Really great to hear such an honest and open round-up of your year. I admit to being a casual reader of Startupbros (stumbled on some helpful tutorials a few years ago) and had no idea about your personal journey or the size of the business. Thanks for being so candid; I'm excited to watch your 2018 plans unfold!
48 Comments (page 1)
Thanks for reading Tom, happy to connect!
Hello Will, I have been a casual reader of Start-up Bros as well and decided to get set up for the Sourcing Summit and was doing some background checks on you and your company. It is great to hear some honest and open information on the company and to see how real you all are. If you plan to be at the summit, I look forward to meeting you in Guangzhou. Wishing you all the best in 2018!
Thanks for checking us out Ted - it took many years of hard work to consistently pass everybody's verification :-P We'll be at the Ritz-Carlton Guangzhou from April 19-27 with a group of 30 attendees + 10-20 staff/mentors/speakers. Hope to meet you there!
Hello Will, You are indeed up to something great this year, 2018. Introducing more courses is an amazing way to go about increasing your earnings for the year. Personally, I'm thinking towards getting more partnership deals but I'm just afraid it may not turn out well. So much is happening in my industry and I wouldn't want to be left behind. We are working on furnishing our new office so that we can go hard in some of our projects for the year. Thanks for sharing your project ideas with us. I have learnt a lot reading this. Cheers. Emenike
HI Will Almost one year anniversary of being cancer free. Keep up the great work on your health and your business. Just completed your audience influencer start up and loved it. Thanks for your dedication to our sucess!
God bless on your recovery, awesome news to hear Will. I feel that there are a few customers (myself Included) that purchased Ecommerce Empire last summer and have found some of the content needed to be refreshed to reflect the market. Some tools are no longer viable in addition to other pieces of content. It would be great if that product could have a facelift of some sort for those that invested.
Keep up the good work, Will :) You changed my life, I am starting to get good tracking and build momentum with my business since November 2017 when I first started to sell my 1st unit on Amazon (enrolled to your Empire on August after 3 webinars, you saw me :D ) Your student and starter entrepreneur, Tosa.
Will, Thanks for your notes. It shows clearly that business is not the only factor towards a sense of well being. Health comes in my opinion always number 1. I am relieved to hear that you won the battle on that frontier. And the longer I follow your advice and integrate in my efforts to sell on the internet, it is clear that it is not a rosy path to start up. I guess that is the case with any sort of business. Especially if you want to balance integrity with doing business.. :) Anyway, I like what you are doing and will continue to listen... All the best, Frank
link for goal workbook does not work. thanks will for your time
Happy to hear you are healthy will. Is it only me or was there no actual "income" info in this "income report" ? (;
Its good to have you back. With all honesty the life blood of traffic to a blog is your newsletter. In the period of 6 months a new born baby would have been weaned. Yet I totally understand. Please take care of yourself.
Hi Will, By chance I've read your article Step by Step... Then I started thinking about change my career, been so many years I've lost passion to do something. You got it back to me. Even I'm not your customer yet, but I always enjoy your webinar( I haven't started Amazon yet, my husband has been very sick...). Anyway, knowing you were also sick (happy for you, clean now). I would like to suggest you that Eating right food will support your health (food hospital), Food makes problem, food also can solve the problem. I wish you all life healthy, And I really want to make you proud of me one day. Lisa
Thanks for reading Alicia, good to hear from you. You're wish has been fulfilled! We're wrapping up the 2018 updates for E-Commerce Empire over the next 2-weeks. You can check out all the updates in the change log as we post them - https://startupbros.com/ecommerce-empire Once all these 2018 updates are completed, we'll be re-launching the new E-Commerce Empire 3.0 throughout late-Feb and March. All current members get lifetime access to all updates of course. If there is some specific lesson you think needs updating, please let me know ASAP! I'm a little past half-way done with all the updated lessons, so might as well knock it out while I am recording :) Appreciate the feedback!
You are the man Tosa! Happy to be a small part of your journey to the top :) Keep killin' it my friend...
It looks like Ad Blocking Browser Extensions have broken our buttons! I will get on that ASAP, thanks for the heads up. I'll also email you a copy of that Workbook now :)
Thanks for reading and thanks for the support Lisa! After you (or family) have a few health issues, it really makes you appreciate the time you DO have to get things done and make things happen. My diet (and exercise) regimen is a work in progress, but greatly helped by the negative experience. A lot less junk food these days, a lot more vegetables :) Get out there and make it happen Lisa! Once you have some momentum behind you, you might really start having some fun!
Couldn't agree more! You'll see a lot more emails from me this year - but usually no more than 1 per week :)
Haha yes it's more of a revenue report Izzy! Since this was my first one, I just wanted to keep it simple. In the future, I'll be adding more to these every month as people request things and we build it out.
Great to hear from you Frank, and hope all is well! You have a LOT of marketers out there selling the 'get-rich-quick' dream. I try my absolute best to avoid that - I always think of myself and StartupBros as a bridge between internet marketing and startups/entrepreneurship. So many are stuck in one of those two worlds - the way to REALLY be successful is to take the best of both. So it's certainly not easy. It takes hard work, it takes frustration, it takes staying home during parties, it takes no sleep for weeks during high activity periods... But I find that entrepreneurs and marketers are hooked on the volatility of it all. The ups and the downs are what draw them into the concept - the variety and variability of it all. Maybe after they're in it for 10+ years it gets a bit old - but holy cow, is it a rush while it lasts :) After doing this for many years and coaching over 6,000 members now, I can firmly say that ANYONE can become wildly successful in business. It really just comes down to who stays at it the longest - who is the most persistent. Most things you try will fail - the ones who succeed just keep trying.
Pleasure working with you in the program Lyn - such a fun and hard-working group we have in there! Can't wait for the next version of that to be released - as you can see from the calendar above, we're looking to release the next version in early-to-mid Q2 this year :)
Don't follow your competition Emenike - follow your customers! You rarely want to make decisions based on what competitors are doing. Instead - focus on what you could do that would blow your customer's minds. That's how you stop chasing competition, and start having them chase you! Partnerships are inherently risky. You're no longer managing the risk of YOU accomplishing the goal, but now of a completely separate partner you have less control of. Obviously partnerships can be supremely powerful (looking at you Doritos Locos Tacos), but I tend to shy away from them. It takes an absolute abundance of positive signals for me to even consider a partnership now. (this all depends on your definition of partnership, of course) Thanks for reading and glad you learned something. Hopefully future income reports can give even deeper insight into how I make decisions :)
How about a Amazon Merch course or maybe even a Startup Bros Wholesale course...:)
I can totally reflect on what you're saying about partnerships. We had the same issue where our partners were distracting us from our goals, we were scattered all over the place and each decision (made by committee and consensus) lead us to spend more money and being less focus. You really want to be careful with who you surround yourself with. Well, we got out of it in January and we're now super pumped to crush it in 2018! Anyway, I really enjoyed reading this honest and inspiring post Will :) Cheers bro William (and Emilie)
So sorry to hear about your health scare, but love your attitude and appreciate you sharing your story for many others who have gone through, or going through, the same thing! Looking forward to seeing your new courses in 2018 :) Thanks for the spreadsheet!
It was a pleasure to read your post, Will. It was really motivating to read about your ups and downs in 2017 and plans for the 2018. In 2017, I was running 3 different business at the same time, and now decided to focus only on one, in 2018. I was thinking, if I just focus all my effort on one thing, it will boost the business many times over. I will be eagerly following your progress, thank you for the motivation. Sending you some warm wishes from Toronto, Canada.
Love that idea Steve - I'm in talks with a few people to put together a Merch By Amazon course. I personally don't have enough experience, but you should see the systems Ben has built out - proprietary software and workflow to automate the entire thing. Message him and tell him we should package that into a new course :-P
It takes a few bad partnerships to know how to make them work! Huge potential, but you have to be extremely selective (and almost pessimistic - thinking of everything that might go wrong). Certainly need to be careful who you surround and attach yourself to!
Put that spreadsheet to good use! I know I will :)
Could not agree with you more Paulina - focusing on one business is certainly the way to go. Always tough when you have so much opportunity in front of you! Look forward to working with you and AMZ Ping in 2018 :)
Made a copy workbook 6.5 from google sheets Downloaded to my computer used Open Office Calc for the spreadsheet. I would like to know why launch difficulty only shows errors everything else seems to work just fine.
Thank you Will, hope you have a great 2018! :)
Here's to a great 2018 for both of us :)
You have to use in google docs, not all functions translate to spreadsheet software
Wonderful post Will, looking forward to the courses this year. To your growth!
Hi Will Glad to hear that you are now cancer free. Started following your blog a couple years back when I was still interested in selling on Amazon. Still hope to run a ecommerce business someday. However I am more focused on affiliate marketing. Do you think you will have your affiliate program up and running before summer? I would interested in joining it. All the best
Thanks for this Will and you're super for sharing part of your "secret" with us. Keep smashing !
Very open and transparent post. There are very few of you. After 2017, I'm sure you're a much stronger person personally and professionally.
Will, you never cease to amaze and inspire me. Your transparency and dedication to your community is rare and a blessing. I have never known someone so dedicated and selfless in their passion for changing lives through ecommerce. I hold myself to the standards you live by to grow and be a vital asset to every position I am honored to be in, to serve and make a difference. Alright enough mushiness, thanks for all you do and giving us all an opportunity to be financially free!
Sorry to be a boring but where are the facts in this report? Turnover? Profit? Tax? Investment. Etc.
Hey Will, I've only just stumbled across this whole concept (a way out of 9-5) and I just wanted to say that I'm blown away by not only the amount of content but also the transparency from yourself and your team. I'm slowly making my way through the step by step guides and just wanted say thank you, this has given me the kick that I needed! Glad to hear your health is all good, here's to an exciting 2018!
Thanks for the comment Jack, and happy to help. Our goal is to be the most transparent and honest in the industry, so music to my entire team's ears :)
Thanks for reading Victor - look forward to working with you just as soon as we make the right program for your situation :)
Thanks Minnah! Lots of ways to make money - affiliate mktg is a great one. Would obviously love for you to promote our stuff :) You can sign up for the affiliate program and get your links here - https://hero.samcart.com/affiliates/signup Hit me up if you have any questions about it.
Thanks for reading and being a part of it Sheyi ;)
Hope so :-D
Knowing who this comment is coming from - it means the world! <3
It's just meant to be a summary overview of what we did right vs. wrong as a company. I'm paying people lots of money every year to figure out what I am actually doing with my money after it's made. If I can barely keep up with what I am doing, I'm definitely not going to be able to write detailed reports about it. Do I keep an eye on everything and know generally what I am doing and why? Yes - and lots of that will be covered in the monthly reports. But to financially break it down to the level you're suggesting would be hugely time consuming. So long story short - it would just be too complex and time consuming to detail every aspect of my finances every month. I hope people see enough value in the revenue generation side of things to keep on reading. If not - no worries :)