Allen Brouwer built an 8-figure Ecommerce business in less than 24 months.
He is the co-founder of Bestself.co, a business that sells journals and other products that help people maximize their productivity.
One of his products that I personally love is The Self Journal. This is a 13-week planning, productivity and positivity system that helps you achieve your goals.
Ready to discover how Allen Brouwer went from zero to an 8-figure Ecommerce business? Keep reading!
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch on YouTube)
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Want to discover how to leverage the power of Amazon to generate financial wealth and freedom? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE training!
Allen Brouwer has been featured on the Forbes 30 under 30 list.
Not only that, but he has won Shopify's Build a Business competition twice in a row. He is the only person who has achieved this goal. It's fair to say that Allen is a serial entrepreneur whom everyone should learn from. In our interview, we talk about his entrepreneurial journey. In particular, how he has been able to build an 8-figure Ecommerce business from the ground up in such a short period of time. Let's dive in!
How did you become an entrepreneur and get to where you are today?
I became an entrepreneur by choice. There was a time in my life when I was climbing the corporate ladder. This is when I was working in South Carolina. Unfortunately, during this time, my mom ended up getting sick. The company that I was working for at the time granted me a 24 hour, with paid time off (PTO) grace period.
I went home to see my mom. However, during those 24 hours, I still felt obligated to the company. I spent most of my time at home answering emails and pushing products along, so as to ensure that all of my responsibilities were being followed through on.
Eventually, I went back to South Carolina.
That would be the last time that I ever saw my mom. I felt horrible about myself for a long time. Not surprisingly, I started to hold resentment towards the company that I worked with. Eventually I quit and decided to create life on my own terms. That is when I found the world of entrepreneurship and decided to jump into business.
What was your first business?
My first business was consultancy. I was doing digital marketing for a large yacht manufacturer. It was okay but it was more like feast and famine consultancy work. I did a lot on my own. From there, I met my business partner, Catherine and we started an Amazon business. We would take products from China, white-label them, do a rebrand and then launch them on Amazon.
Catherine had a design background and I had a marketing background. We paired well together. We became very successful with that business.
What kinds of challenges did you face when building your 8-figure Ecommerce business?
A big challenge that we faced was logistics. In particular, managing inventory from our manufacturers, getting that inventory on ships, and getting those ships to our fulfillment center. We ran into an inventory issue where we had promised our Kickstarter backers the product by a certain date.
We gave ourselves three months, but it wasn't enough time.
If you're ever launching a Kickstarter and you promise a due date, give yourself more of a buffer. The freight forwarding company that we used put us on a carrier ship that went all the way around the world. It made us 60 days late on delivery. From that experience, we got a crash course in logistics.
Any tips or advice on how to scale a business?
There are three ways to grow a business – increasing the number of customers that you're getting, increasing the number of customers that pay you, and increasing the frequency at which those customers purchase from you. There's a way that you can do all three of those things with one simple method.
It's called skew widening.
Rather than finding a product, developing it yourself, selling it to one market and hoping that people will buy it, instead you create a formula. With this formula, you have products, A, B, and C.
The first, which are known as “A” products are stand-alone products. This is a way for you to bring in other demographics that you normally wouldn't tap into.
The “B” products are complementary products that serve to elevate product “A.” Now you are increasing the number of customers that are coming in and the amount that they're paying.
Lastly, “C” products are extension products. These are for your brand loyalists. These products are things like swag, t-shirts, and hoodies.
Any tips for how entrepreneurs can be more productive?
The first thing is being really intentional with your time. I suggest blocking out your day in 30-minute segments and then scheduling your tasks around those segments. All of a sudden, you will see all of this white space and think, “Oh wow, I actually have a two-hour window between this thing and that thing.” Once you can see what is in front of you, you can slot important tasks into those times. If you can do this, you will accomplish more in one day than some people accomplish in one week.
Secondly, during your weekly schedule, I suggest theming your days. For example, Mondays are my creativity days, Tuesdays are call days, with a focus on product development, Wednesdays are free, Thursdays are call days with a focus on marketing, and Fridays are weekly calls with my team to recap and go over our KPIs and status reports. Theming your days is a great way to increase your productivity.
This is how Allen Brouwer built an 8-figure Ecommerce business in less than 24 months.
His story is nothing short of remarkable. If you want to learn how to scale and systemize your business for financial success, I encourage you to check out Allen's incredible work.
Want to discover how to leverage the power of Amazon to generate financial wealth and freedom? CLICK HERE to get instant access to my FREE training!
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