E-Commerce ohne Gewinn: Verkaufen oder weitermachen?

0:00I started a wellness e-commerce brand 9 years ago. >> Okay. >> We scaled to like 5 to 10 million in annual revenue >> and basically our our profit is [ __ ] >> and >> you delivered that. Great. [laughter] >> We we scaled mainly with meta ads >> and uh this past year we like had to stop paying ourselves to like start recur like paying back some debt in the company. And then in the meantime, I'm helping my brother scale his e-commerce 3PL.

0:32>> It's doing way better. >> Way better. >> High volume, high ticket, sticky, >> high profit, beautiful business. >> What are we doing? Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Um, >> we should totally do that. >> I I feel you. We're open to exiting the ecom business. Um, we're worried that because it's low profit and it's very IBIDA based >> acquisition, >> won't be able to sell it. >> Won't be able Okay. Okay. So, >> you have a media arbitrage business and you no longer have the arbitrage.

1:00>> The only thing that people buy in e-commerce is brands. And right now, it doesn't sound like you have a brand, >> right? I mean, you just had ads. You picked products that worked well in that space. You ran ads around them using UGC or whatever else. And that's I'm guessing how you made most of the money. >> Yeah. Yes. But it's our own like products that we created. We made like wellness journals, >> whatever. Yeah. Yeah. But like there's no like you have no big brand spokesperson. There's no like collaborations you've done with anybody who's named brand. It's just you ran ads and people bought it, right?

1:30>> Correct. >> Yeah. Um I think so. >> Can I reframe what's happened up to this point so you feel better about it? >> I I feel okay. I know I've learned like I became head of sales of the 3PL. I'm crushing it with 3X like you know. >> What guilt do you have about shutting this down? Um, honestly, we're looking >> Thank you. You could tell. Could you could you could you feel it? Yeah. Oh, can I can you give me a cold one?

2:00>> One of my one of my I have like three pet peeves. Slow Wi-Fi, warm drinks is one of them. Go ahead. >> Um, >> like why bother? >> I'll wait till there's a cold one. Yeah, go for >> it. I feel like I'm going to be handing you an axe with this next like two sentences, but we're trying to save the ecom company by changing our model, by making it a subscription monthtomonth and doing upsells. >> You don't have a brand. >> Okay. >> The only thing that's sellable in e-commerce is going to be a brand. No one buys media arbitrage. E

2:30>> So even if it becomes a lifestyle business, like you still >> What do you want to have happen? >> I want to make a lot of money. Okay. You have So So then So then the question is just what equity do you have in the 3PL thing? >> Um it's it's my brother's. He's generous. We haven't ironed it out, but I have good faith that, you know, if we add a lot of value, it'll be meaty. >> Well, I would say like just make that your first priority. Like actually just get that written down.

2:57>> Get a lawyer guy to come in and just, you know, mediate it or whatever. Get get that in paper. Once that's done, it's like you have >> a significant and I don't normally say this, but like this thing doesn't have value. This thing does and you're doing great. So to me I'm like yeah you use this to learn all the skills you have and the thing is is that that you learned all these marketing and sales skills which is super valuable but the thing that was even more valuable is you understand all the pain of being >> kill it on these calls >> right [laughter] let me tell you my life story right how do you think I could make this content I've suffered

3:27>> and so yeah so I I do think it's the right move for you so you have my full green light on I think you jump ship I think you're there I think you just wind this down the nice thing with that business is that you'll have a handful of VAS that you got to get rid have and probably two or three key employees, you can say see if any of them want to come to the 3PL side, which is I'd say one of the nice the only silver linings of shutting a business down is that there's usually like two or three really good people and the rest of them not so much and then you just get to stack the new company with like the entire soul of what created value in the other company into the new one and just propels the next one more.

3:59>> Yeah. I I work with my wife. She like helped like we're we're going to crush. So can I ask you then >> that was the hard question. I mean, not really. I guess the harder question was, should I spend more time trying to revive it and fix it so we can get a better acquisition? >> No, I don't think you're going to get an acquisition. >> Okay. Um, >> I think you will waste tons of time and effort when you could like take that same effort >> and just >> and Yeah. and crush it. Thank you.

4:22>> Okay. Okay. Thanks for the candidness. Um, so I have a question in regards to scaling the 3PL. So I kind of came in more remotely whereas my brother's the one in the actual warehouse doing the operations and I'm working more on the sales end. Um so I'm I'm basically I broke that business because we grew it so much that ops can't keep up and I understand now we're going to go and run through that fix constraints one by one. M at the same time I have a couple ways to add additional profit for the business like create new money models from the existing customers there.

4:59>> Let me ask you this. Will those levers exist in a year? >> Yes. >> Then don't worry about it. >> Okay. >> Like just because you can pull a lever doesn't mean you should. And right now you're already at the brink of breaking the business. Yeah. You only pull lever like have urgency around a lever if it's going to be something that's going to disappear. the vast majority of monetization um levers that are available in most businesses only get better with time, not worse. So,

5:25>> unless you're in some rush to prove profitability for an exit, which you're not. >> No. >> And the best time to do it is when you're in a sales process. So, like save that thing, juice it six months before the sale, they're going to see it skyrocketing. They want to catch it before it gets too big. >> Okay. So, I think that'll mean I should start going into the warehouse working on actual ops, which I'm very down for, but it's just a total >> or hire someone >> or hire someone >> who's already done it.

5:50>> Yeah, it's been fully bootstrapped and we've just teetered into like >> profitable. >> Yeah, like very profitable. Yeah. And and scaling. So, >> so jump in for a little bit, but I think as quickly as you can get back to the rain making >> and then go back to further scaling and Okay, >> cool. >> Easy peasy. >> All right. Thank you. >> Yeah, you bet, man. Thank you. >> [applause]