 Okay. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the channel. We're here in Dubai in Daniel Odowski's Very nice Dubai condominium right here. Daniel is a 23 year old Israeli E-commerce entrepreneur. So thank you Daniel for your time and thank you for being so generous. Yeah, okay No worries. So I mean first of all People who are watching this video this could be anybody in the world business owners Whoever it is could you give an introduction of yourself as well as what do you do? Who is the people yourself and yeah in general your business? Yeah for sure. So as you said, I'm Danny on 23 My main businesses are in the e-commerce field. I've played around like since I was 1617 I think I got into the field had a like hard time succeeding in dropshipping, but like I tried for a bunch of you like couple years till I got the hang of it Then I branched into like more of branded products rather than dropshipping Which that did pretty pretty well And we're growing every year very nice. I also do like on the side I have a podcast back in Israel also like YouTube channel, which grew nicely But my main focus is just to try to grow my business as much as I can and also like document and do the fun stuff because I like doing Like the I like doing content just like you yeah, and and yeah, I like it. So that's me Okay, great. So I mean take me back 16 years old. Thank you. You've been business for seven years. Yeah, so you are technically a veteran Yeah, why would a 16 year old Israeli child or high schooler start doing business? I mean kind of think about it on Like I've always been competitive And also I grew up in an area that is like my parents are like business people Like where I live like it's like people wire. It's near Tel Aviv. It's like a place But like it's mostly successful people like personal houses pool stuff like this. So an Interesting fact I learned is like the number one If you want to find out if someone will become richer or not like the number one thing you need to know like statistically Is the zip code where you were born? So I think like Growing in an area where you see the big houses that cost millions and millions and you see the nice cars and you see everything and Like everyone has it from your perspective because you live there. So like why can't I or like what they're not special? Like you get to know the people there are the parents of my friends stuff like this They're not special. They're not smarter than me. They're not anything So you understand that it's possible and also I'm very competitive. So ever since I was young like I was Whatever I did I tried to be good at it like But when I was younger, I wasn't like physically fit like I tried sports up like this, but I wasn't Later I discovered gym and I got bigger and stuff. So so that was nice But like I couldn't compete there. And so I got into gaming And there like I found like you only need a brain and like instincts and you don't have to be strong and whatever So I got into it. I got very good It's like shoot FPS games and at fortnight and then clash Royale I was a professional player like signed in a team flew to Competitions like one there the regional one like and got into London like lost in a quarter finals of the world championship So I did pretty well with that and I think at one point like I also documented everything on YouTube I have I don't know if you know, I have a gaming channel like 100,000 stops there, but I got tired of it and then I was like, okay, what's next? And I want a little bit of money like as a 16 year old I think I want like 20 25 thousand dollars doing the entire thing or 30,000 use almost the entire thing to buy a car But then like you get the hang of it. All right If you make money you can buy stuff and then it's nice And then I was like, all right, how can I make more of it? Talk to a friend who did affiliate marketing at the time He's now probably my best friend But he did like at the time like 20,000 a month and profit or something like this I was like, listen, I heard about drop shipping. What do you think of that? He's like, I don't know But like yeah, give it a try and that's where I got into the stuff. I mean it was I wasn't driven by by like I Don't want material stuff like I mean, it's nice that just now we were over a figure And I just bought a Rolex for like good Entry it's the entry level because When you get here like people look at you they look at how you dress it what you have and then they like determine Is this guy worth talking to or not? So I had to do this but like always I look at it as a competition I don't really care about the the money But just like all right if I get if I make more money then I get further and further down in the Up in the leaderboards. No, so this is how I look at it And I think I got sucked into the business game as a game So this is why I liked it and you know, this game has many many many many levels to it and I'm Way way way below the top. I'm not even here. So yeah, I'm here to play and I'm trying to get to the top That's really interesting. But the thing is I get it when you and your zip code and stuff like that, right? Yeah, but if you talk to your parents, right? I'm pretty sure your parents don't do e-commerce, right? Yeah, they don't do it. Okay, so like why isn't it that you didn't follow in their footsteps or learn what they are doing. I think They're dealing like with like Mostly real estate and stuff like this which is stuff that either requires a lot of time Like you buy stuff you wait 10 20 years It appreciates you sell like you have profit stuff like this or a lot of capital and for me I have not much like and and I don't want it to do anything Asking my parents can I borrow money and like I wanted to do stuff to start from zero And I heard a lot of stuff obviously I got the ads for people in Lamborghini's like I got it from dropshipping stuff like this I fell into the trap believing that this this is like a Way to make millions and millions without too much effort obviously I was young but like Once I saw enough people I dove into it and I saw enough people that are successful I was like I think I'm smarter than the average guy And I think I have capabilities and I think that if someone was able to figure it out And this is my mindset until today if someone can figure it out then I can figure it out I can work if they're smarter. I'll work harder if they're not as smart. I'll manage So this was my mindset like I saw that people were successful there. It's just by luck I didn't like do a lot of research. I got a few ads for dropshipping got into it And once I start something I rarely quit like I really try to make it work unless I'm like all right It's it's not possible like for me For example sports. I was like, okay, all of my friends weighed 50 60 kilos I was like 35 40 kilos at the time. I was like I cannot I cannot Push them or get into this but yeah, I mean this was possible and so I got into it and Honestly luck, that's that's why okay the next Question I have is like the most logical steps like you're good at gaming You signed a professional team. Yeah, you're getting stopped You're getting attention getting popularity and stuff right there right the most logical steps to come streamer slash whatever right? Yeah, so why why didn't you I mean 25,000 maybe the streaming market and advertising markets not as much work back then But that could have been yeah at the time at the time. I think it was before streaming was Before the 18 roses. Yeah way before way before it was before ninja even It was just like Clash Royale was the hide before fortnight So like right as Clash Royale died down for a night started to pick up and Like at the time was like, okay, do I want to and I was really good at fortnight as well Do I want to get into this path or no? And honestly, I think I was sick of like to be at the top of anything you need to put Your everything into it like at one point. I think Clash Royale had to 20 million active players That was something something like this and I was like top 10 and to be at this percent or top 10 Literally top Yeah, I think in the world tournament and like number one in the Region like the five regions and the top two of each region regions were flew to London for the world championship And so I was literally top 10 and in order to do that I had to play every day all all day and learn and you you if you don't do anything for a week You lose your muscle memory and stuff. And so I was kind of tired of it And I just wanted, you know to do whatever I want to and I'm like this today if if I don't feel like doing something Yeah, I'm like, all right. This is I'll take three days off. I'll think about what I want to do but I want to create a life where I can Do whatever I enjoy and also make money doing it And I think I figured I figured out money in a way like how it works and how I can hit both my goals and also The lifestyle I want to have And yeah, this is a nice insight like we can get into that but yeah, that's that's fantastic here Did you go to university? No, right? No, no, no, and even I like kind of dropped out of high school like kind Okay, so you're already dabbling in that. Okay. Yeah, got it. How okay, so Met your friend now your best friend affiliate marketer and stuff like that Started dropshipping and stuff. Tell me the journey there. Yeah, so I try to dropship I remember this and there was this guy everyone knows him like Gabriel send your main. No Ojibra He I saw his youtube Yeah, and he like killed it. He showed like 5,000 10,000 a day 15,000 a day dollars I was like, what how is this possible? But his court this actually It was actually a good course But I thought hmm. He revealed his product. He sold up poster correctors Why don't I sell the exact same thing with the exact same ads and the exact same copy because he works for him Not understanding that maybe 5,000 other people bought the same course and have tried the same thing And so I tried this didn't work. He suggested in the course that like you should do uh, Dark colors tried that they don't work. I spent like as I said, I saved I think was 25 30 thousand dollars I had like more money from youtube and stuff. So let's say I had total 40,000 Used 28 to buy a car then the rest like on drop shipping whatever I could and I like I remember First month, I think I lost 2,000 second month another 2,000 like and I spent 1,000 and got like 100 in sales And I was like, okay people are buying it must be working Maybe I need to let the a lot of people said at the time you need to let the algorithm optimize So it's like, all right. I just need to spend more and over time it's going to work Which is not the case. Um, and even today like looking back at it It was a lot of like bad experience Yeah, it's experience taught me that You know, algorithm is not going to fix uh, uh, you know one to literally you spend 10 dollars to get one back It's not going to fix that if you spend 10 and get 13 back Then maybe if you let it run for a couple more days, you can get to One or two, but like it's not going to do this crazy thing. Um, So there was a lot of guidance that I needed that was lacking and also information um But yeah, I mean I kept on trying until I literally ran out of money almost and then um I stopped and I was like or what's going on. I talked to my friend. He was like, listen, I think What you're doing right now is you're copying other people all the time You you look for winning products you copy you copy you're doing Why don't you start from scratch like think and do it because this is what he did And I was like, no, I don't think so because all of these people say that's how it works And you need to find a winning product that that just means I need to test and test and test Finally i'm gonna hit um, and I kept on trying lost more money And eventually I was like, all right, something something's not right. Um, I don't really Remember exactly how it was, but I remember I started to dive a bit deeper into marketing psychology to understand why people buy How it works like instead of like copying get into like the the base of it before there was facebook ads Before there was anything like how did people sell? um, then you get into like the og copywriters gary helbert or Eugene Schwartz and and I got into the whole entire thing Also an amazing amazing book is called cash appetizing. I don't know if you're right. Yeah, yeah incredible And I think there it's like the 80 20 of marketing if you read that book and I read that book and I was like, oh Oh, all right. I think I'm starting to get it And then I started to to uh, get things going a little bit um started to Suddenly, you know get to a thousand dollars a day with 300 dollar dollars profit, which is nice for me And over time it got more and more and more. Um, and I mean I wasn't I didn't get to crazy scale. I think my top was like 50 000 a month or something like this But it showed me that it was possible and at the time, um, I started I discovered like an opportunity to get into actual brands And I had enough experience and understanding and the bull was Was rolling. I was like, all right. I think I can put my skills into this and we started like this brand And um, I mean it basically took off from day one. Yeah, this is basically the the best sign possible It's a winner. Yeah. Yeah took off from day one. Um, like 2020 Right, right before COVID hit we started and then COVID hit and then like amazing performance obviously and 2021 Like we iOS uh 14 that that sucked but we we pulled through And we kept on going until now we're growing. I really want to um, I really want to make this like a multi nine figure brand. This is my Great thing right now. Yeah, and and I'm going to go hard into this. But yeah, thanks to drop shipping I like it's luck. I was I was persistent for two years Even though I I didn't make money and I lost money But I knew that the skills I'm gaining and over time I'm going to understand what it is and what the opportunity presented itself I had the skill set to take advantage of it. So I mean, yeah People get lucky, but if you're prepared, you're going to be able to capitalize on your luck and I was prepared Um, today I understand this but at the time it was a lot of luck Yeah, I understood what was the product that was doing 50k up a month that allow you to get that experience I mean, I it was like I had a few products. I think one was like a shark chain A shark change shark literally chain with a shark on it. Oh like a chain like jewelry. Yeah, okay, okay And I was like for people are passionate about shark show the world whatever something like this. Um That one did pretty well. Um, I did I don't remember I sold a lot of stuff like I think total I tested like 80 or 100 products. Um But I think there was not much in common like I tested a lot of things some works. I'm not I think there was a like Toy for cats to play with them like laser that moved automatically and I was like the angle I took is like Like when you leave your home your cat's alone and he's he's bored and it's not fair to him If you can get them Get them a playmate that's going to play with them when you're gone Then they're going to be feel better and like kind of kill them into buying that worked Um, so a lot of this stuff But I started to understand like how to get people to do what I want them with words Which is copywriting and then like obviously Another big mistake by the way to anyone who's watching and wants to get into e-commerce like I let Like in the ends do my my ads on fiber for five dollars The ad is like 80 of what's going to drive performance You cannot outsource this like you can outsource a lot of things customer service or right You can outsource the beginning a lot of stuff But like the ads the copy the script if you're going to outsource this you're not going to win And this is by the way like something a lot of gurus over time said yeah You just need to pay this editor on on fiber They're going to create this video and no it's not working like This is the part where you need to learn you need to be good at and once you can make good ads You can make money. Um, this is the number one thing and I think people don't don't talk about it much I mean today, maybe yeah Yeah, I'm sure I think a lot of products. They are like, uh, like you said gimmicky in a sense that they You know, they they feel they need a shark's chain a shark. I've never seen a billion dollar shark chain company. So yeah, for sure Yeah Okay, so I mean you also mentioned that you encountered or got the opportunity to start the brand Yeah, um, how did opportunity go about and um, it makes sense to transition It's obviously risky in a short term or whatever you want to call it But how did you encounter that? Yeah, so without like Obviously, I want to keep it in stealth mode So I'm gonna think I can phrase it without without giving away too much. But like basically someone I know, um Someone I know has been working on like a specific product But they they didn't have any experience in the online field. Um, and so I thought there was a lot of potential to it like It wasn't going like it was doing It was selling like word of mouth and maybe some b2b sales, but like I don't know if like locally Yeah, just five five thousand dollars. I think a month something like this and then barely profitable obviously She was walking on it full-time And I was like, listen, I think I think we can do something here. Um, and so I We talked we we We were able to to understand how we want to go about this and then we started I'll be launched it online. I was Basically in charge of everything relating to online marketing growth. Whatever it became strictly online Quickly thereafter. Um, and we grew ever since and it was great. Like I'm not a product guy Obviously over time I learned I learned it as you get into it You don't need to understand like supply chain and working with suppliers in terms and like how this whole word Works, but I didn't have experience at the time. And so I think I thought it was a great. Um, it was a great Chance and opportunity to to use my skillset. Um, and and it paid off And I think that this is another thing like if you want to choose a partner You need to find one that has skills that compliment yours to a lot of people start partnerships just because I like the guy or like I mean, it's cool. Yeah, I like marketing. You like marketing. Let's do something together. No, like How can you compliment each other? I I mean, yeah partnerships only work when The like the sum of the two parts are greater than the like what they are separately Yep, understood. So basically you took an offline concept that was already working Amplified that and then scale that shit. I wouldn't say it was working because it wasn't $5,000 per month is still proof of concept. No, it's not It's it's really nothing. Yeah, at least people are buying the thing. I mean, yeah, you see that someone's buying it um But yeah, I didn't know but we were like we we were Going to know within a couple months. So it's like a test and it and it proved itself. So yeah Yeah, okay. So decided product looks great. Maybe price point a ov etc. Everything looks fantastic. Um, how did the First few you said it worked straight off the bed, right? So obviously it's a winner quite easy Yeah, uh, then you need to start building teams when you're scaling. Uh, tell us through that process. Yeah, so Well, we were far off from teams because I mean how was like first year I think first month was 50 000 then we grew Sorry, this is january 2020 We started like mid of april. I think we did like, I don't know 15k the first half and then the second half like 50k And then like 60 70 we grew each month. Um And yeah, there was no team basically it wasn't me and then We onboarded like at one point an agency which I was like in charge of managing This agency is like one person who's in charge of all the media buying Other person who's in charge of all the creative stuff and then I'm like in charge of making sure everything is Yes going. Um, and so we ran with them for a while, which I think is if you find a good agency Which is hard today. I don't know what happened. But like I think maybe it's all the the courses course Yeah, a lot of people start agencies without Being able to deliver they can sell but they cannot deliver which is very very bad But at the time it wasn't that bad. So I was able to find someone obviously question him I saw he had like content. Yeah, so I looked at his content. I was like, okay This guy knows his stuff talked to him so that he listens to the same people I listen to So so I was like, all right. I can trust the guy to to start I also Negotiated a deal where most agencies at the time also a lot of them today were based on Spent like a percentage of spent Yeah, and for me I was like, I don't like the the way the incentives don't align because his incentive is to spend as much as possible And there's no correlation to ROAS. Basically spend as much as possible Without us terminating the contracts of being on the edge of where we don't want it But like playing on the edge of that and then he gets the most money and I was like, I don't want to play that game Let's figure out some model where We're aligned on the incentives and so we Negotiated a performance model, which I think is why we got more attention Than other clients And also we grew so fast that it made sense and suddenly he was like, all right Yeah, and we were I think by far his biggest clients by far by far And so we grew a lot and at one point like I kept on learning. I never like Was okay. I'm managing him. I don't need to I learned I went to conferences I listened to podcasts at one point. I bought your course I I don't know if you remember I was like anything I can get my hands on business. I'm buying. I'm buying. I'm learning And at one point I was like looking at what he did and I was like, I think I'm I think now I'm better I can do it myself started to offer some stuff. He didn't have the capacity to test everything And I was like, all right, I think I'm gonna take over and so like this is I think start of 2021 I took over and then I always Yeah, I always hit like I had a few months before which thinks when like the moment I took over like 200 growth that month And then we kept on growing But yeah, then there was iOS 14 and then like it's not like I was managing anyone It was like I'm making the creatives a lot of the time until we're I think at the time 200 k a month ish Um, I was making the creatives a lot of the time I was on the ad account I was writing the copy. I was changing the website. I was doing pretty much everything um Because it didn't make sense for me, you know like out of 200k usually like 25 margins that that that is what makes sense 25 30 and then you have to pay salaries And I mean if you're a big company you make like 10 20 30 millions then sure like it's going to be 3 So you're going to end up with 25 or 22 or whatever And there like all right, I need to pay a salary. I don't know 10 k 20 k It's like almost half my my profit and so I was like, I don't think we're ready for someone else yet Yeah, I'm going to keep on growing it to the point where it makes sense to bring someone in um, and so I think all throughout 2021 till mid 20 or start to mid 2022 I was on my own then we brought in some juniors like I was I don't want to pay, uh, 10 k Uh, 10 k a month for someone who's uh experience Let me let me pay like 4 k no 3.5 k to someone who has little experience and I'm going to teach them um, and I started doing that brought one brought another one um, and in hindsight it was a mistake because when your brand grows that much and The brand is reliant on your or your skill um, you cannot you don't have the luxury of like taking the time off and explaining how to do stuff and juniors are going to make mistakes and then they make mistakes and then it affects the business Um, and this is like a lesson I learned like if you have a fast growing business you want to grow fast Pay I don't mind if I'm gonna like right now if I find someone good enough I'll pay the 100 k 150 k because I know that like we're right I'm gonna not make my money within back within two months But once he settles in I get all my time back Plus I get an employee that has experience that is going to grow the business. Um And net net it's positive but at the time I didn't have that mindset Um, and so yeah, we started growing the team. I started writing SOPs dove into this like how you run the ads How you uh making like how how you optimize how you think about writing scripts all of this stuff, which was nice Um, but as I said, didn't work then we uh, again after a few months fired everyone back wait what? Everyone okay literally like I hired to I mean Yeah, it was two guys like I hired two guys to be the juniors Um, and then like after a few months I was like this is not working out. Yeah, let's that's clear the the thing Like obviously we're quite of a big team there We had like a few customer support um that we have a logistics manager and then we had like the marketing We had an agency but like um, yeah in-house. I was like no no for juniors Ever since then we were looking for Seniors recently I found one so it took us almost a year to find someone who's competent like every month I did like two three interviews with uh headhunters trying to find the right people And just a few months ago. We were able to hire my uh head of growth, which I'm very happy with Nice nice guys super smart. Um, super like good vibes And yeah, this is my experience with building the team. I think this is what we're doing right now We're also expanding internationally like I'm taking like All international under myself and like international meaning outside your core market. Yeah, okay all international like I'm doing right now Um, and like the core market I gave to someone else. I'm supervising I'm giving him money to build out the team obviously with interviewing people together Um, I understand what kind of structure I need for that to run And at the same time I'm doing what I have done in 2021 like being a one-man show there But like now I'm doing it internationally, which obviously is much bigger And the opportunity is much bigger and I I think like I don't I don't believe there are many people at the scale of what we're doing with Basically one person on on the team. It's crazy. But um, I understood that this is how it should go like I crack how it should work. How it should go The angles the the creatives that work the the positioning the offer of this stuff once I know what's going on All right, let's let's bring people it's put systems, but you don't want to rush it. Yep. Yep Very smart very wise for 23. Oh My question is um Yeah, I've seen brands was obviously skilled on seven eight figures, right? And then uh, there's a part of me also where it's like if you scale hard and fast You get the revenue you get the cash flow in then you run the entire ship on break even So you get maybe 20 like you said 15 20 percent margins, right? You take all of that dumping into salary, but then again because you're brand you need to buy inventory and stock What's your opinion on that concept of okay? I don't care about making money at all Like I'm good, right? I got my Rolex out. Whatever it is. I got my whatever I got enough cash flow to survive I'm just gonna go minimalist and then run entire thing and break even so that we can scale like super super fast or Take some money Cash for yourself like protect yourself. You know, I mean like what's your thoughts? Yeah, so it really depends on why why your goals are right because um, I think For people who are not insane. I'm not normal and this like yeah nine figures Yeah, if you want to go for that, like there's no reason right? You have 50 million 80 million 200 million You can either on the jet or like rent the jet like it doesn't really matter at this point um But as I said, like it's a game and I want to win the game because it's I want to win games Yeah, because yeah the money competitive exactly and so if you want to play like this I feel like you have to take risks that are um, that are not necessarily logical for someone who's thinking about their their life like space checks are gonna be exactly. Um and so From my experience at least like I didn't want to take out salaries until basically end of 2022 I didn't touch the money. Everything goes into the business. Um, obviously like I always manage to to like If I wanted to In 2022 I started doing content and stuff it worked and then you get some money from this like from the side Yeah, side quests exactly. And so I figured out like this is something I did in 2021 I think end of 2021. I was like, all right. I have an audience Let me open a drop shipping store take it from zero to all like Whatever I can in 30 days and then like make a case study of it and sell it on the side And it's just gonna be a fun experience did that um was zero to like 80k in like 50 days something like this. Um And then I sold it and then this is something that like it covers Whatever I need like it's it's being sold. I don't push it. I don't around ads or something But just because of one it provides value So a lot of word of mouth and second of all like, um, I have my my youtube which runs it gets like I don't know 100 000 views a month On its own. So this is being sold and now I'm like, all right. I have my basic needs covered. I don't need more money. I don't want to be Cash rich at this point. I want to build equity value I want to build a brand and I understand that in order to do that I have to give up some stuff So if I'm going to take from the business it's going to slow the growth Obviously, I don't want to be break even at all. I don't think it's it was the mindset for 2020 2021 but right now, um People have changed like and and they understand a lot of people that ran on break even. Um, basically But I I feel a lot of the people who ran on break even is because they were forced to like the business in general Just not profitable enough I mean, sure That's right for a lot of cases, but a lot of other cases like people were like I mean, sure I could be profitable doing 10 million But like let me break even or lose a little bit and do 20 million next year The LTV won't make and then you find out next year that didn't forecast LTV, right? And then you're you're Nothing's gonna work. Um, and so people were prioritizing growth 2020 2021 and I think 2022 2023 people are starting to understand the profit is important. Now, obviously if you're growing Two three four hundred percent a year. You're not going to be able to to show Profit at all or maybe you're going to be able to but not as much That makes sense. Um, but if you're not growing as much, I mean you should be profitable Um, and it's really a decision thing and for me, I I do want to be profitable I don't want to be 20 30 40 percent that that doesn't make sense for me That means I'm leaving growth on the table But I don't want to be at zero because I don't I don't think that's smart either. Um, And yeah, I mean I I have A mentor I mean we're doing like calls every other week And he owns I think the biggest Shopify store like fastest growing right now, maybe the top three biggest Um, and he's like listen, we grew 200 percent like from nine figures the multi multi nine figures Um, it's like and we're gonna profit about 20 25 percent. So I mean it's if you need to profit Don't don't tell me the these stuff figure it out. And I was like, okay, I'll figure it out and we did so Yeah, I mean Don't don't break even if you're not growing super super super fast and also be mindful of that But it's it's a decision if you want to if you want to be nine figure multi eight figures And you want to do it two three four years You have to to not think of right now and today and I need the Rolex now and I need the the car or whatever Understood. Um, personally for me. I'm 26 this year Uh, I realized like I actually realized that concept quite late into the game I mean, I've only been entrepreneurship for like four and a half years. I'm not as exposed I'm actually not as exposed to you Yeah, so my learning curve is like really really like compressed insane, right? So I only realized that concept probably in year three which which is like In my mind I was like, okay, what the hell am I doing? Like I should actually be doing this like from the get go, right? But obviously when you don't have money then you you think like that. Um, My question is how how did you find out that? So quickly, you know, I think from the get go and understood How can I like I don't know why but from When I started I was like I didn't think I guess how Normal people would think like I want to make my first million. I want to whatever I was like I want to do a five hundred million dollar exit. Why I don't know that's how that's how I Found the get go. Okay. Okay. You're insane I was like, this is what I want to do I mean, maybe it's because as I said, I grew up in a place where where like having a house that is like 10 million dollars It's it's a thing and so you get desensitized. You don't you don't understand and so I don't think I've ever had Was at the point. I mean I have Doing this and business at the point where I was like fuck we can run out of money at any point But like in my normal life. I didn't Understand what money is now You know, I see the numbers. I was like, all right. I heard this exit that exit especially in israel like They're sorry. The tech exists. I mean, yeah, it's insane every year two three companies and israel is small Two three companies selling for 500 a billion two billion like there's one that was I think Validate 11 million right now insane stuff and then you're like, all right, then 500 is not that much But it is It is and so I went into it with the get go and so in my mind When we hit records, I'm like, okay, we're 10 of the way there five percent of the way there and I don't think oh Wow, we've achieved Um, and and it's a curse because you don't enjoy a lot of the stuff because in your mind you've You've already in my mind when I hit a milestone. I was like It was supposed to happen But it's not my end goal and I don't get to enjoy it as much But I think it's it's a prerequisite to be able to get to these if you don't dream About being a billionaire or hitting a 500 million or billion valuation You're not going to be able to make it to 100 because you need to dream big in order to get there No one plans to make 10 million and accidentally makes a billion. It doesn't happen. Yeah, yeah, I understood uh, if I was uh Jewish for example I'm not Jewish, but if I was Jewish and I live in israel or whatever And then I see, you know, daniel was like, oh the guy looks like me I could potentially be him right inspired by him and I'm pretty sure a lot of your audience feels the same way Right, but then uh, they could come to you and say Hey, but then you'll live in a good zip code, right? Then you had a good upbringing, whatever it is Right to those people like what what do you have to say to them in terms of yeah? I mean, it's true like in life you have I mean A lot of people Know that life is in a fair game, right? You get you get you get stopped at place to your advantage and you get Stopped at place to your disadvantage. I've had a lot of stuff that I didn't learn that I don't know um, and I think that For example, I just heard of a company that does 500 million dollars a year And they're basically doing services for a basement like cleaning your basement stuff like this in the us and I was like Someone didn't They didn't know anything about technology. They didn't get access to computer They didn't know anything they knew how to literally clean basements, but they had the the Courage and the understanding all right, I can make a business of it and make it happen I mean they were good enough to get clients They were good enough to create enough margin to bring someone else to work under them And then have the margin to to profit off of it and then bring more employees and grow it and like he said It took me 20 30 years But now it's making I don't know 500 a year and I don't know how much of it is profit Probably quite a bit 500 mil still 500 mil. So yeah, so it's it's I mean for me There are a lot of things that I didn't know that I still don't know And there are a lot of disadvantages. There are advantages obviously Maybe for this specific game. I've had more advantages but If you think about it like I'm thinking about people who are in my age group or in my classes like my And me and my friend are the only ones that I know that are like anywhere near like this Revenue or level um and the other people have basically the same advantages. So why Why is that not happening and you can say if you have money then you don't feel a lack of money So why would you go out of your way to work eight ten hours a day? Why would you go through all this pain and and when you can literally, you know Get whatever you want. Um And obviously my parents did a great job. They didn't give me whatever I want They they really today I understand but like they were really over Like, you know a thousand dollars If you look at a grand scheme of things It wasn't a lot of money to them But when I wanted something that cost a thousand dollars when I was young I don't know a car they ran automatically I could go into it. You're like that's so expensive Why would you you don't need it something this and every time I grew up like everyone got an iphone They said no, you're you're ten. You don't need an iphone um stuff like this and over time I mean, I wasn't I wasn't spoiled. I did have some kind of understanding that if I want to be independent I'm going to need money but but still I think that uh when you when you grow up or when you understand you want to Become something you need to look at yourself. You need to say all right. Where are my advantages? Um and and for a lot of people I know they came from nothing and this was their advantage like they I didn't have anything and I'm going to work as hard as I can to get something And I think a lot of them are working harder than me because they had it comes from a lack And this is something that's hard to replicate And there are benefits and and definitely um stuff that It could be a benefit. It could not be a benefit, but it depends on how you take it So a lot of working on yourself and understanding. Yeah, I'm just great parents. You're not out of touch You still understand pain Yeah, I get understand um We transition more to congratulations on breaking eight figures. Thank you That's number one. The second thing is that uh I mean, I helped a company scale that before also I understand that the challenges at three to four mil very very different for me Yeah, right three four is you're just trying to crack front end acquisition get enough traffic ads conversion rate, etc What are the challenges that you face now that you didn't expect? Come yeah Now like After the scale, uh, yeah, like do the scale. Okay. You're like, okay. You're at this revenue stage tons of inventory. I'm guessing Yeah, uh, yeah, what is the challenge that you didn't expect? Um, yeah, I mean Like the one of the biggest challenges challenges this year were cash flow Um, once you understand the cash flow is a reality like all right when you when we're doing I don't know one million year then Sure. Oh, we're pacing for that. All right. You can put down another 300 400k uh for inventory and and It's all right. And once you get to to a certain point, um, then it's not It's a lot. It's very scary. It's a lot of money to put down Yep And especially when you go open a new market What if that market is not going to warn it like it's much bigger But if it's not going to buy it then what am I going to do with this inventory? I can throw it away And so there was a lot of balance there where you need to like I learned how important it is to forecast like This is the first year I actually had to forecast and I actually felt the pressure All right, we're not gonna freaking hit the forecast. This is bad. We're gonna be uh minus on the cash flow and people don't understand You can be profitable and still Have no cash in the negative cash flow And you can like don't have money to pay people even though you're profitable because a lot of money is Basically sitting there as inventory and once you get to this point This is basically because you forecasted incorrectly and you bought more inventory than you needed And at this point you have two options either the bank agrees to To loan you money against your inventory because they have Faith that you are gonna sell this inventory eventually and you're gonna pay Interest and obviously it's gonna hurt Or they're not gonna be able to do this and then basically you don't have money So you you're pretty much if you don't have outside money like from yourself or an investor or something You're basically screwed and and you you lose the business and so We had a very very aggressive forecast this year because of me aggressive meaning We bought we bought a lot of a lot and and like I had I started figuring out the the um the acquisition strategy And and I remember we grew like from march to april like 300 percent and we grow another 30 percent On may and I was like all right. I got it. We're gonna keep on growing 50 percent every month until the end of the year Then we next month minus 20 percent next month minus 30 percent I was like, oh, no, we bought a lot of inventory for q4 And then I had so much pressure to figure it out and to make it work The international market it was literally if I'm not gonna figure it out I'm gonna literally lose the business and so I was like I must figure it out and Eventually I did but it was super stressful and and today like I understand that this was an unnecessary risk to take For year one where you don't know the trends. You don't know that like Specific markets behave differently that for some reason they don't have a specific holiday or whatever There some months are gonna be crazy good And you don't really know why unless you you're into that market and some months are gonna suck And I got kind of lucky and also overworked like I definitely I've never been as stressed in my life ever But yeah, I mean we we pulled through eventually like we Sold out before the end of the year, which is great We we hit the four yes and more This also brought a lot of a lot of a lot of stress to us. But I mean, yeah, this is the game This is the game Okay, who I'm guessing our accountant is helping you forecast as well, right? Or are you can't be you you're bringing in experts on consultants helping you, right? In terms of what like cash flow management and forecasting. I mean, um My partner has like Finance kind of a fun like not actual but like she learned it Um, so there's that Obviously, I I spoke to people like there's the mentor like I told him this and we're having trouble forecasting is like listen Me too He said like until I feel it's like in 50 or 100 million a year We were doing it with excel and this is how it is like this is the hard part figure it out But but like obviously he shared like the templates and also I talked to someone else who has worked with a VC backed Um, ecom company. Yeah, so they sold a lot. I don't know how profitable they were But he had he's really like really a shark when it comes to finance. So he helped us a lot But eventually a lot of it is based on me because I need to say I think that this month We're going to sell 1.3 x the regular month and this month is going to be actually pretty bad because we don't have Father's day or mother's day or whatever So a lot of this and it's a lot of a guessing thing. It's a guessing game Basically, it's not a lot of it. It's basically what it is But you get better at it. Um, and I think next year is going to be interesting Okay, technically because you are the guy you're the main man in the international markets So you're just you're seeing the rest first. So you're feeling the data much faster than the rest, right? Yeah, so that you're forecasting based on that Yeah, based on that based on obviously I look at like the performance of what's been going on for these months I try to account for like whatever holidays or whatever There is a specific region, but But yeah, basically I'm saying I think here we're going to sell 150 percent more. All right, let's yeah, this is how it is Okay, it sounds like you don't have data. It's here. You need to start spending to get the data in the first place. Okay Do you feel you are too reliant on paid traffic? The reason okay the reason why I say that right it's because in the last 12 months or so I learned SEO other than amazon ads So like I realized that it's or I learned PR or so. So I realized that whole shit There's a whole nother world out there. That's just completely non-reliant on Paying money to the platforms. Yeah, so any thoughts on that for sure. I think I am I think we it happened to us We were like over the spend limit Like on november we hit our spend limit like we work with facebook on credit lines talking about cash flow like the 30 day Yeah, I'm paying them 30 days after Because obviously I want to I want to be able to cash flow. I don't want to yeah So so a lot of people don't know this but at a certain point you just go to facebook and say hey listen I want to pay 30 days after and they're like if they trust you you have a good like History with them. They're gonna allow you to do that Um, and so we've done that but they give you a certain credit line Like they're not going to be able they're not going to let you spend 20 million dollars and and just not paying them We don't yeah, so yeah, they give you a limit and so for us like I told my rep. Hey raise my limit I think I'm gonna scale by a lot soon He said it happened But it didn't happen and then someday I just see I wake up in the morning and we're like 80 percent down from yesterday and I was like what's going on and then the spend all the revenue revenue and because I wake up I open the Shopify store. See what's up Go and then I see they were not spending and I was like, hey, what's going on? Then I see they're like we can literally do anything and it's Saturday and What can what can happen? So it screwed us I screwed like optimization for a couple of days We figured it out eventually but like a screwed up optimization cost us I think so 10s of thousands of dollars Which sucks But but yeah that that brought me to the understanding also I thought about it before how reliant we are on paid advertising, but also I think at some point You should be reliant and I think that you need to understand like what At what point in time does it make sense to to spread out and not be um as As reliant on a single platform And I think that at this time Facebook is so much better than any other platform in terms of like how The royal stability royal stability and scale all of these That it makes sense to like if I want to grow as fast as I can as hard as I can I cannot think how can I build a business that has like the maximum chances of surviving throughout 10 years No, I need to get to to 50 a year. Then I'm going to revise and see all right I have so-and-so customers existing customers. I can get more revenue per customers over time How can I expand to tick tock? How can I expand to Google? But I think a lot of people go multi multi-channel too early And they don't understand like for me. I just This year proved to me how much scale you can have when you Focus on one channel and you just go as hard as you can And I think Facebook by far is the biggest and and yeah, it's a risk. I'm willing to take Understood. So now your single product single channel So kind of yeah, kind of okay. Yeah, and Uh, why can't you hire someone else to figure another platform out? Or is it just a trust like, you know, uh bandwidth? Yeah, it's it's definitely a bandwidth thing. Um for amazon like for example The my mentor told me like first of all, he said you need to get into amazon We're doing that. We talked to the the the guys who set up their amazon We're gonna start with this pretty soon And he said like listen It's money on the table because for us 20 25 percent of the revenue comes from amazon And he said like I think even if you're don't gonna run ads on amazon You're spending a ton on facebook people. It's like google people go and search for your brand on amazon and so you said like All right, you're doing 100k days. You could have gotten like 20k extra from amazon so I mean that that's that's a new learning. I wasn't aware of this Also, uh for this to happen. You need more inventory. You need to send inventory to fba stuff like this and this year we were Apparently short on inventory. So Next year we're gonna prepare. We're gonna do this and when it comes to seo It's a bit of a I don't know how it was. I didn't dive deep into it But I said that it's still a long-term thing like you're gonna see the results of what you do today in six 12 months. Um, and I cannot think in these timelines that rather like find out a way I can Like do stuff that affects me today And at a certain point I can get someone to do this for me so that You know, it's just a prioritization thing. Yeah, I understood I think I know your business sort of I think I know your product. Uh, let me guess, uh Is there any uh in terms of ugc creators or like creative production in general? How do you run that ship? Because Super rely on facebook and I'm pretty sure your search volumes on google are not so high for that specific product Could you share with us how you Ah creative It was a hard thing to crack. Um What I have done to begin with I was like, all right, I'm gonna get like 50 creators 30 50 whatever Send them a product pay for like a ugc. Give them sort of like some sort of guideline Get a lot of content. I have a content library now Then I can get some editor or like a creative strategist. I I trust I tell him. Hey, we have uh, these, uh, ugc's there We have uh product, uh footage. We have recorder Studio or or even myself like I go and I film sometimes All right create mashups and then they start creating versions and then like You understand that like from these 50 videos and maybe 50 other videos of the product You make with your iphone or a studio or whatever you can suddenly make a thousand two thousand creatives I think last month we produced 400 or 500 unique creatives 400. Yeah, something like this Okay, yeah, it's like 10 10 show for the basically. Yeah. Yeah, something like this I you spent two hours just uploading it to to facebook because So buggy right now. But yeah, I mean It was crazy, but at a certain point you can make so many variations Um in and yeah, it was fantastic And it took us a while to figure it out like who our audience is In what type of creators are working and what type of editing style and all of this stuff And obviously every once in a while we're doing like a completely different thing because Sometimes that thing hits and then you have a completely new concept But but the way I like to do stuff is to how can I make something As scalable as possible without paying as much as I can like being bootstrapped This is what you have to do And so I found out that like getting a lot of content and having a content library and getting someone else to mash up And create a puzzle type of thing. It's the best way to do that. And so this is what we've done Okay, are you telling the creators here's a script here's the guideline Here are some b-roll shots I want shot one shot two shot three or like just do whatever it really depends So if they're like I I separate into multiple things first of all if there are agencies That are doing the entire thing for me. They take a markup I've had mixed experiences with both. They're way too expensive in my opinion. Um, but Some of them did work And and so this was nice for those that that I Sent basically no brief. These didn't come out as good Um, and then like there's the in the middle thing where like you either give them like a These are the bullet points you need to hit But do your thing or literally what you said like here's the visual one visual two visual three I find that for good creators Like you should give them more space and for people who are literally like They don't even consider themselves UGC creators. They're just like pay me money You know film something they have to be more specific, but but honestly For me like the best thing is just like go film yourself like this and let my edits hurt at B-rolls and then play with the edits and stuff and this is gonna this is gonna work Usually best unless they're very good creators. Okay. Okay. This will be our last Information specific question be respectful of your time. Um for yourself, right? I know your goals. I know where you want to go to Recurring or LTV is super important. Yeah, right kick super high very hard to acquire nowadays Um for your specific niche, which we won't say but for your specific niche, I guess, how do you plan to do that? Yeah I mean, um Our product is truly good. It's a good product. I know from Good experience on the first budget. So yeah, great experience great experience and also People like to because of how good the experience is and people like to talk about it and share it So I see a lot of association. I see a lot of word of mouth So I know that for each customer like, uh, I don't know point one point two people will come back. Um Other people which is very nice. Also like repeat is is pretty high on like This niche is people don't regularly buy Again before us because of like our unique positioning Um people do come back and also how good the product is and the experience We put a lot of emphasis on this especially me like i'm paying Usually what people pay on packaging I pay I think almost 10 times that Just to make the experience better And to make sure people people are happy when they get it because like How you get the product is almost more important than the product itself You can learn it from all the luxury brands like if you think like Rolex It comes in a nice big box and stuff and eventually like it's a watch if it came in a plastic bag You really you'd be like man. I mean Yeah, yeah, it doesn't cost a lot to to produce the Rolex, but still it's the experience and it's the the entire thing And so I wanted to to whatever i'm selling to give that experience of like, oh, wow, that's nice So they're maybe they'd be happy gifting it. Maybe they'd be happy buying it again because they had a nice experience um, and so I don't know it's because again, we're early with international but from My other market. I know that we have a pretty high repeat But still my thing is like and this also my mentor says like For us they they grew as I said like from nine figures to multi multi nine figures and he said like our cap went down How is this possible? He said that Once he hit a certain point First of all, you have a lot of unlocks once you have a lot of traffic coming through like see a row all of this stuff But more than that like at some points your brand starts to get like allure and people Recognition and you have less top of funnel because everyone has heard of you um, and and then like cac does go down And this is something that obviously we're not at that scale, but I think that over time cac Will be able to go down for us. And also I'm doing everything in my power power to be profitable on first purchase And this means that I'm very very like doing whatever I can lending page testing Doing like creative analysis to try to improve each creative like hook is 30% let's make it 40% of the same body all of this stuff Tests on the product pages all the time pricing tests if necessary like I'm doing everything I can to squeeze every bit of profit And yeah, I mean I hope it will work and keep on improving Okay, by the way, uh, I really think 30 minute vsl's will actually work for your product now that thing about really We'll talk about that later after this But I think it'll really work. Yeah, okay. So guys, thank you so much for your time. Uh, Daniel Do you have any final words? Oh, and also How do people find you and if you want to promote anything, please please just promote I don't have anything to promote because I mean if you speak Hebrew, you have my my uh, you can type my name on youtube Daniel Moldowski, you'll find my channel. Um, uh, we'll link the channel below. So yeah, I mean I have twitter So on twitter saying Daniel Moldowski m o l d a w s k y Um, and I mean that's it. I'm happy to to talk to a lot of people to Uh connect and and I mean, yeah This community is like so small But I mean you meet so many cool and interesting people and like I'm very happy to help people who are maybe the seven figure range that are Struggling without what I have struggled like in the past couple years If you're maybe like smaller big or whatever. I'm happy to answer questions and Yeah, and connect. All right. Thank you so much Daniel and thank you guys for your time. All right That was nice