From Zero to $540 Million: The Amazon Playbook You’ve Never Heard with Yoon Kim

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From Zero to $540 Million: The Amazon Playbook You’ve Never Heard with Yoon Kim


Yoon Kim, Yoon is an anti-social hermit that’s been grinding away for the last 17 years working as the president of Nutricost. Yoon joined Nutricost during his 3rd year of law school, going to classes in the morning and working until 2 am at Nutricost. He joined the Nutricost team as the 4th employee and joined the founders. Nutricost has since grown to over 540 million dollars in annual revenue and over 900 employees working across 14 warehouses and offices through 3 different states. In the last 3 years, Nutricost has had 9 figure growth each and every year.

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> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….
  • Building a sustainable e-commerce business with a long-term operational mindset.
  • Strategies for scaling a business to nine figures in revenue.
  • The importance of focusing on quality and customer feedback in product development.
  • Navigating the challenges of cash flow management and inventory control.
  • The significance of maintaining a strong company culture and team dynamics.
  • Ethical practices in e-commerce, particularly on platforms like Amazon.
  • The role of data-driven decision-making in optimizing business operations.
  • Timing and strategic decisions in capitalizing on market trends.
  • The balance between short-term gains and long-term growth strategies.
  • Insights on personal development and effective communication within teams.
In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Yoon Kim, president of NutriCost, who shares his journey of scaling the company to over $540 million in annual revenue. Yoon emphasizes the importance of a long-term operational mindset over short-term exit strategies. He discusses the significance of product quality, customer feedback, and ethical practices in building a sustainable business. The conversation also highlights the necessity of focusing on core operations before diversifying, effective cash flow management, and the value of a strong, dedicated team. This episode provides actionable insights for entrepreneurs aiming for substantial growth.
Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:
  1. Prioritize Long-Term Growth Over Quick Wins – Instead of focusing on an exit strategy, build a business designed for sustainability. Invest in quality, avoid shortcuts, and develop efficient systems that support long-term operations.
  2. Strengthen Your Company Culture for Retention & Growth – Retaining a dedicated team is crucial for scaling. Create a positive work environment, offer professional development, and establish core values that guide decision-making and foster loyalty.
  3. Master Cash Flow & Inventory Management for Scaling – Sustainable growth requires strong financial oversight. Assign a team member to monitor financial metrics, optimize inventory to prevent stockouts, and ensure sufficient cash flow to support expansion.


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This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.
I started Hadley Designs in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.
I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.
If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.
Transcript Area
Josh Hadley 00:00:00  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host, Josh Hadley, where I interview the top business leaders in e-commerce. Past guests include Kevin King, Aaron Cordovez and Michael E Gerber, author of the E-myth. Today I’m speaking with Jung Kim, and he is going to be talking about building a business to run and not to sell. We’re going to be diving deeper because this guy is selling nine figures on Amazon. Last year they did over 500 million itself. So this is turn up the volume. Make sure you dive in because he’s going to be sharing some wicked smart strategies with all of us to help us understand what does it take to really build a business that is generating nine figures in annual revenue? This episode is brought to you by Ecomm Breakthrough, where I specialize in investing in and scaling seven figure e-commerce brands to eight figures and beyond. If you’re an ambitious e-commerce entrepreneur looking for a coach or a consultant who can help you take your business to the next level. My team and I bring hands on experience, strategic insights, and the resources needed to fuel your growth.
Josh Hadley 00:00:51  So if you or someone you know is ready to scale or are looking for that coach or consultant, reach out to me directly at Ecomm Breakthrough dot com. And remember it’s ecom econ with two M’s and let’s turn your dreams into reality. But today I am super excited to introduce you all to Yoon Kim. Yoon is a anti-social hermit that’s been grinding away for the last 17 years. Working as the president of Nutri Cost. Yoon joined Nutri Cost during his third year of law school, going to classes in the morning and working until 2 a.m. at Nutri cost. He joined the Nutri cost team as the fourth employee and joined the founders. Nutri cost has since grown to over $540 million in annual revenue. You heard that right. 540 million and over 900 employees working across 14 warehouses and offices through three different states. In the last three years, Nutri cost has had nine figure growth each and every year. With that introduction, welcome to the show, Yoon Yoon. You’re going to be like, the most modest and humble of the guests that we’ve had on the show.
Josh Hadley 00:01:42  You’re like, oh, I don’t have anything great to share yet. You’re one of our few, brand owners that has crossed that nine figure threshold. So I’m excited to have you on the show. And our relationship goes way far back to even the war room days with, Ryan Deiss, Roland Frasier, Perry Belcher. All those guys, we first crossed paths back in like 2020. And since then, your brand has drastically evolved as well as ours. So it’s fun that our paths have crossed yet once again. but I want to dive straight into it. At the beginning, one of the things the messages that you wanted to share is that you’ve been building your business to operate and run it efficiently, not necessarily with any exit in mind. It’s never been, hey, we’re going to exit it. Private equity once we hit this revenue threshold or this EBITDA threshold. Tell me why you think that’s been such such a strategic advantage to you guys, and why that’s played a role in helping you grow to where you’re at today?
Yoon Kim 00:02:33  Yeah, I think when you build businesses, especially particularly these days, people are looking for that exit.
Yoon Kim 00:02:38  you know, within five years, within three years, whatever the plans that they have. So it seems like a lot of people are building up their businesses, to build up numbers, to build up the metrics that matter, to make it look attractive to different investors and find the, you know, exit out. a lot of times, I think that means taking shortcuts. Duct taping solutions together. for us, we took a different approach because from the beginning we wanted to build something special and that could mean big, a bigger exit down the line or building something so that we have something to, you know, pass down to our, our children. But we wanted to build something that lasted and build something special. So that meant family. That meant that type of environment, that where you feel like, hey, we’re here to grow and we’re here to take this thing wherever we can go. So, you know, the shortcut solutions really wouldn’t work in those scenarios. And for us, we always did things kind of the hard way.
Yoon Kim 00:03:22  You know, we built out our own software for our ERP system. We, built out a manufacturing and fulfillment department. So using a three PL or, manufacturing, we did all these things that you’re never supposed to do when you’re, you know, when you’re trying to exit or do a quick exit type of a situation. especially with the aggregators that were happening at the time when we were building this business, it was the easy thing to kind of build up revenue, get profit to a certain level and dump it off. But we built this thing so a little bit differently with the thought in mind that we want to try to really take this to the very end. And when you buy a house, for example, that you want to keep for the rest of your life, you’re going to treat it. You’re gonna build a build a little differently than something that you know is going to be temporary. I feel like that mindset really does matter, and it really changes your approach on how you set up your business, how you run your business.
Yoon Kim 00:04:04  for us, we have our corporate players. The key players in our company have all been here over, over ten years, over 15 years sometimes. So I think that’s pretty special in terms of what we have here. But it’s also we gained so much in terms of travel knowledge, in terms of what the culture of the company, in terms of industry knowledge, there’s so many benefits that we’ve gained from it. And I think that’s really helped us grow, and provide a lot more efficiency down the line as we’ve kind of created this company.
Josh Hadley 00:04:25  Yeah. You know, I love that analogy. You talked about like, a house. How many times do people like right before you’re about to move? You go and renovate the house so that you could get the top dollar on the real estate market, right? And yet you look at and you’re like, actually, with all these updates, I like this house. I could actually stay here for a few extra years. And I like that mindset. You guys have built that with the mindset of like, hey, we are going to live in this house or in this business.
Josh Hadley 00:04:49  So let’s set it up. All of our processes that there might be some short term pain, but it will allow us to be able to grow and scale, and it will allow us to enjoy the process as well. Instead of always thinking like, hey, how quick can I exit this thing? I’m kind of putting lipstick on a pig when it’s almost too late, so to speak. So I love that mindset shift, and I think that’s a really good one for people to have. It’s like, if you’re thinking that you’re going to hand this over to somebody else to be like, well, here’s your opportunity for growth. That’s why I’m exiting. Like, they don’t they don’t really want that. And it’s going to be better for you to experience that in your own business. You let’s go back to go back in time. I mean, you’re an overnight success story over 17 years, right? So tell me about that experience. What did it look like from the early days to scaling past seven, eight and eventually to nine figures?
Yoon Kim 00:05:34  Yeah.
Yoon Kim 00:05:36  I think a lot of it. You mentioned short term pain. There’s a lot of pain. So, you know, a lot of late nights, the, the first couple of years were really exciting. When you can grow the company, you can hit seven figures. You feel like you have something there. You’re starting to make money. It feels amazing. And you feel like you have something there. But then when you hit that wall and you’re trying to figure out, okay, how do I get to that next level? If that’s eight figures, that’s eight figures. If that’s nine figures, that’s nine figures. once you hit that wall and you’re trying to solve those problems and the solutions, it really puts you to the test on, who do you really have with you? Do you have the right people that are gonna take you there? You know, there was something that was said over and over to me during those days. The people that are gonna take you to seven figures are not going to are the people that are going to take you day figures, and the people that you’re going to need to take you to.
Yoon Kim 00:06:14  Nine figures are going to be different than what you have, potentially what you have at eight figures. and that’s something that was told to us, you know, by multiple people, consultants. and we’ve been very fortunate. Like I said, we’ve had our core group guys for, you know, ten plus years, and these are the guys that helped us get, you know, through eight figures, through nine figures and hopefully two, ten figures, which we’re heading hopefully towards. So with all those things in mind, you know, those are things in my, in my, in the back of my mind, I always, I always wondered or doubted. Hey, am I going to be able am I going to be, competent enough to help get us to company to where we needed to go? And along the way, we’ve had to add a lot of, people that that helped bring a different level of expertise and help to us. but the core guys here have have stayed together from the beginning and done a really good job adjusting to what we needed, and really try to teach ourselves through what we needed to have to be able to get to the next levels.
Yoon Kim 00:07:00  also for us, I mean, Amazon’s been a big tool for us. I mean, we’re we’re really big on Amazon right now, I think. And I don’t know, do you guys use, these ranking services to see what sellers rank, where and where you kind of rank along that path? Have you ever seen any of those like Market Falls or anything like that?
Josh Hadley 00:07:13  I haven’t personally, because I’m not even close to the top of that list. But I know you are. So I know you’re looking at that. Where where do you guys fall right now?
Yoon Kim 00:07:20  I don’t really know what’s out there, but we look at Market Pulse. just kind of see who else is out there, who’s growing, who’s, you know, who’s really big out there and who’s not. we always ask our Amazon reps and they always kind of beat around the bush. but I feel like we’re in the top ten of all of Amazon right now, sellers. And we’ve done a really great job. But I think investing in the right platform that’s going to get you to those figures is very, very important.
Yoon Kim 00:07:40  And to be honest, the Amazon thing was kind of a mistake for us being on Amazon. And but once we saw success there, we just kept doubling down on it until we got to this point. So we’ve been very, very fortunate, with some of the, the growth that Amazon has had over the years. But we just, you know, from the beginning, we just saw how Amazon was growing and we felt like that was an investment that we need to make as a company. So during the days that we met Josh, the big thing was, you know, how can you get your meta ads going? How can you get all this external traffic to be able to grow out your, your Shopify site to get customers on their customer journey, to get the email list, to get the subscriptions up so you can exit. Right. That was the big thing that we were taught over and over and over again, and we went in a completely different direction because we were having success in this path that wasn’t as profitable in terms of valuation, and we just kept going at it and, until we ended up where we are today.
Josh Hadley 00:08:25  I love that. So you’ve kind of you’ve flown in the face of regular wisdom that everybody’s like, well, you’re going to have to. Everybody on your team is going to have to break off right when you cross eight figures into nine figures, etc. and you’ve you’ve proven that wrong, at least in terms of the core team members that have been able to stay there. and then in addition to that, rather than getting sidetracked with the valuations and saying, well, we’re not really going to be going to be valued properly unless we have a true DTC presence that’s taking up 50% of our Amazon revenue. And then we also have subscription in here right now. Those are the metrics that certainly are going to add to your valuation. But you and correct me if I’m wrong, it sounds like you got started on Amazon. Amazon kept giving you better and better returns as you just kept launching new products. And even though you know DDC wasn’t a big part of your business, you kept focusing on Amazon. And that was probably one of your biggest growth levers.
Josh Hadley 00:09:16  Is is that true? Did you guys start on Amazon, and how long did you guys exclusively focus on Amazon before you dip your toes in other things?
Yoon Kim 00:09:22  Yeah, so we were doing PPC back at 17 years ago, and for the first 5 or 6 years, we were doing everything else except Amazon. Back then, we were doing a ton of eBay, and one day we just saw eBay numbers start to do this, and then Amazon numbers start to do that. And we and we saw where the trend was heading. And when we saw that happening, we just kept doubling down on it and learning Amazon inside and out. So we were doing Google PPC ads. We were doing different brands. we’re doing a whole bunch of different products that were, you know, out there that have nothing to do with each other. So we had, you know, 20 different SKUs. We were doing 20 different things. And then, you know, as we start, how we got the manufacturing was and this kind of worked until the story was, we were working with manufacturers that were not really clean and not really good in terms of timelines, and they were always jacking up prices.
Yoon Kim 00:10:07  So we met some of these people and we thought, how hard could it be? Right. Turns out it was pretty hard. But we got into it and we started making products for ourselves. And then people started kind of asking for help. They said, oh, we noticed you have something here. Can you, can you make something for us? And as we start making products for other people, we had a lot of leftover ingredients, that were, that were made for premium products. So we said, what can we do with this? You know, this vitamin C that’s leftover, you know, what can we do with this? It’s a premium gradient that’s really, really good, high quality. And we and when Amazon came around we said, well, why don’t we just list on Amazon, make a vitamin product and see how it goes? People take vitamin C and that really took off. but we feel like one of the biggest things that we did maybe differently than other companies at that point was everyone were.
Yoon Kim 00:10:46  Was I think he talked about this in other podcasts. talks with other people is when people were buying fake reviews and they were kind of gaming the system for Amazon. We just stayed off of all of that stuff. So in the early days when people were getting ban, since we stayed off, we were one of the few companies that were, you know, doing this white hat and really gave us an advantage, I think gave us longevity. And that is a portion of, you know, building your company for a quick exit compared to building a company to scale that you want to keep, maybe long term because you would do things differently. I think that’s one of the things we did differently. We sacrificed revenue and profit on the on the on the temporary short end for the long game. And that really seemed that paid off. And I think that’s one of the things that Amazon really did commend us on early on in the days when we were working with refs, was it’s they were fascinated by the fact that our account was so clean the way it was.
Yoon Kim 00:11:30  and every, every prosper, you know, expo we went to every, you know, tips and tricks, conventions or different things that we went to. It was always, oh, you know, you could do this and you could do that. And we just kind of always never did it because we knew it was going to get in trouble. And I think that’s something that really helped us in the early days to be able to scale. So that’s kind of how we started on Amazon was we had all these ingredients that were for premium products and we thought, hey, we can make some products out of this. And it really took off. So as we went through a couple of, transactions where the ownership went out and the ownership came in, they were really adverse to making claims and doing things that were, claim related. So we went straight into, vitamins and minerals and different powders that didn’t meet to make claims so that people, if they wanted to buy vitamin C to provide vitamin C, if they want to buy a protein powder, they want to buy a protein powder.
Yoon Kim 00:12:11  We didn’t advertise for weight loss or this or that and kind of got away from that. And and that’s where we really started doubling down on that model. And that’s when New Castle was born and that’s what started taking off.
Josh Hadley 00:12:21  So what year was that? Because it sounds like you almost kind of had like a pivot in your business, right? In those 17 years where it’s like eBay, then you got into the manufacturing, then Nutri cost as we know it today.
Yoon Kim 00:12:30  I think it was around 2020, 2015. I believe 2014 or 2015 was when we made that pivot.
Josh Hadley 00:12:36  Okay, so it’s been ten years. So your first seven years was kind of what a little bit of eBay doing. Some of the, you know, Google PPC and manufacturing then.
Yoon Kim 00:12:45  Yeah, basically set up the kind of gave us a background on how to do e-commerce on the PPC level, and it gave us infrastructure to set up our three PL business and then our manufacturing business. So that really is what helped got us going.
Yoon Kim 00:12:56  And then, that’s how each of us got born.
Josh Hadley 00:12:59  Love it. So then in 2015, is that the inflection point where at that point you just doubled down on Amazon? Did you ever get distracted with trying to go the DC route or what?
Yoon Kim 00:13:08  Absolutely. Yeah, we were we were we were distracted quite a bit because we were trying to figure out what everyone else was doing that we couldn’t do. And, you know, like I said, we had a brand that was very I would say it’s not very sexy. You know, we didn’t we weren’t flashy. We didn’t have influencers, we didn’t have social media going crazy. we weren’t making claims. it was really hard to market for because, like, when you try to sell a vitamin C pill, you know, like how, you know, how can that be if you’re not talking about music, for example, you just talk about vitamin C. So it was a challenge in the in the beginning and were trying to find different, unique ways to do it.
Yoon Kim 00:13:43  come to find out, Amazon was a perfect, leverage point that helped us kind of blow that up without compromising, you know, some of the principles that we were trying to follow at that point.
Josh Hadley 00:13:51  That makes sense. So how do you separate yourself on Amazon then? Right. Is it if you’re essentially, let’s call it a commodity of vitamin C, right. Is it not if you’re just marketing it as vitamin C, nothing extra special, no claims, no anything. Is it just like the lowest price wins or how do you compete in that type of market?
Yoon Kim 00:14:10  Yeah, I mean, I think you guys have talked about this in previous talks as well, but being really careful in how you source, how you develop products, how you price products and how much attention you, you pay to the presentation of your product, as well as, paying attention to reviews and making sure that you’re paying attention to what the customer needs are, is foremost the most important thing. So we were obsessed, obsessive about reviews, making sure the quality is matching up with, what people are wanting and what people are saying.
Yoon Kim 00:14:36  So if we had a product that we would launch and it would do poorly. No matter how much we had spent to launch our product, we would pull it and we would just, you know, take this out and either rebrand it as something else or trash it, because we were really committed. And knowing that the reviews are going to drive, whether a company could believe, or a customer could believe a company like us. Right. Because that was the only point. And that’s the one thing I think that’s a great equalizer for Amazon that brought everybody, no matter how big you are or how small you are, is if you made a great product and people bought into that and it truly was a product of great quality, the reviews would show that, so really what we felt like Amazon really provided for us not only was a platform where a lot of people had a lot of eyeballs on, with buyer intent to be able to purchase, but really leveled the playing field quite a bit, at least in the early days.
Yoon Kim 00:15:20  So it gave us an opportunity to grow and play with the the companies that’s been around for hundreds of years, you know, and competing with companies over 100 years old. but we really did that at a level where we grew really, really quickly because we were able to double down on that factor, knowing if we focused on that better than the next guys paid attention to detail, we could have success.
Josh Hadley 00:15:37  So how? How do you beat these established guys? Would be my question, right? Going back in time and also today, how do you beat those guys that have been around the big name brands? If you’re not, you’re saying, hey, we’ve done everything white hat. There’s been no launch services that we’ve used. Everything’s been aboveboard. We’re not asking for reviews. We’re not incentivizing reviews. We’re not doing any of that. So if that’s the case, you’d like, how are you getting ranked and beating the other guys?
Yoon Kim 00:16:03  Yeah. I think, some of it was luck. Some of it was timing, some of it was, you know, figuring out some things internally to see how we could compete with the big guys.
Yoon Kim 00:16:11  I mean, in the beginning, you have to sacrifice some profits to be able to get ranked. we had to have a couple of hero products that really hit for us. the big point was the big growth that we had was during Covid when everybody ran out of vitamin C and some of these immunity related products. we came in when we were sick to be able to do what we needed to do to keep things going. And I don’t know, I don’t I don’t know if we talked in those days. I think we met during those days, but that.
Josh Hadley 00:16:35  Was we met in February right before the world shut down. Yeah. So we we were on the precipice of it all.
Yoon Kim 00:16:40  So in that February when we met, we were planning already, because in December, I remember there was news of things that were happening throughout the world and things that were happening. We were planning during those days. So when everybody was kind of chilling and doing their thing and wondering and hoping, we were planning and preparing and seeing what we could do to get ahead of it.
Yoon Kim 00:16:56  And I think that really gave us a leg up during those days. But, the one thing that we recognized with Amazon was if you made a great product at a great price and you had great reviews, there is no reason why a customer wouldn’t come back and purchase again. and a lot of times what we were facing was, you know, some of the big guys maybe did not really care about, Amazon at that point as much as we did because they had other, you know, other, battles to fight. They had different, you know, channels that they were focused on where they’re doing a lot more revenue, better margins. You know, Amazon was the last thing that they had to worry about. For us, that was that was our bread and butter. That was something that we if that was our lifeline, if we made that, if we didn’t work there, then we would, you know, fail as a company. So our focus on that was a little bit different for that reason.
Yoon Kim 00:17:37  but really what made what made it work was we had a stickiness to our brand, even though our brand name wasn’t known by name. People would pick up a product and say, oh, I’ve tried this product. I’ve tried this brand before. You look in the coverage, you have 3 or 4 of our products because it’s usually the lowest price. It’s usually something of a quality that they could rely on and trust, and they might not know it, but they’re gonna come back and purchase it a second or third or fourth time. So constantly we were focusing on with our Amazon reps was what was our, you know, what was our return rate looking like? What was our lifetime value looking like on certain SKUs? And when we realized, what type of stickiness that we had to our brand and how people were coming back and reordering at a high, high rate, we were actually one of the leaders at one point on people coming back and reordering our products. We felt like, okay, we could be a little more aggressive on that.
Yoon Kim 00:18:15  We don’t have to stick to that 8%, that 10% to 10%, whatever your goals might be for your ACOs. but that’s kind of what got us on that path of growth was recognizing that we had something here, where people would come back and purchase over and over again if we just provide them a great product at a great price. so then we started really laying down the infrastructure to get our sourcing departments throughout the world so that we can find the best stuff at the best price, and we start beefing up our manufacturing. We start beefing up our the way we do fulfillment. Early on in the days, there weren’t that many special people that were specializing in Amazon, so we really built out a staff that was geared towards doing high volume of Amazon shipping. before, you know, those logistics companies really caught up. Now everyone does it and everyone seems to be experts at it. But back then, you know, we were one of the few and we really just structured our whole business so that we could support that Amazon side of the business.
Yoon Kim 00:19:02  where we were rolling our wheels a little bit in the mud with all the other DDC that we had.
Josh Hadley 00:19:07  I love that. Okay. So if I’m to break all of this down here, you and for our listeners, sounds like you’re one of your unique selling points. And the reason why you guys were able to gain market share, have a good like repeat buyer rate on Amazon, was it? Suffice it to say, are you the low cost leader in your product categories when you launch into different supplements or vitamins?
Yoon Kim 00:19:26  For most of the times, yes, we strive to be okay.
Josh Hadley 00:19:30  And do you believe that that you’re able to be the low cost leader because you are the manufacturer yourself and you’ve become really efficient at your supply chain, sourcing the right ingredients, etc. whereas most other brands are paying a co-packer and they’re getting marked up. Is that is that the differentiator? Is that where your margin comes from?
Yoon Kim 00:19:50  That’s absolutely one portion of it. other people who are manufacturing can’t, you know, do this as well as long if they don’t have the scale that we have and it gets a lot easier with scale.
Yoon Kim 00:19:59  Right. In the beginning days, it’s all an investment. You’re, you know, you’re looking to break even. But it took so long to get from that phase to the other we were allowing. So in terms of timing and how everything worked, we had that DTC business that was really, really high margin doing really well. That was feeding the rest of the business. Okay. And through those times, we were able to get through those lean times. But once we got big enough to be able to serve, I guess stand on its own. You know, it was too late for everyone to catch up at that point. So when I mentioned vision and setting things up the right way, that’s where it all kind of started. Why would you start a manufacturing company? You’re looking at it in three years. Why would you start a triple business if you’re just going to, you know, exit in a couple of years if you really want to scale? How are you going to set up the infrastructure for you to scale? And that’s really questions that you should be asking.
Yoon Kim 00:20:37  And if you want to take your if, you know, I know a lot of you guys that listen may have an eight figure business. Really what strategies are they putting in and what’s ultimate vision of where they’re trying to go? And are they putting the right infrastructure in place to be able to achieve those things? I think in principle, everything you’re saying, Josh, is correct in terms of what I’m trying to say is we have the manufacturing set, we have the sourcing set, we have those things lined up so we can be successful and have margin on Amazon at a better rate than everybody else. and it gives us a leg up on that, as well as a very, very tight management of the Amazon ads and the different advertising categories that we have going on. but that’s really the heart of it is what we do well is making products in a very, very timely manner. So we don’t run out and lose rankings. Then number two, making sure the pricing is such that we can compete at a high rate with, especially as a low cost leader.
Josh Hadley 00:21:20  I love that. Here’s the other thing that I took away from your story as you shared it was this. You had mentioned that a lot of those legacy brands, maybe that you would see in GNC that maybe are more popular, right, that are more well known. You were able to compete with them because you said you guys were laser focused in on Amazon. Your three PL was set up for Amazon like everything was optimized, optimized towards Amazon. So you weren’t worried about like, well, we got to support our, our our retail, our wholesale channel over here. We’ve also got to support our DTC channel over here. Like it was just like everybody is looking at one thing and that was Amazon, which allowed you guys to go deeper and harder within Amazon and thereby reap the benefits of moving quickly, being able to spot opportunities more quickly, launch products, etc.. Is that a true statement?
Yoon Kim 00:22:07  It is. an example is inventory. You know what inventory. You know what it costs you to be out of stock on SKU, right? What it means for rankings, what it means for, you know, lost revenue.
Yoon Kim 00:22:19  How do you prioritize Amazon in terms of how you do your inventory control, how much inventory will in the stack, how much you’re willing to invest to make that happen at our. When you start crossing nine figures. Imagine the amount of inventory that would be able to make this thing go. We have 1000 SKUs. So for us and these are finished products are not digital products. They’re not, you know, paper goods. These are physical supplements that we make, in America and have on hand. And to be able to kind of manage that cash flow once again in an inventory in such a way that we’re wanting to make Amazon successful. we knew what it took and what it was going to take, and we had to make strategic decisions, what we were going to support. an example of that is earlier on, we started our brick and mortar business about two years ago, and we were constantly getting in fights between the sales team on the brick and mortar, the wholesale side and the, the Amazon team, you know, whose inventory is it? You know, what are we willing to commit to? And it was hard because we wanted to grow both sides of both sides of the business.
Yoon Kim 00:23:11  what we chose during those times, if it’s a good decision or not, was we were willing to let wholesale and brick and mortar go a little bit so that Amazon could be successful. You could feel that growth. since then, we’ve made the adjustments, to allow our wholesale business to be at about $50 million. We’re in Walmart right now. We’re in Kroger. And, we’re, close to Albertsons and we’re trying to hit some of these major, and more companies to be able to do a lot more volume. But the idea was back then, we were always making decisions for the sake of Amazon. during the Covid years, we would stop the whole lines at a time just so we could make products to be able to fill demands that came up during those turn those days. And the question is, can a company be nimble and flexible enough to be able to, know what their vision is and really fulfill and execute based on that? everyone wants to be lead. Everyone wants be efficient. Everyone wants to be, you know, whatever.
Yoon Kim 00:23:59  But at the end of the day, when when the when the crap hits a fan, what are you going to do? Right. What kind of decisions are you going to make? And for us, it was easy because we always knew what we were good at. What we were able to do, what we wanted to support. And that’s really kind of, I think helped us at the end of the day.
Josh Hadley 00:24:11  I love that. Okay. So Yoon, at this point, is there a focus in your guys’s business for retail? Right. Wholesale sounds like there is now. And DTC as well.
Yoon Kim 00:24:23  Yeah. So I think now that Amazon from a system standpoint, we’re very, very stable, in our growth, we’re, you know, we’re always it seems like every year we set a goal and we exceed. So that system is, I think, really, really stable. And we know it’s a process that works. So our focus is kind of shifted to how do we grow our wholesale business.
Yoon Kim 00:24:39  How do we grow our DTC. And we set some pretty, pretty big goals for this year. And we’re already on a pathway to be able to get there. and a part of it is also part of the valuation. Now that we are at a point, you know, what we’re going to do to be able to, you know, maybe worry about that a little bit more. we need to kind of diversify our revenue streams, and we’re finally able to do that. one of the things that we’re doing right now is we’re working with, like a celebrity endorsement right now to be able to kind of get our, brick and mortar going. and we’re really excited about that coming along. it’s it’s a pretty big name in the industry, and we’re excited to kind of have that come online. But we’re making a lot of moves right now to support, something more than just, keywords on, on, on Amazon or, some of the other stuff that we’re doing.
Josh Hadley 00:25:23  I love that you. This is going to be my question for you.
Josh Hadley 00:25:26  And this comes from my own experience of us. You know, kind of like taking our eye off the ball. My question is going to be this year, and then I’ll I’ll share my story. But the question is, at what point should an Amazon e-commerce brand begin focusing on diversifying their revenue? And I share that because that was one of the biggest mistakes I know that we made as a brand. We had success like our first year on Amazon. We did a million in revenue and I was like, this is great, right? But guess what? When I attended all those same e-commerce conferences, you were going to guess what everybody said, oh, you don’t want to be like, don’t put all your eggs in the Amazon basket. You’re going to wake up tomorrow and they’re just going to suspend your account like you have no control over your business. And again, we were similar to yourself. We’ve never done anything black cat or grey hat like it’s all white hat. So it’s like I can I can go to bed peacefully and I’m not worried.
Josh Hadley 00:26:13  Like first thing in the morning, I’m not checking my Amazon account. Worried whether or not I’m suspended. Like, if that happens, like, that’s a mistake that should be able to be worked through because we’re not doing anything wrong. And but I didn’t follow that advice that I now know in hindsight. And so what did I do? We started focusing on DTC heavy investment into DTC, creating blogs, creating digital products that we could sell on this DTC site because it was going to be easier, less cash flow issues, blah, blah, blah. We end up investing over 300, $400,000 into a channel that ultimately made us maybe at best, $10,000. So what a massive investment into a whole lot of nothing. Whereas if we would have taken those same two years that we spent trying to build up this other DTC stuff and actually just double down more and more and more on Amazon, we probably would have been 3 or 4 times bigger if we just would have put the pedal to the metal on Amazon and kept the blinders on, but just kept going on Amazon.
Josh Hadley 00:27:03  So that’s my experience. And it sounds like you also did the same thing, which is like, no, we put our blinders on and that’s why we now dominate Amazon. So what would be your recommendations and advice you on to other seven eight figure sellers that are hearing all sorts of sorts of strategies, even whether it be on this podcast, is like, oh, this guy’s crushing in D to C, I need to be over there. Oh, this guy’s got a massive subscription funnel that he’s doing. Like, I need to be doing that. How do you help reconcile all those ideas and strategies so that you know you’re focused on the right one?
Yoon Kim 00:27:33  Yeah, I think number one, you have to know what you have and what your ultimate vision of what you’re trying to create is. And I think if you’re sure on that vision, you’ll hopefully stay true to that and not let all these flashing lights distract you and get you off your path. If you know you have an Amazon business and you’re crushing it on Amazon, it’s very, very profitable.
Yoon Kim 00:27:49  You probably don’t want to take your focus off of that, per se. when are you ready to break away from that and build? I think when you have an excellent site, perhaps, when you have your infrastructure set up in a way where, taking your attention away from Amazon isn’t going to kill your Amazon business. I think that’s a I think that would be the distinguishing factor. And for us, like I said, we were stabilizing quite a bit on Amazon and our growth was predictable. And it’s something that we and that’s something I think they measured on valuation all the time. Do you have predictable healthy growth year over year? And if you can establish and do that without you. with you being able to pursue new projects, you’d be silly not to do it right. I think. What? So, 2020 or 2021, we had broken nine figures and we were thinking were, you know, hot stuff, and we’re walking around. Hey, look, we’re the big dogs here. And then we say, hey, where do you sell them? You say Amazon and they’re like, yeah, okay, whatever.
Yoon Kim 00:28:39  And we would just kind of be put in the back, back of the room. And it felt like nobody kind of respected us because we sold on Amazon during those years. but we didn’t let that I think we were making good money. So why would we let that affect us and who we were? How you know what we were? We had to be aware of who you are and be confident in. That’s what you do and that’s what you do. Well, I think in terms of, during those days, though, when we were trying to reach out to some brick and mortar, they weren’t giving us the time of day. They could care less how much we were doing on Amazon. They could care less how much we were doing as a company. so, we struggled through those days to try to break through. and at a certain point, I guess the point was when we broke 300 million. Really? That’s when they start giving us a serious look and said, look. And I think it had to be more the shifting of the, industry because, you know, brick and mortar is kind of I feel like more old ways of doing things.
Yoon Kim 00:29:28  the people in it are a little bit older. they’re used to doing things in a certain way of tradition and history and the way they’ve done things, and to turn their minds on the fact that there’s a world outside of brick and mortar was really, really hard. But I think they just came around with the times and recognized, hey, revenue is revenue. And a lot of times our biggest problem was because we sold on Amazon in the manner that we sold. It was hard to get our name out there and say, hey, nutritious vitamin C or nutritious creatine is really, really big. and we had to have a couple hero products products that did really, really well that we could lead with to get our foot through the door. Once we got our foot through the door, they realized, wow, these guys move huge, huge, huge volumes and we’re dumb for not taking them. That’s when doors start opening up to us and allowing us to pursue some of those routes. you know, one of the reasons we’re in 14 buildings is because we had to keep expanding manufacturing, because we kept growing, and a lot of times was it’s forced growth.
Yoon Kim 00:30:14  We were expanding out at a at a fast, fast rate so that we can have the capacity to do brick and mortar, to do more DTC, to do Tick Tock Shop. All those things kind of came about because, you know, we put that into our DNA of who we are. Growth is part of the things that we really value in our culture of the company. So to do that, we had to grow as a manufacturing. To do that, we had to increase our capacity in terms of people, and we kept doing that along the way so that we would be able to meet the demands that were coming in the future years. So with that said, you know, the decision to kind of break out and do more than just Amazon, it didn’t really come organically, but we’ve always wanted it to happen. We’re just waiting for the right time to happen. And when it did, we just kind of full embrace and kept doubling down on it. So like I said, we started brick and mortar two years ago.
Yoon Kim 00:30:54  We did $30 million last year. We’re aiming to do $70 million this year, and we’re excited where it can’t go with some of these big partnerships that we have coming up. and some of these partnerships, valuable partnerships that we’ve had. and it’s been nice because I’ve heard a lot of horror stories about doing, brick and mortar, and we were afraid what it could have been. But it’s been it’s been going really, really well for us so far.
Josh Hadley 00:31:12  Awesome. I love to hear that. And I love you know. My takeaway from that though, is like you had mentioned, as soon as you can dedicate resources or time in other, ideas or projects, but yet your current, you know, I guess the, the ghost, the goose that’s laying the golden egg continues to grow, which was Amazon for you guys. You had your processes dialed in. Then at that point, it maybe makes sense to go dabble in some of those other growth opportunities for you. And it’s more like, hey, make sure you’ve squeezed all the juice out of the single channel that you’re optimizing for first, before you start to divert your attention away to other channels and exploring things and getting distracted.
Josh Hadley 00:31:47  And I know that’s something that I’ve learned. That lesson of. Yoon you also shared, you know, your guys’s path has not been all sunshine and rainbows over the last 17 years. You said there was a lot of moments where you’re like, you experienced short term pain. Can you give us maybe more insights or stories, examples of what were some of the biggest challenges and obstacles that you guys faced on your way to scaling up this business, knowing that you guys haven’t taken any outside capital. You guys have bootstrapped this thing from the ground up. That is much easier said than done to have a 500 plus million dollar brand with no outside funding. So what are some of those war stories that you’ve gone through?
Yoon Kim 00:32:21  Yeah. I mean, you know, a lot of it had to do with cash flow. I think, choosing making decisions based on, you know, where to allocate inventory budget for inventory compared to advertising compared to some of these other things. because we have a manufacturing component when somebody doesn’t pay.
Yoon Kim 00:32:35  How do you go after that and make sure you’re prepared, you know, make sure you’re covered. you know, there’s a lot of months when we weren’t, you know, getting paid for payroll. so, you know, probably a lot of things that other people have faced as well wasn’t, you know, the end of the world. But we were the hardest part was when we couldn’t hit goals and we were hungry. And, you know, we knew payroll wasn’t going to hit this month. And all those factors are coming down the line. When your back was against the fence, what were you going to do? and as a leader, it was really hard to encourage everybody else to, grow faster or roll together and not, you know, have dissent or, people have different ideas on where the company is going or how the company is doing, or come up with these wild ideas of what’s happening because the imagination run wild in those situations. And it was really hard to keep everybody together from imploding.
Yoon Kim 00:33:20  Some of those hardest years was the first hundred million, I think. the goal that we had that we were going to hit, and I think a lot of that had to do with cash flow. Looking back a couple things. Once we hit that goal of 100 million that first year, the funny thing was the founder came in and he said, congratulations, great job. Let’s celebrate. So we celebrate. And then the next Monday came around and we and he said, all right, next one. So we had one day to celebrate and we were on our way to the next, next call. And shockingly, we are on a pathway to do that, in a couple of years, I think. But, I think it takes that type of mentality where you’re not, you know, patting yourself on the back too long. You got to get back on the horse and you got to get back to the grind if you really want to, the next set of goals. Secondly is I wonder if we did it the right way.
Yoon Kim 00:33:59  there are so many different ways to do this, and the idea is if you’re willing to commit, a certain percentage of your, money to be coming from a credit line or a line of credit or from the bank. And you’re paying interest on it anyways. Does it make sense to take a couple of chips off the table to fuel that growth with outside money? So is it really that wise if you’re doing it strategically and in a way where someone, hopefully you’re selling a minority share to be able to kind of secure your cash flow to get to the next levels. What really is wrong with that? Right. So I know, I know the path that we went, and it was the path that went and was really helpful for us because we didn’t get stuck with somebody who was always kind of bringing us down or put a lot of red tape into things, or wouldn’t approve certain things or suggested things for the direction of the company that wasn’t good. And retained control is really important back then for us.
Yoon Kim 00:34:44  but in terms of how everyone else’s path is, this isn’t the only way. There are other paths that are really, really, less painful to go through. And there are there are different paths that exist. So really know what your options are and choose the best path for you to be able to get where you need to. Might be. Not a bad way. So I’ve met with, you know, many different business owners. I’ve had great experiences with VCs and private equities and different investors and had things go a good way. And I think there’s more money out there, surprisingly, than you know than you would think. And if you’re able to get with a good investor, what’s the harm of a couple percentage points for sake of securing your financials to get to the next set of growth that you have?
Josh Hadley 00:35:18  Yeah, I like that approach even where, you know, is it a badge of honor or a badge of honor that you guys did it all bootstrapped? Sure. Right. But I like the humility to say, like, is that the best way? I don’t know.
Josh Hadley 00:35:28  Maybe it could have been easier. How do we give an up? A couple percentage points. But you never know, right? You and I was going to ask you, can you share one of those experiences where your back was up against a wall, cash flow wise? Give us the scenario. What happened? How did you ultimately make it through it?
Yoon Kim 00:35:44  You know, I don’t remember. I don’t remember how we made it.
Josh Hadley 00:35:46  You remember is not getting that paycheck.
Yoon Kim 00:35:48  Well, I remember just thinking, how the heck am I going to pay my mortgage? And how many months can I be late before they got to take the house away? And and did I plan this thing right? Or am I to invest into this company? I do remember late night just talking with my wife and worrying and saying, did I make the right path? Because, you know, I went to law school. I was supposed to be an attorney. I came out and, I didn’t do anything really with the law.
Yoon Kim 00:36:11  And I was eight years into his career and or, oh, five years into his career. And I was thinking, you know, am I doing the right things? And it really makes you doubt whether you take the right path or not. sure. There’s a lot of revenue. Sure, there’s a lot of profits. But every year it’s like we don’t have enough money to do this. We don’t have enough money to do that. That’s what it always felt like. and some of those constraints and, and being in e-commerce, everybody’s experiencing something else. Like I see everybody out there like, you know, we were in Mexico, I was rationing how much I could eat or what we could, what our budget was for the day, and everybody else was living it up. And I thought, well, what am I doing wrong? Right? on top of that, the pressure to get ourselves out of it was such that you’re investing in an obscene amount of time to kind of get yourself out of this problem that you’re facing.
Yoon Kim 00:36:49  So just those late nights, I just remember, trying to think, you know, how, you know, what’s the solution to this problem? What’s the solution? The cash flow. How do I manage inventory? Better. where where’s the leakage? which ads are costing me more money? Maybe. I think wanting to work smarter and try to find better organized data so that you know where that leakage might be. you know, at those points when we didn’t have things fully staffed and systemized in a way that we felt like, you know, we were going way too fast and we didn’t have all the bases covered. I think all of us were involved in some of that data and looked at the data and analyzing and seeing where the leakage was and finding some of those points, I think were really it felt like a victory, huge victory, because we knew at the end of the day that what would help us out of this mess, but managing inventory and getting ourselves out of that and making sure that the advertising dollars, every dollar spent, was accounted for and was profitable.
Yoon Kim 00:37:35  It was probably the two things that really helped us get out of get out of some of those dark times.
Josh Hadley 00:37:40  You know, you I love that approach. And here would be maybe my $0.02 on this as well. It comes from that that profit first methodology. Right. Mike McElroy wrote the book profit first. Okay. And then Cindy Thompson wrote the one for e-commerce specifically because, like, cash flow is such a constraint for any like, physical products brand. Right. And you’ve got to have inventory. What she talks about, and I’ve had her on the podcast. What she talked about specifically is you’ve got to, like, carve out your profit and you’ve got to move it out and almost set up different bank accounts so that you know exactly where your money is going. This money is going straight back into inventory. This this money’s going over into ads. You brought up how important data is. And I would say this, like if you’re operating in that profit first, methodology, it’s better because you’re already assigning where am I going to put these dollars to work and you’re going to be taking some chips off the table.
Josh Hadley 00:38:30  Because if you just have 5050 or sorry, let’s say $500,000 sitting in your working capital bank account, you’re going to feel like, oh, maybe a little cushy, so to speak. Like, I can make a mistake here or there. It’s not like I’ve got some cushion, right? But as soon as that starts dipping below what you consider like a safe reserve, whether that’s 50,000 100,000, right? You’re then looking at things on a data analysis level to be like, where’s the leakage? And I think that like not being flush with cash I think is actually does your business a greater service because like if had you had taken outside capital, right? Okay, great. We have enough capital to be able to fund all this growth, right? You want to dig in as deep into those analytics to make those ads as efficient as possible, to make that inventory optimization as as efficient as possible. And so I think there’s again, there’s no right or wrong answer here, but I tend to I really lean towards like the whole bootstrapping.
Josh Hadley 00:39:19  Can you fund everything with your own growth. And if not, dive into the data to figure out why. Because it’s going to make your business stronger.
Yoon Kim 00:39:25  Yeah. Let me tell you one thing on that, which is a little bit different approach. And it kind of comes back to what I was saying initially with the core group of guys and who you have with you, a lot of the guests that you’ve had on previously, whether it be agencies or different things. Look, I’m not here to sell. I don’t have any programs. I don’t have anything. I’m just here just to talk with you. And I don’t know why, but we’re talking, and, And the thing that I always. It feels like it’s one business owner who’s over various parts of the business using agencies, using this, using leverage points to be able to run the business efficiently, to be able to make some of these decisions that results on these issues for us once it got to some of these points. The part that really helped us, I think, get through some of those times where we had these core guys that were here going together, knowing, treating the business as if it’s theirs, and ours, and working tirelessly to come up with a solution and that together, the bond between each of us to be able to do that.
Yoon Kim 00:40:15  I think it’s a lot different. More. It’s different than doing it yourself. And we knew we could rely on each other to come up with different perspectives, to challenge some of these ideas, to look at things in a different perspective and say, maybe there’s a different solution, maybe there’s a different way, maybe there’s a different challenge, or we should row in that direction because like you said, it’s better to be cash poor in that situation and to be able to ride it out and to look at profitability and to look at these things. And I think going together on that, was once again, the whole short term versus long term strategy, when you have one person that’s trying to do everything with all the day to day stuff that you do as an entrepreneur, I can imagine how you can do that and then still build a bigger business at that point. Who do you have in your in your team that you can rely on to tell you to your face how it is, how it should be, how other companies are doing it and what’s the best way for us.
Yoon Kim 00:41:00  And coming up with that solution together, I think, was a huge, huge shift from, some of the things because I when I was, I was preparing for this yesterday by looking through some of the guests that you’ve had on amazing tips, amazing tricks, lots of cool things. I don’t have graphs, I don’t have charts, I don’t have anything to show. But in terms of what I do have to share is how important it was from a personnel standpoint to be able to have key people in the right spots, helping you do certain things, and you as a business owner, being hopefully selfless enough to keep them interested from a from a compensation standpoint and being, not so greedy to be able to share enough that they have enough skin in the game to be happy and to be able to push through. So for for me, it has a lot of it had to do with, you know, short term versus long term. That’s what it really meant was, do you have the people that are going to be able to take it to the long on the long game.
Josh Hadley 00:41:49  Yeah. That is so well said, so well articulated because ultimately it does come down to the who’s in the In the business, right? And having a long term mindset and long term vision for the brand instead of A33 year flip, right? It makes all of the difference. And you and this has been fantastic. As we wrap things up. I’d love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways. And then June, if you feel like I haven’t added anything, that you think there’s something else that needs to be shared, I want you to double down on it. Here’s your chance. All right. So number one, my action item for you guys is to identify what is your single focus for the next 3 to 5 years. Okay. As you talked about the reason why they were able to scale to nine figures is because it was their single focus for a long time, and they were over. They were in overnight success. It only took them 17 years to get to that point, right? but look, that happened because of that single focus, especially when they started to see Amazon in the flywheel it was creating.
Josh Hadley 00:42:43  You. And I love your story that as you went to all these different conferences and masterminds, which you and I, that’s where we crossed paths. You heard different opinions from people that said, oh, why are you on Amazon? Like, that’s not that’s not cool. That’s not cool. That’s not sexy. Like, you’ve got to have subscription. You’ve got to have B2C. Otherwise your valuations crap. Now I’d say the exact opposite, like your valuation is on fire right now, but you had a single focus and it allowed you to beat the big guys because you are so locked in on Amazon, you didn’t have to worry about DTC, you didn’t have to worry so much about retail and the competing inventory and all of that. Like you were just able to go hard on Amazon. So that would be the question I ask for each of the listeners is like, what is that one thing, the one single focus that you can have and then follow Yoon’s path. Do not deviate from that single focus until you’ve got a team locked and loaded with processes, and the system is running like a flywheel that it is growing on its own without your involvement.
Josh Hadley 00:43:35  Then you can start dabbling into those other channels, those other opportunities that sound sexy and fun, but keep doing the hard thing up front. So that’s action item number one. Action item number two is cash flow, right. Understanding time and time again. And for anybody, if you want to scale to nine figures, cash flow is going to be a constraint. So that means getting really good, understanding your financial metrics and also having a team member that is dedicated to data so that you can go sift through all of the data and find where is the leakage in this bucket. Why am I not as efficient? Where am I spending too much money on on overhead, on salaries, on subscriptions? Software? That’s not necessary. Or is it? My return percentages too high for fees are too high. Whatever it is, you’ve got to find ways to return margin to yourself in order to be able to scale, launch new products, bring more profit in. Third and final action item. It comes down to who you have on your team.
Josh Hadley 00:44:27  If you want to build a nine figure business, it’s going to be all about who you surround yourself with. And you and you encapsulated all of that so well. I like granted, your core team has stayed from seven to 8 to 9 figures, but you have hired key individuals to help you scale to eight and then to nine, and then ultimately to ten figures. It’s been about finding those smart people that can come in and help solve really difficult challenges when there is a cash flow constraint, or when something’s not going right in the retail side or on the Amazon side of the business. Having those team members to kind of build it up, you can’t just do that on your own. I am yet to interview anybody that has a nine figure solo business owner or business that’s just doing it through agencies. I have not come across that at this point. And those are my three action items. Anything you feel like I missed that we need to double down on?
Yoon Kim 00:45:16  no. But the three this the three actionable items is like the coolest part.
Yoon Kim 00:45:20  I don’t know how you do it, because, like, people babble for an hour for an hour on your thing, and then you have to, like, organize all that data and, like, it’s awesome. the one thing on the employees thing is, the key members, how do you maintain them? How do you keep them? Hiring? I think is not easy, but maybe easy. How do you keep them on your team for long? For the longevity is, I think, the challenge. It’s a huge challenge. It’s really difficult, especially these days. so if there is anything to double down on, I would say, really focus on what your plan is to not only motivate and get the most out of them, but how are you going to keep them on the team for a for a long time?
Josh Hadley 00:45:51  Sounds like I’m going to have to twist your arm and bring on for part two of Building Culture and reducing Turnover in your business. Never. I’d love to for this. Anyway, you and final three questions.
Josh Hadley 00:46:00  What’s been the most influential book that you’ve read and why?
Yoon Kim 00:46:03  Yeah. Crucial conversations. One of my favorite books, dealing with, kind of interpersonal, skills and work with other people. But for me, I’m a softy. I’m a pushover. people come to me to complain about anything and anything and everything, but really turn that around. And having serious conversations with people, having the hard conversations with people I think was the biggest, value that I’ve received from reading that book.
Josh Hadley 00:46:22  That was a that is a fantastic book recommendation. Question number two. What’s your favorite AI software or either ChatGPT prompt that you’ve been using that you think other people should be using?
Yoon Kim 00:46:31  Yeah, I don’t do that. Sorry.
Josh Hadley 00:46:34  None of that,
Yoon Kim 00:46:35  My guys do it, I know. Sorry.
Josh Hadley 00:46:37  All right. Fair enough. All right, third and final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that you would recommend other people follow?
Yoon Kim 00:46:44  You know, I was telling you in the pre that, that I don’t I don’t follow any of these.
Yoon Kim 00:46:48  You know, whatever it might be. I always look at everything with a little bit of skepticism, and I always felt like, hey, like, if they really knew what they’re doing, they would run around and make a ton of money doing it. For me, I like Ezra Firestone because he’s kind of run his brand. And for me, it’s interesting because you and I were in his mastermind and some of the things that he’s, personal stuff that he’s been through and what he’s doing right now and, and kind of his journey. It’s just been really interesting to me. So from a just a the human side of things outside of the econ advice and things, which I think is great as well. I thought that he’s a good guy to follow and, and some of the things that he, some principles he has and some of the things he’s doing, I think is really interesting.
Josh Hadley 00:47:24  Yeah, he is a great recommendation to follow you. This has been awesome. Thank you for your time and joining us today.
Josh Hadley 00:47:30  If people want to follow you, they want to learn more about you. Where’s the best place people can learn about new tricks?
Yoon Kim 00:47:36  don’t follow me. I don’t I don’t need any. Whatever. if you want any great products at a great price. Com or look for new product on Amazon.
Josh Hadley 00:47:44  Awesome. Thanks again for your time today. Thank you.