June Q/A Roundup

Hey it’s Opossum here! Welcome to my free monthly Q/A Roundup. Today’s post is on some of the best questions in the last month. Each week I write about a new topic or analyze a new digital business. If you’re not a subscriber, here’s what you missed this month:

1. I DON’T HAVE AN IDEA!

2. Getting To Middle/Upper Middle Class

3. The Underbelly of eCommerce: Product Creation, Supply Chain, and Logistics

4. Shopify 101 Part 1

5. Shopify 101 Part 2

First, thank you. I love seeing this project grow and help people.

Secondly, I feel like many of you are missing some context about this Substack and Twitter account. It is not designed like a normal newsletter. I’m not going to send out emails just to send out emails. It was designed to be read from the beginning similar to a course.

Every new subscriber should read that post to catch up on why this Substack exists. Don’t skip it. If you’ve been a subscriber, go read it before you do anything else.

New Subscribers

Question #1

Should I spend $1000 on this perfect domain?

Your money is likely better spent on anything else but the perfect domain.

Why?

Well. If you’re asking this question, there’s a damn good chance that you quit or realize later that you have to pivot or that your idea wasn’t good enough to grow.

$1000 down the drain that could have been used on something that would actually make your business successful. You’re literally lowering your chance of success by doing it.

If you have the extra money, then the "is it worth it" question is really about how much you want it. If you know that the business is going to be successful (after some time and/or experience), then the question is a personal and branding choice.

If you're buying for an aged domain or backlinks, then that's a whole different thing.

"If you have to ask the price, then you can’t afford it.”

If you’re asking whether you should do it, you don’t have the experience to pull it off.

Question #2

How should I price building a SaaS site that’s integrated with the SaaS and not just normal pages?

How much should I pay for a car?

It’s too vague of a question and if you have to ask a question like this for a complicated project, you shouldn’t be taking the job.

1. Integrating a website into a SaaS is a lot more complicated than just standing up a normal site. You may be in way over your head and not even know it.

2. If there developers for the SaaS can’t figure this out, I would run as fast and as far as possible away from that project.

Question #3

Do you have any recommendations on where to find affiliate offers?

There’s a bunch of ways you can go about this.

1. Go sign up for all of the affiliate platforms and search on there. The list is in this series here. (It’s the first series I wrote. You should be reading from the beginning)

2. If you know the space well and find an offer you like, go to the bottom of their footer. They should have a page there if they run affiliate. IE search for products in your niche

3. Use your competitors to tell you. Find your competitors in the space and see where they’re linking off to. There’s a better way to do this rather than just clicking on their site page by page… Use Screaming Frog or SEMRush to crawl their site and look for outbound links. Do this to a few competitors and you have a pretty good list to start with.

Question #4

I dove nose deep into Amazon arbitrage and have been doing pretty good and seeing slow and steady growth. I am also looking to build a service/info business. [insert follow up question about growing a service business]

Do not do this. If you have been seeing modest success in a WiFi business, don’t go the service route.

The point of a service business is to get your cashflow up to invest in an online business. If you try to spend the time learning how to build a service business, all it’s going to do is distract you from the main goal.

If you’re not having success yet, and you’re short on cash, this would be a good idea.

If you're already seeing modest success though…I would just double down on that and learn more to grow more. That's probably going to be your highest income opportunity since you already have a head start on that.

Question #5

I’ve set up a website to resell products. How do I get traffic?

Everyone needs to stop trying to do this. It’s usually too expensive to drive any meaningful demand to your website.

You're going to have a lot more luck selling on Amazon/Ebay/Walmart as you don't have to create your own demand. You just have to capture the demand that's already there.

Shopify is better used to build a brand. If there's already a market for the exact products, the marketplaces will be a better place for you to start.

The marketplaces are "busy" but if you build up shipping history and can undercut price, even by a few pennies, you can win the buy box on Amazon leading to huge demand even if there's other sellers.

Question #6

What kind of schedule do you recommend to follow for someone working from home and going the Ecom route? how many hours would you put into focused work, how many hours for healthy hobbies, and how much into learning?

Push yourself as hard as you can go before your physical or mental health starts to break. Not for weeks, for months. Then you'll learn how much your body and mind can take long term. If you're actually honest with yourself, it's a minimum of 80 hours a week of work.

Learning? - Minimal. Only what's required to push yourself forward. If the learning isn't focused on your business, it's probably just mental masturbation.

"Healthy hobbies" - Idk what your interpretation of this is exactly. My personal opinion is a half day per week or two. Work for 6 hours and spend the rest of the day golfing or on a "healthy hobby". If you mean workout/basketball, then yeah 1.5 hours 3-4 days a week should do.

There's no exact formula here. Some days I do 16 hours and other days I can only manage 10. Sleep, diet, exercise, and figuring out a way to enjoy the grind/your life should keep you continuously pushing yourself.

I haven't had an actual vacation longer than 2 days in over 4 years but I'm also insanely burnt out so might not want to take me as an example for how to relax.

Question #7

Should I be worried about supplier concentration / risk at all at this point?

I don’t know where everyone is in their journey reading this but it’s probably too early to worry for most of you. If you’re doing less than $1M a year, it’s a distraction.

You shouldn’t worry about it at your size but if you are, you can do a few things to ease your mind.

1. Make sure you develop relationships with as many people internally as possible. Take a playbook from salesmen/account managers in other industries. If you’re ever in the same town as your supplier, take them out to dinner. Send a Christmas gift. Ask them about their family. Etc.
   
   We all like to think business decisions are made in a vacuum of what’s most profitable but oftentimes relationships play an enormous part when decisions are being made.

2. Have other suppliers lined up just in case you get rugged by your supplier. This is a lesson from Covid. Even if your suppliers are great, a war, a tariff, a virus, etc. can bring your relationship to a grinding halt. The most important part is having your IP on hand before anything goes down.
   
   Have your formulas, dimension, and IP ready in case you need to pivot to a new manufacturer/supplier quickly. Even if you have to go to a lab to get your product independently tested, it’s better to waste the money and not need it than not have it when you need it.

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If you’re subscribed to this newsletter, you need to keep in mind why we’re here.

Your boss and company, no matter how nice, doesn’t care about your future. Nobody outside of a few family members and select friends care about your growth and your future.

You are the only one that can save yourself and make your life what you want it.

Single player. Just you.

This Substack is here to help you build a business and build the life that you want. I’ve laid out the basics to understand, analyze, & grow most any online business.

The best way to learn how to do this as fast as possible is to start from the beginning of the Substack. That and follow me on Twitter & Instagram.

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Disclaimer: Nothing written here should be construed as legal for financial advice of any kind. These are opinions and observations, written by an anonymous cartoon Opossum, built up over years working in e-commerce & affiliate marketing.