Nathan Miller breaks down why e-commerce success takes 1-2 years: 99% of founders quit in year one, another 75% quit by year two, leaving roughly 1 in 400 still operating. Those who survive gain a massive edge over the endless stream of inexperienced newcomers.
This is why if you want to make e-com work, you need to give it time. Right here, we have time on the whatever axis this is, I think x, and then we have revenue on the y-axis. And as you guys can see here, this is like basically the journey for most of the people I know, for me, who have done e-com, right? You start off, you might have a little win here in your first year, but once you get past the 1-year mark, or around the 1-year mark, you kind of have a dot, like a you start to not do as well. And then, you keep pushing through, and suddenly you see all the success. It's always when you start pushing through and just continue going, even though it gets hard again, is when you see the success. And I have some numbers up here for you guys. This is kind of my estimate, this is not actual data, but this is probably kind of accurate. So, 99% of people who start e-com will quit after 1 year. That's pretty freaking accurate. So 1 out of 100 people who start e-com, within a year, they're gonna quit. 'Cause you have all these beginners, you have all these people who don't put that much effort in, you have people who are just slackers, you have people who just don't believe in themselves, and they're gonna quit. And people who don't see results. And after 2 years, 75% of the existing 1% are going to leave as well. And that leaves you, after 2 years, right, 1 out of 400 people are going to stay. What does that mean, and why does that pertain to this graph? Well, because if you stick to e-com for more than 2 years, 2 years, right? You give yourself 2 years to win. Your competition is gonna be mainly these 399 people who are starting in their first year or in their second year. While you're gonna have this 2 years of experience. So your skill set, your knowledge, your experience is gonna be way better than the overwhelming majority of these people who are starting again. And that's why it's so imp— so important to stick to something. To stick to e-com, to stick to this business model for more than a couple years for at least a couple years because the longer you stick to it, the better your shots are, the better your chances are, simply because the competition, it always stays the same, right? And when you're a beginner, you don't have that much experience and that much skills. Like yeah, it's gonna be super hard and difficult, but 2 years in, you're gonna build these skills, you're gonna have the experience, and then you're gonna be competing against the same kind of people you were at the beginning. So your chances are gonna be that much better. And this is, I guarantee this is why we see all these people who pop off with e-com. Usually happen around year 2, maybe a little before, maybe a little after. It's not always the same because certain people work harder, some certain people, you know, have better timing and whatnot, and certain people win at the front. But for the overall majority, this is what happens, and this is why you should stick to these models.
