From Teen Entrepreneur to Amazon Agency Founder | James Wakefield Shares The Realities of Scaling

 Explore the fascinating entrepreneurial journey of James Wakefield, founder of WAKE, an Amazon-focused agency empowering global brands. In this inspiring episode of Your Mind Your Business, hosted by Carina McLeod, we dive into:

✅ How James launched his e-commerce journey at 15 with an online photography magazine.
✅ Lessons from the early days of selling pre-eBay and navigating the birth of online retail.
✅ The challenges of growing an Amazon agency and shifting from solopreneur to team leader.
✅ Actionable tips for scaling your business, fostering strong client relationships, and achieving work-life balance.
✅ Insights on financial planning, strategic hiring, and leveraging offshore teams for growth.

James shares expert advice on thriving in the competitive e-commerce industry, embracing risk, and focusing on your niche to drive success. Whether you’re an Amazon seller, aspiring entrepreneur, or agency owner, this episode is packed with insights and inspiration to elevate your journey!

Tune in for an honest conversation about scaling a business, overcoming challenges, and driving sustainable growth in the competitive agency landscape.

🔔Don’t miss it! Subscribe now to Your Mind Your Business for more authentic insights into the realities of entrepreneurship.

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Transcript

Amazon, e commerce, Internet generally, I feel I've been quite lucky to have existed in this time because it's always been in growth. It's frustrated me maybe that my businesses previously haven't been successful faster because I felt like I'm in this space, it's in constant growth, but you know I've needed those experiences to really understand where my sort of niche and passion is and also to get that kind of training in terms of how to actually run a business properly. Welcome to Your Mind Your Business, the podcast that gets into the real grit of entrepreneurship. I'm your host, Carina McLeod, entrepreneur and fitness fanatic. And today, we have a special guest, James Wakefield from Wake Commerce.

Welcome, James. Thank you. Thank you for having me. Well, I'm super excited to talk to you today because I kind of know you where you are in your present life. But I'm keen to talk about sort of going back to really understanding your journey as to how you got to where you are today.

But before we do, I'd love it if you could introduce yourself to the audience and just tell them a bit about who you are and where you're at now. Sure. Yeah. Well, thank you again for inviting me. My name is James Wakefield, founder of Wake Commerce.

We're an Amazon focused agency. So, yeah, I work with various consumer brands. I've got a team of about 20. Half are based in The UK. Other half are based in India.

But, yeah, it's been a long, hard journey to get to here. Yeah. I can imagine just being a agency owner as well. It's like you can look at it from the outside and think, great. Fantastic.

You've got your business. You've got a team of 20. You've got your clients and everything. But I'm sure you've gone through a lot of challenges, which we'll Of course. Come on to now.

So let's hit rewind, and let's just go back. I know we're at a studio, and you mentioned you were close you've, spent some time being quite close in the in the London area. So I I'm keen to know sort of the start of your entrepreneurial journey and, what led you to where you're at now. Yeah. It's been quite a long journey.

It started quite early. So, I've never actually had a job. I've never been employed. So I've never been in a kind of corporate environment, which I think has pros and cons. I think people who've worked in corporate life and even agency life have got a very different perspective on how to run a business like this.

But, yeah, I started quite young, so I was probably, I think, 15 when I sort of started what you could consider my first business. So I actually started with an online publication, so photography magazine around 1997. So very early days of the Internet, pretty mundane. I was using a sort of desktop web designer called Claris homepage and just managed to kind of fumble together a few web pages and get a website together, which was kind of in a magazine type format. So, yeah, I did that whilst I was at school and managed to monetize it eventually through advertising.

So I got a US based digital camera retailer to put banner ads on the website and I think they're paying me about $300 a month Wow. Which for a 15 year old in in the wasn't too bad. And, yeah, sort of carried that on for a few years. Didn't go as deep into it as I probably could have done to make it a long term success but it gave me a taster for the internet. I think that whole gateway into the world without having to do physical work was obviously of its time and very interesting as an opportunity.

And then a few years after that, I suppose it became a bit more serious. It was actually after I left school. So I did a photography degree. Photography is always been my passion, but I was never I don't wanna say foolish enough to disrespect anyone in the photography game, but I didn't really see that as a as a career option. I kind of did it as a passion and whilst I was at uni, I was always thinking about, you know, what is my job gonna be?

Where am I gonna get my income from? So actually started selling on marketplaces in So before eBay, there was a platform called QXL, very similar kind of auction model, but essentially used it as a marketplace platform like eBay. And then fairly soon after that started selling on eBay. And then, yeah, probably around 02/4, my friend's dad became a wholesaler of designer sunglasses and eyewear. So that was kind of a good opportunity for me to get my teeth into a particular product type and do it a bit more seriously.

And, yeah, I did that really for over ten years, and, obviously, Amazon came into the picture probably around 02/6. That's crazy because you say 1997. So I was just thinking back then, like, that was really the time when the Internet really started. And so your career or all the work that you've been doing is always you've been ahead of the game. Because to be doing what you were doing in 1997 and then you even said that you were selling pre eBay, you've really had yeah.

You've been at the forefront of all those changes. Yeah. Definitely. What annoys me a bit is that I kinda went through all of that, and I was there at the right time, but never really made a huge success of anything in terms of online retail. Hit a lot of the barriers that I think a lot of entrepreneurs or kind of small business owners hit when they go down that route.

So it was kind of ticking over and, you know, it was generating an income for me, but I never sort of really broke through to the next level. I kind of preferred working from my flat. So most of the time, I didn't have an office. So then bringing people into that environment, I was always nervous about employing strangers and kinda bringing them into my home.

So that actually created a few barriers for kinda growing that business because I ended up being responsible for everything from customer emails to buying stock, forecasting stock, cash flow accounting, website management, website marketing, and there obviously just wasn't enough hours in the day. And also from a working capital perspective, those businesses are very difficult to bootstrap. But, yeah, never quite got there. But what I did get from that experience over, you know, a long period was kind of a good understanding of online retail, different types of marketing, kind of basic fundamentals around e commerce, dabbled in a lot of different platforms, Magento, eventually Shopify, realized that if you bring in developers, then you can end up in a bit of a a spiral in terms of development costs. So, yeah, I experimented with lots of things particularly on the marketing side because a lot of it was quite e commerce website focus rather than marketplace focus.

So I was exposed to many different marketing channels, everything from email to affiliate to PPC, SEO. You know, there's probably 15 I can reel off. It's interesting that you started off saying that you haven't been in that corporate world, but you've also been those years where you say you didn't necessarily get to a certain point, like, where your business was a certain size. Right? You were learning all along.

So, you know, somebody that, for example, might go in a corporate role, and that is their learning, that you've learned being really hands on, and you've gone into so many different areas, right? Do you think at that stage then you ever thought in your mind that you would be the entrepreneur, the business owner that you are today, where you do have a larger team, when you were sort of sitting in your flat, right, managing your business, was that ever sort of the plan in those days? It's a good question. I suppose because I was young, I was probably quite short termist and I still am relatively short termist. I often don't like to think too far ahead in the future.

I know it's good to have goals and a vision of where you're gonna be in a year or two, but to be honest, I've never really thought like that. It's more been sort of day to day, week to week, especially as I've always been quite a busy person, but, you know not busy for the sake of it but because I've often got lots of different things on the go and that often doesn't give you the time to sort of think ahead and you know where is this gonna be in one or two years. I suppose in hindsight with the sort of online retail businesses, I would have eventually liked to probably have been in a an office and had a proper setup. But it was there was obviously good times and bad times but looking at it generally it was it was more sort of hand to mouth and trying to keep the business going and surviving.

And like I said, there just wasn't really a time or an opportunity where it was like, okay, let's expand this or let's kinda take it up to the next level. And that's actually why eventually I sort of moved out of that space and into the agency space. I was gonna say, what was that pivotal moment for you where you then decided to set yourself up as an agency and basically then build out a team where you're sort of not the 1 having to do every everything? Yeah. So it was in my sort of latter years being in London, so, which was around 02/1516.

So I was still running these businesses, different kind of product types, mainly buying stock and reselling online. At that time it was kind of probably 60% website and then the rest Amazon basically. I didn't really do much on eBay at that point because eBay kinda died for certain product types. But I was there kinda running this business or businesses, paying my London rent and actually paying for London office as well. So outgoings were a bit crazy, but I was constantly having this niggle that if anybody at any time had asked me over the years what is my specialism, I was never particularly comfortable saying SEO, for example, or PPC.

I had a superficial knowledge of a lot of these different kind of channels and platforms, but actually, I felt really comfortable when it came to Amazon. I wouldn't have say said I'd mastered it at that point, but I just felt really confident and kind of experienced around how that channel functions. So, yeah, I had this niggle and I've kind of been working on, I suppose, a business plan, a sort of agency model type business plan in the background. And then, yeah, it sort of coincided with my friend who was running a fairly large toy brand up north. So big European toy brand.

And he said, yeah. Can you have a look at our Amazon? Because I think it's underperforming. So I said to him, look, you know, let me manage this. So that was kind of my first foray into vendor and also managing it for a client essentially.

And the retainer was enough for me to move away from the other business. So it was certainly a risk, but it kinda paid off because it got me through until such time as I was able to bring on more clients. So you, have that retainer so that allows you to then focus, right, on that that area that you feel comfortable with. How did it feel when you needed to that to that point where, I guess, you get more clients on, and then you need to employ someone or bring someone in? What was that moment like for you when you needed to less reliant on just yourself?

Yeah. So I didn't answer your question around what did I envisage that looking like in in terms of a a team. Again, I'm not sure I actually thought too much about it. I must have known in my head that I was pivoting from a a product based business to a service based business and therefore for it to scale it was gonna need people. I think yeah.

But by that point when I was in the office in London, I did actually have an employee who was kind of supporting me with the online retail businesses and he had an interest in Amazon as well. So he was kind of there to support me with bits and pieces and it was just a lot more comfortable the fact that we're in a, we're just in a 2 man office in Shoreditch. So obviously, there wasn't the pressure of having a stranger or, you know, an employee kind of pottering around your home. So that was certainly that increased the scope for bringing more people on. But then from a cost perspective it wasn't really feasible to expand because being in London, you know, London wages, London office rents that was quite restrictive.

But the scaling aspects of that business came quite a bit later, which I'm sure we'll get on to and COVID undoubtedly influenced how things transpired there. What was the before sort of getting to that point where you did start to scale, what would you have said was the biggest challenge or setback that you had experienced? I think it's the it's just the total lack of any security blanket.

And it is quite binary. If you're employed and you're in a job, you are probably more secure than a business owner, particularly a business owner who's in those early stages or is kind of hand to mouth in terms of what they're bringing in and what they're having to pay out. So there's no specific situation but there's there have been multiple occasions over the years where it's got a bit hairy because you know there's not enough coming in. And the biggest lesson for me from all those experiences which has definitely influenced how I've structured this business is to just be really on top of the financials and it's a cliche, it's really boring particularly the tax aspects but if you're not on top of it then you will die basically. And it's pretty relentless, that the tax aspect kinda never goes away and actually becomes seemingly more painful even the bigger and potentially more profitable you get.

So having proper visibility on that and a real understanding of where you where you are financially, not now, but in the future when you're gonna get hit with your corporation tax once a year or your VAT 4 times a year or your PAYE once a month, National Insurance, you know, the list goes on. So I think for me, certainly being in situations in the past where I've not had enough forethought or planning for those hits. I did it differently this time. And I actually badgered my first cousin who is much more commercially astute than I am.

Would you say that's a driver for you, just her not having that security blanket? That's an interesting question. The the driver for me and I don't like to describe myself as an entrepreneur because I don't think that label should be put on, you know, I don't think people should call themselves entrepreneurial, but I think it's definitely a an urge that there's probably an ADHD element in there of just wanting to do things and kind of think outside the box, have control, not be a control freak, but have control over the path of a particular project. And what better way to do that than as a business where you can actually, you know, see things change and things happen for both clients and team members. I think there's quite a thrill in that and I can't compare it to being on the other side because I've never been in that situation.

But I think instinctively, I would probably struggle if I didn't have that autonomy and ability to sort of take things forward. If that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Completely.

And it's interesting that you say that point about entrepreneur because all the guests that I've spoken with previously, everyone has said, yeah, but I don't label myself as an entrepreneur. And you look in the dictionary and it's like, Okay, you are effectively an entrepreneur, but it's interesting how entrepreneurs are actually don't see themselves as entrepreneurs. It's almost like you're in it, You've got this hunger for it, but actually, you're you see it differently. I I think the same applies for thought leader.

I I don't think 1 should ever describe themselves as a thought leader. I mean myself and yourself could arguably describe ourselves as thought leaders but it I don't know. It feels a bit arrogant and yeah, it's typically a label that someone else would apply. And I suppose there's also a bit of a stigma around being labeled an entrepreneur because entrepreneur in theory equals success. So therefore, if you're not successful or you're not as successful as you think you should have been, maybe there's a bit of a imposter syndrome thing going on there whereby people don't wanna say I'm an entrepreneur.

Yeah. That's interesting that you how you describe that. Do you ever get that part where you do feel that imposter syndrome or have that self doubt? I certainly have in certain times of my life and I'm sure we'll get into the whole kind of social media angle. I think I think it's good to know kind of where your strengths are and to talk confidently around the topics that you you're knowledgeable in.

So I don't really feel that particularly around Amazon. I probably would around certain of the subjects that I'm not that comfortable with, but I've kind of really leaned into Amazon. I like the way that you sort of say that you have honed into your specialist and you say about where your strengths are. And as a result, you have developed this agency, which has then grown.

And as you say, you've got the your team of 20. What was that process in in how you grew? Did you ever have those sleepless nights? How did you get to that point of scaling? Yeah.

Of course. Certainly had sleepless nights. It has happened relatively organically and that there's certainly been ups and downs because you're or certainly with our agency so dependent on, client retainers. So that can have a huge impact on whether you can scale or even the reverse. So, yeah, certainly been on that journey, and the way that I tend to describe it is that it it's usually 2 steps forward, 1 step back.

So if you kinda look at the growth trajectory, you know, new clients have come on board, others have gone away. But luckily, the growth curve has been relatively consistent, and I think that's because we're in a sort of still a fairly kinda niche industry. There's obviously a lot of other agencies and providers popping up all the time, but that's good because that kinda challenges you to work out, okay, what is our positioning? Yeah. It kind of happened organically.

I think a key thing for us is because some of our talent is offshore, that's allowed us to grow certain aspects of the agency quicker. But, you know, there were challenges around that. I didn't have any experience of the Indian market prior to creating this agency. So that's there was a huge learning curve in terms of getting that right and I feel that that probably took two years.

But then everything kind of fell into place and now we've got a good vibe, a good team structure. The responsibilities are quite clear whereas early on, I probably went a bit too far on the Indian team particularly in terms of maybe account management expectations or kind of client facing roles. But now we have a very defined team structure and the amazing thing is that whatever people's kind of preconceptions are of offshoring to India, our team just really feels very cohesive and there seems to be a real cultural fit, which is almost bizarre. You know, we just we're just 1 team and it works really well.

And I think that's allowed us to build out specialisms faster than we would have done otherwise. I love what you say, 2 steps forward, 1 step back, because I think that that's often forgotten about. It's constant steps forward. But, actually, you know, you might be celebrating that you've just got x new clients, and then the following day, a client hands in their notice. Right?

It's, it's interesting. So it's really you seem to have quite a a well balanced view in in that area. I'm guessing on that team, and that's really great that you've managed to get a team offshore and get them to feel part of the team and have that real sort of culture fit, which is fantastic. Has that journey to me, it sounds, okay.

Great. You're there. But I'm guessing that journey to to get there wasn't as easy as it might sound. Now it's now you've accomplished it. No.

Of course not. You know, kind of month to month, historically, usually with most businesses I've been involved in has been a struggle. But, again, I think I'm a lot more disciplined these days than I was in the past in terms of, you know, I've got a spreadsheet, I've got there's no sort of trickery or formulae in there. It's basically just numbers that I put in manually that allows me to see kind of where we're at month to month and make decisions, kind of as we go.

But, yeah, certainly the growth of the agency has been challenging. And I don't wanna say luck is a part of it, but I think certainly being in the right sort of industry at the right time. I saw a post on LinkedIn yesterday from another agency owner. I'll tell you who she is afterwards, but, not Amazon, kind of a different sort of category. And her agency experience was very negative, And I was kinda thinking about that and thinking about the things that she was saying.

And I was wondering if, an element of that was the sort of type of service or category that that particular agency is in. And Amazon, ecommerce, Internet, generally, I feel I've been quite lucky to have existed in this time because it's always been in growth. It's frustrated me maybe that my businesses previously haven't been successful faster because I felt like I'm in this space. It's in constant growth. But, you know, I've needed those experiences to really understand where my sort of niche and passion is and also to get that kind of training in terms of how to actually run a business properly.

Yeah. And it's interesting that you say your previous businesses weren't as successful because I guess that comes down to perception because the fact that you made them happen and you were able to get to an office and you you they were working for you and able to pay the bills and everything could be deemed as success. Right? Yeah. And everything.

But it sounds like there was always sort of some other part that you were seeking for, and you got that through the agency that you've got now, which sounds fantastic. And, congratulations in terms of getting there with your business, which is great. Thank you. How do you manage those ups and downs? Because when I'm talking to you, you seem very balanced, and it seems very you know, you seem like you've, you kind of yeah.

Balanced, I guess, is the best way. Do you have any strategies to manage that? Or I know you mentioned a spreadsheet, but, you know, sort of outside potentially of the workplace, how you manage those highs and lows? Yeah. I think there's certainly if you're talking about sort of mental and physical health, I think that has a huge impact on kind of how you perform within a business and how you deal with certain pressures.

When I was younger and in my twenties, you know, I lived like someone in their twenties. I lived up in Leeds and I had a flat in the city centre. Used to go out a lot, but I just couldn't do it these days. And actually, I think if I was going out on a weekend, for example, that that would seriously kind of inhibit my performance in the week. So I think following those obvious strategies really in terms of mental and physical health is gonna get you to perform better in your business or actually more relevant just handle certain situations better because, you know, if you if you hung over or if you're not at peak, not even peak health but just kinda standard health, then stressful situations are just gonna be magnified, and make things a lot worse.

And I think also you need that energy to sort of drive things forward. You kind of need you need to feel normal to kinda run the day to day of the business, but you also need to feel normal to have the ambition to be looking at those other projects and things you wanna do and kind of advance those. So you've gotta have a good amount of kind of physical and mental energy. So, yeah, I mean, I've got a family with 3 small children these days, so there's no room really to be sort of enjoying myself socially. But, you know, I've got my family.

I've got my business, occasional sort of leisurely things. But also, you've got to find that balance. You can't just work and work and work, which actually, when I was younger, I probably did too much of. So because I didn't have a family and I was kind of in my own flat, I would often work kind of late into the night, which I do occasionally do now, you know, certain weeknights, but it's always a kind of 10PM cut-off. I've got to have good sleep to kind of be ready for the next day.

And also because this is a much more client facing role, you've got to be able to kind of show up in front of those clients and be presentable. So, yeah, it's the only way I think. So I guess sort of good habits, really. Yeah. Like you're saying, sleep is important well.

As much as you can sleep, right, with, 3 little ones. But just putting yourself first in the sense of making sure that you can mentally show up, I guess. Yeah. Definitely. There are you know?

And it's interesting how you say you could work through the night, but then, you know, have there ever been times where you've those bad habits have crept in? Yeah. Absolutely. Like I said, it tended to be when I was younger, and I would just work too much.

But now actually having the family kinda forces me into a routine, which was probably necessary because if I wasn't forced into 1, then I'm I maybe would just, you know, work more times than I should. And also that kinda makes you more efficient as well because, generally, I get to my desk at 09:30 and we have dinner quite early at five. And obviously, I kinda have lunch in the middle of that. So it's not actually a very long working day, and that's why often I'll try and catch up on things in the evening. But it means that I'm probably only doing eight or nine hours work, which most people would consider to be a kind of typical working day.

In theory, I could do twelve, you know, if you look at my to do list and all the kind of projects that I've got on the go, I could just go on and on and on. But having that structure kind of forces you to be more efficient. Actually forces you to bring more people on board and kind of delegate more. You know, certain things don't move as fast as I'd like them to.

I used to work a lot of weekends before I have a family. I just don't do that anymore at all. So I I feel a bit constrained, but at the same time, things are moving at a pace that is okay. So I love that because you've it's almost that you've as you say, it's about that structure and actually having structure makes you more efficient. And then you start thinking, well, actually, I need to delegate this.

Or I can't do this. And, you know, you've got those set hours, so you do have time for yourself, because you can just work all hours under the sun. But then are you a sufficient working all the hours under the sun? Could you have passed certain things on to your team?

So Yeah. And another thing with sort of the client facing aspects of the business. So a a kind of breaking point for me actually was in the earlier days. I'd kind of built a bit of a team, but it was mainly out in India. But I was still very much the main point of contact for, I think it was around 20 clients.

Wow. And there was 1 week I looked at my calendar and I think I counted like 28 calls. Wow. Not all clients. There was other stuff going on that week.

It was a particularly bad week. And I'd been quite resistant at that stage to bring anyone on to help with account management because I wasn't sure if we could afford it. I also felt like it was a tricky role to hire for and I still think hiring account managers is probably the hardest role to hire for an Amazon agency or probably any type of agency. But that week was kinda like the breaking point for me where I was like, well, can't carry on like this. It might all go wrong, but actually I've got to take that risk and go out and find someone.

And unlucky, I found someone, you know, who was spot on for that role. Is now our account director, and things kinda just grew nicely from there. But that was a risk, you know, it might not have transpired that way. It's interesting that it's almost that things get to a point where it's like you can't continue. To allow you to take that step, and it's kind of like you've got 2 paths.

Right? Do you take the risk, or do you just continue in that state? And, which is great to where you are now because it's all worked itself out. And I'm guessing you don't have twenty eight hour, you know, calls in your diary now, and you've been able to take that step back to be in a place where the agency's running, you are then able to have healthy habits, etcetera. Yeah.

Exactly. The unfortunate truth is that you you've gotta and I hate to use the word grind, but you have gotta or hustle, you gotta grind your way through those first few years until you you're actually big enough so that you can delegate certain things. And we both know that, what is it, ninety or ninety five percent of businesses fail in the first five years. It's a really shocking statistic but having gone through that myself with many businesses, I totally understand why. There's a lot of areas that can kinda catch you out, particularly for someone like me who hasn't been in certain environments or has been trained to run a business, whether that's even a thing.

But, essentially, you can get caught out really easily, but you need to build a business to be a particular size in order for it to kinda look after itself. And that sort of a to b point unless you take investment, which we haven't done, and I think is also a big risk. Because if somebody comes to you with 50 or a hundred grand in the early days of running your agency, it's like great that's a gateway to kind of build something more quickly.

But actually it it's also quite dangerous because then you can just burn through that money quite easily Yep. And end up back where you were. I think my experiences have been better because I've been forced to take things kinda step by step and only bring people on when we can afford it. And I think that's a much better way of kinda training yourself to run a business. Do you ever have that part where you think maybe I should have brought that person on sooner or do you think that you hired that person at the right time?

I think in terms of the account management aspect, that that was certainly the biggest pain point. But could I have done it sooner? Probably. But again, I was kind of finding my way through actually the business model.

So like I said, never worked in any business, let alone an agency business. I was actually really struggling to get my head around what is a typical structure, a kind of an organizational structure for an agency. I did actually work with an agency consultant for a while for about a year, so that was really useful. So I really struggled with that. But at the same time, I kind of had to find my own way through and kind of work out what I thought was gonna work.

For our agency and it's kind of come together. So, again, a bit of luck there. I think it's great. And I think the fact that you just said that you found your agency sort of grew the way that worked for you is brilliant. And you talked about the organic piece because social media, there's a huge amount of noise, and it's almost like success is about having x amount of employees or doing x amount of business.

How do you block that out when you've got this business you wanna grow organically that works for you when you've got all these people shouting out about that they've grown and just done x within x few amounts with few months. I I think I've got a good, BS rate radar. The thing that the thing that makes me laugh is how many of these sort of FBA type influencers and courses are still doing the rounds. It's actually someone sent me a link to an Instagram ad a couple of days ago and he said, is this legit? And I looked at it and I I just thought this this should actually be banned.

And it was a guy saying, hey, guys. And he was telling people about kind of white label, private labeling products. He said, all you've got to do is go on Google, search for white label supplements. Oh, he did. And then he landed on this website, UK based kind of supplement manufacturer and then he was showing you listings on Amazon that are doing £50,000 or £400,000 a month from 1 listing.

And that that stuff should be illegal because, you know, Amazon is probably 1 of the most competitive marketplaces on Earth. It's almost the perfect manifestation of capitalism in the modern world. So, yeah, I can smell BS and the same applies for people who are talking about kind of growing, building an agency, scaling an agency. Not all of it is BS.

And actually, I have spent a fair bit of time over the last five years trying to absorb a lot of business strategy books. Not typically podcasts or other medium. Actually I like books, usually in kind of audio book form. I can blast through a book pretty quickly and and you can spot the good ones ironically from the Amazon reviews.

And there's a lot of them. It takes a bit of time to work out actually what is gonna add value here. But what I've noticed from those books is that there's a lot of consistent themes. So some of the stuff that we've spoken about today really.

But for me that's been really useful because hearing that from people who've been through those experiences and have been provably successful and are not people just trying to make a quick buck from a kind of course or something. I found real value from hearing from them and hearing how they approach certain business decisions and growth strategies. I like that. I may need to, tap into your BS radar Yeah. To make sure because it can be distracting, right, especially with social media with everybody, using that as a channel to almost blow their own trumpet.

Yeah. And and what I've realized, you know, I've spent a lot of time building my LinkedIn following and using that as a kind of marketing channel. But what I appreciate now is that I'm just in a total echo chamber slash bubble because I think 80% of the post that I see on my LinkedIn feed are Amazon related. You know, it's equivalent to maybe someone who's far right in The US constantly seeing like QAnon posts. But that's actually quite limiting because you're only seeing and hearing from essentially your kind of peers within the space.

When actually, you probably wanna be hearing more from the sort of brand owners and the people on the ground who are trying to work out what their Amazon strategy is. So, yeah, I think social media is slightly more positive than negative, but I think the negative aspects, can be quite serious. Devonnie, it seems like you've got a good way of managing it, for sure. And, before we wrap up, we you know, we talked about your younger self, talked about you and your flat starting off your businesses. If you were to give advice to that younger self, what would that 1 piece of advice be?

Yeah. It's going back to that really boring point around numbers and financials. And I suppose try trying to be unemotional about whatever your business idea is. So probably, you know, using other people as a soundboard, not not letting them distract you or take you on different path if you think that's really the way forward. But I think certainly sounding ideas off people who are kinda more experienced in the business world, but fundamentally coming back to how is this gonna pan out from a financial perspective.

And most importantly, have you got those guardrails in place so that you're not gonna get stung by an unexpected tax bill or, you know, something that could bite you in the backside later on. There's certain things you can't plan for but you can certainly try and have clarity and visibility on things. And I think that's really important. A %. That's, it sounds like the basics, and you say boring part, but actually, it is fundamental to the success of a business.

So thank you, James. You've been an absolute awesome guest. I've learned more about you. And for those that are listening, thank you for listening today. Hopefully, you've been able to take some, some insights into James's story and also that you can apply to your business.

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