The Story of Sharon Even an Amazon FBA Entrepreneur and Influencer

The Story of Sharon Even an Amazon FBA Entrepreneur and Influencer.mp4

The Story of Sharon Even an Amazon FBA Entrepreneur and Influencer

Tomer [00:00:05] Let’s welcome our amazing guest for today. I did try to bring you as a guest before, but she was super busy. It’s like, I think two or three times as I ask you, Sharon, to come on that channel. But I guess, you know, you had much more important things to deal with. So I’m really appreciating that you are available to share your story and who you are.

I met you, I think, like three years ago, almost two years ago online. And I felt that we had a really great connection from the beginning because we kind of maybe think the same. But on the other side, not really the same. You know. 

Sharon [00:00:42] We complete each other in the way we think. 

Tomer [00:00:46] Exactly. So, you know, it was always, pleasure to meet you, to learn from you. I was two times the guest on your podcast and solo sessions, which was a really nice experience. So welcome to our channel.

And why don’t you just share a little bit about yourself and then, you know, I want to make this more like a story of you, how you became who you are, what you went through, your journey that made you a successful Amazon seller and entrepreneur. So yeah. 

Sharon [00:01:25] So first of all, thank you so much for having me. I love your channel. I’ve known you even before you had your channel. And you told me you were going to do that to make this channel. And look how far it’s come in such a small amount of time. So well done, and thank you for having me.

Second of all, if anyone doesn’t know me, my name is Sharon Even and I am an Amazon seller first before anything else. I’m a brand builder and I also have my own YouTube channel and I’m also I have my own well, it’s not my podcast it’s Danny MacMillan’s podcast, but I’m a co-host on the Seller Sessions podcast, and Tomer was one of my very first guests when I started, and he’s come back again and I’ll probably have you back again soon now that you’ve exited as well to tell us all about it. So that’s me in a nutshell. 

Tomer [00:02:14] Don’t share that I exit. It’s secret. 

Sharon [00:02:17] It’s secret. I did not know. 

Tomer [00:02:18] No, no, that’s it. And I actually am delighted you remember. You are? I posted this and the group. 

Sharon [00:02:24] That’s right. That’s right. 

Tomer [00:02:25] It’s good to be nice to, you know, for the people that listen to the first and second time that I was guest Like I was the experience. So yeah, I’m really waiting to share this experience with you. Yes. You have a great channel.

I you know, people that watching my channel know that I mentioned a lot of times you because you’re one of the first resources with a new update, a new algorithm for something new in Amazon comes out, you’re the first one to kind of share it.

So a lot of times I just, you know, give you credit and people know about you and about your channel and even people that, you know, I’m less focusing on coaching and like kind of mentoring people due to, you know, other things that I’m working on. My focus is not really on coaching. So I, you know, try to transfer that to you. It’s you’re someone I trust. I know that you get really amazing results with people.

And I think that you, you know, it’s also part of your personality. You’re like you like people in that you teach in a very good way that, you know, providing value. But how you even got into this like e-commerce online where you grew up, your accent. We are both Israelis but we are you don’t sound like an Israeli your accent. Yeah. 

Sharon [00:03:43] You’re more Israeli than me. Wow. So my story is a long one. So good luck to everyone. But I do encourage everyone to watch it until the very end because there’s a lot of them of failures and successes that I’ve gone through. So while I first started selling online when I was 15. But before that, well we’ll start.

So my parents are Israeli and they moved to New Zealand before I was born and I was born in New Zealand and my brother and sister as well. My brother has passed away, hence why I said was disabled. So there was a special need and my father had a really big jewelry factory in New Zealand so I grew up.

Yeah, there’s he had a really big jewelry factory and he actually also had another company which was retail stores called Little Israel Ltd. We would import stuff from Israel and sell them in stores. It didn’t go that well, but that’s when he started the jewelry factory.

And it’s amazing it was an amazing experience as a child. So I used to work on the weekends in the factory. I can’t remember the process of what I’m about to say, of what it’s called. It’ll come to me soon.

But basically it was I’m talking to you about like 17, 18, even 20 years ago when piercings were like a just started being a real thing. So I would like take belly rings and they would be metal and then I’d put them in that little water that helps them to change the color. And so, yeah, that’s what I would do on the weekends. My father,

Tomer [00:05:26] What age was when you did this? 

Sharon [00:05:30] I think I was like ten. I was paid $2 an hour, New Zealand dollars, and I think I was ten. I did it for about two years every single weekend. And then by the age of 12, I sort of became a little shit and then my dad fired me. So.

Tomer [00:05:44] It’s funny I’m interrupting you, but it’s funny. I hear that this is something common to a lot of entrepreneurs, like something in their childhood. Like they absorbed. They were surrounded by, you know, by entrepreneurs or businesses somehow.

So it’s not something that I knew. And it’s nice to know maybe, you know, when you grew up, you did this work, you kind of got into those new ideas. But do you think that helped you become like have this fire or something, you know with entrepreneurship. 

Sharon [00:06:21] And there’s soon. I’ll explain a little bit more. So there’s many things. I definitely think that being surrounded in a factory. So this is New Zealand. New Zealand is a very diverse country.

So a lot of like Koreans and Chinese and Vietnamese people there. Most of the workers there were what I just said, and this is back in the days before, computers were really a thing. So if some if a big order came through like my dad, like, it would be faxed, right? And they would fax through to like Vietnam and things like that. 

Yeah. And like we’re talking about big machinery and things like that. So I think that you and I were just speaking before we went live and I was telling you about how, like the love of my life is product development. So beyond being an Amazon seller, even if you don’t sell on Amazon and you come to me with an idea when it comes to developing a product, like that’s what I live for. 

And I think that side of it comes from growing up with being so involved in a factory environment. But beyond that. My father was very strict with me. I had realized so because we my parents spoke to me Hebrew at home, but I spoke English outside.

My dad used to always say to me that my language would be messed up because if I don’t, because when you live in a bilingual home, you can sometimes, you know, either not have good enough Hebrew or not have good enough English, for example.

So he would force me to learn two new words from the dictionary every single day. I’d have in English. I would have a worksheet that I would have to fill out like a new word every single day. He would test me every single Saturday and asked me, What does this word mean? What does this word mean, etc.? 

Tomer [00:08:28] It’s maybe back then, now. 

Sharon [00:08:32] Yeah. I hated my dad when I was a child. Because of these things. Because, you know, it was. You just want to go out and play, and then. And I was being I was given the book Rich Dad, Poor Dad when I was 12. 

Tomer [00:08:47] Wow I was the same age, I really I got this book from my brother. That’s so funny. 

Sharon [00:08:53] So, And you’re older than me. That means that you’re. I think you’re older than me. So you, I. 

Tomer [00:08:58] Think, we’re the same age. 

Sharon [00:08:59] We’re the same age? Okay, like so while kids were, like, reading things like I don’t know, like whatever, Harry Potter or whatever, I don’t even think Harry Potter existed when I was 12, but whatever, my dad was like forcing me and I say, forcing me because really I was a hardcore skater girl. Believe it or not, I wasn’t this. I was a skater girl. I had a mono brow, like, just, you know, one eyebrow. I didn’t put any makeup in there.. 

Tomer [00:09:27] Yeah

Sharon [00:09:28] Yeah. I listened to Avril Lavigne. I was a hardcore skater a lot. I wanted to do was skate. And, you know, my dad was, like, forcing me, basically brainwashing me into the entrepreneurial side of things. And I use those words because as a child, that’s what I would refer to it as. It’s only today when I’m as successful as I am after many failures and a lot of hardship.

But then I say, you know, thank God that he forced me to do these things as a child because he gave me the tools for the toolbox, because I left home when I was 15, which is a very young age to leave home. So that was how I grew up. And my dad always taught me that the UV rays in Australia and New Zealand are really, really dangerous. So I left really dangerous the UV light UV rays. So it’s really important to wear sunglasses. 

Tomer [00:10:22] Yes. 

Sharon [00:10:22] There’s a reason I’m telling you this. I left home when I was 15. My parents divorced, my dad moved to Australia, my mum moved to Israel and I didn’t want to leave, not with sunglasses. My first business and I, my parents allowed me to stay in New Zealand on my own, which people would be like, How the hell did they let you? You’re 15. The thing is, if you would have known me at the age of 15, you would have understood why they let me.

I was 15 going on 25. I was really like A being the eldest B being an eldest to also a disabled child like to my brother. It forced my whole entire family to become very mature very quickly and put us in a lot of different hardships with difficult situations that. So I was still going to school even though I didn’t have parents to make me to force me to go to school.

And I was like, okay, I need money. I need to survive. My parents said, There’s no problem. You can leave, but we’re not going to help you. They thought it would happen. They thought I wouldn’t make it and that I’d come back home and I didn’t. I started importing sunglasses from I think the website was called See T wholesale. 

Tomer [00:11:33] You lived by yourself, you lived with the family member would like. What was the situation like? It’s even it’s even allowed by the laws in New Zealand. So I was under legal. 

Sharon [00:11:47] Age, I was underage, I was underage, but I had permission from my parents to live alone and I received a very small amount of money for, for living from the government in New Zealand. 

Tomer [00:11:58] Oh, okay. Okay. 

Sharon [00:11:59] Which would basically help me to pay rent. And so I lived alone. I lived I rented a basement basically of an Indian family in Pakuranga, which is an area in Auckland in New Zealand, and it was very close to my school. So I would walk to school, I would work at MC Cafe after school, you know, at the cafe of McDonalds, yeah. 

Tomer [00:12:21] McDonalds. 

Sharon [00:12:22] And I was like, okay, I need to find another way to make money. And I started looking online and trademe.com.nz it was at the time like the eBay of New Zealand. Okay. And that’s when I started importing. So I started ordering sunglasses from overseas and I started selling them on Trademe and before you know it, that was like my full time gig and that’s, that was my first time. 

Tomer [00:12:46] So as so many questions like how you even got into this idea, like selling or like you had some friends doing it, where did you hear about this idea. 

Sharon [00:12:56] I had a friend. My parent, my family’s closest friends in New Zealand were like a Jewish family called the Rosenbergs. If they ever watch this, I’m just shouting them out. And GRACE! There were six daughters and Grace, one of the daughters at the time was selling her used clothes on trademe.com.nz okay.

And, and that’s how I knew about Trademe and then I realized that people were sort of Trademe It’s kind of like, you know, like in Israel we have the edge time and it was it’s similar to eBay but at the time eBay. It wasn’t like it is today. I’m talking to you like 17 years ago. Yes, do. 

Tomer [00:13:32] I think even in the U.S., it was pretty big these years. That was their best years honestly. 

Sharon [00:13:39] So eBay was. But at the time, eBay wasn’t really a thing in New Zealand. You know, it’s like even today how Amazon isn’t really that popular in Australia and New Zealand. So Trademe was like the thing that’s where everyone would buy online. 

Tomer [00:13:55] Yes. And I was starting to sell like was hit from the beginning, you get struggles.

Sharon [00:14:02] It went really well. So I was I wasn’t selling knockoffs, but I was selling things that looked very similar, so, to, you know, Gucci, etc. Today I know better, but we’re talking about when I was really, really young and IP wasn’t a big thing back then and it went really, really well.

So much so that I would also sell every single weekend. I think it was probably like two years later. I was 18 by then. I’d sell every single weekend at expeditions. There was like this specific. Kind of like market expedition type thing every single Saturday, and I’d have my own little booth and I would sell my sunglasses there as well. 

Tomer [00:14:43] And you ship all these orders how do you do this, how do you have to ship them the same day. How was that experience as 15 years old? 16 years old? 

Sharon [00:14:52] I’ve never said this online. So there’s two things. Number one, when I finished school, I started working as what was my role called. It was logistics and executive assistant. Something like that at a company called Devon. It was an outdoor furniture company and I worked there for six months and all of their containers.

I was 18 I think at the time, and all of their out, sorry all of their logistics like containers, etc. went through me, which is how I learned so much about logistics. And I still have the referral letter to date from them. They were in a place called Pakuranga. Anyone from Australia may from New Zealand may even like know there were really big place anyway and they would have. They had an account with the Courier of New Zealand called Fast Way. 

So initially a lot of like when I started working there, I would basically put some of the at some point I was like, okay, I was selling so much at some point that like, they would have known. So what I did is I opened up an account with fast way like through Devon. So it gave me a really good pricing.

And then I wasn’t at Devon for very long so I left about six or seven months later, but then I already had my account with Fast Way Faster. I was like the courier, like, you know, like DHL, etc. Yeah, but then I think I don’t, you know, this is a long time ago. It costs like something at $2.50 or something like that to send. It wasn’t that expensive compared to how much I was selling the glass. 

Tomer [00:16:26] Yes. Yeah. And it’s light and it’s not heavy that we’re so like, yeah, that easy to ship. 

Sharon [00:16:31] So if it was within my area, I would just I would just drop it off myself. 

Tomer [00:16:37] So at that point, you had the car like you got a car already? 

Sharon [00:16:41] I had a car when I was 16. I already had my driver’s license when I was 15. So. 

Tomer [00:16:45] Yeah, that’s pretty amazing. I don’t know a lot of people that, you know, lived by themselves by age 15, you know, having their own business. And I think that gives you so much, you know, you’re ahead of everyone else in in so many ways.

And, you know, whenever you have some struggle or problem, you can always remind yourself I, lived by myself at age 15 and I had a business. So I feel it’s giving you like a lot of, you know, power, motivation or ways to deal with struggles and hardships, like you said. But what do you think about it. 

Sharon [00:17:22] It’s funny that you’re saying this. So I was just in London and it was the first time since I’ve been married to my husband, which is I’ve been with him for ten years. And it’s the first time that I was supposed to fly alone. Okay. And I was telling my mom, Oh, I haven’t flown alone for so long. And my mum was like, when you were 15 you flew from New Zealand to Israel on your own, which is a two day flight.

You stopped at the beginning, like in the middle, and you used to do it every couple of years by yourself and you worried about a five hour flight to London? And I was like, it’s I feel like something in my you know, I feel like I may have blocked that part of my life out. So sometimes I forget, you know, that I even had this life.

It’s only when you really people start speaking to me and then I get all these memories that I and I remember. But yeah, it definitely helped me to be resilient and gave me a foundation that I think gives me an advantage over other people when they just start this because I’d already been there and done that. So,

Tomer [00:18:29] Yeah. Even if you tell it like this, cause it’s still in your unconscious mind, I think, 100%.

Sharon [00:18:36] Yeah. 

Tomer [00:18:37] That’s, pretty amazing. And, you know, and inspiring. I think that’s very cool. So you had this business was long, like two or three years, 18 years. We started to work for that company. You left. Oh, actually, you said that you still ship.

Sharon [00:18:50] I still did everything, you know, at the same time, I was I never stopped. So even when I had different things. So there was even a period of time when I got into real estate, like I got a real estate agent certificate to date. I have it in New Zealand and I got into real estate for a short amount of time. My dad always taught me, never put all your eggs in one basket.

He always taught me to diversify myself in everything I do. And so even though I had this thing that was doing really, really well. I still, you know, was putting my yeah, I mean I look at it today and, you know, Devon taught me logistics at the age of 18. And we’re talking about a long time ago. It’s not like today if not even today. I don’t know if an 18 year old would have even I don’t even know how they hired me for it. I really don’t.

But I mean, I do because I always stood out in New Zealand. But anyway, and the real estate also like gave me certain like negotiation skills, etc., which later then help me with China for example. So and also and also leaving your house at such a young age, like you have to learn how to not allow people to take advantage of you as well.

Being a female, living on your own. Which is a lot of the time when people say to me that I may be a little bit too alpha. Someone came up to me at the event and they were like, Oh, you’re so alpha and you’re so, you know. And I was like, in. 

Tomer [00:20:27] The name of your Facebook group, there. 

Sharon [00:20:29] It is. But where it comes from is like, I had no choice. I had to be this because, you know, I had to be this person. 

Tomer [00:20:37] It’s a survival kind of thing.

Sharon [00:20:39] To survive. It was dog eat dog. You know, I had to so. 

Tomer [00:20:45] That’s amazing. I had a question, but it slipped away from my mind. But. But you worked. Then you shift to a real estate you left or you kind of. Oh, I know. I wanted to ask, did it hurt your social life, you know, at 15, 16 years old?

You know, it’s you’re supposed to skate outside or I don’t know. have fun. How you felt? Like your sacrificing some things in life or you just. You enjoyed it so much that you didn’t really care. Or maybe you did everything. I don’t know. Just curious. 

Sharon [00:21:16] So this is the part where. So I grew up again in a home of Israeli parents, but act like I was a kiwi in every way. But there is something about the culture in which I was brought up with. So for example, all of my friends in New Zealand were Middle Eastern because we had this not Jewish.

So Iraqi, Iranian and New Zealand’s a very peaceful country. Everyone gets along like it. There is no politics and etc.. And, you know, maybe today. But when I was growing up, it was, you know, we’re best friends doesn’t matter the fact that. And that is where, you know, because we have the same mentality, because we had very similar cultures.

They were taught, you know, the same sort of things that I was taught and pushed to be the best as possible. I’m not saying New Zealand is aren’t, but I never found the entrepreneurial friends in New Zealand. So I didn’t really have much of a social life per se. And I’ve always been obsessed, you know me. And, you know, I’m a workaholic. I don’t have to be. But that’s just it’s just in me.

Like if I’m not doing something to do with and it’s not necessarily to do with making money, but it’s something that’s to do with what I love, which is exactly what my business is. Love to do with my mind is nonstop. I never stop thinking, you know, and which is why I ended up moving at the end of the day to Israel, which is it’s a country where you want everything done yesterday.

Where else? New Zealand does very slow pace. It’s one of the most slow-paced countries in the world. So it definitely impacted my social life. But I didn’t feel it at that age. You know, I basically had no social life as. 

Tomer [00:23:07] But you didn’t until you sacrifice, something. You enjoyed it. That’s what felt natural to you when you just did it. 

Sharon [00:23:13] I mean, I made up for it when I moved to Israel. I mean, I made up for it. So, yeah. 

Tomer [00:23:18] It is it made up for it. This in Israel because like it’s also like going outside. It’s hard. That’s something that actually I moved to the States so I can stay away from that. That was a distraction for me.

All the friends, family going out. I feel when I go to Israel, I’m getting sucked into it. And here I have my own routine and my own like everything in my term. So that’s why I like it now. Maybe in the future I come back. I don’t know. 

Sharon [00:23:47] So you were like the opposite of because if you think about it, in New Zealand, all I had was my mum, my dad, Sean, my brother and my sister and I didn’t have grandparents in New Zealand.

I didn’t have aunties and uncles like I did have my dad’s sister, which is my auntie here, eventually moved to Australia, but I didn’t have the family that you’re speaking about and because I didn’t really have that many friends. So it was the opposite. And that’s why when I moved here I was like, wow, having family with like 20 people around the table never done this before type of thing, you know? Ah. 

Tomer [00:24:25] I get it. It makes sense. A lot of sense. Like you want the opposite things in life that maybe, you know, you didn’t experience or had. So it makes sense. So, you know, you sell there sunglasses So did you expand, did you have your own store, you know.

Sharon [00:24:43] So I got into I started selling on eBay and when I. In the US and in Australia so worldwide that it was the US and Australia were I sell. And eBay. EBay is where like private label came into things. So I would just sell random stuff, basically.

Something I did forget to mention was growing up in New Zealand because my father had an Israeli accent before he started the factory, the jewelry factory, beads and pieces. He would do a lot of flipping, so he would buy, for example, TVs and then fix them and sell them at a higher price.

And because he had an Israeli accent and he didn’t want people to take advantage of on the phone, I would do all of the phone calls for him. So that was also something that taught me about buying low or selling high. I can’t believe I forgot that part because that’s really what. 

Tomer [00:25:41] What age were you? I remember I heard this before, but what age? 

Sharon [00:25:46] Yeah, I was seven or eight, right? Yeah, I was really young.

Tomer [00:25:51] Wow

Sharon [00:25:52] I was like basically in a house. In our house. Like, I’m fine now with a lot of work with a psychologist and there’s a lot of therapy. But like I was forced to be an adult from a really young age. You know, so. Yeah. But anyway, that taught me about in general buying low and selling high. So when I. With my dad. 

Tomer [00:26:17] Yeah, like all call, all of the phone calls. 

Sharon [00:26:20] No, it’s any time we get a phone call or get questions, I would. So Dad would write on a piece of paper. Everything I need to know about the TV or anything I need to know about the motorcycle. He would he would flip a lot of motorcycles because he’s like a mechanic. He isn’t a qualified mechanic, but he basically taught himself. Yeah.

He knows everything about motorbikes, like inside out. He’s like a hardcore motorbike fan. So he do a lot of flipping on those types of things. And he would write everything I need to know down on a piece of paper. He’d tell me what’s the minimum he’s willing to sell it for. And then I did all, all of the negotiations and then all of the back and forth. 

Tomer [00:26:59] People are surprised. I mean, they heard that they were talking to like, you know, like a girl. So, was it awkward or?

Sharon [00:27:05] I don’t remember people being surprised, but I do remember how I felt on the calls and I felt very powerful. So I think like I just came across on the phone very confident and I knew the answers to everything. So yeah, that. 

Tomer [00:27:21] That’s so cool. That’s amazing. Yeah, I’m sure it helped you. So eBay and private label. 

Sharon [00:27:28] So eBay. So when eBay came along, like I already knew about what buying low selling high was and when it came to eBay, I would just sell anything that I could make money on basically. So it wasn’t specifically anymore like a specific niche. It’s like the opposite of what I do today on Amazon. I would just find certain things that I can buy lower, sell them higher. 

Tomer [00:27:53] Same thing like I did with my brand. Like just whatever sells just listed to try to make money and random things. Yeah, I think that the way now it’s like you’re teaching for years now, building a brand, you know, having a specific niche and, and yeah, but we’ll talk about this later. So you started to sell everything that makes money and it was, you know, successful that you were just leaving out of this. So it was just so. 

Sharon [00:28:21] It was just out of this. This is what I was doing by the age of 20 and a half where I was. I wasn’t 21 yet. I went to Israel for my sisters, bar mitzvah. 

Tomer [00:28:34] Okay. 

Sharon [00:28:35] And I decided to. 

Tomer [00:28:37] Your sister?

Sharon [00:28:39] My sister because my parents divorced when I was 15 and my mom went back to New Zealand, to Israel and then dad Australia. Okay, so I came. My sister is eight years younger than me. I came for her bar mitzvah and I made the decision there and then that I’m going to move to Israel. So I remember I just felt that like I want something else and I’m going to move to Israel.

And so within I think it was within six months I’d already like made aliya, which is what we call about when someone like Israeli comes back to Israel or moves to Israel and Jewish. I came back Jewish people specifically, I sold, went back to I finished the lease on the house that I had, like the rent I sold out of all of my stock. I moved to my dad in Australia for about three months to just because I knew I wouldn’t see him for a long time. 

Tomer [00:29:37] So, your dad moved to Australia. 

Sharon [00:29:40] When I was 15 when my parents divorced, dad moved to Australia. 

Tomer [00:29:44] Okay. 

Sharon [00:29:44] And then I stayed on my own and then I moved to Israel. And that first year was a shock. So I spoke Hebrew, but I didn’t know how to read and write. And when I say that I spoke, Hebrew, it was like every second word was in English.

So I would speak like, you know, gibberish. It would be half Hebrew or half English. And like the Israelis really liked it, but I felt like an idiot. So I went to what is called an Ulpan in Italia, which is, I think where you’re from. 

Tomer [00:30:19] Yeah. That’s right.

Sharon [00:30:19] And I went for a year and a half, which is basically like going to Hebrew school at the age of like 21, which is not an easy age to go to a school to learn one of the most hardest languages in the world. 

Tomer [00:30:32] But it’s common. You see, there are people your age, even older, like it’s normal. 

Sharon [00:30:37] Yeah. The difference was that I already knew how to speak the language, but I knew what we would call street Hebrew and not proper Hebrew, and then they would teach you. So it was really difficult for me because it was basically the opposite, you know, like so it was a hard time anyway. 

Tomer [00:30:52] Yeah. But also mentality, I think culture, you know, even though you grew up with, you know, yeah, it was a shock for me. Now it’s a little shock too. After ten years here in the States when I just the last year visited and it was a little shock for me because of like I feel now the culture difference, you know. So I guess for you, growing up, not growing up there, it’s even like crazier. 

Sharon [00:31:18] It’s kind of like Israel’s a very like dog eat dog country and you have to be like, we call it like harif, like spicy, but it’s not spicy. I don’t know what the right word is. It’s like you need to be able to survive. Yeah. 

Tomer [00:31:33] So they think you can just wade through the country because you’re left with nothing. 

Sharon [00:31:39] And when I moved to Israel, I was like, if someone would walk into me, they would walk into me on the street because I’m polite, because I come from New Zealand, I think, Oh, I’m so sorry. You know, today if someone walks into me, I bet. What the fuck are you looking where you’re going? You know, like, it’s like ten, 11, 12 years to get. But so yeah, there was a culture shock. 

But the first few years when I moved here, I made up for because first of all, I moved into my grandmother’s house and suddenly I didn’t need to pay rent. I didn’t need, you know, like I had room to breathe, basically. And I so I made up for when we spoke about when I was a child, I went, I was like partying hard for like two years in Tel Aviv. Like every night I started off waitressing because I didn’t know what to do with myself.

I didn’t have the proper language. There wasn’t that much that I at the time, I didn’t know that my English was a big thing here. So I started waitressing at 12:00, which is just a it’s on the beach basically near Tel Aviv. And then eventually I moved into a like actual restaurant, which was my husband’s restaurant.

Eventually there’s a story behind that, but I was still selling on eBay at the time. Now, here’s the thing. We’re talking about 2009. I had already sold for at least five or six years online, and then I moved to Israel, which is called Startup Nation, but no one was buying or selling online when I moved here.

If I sold online, it was like I was someone that didn’t know what I was doing with myself. I think that because like in Israel, there’s such major trust issues. So like people would buy online because they think that like, I don’t know, you’re missing them over or something like that. 

Tomer [00:33:27] But it’s just but yes, us. This is actually how I work with couple of e-commerce brands in Israel. It was pretty good, you know, especially the big brands like Why Shop or Walla Shops and these websites, they’re really pretty good, but not like here in the US for sure. 

Sharon [00:33:43] It definitely wasn’t like it is today in here. So my ex-boyfriend at the time was very wealthy, came from a very wealthy and there’s a reason why because his mum’s like part of the reason I’m so fucking kick ass today. And she was an absolute witch she was really, really bad to me. Basically, she hated me and I was. 

Tomer [00:34:10] One or two or something. 

Sharon [00:34:11] From day one. She hated me from day one. And she always made me feel as if I wasn’t good enough for her son. Basically, because they’re a very rich family and I don’t come from a rich family and, you know, just normal family. And she would basically, like tell my, at the time my boyfriend, that like I was just some waitress because she didn’t understand that I was also still selling on the side.

And he knew how kick ass I was. Like, he knew that I would, you know, I would be way beyond him no matter what he went and studied in university. What if I always knew that I would? You know, I always knew where, like, life would take me because I knew what I had gone through.

And I knew, like, he was raised, like. And, you know, with the Bubble, he was spoon fed. Yeah, in a bubble. So she was part of the reason of why I was like, I will show your type of like, you know. And one of the first things when I started that YouTube channel and like I started talking about, like I was, I was like fuck you turn like on there because there. 

Tomer [00:35:25] Is a power, there is a power. 

Sharon [00:35:27] There is a power through that. 

Tomer [00:35:27] To you get hurt. You get some of this negativity. And it turned it into, you know, positive energy. That’s the one of the most powerful energies. I think that’s what led me to do a setting on Amazon. That’s exactly like that’s why I got shock also and with my dad and my brother making fun of me. And that’s what, you know, I’m going to prove you, you know. 

Sharon [00:35:49] So I didn’t grow up with that. I grew up with, you know, with a father that even though he was really, really difficult, you know, he always told me that, you know, life isn’t going to be as easy for me as a woman and I have to always be like, it’s one step ahead. And my dad always believed in me and my entire family always supported me and believed in me no matter what I wanted to do. 

Tomer [00:36:14] Really? I want to stop and focus on that. Could you give an example? And I think that, you know, for the parents out there, like, I think it’s very important. I want my girls to have the same feeling as, you know, you have that, I trust her, I know you’re going to be good and how we did it. 

Sharon [00:36:32] First of all, I think it started with the fact that they allowed their 15 year old daughter to stay in the country on her own with no one. The fact that they because today they knew, like I had the tools, I already had the tools to of life.

Tomer [00:36:46] Seven years old with a phone call 

Sharon [00:36:47] because my Dad gave it to me.

Tomer [00:36:48] negotiated.

Sharon [00:36:49] Exactly. Exactly. I was you know, my parents also, we didn’t speak too much about my brother, but they were out of hospital a lot with my brother until he was five. We didn’t know what he had. His syndrome was so rare in the world that like there were hardly anyone could diagnose what he had.

So there was a lot of which forced me to already be the elder sister to, to then my, my little sister. And so I already had anyway all of this, this amazing toolbox that I just think my parents just knew that I was kick-ass, basically, like not being in love with myself. Just knowing…

Tomer [00:37:26] You’re capable. 

Sharon [00:37:26] I was capable to. I was a survivor. I was, you know, an alpha from day one, you know. And it’s not just that, even my granddad. Like my granddad was raised the total opposite of me, which is, you know, was he’s a good little accountant and you always work for someone else. He has zero risk tolerance yet.

So when I moved to Israel, I didn’t know what to do with myself.  At the time, becoming a YouTuber was a big thing. And because when I was a little girl, I was like a skater girl with like a moto brow. And I was like really totally different person when I discovered makeup, etc.

When I was 15 or 16, like, I went to totally the other direction, like from no makeup at all. So like and falling in love with makeup and like, and getting and becoming obsessed with Marilyn Monroe. And why am I telling you this? Because at the time we’re talking about, I think 12 years ago or ten years ago, I wanted to become a YouTuber for makeup.

So there was a really well known makeup artist in New Zealand called Shannon XO, and she had started her YouTube channel like two years prior. She had over a million followers and this is ten years ago. A long…

Tomer [00:38:40] Yeah.That’s like 

Sharon [00:38:41]  Not the same as today, and I was like, you know, if she can do it, I can do it. Like, that was always my mentality. If she can do it, I can do it. If this person can do it, I could. 

Tomer [00:38:51] If someone else did it, I can do it. Yeah. 

Sharon [00:38:54] Exactly. I, I went and I actually went to one of the biggest makeup schools in Israel because I thought I needed to learn that in order to actually do it. Yeah. Well, yeah, to become like I’d always been good. I’ve always been good at like teaching and giving people advice and things like that.

And at that time I thought that it was going to be makeup. Like, I thought that and again, this is ten years ago and my family could have been like, You’ll never make it. You’re my grandparents, like my granddad, my mom. They were like, Do it. My granddad even paid for me to go to Miki Bugamin, to go to like the makeup school I went to. 

Tomer [00:39:34] Really. 

Sharon [00:39:34] And like that’s not I don’t take that for granted. Not everyone has that type of support system, you know, and even my dad, when I speak to him on the phone, he was like, Do it, do it, do it. Now, why did I not end up doing it?

I didn’t end up doing it because at the time I didn’t think I had thick enough skin for YouTube. You have to have really thick skin, especially when it comes to being with no makeup and then putting your make up like the whole thing.

And I didn’t know if I would be able to handle the bad comments because they always come along. So I chickened out and I didn’t end up doing it, although it was like my dream to do it. I really, really wanted to do it, but I didn’t. 

Tomer [00:40:18] What about now you’re going to still make your dream come true? 

Sharon [00:40:21] Well, I did. I made my dream come true. And something else I still. It’s not something. It was a dream. But I did want to impact people. And I am today and I just. It’s something else. 

Tomer [00:40:32] Specifically do makeup like, you know, the YouTube thing helping others, which you do with your YouTube, with your Facebook, you know, thousands of people, if not more. 

Sharon [00:40:43] So fast forward a couple of years forward. I left my ex-boyfriend. I started dating my boss, which was my husband. Now, today is my husband. 

Tomer [00:40:55] In the same restaurant that you always worked at? 

Sharon [00:40:58] Yep. So I was working at the restaurant, still selling on the side, met my heart like we had already. I was already working for him for two years. There was he had his girlfriend. I had my boyfriend. There was never like a thing. And then suddenly he broke up with his girlfriend six months before I did with mine.

And then somehow it just happened. And this is why I’ll stop blushing. So my husband is basically like the biggest support system, even though my family is a support system to find a partner that supports every single thing. And here’s why. In the first three months when we started dating, X Factor had just come to Israel.

Okay. Now I have a tattoo here of this. I have an amazing voice and I really wanted to be a singer. You know, it’s about me. Yes. And X Factor. Just come to Israel. I went to the auditions before they were in like the big stadium they were doing underground basically.

Tomer [00:42:01] Before X Factor, they have the Kokhav Nolad, which is the Israeli version of it. Right?

Sharon [00:42:05] Of yeah it’s I forgot the English version of it. American Idol or Australian Idol. New Zealand. It’s like Israel Idol and but X-Factor had just come here. But before they did the big auditions and like the Nokia Stadium, it was underground, basically.

Like you had to be invited to it. And I will never forget this. We only started dating and my husband asked, Well, what happens if you win? And I will. And that’s not to be taken for granted. We only just started dating.

I know, yes I was a good singer, but I would have been against Ed and Ben Zakin, which is like now one of the biggest singers in Israel, if I would have gone that year. But the fact that my husband actually believed that I could win just says a lot because it just shows how much he believed in me.

And I will never. I even remember where we were sitting on the couch when he said that. And I was like This man, like, you know, this is my husband. 

Tomer [00:43:01] You know him. 

Sharon [00:43:03] It’s not to be taken for granted that he even said that. And it may sound so little to other people, but it was such a huge thing to me. I was like, I can’t believe that you actually believe that I could win. Like, you really, really believe in me. And I wanted to start….

Tomer [00:43:16] And you went to the auditions and how was it?

Sharon [00:43:20] I went to the auditions and I lost my voice. So my voice when I was singing was crackly. Like, my voice is also not the same now, by the way, because I just came back from London and I was hosting the event. So I lose my voice very easily and my voice was crackly. And then I didn’t. I could have made it through to the next, but I didn’t fight for it. So.

Tomer [00:43:44] Yeah. 

Sharon [00:43:47] But my husband, like, thought that I could win. And that’s the point here. I can’t remember how much time passed, but I really wanted to have. So at the time RockGlam and I forgot what the name is now. Another well-known is like LADila and another one that I’ve forgotten.

There were up and coming clothing stores, online clothing stores in Israel that were like starting up. Now, obviously, I didn’t know that the RockGlam girls there, their father was like best friends with like Boris Ali, which is one of the biggest models in Israel.

And like that’s why they had such great success with their clothing store and a few others. Edeka is the other one. So they had just started Edeka, went through a huge exit, I think it was like a couple of years ago. Millions and millions of shekels or dollars whatever. And so I started my first online store in Israel.

Tomer [00:44:46] I’m not aware of those brands. Those are brands for clothing, you said. The kind that inspired you to do.

Sharon [00:44:53] Online. 

Tomer [00:44:53] Something like that online. 

Sharon [00:44:55] It’s not that they inspired me. It’s more that like fashion was always a thing for me. And I really and I’d already known I knew exactly how to find suppliers. I’d already known exactly how to do it. And I wanted to start an online clothing store in Israel because I could see that e-commerce was starting to, like, get better here. Probably about six or seven years ago.

And Edeka was probably the biggest online clothing store at the time. This is where product like competitor research comes in. And I did so much competitor research like inside out.

I just didn’t know that like the owners of these were like big people, you know, or like or there were small people who knew big people because I was like, fuck it, I don’t need, I don’t need connections. I know how to find them. Like, that’s always been so. The name Lionessta came from the word lioness because I’m a lioness and fashionista together. Lionessta. 

Tomer [00:45:52] Okay. 

Sharon [00:45:52] And I started the online clothing store. It was very different from anything I’ve ever done. 

Tomer [00:46:00] For Israeli audience. 

Sharon [00:46:01] For Israel yep. And why was it very different? And I will never do clothing again in my life because I didn’t know the amount of return rates that you get. People try things on like I didn’t know that yet. And also the amount of like every single size that you need to have, these are things that I would learn as I go. I didn’t get everything from China.

I would also go every single week to in Tel Aviv, in Israel. There’s I’ve just forgotten in the street now where you. Yeah. But there’s another name to it but there’s like a specific market street where you can buy like in bulk different types of clothing. So part of the clothing would also come from there. 

Tomer [00:46:46 In South Tel Aviv?. 

Sharon [00:46:48] Yeah. South Tel Aviv. I’d go with Dodie, my husband, anyway. That year, Shawn, my brother, passed away, and I also had a late miscarriage. So this is 2015. And, like, when that happens, basically like lioness had just died. Like I. It just died. It was just terrible. And it was probably one of the hardest or wasn’t probably, it was the hardest years of my life.

We went through like different treatments to get pregnant. So I also had to like, you know, it was just so much shit. And one year I was in a really bad place. Yeah, yeah. Really, really bad places. Like there were certain areas where I just didn’t want to wake up the next day, you know?

It was just like there was nothing but black. Everything was black, there was nothing good. And I say that for anyone who may be going through something similar because, you know, thank God that I didn’t give up. You know, it was the year later that I discovered Amazon. So that was 2016. 

Tomer [00:47:53] How did you discover that one? 

Sharon [00:47:55] We had a family friend of my husband’s who needed money. Basically, he came to us. He pitched an idea to us of selling so he would import it would export Ceylon like dates, date syrup from Israel and sell it on Amazon.

And it was going really, really well. And he needed basically like money to be able to, to buy a lot more and to do more to make it bigger. And the reason he came to us specifically because he knew that we would say yes, because we believed in e-commerce. And everyone else, everyone else that he had gone through is gone to said no, because no one really in our surroundings really understood e-commerce. 

Tomer [00:48:39] Or Amazon or Israel is Amazon. It’s kind of like they hear them about it probably but it’s not you know, I. 

Sharon [00:48:45] Didn’t know Amazon was like a thing either. I was just like. 

Tomer [00:48:49] He it was a big thing. From 2013, I moved to the States. I remember it was a shock for me because from ordering things from I forgot this website, DealEx or Dealexpress.com Chinese. You get it up to like, no, it was just DealEx.

Before AliExpress. Similar to that, you get it after 60 days or something to getting it like in two days. It was a shock for me and I became addictive like everyone else and you know, so we knew the power of it, even though I didn’t start sending until in 2018. But still, you know, I guess when he came up with this idea to other people that were like, go away. Right. And you kind of understood and. 

Sharon [00:49:31] Everyone was saying, go, I understood, but I didn’t really understand yet, because what we’re talking about is wholesale. It wasn’t private label, but he was doing so good. We were basically silent investors and I was like, wow, like he’s making a lot of money and what is this? And then I started doing a lot of research and like by December I already had my first product in Amazon that year. 

Tomer [00:49:52] Also private label. I mean also wholesale or private label?

Sharon [00:49:54] Private, no my own. We just did our own account, our own private label account. We started with one product, slowly started adding more. It was the beauty niche. We still have that brand to date. The first brand obviously was. 

Tomer [00:50:08] Six years old. 

Sharon [00:50:09] Six years old brand  Very different from how I do things today. So this is 2016 where you could get away with, you know, typical private label and that specific brand. Even though it was 2016, I still came in with a differentiation, which at the time was enough.

So for that specific niche, and it’s the anti-aging niche that we were speaking about before for that specific niche, all of the competitors branding. So their actual branded because of my history, I understood branding and how like having a brand personality and these things were important.

I’m not going to say that I was some expert, but I understood it well enough because I’d been in background my entire life. Yeah. 

Tomer [00:50:54] Oh I’m sorry. But did you learn this from someone? Like did you take a course back then there was like, how did you even find like do they have so much information? You have a YouTube channel, they like groups. It wasn’t like that before, right? 

Sharon [00:51:07] So when I started with myself, I started on my own initially. Like my husband hadn’t been a part of it. When I started, we didn’t do anything. There was no course or anything like that. But when my husband joined, which was about 2017 or 18, we actually took when I say we, I went with him for the sake of like doing it together with him. It was it’s actually subsidized by, by the government in Israel, by MOF.

And it was just a very typical course, just so my husband could understand, like this world that he hadn’t really been a part of. I didn’t always guard. But like, that’s the course that. I sent him to take. It was a good foundation for him, like a baseline. But let’s just say I still had to teach him everything really in-depth when it came into sourcing and things like that. 

Tomer [00:51:57] Best school is actually like doing stuff, right? 

Sharon [00:51:59] Actually doing it. There weren’t people like us making YouTube videos like at the time, I think like 2017, something that like Kevin David started, he was just. I’m not even just a big piece of shit really. It was just all scams but it might given been when I not Kevin King, Kevin David.

You know people probably know its got like a million followers.  Anyway, so everyone in the niche was like really healthy. The branding was really like pastel green and blues and lots of white, and there were very healthy colors and no one had come in with like a really luxurious type of colors.

Now, I had already had an obsession with beauty and with makeup, etc. I did a lot of homework because I wanted to be a YouTuber, etc., and I already knew about perceived value. The minute that you say to a woman this whatever anti-ageing is, however much more expensive than this one, they may be the exact same, but they’re going to think this one’s a lot better.

So from day one, the differentiation point was basically our branding. We came in with black, with metallic gold, with metallic rose gold with white, like we came in. No one had anything like what we had basically. 

Tomer [00:53:19] With this thing., I think we’re very similar. I’m also a big believer, like everything that they do is that with branding, making it look like premium luxury. And I think that’s, you know, it just make your products just much easier to sell, right? 

Sharon [00:53:36] It’s definitely not enough today, I don’t think. 

Tomer [00:53:39] No, no, no. I mean. But if you compare. Yeah, but yeah. It was just that was the differentiation pretty much. 

Sharon [00:53:46] I wouldn’t like if someone tried to come into our needs today and like that was a differentiation. They wouldn’t like that. 

Tomer [00:53:51] So that’s not you need it and you. 

Sharon [00:53:54] Need a lot more 

Tomer [00:53:54] More features in it. 

Sharon [00:53:56] Exactly. And we started kicking back from the very beginning, like from the start, it was just overwhelming how good it was. And then we started selling one and then we started doing a two-pack and then we started doing a three-pack and then we brought an a variation and then it’s more like and then it was just expanding that niche.

And then the year later I got pregnant with my son and actually it was, yeah, it was late 2016. Then I got pregnant to early 2017. I like already knew that I was pregnant etc.. And after giving birth..

Tomer [00:54:36] Did it hurt your business? 

Sharon [00:54:38] No, not at all. No, it didn’t hurt my business at all because, you know, I didn’t really have much else to do just because I was pregnant, you know, I wasn’t disabled or anything. And it was a healthy pregnancy. So, you know, it didn’t. And when I given birth, I had, like, gone through some things which led me into the next nation.

So I’d got like some mummy thing, postpartum things that that women go through that, you know, I wouldn’t say here live. But it then opened my eyes up to a totally different niche, which is postpartum products, products that woman need. And that was when I started out. I was sick in a second niche and it was. Yeah. Really? Also. 

Tomer [00:55:32] It’s funny, I think the best products that you know or the most successful products that, you know, sellers bring a product that they have like personal knowledge or experience with that. 

Sharon [00:55:44] So you are the buyer avatar. It’s you.

Tomer [00:55:47] Exactly. So, you know, like what they actually need. And I think that’s a big tip, you know, even for myself. Now, when you mentioned that and I reflect that the best product that they have, that the product that I was the buying the buyer avatar.

And it’s something that I’m going to take for, you know, for the future brand or brand that I’m going to work on. It’s a little weird time for me. Like, I’m like all that’s working and it’s really weird for me now not to have all these action that they just after selling.

Yeah, but you know, I’m starting to get like, this hunger again, so that’s good. So you at this business, your child, you we had some issues with cash flow like, you know, growing. You said you had two pack, three pack. I know in Israel from Israelis sellers and friends funding for Amazon is not that easy. So how did this work for you? You know? 

Sharon [00:56:51] So first of all, we already had some money from before. Second of all, our products were costing around $2.50 to make landed, landed and were selling for more than $30. So we had amazing. 

Tomer [00:57:05] Okay. 

Sharon [00:57:07] From the very beginning. And not only that, these are products that are small. So even if we had to air express them, we’re like even then it was still always extremely profitable. We’ve never taken out a loan for our businesses. We’ve never had to borrow money from our businesses.

The only thing that I will say is that when I started coaching and when I started that YouTube channel, that brought in a totally different set of cash flow, which, you know, also that was that just became a lot like cash flow became even better, let’s put it that way.

Yes. Which is part of it’s like not necessarily that the reason why I do it, but I love the fact that, you know, I do have it for the cash flow as well. My husband joined completely, I would say, by 2018, and then that’s when he base. And also my son was. 

Tomer [00:58:07] In the restaurant. You still have. 

Sharon [00:58:09] That? No. He no longer had the restaurant by then. He then a few other things. His things. 

Tomer [00:58:16] So he’s brought also his knowledge as an entrepreneur. Like the restaurant business, not easy business. So.

Sharon [00:58:22] One of the hundreds. 

Tomer [00:58:24] Before that, even as he’s now in charge for the logistics in your business. Right?

Sharon [00:58:28] So, yeah, he has anything to do with money. The accounting side taxes in Israel are 50% almost so. Anything to do with money and logistics is his side like he could be like sending our money offshore and I wouldn’t even know. Like that’s how much it’s all. I’m kidding.

Obviously it wouldn’t be. But you get the point like that. That’s his entire side of it. That was a whole new thing that I had to get used to because I had built, you know, these were my babies, basically. And then suddenly having someone that’s getting a lot more involved than what he was and suddenly and like and I had already had all this knowledge.

And then if you were like to know my husband, he’s basically the male version of me, which not really for most people would not get along somehow. You know, we’ve made it still and we were able to work it out. But it is very rare. 

Tomer [00:59:24] It’s very rare. It’s very hard to work with your husband.

Sharon [00:59:27] Yeah. He’s like, he’s basically my mirror like is really is my mirror. He’s very hard-headed, a very strong personality. He’s an alpha as well you know, and it’s very we’re and also he comes from like an earner perspective. He was my boss. Let’s not forget as well. I mean, he was my boss for a long time already, but that’s how he had met me.

So it was. That had its own hardships. And then my son was about a year and a half old and I went through some things with the kindergarten basically in Israel, which I decided that I’m going to take him out of kindergarten.

And I’m going to put him in what’s called like a mom and me kindergarten, where basically you go with the child to the kindergarten every single day, the whole day, suddenly from eight until one, basically you go with the child, that’s six days a week.

And it was a. But this is the thing. Not every mom that had gone through what I like. It wasn’t abuse or anything, but it was just a really bad kindergarten. It was the first kindergarten I’ve ever put my child in.

And I went through some really, really traumatic things as a parent there. And I, you know, and here’s the thing. When you’re going through these things, you still have your business. 

Tomer [01:00:55] Yeah, you know, it’s like from 8 to 1 and you know, yeah, like you’re on like 24/7. Like that’s like whenever I send you a message, I hope it’s better now. 

Sharon [01:01:08] It’s a lot better now. But um, yeah, it was so I had my husband suddenly coming into the business a lot more and like suddenly taking over. Not only that, like, also giving opinions and like, I am my buyer Avatar, you know, and these are, these are woman based products.

And like, suddenly your husband comes in is like, well, no, I think we should be doing this and this. And I’m someone that’s very difficult to picture. And, and it’s your husband and you have to be careful of how you answer it.

Like it was a tough thing. Probably took about two years for it to balance out. And then on top of that now I was also a full time mum basically with you know as well there’s a difference between the first year you’re a parent, you know, this of your child. And so when they are over the age of one, once they get over the age. 

Tomer [01:01:56] Of one, they start walking and they are. 

Sharon [01:01:58] More and they need a lot they need a lot more attention there as well. All of a sudden, especially at the age of like three or four, suddenly they’re talking to you like you can’t just open up the TV and be like, Hey, watch TV like I could for the first year, you know, more or less.

I’m not saying that’s what I did, but you get my point. If I needed to write email, turn on the TV, put them on the rocking chair, watch TV for half an hour, let me write this email or let me argue with the supplier. Let me do what I need to do if I need to wake up in the middle of the night because I’ve got a hijacker and I’m like about to die and I’ve got a heart attack, you know?

So yeah, that was a tough, that was a tough thing on its own.  We had to set boundaries like in the relationship because here’s the thing once your partner is your husband or wife are your business partners. There’s no more like normal dates. You go on a date and you’re like and you start talking about business. Yes, talking about business. And it and it can actually impact. 

Today, now that I’ve met so many entrepreneurs that are husband and wife, almost everyone is divorced that I know from that like, that our husband and wife entrepreneurs and this almost everyone’s divorced or like have miserable lives. And I didn’t want to be like that.

And at some point I’ll never forget this. At some point we went to marriage counseling and the marriage counselor said to me, if you continue this way, which was basically being very hard-headed, you know, I know what’s right. This is what we need to do. You this is my baby. You’re taking over.

And the marriage counselor  kind of said, if you continue this way, you’re going to be rich but divorced. Yes. And you need to decide. And that’s when I was like, okay, I need to let my husband make mistakes and he needs to learn on his own like I need to. And then I took a step back. And then in 2019 is when I started my YouTube channel. 

Tomer [01:03:50] And the coaching. 

Sharon [01:03:52] Then, and the coaching came sometime like after, but suddenly I now had my new baby. But only the thing is that my new baby is my face and no one can take it away from me in our like I couldn’t have a suddenly my husband couldn’t suddenly decide that he’s coming in and like so it was mine, all mine. No one could, you know, it was just me. 

Tomer [01:04:14] You still had your independence within like Amazon. You could do something from a to z. 

Sharon [01:04:20] And also like I can, I can use like my creativity to the full. I don’t need to get a second opinion from like it was just so that tick the box for that thing that I suddenly didn’t have anymore because you know and also bought in a whole new side of things on a cash flow level as well. I didn’t know that it would go that way, but it did as well. 

Tomer [01:04:44] How was the Youtube experience?  Like you started Youtube, did you pick up right away, like the success that you had with you has surprised you? Sure. Can you tell a little bit about that journey. 

Sharon [01:04:56] Like so the first year of YouTube was in 2019. So COVID hadn’t started yet. And I was one of the very few at the time that were really straightforward. You know, if you watch one of my very first videos, I was like, this is not passive income, you know, this is not unicorns and butterflies. You have to be resilient. You’re in Amazon’s jungle. You have no control. Like I was very I wasn’t negative but…

Tomer [01:05:24] putting that out on the table. 

Sharon [01:05:26] My videos were very balanced. It wasn’t just like very like good all day long, like all the other YouTube was. So I, I did pick out very, very quickly. The thing is that so during COVID, I met Kian Golzari, and we became really, really good friends. And then he introduced me to Danny.

Before I joined Seller Sessions podcast. I was on Seller Sessions as a guest like 15 times in one year. And during that year suddenly I like I was, I blew out like everyone wanted me in their events and it was like I was, on a high.

I was like, oh, my God, I’m like a celebrity, you know? I was like that little girl that wanted to be the YouTuber. And until it became way too difficult to manage, you can’t make YouTube videos and on a podcast and manage your own businesses and go through all the bullshit supply chain that we had gone through and still do your own PPC. And suddenly your son is four years old and you have to pay attention to.

There’s a YouTube video that you can see on Seller Sessions. Before I joined, Danny had interviewed me in a few other months and I was crying on the video because I was like the amount of mum guilt that I had, you know, you were saying I was always on like it became too much for me.

And that’s why in the last year I’ve made hardly any videos, so I had to prioritize what was more important. First of all, the supply chain is extremely fucked up today, very, very difficult. 

Tomer [01:07:03] And we always say, you know, it’s going to be better in the next two months. You know, it’s just never ending. 

Sharon [01:07:08] And then something and then a war starts in the Ukraine and then like hope it gets real bad in China again. And they like your Shanghai. Shanghai’s been in lockdown for like two months and people live like no food. And, you know, it just gets there’s something new every time there’s something new.

I have to deal with all that. Not me. Everyone. Also, people watching you like something. You have to start. I had to prioritize. And then in the last year specifically, I made a decision that Youtube was the least  important thing for me.

I put down a lot of my coaching and I really a no more going to bed past 12:00. Now, I’m not going to say that I’m perfect at it because I still sometimes 

Tomer [01:07:45] What did you just said can your repeat that?  Not going to bed? 

Sharon [01:07:49] After 12:00 at night? 

Tomer [01:07:51] I hear 5 and I’m like what? 

Sharon [01:07:53] No, 12. So I used to go to sleep at like three or 4:00 in the morning and then I’d wake up at 7 a.m. for my son and I’d sleep about three and a half hours at night, and that would last for the entire day. 

Tomer [01:08:05] I don’t know. And this is crazy. 

Sharon [01:08:07] Well, at some point, I basically, you know, I was burnt out, completely burnt out. I wasn’t healthy. I’ve put on about 20 kilos in the last three years, which is a lot of weight to put on. 

Tomer [01:08:20] Yeah. When you don’t sleep well, it’s like mess up your body. You know. 

Sharon [01:08:24] I wasn’t sleeping well, I wasn’t eating healthy. I was working all day. You know, habits, my habits were really bad. So, yes, I was making money, but I was miserable like I was. I was really and I had to stop and say, okay, like, if something’s going to crash, it’ll either be me, it’ll either be our businesses.

It will either be like, something’s going to crash, and I have to stop for a second and I prioritize; A by my happiness and B by money. Like what is most important. Amazon was the most important because it had so many issues because of supply chain. So that was number one. And then like YouTube was the last on the list.

So I stopped. I took a break from YouTube too, which is why I’m like stuck at like almost 9000 subscribers. You would expect that I’d have like a lot more, but it’s not about that for me. It’s not about, you know, saying, Oh, I have this amount of subscribers like that. Yeah.

But the high that I used to get from the first year of YouTube, it’s not the same anymore. But it’s also because I work so much one-on-one with sellers now that like I’m in, I’m really involved in it on the day to day, you know. So yeah, that was the YouTube side of things. 

Tomer [01:09:43] So where you are now with your Amazon business, are you ever thinking about selling what or what are your plans like, you know, business wise? You have like a yearly every year you have your goals. Like, I’m gonna reach here and that, that’s what I want. So. 

Sharon [01:10:00] Um, we have looked into selling. We know what we need to do. There are certain. So I know that you like what with your brand. Some of the stuff that you had there was beauty, but it’s not as easy to sell the products that we sell. Um, and it’s not as it’s going to be harder for us to go through an exit on that side of things. 

Tomer [01:10:22] Now, I think that multiples. 

Sharon [01:10:24] Multiples will go down. Yeah, multiples have gone down. It’s not a must for us right now. We do hope to exit. Like, honestly, I more want to go through the exit. I went through an exit more than like actually going through the exit door. 

Tomer [01:10:40] Why?

Sharon [01:10:41] No, I’m kidding. Like, I’m saying that just because everyone’s talking about exits, blah, blah, blah, we’re not in a place where we absolutely are dying to exit right now. You know, we’re. 

Tomer [01:10:50] If the right offer, would come then you sell it.

Sharon [01:10:52] If the right offer was to come, we would. One of our brands specifically, which at some point it’ll blow up. But instead what we’ve decided to do is just put a lot more into our off Amazon presence in the left.

That’s also my husband’s like project right now is to take a lot more on. I don’t have time to learn more and google ads. Google, Shopify. Yeah. And I just don’t have like you know, my thing is Amazon PPC, I’m really good at Amazon. 

Tomer [01:11:26] So I’ll tell you what I’ll tell you what I am. My background is Google ads. So for me it was natural to do Amazon PPC because it’s almost the same thing. So if you are good and I know that you’re very good with PPC, and the same methodology, the same kind of principles.

So it will be easier, easy for you to you know, master it even though Google ads going into trend of adding like everything done by them. So yeah, so the trend is less manual campaigns and more like smart job, not just shopping smart campaigns. They put the landing page or whatever the keyword is. They decide for you, which is, in my opinion, is a horrible thing. 

Sharon [01:12:04] I still.

Tomer [01:12:05] Okay, it’s not that.

Sharon [01:12:06] I still don’t want to do it myself. So if it’s not, my husband will hire someone like I’m not. But the main thing that I want to focus right now is Tik Tok, because one of our beauty brands is so Tik Tok worthy and we haven’t really put time into Tik Tok on it.

And not only that, we found our products being already like they haven’t gone viral, but they have already been like there’s videos with tens of thousands of views on them, of people of like beauty influencers using that. 

Tomer [01:12:36] Yeah, it’s perfect for that.

Sharon [01:12:37] Exactly. So we have looked a lot into out of Amazon presence and being also less and less dependent on Amazon, which is like one of the most important things for me to do. Remember I told you how my dad was always telling me to diversify. 

Tomer [01:12:54] I mentioned this. 

Sharon [01:12:55] Yeah. So especially with the way, like the surprises that Amazon’s given us in the last two years, you know, randomly, hey, as of tomorrow, you can’t have this in this amount of stock anymore. And as of tomorrow, we’re doing like, you know they’re changing things every day  

Tomer [01:13:14] or You have three days to provide us this certificate or you have. 

Sharon [01:13:17] Yeah, that’s what this is again. Or, or also in 2020 on Prime Day, I made a video about it called the good the what’s it called? I can’t remember that now 

Tomer [01:13:30] I remember that. 

Sharon [01:13:31] The ugly side of Amazon. That’s the ugly side of Amazon. So, you know, we had four of our bestsellers taken down and it was on Prime Day 2020. Yeah. So someone you haven’t seen this video? You don’t know about this?

Tomer [01:13:47] No, I think but repeat that you had four of. 

Sharon [01:13:50] Your of our best sellers and one of our niches are taken down. 

Tomer [01:13:54] Like so we had pesticide wars and this like flat files or. 

Sharon [01:14:00] Someone had uploaded through the Canadian account. They upload it. It wasn’t. 

Tomer [01:14:03] Is that admittedly, by the way, after that with you meant you mentioned that to me. I had the same thing. And I talk with this guy myself. 

Sharon [01:14:12] It took us about three and a half weeks to get back up, but it was like tens of thousands of dollars missed from having that. But just things like that. So that’s like the main focus, I would say, over the next like 1 to 2 years. 

Tomer [01:14:30] And Yeah. And growing with the coaching writing on YouTube or having a what is the plane there? Doing one on one or maybe having a group. So I’m sorry, but I’m not sure what it is? Since the beginning I said I’m not going to sell course. I have this, like, principle. I don’t know. I’m not going to create a course.

Why? Because I believe that, you know, things are changing so fast and my peers. Like, I don’t want to update my course every, like, you know, few months, days or weeks, you know. So I said, you know what? I’m not going to do anything like that.

But I realized, you know, a lot of people are contacting me to do like, you know, one on one. I’m not, I’m too busy with my other, with my actual business.

I enjoy it more and I just don’t have time to do it. But I want to do like a group like every quarter take like five or six people, something that I think you’d do similarly and just having like a group called every week or like it’s up to six weeks with homework and this something I think I’m capable of.

What are you doing with coaching? Are you I guess you don’t have time to do one on one coaching all day long or how do you deal with that. But so many people want to talk with you. 

Sharon [01:15:40] So I do one on one coaching, it’s one on one. And you know. 

Tomer [01:15:46] My time is limited, right? 

Sharon [01:15:48] Yeah. So there’s only a certain amount of hours I have to schedule and that’s the hours. So most of the time I’m booked out two weeks in advance. You need a book. Of course, unless someone sends me a message that something urgent has happened, I will make time for them if I think that I can help them sometimes.

If I can’t, I’ll just send them to who can help them. And I do have. So here’s the thing. I’ve got a product research and sourcing course, okay? It’s not specifically just Amazon. Like I focus a lot on Amazon, but it’s timeless principles.

There is no such thing as I’ll need to update it every whatever because it’s timeless. It’s I teach you how to how to build a brand, basically, you know, and it’s not things like, okay, go to black box, find opportunity. It’s not about that. 

Tomer [01:16:33] It’s so the principles and what it takes to build a brand or source different like. 

Sharon [01:16:39] How to find yeah, how to find the right types of products, you know, how to look for also social media where the products, how to then source it, you know, sourcing and product development is like my thing you know I have in an in agreement some there are I have you know general conditions agreements and they’re all in Mandarin and in English.

Like from my actual Chinese lawyers, I have like the sourcing side of it. Again, it’s timeless principles. The only thing that I sometimes need to update is the logistics, because that has been all over the place when it comes to supply chain. So that’s the only thing. The reason I haven’t made it. 

Tomer [01:17:14] You don’t teach on how to create the listing or, you don’t teach how to ship or free shipping plan, those type of things. 

Sharon [01:17:19] You need that, just go to YouTube like that’s not what you need me for. 

Tomer [01:17:23] Sellers Session University. 

Sharon [01:17:26] Seller Session University, my YouTube channel, your YouTube channel, whatever that stuff is on YouTube for free. It’s the in-depth stuff that’s like what people come to me for now.

The thing is, when people when they then need to launch, that’s when they usually will come to me one on one. And the reason is and the reason I haven’t made a PPC course or anything like that is. When I first started coaching, I thought I was a know it all.

I thought I was a fucking genius, you know? I got to seven figures in my first year. I knew it all. I was a genius. And then you start coaching and you’re like, I have no idea how to launch a home decor product. I don’t know how to launch a supplement product. I don’t know.

So after three years of working one on one with hundreds, like hundreds of sellers, you can look at the reviews. Like on my website, there’s hundreds of reviews. Suddenly I don’t live in my bubble anymore, and that’s why it’s so hard for me to make it A to Z course, because I know that there is no one way to do Amazon.

There’s so many different things. And when it comes to a launch, I will launch a product according to that specific product when someone could ask me, Hey, Sharon, I’ve got this problem.

If I don’t know the nation, if I don’t know the product, if I haven’t seen your listing, if I can’t tell you what to do, I need to see it. I need to understand your niche. I need to know who your competitors are. And then I’ll know how to launch the product. I’ll know what makes more sense. 

Tomer [01:18:48] So that’s why we launched, let’s say, like so product, launch. You do it differently for every niche or type of product, like what with this one you’re going to do with the only PPC or this you’re not going to do PPC. Like how it comes to launching. 

Sharon [01:19:02] Almost every single product I’ve ever launched. Like 99.9% is what? 

Tomer [01:19:06] PPC Yeah. 

Sharon [01:19:09] But there are some like but every single product, the PPC structure like this, the structure, not the structure, the strategy will be the same, but the structure can change.

So, there are some products where I’d start with very limited campaigns and there are some products where the keywords there are so diverse that there would be many campaigns and it’s a lot of trial and error, like for example, a gift box type of product. I will have many different types of keywords in there compared to a very niche camping product, for example. 

Tomer [01:19:39] Okay. 

Sharon [01:19:39] And you can’t and you can’t know that until you actually and that’s the thing that I learned.

Tomer [01:19:46] That I see the results, you get a click. See, there because yeah exactly not just… 

Sharon [01:19:48] It’s not just that, but that’s what I learned. Like I had someone come to me about in 2020 with the not 2021. Chinese New Year 2021, came to me with an idea and he said to me, What do you think about this?

And it was it’s a gag product for a certain type of animal, okay? Like a funny product for a certain type of animal. And he didn’t have that much money like to do it. And I was like, Look, you know, you’re a CAD technician, why don’t you 3D print it?

3D printer yourself going by a 3D printer, learn about 3D printing, put it up on Amazon is handmade initially, put it up on Etsy, get some feedback, see how it goes, and if it goes well, then you can put money into to date, his name Stuart, to date today he has seven 3D printers working all day long at his house and he is his own manufacturer.

Now, because my product development skills are so much just beyond a typical Amazon seller, someone can come to me with an idea and I’ll find a solution for them with their specific situation. You know, I had another client in the UK and he was like, I really want to stick just to UK.

And he had a specific niche that I was interested and I was like, Look, why don’t you go buy a specific product in bulk and sell it to a very specific niche on Amazon?

It’s in the gardening niche and like make different for different types of buyer avatars just make like these different and you know, and it’s worked. So that’s the kind of stuff that is it’s so my answer to that is I don’t know where I’m going with this.

I know it’s like the opposite of me because I always have a business plan for everything. I don’t 100% know how it’ll what’s going to look like. I’m also heavily invested in a brand that I told you about before we started recording. Where, like, there, I’m building it up for exit. Like that’s the most important thing. And that takes. 

Tomer [01:21:45] That takes potential for exit. This is amazing. 

Sharon [01:21:47] And amazing potential that it takes a lot of my so I do all of the product development there I do all of the sourcing. I do all of like everything to do with that. Plus the Amazon site is on me and I enjoy every single minute of it, every single minute of it.

But that’s also so I don’t know, I may I’m not going to make an a to z course that I nor I will stick to my product research and sourcing specifically. That’s my thing. That’s what I love. That’s what I’m really good at. Yeah. 

Tomer [01:22:18] And do you watch TV? Do you watch TV? 

Sharon [01:22:22] So my husband and I have 

Tomer [01:22:25] I’m asking you  

Sharon [01:22:25] Because I don’t. 

Tomer [01:22:26] if you have time. 

Sharon [01:22:27] So we have date night every. So I don’t work every Friday and Saturday. Not because I’m religious or anything like, but Shabbat Saturday. I don’t work Friday, Saturday at all. And I also have every single afternoon off. So from around two or 3:00 until 6 p.m., I’m just with my son.

Like, you could be dying and I wouldn’t care. Like, that’s my mummy time and nothing digs into that and my husband gets me every Friday evening that’s I’m 100% his. So most of the time will either go out, watch a movie, we’ll get a babysitter or we’ll watch Netflix. But apart from that, I don’t watch T.V. at all. 

Tomer [01:23:06] Okay. 

Sharon [01:23:07] Like he fell asleep last week or two weeks or he fell asleep on front on date night. And I was like, okay, well, you know, I’ll open up Netflix. And I ended up watching Money Explained, which is like a documentary on money I what I have when I have my own time, if I’m on Netflix, it will also be like, okay, what can I do that’s going to help me like, you know, expand my life some way. Yeah, gruesome in some way. 

Tomer [01:23:34] I think about like, yeah, I think if you’re yeah, that’s the longest for sure that I had and I feel I have so many more things that I want to ask you and people that you know, could learn from. But I think it’s just going to be too long.

And I hope you and I know that you’re going to come back to share more about you, about your journey and what changed between this one to the next one. But I really want to thank you for being open, sharing what you went through in life, your struggles, the hardships. And, you know, you’re amazing.

You’re an inspiration. I told this many times, I always look at your video as the way you explain, the way that you are making it real. You know, I always you know, I think that I could get much more viewers as a subscriber as if I would be, you know, making it look like it’s easy. But  it’s not. And, you know, that’s  the principle for me going to make it or share it the way it is, you know. So thank you for what you bring to the Amazon community and space. 

Sharon [01:24:39] Thank you. 

Tomer [01:24:40] Just, you know, keep doing what you do. It’s really amazing. 

Sharon [01:24:44] Thank you, Tomer. You’re amazing to appreciate every word. Thank you so much for having me. 

Tomer [01:24:50] You’re welcome. And what’s your Facebook group for where people can find about you?

Sharon [01:24:55] So, my YouTube channel is Sharon Even. “ E-V-E-N.” my Facebook group is called Amazon FBA Alphas and that’s really it. LinkedIn, Instagram, everything’s just Sharon Even I and I’m a cohost on the Sellers Session’s podcast. 

Tomer [01:25:15] So yes, Sellers Session.

Sharon [01:25:16] Every Thursday. 

Tomer [01:25:18] You were hosting the physical event in London, right? 

Sharon [01:25:23] Yes. I just  got back from London two days ago, and it was two events I hosted, branded by women, which is a woman only speaking event. There were men in the crowd, but only woman were speaking. I also presented there and also I hosted the Sellers Sessions live, which was interesting just to host. 

Tomer [01:25:44] Yeah. And we had a few people that asked me actually in my YouTube channel comments, what is Sharon Even Facebook group page? Because I mentioned you in one of the recent changes that you made.

So I’m going to put a link definitely join this is the source for like the recent updates with Amazon. This is the source for it. So join and you will benefit for sure. And thank you, Sharon, again. I really appreciate it. 

Sharon [01:26:08] It. 

Tomer [01:26:08] Thank you. And I hope to see you in the future. 

Sharon [01:26:12] Thank you. Bye, everyone.