 So a bit of a story time in this video on how I lost over six figures on a failed business just a few years ago in 2017, 2018. And people online, especially people talking about business, love sharing their wins. They love sharing their highlights and their high points, but not very many people talk about all the failures that come up to that point. But I actually think that there's a lot more to be learned from people who are sharing their failures, who have been before you and have made the mistakes so that you don't have to make those same mistakes as well. And so that's what I wanna do in this video is share a story about a failed business that happened in 2017 to 2018, took almost a year of my life and a lot of stress and energy and time wasted on this failed business so that you don't have to make the same mistakes that I did. Now before we jump into the video, make sure you like and subscribe so it shows it to other people who can benefit from this as well and who can also learn about these mistakes so that they don't make them in their own business and on their journey. And with that said, let's jump into the video now. So here's the story. Back in 2017, I had just quit my job in 2016 and I had a successful collection of e-commerce stores, dropshipping stores, but I wanted to create my own brand. So I started a supplement company and I don't know if you can see this, let's see if the camera will focus here. There we go. So it says proof nutraceuticals up here, this is my company and this is one of four supplements I was selling called Glucose Shield. This is a blood sugar supplement here and there was four different products I was selling. One of them was a custom supplement meaning I had to order them in bulk and pay a larger fee for this because it was custom ingredients. And I started this business back in 2017 because I wanted my own brand. And the span of about one year, I joined a 30K mastermind. It was a health supplement mastermind on how to build this business. And it was also filled with a bunch of direct response online marketers. So I paid 30K for that. It was a year long event so I spent around $7,000 traveling to the different events, there were four different events so traveling and hotel and food and all the accommodations there. I also bought 5,000 bottles of a custom formulated supplement that was around $11.70 a bottle which is a lot more expensive than this which is a private label supplement. And custom formulated means I just pick, I worked with a scientist or I worked with someone who knew the ingredients and helped me to create that formulation. And I had to pay extra because it's custom and more high quality ingredients. So about 5,000 bottles of those at $11.70 per bottle. I spent another around $15,000 or so branding and videos and design work and all the different things that go into building a brand from the ground up. I also spent roughly 50K in Facebook advertising spend. So all in all with all the expenses it was around $160,000. So the business failed because I couldn't keep it profitable. So I was running Facebook ads and I was selling my supplements but it was at a loss. I wasn't making money. I was losing money on each bottle that I sold. And once I sold out of those 5,000 custom bottles the custom formula that I had I either had to go into my own personal savings and take more money out to invest in more bottles or I had to take out a loan from my bank or my business account and use that to keep running the business. So I just decided to shut it down because I didn't wanna keep dipping into my savings and taking out loans and going into debt to run this business. So what I wanna share with you in this video is what I believe are the mistakes that I made and why I believe the business failed so that you don't have to go and screw things up like I did there. So I made dozens of mistakes when I was starting and running this business but I think it all comes down to three big mistakes that I made where if I just worked on these a bit more I might have been able to make this business work. So I'm gonna go into those three mistakes those three things that I believe cause the failure of this business right now. So number one is I dove into the business before fully wrapping my head around what was involved and what I needed to do to make this successful. So what I mean by that are supplements and selling supplements and having a business around it is considered high risk. And with a high risk business there are all types of things that you have to worry about. So I had a hard time getting payment processing. I had a hard time getting any Facebook ads approved. I had to do some sneaky things with my submitting and uploading my ads to get them approved. There are FDA regulations and restrictions and problems I had to worry about there. I had to hire a lawyer to help me look at some of the documentation I was using in my copy and it was just a nightmare. There's so many things outside of just marketing and selling which is what I'm good at that I had to worry about every single day and it was a huge energy suck. So if I had spent a little more time just looking in and researching the business model what goes into running a supplement business? What are the risks and what are the things that I need to consider before jumping in? I could have saved myself so much time and money because I would have looked at that and said I don't wanna deal with the regulations. I don't wanna deal with the payment processing problems or the Facebook advertising problems. I don't wanna have to struggle just to get my business up and going. It's also why I appreciate stupid simple business models now like selling services, agency services or freelancing services or creating and selling digital products. Businesses like that are a lot easier because all I have to worry about is marketing and selling and taking care of my customers. I don't have to worry about all these restrictions and regulations and payment processor problems, at least not right now, hopefully now in the future but it's a lot more simple and I don't have to spend all that energy on things that I don't know about. So the lesson here is if you're gonna go and spend a lot of time and money and energy with the business and starting a business or growing a business, make sure that you understand everything that's involved with the business model and make sure it's legit and something that you're willing to go through with and invest time and energy and money into. The second big mistake that I made was I was trying way too hard to be different. So what I did was I made decisions based off of what I thought was cool instead of what was actually proven to already work. The smart thing to do in this situation was to find supplements that are already selling well instead of creating a custom formula and spending 50 to 60K and spending $0 and just selling more private label supplements like this of supplements that are already proven to sell. So with these private label supplements, I would spend $0 because I don't have to buy any inventory upfront. What I would do is use my marketing skills to sell it to a customer and as soon as it sells to a customer, then I pay for how many bottles I've sold and the fulfillment house ships it out straight to the customer. So again, if I would have started with the private label supplement and just used one of these and sold it and not spent any money on inventory, I would have saved about $58,000 on creating this custom formula that I had no idea would sell and I could have already sold a proven product and been a lot more profitable from day one. I also had a hard time selling it in the beginning because I had to figure out the right messaging, I had to figure out the right market to sell to and this was a product that I had no idea how to market because there was no one else out there really marketing the same product because it was a custom formula. So the lesson here is don't try to be different just because you think it's cool. Find something that's already working if you wanna make money and you wanna make a successful business and test that on a smaller scale first and then scale up as you find something that works. Don't make the same mistake that I did which is to sync multiple five figures into a product that I had no idea would sell and I had a hard time selling that in the beginning. So that is number two, lesson number two, don't try to be different and cool find something that's already working, model after that, test it on a smaller scale before you start to invest significant time, money and resources into it. The third mistake that I made was I was product focused instead of being market focused. And so what I did was I picked Neutropics as a product that I wanted to sell which helps with brain and memory and being able to focus more because I thought it was a cool product and because I took it myself. But after spending months formulating the product spending two to three months formulating and picking the ingredients and putting it all together I had no idea who I was gonna sell it to. Was I gonna sell it to myself? Was I gonna sell it to older people to help with memory? Was I gonna sell it to gamers or people who play extreme sports to help them focus? I had no idea who my market was and who I was gonna sell this product to. All of my time was focused on the product instead of thinking about who the market was that I wanted to sell to what are their specific problems and pain points and then creating a product to help them with that. So what you have to do here is always think about whether you're selling a product or a service I always think about the market first the niche or the industry or the market the people that you want to help and I look at their pains and problems and I create an offer or product or service around that. I spent all of my time focused on the product and making the best product instead of focusing on the people that the product would be for. So what I wish I did and what you should do as well is choose your market first, right? Who do you want to help? What are their pains and problems? And what can you create or bring them a product or a service? What kind of offer can you create for them? That's gonna help them solve those pains and those problems. Now the easiest way to do this regardless of your business model whether you're selling a physical product or a digital product or coaching or courses or services or even something like software if you choose your market first and you see what they're already buying it becomes pretty easy to figure out what you can create that's similar to the products they're already buying but just maybe slightly better or slightly different and they're already proven to want to buy that the market's already proven to buy that so you could just sell them more of what they're already buying. That is the easiest way to build a profitable business from scratch as quickly as possible is to choose your market first and then create a product that they're already buying and just add a few little tweaks to it, right? Something that's a little different or a little better or a little unique about what you have there. So the three mistakes again that I made that you should look to avoid whenever you're starting a business or you're growing your business is number one, I dove into the business model before understanding all the risks involved and everything involved from me that I would need to do to make this work. If I had spent a little more time researching I could have avoided all the time and stress and money and energy that was wasted in building this up. Number two was I was trying too hard to be different rather than just finding something that was already working and modeling after that and making it just slightly different or more unique and then selling more of what is already proven to sell. And number three is I was product focused instead of market focused. I created what I thought was the best product but I had no idea who was gonna sell it to and because of that I had a hard time selling it profitably. So in that case you wanna choose your market first understand the market and their pains and their problems and then you can decide what are they already buying and what can I sell them that's just slightly different or unique or a slightly better than what's already proven to sell. So that was my story of how I lost over six figures on a failed supplement business and also the three mistakes that I made that I think if you avoid those you're gonna be in a lot better shape than I was and I could have saved myself all that money and time if I didn't make those mistakes. Now I still learned a ton from this experience so personally I don't really regret it. I look back at it all the time and try to pull out lessons of what not to do and things to look out for. I'm a lot more cautious as well before I jump into either partnerships or different types of businesses or projects. So I don't regret this happening but I'm hoping that this video helps you so that you don't make the same mistakes and you don't have to waste all that time and money like I did. Now if you got value out of this give it a like, comment down below if you've had any rough patches or things that you feel that in business I'd love to hear your story. And also if you are interested in learning how to write money making emails which is what I do now for my own products as well as clients go to email rainmaker.com which will take you to my free Facebook group and my email list where you can learn more about that. And that's it for this video. I'll see you in the next one. Take it easy.