TIE #083: What I Would Do If I Was Starting Over in 2025
Every year or two, I like to revisit this idea for those who are still on the fence
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The most common question I get is from people on social media asking some variation of:
“Hey, is selling on Amazon still worth doing?”
“Hey, is LEGO Investing still worth doing?”
“Hey, is investing in Pokémon still worth doing?”
“Hey, is starting my own supplement business worth doing?”
“Hey, is starting a newsletter worth doing?”
I’ll let you in on a little secret…
If there are people out there doing it and/or making content about doing it, then it is worth doing.
How worth it will it be for you? No one knows.
It’s different for everyone.
You have to try it and see how natural it comes to you.
Saturation is a good thing, not a bad thing. Something being saturated means that it works.
Not only that, but outworking or outsmarting most people is extremely easy.
Almost everyone does the bare minimum.
Those people who leave shopping carts out in the middle of the parking lot? They run businesses too and they’re idiots.
Now when it comes to each of the things I write about specifically, here is how I feel about them in 2025:
Selling on Amazon
Selling on Amazon really just means “Arbitraging on Amazon”
Arbitrage is the art of buying stuff elsewhere (in person or online) and selling it on Amazon.
This will always be profitable, but it has been automated so well that the margin isn’t pretty.
You’ll make a little bit of money, but it isn’t going to make you rich.
Also, Amazon is also making it more difficult for newer sellers to do this by heavily limiting the brands you can sell over the 6 months.
A lot of veteran sellers have lost the ability to sell a ton of major brands, myself included.
I don’t do a lot of it anyway because at this point in my life, the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.
However, if I was just starting out and had nothing, I would still give it a go.
There isn’t much downside, as long as you don’t do something stupid and put all of your capital into one product.
LEGO Investing
LEGO investing will always be a thing.
They’ve appreciated for decades and will continue to.
The only part Amazon plays into it is allowing people to buy and sell more of each retiring LEGO set.
If I lost the ability to sell LEGO on Amazon (like some have), I would still invest in LEGO.
(I have a suspicion that sellers can get permission to sell LEGO back by selling a lot of toys, but have yet to see evidence that backs this up)
Instead of being a multiple six-figure operation, it would be a multiple five-figure operation and I would sell on eBay and somewhere like Walmart.
You get paid to buy and do the waiting for your future customer and that will always stand the test of time.
That said, I would only LEGO invest if:
I wanted a little side quest business alongside my W2 job
I had a lot of money to work with
If you don’t have a lot of money, you are better off putting it somewhere else where it can compound more often.
I.E. a business that buys inventory more than once/year
Pokémon Investing
This will always be a thing as long as there is demand for Pokémon cards.
I don’t personally like the idea of investing in the loose cards themselves, but I will always like sealed investing.
It is the same idea as LEGO investing.
When supply gets capped and people continue to open the sealed product, the remaining sealed product gets more valuable.
I would only Pokémon invest if:
I wanted a little side quest business alongside my W2 job
I had a lot of money to work with
If you don’t have a lot of money, you are better off putting it somewhere else where it can compound more often.
I.E. a business that buys inventory more than once/year
Supplement Business (or any standalone business)
I only have one piece of advice when it comes to creating your own brand:
Solve your own problem, then offer the solution to the world
I’ve tried to create over 10 private label brands.
I got lucky on one of them that I didn’t even care about and was able to build and sell it for multiple six figures.
That isn’t normal.
Every time I have had success it was because I solved my own problem and then offered the solution to other people.
There are a lot of people out there who have the same problems as you.
If you can solve that problem, people will pay you to help them solve the same problem.
Doesn’t matter what it is.
If you’re going to do this, have at least $10,000 - $20,000 in cash.
Newsletter
I love writing this newsletter.
I consider it the introvert version of YouTube (hence the name) and it is an underrated business model.
This reminds me that I used to document the profit & loss of this newsletter… should I bring that back?
I probably should.
A newsletter is something that you just have to try to know if you enjoy it or not.
If you’re going to write about it, make sure that the people reading it get something out of it.
Free or paid, you should be asking yourself, “what’s in this for them?”
I recently contemplated the idea of documenting my journey at trying to get better at golf with a newsletter, but I know for a face that no one would read it.
No one wants to read about me getting better at golf, people want to know how THEY can get better at golf themselves.
I don’t have the answer for them (and it’s different for everyone).
Newsletters and all content in general is great because there isn’t much downside.
Start writing and/or turn on a camera and see what happens.
Like I said at the beginning, there is one way I can help you.
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I noticed you mentioned Amazon selling but not specifically book selling - is that because you just lumped it in with Amazon Selling, or you don't believe in book selling as a good way to make money for first timers any more?