My Path From Amazon Products to Agencies, Courses and Software

My story began with a product business, not a working agency system. After graduating, I tried Amazon FBA, then built an Instagram growth service before moving into cold email, education and software. Some attempts worked and others failed. The useful thread is how I used a capability from one stage in the next business, rather than assume the later results appeared immediately.

My first product success did not make the next one work

I graduated from Florida State with a finance degree at 20. After watching an Amazon FBA channel, I used $8,000 I had saved from work to order stainless-steel bottle insulators.

The first shipment sold quickly around Father's Day. I thought I had made a smart choice and reinvested the proceeds in other products, then lost the money.

I built proof before selling the Instagram service

I learned the Instagram growth approach by researching how other providers delivered it. To get initial evidence, I offered to work for people I knew for three months in exchange for before-and-after material.

Only after that did I put the results on a page and begin cold outreach. I describe reaching about $12,000 a month after a further six months, without a separate revenue or profit breakdown for that agency figure. Those are the periods in my own historical account, not a timeline for somebody starting today.

A platform change removed the offer

The follow-unfollow method was what the Instagram service depended on. I describe clients receiving warnings after a platform change and losing the accounts as clients in a day.

I explicitly say in the recording that this historical method no longer worked in that form. The capability I still had was the cold-email process that had brought those clients into the agency.

I sold a capability I had already used

That led to the cold-email lead-generation agency: helping another business get leads rather than continuing to sell the old Instagram service. Later I began publishing through the Cold Email Wizard account.

I created the Cold Email Mastery course and made about $1.1 million from it. That course figure has no separate revenue or profit breakdown in this account. As I directed buyers toward other tools, I began building software around parts of the same process; some products failed and others succeeded.

Client Ascension related reading: the productized-service guide examines productized services and an execution plan.

Proof and a recognizable presence became part of the process

I emphasize case evidence, content and staying with the business long enough to improve. A prospect receiving a message may investigate the company, the website and the person behind it before deciding whether to proceed.

I also describe the uncertainty of doing the first website, sales video or sales conversation. Once I had done something successfully, I no longer had to face that task as a completely unfamiliar activity.

Client Ascension related reading: the B2B content ideas guide connects an offer and an audience with practical subjects to explain.

Revenue and profit were different figures

The headline figure in my story is about $7 million in revenue across the businesses discussed, not personal net worth or profit. In the closing discussion of profit margins, I put the amount so far at about $2 million. The recording does not provide a detailed calculation or account breakdown for that figure.

I describe margins falling as I hired people and expanded beyond doing everything myself. My point is that keeping the highest possible percentage margin was not the same as building the capacity to handle more work. These are historical self-reported figures, not audited accounts or a forecast for another owner.

Adapted by Client Ascension with AI assistance from Daniel Fazio's lesson. The first-person narrative follows the source speaker’s account. Watch the original video