State of the Fishe 2023

What happened this year?

I don’t really care much for new year’s or new year’s resolutions, but I think it’s important to see how much you did in a given year and use it as a benchmark for how you should approach the following year.

2023 was looking to be a rough year for my business due to a major slump, but I was able to pick things back up in July and finish strong.

Let’s take a look at the goals I set for myself last year.

2023 Goals

1.5 million dollars in revenue ❌

Didn’t clear it but I’ll easily hit this number next year

5,000 Twitter followers ✔️

Easily doubled this number thanks to some help from my Jungle pals

Launch a TikTok ❌

I never ended up getting this off the ground, but in hindsight I’m glad it ended up that way - My Amazon business needs my full attention and I am more than content with just posting on here and Twitter.

Launch a coaching program of some kind ✔️

Although not exactly a 1-on-1 program, I have built a community for sellers to get personalized help with growing their business.

I’ve mostly kept this under wraps because spots are very limited and I’m more focused on my Amazon business than being a full-time “guru”.

The few people I’ve worked with are seeing great results and I hope to have some case studies available in the coming weeks.

Main Accomplishments

One thing I’ve noticed is the less I focus on numbers, the bigger they get.

By focusing on the important tasks that move the needle (sourcing, repricing, etc.) I’ve been able to increase the amount of income my business makes.

Going forward I don’t envision myself setting number based goals, but rather key areas to focus on that will by extension make the number go up.

Putting that aside, let’s take a look at what I managed to accomplish this year:

• 7 figure revenue year

• 5 figure revenue day (~12k on Cyber Monday)

• Quit W2 to be a full-time Amazon seller / cartoon

• Cut a lot of unnecessary expenses (e.g software I wasn’t using)

• 10,000 Twitter followers

• 4,000 Substack subscribers

• Helped 10 people combine for $1 million in revenue on Amazon (10x my 2022 goal)

• Helped over 500 people start their own Amazon reselling business

On paper, growing 48% sounds great but I’m still disappointed in myself because I know I could’ve done more.

I’ll explain why I think this is later on but overall I’d say 2023 was a really good year for me (and the people who executed on my content).

Lessons Learned

Outsourcing =/= Automation

I have a team of Virtual Assistants from the Philippines who do great work on both the product research and administrative side of things.

That being said, I got a little too comfortable in the first half of this year and took my foot off the gas - this is what led me to my slump.

I fell into a state of going through the motions of just buying whatever my VAs found every night without doing proper vetting or buying the correct amount of units.

I ended up buying too little of the good products and some bad ones slipped through the cracks.

By realizing this was my business and nobody was going to care more than me, I was able to get myself back on track and make better decisions.

Get Bookkeeping ASAP

One of the big differences between 2022 and 2023 was having a professional bookkeeping service.

Let’s just say that the P&L reports I did in 2022 were… not as accurate as I thought.

Getting in-depth reports on where my money was going not only opened my eyes on how much money I was actually making, but also allowed me to see where I could cut on spending and increase my bottom line.

It also gave me some perspective on how much returns affect your total profits - the next time you see someone boast a 50k sellerboard screenshot with a return rate of over 6%, just know that they aren’t even close to “rich”.

Cough up the extra money for bookkeeping - it’s well worth it.

If you want more info on how this stuff works I highly recommend following Chris Potter.

2024 Goals

Here’s what I plan to do next year:

• Improve current reconciliation processes (tracking missing units from supplier to prep center to Amazon)

• Handle reimbursements in-house instead of paying for a reimbursement service (I think I have the resources to pull this off)

• Stop underbuying good inventory

• Keep finances lean so I can take more money out of the business

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I hope everyone kicks ass in 2024.

Until next time.