if you think people become end bosses at anything simply by networking you're deeply mistaken

it simply opens doors, what you do afterwards is up to you

and lol at thinking none of the top poker players had any network aiding their success, have you not realized just how many of the top players study together? how so many of them are good friends and even roomates when they started out? you never heard of grindhouses and stables?

you sound very naive and self defeatist, it's very sad really - you're the main antagonist in your own career arc - you should look into fixing that or you're just going to be a sad sack of excuses and defeatism the rest of your life

I give you some perspective on job recruitment from a recent grad in 2020-2021 and you lash out and go to personal attacks at someone you don't know lmao. Thanks for blessing us with your knowledge and wisdom on this forum, you have it fully figured out.

loma, i'm not attacking you and you know this, nowhere is there an insult in my responses, just calling you out on your bullshit and pointing out all the flaws and inconsistencies in your arguments

by all means, go ahead and make up bs excuses and lie to yourself, i dgaf, you do you

so guys, what job/career can you get that is similar to poker?

What exactly would you like to know?

There are two ways to get started. You can look at the things you’re interested in and see if you can identify a market need. Or you can try to identify market needs and see if one of them sounds even remotely interesting to you. First startup I co-founded was in a space that none of us had any experience in. Great business opportunity though and I could see myself getting at least somewhat interested in the subject. Current startup I’m involved in is something that started as a passion project of my business partner in a significantly more interesting (to us) market but also much more competitive.

Are you in ecomm too?

Had a few dms about this, maybe one day ill do some sort of thread.

Some bits of advice

1) whatever product it is you launch, make sure it isnt really on Amazon or something that can easily be 'Amazoned'

2) Also, youll need much more money than you think you do.

3) I would advise joining ecomm facebook groups if you're very newb.

4) Build a brand not another product, build a community and focus on organic growth just as much if not more than paid ads.

5) Its hard, its not a passive income.

GL

Yes. We operate a couple online shops.

For our latest business we decided to branch out and also establish a B&M presence. Both for an extra revenue stream and to add credibility which is pretty important in that industry. Thanks to Covid I highly doubt we'll ever again invest significant amounts of money in anything offline though.

Yeah im in same boat, bar the b&m thing (although was maybe thinking to get a small b&m presence if its cheap enough) Whats your niche? Always like to connect with other store owners, esp ex-pro poker players.

How you finding ads, its a fkn nightmare atm in the uk.

Our latest three businesses all target the craft beer sector from different angles.

Ads have been challenging. We’ve used an agency that got really good results in regards to reaching our target audience especially through Facebook but with relatively low conversion rates. Now we have a single freelancer who creates all ads and runs them on Google, FB & Insta. Right now we have paused the majority of ads though because less revenue means more free government money.

Where are you based?

CAC has grown exponentially and it’s a major issue for most ecomm brands.The new iOS changes are another nail in the coffin. Focusing on organic and LTV rather than 1st purchase but it’s tough on cash flow. This is essentially why I mentioned above that building a brand is worth more than just selling something online - at least if you burn money in certain months or have a downswing ad wise, you have an email list/social/community you’ve ‘spent’ the money on which am has a value and it’s not disappeared into thin air.

Can set up an e-commerce thread we can move this convo over there as a lot of this **** non e-comm people will not be interested in or care about.

Business is in Berlin, I'm in the US. Also not ideal during Covid times.

At times CAC has been so high that for a decent percentage of customers we need 3 purchases just to recoup what we spent on the ads to get that customer. Without a couple super high frequency customers who order once a week, I don't think the business model would work. But getting those customers is obviously a total crapshoot.

Another poker analogy: There are plenty of e-commerce startups that go all-in right away with a combination of their own capital and possibly bank/investor money (in poker that would be a staker) to hit it out of the park immediately. They go the high variance route to force high valuation exit or bankruptcy ASAP. Because of their disregard for high CAC and potential low lifetime value, the ad market is way more competitive for the rest of us.

Pretty sure there are plenty of e-comm threads in other parts of the forum. I just never bothered looking for one

(1) I just don't agree, I know people who have made a fortune wholesaling products on major markets like Amazon, Walmart.com and Ebay. The online market is still growing. I know million dollar sellers who do nothing but retail and online Arbitrage. Lots of different selling models. Even drop shipping can be successful with the right set up.

(2) True, you always will. Cash flow is important as you grow your business. Most people who start off doing retail arbitrage actually hit a wall when they have too much cash and not enough products to buy. They often turn to wholesaling or private label products next.

(3) True but if you are good at this you will soon outgrow people and forums of newbs. Could you learn to be an expert poker player by just reading 2+2? You learn by networking with super successful people once you are up and running. You also learn by not thinking you know it all and are open to new markets and ideas.

(4) See (1) , There are many selling models, there are successful people in all of them. I don't think you HAVE to build a brand to be successful. Its just one of many ways to be successful.

(5) Meh, I'm sure some would disagree. I know guys that bundle brand wholesale products via 3rd party prep services and use VA's to do customer service.
I think they are working smarter not harder. It's about as passive as renting houses and getting in management services to look after all the problems.

He was saying people shouldn't start selling stuff through their own shop if that product is already available on Amazon or could easily be sold on Amazon. That's good advice.

You'll always be a newb in a lot of areas though. Nobody is good at everything. People who are good at most things usually aren't very good at anything. The latter is a problem.

There are lots of ways to be successful in e-commerce. There are certainly ways to do it without having a brand. That said, brand building is the #1 advice basically everywhere that focusses on building a successful business. Brands help tremendously in retaining customers. Retaining a customer is significantly cheaper than acquiring a new customer.

Yes, some would disagree because they are very successful without having to work hard. Same as in poker, some people have to work harder than others. In poker some don't have to work at all because they get into the right games. Unfortunately, those people are in the minority. Most of us have to work at least somewhat hard. If it was super easy for everyone to make money in e-commerce, nobody would flip burgers at McDonalds.

Sorry that's just NOT good advice. It just shows you that a person who believes that does not understand how Amazon works and how the buy box is rotated. They don't understand the cost per click game either. There are many listings that have multiple sellers which should give you a clue that its just not true. Again there are multiple ways to be successful.
Very few hard and fast rules.

Tons of people who have done well in e commerce, that employ people much smarter than they are. There are multiple reasons to outsource.
I don't do my own plumbing or my Taxes.

Again, read what I wrote. I am not disagreeing but its NOT the only way.
You can still be successful without it.
There are multiple successful models that have zero brand building.
That's a fact.

I gave an example of a passive income type system to demonstrate that everything isn't black or white. I'm not saying everyone isn't working hard.
I'm saying, not everyone "is" working hard.

Even the OP has suggested he uses third party help to outsource stuff that makes no sense for him to do. What I suggested is an extension of that.

Outside of e commerce there are tons of business owners who employ managers to run their businesses while they step back and enjoy the profits.
That should be the goal of every business owner, if possible.
(and I know its not always possible in every instance)

My whole point is I hate it when people claim there is only one way to do something when its clear that is just false. One way might be the best way but its often not the only way. People find a niche or something unique.

The only way you will find out who is successful is if you know these people personally as they are unlikely to tell you how much they are making or how they are doing it as it only breeds competition.

FWIW you are talking to one of those people.

My answers are above, I think you are nit-picking what I'm saying. I'm not the gospel in ecomm, far from it but I run a brand which has done 7figs profitably, from nothing. You seem to want to argue with me or disagree with me for some reason ro compare what I'm saying to your friends who are doing x, y and z. You made a dumb assumption about my margin when you know nothing about what I do. There are millions of ways to skin a cat, people will be able to do what you suggest and make it a success and vice versa but I am just highlighting the things which are the rule of thumb if you want longevity and something tangible.

I would be interested in following an e-commerce thread.

Normal humans cannot handle risk or danger in anything like a rational manner. If you've won at poker for an extended time, you can, either by nature or training. Use that to your advantage when choosing a career.

If you're in shape and don't mind PHYSICAL risk, mercenary or "military contractor" could have a lot of upside. I've found the psychological profiles of these guys to be similar to non-wimpy poker winners.

If you're in shape and would rather not put your own life on the line, prospecting and/or small scale mining similarly has a lot of upside. I know several guys who own gold mines, and have gambled with two of them.

As an analyst specialized in organic marketing on social media, I'm interested in such a thread.


BTW, OP, what about being a data analyst? Like poker, you study numbers, percentages, patterns, trends, etc. I did a 6 month boot camp, first job after that paid 65k.

Not that it really matters, but how do you figure out if something is organic?

Uploading a picture on Instagram that gets you 20 new followers is clearly organic even if you pay for tools like Buffer. Putting up a paid post that creates 20 new followers is clearly in-organic.
But what about me sending a gift basket (potentially with a couple $100 bills in there) to an influencer? How do you as a professional know if I paid that person to share my post which resulted in 20 new followers? Or does that even matter to you as an analyst?

That topic is kinda interesting to me because we operate in a market where influencers are legally required to put a “paid advertisement” disclaimer with their posts if they get paid. But the vast majority of them doesn’t, so if we see another company being prominently featured, we have no idea if they paid for that or not.

If you guys tell me where this new thread should go, I can create the thread and move all relevant posts from this thread.

Data Scientist / Data Analyst / Machine Learning Engineer

Inside Sales Agent for Solar, very good money with all the climate changes, etc. I left an adv firm because my clients told me to chase solar. Hot market right now.

Any post on IG/FB/YT/Etc is considered organic, whether or not they were gifted a product or paid money to do so. This is what organic social media advertisement refers to, as opposed to Paid advertisement (think ads between YouTube videos).

Yes, 'influencers' (i.e. paid, social media shills) need to disclose when they are getting paid to advertise a product. However, the requirements vary (from #ad hashtags to 'Company X gave me this product to try') depending on the platform and whether or not they were outright paid, or just given the product. It's easy for most people to overlook these details. It's safe to assume you're watching an organic advertisement any time someone mentions a product on social media, especially obvious if they have the link to the product ('swipe up now to get yours', etc).

It's all advertisement. Many influencers have a ratio of about 1:1 or 1:2 advertisement:non-advertisement posts.

Yeah I’ve had a few DMs and people in this thread asking about an e-commerce thread and it seems there’s a few people on 2p2 who are in e-commerce or in social marketing who could network and help each other out. I’d be down for creating a thread and we can all contribute, help and learn from one another. I’ll set one up in

awesome, i would love to check it out, i occasionally work with eccommerce companies and would love to see how individuals do it