Digital Social Hour - Generating $100M+ in eCommerce, TikTok Shop, Growing up Broke | Alex Fedotoff DSH #354

Episode Date: March 15, 2024

Alex Fedotoff comes on the show to discuss his eCommerce journey. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SPONSORS: [e-mail] SPONSORS: Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly Hubspot Podcast Network: https://link.chtbl.com/jcfShDpb LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I think there's a lesson there on what level of, you know, even if you're an experienced entrepreneur, market decides. Pretty much market is a decision maker. You have to listen to the market. You have to observe what market wants, what market wants to buy and sell that to them. Not what you want to sell or maybe what you're passionate about. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe it helps a lot with the algorithm it helps us get bigger and better guests and it helps us grow the team truly means a lot thank you guys for supporting and here's the episode all right

guys we got all the way from miami alex vatatov here today talking about e-commerce nice to see you sean absolutely 100 million dollars in sales man yeah over the years you know some years better than others but nice how long did that take um so i started e-commerce in 2007 uh 16 17 okay so about eight years yeah back in europe when when i lived there damn okay yeah so you grew up in ukraine right correct and then you moved to you know uh so yeah so we i lived in ukraine then the war happened the first time 2014 we moved to poland uh we we lived around europe and 2020 we moved to united states wow so what was that like in ukraine was that a very scary time um yeah yeah when. When the war, you know, they just draft everyone,

like even it is right now. They just get everyone, the army. What's the age minimum there for the draft? 25, but now they're lowering because they're out of people. Yeah, 25 is actually older than I thought. I think here it's like lower. Yeah. Wow, 25.

Yeah, but now you're out, man. It's probably better that you're out because it's scary over there right now, living there. Yeah, 25. Yeah, but now you're out, man. It's probably better that you're out because it's scary over there right now living there. Yeah, yeah. You know, it's like I think we're, as humans, we're free to choose where we want to live. You know, even like inside of the country, you know, people don't like California. They can move to like Miami, you know. So it's like I think choosing where to live and not being attached to a place I think it's important. Yeah.

Why did you choose Miami? We were considering Austin. We were considering Los Angeles, San Diego, and Miami. I don't know. We wanted to be close to Europe. We like to travel. Yeah. So Miami is in a good spot.

You can go to Europe in six, nine hours. You're in Europe. Then South America. So it's nicely located geographically. But it also was a good call because, you know, Miami and Florida was one of the few states that were like open. During the pandemic. Yeah. So it was very good call.

Nice. We landed in Miami like literally like six hours before they closed the border. Damn. So you would have been stuck? Yeah. For months. Wow. That's scary.

Why do you want to be close to Europe? You got family there and stuff? Yeah, we like to spend time in Switzerland. Nice. Those Swiss banks, man. That's where your money's at. Yeah, sometimes they're fairly likely. Like they had this credit shoes.

Yeah. Oh, I heard about that. Big scandal. Damn. I want to talk about dropshipping because a lot of people try to do dropshipping, right? There's a lot of courses, a lot of people teaching it. Not a lot of people get to seven figures,

let alone nine figures. So how did you get that experience in dropshipping? Did you have a mentor or something? Yeah, it's fascinating. I ask myself the same question every time. Like with all of the abundance of resources, there's only a small percentage of people that succeed. And so, like spy tools, you can literally see anyone's ads, you can see what products people are selling. So it's relatively easy to replicate. For me personally, I've learned

through experience. I started as a service, I started as a freelancer back in Ukraine. I started freelancing, working with businesses. So I gained some experience and I had like kind of behind the scenes knowledge of what was working and how the whole business model worked, which I think is a great kind of like path for a lot of people. Let's say you want to get inside of, you know, specific industry. I mean, one of the easiest ways just to go work in that industry, work for a company that you admire, gain some experience, see how that company operates, and then in a few years, you can start your own gig. And so that was my path.

I discovered dropshipping because one of the clients was doing dropshipping, and I was running their ads, and I would see how to run the ads, I'd see where to source the products, so I just connected the dots and started running my own stores. And that's pretty much how I started. That's cool. The thing with dropshipping is you need to be able to adapt very quickly right which is a skill that is hard to teach and now there's a new wave of tiktok shop right yeah and before you could just drop ship from china now there's like 3pls and stuff the game changes all the time have you noticed that yeah 100 and uh it's even like what kind of products are selling how to sell them the types of the creatives and type of the visuals that you have to use in order to sell the product and especially markets like united states it's more competitive market so you

have to adapt like very fast um but the opportunities shout out to the hustle daily show guys part of the hotspot network which is the audio destination for business builders. The Hustle Daily Show is your daily dose of business, tech, and news. And they got original stories, which keeps you in the loop on what's trending in the business world. It's very important to stay up to date on what's trending, guys. Right now, obviously, crypto's hot. There's tons of opportunities there. They have over 3 million young readers on their daily email,

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here's the show opportunity is there i mean like we've had our best you know with all the recession whatever you know the downtrends uh and stuff like that we've had our best year last year damn and um it just trending up you know so it's all about finding that winning niche right people that's the million dollar question people ask you all the time finding winning products winning niche but you really just gotta do it from experience right. And also like observing what's working. Like I don't like to reinvent the wheel. Many cases, and I've made this mistake so many times, even like recently, we decided to launch a product. And, you know, I'm smart.

I was like, I've been in this industry for so many years. We launch a product. It's like, yeah, it's like, okay, we get samples from China, you know, beauty gadgets. I like beauty. I like health and I like beauty because these are like evergreen niches. People always have pain. People always want to look better. So evergreen niches, evergreen demand.

And so I'm like, okay, we get sources. We get samples from China. We get like 20 different samples. We tried this device, this device, this device. And we know how to sell devices. We sold like $100 million worth of devices. We know how to sell them. And out of all of the devices, I choose the most expensive.

So the device costs, like, $50. So we have to sell it for, like, $200, $250 in order for the margin. To make sense. Yeah, exactly, right? So the profit margin so we can spend on ads and still be profitable. And so I choose the most expensive.

And we order inventory. We order, like, 1, order like thousand units, which is like $50,000. Yeah, $50 per unit, thousand units, which I don't recommend anyone to do, you know? It was a bad decision. And then we try to grow it, try to run ads. And we are good with ads, we're good with creative. We spend money on creators and it doesn't work. And it's just like inventory sitting there. We just, we caught it. We move on. We don't want to waste time. But I think there's a lesson there that no matter on what level of,

even if you're an experienced entrepreneur, market is above, market decides. Pretty much market is a decision maker. You have to listen to the market. You have to observe what market wants, what market wants to buy and sell that to them, not what you want to sell or maybe what you're passionate about. Yeah, you have to be super objective. You can't get your emotions involved. I've struggled with that issue too when I did e-commerce.

I would get so attached to certain products and think everyone likes them, but it's really me liking it. You know, not everyone else likes it. Yeah, exactly. And we're selling products to women, usually over 45 years old. And I'm not a lady. I'm not 45 years old. So, yeah, I just eliminate my kind of objective opinion.

That makes sense. Now, Facebook ads have gotten more and more expensive over the years. We did out a lot of people, right? But you're still running them with success. So how do you think you were able to adapt when it comes to running paid ads? I think, I mean, it was Facebook. I'm competitive. I think that helps. Being competitive and observing what your competition is doing and just seeing what they do.

So now you have to level up. But also an important factor, I think, is just reinvestment. Reinvestment, like let's say you start an e-commerce business. Let's say you get some initial momentum. Most people would be just like taking money out or buying a car, you know, buying some stuff for themselves. What we do is like we reinvest. Let's say the project makes money. We reinvest that profit into stock, obviously, but also into custom content. So we send the product to content creators. They shoot content. They send us back. So now we have a lot

of variables. Facebook ads have a lot of variables. Facebook ads is a game of variables, right? So the more variables you have, the more variations of the creative, of the visuals you have, the higher your chances for success. In many cases, you know, people try one ad, a few variations, maybe max, and it doesn't work. And the same Facebook ads don't work.

It just, it's not, it doesn't work. It's maybe you just didn't give it enough inputs. Didn't test enough. Correct. Yeah, people give up very easily, right? They launch one ad campaign, it doesn't work. And then they say Facebook ads is dead. Yeah, yeah.

But there's still people, you know, making millions off Facebook ads. Facebook is amazing. I mean, some of my friends, you know, spending like eight, $10 million per month on ads. Yeah. And so- Damn, per month? Correct.

On dropshipping or is it? Oh, it's a brand, it's supplements. Most of the supplements are something with like higher LTV. I mean, Facebook ads cannot fix your margin structure. Facebook ads cannot fix your business, cannot fix your product, right? So obviously those things have to be foundationally right before you get into ads.

But if you have enough margin to acquire a customer, if your product has some stickiness, maybe if it's supplement or something that people have to rebuy, so now you're kind of like building more sustainable business because it's not just one-time purchases you have to acquire every time and pay for ads for,

but also people coming back and your profitability increases. Have you tried digital products or do you stick with mainly physical? So we have actually, our whole kind of area for our company is educational. So we do e-commerce and then we teach people how to do e-commerce. Got it. The company is called E-Commerce Killing Secrets. And it started pretty much as my hobby.

I posted on the Facebook groups about my results. People started reaching out. And it was on the back burner. And I didn't even take it seriously until we moved to the United States. It was a side project. And now we have a team. We have pretty much account managers. And so part of that company is the digital products.

So we're selling digital products on the front end. And then if people want to get some extra help, we're helping them. Nice. Yeah, because the margins on the digital side, I heard, are obviously way higher. 100%. Yeah. I think anyone, if you think about it, what was the, there's a jiu-jitsu guy.

Jiu-jitsu guy. Like, Gordon, Gordon. I think I know who you're talking about. Yeah. Gordon something. He ran ads.

He has, I think he makes most of his money from digital products. Really? He teaches people how to do jiu-jitsu. Wow. Yeah. Gordon,

I forgot. Ryan, Gordon, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan, something like that. Jiu-jitsu. Wow. Yeah, Gordon. I forgot. Ryan, Gordon, Ryan, Ryan, Ryan. Something like that. Jiu-jitsu. He's one of the, I think, champions. Yeah, I know who you're talking about. I've seen him on videos and stuff.

Yeah, he was the world champion. And there's a lot of guys that are so talented and they just need the right business partner to be able to package that into a course or an offer. And they can make millions a year. Yeah, yeah. Even what Alex Hermozzi did, right, with his, you know, business model. And, I mean, they specifically choose, you know, for a big part of their business,

like, you know, information products, coaching, stuff like that. I think it's a great business. And especially if there's already foundation, if there is, like, an expert that, with their advice, can help, you know, many people on a scale. Yeah, absolutely. I love how raw know, many people on a scale. Absolutely. I love how raw and authentic you are on your Twitter. So I pulled actually five tweets. I'd love for you to elaborate on some of these.

You tweeted out that being smart is oftentimes a liability. What did you mean by that? I think smart people overthink stuff. Sometimes, like, for example, I just shared that example with a product that we've chosen to sell. I just was overthinking it. Instead of just like, hey, here's what's selling. Our product, you know, can be like 5% better. Let's fix, you know, this one, two, three things about the product.

Let's sell it successfully. I wanted to, like, reinvent the wheel. So, overthinking. and sell it successfully. I wanted to reinvent the wheel. So over-syncing, I think that's why also many people that are even graduating, I would think why people graduate Harvard worth hundreds of thousands of dollars and oftentimes they just cannot make it work and not make it work in business because they over-sync.

Yeah, they've done studies on this. So if your IQ is in the genius range, you make less money than people in the gifted range. Wow, that's fascinating. So usually it's like this until it gets to genius range, and then there's a dip. Wow. Because all those guys are so smart

that they don't have personal skills. They don't have emotional intelligence, so they become scientists. They become individualized specialists. Wow. Crazy, right? Elon is probably an outlier. Yeah, he, right? Elon is probably an outlier. Yeah, he's very smart.

He's an outlier. I think his IQ is like 160. I mean, he's super smart. But he's not the normal genius. Most geniuses can't do business, actually. Oh, wow. Pretty interesting, right? This is interesting.

Yeah. Have you tested your IQ? No, I probably am. I hope I'm not below 100. I think you would know. I think you would know. I think you would definitely know. You also tweeted out, most books can be summarized in three sentences

and they're not worth your time. Yeah, I think a lot of books are written by people that that's their business to write books. And obviously they take like one very simple idea and they just try to kind of like cover the whole like 100 pages of fluff. And so, I mean, and sometimes you need stories to understand something. That's cool. But if you want to like get to the point faster,

you can just like buy a summary of the book. That's what I do. I have that app Blinkist. Have you heard of that? Yeah. Is it good? It's okay. It summar summary of the book. That's what I do. I have that app Blinkist. Have you heard of that? Is it good? It's okay. It summarizes the whole book. And then I listen to audio books on 2X, 2.5X.

Nice. And then mainly though podcasts. I learn a lot on podcasts. I love podcasts. I listen to your podcast. Oh, nice. Yeah, I listen to that. There's some, I mean, I've learned so much this year podcasting the past year.

It's crazy. Yeah. So I'm a fan of those. But I kind of agree with reading books. I feel like it's a little outdated. Alex Becker has a similar opinion as you on books. So that makes sense to me. You also tweeted out,

Lamborghinis and watches don't impress the right people. They impress people lower than you. Yeah, for the most part. I, you know, that's obviously my opinions. And, you know, there's some people that that would disagree um but i think it's yeah you know you see this kind of generation younger generation and and it's and it's normal if you're like 18 20 years old trying to impress people with like lamborghinis but um i think at some point it's, you know,

let's say if you have, like, Lamborghini, I know there's, like, Huracan, there's, like, Aventador, there's so many layers of Lamborghinis, and so if you're buying, like, a cheap one, it's, like, it's not even, it's not even good. Like, you know, it's, like, if you want to buy a good one, like, buy a good one, buy more expensive. Buy a U.S.

Yeah, so, and I think, lifestyle is, lifestyle is important. Lifestyle helps to, I don't know, maybe that's my value system, my value system. And I have a watch, right? So it's how it's called. Rolex. Yeah. It's, but it's, it says, not ignorant, but arrogant. No, you know, when I say something and I do something. Oh, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Oh, what's the word?

I know what you're talking about. You know? Yeah. Hypocrite, right? So I'm a hypocrite, right? Because I'm talking about watches that they impress wrong people, and I have a watch, right? So it's like, is this guy's worth listening to

I I could see both ways I mean you live in Miami so obviously it's all about materialistic flexing out there having a nice car is normal out there but in the right room I feel like a car and a watch can be used in in a good way 100 yeah and I I I had a lot of rethinking on that topic too since I, you know, my value, not the value system, but kind of like my perception changes on certain things. Because I've been, even though I've been making, you know, I was blessed to make, you know, very, very good amount of money, but I didn't buy like cars. I have like one car. Yeah. I have like one watch, this is my one watch. So what do you spend your money on then? Just investing.

Love that. But you gotta have some fun too. Exactly, right? And so I'm like, why I'm like, are you interested in coming on the Digital Social Hour podcast as a guest? We'll click the application link below in the description of this video.

We are always looking for cool stories, cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life. Click the application link below and here's the episode, guys. Why I'm like kind of, you know, when I'll be driving cars, I'll be driving cars when I'm 50, like 60 when I'm like, you know, dad.

You know, so it's like, I think there's definitely a point. You don't want to overdo it. And kind of there is, but there is a sweet spot. And also let's say we had like a record here. I didn't reward myself with anything. And I think that's bad.

You have to reward, you have to celebrate wins. Because I come from the, I come from like Eastern European and I still have, you, and we are very rigid. It's usually poker face. It's usually like this. We don't show emotions.

I don't know if you watched the Putin interviews. Oh, yeah. I just saw it last night with Tucker. Yeah. No emotion. Yeah, right? Because in our culture, it's not, you know. It's a sign of weakness.

Correct. Correct. Exactly. And so that is a part. And also for me, it's like if I go and spend money on some cars and stuff like that, it's a sign of, you know, maybe I'm getting weak. And this kind of culture consumes me. Right. You know, so I think there was something more like uh

on my side immigrant mentality yeah so i struggled with that too so my my parents are both immigrants and my first five years of working i didn't reward myself which is crazy i didn't go on vacation i didn't buy myself anything nice and you know it took a toll on me because you get to the point where you're like why am i working for this money? Yeah. If I'm just saving it, reinvesting in the business, I'm not even having fun. I mean, business is fun, but outside of that, you know, what am I spending it on? So now I vacation at least twice a year just to reward myself. Nice. And it actually motivates you when you're on vacation to do better when you get back too, I noticed.

Yeah. I do. Yeah. Vacations. Yeah. We do eight to 10 vacations a year. Damn. Okay. I got to step it do. Yeah, vacations, I do. Yeah, we do eight to ten vacations a year. Damn, okay. I got to step it up.

Yeah, so that part we didn't. Yeah, we'd go to Switzerland for a few months, and then we'd go to Aspen, and then we'd go to. A few months, okay. So you're going on long vacations. Yeah, this summer we go to Switzerland for the whole summer. But you're working while you're there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I'm working. Now our team got much better. I mean, it's obviously when you're there, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm working. Now our team got much better. I mean, it's obviously when you're starting, it's a lot harder. It's like you're always on your laptop. Now our team is very good. So I think I'll try to – I think learning to relax, it's like – I don't think there's like right or wrong, but it's somewhere in the middle. It's tough to relax for me dude

because my comfort zone is working so when you say relax i'm thinking of just sitting still and not working and it it's uncomfortable for me i like to work i like to feel like i'm really putting time into the right things you told me you're i mean the your team told like the 50 you do 50 of these a month 50 a month and I have other businesses and I'm working a lot. But I also can't sit still, dude. Like can you sit still for an hour just watching TV without thinking about work? Oh, no. Yeah, same.

It's tough. Like people say relax. I'm like my relaxed is me working. You know what I mean? That's how I relax. Yeah. Because my work isn't stressful i've gotten to that point where it took five six years but i outsourced all my stresses oh you outsourced all of your stresses yes that's a good that's a good way to which i recommend everyone because at first you're gonna have to do everything yeah and it sucks you got

to do customer service but you have to learn the basics and then once you know that outsource it you must be enjoying these interviews dude I love it this doesn't even work for me I mean it's so fun you know

I got to learn from 8, 9 figure 10 figure guys in multiple industries nice yeah you found your genius zone yeah

I think that's I mean you know with businesses like different business models like different ways of you know you can make money I think that's, I mean, you know, with businesses, like different business models, like different ways of, you know, you can make money.

I think it's so important because I remember watching these interviews from people. Oh, you have to find your passion. You have to find your passion. You have to find, and I'm like,

yeah, of course you're a billionaire. It's like, of course you're talking that. Like, but now I'm kind of, I'm getting it. Like,

yeah, I mean, you have to like what you do on a day-to-day basis yeah otherwise like what's the point there's no fulfillment otherwise yeah if you just do something for the money for the money for the money for the money right and like that doesn't fulfill you doesn't and you learn that after a few years and i'm at the point now where um i don't do stuff just for money if there's no greater purpose behind it i probably don't need to do it yeah because people offer me money all the time to post stuff and you know yeah when you have

a following that's common and if it doesn't align with me i won't post nice yeah yeah gone down the spiritual journey man it's it's been interesting to say the least a lot of interesting podcast guests have shifted my perspectives nice yeah and that's a skill, I think, a lot of people are close-minded, especially where you're from, right? I've heard that about Europe actually. And you got to be willing to change with the information. So yeah, I'm coming. So since we came here, our leadership style has changed. We're like, initially our leadership style in the company is like, you do something wrong, you're fired. It's very kind of- Black and white.

Yeah, exactly. And then we kind of adapted. Okay, so maybe it's not working. Maybe people are not as productive if you're just very like you know very strict very direct very you know and so um i think there's there's some good parts like you know like sergey brain you know these guys like many of them have had um or elon musk immigrants right so it's like you're taking part of like another culture or taking another like perspective in the world right like i mean i think there's a lot to learn in china or like in in asia right from that you know from that mentality like how do how hard they work like you know so and then you adapt it with like more like freedom uh you know like they have in in western world i think that that you know i think you can learn from anyone it's like and that that's you know, I think you can learn from anyone. And that's, you know, you're mixing those cultures, you're mixing those perspectives.

Yeah. I love that, dude. That's such a good analogy. I didn't even think about that. But, yeah, when you take the best of each culture, bring them to America, combine it with our values, that's why our country is pretty successful. Yeah. Right? Immigrants believe it.

Yeah. Immigrants. Like, first generation grinding like you know the america had i mean maybe i'm oversimplifying it but the best periods of gross where like it's it's big spike of immigrants right new talent like people working hard like even this this gentleman here like uh marvin yeah oh man his story is so fascinating yeah it's gonna be a fun one. Yeah, wow. And so, coming here, you know, now his family

is in entertainment business, you know, in high positions, you know, pushing, building businesses. So, I think there's a lot

to learn. I think if, you know, my perspective, like in the United States, a lot of people kind of, maybe a few generations in, they're kind of like getting more relaxed.

They don't have that grind anymore. Yeah, I agree. You see it with each generation. I think because of technology as well, people are becoming more relaxed. So I know exactly what you mean. My parents worked a lot harder than a lot of kids when they were their age, if that makes sense. They were scrubbing floors. They were doing a lot of dirty work. But with ai and tech it's easy you can make money on your couch

you know what i mean making content so it's a different style for sure yeah it's a different style uh but you had humble beginnings man i know in ukraine you were making a hundred dollars a month yeah you couldn't even afford your wedding right you? You know, so we had a lot simpler rings with my wife. We couldn't afford wedding. We just went to the city hall and

we had one person. We had one guest. That's it? Yeah, we didn't even have our parents. Damn. You didn't invite them? No, it's just like, I mean, I don't know. No, it wasn't like official. We just wanted to, you know, kind of. Get it done quick. Yeah, make it official.

And then, yeah, we just, you know, that's it. Wow. We couldn't, yeah, we didn't have money to do it. And was that like a big moment in your life realizing like, i can't even afford the life i want right now yeah it was kind of like i think and maybe the same for a lot of people it's like kind of inside of you it's kind of like frustrates you and you're frustrated you're frustrated you're frustrated and then something happens and you kind of like let you know if if you if you just spend that energy on on kind of on on getting out of that i don't know what's the best way to explain it um for me the biggest probably shifts happened where so we moved from ukraine to to Poland and I just realized, oh, we need money.

We needed money because I had a friend back in Ukraine who was doing some schemes and he said, oh, let's do it together. We can make money. And I'm like, okay, cool. Yeah, you know, I was very open-minded. That's how it starts. Yeah. And then I start calling people and I'm like, I need to borrow money. I need to borrow money. I need to borrow money.

And then like no one borrowed me money. And I just realized there is no one to rely on but yourself. And it's kind of like it's relief, right? Because, yeah, you expect something happens. You know, there's friends, there's family. At that moment, just realized, no, there is no one. And kind of like back against the wall. It's hard realizations.

And those first few years were hard. Like many mental shifts, like limiting beliefs, low self-confidence, no self-esteem, like all of those things, they're hard to overcome. Yeah, I struggled with all of that my first few years because it's it's not a normal path so very few people can relate to the path you're starting in entrepreneurship so they're usually hating on it because they're like making fun of you and stuff yeah and then you go through educational system and it's like 10 15 years of like they kind of try to put you in a box, right? And tried to make you think in a particular way.

Yeah. And it's like, it's hard to overcome that. And if the same message repeats at home. Yeah, on the news. Yeah, it took me, man, I was brainwashed for 20, 21 years probably before I started going on YouTube, watching some actual content

and like understanding there's more to the world than just a nine to five. How old are you? I'm 26 now. Okay, so I started when I was 26. Oh yeah. Well in Europe, it's probably even harder, honestly. Yeah, and yeah, Eastern Europe, people are close-minded.

Like, so we started the business, the business started to do well. And then, you know, we do e-commerce, right? And we do drop shipping, So there's no physical goods. We don't have, like, we don't have inventory at that point. And, you know, we're processing millions of dollars, like millions of dollars. And then, you know, we come to the tax, pay taxes. We want to pay taxes.

We want to do everything by the book. It's like, what is that business you're in? It's like, what is it? What do you do e-commerce like uh they didn't even know about it no it's like and and you know they say ladies are older you know they don't understand you know the internet yeah yeah and so and we had one of the things we had to do they're like okay so you had like i don't know, 100,000 orders, whatever. Okay, so we need like an invoice for every one of those orders. Oh, my gosh.

Manually printed. Okay, because it has to be officially. And so, yeah, it was pretty much we had to hire people to basically print. You had to print out that many? That is such an old system. Hopefully, they fixed that on which what that was in uh ukraine or was that in that's in poland poland poland i think poland is adapting but it's still like and what happens is like i mean smart people like entrepreneurs when they understand they have

the freedom to move they're out that's in dubai that's in miami like you know if if state or country treats you badly, you're out. Yeah. Yeah. These days you can just move wherever. I've been offered to move to Dubai. I've been offered to go to Puerto Rico.

I mean, that's the cool part about having money, right? Yeah. You can kind of pick where you want to live in the world. But it's hard to beat the US because everything's here, man. Yeah.

Like, it'd be hard to do a podcast in any other country, I think. Yeah. United States is such a good country for business. It's the whole infrastructure, the financial system, you know, the credit lines when you want to expand. Yeah. Yeah, the credit's amazing. Yeah. I just got $200,000, 0% credit cards.

Really? Yeah. Have you done those yet? No. Yeah, I'll introduce you to my friend. So it's credit cards, but 0% interest for 12 months. Legit? Yeah, have you done those yet? No. Yeah, I'll introduce you to my friend. So it's credit cards, but 0% interest for 12 months. Legit? Yeah, legit.

Yeah, I got Chase Bank, Bank of America, US Bank. There's a few, but my friend just does them all for you. He applies. Wow. Yeah. How did it work? How do they make money? They make money after the 12 months if you, I guess, have late fees and stuff.

That's how all the cards make money. Wow. The late fees, the overdraft and all that. But if you settle it, there's no fees. Yeah, you're good. I spent like $100K on it and I have 10 months to pay it off at no interest. Wow.

You can't get that in other countries. Talk about the opportunity, right? Coming back to e-commerce or any other opportunities, you have those resources at your disposal. You have all of the tools. You have like, you know, the spy. You can see what products are selling, how to sell it.

Yeah, ad spy. Nice to use that. Unicorn Smasher on Amazon. You ever hear of that one? No, no, no. Tells you all their Amazon sales. Oh, wow. Yeah, there's so many good tools, man.

Like you said, it's easy to replicate, but very few people succeed. That's why this space fascinates me because so many people fail yeah i think because people jump from one opportunity to another one it's like this this this this i've noticed you know so we've been training entrepreneurs and it was our own business like some of our best clients they're doing now like five uh so our one of our best clients did 50 million last year in sales um another one is doing about nine million dollars a month in sales and then i'm looking at those people like i'm trying to kind of like see the trends you know and also myself you know we've had good success as well yeah and it's usually just focus like you know it's hard i mean maybe

first year you will not get what you want yeah right but it's if you have like unrealistic expectations like yeah i'll start a business like and tomorrow i'll be like a millionaire then you you won't you won't persevere like if something happens and it's inevitable that something will happen always and yeah yeah there's always unexpected stuff in business and that's what people don't talk about there's lawsuits there's, there's always unexpected stuff in business, and that's what people don't talk about. There's lawsuits, there's fines, there's payment processing shutdown. There's always an issue. Yeah, last week we had our ad account shut down.

Yeah, we had our page shut down. Last month we had our Instagram page shut down. Now we have like network. We were able to kind of, you know. But that's common. That's so common. People's ad accounts. My business manager is still down.

It's been like four years. Let's talk about that. If you need help. I love that. Alex, it's been fun, man. Where can people find you and anything you want to promote? Yeah, so my Instagram is alexfadatov.

We'll link it below. Yeah, perfect. And yeah, it's because it's hard to pronounce. And then, yeah, I mean, we help entrepreneurs to go from zero to hero. Like pretty much we have, you know, seven figure like entrepreneurs, coaching entrepreneurs within our ecosystem. We have training, we have tools, we have resources. So everything that you need to to do from zero to you know

30-50k a month initially and then our another program which is I'm very passionate about it's called Ecommerce Killing Secrets

helps people that do already 50-100k a month to go to like 300-500 1 million a month more advanced entrepreneurs I'm learning a lot from those guys

that's my passion it's awesome man love it yeah we'll link all that down below thanks for coming on thank you Sean thanks for watching guys as always see you tomorrow advanced entrepreneurs. I'm learning a lot from those guys. Nice. That's my passion. It's awesome, man. Love it. Yeah, we'll link all that down below. Thanks for coming on. Thank you, Sean. Yeah, thanks for watching, guys.

As always, see you tomorrow.