E165: Bryan Dunn on the Challenges of Buying and Running an E-commerce Business

[00:00:00] Ronald Skelton: And welcome to the How2Exit podcast. Today I'm here with Brian Dunn. He is, uh, the owner of, is it Everum LLC. Awesome. Thank you for being here today. And, uh, I think we're going to learn some cool stuff from you today. 

[00:00:13] Bryan Dunn: So it's a pleasure. Thanks for inviting me. I look forward to the conversation.

[00:00:17] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. So this, this was a little bit different. A lot of the people we interview, they bought multiple companies or their advisors or their lawyers and stuff. Um, I've talked to you once before you bought a cool little company that, uh, you were looking for towards building a, it's a cool, I would almost put it in that side hustle status, right?

You bought something that you could own and run while you still do what you do on your daily job. And, um, so let's kind of get into, I always do the origin story. Who are you? Kind of your background. I think people are going to love who you are, uh, from your, you know, education experience, your piloting experience and that type of stuff.

Let's, let's let everybody know kind of who you are and then what in the world convinced you to buy your first little company there. We'll start with that. 

[00:01:01] Bryan Dunn: Sure. Yeah, absolutely. Well, thanks again for having us. Um, Brian Dunn. So I'm a, uh, I'm standing here in New Jersey where I was, uh, I grew up. I am a former army officer, West Point grad.

You can, uh, see my airplane right there. So Schnell helicopter, great aircraft. Um, podcast about, you know, that thing. That's a, that's an experience. Very, uh, it's a privilege to have served as a leader in the armed forces. A couple of tours overseas, you know. I always refer to them as kind of Hollywood tours.

Like they weren't, you know, very fortunate that I, I came and went, um, personally safe, that sort of thing. I have a number of friends we lost during the invasions and stuff, but what went better, and I don't know a single one that doesn't have I've lost a friend or so. Right. So, but that, that sort of started my career as, as a leader in the aviation. 

When I left the service, so my wife and I, we started to have children. We made a very conscious decision to come back home, put the roots down, raise our children in the manner that we were raised. Deep roots in a single location. Um, she and I had moved five times in six years. That's our first, first time in the army.

So like that was just a decision we made and we're still near our grandparents or the kids grandparents. So, um, I got out of the army and, uh, actually I went to work for the Boeing company after a couple of, uh, small periods. You know, I was a recruiter for a while, I built 32 houses right before the housing crash. That's all, like I said, that's a whole other story too. But I ended up working for the Boeing company, uh, became a finance manager. Did a lot of earned value management that it's a, it's a federal government kind of thing.

If you know what I'm talking about, you know the pain of that. uh, but then I spent the last 15 years or so moving through the supply chain on the defense industrial base, right? Started the OEM. And left that to a company called L3, um, represented five divisions of that company to the boat back to Boeing and sold our products back to the folks that I had just worked for.

And a couple of years after that moved once again, down the supply chain to a sub component manufacturing turnaround. And now I'm selling back up into the, into the broader mix. Right. So that's sort of, that's where I've been business development and finance for, uh, the defense investor base. It's a great place.

I mean, it is absolutely so needed, right? Like if you follow me on Twitter, you'll see, I talk a lot about it. Um, sometimes, you know, it's like, it's important and people think of it in one way, but it is really the nation's defense, and that has never changed since my time in the service. Um, I will use one line and then we'll kind of get off of defense, but it's like your proximity to the fight is not, or your, your value to the fight is not always measured by your proximity to it.

Right. So that's kind of the industrial side of that. So my background comes in that I have an engineering degree, uh, but thank God I'm not an engineer for a living because, uh, I've learned that I draw, I drawn crayon much better than like decimal points. So yeah, business development, uh, I do enjoy, uh, creating new programs, new products, like that's lovely.

I love that a lot and building relationships. Cause in my world takes a long time to get anything done. It just, it does, you know. It could be take seven years to get a wholesale cycle, you know? So that's kind of what I've gotten used to um, which can be hugely frustrating. And I think that part of, uh, my desire to build things kind of led me down the path of in, you know, getting involved in the acquisition, uh, entrepreneurship side. An MBA at Drexel university.

And, uh, did a lot of innovation, entrepreneurship studies, and just thought this was fantastic. I had never in my life growing up, thought you could buy a company. You know, like, and maybe buy a company. Yes, you can. And there's, there's an entire bookshelf, you know, about talking to how to do it. know, and, and, and these types of conversations now, uh, very valuable to help someone like me who didn't come from business, my parents were teachers, you know. We never knew anything about business, getting into it and kind of understanding.

So family guy. Uh, three kids. Now we're still in South Jersey. So I do a lot of traveling for work, which leads into the kind of business that I did buy. I think last year I had 26 or 27 weeks on, on the road, which takes its toll. It's not easy to do that. And there will be people on this listening who say 27 weeks.

That's nothing, you know. I did 47 weeks. Yeah, I can get you. I could have done 47 too. And it shows a lot of, uh, thank God the remoteness, uh, post pandemic has made a lot of things easier to do. But yeah, so I'm a traveling business development, uh, leader in a small privately held company.

General digital is my, my company right now and it's a great place and 50 years old. It's wonderful. And I'm their vice president. 

After a while I got to a point in my life where, and this is going to take a big left swing where I, I made a decision to stop drinking alcohol three and a half years ago. Best decision of my life. Minus maybe you can't see her, but you know, getting married, going to the army like that's best decision.

Absolutely right. And I found myself in hotel rooms rather than bars after a 12 hour day on my office, uh, with nothing to do except maybe watch a bunch of YouTube about buying businesses, figure out something that's going to work. Uh, why, what would I, what would I do? And, uh, it is an e commerce business that I bought.

Vermin's an e commerce business. Builds a, uh, builds a book. It's called a goal journal. I got my copy right there. And, um, it's a nice little product, you know. Simple, straightforward. I'm an achievement oriented kind of individual. And this is about how to build and track and achieve the goals you want to do.

And it spoke to me from a topic standpoint. A hundred percent really enjoy it. I like the product is an interesting thing. I was working towards buying an e commerce business and I put bids on three or four and I was always late and I wasn't organized. Buyer. And ironically, this, uh, became one of the ones that was for sale that I had a chance and I missed it the first time around, but I did buy a couple of them.

And I started using it and then my pursuit, the pursuit goal journals, the name of the product, uh, my pursuit was to be a better business buyer. You know, and I used it over the course of several weeks and months to kind of just track all the activities I needed to do prepare right, for that opportunity.

You know, what is luck? Luck is the intersection of preparedness and opportunity. So I started doing daily actions to be a better business buyer. Got my finances in order. I got the types of advisors I needed from accounting and legal. I had all of my ducks in a row. So when the next opportunity to come up, I moved very quickly. And so it was Everum, it was the Pursuit Gold Journal came up next. Uh, came back around again.

Um, the person who had bought it had some health issues and they needed to sell it. And I was able to buy it from that person, um, very quickly. And we needed to close before a major operation they were going to have. And, um, we did it in nine days from first contact to, uh, formal signing of the papers.

Super fast. would not have been able to do, nor do I recommend you do necessarily. Uh, if I had not been laser focused and using a tool to kind of become a better business bar. Um, and had all everything in a row. So, so yeah, so I'm, I'm searching for this e commerce business and, uh, and you may, you may ask, you haven't asked, but it's on my mind.

It's like, well, Brian, what in your background says you should be an e commerce business owner? And I wish I knew who to, who to give this to give credit to this, but I saw it on, on the small business Twitter and it was old meme somebody posted and it said, we do this not because it's easy. But because we thought it was.

[00:09:26] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I've seen that one. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:09:29] Bryan Dunn: That is the best way to describe getting into the e commerce space. Because it's easy because we thought it would be.

[00:09:35] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, we thought it'd be easy. Yeah.

[00:09:37] Bryan Dunn: And uh, And so it is very true. So I I came up with a list of things to do. I wanted a high margin, high ish margin. I wanted small amount of work and I wanted portable. I wanted a topic that I would enjoy, you know and something that I felt passionate about. So as you start like going down the list of things to do to buy this this this side hustle business, check them all off. Probably the one I should have have checked would be e commerce.

I bought a lot of things on e commerce, how hard could it be? And I do marketing. Um, it's not true at all. And I don't know anything about Amazon at all. And that is two years down the line. I've learned everything I can about Amazon. And I realized I still know nothing about Amazon after two years of doing this all the time.

That is a thing, man. That is definitely wow. Wow. 

[00:10:27] Ronald Skelton: It's a beast of a application. It's a beast of a marketplace. It's one of those things you can, you cannot not be on it because it's such a big marketplace and you need to be on it. But to be on it is such a undertaking as far as, anybody could pop something up on there, but to do it is a huge undertaking and they change the game on you about every six months.

Yeah, right. 

[00:10:55] Bryan Dunn: So I, I purchased this online business. It's five years old. It's got almost a thousand, it had 881 reviews at the time, 4. 8 stars. Lots of great reviews. I mean, really Amazon's choice for a ton of keywords, like it was a good little business. And, you know, and I thought, well, surely I could buy this and not break it.

The owner's like, I only do a couple hours a week, man. Easy peasy. And I'm like, yeah, that makes sense. And I'm looking at the data and it's like, steady Eddie. Well, you know, big numbers for big, big numbers. Big numbers for me. Um, for four years running, I'm like, there's no way I could break this that fast. And, uh, and we bought it.

We bought it. I bought it. Um. We, me, my, my family and I bought it, right? So she's, she's along for the ride. So we bought it. And, uh, it was, it is a great little thing. And I still love having it and I got a ton of them and, uh, I love talking about it. But it is such a wide awakening of like that five year period has nothing to do with the next two year problem, you know.

The Amazon algorithm changes, uh, the new competitor comes in and it is such a microcosm of a really competitive landscape that is not for part timers that have not, and this is, I think, something that was a big lesson learned for me. Earned the right to only spend a couple hours a week on it.

Right. You can't buy that. That does not transfer like I could buy the operations of a small thing that's got other people working on it and they're building it. And this guy's been building this widget for a long time when I bought the supply chain. I bought the reviews. I bought the website. I bought the name.

You know, I have personally gone back and we are now trademarked. We're now in, um, Amazon's FBA or the, where, where you're a, a registered user and it's a special content. Like I've done all the things that the growth plan of the previous owners, like, Hey, here's how you grow this business. I just don't, I'm no longer wanting to do it.

I did all those things. And I still haven't earned the right for the kind of performance that he had growing it from zero to the six figure range. Right. So that is a great lesson learned that sometimes you can buy into it. And sometimes you have to earn the right to appreciate something. 

[00:13:26] Ronald Skelton: There's something to be said, too, about the ecosystem on Amazon.

The nature of the ecosystem on Amazon, for anybody looking at this, is you can buy, you can create a product, put it on Amazon, and do really well. Unfortunately, at some point, it's going to be noticed that you're doing really well. And the competitive nature and the way the algorithm works, somebody can create a similar product.

And I know people that do this. I'll give you a next scenario. I know people right now who farm Amazon looking for products that are best selling objects. And then what they simply do is they go and look at the reviews. Even if you have a 4. 8 review, there are some 2 and 3, uh, 3 star reviews. They look at the two star, three star reviews.

They don't go to the one star, because those are usually disgruntled and not informational. They look at the two star and three star reviews, see what the flaws are in the product, and then they'll, they'll find your manufacturer, potentially. Like, if you have it manufactured overseas or whatever. Like, I know somebody that did this with a tactical flashlight and made millions.

He read all the reviews, found out that, you know, one of the, the, this back spring that, you know, makes the flashlight works, the solder comes undone after about six months. So he contacts that what he believed was the exact same manufacturer that the other guy was ordering from it. It said, I want to, I want you to build this here, but he was electronics guy.

He knew electronics. So he said, I want you to use this creative solder. This great of wire and change you know, he basically told him and I'll take 10, 000 of them to start. So he made an order, uh, you know, basically ordered a shipping container full of these flashlights. Now what he did is he's put them side by side on Amazon. Similar description, similar title, but as he started getting cells, he didn't get those two and three star reviews because his lasted. 

Before you know it now he's got more ranking, you know. Now they're side by side and he's got a 5. 0 ranking or a 4. 9 and the other guy's got a 4. 8 or 4. 7 or 4. 6 at this point. And now, now he gets the majority of the sales between the two objects because they're, because they'll put them side by side and that happens constantly.

There are people who make. All their money by waiting for you to be successful on there and then mimicking your product, doing 

[00:15:45] Bryan Dunn: that, then actually bringing unique or original products to market. Absolutely. 

[00:15:49] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. There's that. That's, that's the game that's being played there. So there's a little bit of risk to taking a product like, saving you, say you had an off market product off Amazon. Market product is doing okay. I know you have a personal website for this, right? You have a website for this product. It makes sales directly off the website. If that was doing okay, there's a risk for putting yourself on Amazon because it's just a matter of time before you know, if you, if you're successful, you're going to have copycats. And they're going to let you know, the, I guess the game to play in that would be to watch your two and three star reviews.

Constantly watch them. And when things, when things start to accumulate and people say, I wish, you know, it's great, but it needs this or that. It's like, okay, how do I integrate that in before somebody else does? 

[00:16:34] Bryan Dunn: Trying to understand why the refunds are coming back. I mean, that is another thing that's very surprising.

If you haven't been a Amazon seller is, you know, I'm used to knowing my customer intimately. I don't know who's buying these things. You know, maybe I can like take a review and trace it back and look at their public profile and you can kind of get a sense of who they are, but you know, happy cat, 1975, like I have no idea who that person is.

You know, they bought my book. Fine. No, you just don't know. And you, and, and I, terms of service. You can't actually talk to them directly, you know. So it's a different thing. But if you get on the platform and you scale you can go from zero to a lot. Very very quickly. Which is the magic of amazon and that's the lore for everybody.

But you know my own product, uh is very different in the market. I mean i've literally got a shelf full of them, I've been using gold journals and journals my whole life. It's just like I like paper. It's kind of the thing i'm into. I appreciated this specific product. I mean, like I said, this podcast is not about the product, but it was, it stood out to me.

Right. Being different, you know, really focused on. Instead of a place to just barf my brain onto a paper and get it all out it is, it's a recorded space to be very focused on one pursuit, the thing that's most important to you at the time. And then, you know, I rewrite my pursuit. What am I doing this month?

What are the tests this week? And then I've got only three spots for three key activities each day. And it's that forcing function of like, how do I focus down on what is actually going to move the needle, versus just getting my grocery list into the book and taking away from that. So that's what really drew me to this product.

And that's how I use it still today. Like, what is the most important thing I could be doing? And I'm only writing that into the book and you know, it is, it's different, but it is hard to kind of explain to someone who's not looking for that. Right. So it has, it's called following, but to grow it up, it, it, people getting like, Oh, well, you know, it's got this, it's got that, it's got this, or it doesn't have this, it doesn't have that. 

And to your, your very big point, uh, read the reviews that people don't like, and then go look and you'll see there are 50 versions of this book, not far off in the last two years that have come to market. So that's a real thing, man. That is a threat and it is real and is not to be underestimated.

And that, that, that goes for any e commerce, right? 

[00:19:01] Ronald Skelton: And if you look at the way the algorithm works, if you're the only person in that category or the top of the person in that category, as soon as somebody's out there with you, doing well, your sales don't drop by a 10 percent or something to somebody.

There's no loyalty in the market. Just, and if they're priced the dollar lower than you or something even more competitive, your sales could drop 50, 60 percent overnight. 

[00:19:25] Bryan Dunn: And creating a new product and kind of turning it over and playing that game, that's something I didn't quite understand the, the implication of needing to do that.

This is a great book, but the algorithm thinks it's stale. It's been the same thing forever. So it needs, like you said, the new and improved the new version of it. So, you know, I've got a list of ways of improving this. You know, this is six months, six months, undated. Starting time. Let's do a 90 day version and it's more sprint.

Let's do a whole entire year. Some people don't like getting around a book that halfway things. Hey, I can, I can give you a 30 day. There's a lot of things to do, but that freshness Amazon rewards you for that. Introducing fresh skews, you know, you got your hero, the hero's going to last for a certain amount of time.

And then, so. Again, side hustle, what is the business, right? So it, it, it had that risk of being to go back to my earlier point, like, did I earn the right to only spend a couple of hours a week on it? 

[00:20:26] Ronald Skelton: Well, there's that policy, the whole get rich quick thing. Hey, I'm going to buy a business. It's going to turn up. Thinking, I say it on this show a lot.

It's like, look, when you build a business, it's yours to build. It's yours to figure out the product market fit. It's yours to make those first sales. It's, it's, it's a hurdle. When you buy a business that's up and running, it's yours to screw up. And I say that kind of at the high level, not realizing that there's cases where, you know, you run the market risk to have you bought something in the market shifts on you,

I don't, personally, I don't look at anything that were more than, say, 20, 30 percent of their business revenue comes from Amazon. Uh, it's just a gut, maybe I'm risk adverse more than I tell people. And, but, but a lot of it is, I don't like anything where a single player in the market can have a bad day and ruin my business.

[00:21:17] Bryan Dunn: Sure. Right. Amazon is that it, like I said, it, it giveth and it taketh. You know, and it can give you a ton fast. 

this 

[00:21:25] Ronald Skelton: Let's do a little fun part here. I don't get to do this in the show very often, but let's dive into your business for just a second. What is the business? 

[00:21:35] Bryan Dunn: Um, meaning like, how is it structured?

[00:21:38] Ronald Skelton: No, no, no, no. What are you selling?

[00:21:40] Bryan Dunn: Right. I'd like to say I'm selling a book, but really what I'm trying to sell you know, is your dream. I'm trying to sell you your dream. Like, you got a pain. You can't get to where you're trying to go. And I, as I say, is actually going to help you get to the thing you're looking for.

[00:21:58] Ronald Skelton: You're not, as I say, when somebody goes to the hardware store to buy a drill bit, they're not want, they don't need a drill bit, right? And they don't need a hole. The whole is a utility for something they want to put in the whole, right? That, you know, it's still part of the function, right? A lot of people don't get that.

You're not selling a book, right? You're selling a path to what they're trying to accomplish. Whatever that happens to be. And in that, if you got to look at your business structure and say, if I'm selling a path to success on a single pursuit, like, you know, goal achievement. The journal is a tool. Yes.

What's missing? Like, what am I doing, like, we'll do the three questions I'd love to What. What does it do really well what's.

[00:22:46] Bryan Dunn: Um, what it does really well already is focus you. It literally forces, it physically forces you to focus down because it is limited structurally. Like there's only so many lines you can use, which ironic because it's only got three a day, but it's like 500 48 in a year or six months. 

If you mold it all out. It's like, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff you can do, but every day it stops you from getting distracted. If you use the tool as it's structured, right, um, so it does that very well, I would say. 

[00:23:21] Ronald Skelton: What do you think it's, it could do better? Or what do you think as a business, now I'm not talking about journals, let's take a step above the journal.

Pursuit, pursuit of an end goal. What do you think could be done better to help people get to achieving singularity, you know, type goals? 

[00:23:41] Bryan Dunn: As a business, as a business to help people achieve what they're dreaming for. The business does not communicate well enough to its current customers and future customers, without a doubt.

Um, if you go look at the pursuit goal journals website uh, there's a couple of videos. There's a couple of things. It's not, it's not fully fleshed out even today. Um, and if you look at the YouTube channel I have, it's me mostly, uh, with my hair uncombed. Talking at, you know, four o'clock in the morning when I woke up thinking about it, I guess I'm coughing like, all right, well, work starts at seven, so I better get something done first before it, right.

And before the family wakes up. So it does not communicate. I think it's value proposition outside of the structure of the physical product as well as it needs to. I think that's a huge place for growth. 

[00:24:30] Ronald Skelton: And that's where I was leading. I wonder if you get there naturally on your own. Um, and then the third question we all already.

Uh, so my favorite three questions, and I did this on the last podcast for the guy too, is what are we doing really well? So we pat ourselves on the back. What's it doing really well? So we don't want to change those things. It's doing something really well. What could it do better? You know, what are the, and then the last one is, what is it totally missing?

And I have a gut feel for what I think you're totally missing. So if you had something that was totally missing, that would help grow your business, sell it, and get people, have people get it, and have people actually use it, what would you say is missing? 

[00:25:07] Bryan Dunn: That's a great question. Cause you know, we were talking before the show about, uh, if you've got to write a letter and describe who, you know, what you are, you're the chief dancing bear. And it's, it's an encouragement not to, as the owner be the business personally. If it's not a one man or one woman consulting business, like that's fine.

That's a structure. Go for it. Um, maybe what it is missing is more of a rounded out organization, um, that does the work and helps advance the mission, whether they are paid or unpaid. Whether they're influencers or whether they are somebody who can be a part of this and share in the growth of it. I would, I would say what, and this may not be where you're thinking at all, but what I'm thinking about from the last few years is it's missing, at least it's missing my mind share.

Because it is not my primary focus, you know, and we can, I'd love to talk more about the impact of this shot on my current employee and then 

[00:26:08] Ronald Skelton: we'll get there in a minute. 

[00:26:09] Bryan Dunn: Yeah. Right. That's a different thing. But maybe it's missing mindshare. It's definitely missing, it's kind of, it's missing the effort. I'm going to ask. I always default to that. I haven't done enough. 

[00:26:21] Ronald Skelton: I'm going to ask a leading question to get you to where I want you to go. All right. Does everybody that purchased it know how to use it as well as you do? Is it intuitive enough that you're just going to grab this thing and know how and why it should be, you should journal this stuff every day? 

[00:26:41] Bryan Dunn: That's a great question. And I can't answer you that because I don't, historically, I don't have a relationship with the customer. So that is absolutely missing is that relationship and feedback.

[00:26:53] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, that's what you're missing. You're missing a solid in depth relationship with the customer.

And I think you could get there by turning this in the journal be a product of a course or something that says, if you're out to see, you know, here's how you achieve a laser focus on getting your primary goals in life done. And it's a short course, but basically the journal, like, you know, and we have a tool to help you get there.

[00:27:22] Bryan Dunn: Yeah, it's almost secondary, but it's. 

[00:27:26] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. I think, I think that there's the missing is not everybody out there knows why they need such a product. And if you started with that, if you started the education, like, look, you've got goals in life. Maybe you floundered around for the last 10 years and you just not hitting them. You know.

Here's the step to create singularity of focus, which is written about in many of books. And laser focus on a one key element, you know, yeah, you can do other stuff through the day, but pick your top goal. The thing, the most impactful thing you can get done in your life. And let's focus on that. And here's a product to help you get there.

I think a course, even if it was just a series of, you know, say six, eight, maybe 10 short videos, five to 10 minutes each, that would lead up to the journal would do that. And I would, I would not offer any of that on Amazon. right. You want to capture those emails. You want to capture the relationship.

You might even start a small newsletter where you're communicate with them once a week. Like, you know, you know, ideas and tips and things that they can do. And I would find ways inside of Amazon, inside of my brochure, inside of the journal, is I'd find ways to bring them back.

right? 

[00:28:39] Bryan Dunn: Yes. Terms of service are very cruel to you if you break them. Uh, but you can send them. To your social media accounts.

[00:28:47] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I've seen every book I've ever seen open up says, Hey, if you want this free spreadsheet, you know, get here. Um, all of us do it, right? I'm in the middle of, uh, we'll have a book out probably before the end of the year on building rapport and B2B transactions.

Um, But every one of them that goes out there on the sleeve, on the inside of the sleeve and in multiple places in the book.

[00:29:09] Bryan Dunn: In the website, it's not well flushed out, but there is, um, start here. Right. Start here. And here is a link to a couple of videos that talk about, this is not your average gold journal. This is not a place to write your laundry list of everything you have to do in life. That's not it, I get a different piece of paper and that's a whole other product probably need to offer. The kind of the launchpad, but yeah, it's like the start here process and building that out as this is the big focus. Even more so than, um, spending and, you know, it's funny now that you mentioned this, this is a really good point because Amazon is currently rewarding people for sending external links to Amazon.

So kind of creating more of a flywheel. It's like, Hey, look, I need to create a communication, a dialogue with the people who would want to use this product. And through that, I go to the website. Which by the way, if you buy it from my website, Amazon FBA fulfills it anyway. I, I do not, I don't do any of the logistics, it's just the machines in the sky and Amazon ships it and they make their three bucks or whatever it is and they're happy and they're super happy.

And that came in from an external source. So I get credit for that. And if I can, you know, the Googles of the world. If I start my Google ad words better and point them to the Amazon, as I understood one of the consultants that I have working for us, uh, it's like four, you get like four internal searches equals one external, someone come in because Amazon's highly rewarding you of that.

So building the conversation, finding a way to both send it to Amazon, but also get it, get the email, get the relationship to own and where, where do they buy it from? I guess I don't really care, but I do care a lot. So that's a great point. And, um, I know that there is the third generation, my third generation of this book, because I've changed it three times now, is, is in the queue to be sold.

Amazon has a bunch of boxes. They're going to get rid of those first as it weighs out. And so eventually someone will see that. So I have this thing that says, go here to the get started part of that. Right. So I, that would be, if I was going to put down something as we're thinking about, I was thinking ads, I was thinking images, it's probably that needs to be the first level of effort.

You know, kind of reorder some of these things that I've been doing, um, and really build the off Amazon presence and dialogue. Is, It is a thing that's on been on my mind and I think, uh, it's missing. That's the best way to describe it. What is it missing? And that's it. 

[00:31:56] Ronald Skelton: right. So let's talk a little bit about like the impact this had. Uh, you, you work a full time job and, and this day and time that doesn't mean 40 hours, especially if you're in sales. It could be a 50, 60 hour a week job, um, in the sales world. Um, you've got a wife and you said three children?

[00:32:15] Bryan Dunn: I do. Yeah. So, uh, Yeah. Yeah. We are 12 is the youngest and 18 is the oldest and there's three people in the middle at 15. Yeah.

[00:32:23] Ronald Skelton: Now, what was the impact to, now I've got this other thing that is it's leave, you know, all businesses are living, breathing organisms that have to be, it's another kid. Um, it's, you know, you've got to watch this thing, grow it, spend time and energy on it. It's not two hours a week, even if it was in order for it to be two hours a week, you've already put in all the systems in the process to where you've refined it to that, right?

And then you got to be always prepared that that, that system, somebody throws a monkey wrench in your system and you got to re gear and re tool everything. So, sounds like you bought something that seemed to be a well oiled machine and somebody threw a monkey wrench in it. The Amazon algorithm or somebody put a competitor thing in there all of a sudden, wait a second. Um, that said, What was the impact on all of it?

What happened in the, uh, the space of your family life? How did that pull together? And then your business, uh, your, your company? 

[00:33:19] Bryan Dunn: There's a couple of interesting things. First, I will say, um, that the owner of my, my day job for lack of a better term, has been very supportive. He could recognize I wanted to do something else.

I can own a little piece of, of, of that. And he gave me a space, you know, we talked to him about it. It's fine. Uh, And on the flip side, what I have, and I did not expect this when I first bought this business. Is the level of empathy and understanding that I now have as an executive vice president in a privately held business, uh, the level of empathy and understanding for the owner of the company I work.

Like in a way that I did not expect to, to directly understand like, Hey, I am dealing with marketing problems. In his business in my business. I'm dealing with all these sales and, you know, can we get supply chain costs out, right? Like all of every single little thing you have in a business I have, I have all those problems.

Um, and I feel them more so. I mean, I have an MBA. The MBA I'm earning in the next couple, in the last couple of years, owning something is, oh my God. Like there's a big difference between learning it on paper, playing with somebody else's money, Mm hmm doing it yourself. Like when I had to strike, uh, stroke that check to buy this business, like that was in a significant emotional experience that I had to have my wife on board for, right?

Like, Hey honey, this is what we're going to do. Um, I've got a number of years of savings of our very hard work, uh, compiled a bunch of cash and I've got some debt. And I got this and I got that. Like, we're going to, we're going to figure this out. But like, this is no joke. We ready for this. And I got the go code from, from the missus.

Like, I know you want to build something. You got it. You got to do it. Right. Uh, so she was supportive, but I did not expect to be able to then go back to my boss and say, Hey, here's my list, here's this great idea I got boss. I just need a little bit of your money. And I'm going to go do this thing. And it's going to be amazing.

And, and when he, No, you haven't proven that yet. Like, no, like here's all the things. No prior to being a business owner, I've been butthurt. I've been like, wow, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. Harumph, harumph, harumph. And I might still do that, but very quickly I'm like, Oh wait, hold on. No, that's right.

All right. Step aside, put my shoes, you know, my business owner, my business owner hat on and be like, yeah, okay, get this. So in some ways it's now helped me tremendously be a better uh, employee of someone else's business or a steward of resources and just kind of get that. And I am in my first rodeo, right?

I got decades of professional experience. I have done billions of dollars worth of work, but those that's all public company funny money. Like that might as well not even exist. Well, I'm dealing with a man's real future in that business he's owned for 30 years and built from a very small business, you know, and now I've got one that I'm, I've owned for two years. 

And I purchased for a good portion of my net worth and I got to do something with it. Like these are problems and emotional sets that I think consistently flow across any business, regardless of what business that is. And it's also, uh, given me the humility to not just assume that I can do anything and proven that if I've really put my, my heart in it, I can make a lot of cool stuff happen and be creative and learn new things.

So like it's this it's this sort of it's one coin man, but it's got two different sides. And it's always spinning what side of it, what side of that coin am I on today, right? That's the other kind of emotional up and down of being a business owners. Like what side of the coin in my mind the worst ever it's terrible and I suck at all of this and I never want to do it again. You know, and fling that coin and it spins and it lands next.

Like this is, I love this. This is the greatest thing, you know? So 

[00:37:32] Ronald Skelton: I bet if I ask you this question on, on, on 10 days throughout the month, I get an answer differently each time. If you had to do this over again, would you buy this particular business? 

[00:37:42] Bryan Dunn: No, because I didn't earn the knowledge required to execute an e commerce business.

I, this is a great, that's a great point. This is my first rodeo as an owner. Really. Um, I had that, I had an LLC when I was recruiting, but it was a 1099 roll. It was a full desk recruiting house. Kind of not a business. This is my first real rodeo as my business ownership. And it has given me a little bit of humility that it is no joke to go buy something.

You better be prepared for it to go to zero. Don't do it. Right? there are ways to experiment as a side hustle. Now, this was a pretty big side hustle. Big experiment. It's still an experiment in the grand scheme of my career, um, I will likely buy something else. Perhaps the business I'm standing in because I know it pretty well.

Right. And he's going to eventually want to retire. Who knows? I mean, I'm not saying that's what's going to happen, but just, who knows. Right? I'll be better positioned as an individual and as a, as a professional to do this with these kinds of small experiments. So I would not have bought this business off the bat.

I would have tried to grow something, anything to just kind of get the reps under my belt of how to deal with the algorithm, how to deal with the back office system, because Amazon as a consumer is wonderful. Amazon is a third party seller? Oh. That's hard to deal with. They are not happy. They don't help you.

It's a labyrinth of craziness. Like it's very different. It's just very, very, very, very different. So I'd have done a smaller experiment first, taken a single paycheck, started a something just to figure it out. Maybe I still would have done it a year later. That's, that's my answer to that question on today.

[00:39:36] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, there is definitely something to be said, like I'm 50, 51 or 52? I'm 51. I have to do the math. Um, I'm 51 and I've started dozens of companies. Many have failed. Some of them have succeeded. I've sold a few, you know, still own a few. But had I not had that experience, would I be prepared to buy something that's up and running?

I'll tell you, even with all the experience I've had, I know my lane. And right now, if somebody said, Hey, I'm a billionaire, I love who you are, and I'll buy you, I'll help you buy anything you want to do. I'll back you. I wouldn't go out and buy a hundred million dollar company because I'm not the CEO. Not with less I could, you know, work with him.

Especially if that, if that billionaire said, you're the CEO. I was like, I'm not the CEO of a hundred million dollar company. There is something to be said for, there's a different skill set it takes to run something that's a startup from zero to, you know, a hundred thousand, 200, 000, you know, a million dollars, than it does to take it from that level to the next level.

Each one of these tiers take different skill sets and you either need to be able to adapt and learn really fast or be able to step out of that seat and put somebody else in it. So, that said, I did the same thing you did with one of the first things I've acquired. I bought it too small. I would, I would venture to tell you that if you were to do this again, don't buy, if you're going to buy something, don't buy anything to where it's small enough that if it depends on you to screw it up.

And you to do all the work, that it's going to, it could fail. I would buy, you know, for me, I don't look at anything that has less than 10 employees unless it's something I know, like newsletters, blogs, I already have writers, I already have people on staff for that stuff. Newsletters, blogs, stuff like that, I'm interested.

The one I was telling you about for the show, they have 21 employees. Wow. Yeah, that's, yeah. It's a good sized company. That said, you know, owner steps away and I don't know how to do some aspect of their business. There's probably three other people in there that do, right. And there's probably three people, two of those three probably know how to do it better than I could figure out in the first six months trying, right?

There's gotta be somebody there that already has that skill set and that's the one thing I look for is like what are all the aspects? What are the you know, you can't know the unknown. There's things like there's a you know what you know, all right, and you know what you don't know, but the big unheard of is you don't know what you don't know. I unknowns 

The unknown unknowns are the ones that will get you and how fast can you learn? so that's, that's something to be said about if you, when you go down this path again, I would, you know, I wouldn't, don't be scared of doing it again, but do something so big, find something so big to where if they fired you as CEO, there's money there to hire somebody else.

And all you have to do is set back and you're the investor in it, right? Um, use leverage all you need to do. Do you'll use SBA, use whatever you have to use to get, get your hands on it. But make sure it's something to where, it could run despite you. 

[00:42:44] Bryan Dunn: No, well, absolutely. I mean, you know, it's funny cause it's, that's like, um, my day job.

I don't do all the work. No, the owner doesn't do all the work at all. He does a ton of work cause it's just, it's his personality. It's just, he can't, he will outwork you. it might not be this, you say he's, he will say he's not the smartest, but he will outwork you. And there's something to be said for that as well.

And sometimes you got to let some things go and then, do things to help other people. So like, it's part of the training in the, in the army. I mean, I w I was brought up as a leader to realize that you got to rely on your people. And your job as a leader is to help the team be successful on their own terms.

Like here is my intent. Here's the end state. Do you have the resources you need to get there? Go use your creativity. Check in with Muni again. I'll put some guardrails that, you know, can't go this way, that way, but within these bounds, go do your thing. I, I, I lead a couple of functional teams in the company.

And sometimes I feel guilty because it's like, I'm not doing enough work. I'm like, it's not my job to do that job. Right. That person's got to do that job. You know, and I will give you a vision and where you got to get to and then make sure you've got resources like that's, that's what I do at work.

For ever. Um, I do that because if I'm doing everything. Right, Everything between 8 p. m. And midnight, most nights. And it's a very different sort of thing. And actually, finally, I wrote down before we were talking about, like, One of the things I've been doing this last summer is getting technical help. Uh, the backside of Amazon, the people who are like, it's going to take me 45 minutes to figure out what to click.

And when I finally click, I'm going to be really afraid of being like, click. This person's like, I did that in 10 minutes and it was no big deal. You're good. Like we're good. Yeah, I can't see the vision of the NCAA of where it's going, but I, I no longer have to try to beat my head against the technical wall.

'cause it's, let's be clear, I will never be super awesome at the backside of Amazon. It's not gonna happen. I don't want it to happen. It's not why I bought the business. I bought the business. 

[00:44:57] Ronald Skelton: Well, you're passionate about it enough to spend the energy and time that Yeah. 

[00:45:00] Bryan Dunn: The topic of the book, not, not the, the algorithm.

I don't care about that. So, right. It's different. It's a different thing, but it is very interesting. Yeah. 

[00:45:08] Ronald Skelton: Anyway, the point is, is, uh, I won't, I don't want you to be discouraged from ever buying another company because this one was rough. Buy something bigger that actually can run on its own, that has, look around when you look inside of a company, get to know the different people and go, if I wasn't the CEO in here, maybe you won't give them the CEO title, but who could be my GM, right?

Who can run the day to day operations of this, day one better than I could anyway? And then empower them, right? Pull them aside and say, Hey, I just bought this thing, but you've been here for seven years. This thing's been in business for nine years, uh, or 10 years or whatever. I'm for your cases, but you know, if you had it, if they had a team, you bought a sole entrepreneurs business, which is tough to do.

Because now you're the chief dancing bear, right? Here. You've got to juggle all the, you got to do all the juggling. You got to keep the audience entertained. You got to, everything that, everything that comes down, it's all on you. Um, 

[00:46:00] Bryan Dunn: and that's leadership one on one. Right. So it is, I mean, the higher irony is that, um, no, I'm not discouraged buying other business and whether I said, what is the one I'm sitting in or not? Who knows? I'm not encouraged to, or discouraged from starting something either and kind of growing that sort of like, all right, this is a new domain.

And I'm going to earn some stripes and do it on the side. I'm telling you, like I said, understanding how to create a conversation with an audience through multimedia, all that. Like that's a whole other thing. And I learned how to do that for Pursuit Gold Journal. I guarantee I can help apply that to my, my regular percent.

So 

[00:46:37] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, the lessons learned will be so valuable inside of this. I'm old enough at this age and been around the entrepreneur thing.

When I started looking at what, what to do next, the idea of having to go through 10 ideas or 15 and spend six months on each one of them to see if I can get product market fit.

And I can do it. I'm, I'm fast with it. I can detect it, but that's the statistics of it. I know the numbers. I've been around it long enough that I was like, okay, it's going to take, you know, if I hit it the first time, great, but it's not unheard of that it's going to take, you know, six months, eight months, a year at each attempt, because some things look misleading to try something and put money into it, but time and energy into it to see if it know. 

If you've got something you're super passionate about and you've just, you can't lay it down as an entrepreneur, go for it. Earn your wings, go out there and try that. You know, if you're right, you're right. If you're wrong, you learned a lesson, you learned some valuable stuff.

But, um, there's something to be said and, and the market really needs acquisition entrepreneurs. So I don't think people really gather what's happening here. There's a, there's a thing we've nicknamed the silver tsunami. But yeah, there are 

[00:47:47] Bryan Dunn: Talking from two, two dudes with a silver on our team. 

[00:47:50] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. Uh, there's a level right above us, right?

We're, we're, we're in our late forties, early fifties, but there's people in their sixties and seventies and they own billions of dollars worth of companies and they need to retire out and there's not enough current, you know, there's, there's argument with this. There's people that said there are, and there aren't. There's not enough current buyers to buy up the small to medium sized companies, right?

[00:48:16] Bryan Dunn: Obviously. But some of them are really sellable and they need it. 

[00:48:20] Ronald Skelton: Yeah. And some of them become unsellable because the owner sets in the seat too long and they go through declining phases before they get sold. Right. Some of them are 

[00:48:32] Bryan Dunn: still the chief dancing bear, you know. And without it, you can't sell it, you can't sell the bear.

[00:48:36] Ronald Skelton: You know, I think a lot of them, I'd say a lot of, a lot of these business people say they're unsellable. Almost every business is sellable if they would have started three years ago, right. And started changing their focus and start changing their operating procedures. And, and, you know, They could do something with it.

[00:48:53] Bryan Dunn: Removing that key employee risk, you know, getting the subsystems down. 

[00:48:57] Ronald Skelton: Anyway, there's something to be said for just understanding that there's certain emotional, human emotions you're just never going to get away with, that'd be done with, right? 

You're always going to have a little bit of an imposter syndrome. You're always going to be wondering if you're qualified to do a particular thing or not. And the, before we end, I want to say one more thing. You said a couple of times are briefly alluded to the fact that you might be interested in buying your current employer.

I would tell you right now that most employers won't tell you that they're thinking of selling. Cause they don't want their people to leave. So if you're actually serious about that, start putting that bug in his ear. Say, Hey, uh, this is what I do. I'm interested in being groomed as the next owner of this.

If you ever decide to sell it, you know, I'd like to be on that radar and help, you know, we'll do what it takes to raise the money, do whatever. Uh, a lot of times they, if you just put them on that, they'll actually groom you, right? That's a great business device. Something you've already been working in for four years would be an 

[00:49:53] Bryan Dunn: Like you said, my comments to you and to our audience, like it is, it, it reflects the fact that I'm passionate about defense industrial base.

And in fact, I believe in the company I happen to work for. It's like, yeah, would I buy it if it's for sale? Damn right. We'll figure it out. Yeah. It's like, I'm, I'm, I'm already leading a sales team. Like I, I could talk all day long about it. And I'm not expecting that either the young vigorous owner, no problems.

Like it's all good. Um, but absolutely, uh, being inside the belly of the beast, knowing the good levers are and what they're not. That's that, that's a management bias happened all the time. Like, I think those are great, you know. Bring the team and, you know, and getting the next generation going on. Like there's a, there's a ton of ways to do it.

Right. Absolutely. 

[00:50:39] Ronald Skelton: The other thing you could always do since you've got such a good rapport there and we're, we're out of time really, but I want to go into this a little bit is look around and what would be a great strategic partnership for them, right? If you look around like, okay, if we were partnered with this other company, both companies could excel and then see if they're open for sale.

Go buy your strategic partner for your current business and say, you know, reach out and say, Hey, I'm looking to acquire something. I don't know if you're ready for sale or not. A lot of the best deals are out there are cold outreaches. You just cold outreach the CEO and say, Hey, you know, don't even know if you're in the market or anything, but if you ever think about selling, I would be very interested in it.

And, uh. Now, now you've got a, you know, you basically day one, you've got a strategic partner with your old boss. 

[00:51:22] Bryan Dunn: So that's, you know, it's, I'm smiling because it's like having the, you know, there are other people out here listening, thinking about doing that type of thing. And if you've got a really good relationship with your boss and you need to do something with that, I can promise you that that owner of company A would want one of the executives from company A to go buy company B if there's a strategic relationship.

Why? Because like I got an in. Like there's a, there's a, there's an ally here and we're moving together with a united focus. Maybe we're two separate companies, but it's called supplier, uh, buyer relationship. Maybe it's, you know, competitive or collaborative products. Like there's a thing, but there's a reason why you'd want to kind of have that deep relationship and trust.

And like, look, I've worked for you for years. I'm going to go buy this guy and we're going to go kill it in the market together. Yeah. And yeah, no, I feel that directly. That'd be 

of Amazon.

So here's the last lesson I've learned. Uh, Business is all, you know, we know this business is about solving problems. So pick the kinds of problems you want to solve and go do that business versus some other business. And once you learn the business, if you don't like those problems and don't stay in that business. As long as I like the problems I'm trying to solve, I'll stay in that business.

[00:52:29] Ronald Skelton: Yeah, I, I look forward to seeing what you do with it. I really hope you kind of create some type of course to go on top of it because I think that'll help it excel. It'll help tell the story of why the product is needed. Um, and you can almost build a loyal following around it and sell repeat. Absolutely. So, uh, I appreciate that. I look forward to seeing what that looks like. And I think we'll call that a show. 

[00:52:50] Bryan Dunn: No, Ron, I appreciate your help. It's been wonderful talking with you and thank you for your advice and all the crazy ideas I'm going to rewatch this and take some notes next time.

[00:52:58] Ronald Skelton: Awesome. And, uh, if you guys want to reach out to, uh, Brian, or you've got something you want to share with him and stuff, are you're active on LinkedIn? 

[00:53:05] Bryan Dunn: Uh, very active on LinkedIn, absolutely. And that. 

[00:53:08] Ronald Skelton: We'll find those. We'll put them in the show notes. We'll, we'll have your Twitter and your LinkedIn on the show notes. If somebody wants to reach out with you and help you give you ideas or, you know, maybe they got a little product that would help you, uh, You know, you could, they could do strategic partnership with you on, you guys sell each other stuff or something.

I don't know what's out there, but, uh, we have a great audience. If they can help you out, they will. So, uh, I'll make sure the contact information is on, on the show notes. And I think we'll call that a show. 

[00:53:34] Bryan Dunn: It's been a pleasure. Thank you for having