I'm 41 and did a $260M+ ecom exit.
Copy my business in 50 steps:
1. Validate demand before spending a dollar on product — survey real people, pre-sell if possible
2. Target 80% gross margins from day one — if the category can't support it, find a different category...or at least a very high AOV category
3. Find a manufacturer with under 8 week lead times if possible — long lead times kill cash flow before you scale
4. Launch subscription only — no one-time purchases, ever
5. Price at premium — $10 signals $10 quality, always
6. Launch with 25-50 influencers in your niche — not 500, not 5
7. Expect 10% to convert profitably — kill the rest fast, no exceptions
8. Whitelist winning influencer creative as paid ads immediately
9. Run 20-40% of total paid budget behind influencer-sourced content
10. Drive all traffic directly to the product page or messaging optimized landing pages — no brand awareness detours
11. Text every new subscriber personally within 24 hours of their first order
12. Build post-purchase onboarding for the first 30 days — retention is won here
13. Survey customers before building any new product — know it won't fail before you make it
14. Don't launch product 2 until product 1 is undeniable — we waited 30 months
15. Hire a CFO before a head of growth — cash visibility is a growth function
16. Forecast cash 120 days out at all times and update it weekly — never get caught by a stockout
17. Build relationships with 3+ manufacturers — COVID taught us this the hard way
18. Don't raise institutional capital — every dollar of growth came from margins
19. Build reusable packaging customers display proudly — free organic content every month
20. Make every team member spend time in customer support — distance from customers creates bad decisions
21. Track your LTV by acquisition channel, not just overall — know which channels actually compound
22. Whitelist your top 3 influencers as paid ads before anything else
23. Build your influencer roster with intention — 50 long term partners over 3 years beats 500 one-offs
24. Never flash discount — every discount teaches your customer to wait
25. Run limited editions and surprise gifts instead of sales
26. Obsess over contribution margin after marketing and fulfilment costs — not just gross margin
27. Build your CAC payback period target before scaling spend — know when you get your money back
28. Hire people who've done the specific thing before — not people who are generally smart
29. Make every new employee start in customer support regardless of their role
30. Speed of decisions beats quality of decisions — always
31. Sell your business from a place of strength not desperation — we had $19M net income before exploring exit
32. Start the exit process earlier than feels necessary
33. Build your buyer universe yourself — don't wait for inbound acquisition interest
34. Assume strategic buyers understand ecom less than you'd expect — you're teaching, not just presenting
35. Get a top M&A advisor early — the fee is worth it
36. Know your EBITDA multiple target before entering conversations
37. Keep the team focused on the business during diligence — distraction kills deals
38. Negotiate earnouts carefully — understand exactly what you're agreeing to
39. Close day will feel quieter than you expect — that's normal
40. Invest the proceeds before you celebrate — the tax bill comes fast
41. Stay on post-acquisition if the terms are right — your equity in the acquirer can compound significantly
42. Document every system before the exit — buyers pay more for businesses that run without you
43. Build your personal brand while building the business — it compounds separately
44. Share what you learn publicly — the best operators are the most generous with knowledge
45. Find a co-founder with complementary skills
46. Protect the culture harder than you protect the margins
47. Obsess over what customers would genuinely miss if you disappeared tomorrow
48. Build something people would miss — not just something people buy
49. The goal isn't the exit. The exit is the byproduct of building something real.
50. Start now. The founders who win are the ones who started before they were ready.
Comment "PLAYBOOK" and I'll DM you the full breakdown
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Average beginner in ecom daily routine:
- wake up
- immediately check store performance (ROAS is 0.9) - crashout and blame Meta
- open X to doomscroll and cope
- see another ''secret cheat code for ecom''
- bookmark and never read again
- scroll Kalo looking to rip a new product
- 'work' on random bs for the rest of the day
- post a 'daily update' on X (they've made no progress in months)
- watch a couple Youtube videos
- cry themselves to sleep
- repeat
This is what happens when you follow advice from someone whose entire business model depends on you buying their course.
"Just start. Take action. Launch the store. Run the ads."
Sounds good. And it gets likes, sells courses.
But nobody shows you what happens after you follow that advice.
The $5K gone in two weeks on ads that converted nobody.
The product that looked perfect on Kalodata that 50 other stores were already running.
The moment you realize you have no idea why anything is or isn't working.
That's the first year of ecom for most people.
Not because they didn't work hard enough.
Because they were handed a map that leads nowhere by someone who made their money selling the map.
Sure, there are people who launched blind and figured it out. Got lucky on a product, scaled it, made real money.
Those people exist.
But for every one of them there are hundreds who burned through their savings, learned nothing , and quit.
You just don't see those stories because they don't make good content.
The gurus pushing "just start" aren't lying because they're evil.
They're lying because the truth doesn't sell courses.
The truth is that launching a store before you understand how to make ads that convert is just a very expensive way to learn what doesn't work.
The people actually building sustainable income in ecom almost always have the same foundation underneath them.
They understand why ads work. They know what makes people buy. They can look at a failing campaign and diagnose exactly what's wrong.
That's not something you get from launching a store and hoping for the best.
That's a skill.
And it's the one skill that actually determines whether any of this works.