Andrew Youderian

Founder of @ecomfuelco, the vetted community where 7- and 8-figure eCom owners find their people & level up. 👇 Work hard, adventure often.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

Our forums might be the most active eCom community online (biased, but...).

Still — nothing beats grown-up Hot Wheels with your people IRL.

Online is great for answers. In person is where you go deep.

Shoutout to @billda, Uri, and Jeremy on the racing podium at eCom Camp!

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@zpta_co Being on the bleeding edge does carry risks.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

I recently found an amazing travel hack. You've probably never used it, but you should.

It’s called a taxi.

Many airports make you walk to the far reaches of the earth for the ride share pickup.

But not me. This time I balled out.

Exited the terminal and was IMMEDIATELY at my car. Felt like a big shot with a private driver.

Yes, I had to enter in my location address on my drivers phone. And, yes, I smelled slightly of cigarette smoke getting out.

But a small prices to pay for not having to wander around arrival traffic for 30 minutes.

Yellow is back. 🚕

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@thedanielbudai Oh totally. For years we just skipped out on doing BF/CM sales in eCom. By the time you consider all the work, the margin hit with discounting and more it didn't feel worth the squeeze.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

Real estate is a bad investment for entrepreneurs.

Half of you just blocked me. Hear me out.

When you start pulling money out of your eCom business, and you should, don't reflexively shove it into residential rentals.

I'm not talking about commercial RE. Or if you're full-time RE specializing with deep expertise.

I'm talking about the casual residential play, the 2 or 3 rentals on the side. It's not worth it.

My good friend @billda had a rental house. He ran the numbers when he sold, 20% IRR over a couple of years.

Bill normally DREAMS about 20% IRRs. If anyone was going to love a rental portfolio, it was him.

He got rid of it.

The 20% IRR was pretty low in actual dollars. And the tenant renting it was a pain.

They called him once because she saw a spider on the front porch.

I use to own a rental in Bozeman. Bought in 2015 and rented/held through COVID and the TV show Yellowstone, which sent prices to the moon.

Even with crazy appreciation, returns were in line with an index fund over the same stretch. But with infinitely more hassle, zero liquidity, and no geographic diversification.

It was in a top 5 market for the period in terms of appreciation. What do you think median returns looks like?

I love the concept of hassle-adjusted returns.

When comparing RE returns you have to consider turnovers, property managers (still have to manage them), illiquidity, late-night spider calls, capex, the tax complexity.

In my experience, returns struggle to match basic indexes. And that's before the hassle factor is considered.

I'm not saying don't buy real estate.

A primary home you love is awesome. But it's consumption, not an investment unless you're cashing out and moving into a van.

Or maybe you have a property or vacation home you rent to defer expenses. Great, enjoy it!

All I'm saying is it shouldn't be a meaningful way you deploy cash outside your business.

Photo: Hassle-adjusted returns include paying for and managing 2 new rental roofs in 12 months. Ask me how I know.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@ChadCarleton It could even have a cord so people would know exactly what room you were in so as not to walk in and disrput you. I love it.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@kelceylehrich @ChadCarleton Would never work.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@KurtHenninger Mind sharing a bit about your RE portfolio? Res RE? Commercial? Investment products?

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@vrexec Great point, never fully considered this.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@PPCKirk @BillDA Should have put a big disclaimer on there about owning your own office/warehouse space! Think that can pencil.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@Cody_Wittick @TKopelman A wise man!

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@noahkagan ...or that sometimes the business you think you're in isn't the most profitable angle. Look one layer deeper.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@jessicamalnik Totally agree. Even hiring people to do the work takes a meaningful amount of management and coordination.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@Carson Nice last minute save! Running a portfolio of duplexes remotely with killer cap rates, a great PM to manage them, ok maybe. But doing one remotely is probably worse of both worlds.

Plus, guessing the ROI on FuelMade is about 10x as much on a time-invested basis.😉

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@mtilmaHWF Does not, refers to traditional SEO.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

Meta is, not surprisingly, the eCom traffic king.

Didn't expect to see Direct at #3 behind Google.

Anything else surprising you here?

#chartoftheweek

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

Email is on there at 4.4%. And agreed direct is downstream of a lot of email marketing. From what I've seen, 20% of rev is excellent for email. 40% is truly world class.

I think you have to have more than just flows dialed in to hit those numbers. You have to be doing email incredibly, compellingly well. Incredible A+ content regularly, hyper in demands drops, etc.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@souravghosh Direct? Probably majority repeat. Google Adwords? Betting overwhelmingly first time.

Overall avg. of repeat business across the 300 stores I studied was 33%, which is the best proxy I have for % of repeat traffic.

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@Darcymason Unless it's your primary jam and you are highly specialized agreed!

[Andrew Youderian @youderian]

@MehtabKarta Bleating goat at the end is 👌