💰 Everything is hard

2025 is finally here, and with it, a flood of new resolutions.

If you’re anything like me, you might already be wondering how to keep the momentum going.

Have you already felt that familiar dip in motivation?

I get it, most of the things we really want are…really hard.

If 2024 taught me anything about building a business, it’s that nothing is truly easy.

Finding your first customer? Hard.

Dealing with fraudulent purchases? Hard.

Refunding a missing package? Hard.

Navigating import tariffs? Hard.

Hiring a team to help you scale? Hard.

Filing tax returns for the first time? Hard.

I’m not pouring cold water on your ambitions, far from it.

I just want you to know that the road to success in e-commerce involves more than just a flashy product or a sleek website.

Success doesn’t happen overnight.

It’s a cycle of learning, testing, and implementing, over and over again.

Eventually, you see the positive compound effect of those daily challenges.

Let me share a quick story to drive this home.

My first e-commerce business was a failure.

My best friend and I emptied our bank accounts to build it.

We learned about manufacturing, website creation, design, packaging, barcodes, you name it.

Then the USD tanked, and we couldn’t afford to manufacture anymore.

Fail, right?

Well, that “failure” taught me how to code.

It got me a dream job at Google in New York.

And it paved the way for multiple successful businesses and my own agency years later.

Without that ‘failure’, I would have never been in the position I’m in today.

The point of all this is to say that setting goals for this year is only step one.

Step two is failing forward, again and again, with a bias towards action.

Over the next few weeks, each episode of The Sellout will discuss the ‘hard stuff’ of running an ecommerce business – import tariffs, LLC setups, tax filings, and more.

It’s not glamorous, but once you master it, your foundation will be rock-solid for the next stage of growth.

Wherever you are on the path to success, I hope you crush your goals in 2025.

Before those episodes drop, catch up on The Sellout Newsletter’s 2024 most popular posts.

• Sydney Sweeney, Soap & Super Bowl – How Dr. Squatch Went From Kickstarter To $100M Revenue.

• $400M Mud – The story of MUD\WTR – Lessons in Building a Brand Voice That Sells.

• How to Build a Brand that Outruns the Giants – The Rise of Community-Focused Running Brands

That’s all for this week.

Keep going,

Luke

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