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, definitely, definitely. And don't get me wrong, man, like right now Amazon FBA, as a lot of sellers know, it's tougher than it was in 2020, 2021 for sure, right? When all the stimulus was giving out. So now in 2023, I feel like we know exactly who's swimming naked or like somebody that, you know, maybe is refinancing their loans every single time. It's difficult, right? So I own 3 brands right now. Maverick is included in one of those brands. And we see it with my personal business. Um, everything's kind of plateaued. Um, and then more Chinese sellers more than ever before coming into the space, because I know in China, you know, they're struggling as well. So, uh, they're trying to find out different ways to make money. So it's, it's been very, very competitive with Amazon FBA in the landscape, but I'm more bullish than ever because, uh, once we get through this, um, I think that more and more people are going to continue shopping online, continue building brands on Amazon.

Um, what have you heard of this new website or app called Temu?

Yeah, yeah, I've heard of it. I've heard of it. Yeah, and everybody's— it's like an AliExpress, right?

Supposedly. And they're saying it's like the Amazon FBA killer or something like that. I haven't looked into it, but I, I doubt it. But, uh, that's what, that's what they're trying to market it as.

Yeah, I feel like for any business you have to have a moat. And people like Apple and Amazon, they have that moat where, you know, you're a Prime shopper, now they're trying to grow it more than ever with these Amazon Live influencers. And everybody's shopping on Amazon. I mean, especially here in the States, especially here in Los Angeles, um, or anywhere now. So I think Amazon has that moat. And I feel like, uh, Temu is going to be something like wish.com where it came, it was very popular, and it's just gonna fall off the wayside because the, the quality of products aren't up there and it's full with Chinese sellers. Like, you can't compete on that website unless you're like a manufacturer That can manufacture these products like crazy. So again, if you're able to build a brand out, Temu is nothing that you should be concerned about, in my opinion.

Yeah, I completely agree. I feel like from my perspective of Temu, it's something if you want to just buy some like gimmicky products like, you know, that you see on TikTok that like are not the best quality. But if you want, if you do are launching an Amazon business, say you're building a quality product and trying to build a brand. Then I think there's no competition on that website.

Yeah, definitely. So, so I'm trying to think about the person that, you know, might be ready to sell their business and, you know, is tired of the hustle and bustle of Amazon FBA and afraid that one day, you know, something's going to go wrong where their profit is going to go ahead and go to zero, right? Yeah. What would you have done differently in order to maximize your valuation on, you know, Empire Flippers?

Well, 20/20 is always hindsight, right? So Now looking at it, right, and then, and seeing with how you guys have taken the business and grown it exponentially, and now I can look back and think, wow, I should have done this, I should have done that. So, but at the time it was, it was very difficult for me to know those things because obviously I only had the information that I had.

Mm-hmm.

But of course now, um, looking back at the business, I mean, there's just small nuances, right? Like with, for example, you know, like my advertising budget was, you know, I wasn't really Pushing it as much as I could. I was kind of more in what do you call like retracting mode a little bit, just trying to make as much profit rather than actually pumping money into it.

So let's talk about that. Let's let's talk about that there. So you were looking for more profit, but I think what you're meaning is that you were looking for more profit margin. You were able to go ahead and try and have that margin be a little bit higher. And the reason why I say that is because when you're doing advertising, your profit might go up, but your profit margin continues to go down lower and lower and lower. Is that is that where you're kind of? Insinuating more profit margin?

Yeah. And then from my mind, like I said, at the time I'm a complete beginner, so I'm thinking, holy, I'm spending $100 a day. Like, you know, like I said, I mean, I would recommend anybody who's looking at selling their business or even doing Amazon business, learning PPC. Like, as you know, and I've learned from you now, like, it's so important. I didn't know nothing. I didn't know anything. I was just winging it. Like, even all the ads that I had set up, like, I mean, I feel somewhat fortunate, but I just watched a few YouTube videos and put them together. I wasn't optimizing them like now, now how you do and how you teach people to do. So things like that are extremely important. So yeah, like just making sure that everything's optimized, I think, with your ads and with your listings is probably a pretty important way to, to, because essentially in order to sell your business for more money, you need to be making more profit. So in order to do that, you really want to make sure everything's optimized. So keeping an eye on everything weekly, daily, I think that would be pretty important. And then also another thing that, you know, I did too is I was quite lazy with the shipping. So a lot of times I would just ship express air when I needed the supplies rather than buying more inventory and ordering it further out so I could go with a cheaper shipping option, which in return would have lowered my My costs on the product, right? Which, which increases the profit margins.

Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, I think that, you know, one aspect of a business is advertising, and I think that's probably the biggest one. But I think most Amazon sellers nowadays, they focus on the little things, right? I mean, there are huge things— make sure your listing is fully optimized, you have those titles, the bullet points, the nice pictures, the A+ content. Like, everything has to mesh well in order for advertising to work. Because even if you know advertising to the T, if your listing is not pristine, advertising is not going to do anything for you. But to counter that, if you know advertising, that's the biggest tool that you need to know in order to go ahead and be successful with Amazon because there's so many things you can advertise. You can be sponsored brands, sponsored products, sponsored displays. And if you're not taking full advantage of that, you're missing out a lot of profit. I know when we purchased a business and I don't remember too much, but most of your sales were coming organically. I think 70% or even 80% of your sales are coming organically. And that's something as a business owner that you want to go ahead and purchase because, you know, there's so much meat left on the bone. Because right now with Maverick, we kind of switched it around, right? Instead of going ahead and getting our 80% organic, now we're 80% sponsored products and then 20% organic, which again lowers our profit margin. But at the same time, heightens our profit.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And, and to what you said as well, like with the advertising and the PPC, I think that's all very important. I think the most important thing though is picking the right product, at least when you're selling.

So talk about that a little bit more.

Uh, so I mean, yeah, that's one thing I feel like people make the biggest mistake on Amazon is picking the wrong product, right? It's not one of those businesses where you can just go on Alibaba and buy any random thing that you think is trending and and throw it up on Amazon and then expect it to do well, right? Like you've seen all the videos nowadays where the gurus are just saying, find something with, what is it? Low demand or high demand and low competition, right?

Mm-hmm.

So it's like something under 500 reviews that's making over $10K a month on Jungle Scout or whatever. But how many people are looking for that exactly? That's how everybody's doing their product research. That's how, you know, thousands and thousands. So anytime you find something, Like, I feel like by the time you launch that product, which it takes about 2, 3 months, like there's already going to be probably 10, 20, 50 other sellers selling the exact same thing. So you just have to be smart about how you go about doing your product research because in my opinion, like, you know this, for example, with Maverick, we launched the gym bag, right?

Mm-hmm.

So I kind of got a little bit confident in my abilities with picking products and I thought I could just launch anything and it would do well. But that kind of humbled me a little bit in thinking, okay, no, you do have to be very specific with what you launch. And make sure it's the right product. Because once again, it doesn't matter if you've built this amazing brand or you have the best PPC in the world. If it's the wrong product offering, then I think it's not going to do well, especially on Amazon.

I definitely agree with that statement for sure. Like the right product definitely will take you a long way. But in my opinion, I feel like everything's competitive on Amazon right now. Like regardless of what you're searching up, it's very, very competitive. And I saw one of your videos. Um, that said that you really want to go ahead and have a price point above $30, you said in that video. Um, and I completely agree with that because now with, uh, with all these Chinese sellers, with PPC going through the roof, you have to have meat on those bones. Um, but I'll say this statement. I feel like a knowledgeable Amazon FBA seller is more powerful than anything, um, other than, other than that, because of the fact that even if you're entering a space and let's say 10 different Amazon sellers are entering that same space, By you having the knowledge, you're going to outsmart 9 out of 10 of those people. So yes, I do agree, especially with that duffel bag, because I'm still struggling with going ahead and selling that product, which is for sure very, very competitive. You have big brands like Nike, Adidas. But I think taking that product and just marketing, marketing it a different way will go ahead and give us sales. Again, that's going to be a case study for me to do. So instead of advertising it more of a gym bag, maybe we can go ahead and advertise it more of a weekend bag, you know. Or a shoe bag as opposed to just a regular duffel bag.

Could be a basketball bag too, right?

Exactly. Exactly. So we haven't tested it as of yet, but we'll go ahead and do a case study on that and see how we can go ahead and do that. Because I do feel that a certain product can be manipulated in a way or marketed in a way— manipulative is not the right word to use— but, you know, get into a different category where competition is a little bit less and, you know, they haven't exploited that market yet.

But absolutely. Yeah.

But let's get, let's get back to— I'll go ahead, finish your thought there.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So I was going to say, are you, are you ultimately happy with your decision as far as selling? And I don't mean that in a way, if, you know, hindsight's 20/20, but I look at it more so that, you know, people always dream of selling their business, but when they sell their business, they're like, okay, what happened to the monthly cash flow? Right now I have to figure out a way to get monthly cash flow now, right? So are you ultimately, you know, happy with your decision? And, you know, what are you up to now?

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, no, I, I am very happy. Yeah, like, like I said, I, I am a true believer that everything happens for a reason in life. So like, like we said before, hindsight is 20/20, um, but I'm extremely happy with it, right? Like launching that business, I feel opened up my, uh, potential to a lot of things, right? Because even before launching that before selling the Amazon business, in my mind, I thought like the farthest I could really think of in my reality was, okay, building a business and selling it for a couple of 6 figures and making like 34 or like generating like 5, 10 grand a month profit. I never even thought like you can build it into a 7-figure business. So seeing what you guys have done with it, I was like, oh, like, you know, in my opinion, from my perspective, I'm like, it is possible for sure, right? So I think that was quite good. Also selling the business, I got introduced to you, which was great, right? And I've learned so much from you on it because you've obviously built, you know, now multiple 7-figure businesses. So which is great. So there's a lot of positives that came with it. And like I said, I think everything happens for a reason. So I'm very happy with the decision. Obviously, I got a good chunk of change, so I can't be upset about that. And now I have a lot more capital to play with too, right? So when I was— I think one of the— going back to one of the earlier questions, one of the reasons why I couldn't grow Maverick to as much as I would have liked was due to capital limitations, right? Like, I didn't have the money to keep injecting into it. Um, that was the biggest thing. And I didn't really have the balls, I guess you could say, to take loans and, you know, invest into inventory, because once again, I don't have the track record. I don't know what's possible with it, right? So it would seem like a big risk, whereas now with any new Amazon business, I have that, uh, what do you call it, I have that knowledge. So like I said, I think it was a very good experience. I'm very happy about everything, the way that it's all turned out. And then the second part of your question, so what am I up to now? Well, that was just the beginning, right? So that was my first Amazon business. I've started now 3 more brands that I'm working on and I'm very excited about them. And as you know, I just started a YouTube channel as well. So I'm documenting the whole journey going from zero to— I've set a goal for myself to essentially get to $50K revenue within the next 12 months. So yeah, I just wanted to pretty much document the whole journey this time because last time I wish I had documented it, but I didn't. So this time I thought, you know what, let me just document it the whole time so that way people can follow along. And I think there'll be a lot of things to learn, you know, watching somebody actually do it versus right now you just see all these gurus who I feel like they launched their businesses in like 2017 selling the most basic product and they're like, yeah, this is how you make money. It's like, I don't know if they're actually launching products nowadays or they're just Making all their money off the courses. So I think it'll be a good experience for a lot of people just to be able to watch someone who's not, you know, an Amazon guru, like just doing it. And hopefully that gives them motivation to also show them that they can do it as well, right?

Yeah, definitely. And I'll make sure to go ahead and link Pranav's new YouTube channel in the description below. So make sure to go ahead and subscribe to his YouTube channel because again, he's actually documenting the entire process of basically starting all over again with Amazon FBA with the knowledge he has now. And the capital he has now. So we're definitely— I'm excited to see, you know, where he brings his new businesses because his first business he was able to go ahead and sell for multiple six figures. So I'm definitely excited for that. So how can people find you other than your YouTube channel?

So yeah, my Instagram and my YouTube channel, it's all my first and last name, Pravin Kara underscore. Those are the two main places I am. Yeah. So my Instagram, if you want to give me a follow there, send me a message if you guys have any questions, and then my YouTube channel as well.

A lot of bachelor stuff on his, on his Instagram. So you'll definitely enjoy his Instagram.

For now.

No, definitely. And again, if you guys are interested in buying or selling your Amazon FBA business, especially through Empire Flippers, go ahead and make sure to hit that affiliate link. Again, Proven is gracious enough, myself as well, to go ahead and actually have a phone call with you just so you know the entire process, get your answers, questions before you even go ahead and think about either buying or selling. But definitely love the interview, man. Anything, any final words you want to go ahead and say to the camera?

No, I think that's pretty much it. I think for anyone who's looking at starting Amazon, it's don't be scared, right? Like, it's definitely possible. I know we've mentioned how it is a lot harder now than probably before, but everything's competitive in life. It doesn't matter what career you're starting right now. You just need to, you need to commit yourself to it and, and don't expect it to be easy. I mean, nothing's easy. So just start doing it and Like I said, if you have the right people around you and get the right mentors, I think that's extremely important because there's a lot of people that don't know what they're doing and those people are, you know, they're probably not going to succeed. But if you do spend the time and get the knowledge, then I think, like you said, it's more easier than ever now because out of every 10 sellers on Amazon, only one of them knows what they're doing, right? So the competition is, even though it seems more competitive, I think the competition is quite low. So I think it's very good. Yeah. And then if you're looking to sell your Amazon business, I had a great experience with Empire Flippers, so I would definitely use them again in the future.

Perfect, perfect, man. So again, thank you guys for watching. I'm gonna go ahead and link a video right here, which is gonna take you to Proven's page as well. Uh, we're gonna have a little discussion as well, another interview on his channel, so make sure to check that out. I'll have it linked right there. But again, thank you guys for going ahead and watching. Until next time, guys, peace. Peace.