389: How To Make Millions Selling Supplements On Amazon With Mina Elias

00:00
You’re listening to the My Wife, Quit or Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. Now today I’m thrilled to have my friend Mina Elias on the show and Mina runs a successful supplement company called MMA Nutrition, a PPC agency, and he’s actually an MMA fighter himself. So in this episode, he’s going to teach us how to be successful selling supplements and an Amazon program that he joined in the past that is a waste of time and money. But before I begin, I want to thank CleoBio for sponsoring this episode.

00:30
Now I’m super excited to talk about Klaviyo because they’re the email marketing platform that I personally use for my ecommerce store and I depend on them for over 30 % of my revenue. Now you’re probably wondering why Klaviyo and not another provider. Well Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for ecommerce stores and here’s why it’s so powerful. Klaviyo can track every single customer who has shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who purchased a red handkerchief in the last week. Easy. Let’s say I want to set up a special autoresponder sequence to my customers depending on what they bought.

00:58
Piece of cake and there’s full revenue tracking on every single email sent. Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used and you can try them for free over at klaviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. I also want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Now if you run an e-commerce business of any kind, you know how important it is to own your own customer contact list. And this is why I’m focusing a significant amount of my efforts on SMS marketing. SMS or text message marketing is already a top five revenue source from my e-commerce store.

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and I couldn’t have done it without Postscript, which is my text message provider. Now, why did I choose Postscript? It’s because they specialize in e-commerce, and e-commerce is their primary focus. Not only is it easy to use, but you can quickly segment your audience based on your exact sales data and implement automated flows like an abandoned cart at the push of a button. Not only that, but it’s price well too, and SMS is the perfect way to engage with your customers. So head on over to postscript.io slash Steve and try it for free. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash Steve.

01:57
And then finally, I wanted to mention my other podcasts that I released with my partner Tony. And unlike this show where I interview successful entrepreneurs in e-commerce, the Profitable Audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience. No topic is off the table and we tell like how it is in a raw and entertaining way. So be sure to check out the Profitable Audience podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

02:25
Welcome to the My Wife Quater Job podcast. Today I’m excited to have Mina Elias on the show. Now, Mina is someone who I met at Geek Out in LA and I’m really glad that we met. Mina is the CEO of MMA Nutrition LLC and he runs a successful Amazon PPC agency as well. And in addition, he is the only MMA fighter that I know in person. Anyway, I invited Mina on the show today to talk about how to grow a supplements brand.

02:51
and his experiences with Amazon Launchpad. Now, Amazon Launchpad is a program designed by Amazon to help startups bring new products to market on the Amazon marketplace. But I will let Mina do most of the talking about Launchpad. And with that, welcome to the show Mina. How are you doing today? Amazing, man. I’m glad to be on the show. Dude, I’m glad to have you. For a while, I wasn’t sure if you were going to make it. I’m glad I’m here. I’m glad I’m well. So how did you get into e-commerce and what made you decide to sell?

03:20
supplements for athletes. Okay, so how did I get into e-commerce? graduated, well, I went to college in 2011, got my bachelor’s in chemical engineering and chemistry, graduated, got my master’s in industrial engineering, and then I worked the corporate ladder. know, multiple jobs as an engineer, worked my way up and, know, in 2017 or 18, no, 2018 is when, you know, I kind of was starting to

03:50
hit that peak where, you know, kind of I’m starting to maximize on my career. Like it’s, it’s that now I’m in a set path and I’m working nine to five and my boss invites me into her office. says, she’s the CEO of the company and says, Hey, you know, you’re a bright young man. have your bachelor’s, master’s, whatever. And I’d like to groom you in the next five to 10 years to take over my position and eventually run the company. And, you know, I was like, Oh wow. Like, this is amazing. But driving home.

04:19
I was like, man, like what’s going on? Like this is, I hate my life. I was waking up early, like 4.30 in the morning, going to the gym, driving 45 minutes to work, working nine, nine and a half hours, coming back. And I’m like, if I’m going to be the boss, the boss works longer hours. I mean, it’s not like I can come in any time, leave any time. And that’s when I realized like, you know, lifestyle matters and I hated my life. And I needed a change. said, I need to come up with something because this isn’t working.

04:48
worked multiple engineering jobs, it’s all the same, right? It’s so I can’t expect to keep doing the same thing and come up with a different result. just so happens, I was reading the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. And he was saying nine to five is a scam. It’s a hamster wheel. It’s designed to keep you blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And kind of clicked. I’m like, yeah, man, like this makes sense. Like every job that I’ve worked, I’m kind of like in a hamster wheel and I need to come up with a business. need to start my own thing.

05:18
And so right after that, reading that book, it was kind of in September, I went on vacation to Egypt and I was chilling in Egypt and kind of contemplating, like talking to my parents. like, well, you know, what am going to do? I hate my life. This is not what I signed up for. thought this was, you know, life was going to be better. And while I was just like randomly looking for supplements online for myself, huge, huge consumer of supplements, by the way. So you asked why I got into supplements is because I’ve been addicted since I was like 12.

05:48
always in G &C. Wow. Okay. I didn’t start taking them to like 15 or 16 years old. I started with, I smuggled some amino acids because like some, you know, juiced up a steroid guy at the gym said that he takes amino acids and that’s why he’s so big. And so I was like, okay, then I need to get him amino acids to get this big. But I’ve always been into supplements. It’s just this weird addiction, but I love it. And I love reading the chemical literature and understanding like

06:18
the studies and how these people got these cyclists and they gave them this and how their performance changed and their VO2 max improved and all of this kind of stuff. I’ve really been into it and I was doing my research and I’m like the kind of guy that will buy like raw ingredients of supplements, mix them together with my existing protein or whatever, just to have like a super protein that kind of fits my needs.

06:42
I was just researching and it’s kind of like what I do, right? I’m online on the phone, like looking at different stuff and my dad’s like, what are you doing? And I’m like, yeah, I’m just researching a bunch of different supplements because I want to order them before I get back to the US. And he’s like, why don’t you make your own supplements? You know so much about it. And I said, I don’t know, like, what do you mean make my own supplements? Like have a company and he’s like, yeah. said, well, that costs a lot of money, bet. Like probably costs very, like a hundred thousand dollars or something. And he’s like,

07:11
no, how much does it actually cost? Do you really know? And that kind of sparked, okay, let me look into it. And I looked into it and I’m like, okay, wow, if I mix these ingredients, I can make a product that’s for like five bucks and it’s selling on Amazon for 30, where I buy all my supplements. so I’m like, I must be able to do a business. So I called a friend, I said, how do you start a company? How do you create an LLC? He said, just go to LegalZoom and then file for an LLC.

07:39
And so that’s kind of how I got into it. I said, okay, I’m starting a supplement company and I created a supplement that was based on my needs. was a, you know, an MMA fighter. was training very hard. was sweating a lot and I was losing all these electrolytes and I can tell because like the days that you would sweat a lot and there’s different days in MMA. Like there’s days where you do a lot of technique and then a little bit of life sparring and there’s days where you do like a lot of conditioning and then life sparring. And you could tell the days where you do.

08:09
kind of that conditioning where you know you’re not like really going hard, but you’re just sweating a lot and then you go live, my performance is horrible. And I can only attribute it to one thing and it’s like me losing all these electrolytes and I needed something to like enhance my performance. So I came up with a supplement, it’s called hard work now, it used to be called Hydrolyte. I looked into all of like clinical studies for the best electrolytes and what dosages and how to…

08:36
you know, make it the body absorb it the most and what amino acids work best with it. And I came up with this product and then I tested on myself, tested on my teammates and that’s the inception of MMA nutrition. So I’m curious, like how did you get your supplements manufactured? Are they manufactured in the States or overseas or how do you even find it? Did you just Google people? Yeah. So funny story. When I, when I wanted to manufacture it,

09:01
The first thing that I thought, you know, being like, now I know I’m an entrepreneur born an entrepreneur, but I was like, okay, like if I buy all of these raw ingredients in bulk and bring them to my house and then pay my roommate 15 an hour, and then I calculated like how many, you know, bags he can fill up per hour. So I was going to initially do that. I was going to pay my roommate to do it while I was at work in my nine to five. But then I’m like, maybe I should do it a little bit more safe and legally.

09:31
And so I started like going after, know, I Googled, you know, supplement manufacturers and started, you know, messaging people, asking them. And everyone said custom formula, we need minimum 3000 unit order and all this stuff. And I’m like, dude, I’m not going to put $12,000 into like a supplement. mean, now I can, but back then I have no idea if it’s going to work. And so I hit up like one of my raw material supplier.

09:58
And I said, Hey man, can you like blend, give me a blend? instead of giving me all these four ingredients, like separate or five years in separate, said, yeah, sure. I’ll make a blend. Send me the formula. sent him my formula and he said, okay, I’ll, I’ll do it for you. And it, was like super cheap. And he, he had no minimums. said, how much do you want? said, can you do a hundred units? He said, yeah, I’ll do a hundred units. And that’s how I came up with my first manufacturer. But then another funny story, like a months later, maybe less than a year later.

10:27
people started hitting me up. think it was less than six months later. People started hitting me up, including like athletes that I sponsored and stuff like that. And they’re like, man, this stuff tastes like fish. And it turns out that, yeah, it turns out that there’s an ingredient in their potassium, sodium bicarbonate that is sourced in two different ways. One is like a mineral source and the other one is a marine source. And on paper, it’s both sodium bicarbonate. So.

10:55
the manufacturer wasn’t wrong in any way. But when his ingredient wholesaler changed the source, it started tasting like fish. And then everyone’s like, dude, if I leave this in the bottle for five minutes, it tastes like fish. I can’t drink this. And then I’m like, oh my God, my manufacturer is bad and all this stuff. So I hit up a million people and I’m like, give me a quote, give me a quote, give me a quote. And one guy that

11:23
you know, had I met, I had met through the gym and he had given me advice. He said, Hey, like, you know, give me a minute, I’ll get you a price. And then he, uh, connected me to his manufacturer, which is now my manufacturer. He’s right here, 30 minutes from me. And like, we’re best friends. He’s almost like my uncle. Like we have like a, an uncle nephew relationship now. And, and, uh, that’s how I met my, my actual manufacturer. And this guy is like, saved me so many times. He saved my business.

11:49
I’ve made so many mistakes and every time he catches me, like, dude, this is going to happen. He can like predict the future because he’s been in the game for so long. So he’ll hit me up and be like, you know, by the way, in a couple of months, like this, this, this is going to happen. Like I suggest you do that. And I always like after a couple of times of rejecting his advice and being, and I’m like, dude, you were right. I now like just blindly listen to whatever he says. So that’s how I ended up with my current manufacturer. So all these, everything’s made in the U S basically.

12:18
I was just kind of curious if anyone actually gets it made overseas and what the price differential is. Yeah. Yeah. No, I have quoted it overseas when I first started and didn’t know any better, but here in the U S it’s five and a half dollars overseas, everything done. It’s $3, but then I have to pay for shipping, which I’m assuming is probably going to be like 50 cents a unit. So yeah, that’s kind of the price difference. Not worth it. Yeah. For the savings. I’m actually curious about

12:47
supplements in general. You mentioned like you consider just mixing all the stuff in your house. Technically that’s not illegal, right? I think it is. don’t I honestly, you know, don’t fully know. think it’s illegal. I think you have to if you’re going to sell supplements, you have to have them made in an FDA registered facility. Okay, you can you can actually get your kitchen to become an FDA registered facility if you wanted to. Okay. Well, selling supplements is really saturated and super competitive. So

13:16
How did you launch and how’d you get your first sales? So launching, how did I launch? Basically, you know, when I first, first started, I actually went door to door, different gyms and different supplement stores, but I was a very bad salesman. not, I’m not now I’m a, would consider myself a decent salesman, but back then I was just an engineer. So I failed and, and, you know, some people would maybe take one unit or whatever. And I’m like, this is not practical. And so eventually.

13:45
While I was at this MMA event, had a booth. People asked me like, where can I buy your product? And I ended up lying and saying, it’s going to be on Amazon soon. So then I got into Amazon because I was like, okay, I told people it’s going to be on Amazon. So I went deep dive, looked at videos, whatever called Seller Central. They helped me get on Amazon. And I didn’t know like anything, but I had heard like, Hey man, you need to run PPC. And that’s how I got my start into PPC as I ran some auto campaigns.

14:15
some broad and phrase keywords, whatever. And I just put a big budget, high bids. know, they said like, they said like, you know, always go like 5 % above the top of the range if you want to win. I didn’t realize that the keywords for supplements were going to be like three, $4 bids. And some of them are even more, but I’m like, okay, yeah. So if it’s a $3 bid, I’m going to do 3.1. And so I would put 3.1, you know, a hundred dollar budget. And right on the first days,

14:44
after my 20 or 25 friends helped me buy this, buy my supplements to support me, I started spending like $100 a day in PPC. But I was making five to 10 sales a day. so that’s how I got my first sales on Amazon. had a decent listing. I would say it’s a pretty bad listing, but my price was very competitive. that’s one thing that I think I did good right off the bat. had a good formula. There was no fillers or additives.

15:13
I had a good listing in terms of like copy, not creative. And I was the cheapest to like blend on the market. So when I ran PPC, people like saw me and they saw that I was cheaper than everyone else. And I’m assuming that was the reason for buying my product. So yeah, right off the bat, I think in the first week I started getting like 10 sales a day. Interesting. What year was this? 2018. Okay. Is it a lot harder today? I mean, I assume you’re launching new products still,

15:41
much harder, much, much, much harder. So now it’s all or nothing. So I launched actually Hydrolyte Energizer, which is the best tasting supplement that I’ve made so far and very effective and people love it. But because when I launched, I was not aggressive. I just thought like, you know, I could launch and whatever, you know, just do some PPC. It’s going to work. You know, it’s now barely, barely makes any profit. So

16:08
Right now on Amazon, really have to go aggressive. have to like right off the bat, a lot of PPC search, find by external traffic, Facebook ads, Google, whatever, you know, just all of it, like leave no stone unturned sort of thing. Or else I’m not seeing like, you know, the products convert and become profitable. Man. Okay. So that first, did you just start out with one product? I started out with one. Yeah. The original, unflavored, electrolyte blend.

16:38
And then, uh, and that’s still like my best seller. And then I launched, uh, one flavor that I came up with the flavoring myself. Like I ordered a flavoring from a flavoring company instead of using a flavor house. And the difference is when you order a flavoring, uh, you know, it’s kind of like, if you’re trying to do like a, let’s say like you’re making a cocktail, I’m ordering like oranges and vodka versus.

17:05
I’m ordering like vodka and then like a cocktail mix. Like that’s the difference. And so I just sent the flavor and I told him at 6%, like I tested it in the lab, like, you know, my little chemistry lab back when I was in college. And I said, add 6 % to the base mix and we’ll have like a good flavored product. But obviously that failed miserably. Now I know a lot better. Now I would send my base to a flavor house. They would come up with a flavoring mix.

17:32
for my product and then I would send that to the manufacturer and he would mix it in. So my flavor failed and then now that with the new manufacturer, I launched two more flavors and they were successful. How much did you actually invest to start that first product? So the first product, I would say like probably a thousand dollars all in. It was $500 for the first hundred units. And then, know, LLC fees and, and you know, all that kind of stuff.

18:01
getting some graphics done and then a couple of expenses here and there. So it’s probably like a thousand just to get started. And then I probably had to put in a reorder for like 200 units. So that was another thousand before Amazon had paid me. And then by then Amazon had started kind of the money was coming back. And so I just reinvested, reinvested, reinvested, but probably like across a few months, maybe $4,000 plus everything that was reinvested.

18:30
What do the margins look like for supplements? always been curious. So right now I would like, can tell you for a product that sells for like $25, you’re going to make around, you know, six to $10 in profit. Okay. After all fees, everything after every, yeah, after everything after, after advertising and everything, mean, yeah, $10. If like, you’re really good with the advertising and maybe $6. If, if, um, you know, the advertising is a little bit aggressive.

19:00
So the margins are kind of similar to a regular physical product. Yeah, 20. would say, yeah, 25, 20 between 20 to 30%. Yeah. Yeah. 25%. Yeah. Oh, interesting. Okay. So you mentioned now, like when you launch a new product, it’s a lot more competitive and, you said a lot of stuff like Facebook ads, search, find, buy, and all that stuff. You just kind of walk me through like what it’s like to launch a product. So do you have all those things going on at once? Yeah. So basically first things first.

19:30
Right now, when I put a new product up on Amazon, first of all, I have a list of like 100 people that I know I can get reviews from. And so from day one, messaging those people, hey, like buy the product on Amazon. And this is, by the way, full disclosure against terms of service to incentivize anyone to leave a review. But you know, everyone kind of does it. I do it. And so I’ll hit them up and I’ll say, hey, buy the product on Amazon. I’ll send, I’ll Venmo you the money back.

19:59
So you can try it for free and then leave me a review, please. And so, you know, I’ll do that one person a day. So that’s where I’m getting my reviews. Then PPC right off the bat. So I’m very aggressive with PPC right off the bat, trying to spend at least a hundred dollars a day. It’s going to look like a quote unquote loss, but it’s actually very beneficial because it’s ranking you for a lot of keywords. And the more keywords you rank for the quicker, the,

20:27
quicker you can get to profitability because eventually like once you have the reviews and stuff, you’re to be profitable. Search, find, buy. I wait till have like, you know, at least 20 reviews or so, maybe 30 reviews. And then that’s where I’ll use a service like Rankbell. And people will go, they’ll search for certain keywords, find my product. I’ll do this for like mid tier keywords, 5,000 search volume a month. And they’ll find my product, click on it, buy it. They won’t leave a review or anything, but

20:56
you know, trying to trigger the algorithm to show that I’m relevant for that certain keyword to help me rank, you know, better in the search, you know, basically like sort of an SEO manipulation technique. Also, now that I have the ability, I have a full-time video editor and content creator. I’ll have a bunch of content created for this particular product. And it’s easy, 3D renders. And it’s like maybe like, you know, sugar-free or whatever, enhanced performance, da, da, da.

21:24
And what I’ll do is I’ll go into Facebook ads library. I’ll look at my competitors. I’ll find the ads that I like, that I think look good. And I’ll just have my video editor recreated with my product in, with the 3D render. And then I’ll run a ton of traffic to Amazon. So straight to Amazon. I know people will say, oh, aren’t you going to get a lot of people outside into Amazon? They won’t convert.

21:53
and then Amazon will penalize you. don’t. When you’re sending external traffic, if it’s internal traffic and your conversion rate is low, I agree, they’ll penalize you. But if it’s external traffic, I’ve seen Amazon reward you. And they’ve actually mentioned now that they will reward external traffic and then Shopify lashed out at them and they canceled the connection between Shopify and Amazon. So I used to be able, if someone buys on Shopify,

22:20
Amazon will automatically fulfill it. Now I can’t do it anymore. I need to have a ShipStation app connected and have an account. what? Was that recent? This is recent, man. Shopify, Amazon are fighting. Well, no, no, I didn’t know they canceled the app for the multi-channel fulfillment. Yeah, they canceled it. So now you can’t go Shopify straight to Amazon. You need to have a third party app like ShipStation to do it. Hmm, interesting.

22:48
It works for other platforms. pretty sure. It’s just Shopify, Yeah, it’s just Shopify Amazon. No, no, multi-channel fulfillment on Amazon works. That’s fine. I meant the app. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That’s crazy. So, okay. So you’re sending traffic directly to the listing and you’re saying that the conversion rate doesn’t matter when you’re sending external traffic. External, yeah. detects it.

23:12
Exactly. And then I’m doing like, you know, whatever I can on Instagram. I’m not great at Instagram, to be honest, but I’m trying to have like a list of people, you know, with a decent amount of following that I’m sending the products to. I’m like, please make some stories about the product and send people to Amazon and, know, do a swipe up. I’m like, you know, five or 10 people with 10,000 followers. So they have that swipe up feature. And I’m like, guys, can you do please do a story?

23:37
for like one story for the first five days, I would really appreciate it. If I have to pay them a little bit of money, I’ll pay them a little bit of money. Goes a long way. And so that’s kind of what I’m doing. Like just hitting it from a lot of different angles and trying to do everything all at once. know, with my newest brand, Cognuro, we built an email list and an SMS list and, you know, we have a lot of backers from our Kickstarter. So I’m going to utilize all of that to send them to Amazon right in the…

24:06
first days and kind of get it ranked. And I did that with one other brand that I had. It’s a women’s brand and we used influencers and very early on we sent a lot, a lot, a lot of traffic. Like we were doing 20 units a day, 30 units a day, 40 units a day, 50 units a day in the first like couple of weeks. And because we had like that sort of external traffic, Amazon kept us ranked with almost no PPC. We maintained like a very high level of sales for a long time.

24:37
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25:05
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25:35
And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show.

25:45
So for your Facebook ads on the launch, are you just not even, do you look at the return on ad spend for that? I mean, are you using Amazon attribution? I am, and I’m also using Amazon associates affiliate links. So I’ll get those just so can have kind of like a double attribution, but I don’t really care if it’s that good of a ROAS, whatever. I’m just trying to get conversions at that point. Obviously I’m not like going crazy. if the ROAS is 0.1, no, it’s like,

26:15
I’m trying to like find, I’m looking at more at like front end KPI. So I’ll do one campaign, a dynamic creative, four different creatives, know, three different headlines, three different texts. And I’ll see like what, which ones have the best like click through rate and, and, and impressions and stuff like that. And then I’ll run that, you know, multiple different broad audiences and maybe a couple of refined audiences. And I can tell like, once I run a broad audience, let’s say like

26:46
men and women who are into fitness, all men and women who are into fitness in the United States. And then I can start seeing like different age ranges and different, you know, uh, states that are performing better. so then I’ll duplicate and I’ll kind of run only those age ranges and only those states. And, know, eventually you, get some decent conversions and it definitely helps. What are you going for? Like is like a one X return ad spend good enough? Yeah. One X would be beautiful if I can get one X, uh, you know, usually I’m getting less, but

27:16
One X return on ad spend is beautiful because all I’m doing, considered an investment that I’m just trying to get conversions in the early days, especially external traffic to show Amazon that this is a good product that people off Amazon have demand. And then people on Amazon have demand because I’m doing the search, find, buy and the PPC. And hopefully all of that combined will result in like a product that ranks well and sells, continues to sell.

27:44
So if you were to prioritize the strategies that you just outlined, which one would you prioritize? Search, find, buy, Facebook ads or Amazon PPC? PPC is number one. Okay. What’s second and third? Yeah. I would do a search, find, buy and then Facebook ads. Okay. Interesting. Are you going for subscriptions in particular also? I would love that. I mean, the problem is I can’t promote subscribe and save.

28:12
on like, have no control of how I promote, subscribe and save on Amazon, but on my direct to consumer side, I’m promoting subscribe and save very heavily. 20 % off. have ads that show, you know, 20 % off when you subscribe and save all this stuff. And I’ve actually been doing pretty well with the subscribe and save. have about a 30 % subscribe and save rate on my direct to consumer. Yeah. Cause 20 % is actually a pretty big deal. Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, it’s canceled anytime. And that’s like the thing that people like.

28:40
I was going to ask you about your regular site because I was just on it earlier. Are you sending people to Amazon or are you taking orders yourself? No, no, I’m sending it. I’m sending everything to my direct to consumer. But I’m seeing obviously an overflow, like a halo effect into Amazon, except when I launch a new product. Then I focus all my efforts in the early days, like first 60 days to be all Amazon. And then I can start sending it to them because I can send them to my direct to consumer.

29:10
at any point. anyways, I’m going to need to run Facebook and Google and all of this stuff to get people to come to my website or else they’ll never show up because I’m not ranked like organically on Google or whatever. so in the early days, I’ll focus on sending them all to Amazon. And then once I get the benefit of the external traffic and the ranking, then I’ll start sending them to my website because I control them better there. I get their data, make more money and I can push them to subscribe and save.

29:38
And then I’ve already used them for Amazon, so I’m good. Is the pricing the same on your website and Amazon? Yeah, it’s exactly the same because obviously Amazon will penalize you if you’re cheaper somewhere else. But, you know, the loophole is the subscribe and save 20 % off. Right. OK, cool. And then in terms of your revenue split, is it still mostly Amazon? Yeah, I would say like 90 % Amazon, 10 % direct consumer. OK.

30:06
So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and talk about Amazon Launchpad because I know you were a member for a year. Can you describe what this program is, how much it costs and what the benefits are supposedly? Okay, so Amazon Launchpad is this thing that Amazon promotes to be. If you’re an innovative new product and you’ve just launched and you kind of want some additional features that Amazon will give you, sign up with Amazon Launchpad. It’s a 12 month commitment.

30:35
costs you 5 % of every single sale, 5 % revenue of every single sale for that 12 month period. In exchange, they’ll give you benefits like you can access enhanced brand content early if you don’t have a trademark or brand registry. They’ll give you some perks like you can do deals, you’re gonna be on the Amazon Launchpad page, you can do a founder feature, things like that, right? But my experience was pretty negative.

31:05
Um, I signed up, uh, I got this rep and the rep was amazing up until we signed up. Once I signed up with the rep, his communication went from like a 24 hour response to maybe a five day response. Um, and, and, know, obviously they were still taking that 5 % of every single sale. I did get the enhanced brand content perk, and this is before IP accelerator was out. the only way to have enhanced brand content was either this or.

31:33
if I had like a registered trademark, fully registered, not like in progress. And so I did get that perk, but then I applied for the deals. I never got it. Every week I would apply for the deals, never got it. What are the deals? Can you describe what they were supposed to be? Think of it as a lightning deal or a seven day deal, but on the Amazon Launchpad page. Okay. Yeah. And then they were supposedly doing email blasts with

32:01
with your products in it, never saw any lift from that. They said they can do a feature and I would apply every single time, never got into that. So I kind of like did not get any benefits at all. The guy, the rep actually ghosted me. And after like many, many emails, he finally communicated back, said, oh man, I was transferred.

32:29
I thought they had given you a new rep because I transferred my team. And I said, no, man, I haven’t gotten any rep. so finally the year passed and I’m like, I’m spending this money. It’s completely worthless. And so I did an exit interview. And by the way, to get in, you have to pitch them the story. So the first time I applied, I was rejected. And then the second time I applied, I really exaggerated because it has to be something innovative. So you give your name and then they…

32:58
ask you to give a story of why your product is innovative. So I had to come up and say, I’m like this chemist and came up with this incredible invention. And I tested it in college and we did, you know, I just made up this whole story. And finally, like the guy called me and he said, okay, tell me about like how you innovated, da da da, are you gonna do this? Are you gonna utilize that? He asked me a bunch of questions. I obviously I knew what he wanted to hear as an answer. And so I kind of

33:28
answered everything correctly. And then they said, okay, congratulations, you’ve been accepted into the Launchpad program. So I was very excited when I got accepted. I thought the features were going to be amazing. But then when I actually tried to use the features, like 99 % of the time, I don’t know now, maybe they’ve improved it a little bit. But back when I used it, the features were 100 % not there, not worth the 5%. I felt like I spent like, you know, 5 % of my sales for a year for no reason.

33:57
You know what’s funny is that I actually interviewed someone who is in Amazon Exclusives, which I believe that’s what it was called before it became Launchpad. And she got featured, she got all the benefits. Like she had a, she was on the front page of Amazon for an entire day. And she got on another feature on some Amazon like show or something like that. it was very- When was it Exclusives? Was she in like 2000 and like- I want to say it was 2000.

34:34
2015, 2016 dude is pretty early. Not many people are selling on Amazon. So in terms of you’re supposed to get like free lightning deals too, aren’t you? Yes. Oh yeah. Yeah. That was a perk free lightning deals. So yeah, I mean, but I would never get a good lift from them.

34:52
Okay. These are just regular lightning deals, right? There’s nothing special about the lightning. Yeah. But you saved the $60 that you would usually spend. I see. Okay. Yeah. So I guess given your negative experience, did you ever get your rep back? Like he ghosted you for a little bit. said, yeah, no, I mean, he finally sent an email back saying, Hey man, like I don’t work in the Amazon launchpad department anymore. I thought they sent you a replacement and I said, no, they haven’t, man. Can you hit anyone up? Like, tell them like I need a replacement. Nothing.

35:20
You know, zero response. Yeah. All right. So basically you spent 5 % for a year and it sounds like the only thing you really got out of it was enhanced brand content. Yeah. And I thought I, and back then I was still in the silver bullet mentality and I thought if I got enhanced brand content, then my sales are going to explode and that’s not the case, you know? Okay. You know, what’s funny about this is like, I I’ve heard of Launchpad, but it doesn’t seem to get that much press. Like I don’t really hear about anyone talking about it.

35:50
Maybe this is the reason why. Probably. Yeah, probably. Because no one’s really benefiting that much from it. mean, if you look online and you read the blog posts, I don’t think there’s any positive experiences about it. I mean, there’s supposed to be like another page, right? That just features the Launchpad products too. Yeah, but who’s going amazon.launchpad.com and then looking for products to buy? Yeah. Well, I’m not. I’m just curious. I mean, that’s one of the features that they tout. So yeah. And by the way,

36:20
that page, I would go in and I would search my brand name. would search everything, like all the keywords that are related to my product. And I would never find my product. Like I would go from page one all the way to like the last page and I wouldn’t find my product at all. So it’s like, I had no idea what was going on, but maybe it’s cause it was like, not like, you know, it was maybe in the primitive times of Amazon launch pad and they had like, hadn’t fixed all the features yet.

36:49
Yeah, that could have been it.

36:53
I just wanted to let you know that tickets for the 2022 Seller Summit are now on sale over at SellersSummit.com. Now, what is the Seller Summit? It is the conference that I hold every year that specifically targets e-commerce entrepreneurs selling physical products online. And unlike other events that focus on inspirational stories and high-level BS, mine is a curriculum-based conference where you will leave with practical and actionable strategies specifically for an e-commerce business. And in fact, every speaker that I invite

37:20
is deep in the trenches of their own e-commerce business. Entrepreneurs who are importing large quantities of physical goods and not some high-level guys who are overseeing their companies at 50,000 feet. The other thing I can assure you is that the seller summit will be small and intimate. Every year we cut off ticket sales at around 200 people, so tickets will sell out fast and in fact we sell out every single year many months in advance. Now if you’re an e-commerce entrepreneur making over 250k or $1 million per year in revenue,

37:47
We are also offering an exclusive Mastermind experience with other top sellers. Now the Seller Summit is going to be held in Fort Lauderdale, Florida from May 4th to May 6th. And as of right now, we’re almost already sold out of Mastermind tickets and we’ll be raising the price every month leading up to the event after Cyber Monday. For more information, go to sellerssummit.com. Once again, that’s sellerssummit.com or just Google it. Now back to the show.

38:13
Well, I don’t know. I haven’t actually heard much about it. I and no one there’s been no chatter really about it. So I’m wondering if Amazon’s actually abandoned this program altogether. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll reach out and see if other people had a similar experience to you. I want to switch back to just supplements in general, because I know I get contact a lot about people who are wanting to sell supplements. And you mentioned your friend was able to predict the future about certain problems that arise. Like what were some of your key mistakes early on?

38:43
So like inflexibility. So here’s a few key mistakes. Number one, no matter who your manufacturer is, always inspect, always, always, always inspect. And that like, if you don’t have a third party inspection company, you might have to have like samples sent out to you, which is going to delay, like increase your lead time or whatever, because it has to get sent out to you you have to taste test it and stuff like that. But always inspect, always taste test.

39:11
because that’s one thing I ignored. And then the whole fish thing happened. And a couple of times also I had like a broken seals and, because of a bad batch of lids. so always inspect that’s number one. Um, how do you inspect? you inspect? Is it done by batches? Is that. Yes. So every time you have a run, it’s a batch, let’s say 1000, 2000 units and they’re all in boxes. So all you have to do is say.

39:40
Don’t close up the boxes yet. I’m going to come or you’re going to send someone who’s going to come in and he’s going to pick, you know, 10 random ones, one from each box, just randomly. Once he has the 10, he’s going to look at them visually. You have to give the criteria. So look at them visually, break the seal, open it up, check the scoopers there, mix it, look at the color, smell it, taste it. Each one. Everything is good. Okay, great. This batch is approved. Keep it going.

40:10
The negative, once you, once something bad goes out, even if it’s like a few bad ones that go out, you know, you’re to get the negative reviews and the negative reviews are there forever. So never skimp on inspection. That’s one thing I learned early on. And actually my first hundred units, like 50 or 60 of them, because I never inspected the bags, they used to be in bags before they were in containers. They blew up during shipment. So they were just very like frail.

40:38
If someone were to drop them from like 12 inches, they would like the hole would open in the bag and powder would fly out. So I never inspected, I never dropped tested and, I suffered the consequences. So that was kind of my first mistake. Second thing is flavor comes first. Like flavor is a priority over formula and it’s a sad truth, but I prioritized formula always over flavor. Cause I said, people care more about.

41:08
If efficacy like something that works. Yeah. That was wrong. Only I cared about something that works. You’re not going to consume something that tastes bad every single day. And so I have a lot of supplements and I have to admit the ones that taste good that I mix up and drink. And I’m like, this tastes like nice. I’m drinking them every day. The ones that don’t taste that good that I have to kind of like just put down because I know it’s beneficial. I’m missing a lot more days than not. And it’s probably not.

41:37
those aren’t the ones that I’m reordering. So one thing that I learned is I came up with a formula based on clinical studies, all this stuff. I went to my manufacturer, I said, we’re gonna make this and we’re gonna flavor this. And then he’d be like, dude, we need to adjust the formula a little bit if we want the flavor to be good. And I’m like, no, I want it like natural flavoring or I want it like only sucralose and I want this and that. And I want you to keep the serving size only three grams so we don’t add too many fillers.

42:05
I would constrain him so much and then the flavor of the formula would suffer and then I wouldn’t get, know, people wouldn’t reorder my product as much because the flavor was suffering. But then when I’m like, okay, I’m going to be flexible. Let’s make something good. And then he would adjust the formula. I mean, just the formula we’re talking like decrease some things, add a couple different ingredients that, you know, really made the flavor enhance better.

42:33
Like there’s couple of things that tastes really bad. And then there’s a couple of things that help like mellow out the bitter stuff so that the product can taste good. And so after like adding a couple of those in, boom, you have a beautiful tasting formula that everyone’s like, wow, I love this. love this. And so that’s another thing that I learned kind of the hard way. Another thing is being ready to adapt. So number one, I had times where my containers ran out.

43:01
And I’m going talk about that. then number two, I had times where I had a whole ingredient run out. so when the time came when the containers ran out, my manufacturer had said many times, Mina, always keep a backup of bags. Always keep a backup of a different form of the container of the product. Because in case the containers run out, which they did, there was a national shortage of containers. And we called everyone possible.

43:30
and we couldn’t get any containers, I could have easily pivoted into bags. And thank God that I just had a thousand bags left over, you know, from when I switched over from bags to containers and we never threw them out. But basically always be prepared, you know, for something like that to happen. Have a different form of container because your container could run out and it’s a serious thing. And once your container runs out, what are you going to do? Um, you know, do to create a new listing for that? Cause it looks different physically, right?

43:57
No, no, as long as you can maintain the FN SKU. Now you don’t even because you don’t even need to maintain the FN SKU. can just ask Amazon or you ask your manufacturer to put over the barcode, the FN SKU. You just change the listing. basically the OK, the photo. Yeah. So yeah, basically what you can do is in that ASIN, you can create a new SKU. So you’ll duplicate the ASIN, create a new SKU and then you’ll you’ll have that existing SKU on and that new SKU off.

44:27
and then you’ll send the bags to the new SKU. And then as soon as the old SKU becomes like, you know, there’s 10 units left, you turn off that SKU and you turn on the bag SKU and then it will shift. And then as soon as you turn on the bag SKU, you switch the whole images in the listing to be bags. And so if you time it right, everything works out perfect. I’ve done it before like a couple of times back and forth. So that’s, you know, one thing I learned is always have a backup container wise. And then also

44:55
be ready to adapt with the the ingredients. So I used to have every ingredient listed out, which is fine, you know, I want full transparency. But then he said, you know, when COVID hit and stuff, he’s like, dude, there’s a shortage of taurine. And, know, you need to be a little bit flexible to taurine, because if there’s no taurine, what are you going to do not sell? And the only reason that I use taurine, it’s the most performance enhancing amino acid. And I have to have an amino acid in there because

45:25
I either need sugar or amino acid to help the body absorb electrolytes or else the body can’t really absorb electrolytes effectively. So it’s either sugar or amino acids. So it doesn’t have to be taurine. Taurine is amazing because it helps performance. So then I switched from having just taurine listed to having an amino acid blend. And then I have five or six ingredients in there that are all amino acids, good amino acids, leucine, isoleucine, valine, glutamine, taurine. And if

45:54
any one of them kind of like a shortened stock, it doesn’t matter because it’s a blend. So I can just make it up with more leucine or more glutamine. It doesn’t affect the flavor, right? Yeah. I mean, he’s gonna, he’s gonna work with it to make sure the flavor stays good. But yeah, I know it does affect the flavor. if, if, um, you know, but, but again, like the whole blend is one gram. So it’s one gram of amino acids, 900 milligrams technically. So if I lose a little bit in the taurine,

46:23
and I have to make it up with glutamine, it’ll affect the flavor, but not like significantly. It’s not like half the formula changed. Are there any regulations on labeling for your own supplements? Yeah. The only thing that the FDA controls in terms of supplements is the labeling. So your product has to be labeled correctly. You have to list the ingredients, all this kind of stuff. Now, does anyone check it? No, no one checks it. So that’s why I warn people.

46:52
Be very, very, very careful who you buy supplements from because I know a lot of people that have actually asked my manufacturer to put things in and not mention them or exclude things, but mention them on the label. You know, so they would say, Oh, there’s elderberry in there, but there’s no elderberry in there. Or, you know, because elderberry was a huge thing or put a, a sulfane potassium, which by the way, enhances flavoring beyond belief, but it’s actually a carcinogen.

47:21
A lot of supplements use it, but yeah, a lot of supplements use it. And if you ever taste the supplement, you’re like, dude, this tastes incredible. Check for a sulfate and potassium. If they have it in there, it’s a carcinogen, but it’s a very, it’s almost like MSG, right? MSG makes food taste incredible, but it’s like bad for you. So it’s the same thing. So a lot of people, they’ll say, put a sulfate and potassium in there. Just don’t, we’re not going to mention it on the label. And so no one will regulate this and it’s kind of.

47:50
Um, and, and, uh, there’s this one guy, uh, Legion athletics, thick, his pen name is Mike Matthews. has a different name. Um, but he goes by Mike Matthews for Legion athletics. And he talked about it, how like he went to a manufacturer and he told them like, we’re going to test this at a third party facility. And the manufacturers made his product, which was an expensive, like $45 pre-workout. He took it, sent it to the facility, said, here’s the formula. This is what it should be.

48:20
they tested it and a lot of it was not there. And he went back to the manufacturer and said, dude, what are you doing? I told you I was going to test this. So yeah, there’s a lot of monkey business happening in the supplements. if you’re a consumer, be very aware of who you’re going to buy from. And I think an easy way of doing this is going to places like Whole Foods and Arowan and stuff like that, places with very high standards. Costco, for sure, Costco has ridiculous standards.

48:50
because they force you to have like third party testing and this and this and that and proving all this stuff before they can put your stuff on the shelf. So if it’s on there, there’s a good chance that it’s, you know, pretty legitimate. Do you test the chemical composition of each one of your batches by paying? No, I, you know, maybe in the first couple I did, but this manufacturer I’m telling you, he’s like my uncle now. So he, yeah, like he’s very, very trusted. He’s like family. So now the only thing that I do is

49:19
I make, I test every batch’s flavor. That’s it. Just to make sure, because sometimes like, and it’s happened where the flavor has been a little bit off and I said, dude, send it back, have them remix it and we’ll send it back. They’ll remix it. They’ll adjust the flavor and then they’ll repack it. So for anyone out there who wants to sell supplements in terms of just platform, would you recommend launching on Amazon and kind of taking the path that you’ve taken? Like, would you do anything differently today?

49:49
No, Amazon’s still the best. Amazon. But here’s the thing, if you’re going to sell supplements, number one, you really have to innovate, you know, and it’s not just like, oh, my products are whole ingredients, clean, natural. No, no one cares about this stuff. Like everyone claims that it has to be something innovative. It has to be something that clearly defines you because the space has become so crowded that you have to stand out and you have to stand out to a certain

50:18
know, niche of people. And the second thing is, there’s no more, you know, one foot in, one foot out on Amazon. It’s all or nothing. And honestly, I mean, what’s your other option? You’re going to go and sell direct to consumer. You’re going to have to spend a lot of money on Facebook ads and graphics and all this stuff. At least on Amazon, you can kind of capitalize on this warm traffic people with very high buyer intent. It’s just going to be a lot harder to win customers now.

50:47
But if you have a good product that’s very well differentiated, that’s with the right price point and you have a beautiful listing, you have a good chance of winning and you can make it there. there’s no more. I was just talking to people about this that were saying, we have this new product that we want to test on Amazon. I said, there’s no more testing. There’s either you go in and you hit it hard or you don’t because also one thing, you have like about 60 or 90 days to prove your product.

51:15
uh, on Amazon from the second that you launch it. After that, you’re stuck with that history and, and, uh, you’re either going to live or die and, and, uh, Energizer, think was one of those that died. Like in the first 60, 90 days, I did not capitalize enough. And, uh, no matter what I do now, it doesn’t want to be profitable. Like there’s nothing I can do to make it profitable. Let me ask you this. Early on, when you got started, you spent a couple of grand, like how much money does it cost now to launch?

51:45
like a supplement, would you say? So, okay, I would say around $12,000 right now. That’s how much it’s costing me. It’s about, let’s say 6,000 for the production run, like 3,000 for PPC, 3,000 for reviews and search, buy. So that’s kind of like the split. Plus, if I put in some money,

52:12
maybe a thousand dollars on Facebook ads. That’s, you know, another thousand, 13,000. So that’s kind of the range right now is I’m, I’m not doing a hundred units anymore. It’s not feasible. I’m doing a thousand and then I’m spending the money on PPC. I’m spending the money on, on a search, find by I’m spending the money on Facebook ads. So it’s a little bit more costly now. Yeah. Hey, so Mina, I, can you just tell the audience like what your supplements are, where they can find you? Yeah. So my supplement is if you’re

52:42
any type of endurance athlete. you do anything that requires endurance, if you sweat, and if you want to perform better, supplements are called hard work. can go to my website, go hrdwrk.com or on Amazon HRDWRK electrolytes, or you can search by the old name Hydrolyte, H Y D R O L Y T E electrolytes, and you’ll find them company names, M &M nutrition. And yeah, man, I honestly really recommended the stuff works.

53:12
I take it religiously and I feel a huge difference on the days that I don’t take it. You know, I show up to wrestling practice and I’m like, man, my legs are burning. And I’m like, yeah, because over the weekend I didn’t take any hydrolite and that’s why. the main benefit is like, you lose a lot of, if you sweat a lot in certain activity, this helps you recover for the next time you do it. Right. And generally, yeah. Like if you want to perform better, if you want to have more endurance, if, if you want to feel less of like that burn and fatigue, you know,

53:41
having low electrolytes in the body anyways is bad. It’s not good. If you’re like a normal person, you know, hit the gym casual and then, you know, you go out dinner with friends, you’re probably not going to notice a huge difference. But if you’re someone that sweats, runs, plays a sport, you know, does any kind of like activity like that, where you can kind of feel a difference, like some days you have good days, some days you have bad days, you know, hard work will help you out. Cool.

54:09
And then you mentioned a couple others. Are those just, are those launched yet or? Yeah. Yeah. So the only one that the only other one that I want to mention is Cognuro. So Cognuro is a nootropic coffee alternative and basically it’s like a case study brand. And we actually got sponsors like Getida, Thrasio, Ping Pong payments. And we had them like give us some money and we said, you know, for everyone who, you know, you’re asking me lot of questions about supplements, right? And how do come up with a good supplement, all this stuff.

54:38
Everyone has these same questions about Amazon. So I said, what if we came up with this case study and we documented every piece of the journey and from the idea that we came up with all the way to raising money on Kickstarter, getting out on Amazon ranking reviews, PPC, the whole thing. so the way to follow it is it’s the fbachallenge.com. And we have like a checklist of every single step that we have done.

55:07
the business with a video explaining it. And the product is a nootropic coffee alternative. So if you love the benefits of coffee and you hate the negative side effects, the jitteriness or maybe it messes up your sleep or if you get like anxiety or whatever, or you don’t like, I mean, for me, I don’t want to get addicted to it. So that’s the only reason I love coffee, it tastes amazing. So we wanted to come up with a better alternative. And so we came up with Cognuro, the

55:37
you know, the energy comes from Kona and Guarana. So it has caffeine, but it’s in like a natural form of caffeine. And then we added coconut cream to give it like kind of a bulletproof effect. So instead of getting that spike of energy, it’s like a long lasting sustained energy. Then we added mushrooms like lion’s mane, cordyceps rishi to boost focus. And then we added like Maca ashwagandha to replenish your adrenal glands and give it like even more benefits. And it tastes like hot cocoa. It’s like

56:05
I mean, you can drink it hot, can drink it cold. It’s like it tastes amazing, Like everyone who’s tried it loves the taste. It really tastes like a hot cocoa when you go camping. yeah, that’s the product. so that’s like one that we’ve been… And it’s one that I love because it’s been crazy. Hard work, I’ve worked so hard to come up with these amazing products. sometimes people are like, hey, you know…

56:33
you where can I get this? Maybe one person every couple of months. And this one, it’s literally my DMs every day. Oh my God, dude, this looks amazing. Where can I buy it? Where can I buy it? Do you sell in Spain? Do you sell in Italy? Do you sell in Canada? And I’m like, wow, like I’ve never seen demand like this on any of the products that I’ve sold. So I’m very happy with how everything came out. And the beautiful thing is the whole thing is documented. Nice. I will definitely link all of those things up in the show notes. So if anyone’s listening,

57:00
who’s curious about this product or the case study, check the show notes for this episode. Awesome. So Amina, hey, thanks a lot for coming on, man. I learned a lot about supplements and Launchpad, and I really appreciate you, Awesome, man. Thank you for having me. It’s been a great chat. All right, take care.

57:19
Hope you enjoyed that episode. Now, Mina is a baller and he’s got huge aspirations for the year. And if you need PPC help, he is also happy to help you out. More information about this episode, go to mywebquaterjob.com slash episode 389. And once again, I want to thank Postscript, which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash dv.

57:47
That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T.I-O slash Steve. I also want to thank Clavio, which is my email marketing platform of choice for eCommerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign, basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifecoupterjob.com slash KLAVIO. Once again, that’s mywifecoupterjob.com slash KLAVIO. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog, and if you are interested in starting your own eCommerce store,

58:17
Head on over to mywifecoderjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send the course right away. Thanks for listening.