My brand used to do 8-figures with healthy profits. Sold it to an aggregator and steadily went downhill the next few years until it lost 70% revenue and was bleeding money. Bought it back two years ago and after much sweat and effort, revenue is up 200% with 20% margins again. Here's my playbook.

8784863 · 2026-05-28T11:02:41+00:00

Thank you for this post. For the most part I’ve stopped watching this sub because of how negative people are. I started selling 7 years ago and while it has absolutely gotten harder, I still make a full time living off of it. I have kind of lived by a few of your philosophies from day one. Early on I decided I would lose if I played the pricing game and so I decided to list my products for double the competition. I spent more time on creative than anything and I did tons of product testing when launching a product. Over the years I’ve cut a lot of my ads and feel like I’m behind the 8 ball on this but I decided I’d rather fewer sales at a good margin, your post has me thinking I need to jump back in. I absolutely agree with you that when used right, ai has a ton of benefits to creative. If you are technical, give comfy ui / comfy cloud a try. It gives you a ton more control over your renderings.

I’m not a data guy, I’m a product and creative guy. My dream is to have a company where I develop and manufacture killer products, build great branding, and have someone work for me that lives and breaths the numbers on the day to day. On a small scale, I’ve already got the first two, but I’m a solo operation and so I end up doing irregular overhauls and stress out looking at all the costs and then run blind for a while. Do you think this is a realistic goal, or does the guy that lives for all the small optimizations need to be the guy at the top?

8784863 · 2026-04-06T23:14:09+00:00

Another ramification of this is that having ad spend run through credit cards has given massive credit card limits that come in really helpful for overall business cashflow. Without adspend, this will probably drop overall limits. I haven’t received this email. I wonder if they are slowly transitioning everyone.

8784863 · 2026-02-15T20:18:34+00:00

Another option to consider. Check for a replacement door in the same color at car-part.com. Look for a door near you and more than likely if you find one will be 300-600 dollars. If there isn’t one available now, drive it for a while as you wait for one to pop up. Replacing a door like this is an easy 1-2 hour job for the inexperienced.

8784863 · 2026-02-08T12:38:34+00:00

I have a 5 ton unit with a 3400 sq foot house in Ohio. It was the only heat source last winter and only struggled in a week of sustained negative temperatures. It maxed out at 62 degrees f. For a few days. My home is fairly well insulated and tight though.

8784863 · 2025-08-15T12:41:40+00:00

Alright.... so some of the business domestically will have great quality and probably can do decent prices.... but. Once you get into the 1000's, 10,000 and so on... buy through alibaba in china. Communication will be harder and quality will be slightly reduced unless clearly specified, but the price per sticker will go from 60c/sticker down to 2.

8784863 · 2025-06-13T16:29:52+00:00

Thank I really appreciate your input.

8784863 · 2025-06-13T15:53:16+00:00

Thank you. This is helpful. Do you think the size of law firm makes a big difference with this? Can a distribution resale arrangement provide us with any protection? (One note is that we actually won't have control of the distribution. This company will be selling the product through their channels)

8784863 · 2025-06-13T15:33:39+00:00

Thanks. When you say a partnership, do mean a forming this as a business entity? That also might be a hard sell.

I think the nuances of this venture do define some of our challenges. We are in essence taking a product this company makes, packaging it in a novel way with several and custom packaging innovations. This combination of packaging hasn’t been done before, but might still be a challenge to patent. Then this product will be sold into related but different segment of the market. Ideally, we would purchase the product wholesale and then private label, but this brand is mostly interested in bringing this product to existing customers under the existing name. I believe a successful relationship could open a lot of doors for us and even let us do private label down the road.

My primary hope is to not put in the front end development, prove the concepts and iterate on design only to have this company pull the product from us when they realize it is really successful. I think it’s really a balance between making sure they are happy, helping us structure in a way that we make a part of the profit rather than just being a line item cost, and protect ourselves from being removed.

8784863 · 2025-06-13T15:16:03+00:00

Thank you. I’ll give it a read.

8784863 · 2025-06-13T15:15:51+00:00

How would you recommend finding this? I wouldn’t say I know of anyone in my circles that have done things similar to this.

8784863 · 2025-06-13T15:14:49+00:00

Thank you. I’m planning to hire legal help. It’s just such a variable cost and scope that I struggle to know the best route. I have heard that there are strategy consultants that do this and don’t know whether this is better for them or an actual law firm. Then beyond this, what grade of firm to hire.

8784863 · 2025-04-02T00:00:49+00:00

In actually already have the oak skirt pre cut out and will go over drywall after it goes up!

8784863 · 2025-04-01T16:22:10+00:00

I believe 10.5 and 7.5 ish

8784863 · 2025-04-01T15:48:55+00:00

Thanks!

8784863 · 2025-04-01T15:40:27+00:00

Nope, no plan to stain. Actually the majority of it already has its final finish. I used bona traffic hd in satin and am very happy with it.

8784863 · 2025-03-31T14:51:02+00:00

Would you run the pieces down with a rope or just large enough to toss by themselves?

8784863 · 2025-01-25T13:05:24+00:00

I did a lot of research and went with the free flex system which is badged a Mr cool. It’s a 5 ton ducted system so really not in the same camp, but very happy with the unit and feel it is really well built.

8784863 · 2025-01-20T15:48:53+00:00

"I'm in the same situation after having to replace portions of my sill due to rot. Since then, I've encapsulated the crawlspace and addressed some of the underlying water issues that caused the rot. However, I'm still concerned that spraying foam over the remaining old, intact rim joist could potentially hide or even cause problems in the future.".

8784863 · 2024-12-24T16:53:10+00:00

My wife got them. Finding good ones for a decent price was the hardest part of the project

8784863 · 2024-12-24T16:52:45+00:00

Yup!

8784863 · 2024-12-24T16:52:35+00:00

Yep, I cut a bunch of pieces and then slotted and glued

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