#316 – The Difference Between Success And Fulfillment: Nick Penev’s Story, Lessons, & Insights

In episode 316 of the AM/PM Podcast, Kevin and Nick discuss:

• 01:30 – Let’s Welcome Nick From Bulgaria
• 02:30 – Talking About 9/11 
• 06:45 – Nick’s Backstory And How He Got Started In E-commerce
• 15:45 – Starting A Private-Label Supplements Product
• 17:01 – Expanding Their Company To Other Countries In Europe.
• 21:20 – How Nick Researched And Picked His Products
• 24:00 – Trademarks, Copyrights, And Finding A Successful Product For Males
• 27:45 – Earning $5 Million Per Year On His Business’ Peak
• 29:20 – Getting Their Facebook Ads Account Suspended And Pivoting Their Business
• 33:30 – Is The Supplements Business Still A Good Space To Sell In?
• 35:30 – If You Have A Product That Works, People Keep On Buying It
• 36:00 – Exiting His Supplements Company
• 42:00  – Connecting People In The E-commerce Industry
• 50:55  – How To Get In Touch With Nick Penev
• 53:00 – The Golden Nugget Tip Of The Week

Transcript

Kevin King:

Welcome to episode 316 of the AM/PM Podcast. In this episode, I’m speaking with Nick Penev. Nick is from Bulgaria, and he made a killing selling supplements throughout Europe for about 10 years, all D2 C. He’s gonna be talking about his story, some of the ups and downs, as well as what he’s up to today. Enjoy this episode. Nick Penev. How are you doing, man? Great to have you on the AM/PM Podcast. Welcome to the show.

Nick:

Yeah, thank you, Kevin. I was actually planning to be here next year, but to surprise me, so I’m here earlier, so Christmas came early for me, so I’m very happy to be here, and a great day for me a lot of meetings, but the was meeting is the best I guess.

Kevin King:

There you go. That’s right. You’re ahead of me. I’m in Austin, Texas, so we’re recording this for me. It’s the middle of the afternoon, but for you, it’s almost bedtime, right?

Nick:

Yeah. 10 PM bed for the kids. It’ll be fun for me and the wife after that.

Kevin King:

Now, where are you actually at? Where are you?

Nick:

Yeah, Sofia. So I’m actually in Sofia, Bulgaria now, that’s actually Eastern Europe.

Kevin King:

So in Bulgaria. How big a country is that For a lot of people that don’t know?

Nick:

Yeah, seven Million is the population, one-fourth of the size of California. So I mean, I’m not sure the size of which states in the USA, I know that it’s one-fourth of California because I used to live there. I finish high school and university, so I know that for a fact.

Kevin King:

Were you originally from Bulgaria, cuz you spent some time in the US as well?

Nick:

Yeah, exactly. I finished high school here and then I went as an exchanged them to the states into one. I actually came to the States one week before September 11. I actually have pictures of the Twin Towers and my first day in school was September 11th.

Kevin King:

That was college?

Nick:

No, no university actually. I just had my senior year there and now I can exchange to actually live with the house family because this is what happened before I leave. My father told me, okay, I just finish my high school degree and actually took two years in one. I took all my finals for the 12th grade before I go there because told me if I change my mind, if I come back, I should have a high school degree. So anyways, and that’s why I have actually a high school degree here and one in the States, but that’s not that important. always my first day in school I go to school, we had civics or something, and we’re just watching the Twin Towers on tv. That’s my first day, in school

Kevin King:

Welcome to America. 9/11 happens.

Nick:

Yeah. But one thing that I noticed there is how united the people were after that. So that was very known because yeah. That was very different to what I’ve seen, because usually when bad things happen or people are not that united. So I have never seen that anywhere else, to be honest. And I lived in a small town, 2000 was the population in Walker Lake in California. It was very interesting.

Kevin King:

Yeah, I agree. I mean,I remember that day very, very vividly. I was working in my office and we actually were doing, I was working with models at the time and we were doing some stuff and we actually had one on a plane actually and she was coming out of a Boston and flying that morning outta Boston. She was on a flight that left about 45 minutes after one of the planes that flew from Boston that actually ended up was hijacked. And we were freaking out. At that point, we didn’t know what planes or where they were, and we were freaking out and we couldn’t get a hold of her for four or five hours. And then we finally got a hold of her and she said, “Yeah, they canceled the flights.”

Kevin King:

And I just remember waking up. I missed the first tower, going down, but I remember waking up and turning the TV on and, what the heck is going on? And seeing that the second plane come into the tower and it just transfixed everybody. I mean, everything just stopped. And you said, everybody came together in this country. So it was amazing how everybody came together. Now we’re so divided in this, in the United States and it’s, it’s a 360, one or 180. It’s a totally different environment right now than what it was back then. And it upsets me every year sometimes, people that didn’t live through that. Some of the younger generation the kids in college right now that here in Austin, that the University of Texas, every 9/11 in September, they go and they have a man on the street and they interview students, these are 19, 20, 21-year-olds that most of them either weren’t born then or they, they were just born. And their attitudes and their beliefs around that is completely flabbergasted sometimes about what they think and what they, how they feel about that. And it, it’s just they didn’t live through it. They don’t understand it. And it’s difficult to explain to someone that didn’t actually go through that.

Nick:

Yeah, man. I mean, people have a very, quick expiration of their memory. People forget very quickly. I’ll give you an example. for Europe, we used to have all these terrorist attacks after Covid, everybody forgotten that. And so people are that. I mean, but that might be actually good on one side because if you are feeling quiet, if you live in fear, people have, don’t do anything. So I mean, probably it’s not good on some actual levels, but sometimes actually good know, you need to keep on moving, but you’re right. I mean, you guys are very divided right now. I know that because we have so many friends. But anyways, let’s change the topic

Kevin King:

And let’s change. That’s, but sometimes, we can, we can pivot because sometimes times these are some of the best times for the business as well. Recessionary times, difficult times is sometimes when some of the best companies and the best opportunities happen. And you’ve been doing this business for a while. So after you came here as an exchange, you went to university, did you work for anybody here or did you go back to Bulgaria, right after that, or did you?

Nick:

Let me tell you the story. So this is what happened, I finished high school. I got a scholarship for Fresno Pacific University, which is a private university in Fresno. And I went there for actually three years. But then all this, she was the following on. I had a girlfriend from high school. She was trying to come to the States with me, and she got her actually Visa application, rejected three times. And one day I said, “Okay, man, I’m gonna go back, I’m not gonna tell anybody.” I didn’t tell my parents, anybody. I just went to Bulgar. I said, Okay, let’s do something. Let’s go to France and actually I went to France. Without telling Kelly anybody, I lived in France, I want to find a job. Nothing happened. I didn’t know the language.

Nick:

So I only was help say I’m working for a job. I still remember that I was calling people and even got a job in one place, but it didn’t work out, I didn’t know the language. So long story short, eventually we came back to Bulgaria. We just take the overnight bus from Paris to Sofia. And then actually we just say, Okay, what we’re gonna do right now? Are we gonna stay in Sofia? We go to the beachside because on the beach side there are a lot of resorts, so it can actually work in the summer. And I said, Okay, let’s, let’s do heads and tails. And actually, it was va, VA is one of the resorts. So went there, and we lived there for few years, but that’s the period when it was a bartender and waiter for one year.

Nick:

But to be honest, everybody, every young guy, should work as a bartender or a waiter. There is no better job than you can learn to sell and actually read people. So that’s probably one recommendation, everybody, if you’ve never done that, I mean, this is probably the best thing to do. Just to fast forward a little bit now, then I actually get back to Sofia a few years up, a year after that. And I got my first sales job. There was a company called Aplus.net They were doing they were actually go dating and Rackspace competitors, I’m sure that everybody knows go dating. And we’re just selling, hosting dedicated servers or web and all this kind. And first, they go to the office. Actually, we had a training with one guy from the US team.

Nick:

He was in Bulgaria. And he was saying, Okay, I’m doing 50k per month and I’m getting 5,000 commission per month. And just to give a perspective, know this, my theory was $200, and one guy who was doing 5K and then, and very competitive. I know I’m that. So what’s here? But my wife was actually my girlfriend, but then she was telling me that, no, I was, when I was sleeping, I was having quiet dreams. Nightmares. I was saying, Ed service, web design, and this how much because this I’m gonna sell. So actually I was dreaming about what we’re doing and I hit the go in my mind, Okay, I would to be the best sales guy in the company. And, and this actually what help, I mean, I’m just fast forwarding a little bit, but in the next four years, I was actually the best sales guy in the company. And I was 20-23 at the time when I started. And I worked there for five years and I was averaging $5,000 per month. And to give perspective, my mother, she’s still a doctor, a medical doctor, and a pediatrician, she was making 300 euros. So at 23, I was actually doing what my mother was doing in more than a year.

Kevin King:

You’re doing per month more than what she was doing in a year as a doctor.

Nick:

Exactly. Exactly. Because it was the newest company. We’re outsourcing to Bulgaria, we hit a team in Bulgaria, which was competing with the team in the States. But it was fair game in it, you sell something, you get a 10% commission. And then I realized how much you can do, always know when I mean, there’s actually no limit to what you can do. And then I said, Okay, man you can do anything. And actually, I worked for these guys for five years, but a lot of time in life, I mean, some things don’t make sense. So what happened in 2010, the company got acquired. And even though we’re doing a lot of sales, they said we don’t want the European office. And I was from doing 5k per month.

Nick:

on average I went to zero. they closed the office. The other thing, this was probably the worst period for my wife because my wife got pregnant. she had almost miscarriage? She had four babies. No, one, or four twins. One survived, which is my first son. He’s named Nikko, by the way, which Nikko is for Victorious. In Greek Mythology, Nikke is the of victory. So that’s why we called him Nikko. Then, at the same time, I hit a car accident at the exact same crossroad one week apart. And these are the only two times that they’ve ever hit a car accident. And, usually. And then I was not able to find a job for a few months.

Nick:

Eventually, I actually got a job in a company doing affiliate performance marketing. And all these things happen at the same time. But now, we have a saying in Bulgaria, too much be is never bit and too much good is never good. So when a lot of big things happen to you, there is a balance, then something good is going happen to you. And then things start actually happening in a positive way for me. The company, they were actually also in a bid period. Now I was about to get thousand dollars per month, which was not what I was used to making. But since they had a mortgage, a pregnant wife, and all this stuff, it was good. But the thing is, I was about to get a lot of commission based on the sales that they do.

Nick:

But actually, things are not going great at the company, though. They had a lot of campaigns. They had their campaigns to spend it. So nobody was making money. But I, I saw one thing, which I d in the company, they were selling some product called Acai. I’m not sure if you remember that. It’s the magic Brazilian fruit. Yeah. Or they call it Acai Berry. And I said, Okay, I mean, I got an ADM and I will, what these guys are doing, I’m gonna leave them and I have some save money. I’m gonna set up a private label supplement and I’m gonna start selling that in Bulgarian–

Kevin King:

So you set this up through them? Or did you set this up on the side?

Nick:

No. I actually left the company. I said I’m gonna set up that. I that. I mean, nobody’s doing that. I see that there is potential, even though these guys is not working out right now. And what happened next is I left–

Kevin King:

That was Extreme Brands.

Nick:

Yeah. Extreme Power brands. I’ll go to Extreme Power brands, actually, this is my second product, but the story is phone. I actually left the company and I went to my best friend, he’s an IT guy. And I told him, his name is Waky. I said, hey Waky, I work for this company, they’re doing some stuff, I think we can do it ourselves.” And this guy said “okay man,” I mean, he is very good with all this technical stuff, but he’s very indecisive.

Kevin King:

Was this company sold, the first company before you left? Where were they selling that in?

Nick:

They’re actually selling all kinds of offers for companies. supplements.

Kevin King:

In Bulgaria or in Europe?

Nick:

No Actually globally. They’re affiliate marketing. let’s say you have an offer. You do it the performance marketing for free. And then they were actually thinking of doing their own product. And this is where I left. And I said, Okay, I’m gonna do something without myself. And of course, but I don’t have too much money. And I didn’t have partners. I didn’t know how to build a website. So I actually spoke with my best friend. I said, Okay, let’s do a website. We’re gonna call it bio Acai Berry, because bio, the green Bush stuff. And he said, Okay, but I’m scared. I mean, I don’t know what to do. I said, Okay, don’t worry. Build a website. I’m gonna order a hundred units from one wholesale website in the UK and we’re gonna resell that. So we purchased them for 10 euros, and we resold them for 50 euros each. And this happened in two weeks. And I sold the document. Do you see which order?

Kevin King:

Where did you sell ’em? What was the website?

Nick:

It was called Bio Acai Berry or something. We just built a website and we’re actually reselling the products that we purchased from another supplier.

Kevin King:

Where were we selling in the US and in Europe?

Nick:

No In Bulgaria. Just in Bulgaria.

Kevin King:

Okay. Only in Bulgaria,

Nick:

Okay. Just locally. Now, and then I made a few K, and I said, Okay, see, we can do that. Let’s build our own private, label product. And then what happened? I didn’t know anything about it, but no, that’s why we have Google private label manufacturers. I found the company in the UK, and they say, Okay, I’m gonna, what do you want? Okay, we’d, let’s say to private label this product. And they said, Okay, man, you guys need to do a label and all this stuff. And we just ordered, I think the minimum was a thousand units. And we called, we called the product Asai Verde. And this means in that, Verde is green because it was dried freeze wet, say, a pure supplement product. And that was actually our first product. And, and the good thing was that nobody else was doing that. In Bulgaria, nobody was advertising on Facebook and Google ads for that, we’re actually paying 1 cent per click, which is crazy. Now the first month we’re actually spending hundred dollars for advertising, we’re getting a hundred sales. So I mean, cost production was one door. And when you do that, then you realize, okay, man, we need to expand to Greece, then we expand to Greece, then to Romania.

Kevin King:

So when you expand to each of these, did you set a specific website in each of these places? You said a website in .gr or whatever, and it’s all in Greek?

Nick:

Exactly. All in Greek, all we hired a person who speaks Greek, he did the translation. We hired a person who speaks Romanian, they did the translation. And we always had a landing page, the so-called bridge page. I can, you can lose weight, you can do that. these pages? No, I mean, they’re not, I mean, they’re not actually the most , trustworthy pages. But we made a lot of money. So, I mean, we actually set up a logistic partner in each company. So we’re actually, we’re just learning all the time. We’re experimenting. But the best thing was that we actually never I mean we never, we never did anything in advance. So for example, whenever we’re actually starting a new market, we’re actually building the page without having the supplements there.

Nick:

We do a test campaign, we get verification that our product is actually being sold and it’s profitable. And the next day actually we ship the supplements in and tell clients, “Hey guys, thank you for ordering our product. We’re out of stock. We’re gonna make the delivery in one weekend.” Because it was early, nobody was doing that. No, people are willing to wait. And from actually building a website to execution, it was in a matter of one or two weeks, which is crazy right now. Nobody does that. But when you really know–

Kevin King:

Where are you fulfilling from, if you had a site in Romanian, a site in Greece, did you have a 3PL service in each of those countries? Or are you all doing it from one, central location within Europe?

Nick:

No, no, no. I mean, initially, no, we had a 3PL in each market because we’re able to send them from Bulgaria to Greece in Romania. But the shipping costs was not good. The delivery time was not good. So we need to actually have a lot of 3PL. But that was not an issue. That was really easy because no, we’re sending huge volumes, And, and to, to be honest, actually, one of the companies which was servicing us back then, we used to be their first client. And to this day, he’s telling me, Nick, you guys actually helped us out because actually–

Kevin King:

The best client, not their first client.

Nick:

No, actually we’re the, we’re actually the first client selling this type of supplements, but actually, we’re the clients with the highest volumes, Okay. So actually we help the company to grow through our expansion.

Kevin King:

So actually, what sell did you reach? Did you just, So this is 2010-20 11, right?

Nick:

Exactly. 2011 is when we started actually really heavy.

Kevin King:

So you’re in Greece, Roman, and Bulgaria at that time? Exactly.

Nick:

Just those three? This is, yeah. This was actually in the first few months. So we filmed, the first year we actually expanded to all of Europe. When I mean Europe, we tested UK, Germany, and Scandinavians, but we never actually, were selling too much there because they’re already hit exposure to these products. So our markets were actually the niche markets Spain, Italy, Central Europe, and something the probiotics. No, the biotics are really small countries. But we’re doing quite a thousand sales per day in this three. The same way for central Europe. So we’re actually selling,

Kevin King:

So Finland, Norway, and Sweden. You were doing a thousand per day?

Nick:

No, no, no, no. We actually, there, did little, because the CPC was crazy. I told you, in Bulgaria we’re paying quite 1 cent. In Sweden, it was half a Euro.

Kevin King:

Wow. And this was mostly what? Facebooked tie ads or what?

Nick:

Only Facebook and Google ads. So far at a certain point in our peak, we’re doing sometimes between half a million to a million and not spending per month. But that was actually in 2015-2016. But let me get back a little bit in the story. So, and then after that, of course, we have a supplement, obviously, Target A is mostly women. I said, Okay, let’s build actually a product for men and we actually found a product in the US called XO Booster. It was arguing boosters. No, you just would buff, even though you’re not that strong.

Kevin King:

Okay. So how, how did you pick that? Did, did you do some sort of research with some sort of tool? Did you just stumble on it, and someone said, Hey, this is the new up-and-coming thing?

Nick:

I mean, as far as I knew, there were no tools. So we actually were just checking what offers are being actually around the US websites, because we knew, to be honest, I don’t even remember how we found that. But I re I think, we’re using some tools in which we can actually change the IP if your browser, and we can actually check out specific websites for the type of offers they’re running. And we sold that in the, there is this Muscle builder tool called XO Booster or something that. It’s boosters, it’s with all this kind of stuff. And I said, Okay, let’s call it Extreme Power. And this actually the company of my actual agents right now, but that’s 10 years after that. So we set up a muscle builder product, and then every six months we’re actually developing a new product. So after that, we did a product which was called Smoke Deter, which you’re about the thing on how to stop smoking. It was a complete flop. Nobody was buying. That’s

Kevin King:

Well, you can’t sell a smoke stopper to Europeans who smoke.

Nick:

But yeah. But the good thing about us is that we never ordered any stock in advance. So we always build a landing page for a few markets. We do a test campaign. If we have no sales, then we just drop the project. If we have a good number of sales, of course, we go in order from the manufacturer. We just build the label, get the certificates, and we’re ready to save in two to three months.

Kevin King:

And this is all direct to the consumer of your own website? Nothing. This is not Amazon or anywhere else? It all?

Nick:

No Amazon and hotel. Why? First thing is our company was registered in Bulgaria and then in Malta, and we’re not able to sell on Amazon from these locations back then. This is one reason. And the second reason is we’re selling, we’re actually buying the supplements for two euros and we’re selling them for 50 euros. And there is no way we can sell eventually when we’re able to sell on Amazon. There was no way for us to sell at this price. We need to actually decrease the price. So it didn’t make sense for us ever to sell on Amazon, because I mean, we even knew our competitors by name. There are actually two companies selling that in Europe. And one of those was actually the company where I worked in 2010 where I left. So they actually became, we actually became their biggest competitors.

Nick:

And because we’re not doing any trademark or copyrights, because we’re doing stuff so quickly, when we actually launch the Extreme power brands, you know what they did? two weeks later, they copied everything in there and called their product Extreme Gain. So they copied our website landing page, but you have no cooperation. You have no trademark. So there is nothing that you can do. So the only way for us was to actually make up new products. And then we actually had a male enhancement product, how to stay hard the longest. And this one was called Omnipotent. And this was probably our first, most successful brand. We’re selling crazy, thousands of supplements from those per day on, usually on adult websites. And all that was great for this product until the dating websites actually took our traffic. So they were paying so much for the actual agencies that they, we actually couldn’t compete with them. So one by one, each of the products was actually being pushed out.

Kevin King:

So you didn’t have them on a subscription kind of thing, or was it all one-off purchases?

Nick:

No, no, it’s a one-time purchase. Because see the subscription purchase, this is the so-called free sample stuff. And I actually was asking our lawyer, Okay, man, can we do that? And he said, “Yes, you in the USA, in Europe, you’ll get into trouble.” You have a lot of lawsuits if you do that. And we never did that because this is probably the most profitable thing. But eventually, a lot of companies got the suit in the States and affiliates doing that, because what we’re doing, you’re telling them you page the shipping, we’re gonna keep on sending you stuff. But of, of course, this is in the fine print. So a lot of people actually–

Kevin King:

So to explain that. They would say, get these, get a 30-day supply for free, just pay 5 95 shipping or something that. And then what in the fine print it would say you’re, you’re signing up for a subscription service and every month we’re gonna bill you $59.95 or something that. And a lot of people didn’t, They didn’t realize that. And you’re banking on most people, not, not either arguing it or just canceling after one or two months. So you get a lot of extra sales from unsuspecting people.

Nick:

Exactly, exactly. And that’s why I know we didn’t do that because it all, I mean, you get in a lot of legal trapper, so obviously mean mine are good, but you are misleading people because what we’re selling, it might not work, but you’re not ever misleading people because I mean, what we’re doing is just innovating, keep on introducing new products. And eventually, here we had 20 private-label supplements. And even though we actually stop selling two, probably three years ago, people keep on actually buying all this stuff because we create a lot of content. And

Kevin King:

Was there a lot of liability with that? Anybody complaining, Hey, this didn’t work as it works or anybody threatening you or getting No. Any kind of getting sick off of using it improperly or anything that?

Nick:

No, no, no. Because this is the one thing that we’re actually doing a little differently. We’re actually buying more expensive supplements, which actually were actually better than the rest because a lot of people are actually ordering from China, which back then was not that popular for the best quality. And ours were actually from the USA or from a UK manufacturer, meaning they’re more expensive, but they had better ingredients. So we actually were better, in a way, they’re not hurting anybody. We’re telling every, we actually doing some tutorials for fitness modules and all these people. So we’re telling them, okay, it would work, but of course, you need to work out because that was actually part of the Google and Facebook components. Because eventually, they suspended all our accounts by doing 2016, even though we were doing it correctly.

Kevin King:

So at your peak, what were you doing per month?

Nick:

Yeah, peak. I mean our peak here was 5 million

Kevin King:

Per month or for the year?

Nick:

No, no, no, no. Year for the year. But keep in mind that we started four years earlier with 5K as the total investment. Me, my best friend, was a partner in another guy who was the developer. He developed our affiliate part. everything, there were no tools. If there were tools we didn’t know about that we developed our own fulfillment software, and our own affiliate marketing program. And so it was, this is actually the big difference between back then and now. Now we have thousands of solutions. Back then you had nothing. I mean, of course, it was thorough, nobody was drinking most of the stuff that you do, but you don’t have any tools to do any proper research or anything. I mean, and this is why said D2C it’s not Amazon.

Kevin King:

So you never, never sold any of the stuff on Amazon in Europe or anywhere always direct to consumers on your own website, No other marketplaces, no eBay. So all direct. So in 2015, and 2016, Google and Facebook, they changed some of the algorithms. They changed some of the rules and what you can and can’t do, you can’t show, you can’t shame people into, saying that, Hey, you can lose weight and all this stuff. So how did you pivot?

Nick:

Yeah, so all based on what happened one day, they just suspend your account and we said, Okay man, let’s, okay, tell us what should we change? And they say, Okay, you need to change the landing page, you need to remove the bridge pages, you need to do all this stuff. And they say, Okay, we’re gonna do that. We change everything based on your guidelines. And two, three weeks later they say, Okay, we’re suspending you forever. It doesn’t matter that you’re com you’re compiling. Or it even stopped replying and from doing a commission, half a million ad spent, we just went to zero. It was only the Google Ads area was okay. I mean, we’re just too dependent on this. Facebook–

Kevin King:

Half a million ad spend per month.

Nick:

Exactly.

Kevin King:

Well, how that doesn’t add up though a half a million ad spend per month and 5 million per year in gross sales that–

Nick:

Yeah. Okay. So, okay, so, so probably that was the peak month that we ever did but they actually suspended us, so that was the best year when they suspend our account. So this was probably the best that we ever did.

Kevin King:

Okay. That was 2015, or 2016?

Nick:

Yeah. 2015 or 16. It was at the same time that the mobile ads kicked in because no, the mobile ads kicked in a lot of conversions. I mean, a lot of impressions, no conversions, they suspend our accounts always. I mean, we need to find something different. I mean, we cannot just rely on these guys because they’ll keep on spending our accounts. We actually, they’re hit, I run around using alternative accounts, but it didn’t make sense, to continue doing that.

Kevin King:

So what did you do?

Nick:

And then I said, Okay, let’s, let’s do affiliate marketing. We’re just gonna find as many affiliates who if as you want, they’re gonna do all the traffic for us, we’re just gonna pay them by results. Mm-hmm. And this is actually what we started doing we’re only paying by cost per click, because all the sales that we’re doing Caucasian delivery,

Kevin King:

Well, you also had, you should have a good house list by this time too.

Nick:

We had half a million clients. And I have a funny story because people keep on asking me, Okay, what’s your WhatsApp number? And I said, Okay, I don’t have a WhatsApp number because it’s suspended for why? And they say, Okay, why? Why is that? Because, one time, my guys told me, okay, we have sold all these emails, we don’t do anything with them. there is a why service, we can text them. And they said, Okay, let’s do that. Let’s test with 50,000. Okay? And they say, Okay. And nobody was willing to use their number. I said, Okay, don’t care, use my, we started doing that and I think, I’m not sure, we sent few thousand, they just suspended my phone number and that’s it. And it didn’t work out or anything. So we’re, I mean, we’re complete newbies email marketing zero, we’re just doing so much profit from this. I mean, the basic stuff that we never walked into, anything that people are doing right now, which is probably because we don’t have any knowledge. We’re just, we’re just making easy money without, just without Frank.

Kevin King:

How many people are in the company?

Nick:

At the peak 50, we had one or two people for each market in the call center, because obviously, we’re just doing the calls, confirming orders, and all this stuff. We had five people on the media buying team. So around 50 at the peak. But to be honest, I mean, you can do it with less I mean.

Kevin King:

This is all remote. You didn’t have a main office cuz you’ve been working remotely.

Nick:

Yeah, this is the thing, my partner, one of the business partners, wanted to be the boss. He wanted to stay in the office. So I was running the business marketing, advertising everything remotely. And he was always staying in the office. But the thing is, whenever, he need to fire somebody, he was telling me, Okay Nick, this guy, we need to fire him. So he is only going to the office to actually fire people because he wanted to be the boss without the nesting stuff when you need to fire people. But anyways, I mean, that’s another story, that’s why I don’t have offices too much. I mean, so

Kevin King:

Someone that was looking at getting into the supplement space, do you think that’s still a good space to get into? Or do you think it’s just too competitive and too many rules and regulations on how you can advertise and you’re almost doing everything with one hand tied behind your back?

Nick:

Honestly, too much. see aggregators, they were not buying brands, I mean supplements, they buy pet supplements, but not the regular supplements. So I mean, are you probably, you’ve been the Amazon space for a long time, but you told me if it’s true, but I have people telling me that you need to actually spend two years, even two years actually selling on Amazon before you break even. So you need to hear why.

Kevin King:

It’s brutal. Unless you can really niche down to something and really niche down to something that’s very, very, very specific. It’s brutal and there’s a lot of blacks a there’s a lot of competition, a lot of um, because you, you said, you’re buying ’em for two euros and selling ’em for 50, you know that it’s crazy margins. So it attracts some nefarious characters sometimes.

Nick:

I mean you’ll be surprised, but they still have some offers running for some of our competitors, but they actually switch from supplements to all kinds of scams, the crypto scams. I saw a few years ago something called the little Bitcoin. So yeah, I mean it was kind of a shady decide, but so a supplement, you can always actually succeed, but you need to have something which really works real quality. One of our products called omnipotent that I mentioned, the male enhancer, this product, it obviously works because it’s–

Kevin King:

A Viagra knockoff or something.

Nick:

Yeah, no, no. Viagra no is just to be hard, for a long time. So I guess it’s Viagra, but some that, anyways, the thing is no, this product was working very well and years after that people keep on ordering the product, even though we don’t have it anymore. So obviously when you build a product, which works, people are gonna keep on buying that. But of course, now it’s much harder. And to be honest, now, once we actually consult the company, which was selling supplements, and I told them, and just keep in mind that, it’s much harder right now. But they’re saying, Okay, our product is great, so if you have a really good product, you would succeed, but you would spend a lot of money. You need to find the right partners to actually help do that. And just to be completely honest, I wouldn’t be doing supplements right now at this stage.

Kevin King:

I mean, so you exited, what, a couple of years ago, right? In 2020 you actually, did you sell the company or did you close it down?

Nick:

No, I sold everything to my partner

Kevin King:

Okay.

Nick:

He wanted to do an Amazon in Eastern Europe. And I said, You’re crazy, he wanted to actually order multiple supplements, sell our own products in his own. And I said, Okay, I have enough. I mean, how are you gonna sell that? He said, Okay, I don’t know. I mean, you’re the sales guy, okay, I’m the sales guy, but I don’t, I think it’s not a good idea. And I said, Okay, man, I have enough. I mean, 10 years is too much, And this is actually where health comes into the picture. we’re using HALO Tax as a client, which is one of the companies I represent right now. They’re actually a VAT compliance solution. And what they do is obvious they were taking care of our vt filing reports and everything for our own brands. And when they sold the company, they told no, Can I see that you guys are changing the ownership and I know that you’re doing a lot of affiliate and partnership programs because I actually got to know them all.

Kevin King:

But when he bought you out, did he just cut you a check? Or are you getting some sort of ongoing payments?

Nick:

Yeah, that’s how much I got.

Kevin King:

You got zero.

Nick:

Yeah, zero. But actually were sliding, see, 2015-2016 was the peak. We have never heard of aggregators.

Kevin King:

So when you exited, you exited, you basically just threw in the towel and said, Here, take it. It’s yours.

Nick:

Exactly. But we’re actually getting a lot of profits when it was successful. And I bought a lot of properties. So actually I cannot say that they don’t get enough from the–

Kevin King:

You were happy with the previous 10 years of what it threw off, and just I’m done with this. I don’t the direction you’re going, just, just take it. I’m out basically.

Nick:

Exactly. Exactly. Because see, I mean, I said, it was really easy, that was my first business venture. How people do one thing, They fail, they win, they fail, they win. In my case, the first time I won, and then when we were actually making the most, most of the money, we actually got spoiled that we’re just not as driven as it was in the beginning. We started doing some–. I mean, just spending money for their stuff.

Kevin King:

How’s, so how’s it going now for him since you’ve left with his new Amazon ideas and all this stuff that he wanted to do?

Nick:

It’s gone. I think, yeah,

Kevin King:

The whole company is history.

Nick:

History no. Mean we still hear, we still hear the website, but nothing, I mean, his idea was ordering a lot of stock for companies without knowing how to sell that and using reselling and all this stuff. But I mean, that’s not, honestly why I told, I mean, the issue that I always hit when I was running my company is how to order X amount of products so I can sell them in X amount of time.

Kevin King:

So you guys were a right place, right time and you were able to ride away for a while, but running the business side of things and the operations side of things wasn’t really the skill set.

Nick:

Yeah, I mean, we actually suck at business and operations, that’s the whole truth. I mean, we were actually 20-something, no business experience, you know. So obviously we, I mean if, just to give an example, if somebody with business experience were actually where we are in 2015, 16, probably they would be doing quite years more globally. But since we don’t have that experience, and were actually poor guys when we started, no, why told 5k, it was an initial investment and you hear 5 million in a few years in the poorest country in Europe. I mean, I mean, your head is off, I mean, so I mean, you’re not dreaming about this stuff. sometimes when you get gets rich too quickly, you, I mean, you don’t realize what to have there. And when you don’t have the business experience properly, our mistake is that we didn’t find the person that actually we can have the business side of things, how to operate that properly. Because I’m very good in actually finding new things, but I’m not the best guy in operational.

Kevin King:

How was that adjustment from making a lot of money and taking the money out and probably could buy any, almost anything you want or do whatever you want to now not going down and not having all that money? Were you able to save some away? Are you okay?

Nick:

No. I’m saying that we could have done much more if we had somebody who knows what they’re doing. we might have grown the company well because of all, and we didn’t lose the money. No, we’re not actually losing money, we’re just doing fewer sales. But whenever we’re actually doing a lot of money, we’re actually getting all the profits. So we actually, purchased a lot of properties right now, so nothing is lost. But I’m saying that the potential for growth was huge and we did not do anything. So that, that’s the thing. I mean, we’re not actually, I had 10 properties across Bulgaria, so I mean, we’ve made a lot.

Kevin King:

Properties. Do you mean these are apartment houses or rentals?

Nick:

Exactly, rental properties.

Kevin King:

Income-producing properties. Not land somewhere.

Nick:

No. Actually, my business partner, he’s in two lanes. No, he purchased a lot of land, but he’s not doing anything with them on my end. Actually, everything that I purchase with the profit from the company, they’re actually in some either where we live right now. Our beach house, is obviously a big apart one in Sofia, and we have one on the beach. So everything else for actually renting out.

Kevin King:

Okay.

Nick:

So, but of course, I mean, I did some dumb stuff with oil features and other stuff in the meantime. So I, I close a quarter a million. But that’s another thing, you wanna get all of your money without, what do you do? Some dumb stuff in the meantime.

Kevin King:

Now, one of the things that you’re big on right now is you’re a connector. You like meeting new people in the e-commerce space, not just Amazon, but anything in the e-commerce space, and then connecting people and introducing different people to different things. Where does that come from? Where does that passion come from to do that? Because I’ll get emails from you, uh, I think when we first spoke a while back, you’re “Alright, so what do you do?” You got some information from me. Okay, I know 25 people that you should meet. some of ’em I already knew and some of ’em I didn’t. And you were sitting emails, “Hey John, meet Kevin Kevin does this, John, you do this. You guys might have something you might be able to work on together.” You really are known for doing that. Where, where does that come from?

Nick:

Yeah, I mean, I’ll tell you the story. when actually I got out of my business and when heath tax offered me in the phone, they told me, you do partnerships for your company, You have lot of affiliates, partners, and we’ve been thinking to actually build a partner program for HALO Tax. Can you help us out? And I said, Okay, man, I’m out of my business. I have no idea what I’m gonna do. I’ll do it for you. I said, I like can new challenges, so let’s do it for free. And then, I was, I didn’t know anybody in the Amazon space. I mean, I was a brand owner. I can say that probably I know five or six guys that were used for other services. And, but they said, Okay, HALO Tax offers VAT that’s it.

Nick:

I mean, if people come to us, they would need much more than that. So if whenever they come to me, I’m gonna build a partner network, so I’m gonna connect them with everybody. The thing is, you come to me, you know everybody because you need more, more than just the VAT and I just start doing casual introductions. I meet somebody, okay, meet with this guy, know you guys can do some good stuff together. And I started doing that, doing that way that, and my wife was telling me, Okay, why are you doing that? I mean, nobody’s connecting people for free. Nobody works for free. And I said, Okay, man, why shouldn’t I do that? I mean, I can actually grow my network, I can help people. And when you do that, or actually everybody’s benefiting. You’re just spreading.

Nick:

You know what, you help all people in and just, I thought it’s a good thing to do. I was not planning anything commercial with that. And eventually, few of my partners came to me and they say, Okay, Nick, can you do what are you doing for HALO Tax for us? And I said, Okay, do what? And they said, Okay, to run the partnership. And I said, You guys just gave me an idea. I’ll set up a partnership agency and network and just, just that. Now, actually, I turned my hobby because you can see the hobby connecting people into partial business, partially what I like to do. So, I actually got the phone. When I meet somebody, I’m going to connect them with partners who can actually help them grow and vice versa.

Nick:

And by doing that, obviously in growing my network, everybody benefits that. And people are gonna actually return the favor even if you don’t ask that. So, right now I have 20 companies, which are actually paid clients where I run the partnership with them. And just to put it as simply as possible, I teach them how to grow for partnerships because everybody in the space, wants business. One, people would to work with brands. One people want to work with Amazon brands. One company would work with Shopify brands. And I’m telling them, the best way to actually grow your businesses is when you connect with other partners who work with the same clients without actually competing with you, and you just need to do a certain set of things, you need to obviously be willing to share, you will be willing to help them out.

Nick:

And just by creating all this content, first, you help the sales in either end, you get some business, you get exposure. So it’s a win-win corporation. And just by accident know that that’s what happened, And some people don’t, honestly, they don’t know what exactly I do, and I do it on purpose because I would when they meet somebody just for people, not to make an assumption. I meet everybody. You wanna see me stuff? I come and join the meeting, You might see me something that I need, I might learn something. So I have this approach. I meet everybody and talk with everybody. I don’t care if you’re a founder or a new small partner, I can always find some stuff. You can always show me something that I don’t know, if you’re not the perfect match for me, I can find somebody who is the best match for you. And then some people tell me, Okay, I mean, what is the catch and how do you make money? And I’m telling them on the phone, I make money from only 10% of my partners. I don’t need to make money from everybody.

Kevin King:

Sometimes a lot of people lose sight of just doing good things. It comes back to you. As you said, you’re not expecting someone to give you a favor back or to return it, but just by doing good out there eventually good is done back to you. It comes around. You just gotta make sure people don’t take advantage of you. Uh, but doing good for others can, can pay dividends in the long term, for sure.

Nick:

Yeah. I mean, if you ask me no about my previous business, I was making probably the most money in the peak, but I cannot say that I was feeling satisfied in what I was doing right now. I cannot even call what I’m doing as a job because, I mean, I like what I’m doing.

Kevin King:

There’s a difference between success and fulfillment, having success selling, selling the supplements for a long time, but you weren’t fulfilled. Now you’re getting fulfilled. You’re doing what your passion is, you’re introducing people, you’re helping people, you’re guiding people and that, that’s much more fulfilling to you and much more rewarding and that’s important. It’s not always all about the money.

Nick:

Exactly. I fully agree with you. And I’m happy that, I had some failures because if I didn’t have these failures, I wouldn’t be doing what to do right now, which I really.

Kevin King:

What’s next? What’s next for you?

Nick:

I hate to plan. Even I’m extremely organized. everybody’s telling me I haven’t seen a better-organized person you because I do a four day work week. I never work Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. But I never would to point too much ahead, for example, my wife was asking me, Okay, how many clients you have? I don’t know. I don’t count them, So, I mean, I’m happy with what you do, and the other thing that I don’t mind is I never push anybody to become a client. if you’re not ready, I’m not gonna take, I tell you, Okay, do these things when they’re ready, we can talk again. And this is why actually do it on purpose because partnerships are not anything else. You need to be ready for partnerships. If you’re ready just to receive without giving, then you’re not ready for partnerships. So you need a specific mindset for that. So, honestly, I mean, I what I’m doing, I, I make more than enough. I sat and was fulfilled and before. I mean,

Kevin King:

That’s what matters, man. That’s where it’s at.

Nick:

Yeah. I mean, if you ask me for planning, probably what I’m planning is how to do all summer, because now I’ve been thinking that we should actually travel with my wife and kids and live in a different country each year so the kids can work from experience. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But that’s, this is probably the one thing that they should be doing. The only thing is holding us big is that no obviously my younger son who is seven has a speech delay. So if he gets better, we can go anywhere. But besides that, I mean, I can do what they do from anywhere. I mean, I talk with people everywhere. I, I’ve met so many good people and probably want to go on some offline events next year to finally meet them in person because I’m a remote person. I go speak at a lot of conferences and lot of things, but I don’t go in person. But I went to one event here and I guess now, people me when they go there. So I guess I’ll make an exception and go to a few events next year just to meet some people because people don’t, don’t believe me that I’m real, I send a cardboard copy of me to Las Vegas and people went, they’re pink that I’m there. But anyways, so

Kevin King:

Well, Nick, if people wanna reach out to you or learn more, what’s the best way for ’em to get ahold of you?

Nick:

I mean, LinkedIn is where I hang out a lot of the time. So I mean, I’m gonna share my LinkedIn profile with Kevin or we can just write Nick Penev. I mean, I think there is nobody else with that name.

Kevin King:

It’s Penev for those that exactly those name to spelled Penev.

Nick:

Exactly. And I have a picture that you’re not, you’re not gonna, actually, you notice the picture is nothing you’ve seen on LinkedIn. It’s with one guy with an inflatable around his head with minions. So you haven’t seen that, but that’s on purpose. No. If people make the assumption they shouldn’t connect with me, I’m not the regular guy.

Kevin King:

Awesome. Nick, I really appreciate you coming on to tell your story. This has been great. Uh, we’ll have to do this again sometime.

Nick:

Yeah, Kevin, I mean, I think you’re the first one who has actually asked all these questions. I don’t think I have ever told my story to every, to anybody like you, so I guess you know how to ask questions that’s for sure.

Kevin King:

Thank you very much. I appreciate that. Well, it’s great to have you on, man, and we’ll talk in soon. As you can see from Nick’s story, there are lots of opportunities out there besides just selling on Amazon. Nick really didn’t even sell on Amazon. He sold all D2C and tailored everything to the markets that he was targeting. targeting Greece, targeting Romania, putting everything in that local language, and just cleaning up and doing really well. And I really what he, he said at the end about, it’s not all about success, it’s about fulfillment and how he’s really enjoying what he’s doing now, more so than when he was making bank selling supplements. So that’s a really important lesson. Hope you enjoyed this episode. Next week I’ll be back with another guest, Arnold Shields. Arnold is from Australia.

Kevin King:

And we’ll be talking about a subject that’s not the most exciting, but it’s super important and he’s got some really good tips and strategies all around accounting and bookkeeping and some of the common mistakes people make when they’re doing their forecasting and a lot of other really cool stuff. So I hope you join us for that episode. Before we leave today, I’ve got a good little tip for you as well. My little golden nugget. And this week it is this one. Good marketing can sell once, but only a good product can sell twice. Remember that good marketing can always sell once, but only a good product can sell twice. Have a great week and we’ll see you next week. Thanks.

---

Enjoy this episode? Be sure to check out our previous episodes for even more content to propel you to Amazon FBA Seller success! And don’t forget to “Like” our Facebook page and subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you listen to our podcast.

Want to absolutely start crushing it on eCommerce and make more money? Follow these steps for helpful resources to get started:

1. Get the Ultimate Resource Guide from Kevin King for tools and services that he uses every day to dominate on Amazon!
2. New to Selling on Amazon? Freedom Ticket offers the best tips, tricks, and strategies for beginners just starting out! Sign up for Freedom Ticket.
3. Trying to Find a New Product? Get the most powerful Amazon product research tool in Black Box, available only at Helium 10! Start researching with Black Box.
4. Want to Verify Your Product Idea? Use Xray in our Chrome extension to check how lucrative your next product idea is with over a dozen metrics of data! Download the Helium 10 Chrome Extension.
5. The Ultimate Software Tool Suite for Amazon Sellers! Get more Helium 10 tools that can help you to optimize your listings and increase sales for a low price! Sign up today!
6. Protect Your Amazon Brand with a Trademark! Protecting your brand from hijackers is vital. SellerTrademarks.com provides a streamlined process for obtaining a trademark for your business and shielding your products from fraud!
7. Does Amazon Owe YOU Money? Find Out for FREE! If you have been selling for over a year on Amazon, you may be owed money for lost or damaged inventory and not even know it. Get a FREE refund report to see how much you’re owed!

The post #316 – The Difference Between Success And Fulfillment: Nick Penev’s Story, Lessons, & Insights appeared first on AM/PM Podcast.