How a 34-year-old turned $200 into a company he sold for over $10 million in a matter of months. via CNBCMakeIt
Thirteen years ago as a broke college student, Trevor Chapman took a job selling pest control door-to-door to make extra money. Eventually, he launched his own sales operation — a solar panel installation company that quickly expanded across three states. But two years in, something was missing — and it wasn't a shortage of time spent in the office.
Within three months, Chapman went from putting in 12-hour days at his solar company to spending just an hour and a half each week on his site by the time he hit his first $1 million in sales. Then, in 2018, he sold LDSman, along with his corresponding e-commerce logistics companies, to a holding company in a deal worth over $10 million.
But before he gave any real thought to leaving his day job, he wanted to see for himself if it was possible to make a living selling things online."It requires work like everything else, but you don't have to risk your full-time job to do this," the 34-year-old says. Out went Mormon art and in came inflatable lounge chairs, a popular staple among online stores selling viral products. Sourcing from Chinese manufacturers on Alibaba and Aliexpress, Chapman found other products for $4.99 that he could resell for $59.99. To avoid the cost and risk of taking on inventory, he would set up arrangements with suppliers to have his orders shipped directly from their warehouses in China to the customer in the U.S. — a practice known as drop shipping.
Like any good businessperson, Chapman also turned the setback into an opportunity: He bought a 9,000-square-foot warehouse in Salt Lake City and hired a five-person fulfillment staff. It's a move that enabled LDSman to take the business to the next level but something Chapman concedes isn't for everyone, given the capital investment and commitment.
While a few of the people in his online courses have come close to replicating his initial success, the most common sales total at the one-month mark in one of his early classes was under $12,000."As with anything," Chapman says,"you get out of it what you put in." His own mother, Chapman notes, was able to build up a site of her own after she followed his lessons despite not knowing anything about e-commerce.
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