S3 E4 Why Building a Community is the Best Way to Scale e-Commerce in 2026

Nadav Gorlicki, founder of CapEc, shares his journey from building a successful private label brand to creating a unique funding and audit platform for e-commerce sellers. 

We explore how the e-commerce landscape is shifting toward community-centric models and why founders must look beyond simple revenue metrics to achieve long-term sustainability in markets like Amazon and TikTok Shop. Nadav breaks down the "full life cycle" of a seller, offering a rare perspective from both the vendor and lender sides of the business. He discusses the importance of conducting deep audits to identify micro-level improvements and explains how personal branding acts as a catalyst for organic growth, reducing reliance on traditional ad spend. By focusing on passion and real-world networking, entrepreneurs can navigate a saturated market and build something meaningful in the long term.

Key Takeaways:

• Transitioning from a private label owner to a strategic financial partner.
• The impact of AI and automation on e-commerce operations and decision-making.
• Strategies for building a community to drive organic traffic and brand loyalty.
• Critical metrics for scaling from 5 to 7 figures without sacrificing personal livelihood.

 TIMESTAMPS:
 00:00 - Introduction to Nadav and the full e-commerce life cycle 
 03:27 - A unique approach to inventory funding and liquidating goods 
 09:07 - How AI and automated audits help brands succeed long-term 
 12:55 - The future of e-commerce: TikTok Shop and community branding 
 18:44 - Scaling sustainably: Moving from 5 to 7 figures the right way 
 26:06 - Essential metrics vs distractions for growing e-commerce stores 
 35:12 - The power of networking and real-world experience over AI answers 
 41:27 - Why passion and dedication are the final keys to brand success

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hey, welcome back to the online hustle podcast. Thank you for joining us today. We have a very special guest, Nadav, someone who doesn't need an introduction, but I wanna just take a couple minutes and Nadav, if you could tell us a bit more about yourself, your journey, the company that you represent, take the floor.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Hi, thanks for having me. Located in Miami with my family. I've been in e-commerce for close to 12 years now. Uh started my own brand just like everybody through an Amazon course some time ago. After that, I set up over six brands since then uh with over 30 million in uh revenue sales in my brands. And about four or five years ago, I decided to start CapEc uh four years ago actually. And CapEc came about from meeting so many sellers who would always reach out to me to invest in their Amazon stores and also feeling on my businesses and on my brands the heart of uh reaching growth and reaching full potential because we're always stressed with cash for inventory. So we wanted to create a product that really correlates with the e-com space and not from the finance world because most of the finance products out there don't really correlate with our space, and that's why uh we started CapEc four years ago. And today we have a very unique finance solution that's helped over 500 sellers, and total revenues of probably much over a billion, and we're always there to and I enjoy getting to see so many new sellers, so many businesses, and so many products, and have the ability to really help them grow and succeed, and improve the statistics and succeeding on the Amazon, the e-com space in general.

SPEAKER_00 2:25

That's pretty awesome, Gadab. So you basically have gone through the full sales cycle or the full life cycle of an e-com seller. You started with your own company, your own private label, own products, testing it out, and then growing it, basically for doing what everybody dreams of, which is being successful with your own brand, creating opportunities, and then actually helping others so that they can also not only scale but grow and live that same dream. That not everyone's uh not everyone can say they have gone that full circle. That's pretty, pretty awesome, I'll be honest. And the fact that the idea started from a need from within the community, seeing, okay, in a dev, how can you help me, how can you invest so that I can continue growing? It's also pretty neat. Uh, let me ask you, I know something that you guys do that's very niche and unique is the fact that when somebody cannot pay for the funds or the funding of the goods, you can actually step in and sell the inventory for them. How how could you tell me a bit about that? How does that work and uh what can founders learn from these cases?

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, so we're very much uh uh integrated into the systems of our customers, where standard uh finance solutions, usually banks or or most of the finance solutions out there look more at your uh bank statements or your or your uh QuickBooks PL, things like that. We look at your actual product, we understand your actual profitability, where you are in the market with your competitors, and we're connected by APIs so we get that data ongoing and in real time. So we understand the product and understanding that it's a profitable product, we know for sure that there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to sell that product and at least get money back, or if not make profits on it. So even if a seller has problems along the way that for some reason uh causes product not to sell well, whether it's bad advertising or whether it's even he got his uh listing shut down or his store shut down, will come in and we'll help sell that product through our stores as long as we're able to rejuvenate the cost of the product so that no one loses money here. Uh we really invest in our sellers and we want them to grow and want them to succeed, and we're always there to help them in that process. Um our product itself is also very different because I believe that it's not just getting funds, you have to get the right type of funds that really connect to the cash flow of running a brand or a business. The cash flow of brands is very, very different because we're manufacturing and therefore our ROI is very has different spikes in expenses because we have to put down deposits and then the difference. And then our income is usually very long, can take a few months until we get it into Amazon and start selling that product, and then three to six months just to get that money back. So our our product really correlates to that cash flow, so it helps steady out the cash flow of the business. And the biggest problem businesses have in the e-com space is that everyone's making money or selling a lot of revenue, but there's never any cash in the bank. And that's a huge problem. And not just having to live with the stress of no cash and expenses and how to deal with it, but also the fact that it's uh harming the growth of our business. Um, because if we can't buy that next batch of inventory, and in most cases that next batch is double the amount, if not triple the amount, which obviously we will we'd never have from just uh organic growth. We always need to keep adding capital into the business to grow that fast. Uh then we lose our we lose inventory and then we run out of inventory. We lose our ranking, we lose our value. Everything we've invested in to get to a certain point deteriorates and we have to start all over again. So we really do look at ourselves as a strategic investor that that's investing in the brand, that's helping grow the brand, and we're also open to helping our sellers in any way when it comes to consulting in their in their store. I mean, just when you file an application with us, we're gonna run through all your data almost like a full audit. So, and we'll come back to you and say, hey, your product is not making money because you have 25% tacos and you have 40% tariffs and you have uh shipping that's very expensive. You know, a lot of sellers don't even see that sometimes because they're so worked up at just marketing and growing and continuing to bring the product in, and they can't drill down to all the little bits and bytes of the costs. Um we're able to do that from experience, and we even have automated uh technology today that does it for us mostly. So uh so this is something how we see things very differently, and we're always there to help. Um, an example like from what you said, we had a customer that had his store, uh, he had a hacker, a hijacker on his store, and while trying to get the hijacker off, he ended up getting his store shut down. So we took his product, we uh put it in our stores, his same listing, and we're selling it through our stores until we helped him open his store back, and so he didn't lose his ranking, he kept his sales going and his revenue. Obviously, it wasn't exactly the same, but at least he wasn't down now for five months, six months till he got his store open and had to basically lose almost everything.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

Absolutely. No, and it's uh it's a snob effect. Like, just like you said, those little things start adding up very quickly. And the fact that you perform a full audit and look at the big picture makes it a lot, I'm gonna say a lot simpler once you actually take a look at it because you can actually help on a micro level. Instead of just saying, here's some money, let's invest, and let's get you some additional inventory, you're actually helping them succeed on the long run, which is again very different from what many other companies do or what most people think a financial lender or somebody who's gonna actually help you in this kind of situation would do. And you mentioned something about AI and the way that you have automated systems. One of the things that I wanted to ask you, as someone who's been on both the vendor side and the seller side, how do you think this next two to five years of e-commerce would look like with all the changes that are happening? And what do you think is the most important thing that founders need to look at and really consider in the next coming years?

SPEAKER_01 9:35

So, of course, uh AI has created a lot of shortcuts for a lot of uh parts that are needed in uh selling online. I mean, the e-commerce space is gonna continue to grow, and I think it'll even grow faster the more we have AI because it creates a more uh streamlined and more efficient uh uh marketplace for everything, whether it's for ads, whether it's for logistics, it's helping the the play the the whole infrastructure work much better, and therefore it'll grow faster. Uh on the other hand, it's it makes it a little hard to differentiate yourself from others and especially from so many sellers that are out there. Therefore, one I think you need to become pretty strong fast, otherwise it'll be very hard to keep up with the larger and stronger sellers that are out there. And another key thing that I've noticed a lot is if you have a real product that you're correlated with that you love, that you understand, that's really a passion, and that's why we love working with brands and less resellers or stuff like that, then you're always gonna have an advantage of someone who just found a nation and copied a product because you truly understand the the problems of a product, the the advantages, and you're able to uh pass that on to the seller in a much better way. Another important thing that we've seen today with most sellers, the obviously influencers and outside traffic from Amazon directly has brought a lot more advantage and traffic into the brand. And creating a community around your brand is something that's created a lot more stickiness uh to your product. And this is something that especially the Chinese are not as good at doing, but in general, not a lot of people are doing it, and this is something that's worth investing long term. If you're here to build a brand for the next five uh four to five years and to exit it then, then you want to invest in the long term. You want to have your database, your community, your sellers. Uh, it's a huge advantage also for upselling, for if you have a product that you can subscribe on, things like that. I think that's where it's going, and more and more of the sales are also going off Amazon. So being in multiple platforms, not only uh not only relying on Amazon is very important too. Even though those platforms a lot of times cost more and are hard to show value on the short term, they have a long-term investment to them.

SPEAKER_00 12:36

So one of the things that one of the biggest things that I got from what you just said is first technology is just leveling the playing field, it's giving a lot of people the platform to get into the business, get into e-commerce, and have the ability to be successful rather quickly. But like you said, they have to be strong. And with that, it does require either a lot of ingenuity or a lot of capital so that they can push their products. But I do want to put a pin on what you just said creating a community and actually having a personal brand or at least a brand around the products that you're providing. I do think that's the future of what e-commerce is going to be. You've seen the rise of just the TikTok shop sellers, people that create community by selling several different brands just through TikTok shop, or people that just sell their products through Instagram, even though that's not a selling platform, they advertise them through there to whatever lifestyle that they're selling to their to their community. So absolutely one of the biggest things that I feel like, especially smaller sellers that are just getting started, the ones that have the blindfolds on and they're just focused on getting the the actual store uh store launched, they sometimes forget that they need to you know open their view and actually start thinking of how do I create a community about what I around what I'm building so this can grow and be something meaningful long term. So, with that, let me ask you, do you work with every type of seller? Is there a size requirement or do you help sellers of all sizes regardless of where they're at in their journey?

SPEAKER_01 14:18

We're looking for sellers that have been running the business at least one year and that their products that they're buying will have a history of at least six months. And revenue-wise, probably sellers that are doing at least uh 20k a month. Uh, because these are the these are the sellers at the end of the day that really need the substantial capital for growth. And no matter where they are, they need more than what they have. I mean, even if they're a million-dollar seller or a five million dollar seller, if they're just gonna double, they need more capital than what they can create from their business. So, and that's where we come in because we're unlimited in that way. We can do deals starting at 10, 20k, and we can do deals at two to three million dollars. So uh so really when when a seller is in that position of growth and he starts working with us, uh, two things happen. One, he's he has unlimited growth, uh growing power now behind them, so he can buy inventory as much as he wants. Two, he's still getting another set of professional eyes that's looking at what he's doing. A lot of times we might come back to the seller and say, hey, you're buying triple the amount of inventory because you believe you're gonna go uh that fast. But we see that your competitors this or the entire category is only double the size. It'll be hard for you to get to that level. And we might recommend to him to buy less or or things like that, which is fine. I mean, we we're not just looking to push money out in a in an automated way. We do look in every single product that you buy. One product we might tell you you don't you shouldn't buy this at all. Another product we might tell you you should be buying more. And we actually drill down to that left. So working with us, getting another set of professionalized that if we gave you money, it usually means your profit, your product is profitable, you have good advertising, you're doing well, and now we want to support that growth as much as you need it. Two, it's an insurance that if something happens tomorrow, you also have someone to help you get out of it. You know, unfortunately things happen. You know, a listing can get shut down, a store can get shut down, God forbid you just got sick or something and you can't manage your store anymore. We'll come in, we'll help, at least so that you don't lose everything on the spot. So that's another thing. Um and cash flow, which is the most important. Uh I believe that your business should support you. Most sellers have grown their business year over year, reinvesting every penny they got, plus taking more loans just to meet up capital that they need. And basically they have more than all their eggs in one basket, they have debt on their eggs, right? So when working with us, I think that you should have at least 50% of your capital, other people's money. This allow gives you an insurance policy. So if something happens tomorrow, God forbid, and the business doesn't succeed, you didn't lose it all. You lost 50% in that flight. It might cost you a few percentages for that funding cost, but it's also an insurance for your life, you know. So you can have better cash flow, you can pull a salary, you can go to dinner with your wife, you can take a vacation, you can pay your mortgage, which is even more important maybe than your business, and and still and still keep growing your business in the same or even faster way when working with the right type of funding.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Absolutely. So that that is something very important you just mentioned, and I really liked what you said. First of all, to work with you, it's not a matter of how much they're making. Obviously, you want to look for sellers that are proven, but the biggest thing, what sounds like is people that are committed to the success of their business and people that are going to be actually pushing to for continuous growth. And then after that, is actually teaching them how to go from five to six to seven figures the correct way, which is make sure that you're sustaining yourself, make sure that you're having money to keep living, because it is very important to keep a roof over your head and your family's heads, but also have that safety net so that in case, like you said, something goes wrong, I mean, acts of God do happen and just we have hurricanes here all the time. So things happen, stuff can go wrong, and having that or learning that from the an early stage can really save somebody because you said this is a lifeline, it's a business, so it's going to at first do take some money, some resources, some time away from you, but it should at one point become something that sustains your just your livelihood and your style of life. So that is pretty sweet. I wanted to ask you now that we're talking about those early stages, how how can you or what would you recommend to someone who's at an early stage? Someone who is an e-commerce founder, an entrepreneur, someone again who is just learning the ropes? How can they differentiate themselves in a saturated market? Especially I'll give you an example. A lot of people today, there is this big boom with supplements all over the world. We see that a lot in Europe. A lot of people are taking vitamin supplements or protein powder, anything, health and fitness seems to be the boom right now. How can someone who's just getting started really become different or be the differentiating factor?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I don't have the I don't have the magic uh uh uh formula for that, otherwise, I'd also have a big uh nutrition brand right now. But uh it's important to understand the market, understand your competitors, always try and uh create some kind of uh differentiation, whether it's if you're going super healthy with ingredients and explaining that, having having followers and and uh influencers that can that can give uh reliability to your product uh that can show that it's a really it's a good quality product. Quality a lot of time is also something where the the big or the fast sellers don't really uh drill down into it that much. And I think today the new sell the new most of the buyers, most of our our customers today appreciate quality. It's a little hard to to to show it online through pictures and stuff like that, but at the end of the day, when the when the customer gets the product and sees the quality and understands, most most customers won't mind paying 10, 20, even 30% more for a good quality product than having one that they just use for a few months and throw it away. I mean, I think today also uh customers are very aware of waste and environment and and especially on the health side that they want really high quality products. I mean, I know myself for my I also use protein stuff like that. I check it all through apps. What are the ingredients? Who really has a a really I mean at the end of the day, this is something I'm putting in my body. I don't really care if it costs$20 or$25 or$30. I want it to be a good quality product. So finding good quality and keeping it in standards. And I mean, that's also something we do, by the way, with our customers. We insist on a post-production inspection and we review that inspection ourselves. So this is also something that we've learned, and I've learned personally the hard way. That if you don't do these things, even a factory, that customers tell me, hey, I've worked with this factory for two years, we've never had a problem. And then suddenly a batch comes with a problem, you didn't check it, and that's the end product. You know, basically you send one batch of bad product on a listing, you've killed it. It's gone. And so it's it's something that we our our best practices are also drilled down to our customers in order to help them and put the save them if from making mistakes, and also to ensure us that the product's good, and if something happens tomorrow, we can still sell it and do what we need with it. So on the differentiation side, uh whether it's the quality, showing better images, uh, making it personal. Like I said, if you're connected with that brand on a personal level, you understand it better, you can put that personal side into your product, whether it's on the social or even on in the product itself. And that's also something that customers really appreciate and like. What else? I think that's most of it that I can think of. In general, thinking out is is is not easy. I mean, personally, um you have to understand one a few things. One, you're not gonna make any money for at least two to three years. You know, I've heard so many sellers, hey, yeah, I'm starting an Amazon store on the side, I plan in one year to quit my job. Only if you have reserves, you can do that. You know, Amazon, any online business doesn't really pay you back for at least a couple years, if not more, until the store starts steadying out, or until you have enough revenue that a financer like us can join you, and then you have free cash that you can start living on. Um, so that's something that people have to be aware of. And uh in starting out is very hard. There's a lot of competition when you're starting. Uh, it's very hard to create that uh the traffic, get the first reviews, get your positioning on uh in Amazon or whether it's in other platforms. Uh personally, in my brands, the last two brands, I prefer to buy a mediocre brand that grow it instead of start from scratch. So that's something I recommend if people have the ability to buy a brand for a couple hundred thousand dollars. Most likely it's a less riskier um investment than starting from scratch and and trying to do three to four new products, which would cost you also between$100,000 to$200,000. And so that's something I I that's how I see the business today. And um that's it.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

So we covered a lot, and I now that we've mentioned starting, what I know there's a lot of different ways that you can uh measure success or measure how you're improving over time. With e-commerce, there's a lot of metrics, a lot of different things that you can actually look at to see just how your products are ranking, how you're doing, how your store in general is working out. What would you say are the most important metrics or data points that somebody should take a look at, and which ones are just distractions that you really should ignore until later on, once you're more advanced?

SPEAKER_01 26:18

So the most important data points I think for one is customer feedback, whether it's survey views or messages. If you see anything that that can uh give you um data on how to improve your product, how to make it better, how to differentiate it, what customers like, what they don't like, uh you know, even sending out surveys is a great thing if you have the ability, then that's the best. Um other than that, you know, advertising, we have uh you can very easily see in your category what's the best practice or what the others are at when it comes to akos and tacos, and if you're over that, then you need to understand why. On the other hand, uh when you're still growing, and profit is not the most important thing. I mean, you're investing in growth, you're investing in your product the first year or until you have uh, you know, hundreds of reviews and some organic rankings, you can't expect to make money off your advertising. I've seen so many people, they brought a first product, they invested all that. Now they have to go and do ads, and they're saying, hey, but I I'm advertising and I'm losing money. Yes, this is also part of an investment. You're gonna be losing. I mean, I know I have uh at least$50,000 is the cost to launch a new product because I know I'm gonna bring a certain amount of product that I'm not gonna make money on. I'm gonna invest in ads that aren't gonna give me true returns, and that's part of launching a product. You're launching a business, you're taking risks, and you have to be prepared with that cash flow and prepared with those uh KPIs. So you don't want to look for profit when you're first launching and starting. You want to create revenue, you want to create traffic. Amazon basically promotes you and uh and makes and helps you sell more as long as you're selling more products on yourself. So starting off, you basically have to buy that power, and that's why it's so expensive today. That's why I said you have to be strong and grow fast in order to really reach a position where you're making good revenues that don't require more investment or losses anymore. But starting off, you have to expect losses on your first to second batches and negative uh tacos on your advertising. It's part of launching, it's part of starting the product.

SPEAKER_00 29:03

So it goes back to then making sure that one, you're not looking at just the profits of the revenue that you're bringing in. You you mentioned before the first couple of years, you're not really gonna be seeing the money. You're gonna actually just be investing back into your brand to continue growth until you get to a steady state where you can actually find investors like yourself that can, okay, actually help you accelerate that growth further. But you mentioned again something that I think is really important, which is community. A lot of people that find that success usually create this selling or this store or this product after they have created a community and they have the backing of a lot of people who want to buy from them. So I think that one of the best things that some people could do that you see now going on in social media places like LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, everyone's building a personal brand, something that's attached to you, your name, so that when somebody is going to your Amazon store, your e-commerce e-com store, regardless of which platform you're selling in, they're buying because it's you. They're not buying because you're you're having to spend additional money on ad spend. They're actually there's more organic traffic to the store when you're actually sending them from your social media. So I think that's pretty interesting to see how that is going to shape the e-com environment in the next coming years with more and more of these influencers and people that are building communities in other forums, in blogs, just social media in general. We can see it as the agencies that help people create their Amazon store. Like you said, you bought a course, you started selling on Amazon because of that. That is a community, and from that, people join Amazon, people join e-commerce, and they go on this journey that could lead them to a just a life of success. Now, going into a bit more personal, as someone who's been in the space for a long time, what would you say is one of the most important habits? Or what should e-com founders, what should they be obsessed when first starting out? Now we already talked about the metrics, the data, the actual running of the business. What would you say is one of the most important qualities for someone who's just starting out?

SPEAKER_01 31:24

Um I say he needs to be passionate about his brand and his product so he understands everything that's happening about it, and to hear and listen to his customer's feedback so that he can always improve and make it better. Um he needs to uh live the product and live the category, always be aware of competition, always understand what's uh what's happening in his category in general. Um and also try and even uh predict future things that may happen, whether it's very hard with tariffs and things that are changing, but but you want to try and think what's gonna be planned six months ahead, a year ahead. Have your goals. Where do you want to be in those six months or 12 months, and really try and drill it down to a monthly, uh, even a weekly, if you can, weekly cash flow, but a monthly goal uh management so that you see you're meeting your goals and you're going all the time. It's uh 24-7 business and and you have to be on top of it all the time. Logistics is is something that's very hard to manage. Nobody likes it. And you know, one mistake in your container left uh two weeks late and didn't come in in time, and you were a week without inventory. You the the cost and the damages are huge. You work so much, you invest so much, you have to be aware of everything. So so connecting to a community, like you said, is something I very much believe in and support. You know, being part of uh uh a group of sellers, there are multiple communities out there, I think is uh something amazing. You get real feedback and real uh uh real-time uh data from people and things that's happened to them. And a lot of times it can be relevant to you, and they've already solved this situation or been in this situation in the past. It's not something you can you can uh even buy, you know, in a course a lot of times. You can go through all the data, you can ask all the AI, but not every situation will they'll tell you exactly the right thing or or how it worked. But someone who's been through it specifically can always give you a direct answer and a real answer. So being open, this is something that I've seen change in the last many years. In the past, people would start a new brand. I don't even want to tell you what my product is. I'm afraid someone's gonna steal it or something. No, I believe in true transparency, the more you're open about it, the more you tell, the more you're open about the problems you're having, the more you're open about things that aren't going well and aren't working. There are so many people who have been through this and are happy to tell you what they did and how they went through it. And you're not gonna get that feedback if you're not open to saying it. So being open to your community, finding a community of sellers, and it being open to all the harsh and all the problems and all the things you're you're going through because we've all been through it, and we'll be happy to help you with passing and finding solutions for those problems. And then also enjoying success, you know, when you see your product going to 10, 20, 50, 100 sales a day, it's amazing. It's it's like a high, you know. And and and everyone will be happy to support you on that and to grow with you, and uh that's where we want to get 100%.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

And that nothing in in a world or in a society where most of our problems today are being solved by AI or people just go to Chat GPT or Gemini, or whichever one you decide to use, to get answers, I feel like that's very important. Getting real real world experience from someone who went through the exact same issue is always gonna be so much more powerful because no situation's ever gonna be the same. But the fact that they have gone through something similar, they've come out on top, will they be able to show you and teach you what what they were able to learn through that experience so that you can more easily overcome it. And it's I I do believe that that's very powerful. It's I do in turn in e-commerce. I think one of the biggest skills, at least in my opinion, that you could have is networking, getting to meet people, talking to people, and being comfortable, being uncomfortable, because you have to ask the questions and like you said, be very transparent and open. Hey, I'm having this issue, I have no idea how to solve it. You have gone through it. I've seen your videos, or I have talked to you for a while, or remember about last year, about the same time you were going through it. How did you get to where you are today? And I do feel like that scares people. Not everyone's willing to be open, sometimes, like I said, out of fear of people stealing your idea, and some others because they don't want to feel like someone's judging them because they're failing or because they're not able to overcome it themselves. I feel like they have to realize that, hey, that's why these communities exist. That's why people like you in this space are willing to open and have created companies like HAPEC that help you get to where you want to be. They come out of a point of necessity or a point where enough people ask you for help that you say, well, let me make something that can actually help people. And once we take that step and realize that, hey, asking the right questions or at least being in the right environments to ask the questions will get you the answers that you need. Now, I'm gonna ask you two final questions, two things that I want to just leave the hustlers with. One for the next generation of entrepreneurs, people that are just right now thinking about the idea of joining e-commerce, what would you say are the three most important pieces of advice that you would give them?

SPEAKER_01 37:34

Um, one is this is not a side hustle. Now that you're going into this, you're going into it full power, investing all your time and more time than you have, because uh it's it's not easy to start. Two, you have to have enough finances to go into it. It's not something you can start with five, ten thousand dollars. Don't even it'll be a waste of time and money. You know, a small percent might still succeed in that way, but it's not something I would recommend. Uh three, uh you have to look at all the marketplaces and think long-term investment. So, like we said, the other marketplaces are very important. They can create traffic and and uh and a database of community. On the other hand, it's not a steady income like Amazon, but but like all the TikTok and all the influencer environment is great for boosting your product again, not profitability, but but it's uh it's a lot easier to make a sale there because it's uh you know impulsive sale, someone saw the product, buys it. He's not even comparing the the price in most cases, so it can be more expensive. But it but the most important thing is to get that customer as part of your community to get his information and to be able to talk and communicate with him and have a long-term customer. Whereas at Amazon, in most cases, someone's coming to search for something, he's comparing my uh the cost with 20 other sellers on that second, less than 60 seconds, he makes a decision, he buys the product, and you're never gonna talk to him again because you don't even have his details. So those communities today are I think the financial uh uh uh uh I mean the the stepping stool for a long-term and larger brand that you want to build.

SPEAKER_00 39:39

Awesome. And the last one, I want to flip it now and ask you if you had to start over, forget CapEc, forget all of your brands, you had to start over today, 2026, with the knowledge and the experience that you have, what would you do to be as successful, if not more, than you already are?

SPEAKER_01 40:02

Um one, like I said, I'd I'd buy a brand and not start it from scratch. Uh find a product that I like, a category that I believe in, that I that I correlate with and I'm passionate about, and then buy a brand in that category. And two, uh invest a lot more in uh in social media, influencers, community. This is something that even in our brands, it's something that we're old school, we didn't have that. We're only now starting to build it. And looking back, you know, we've lost five to eight years of not building that community. So that's something I definitely do different these days.

SPEAKER_00 40:49

But that's something that's really good about it is that it's never too late to start. Yes, you have some gap years, but you do have all of the success behind it. You did all of that let work. So the reality is you're not starting over. And for the hustlers, for everyone that's listening, now you know what. If you're just getting started, what is it that you need to look at? What metrics really focus on what's important. Don't just chase profits, chase, don't chase the number because that's going to fluctuate for the first couple of years. You need to make sure that your product is moving, that you have engagement with your clients, build a community around yourself, around your brand. And I think one of the most important things, and Nadav, correct me if I'm wrong. What I got from you today is one, be passionate about where you're selling, be feel passionate about the brand you're feel you're actually building or selling, representing. If you're not passionate enough, especially at the beginning, I do feel like there are so many pitfalls or so many places where you can get stuck that will become too large because you're just not, you don't have powerful enough of a drive to get over that stump or to just keep moving forward. So build a community, something that's gonna help you leverage that either organic growth or just more traction for your store. Be passionate about the products, the brand, what you're building, and most of all, know that this is your baby essentially. This is something that you're gonna have to dedicate yourself to. And it's not like in the old days where people would do arbitrage and then all of a sudden just say, Oh, yeah, this is my site, also, and then all of a sudden it would explode. This is something where when you want to build a brand, you do have to also put your time and effort behind it, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:34

That's right. And uh the last thing is surround yourself with other sellers or experienced vendors that that are professional, what they do. I mean, as a seller, you can't be a one a one-man show and be able to be the best logistics, the best advertising, the best SEO, the best pictures, the best uh uh product development. You can't do it all, and you'll you'll never be the best at all of them. There's no one person that's the best at all of them. So for each one of them, invest and find a good vendor or a good uh uh partner who can take his experience in those areas, and you concentrate on the on the areas that you're the best at. And then once you have great people around you that are doing the best in the other places, you can concentrate on what you're the best at, and then that's uh a winning uh a winning formula.

SPEAKER_00 43:35

100% surround yourself with people that can help you along the way. And one of the best things that I have seen is especially going to events, is getting to know all the different people that can help you get there with all of the different experiences. You have collectively what feels like thousands of years of experience between all the vendors that you can see at at some of these trade shows. So, Adav, before we finish, where can they find you? How can they talk to you? How can they start just working with you? Tell us a bit more about that and we'll close it out.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Sure. So you can go into capec.io. You can uh uh very fast in a few minutes uh sign up and make an application for an existing PO that you want to finance, or just book a call with one of our sale consultants and they'll be happy to run with through our process. But basically, once you give us a PO, connect your store to API. Within like a day or two, we're ready to sit down with you, give you our feedback, how much we're willing to finance, uh, what did we see about your store, and then from that point you can start growing with us and we can and we can finance a product even within a day or two later. So it's a very fast and easy process. Uh, you have nothing to lose by by doing uh a PO. At least you'll get that audit, that feedback from us. If we're if we're willing to finance you, you're doing something right. If we're not, then we'll come back and tell you what's wrong. There, and that way uh you'll get that feedback. So it's very easy. You can also email us at sales at capic.io, or even if you want something personal to me, the dov at capic.io, glad to help in any way.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

Awesome. Daff, thank you very much for your time today. I think you've given us a lot of insight, both as a service provider inside of e-commerce and also a seller yourself, someone who's built as successful, several successful brands. Thank you, thank you, thank you for everything that you've given us today. I think anybody that's watching will have a couple of nuggets to take home and really start applying as they grow their e-commerce business. Um, this has been the online hustle podcast. I'll see you guys on the next episode. Ciao for now.