Tailored funding to embrace the challenges of a growing eCommerce business
Roosh Reddy
For years, Roosh Reddy dreamt of running his own business. Over the years he had built and sold a handful of software startups, but he was still looking for a more rewarding challenge after reading and being inspired by The Everything Store by Brad Stone. It was around that time that Roosh became interested in Amazon and the independent sellers that make up its marketplace. After further research into the history of Amazon, and its customer-obsessed philosophy, he decided that building an Amazon brand was his next challenge.
Roosh, along with two partners, started their Amazon business in January 2023 selling in the Gourmet and Grocery categories. Always one for a challenge, Roosh had read on social media that Grocery was one of the most difficult categories for Amazon wholesale aggregators to succeed in–marking it as the perfect measure of success for him. This ambition to succeed, coupled with a wholesale selling strategy that allowed for rapid results and agile adjustments, led Roosh and his partners to grow the business quickly with data driven decisions. Despite Roosh’s drive for success though, his business still faced a number of challenges due to increasing need for working capital and well-matched resources.
Identifying partners who would understand
After making their first sale in January, Roosh and his partners began to truly see the business as potentially profitable in April. That’s when they started scaling, slowly and steadily building up to $100K in monthly sales after the first nine months. However, despite the growth Roosh found the business stunted by the speed of their growth and their ability to access capital.
“It felt like we were constantly waiting for the next problem to arrive,” Roosh shared “There are three pillars that every Amazon wholesaler has to ensure a solid foundation for: sourcing, logistics, and capital, or the rest of your business will crumble. It’s a constant juggling act.” Since capital was constantly a struggle, other problems would spring up as a result. For example, delays in payouts from Amazon could create hiccups in shipment payments–extending already prolonged logistics timelines for foreign goods. As a result, Roosh and his partners found themselves preoccupied with resolving immediate problems, constantly waiting for the next issue to arise.
At the same time, the team was initially focused on scaling revenue over profit to verify that they had chosen a successful business model. While this meant that in the long run they would have a well-established cash flow, at present it greatly limited their potential products. Instead of including products based on demand, Roosh and his partners sought out products that had rapid cash conversion cycles (45-60 days) and a high profit margin, with a low percentage of fees on the final sale price from Amazon.
After reaching $100K in monthly sales, Roosh realized that if they truly wanted to compete as a business they couldn’t do it alone. It was time to truly start scaling their Amazon wholesale business, but to do that they would need to focus less on immediate structural problems and more on high-level visions for growth. While he and his partners had already considered long-term infrastructure, allowing the iterative and agile nature of wholesale to guide them in data-driven decisions, now was the time to find financial support.
Flexible, personalized, and strategic working capital
True to his background in software, when Roosh had set out to build an Amazon seller business one of the first things he did was set up a bot to scrape the best Amazon podcasts for data. He compiled that data, including a number of podcast guests, as resources to be used later in the business. It was on Scott Needham’s Smartest Seller podcast that he found Viably.
“I always knew that we were going to have to take on good debt, to scale to the heights that we wanted to, it was just inevitable. The more important thing was waiting till we were at a point that we could comfortably handle the repayment terms and schedule with our revenue. And, it was time.”
Unlike other eCommerce funding providers, Roosh loved that Viably truly understood the wholesale selling strategy and its challenges. Specifically, he liked Viably’s Wholesaler Accelerator funding solution, and was impressed with its ability to strategically align remittance dates with the cash conversion cycle. This attention to detail and thoughtfulness in product development helped to demonstrate that Viably would be able to understand his business and provide it with the flexibility they needed to scale in their own way.
Once Roosh submitted their application and began speaking directly with a specialist, he found that Viably had even more to offer his business than he had realized. “After participating in a juggling act for so long, constantly dealing with one problem or another in regards to logistics, sourcing, or capital, it was so relieving to have true support. And with Viably our capital problem ceased to exist.”
Viably was even able to offer Roosh two overlapping loans to provide his business with the capital structure that they wanted to ensure maximum growth. Since every wholesaler has a different set of financial needs, this kind of flexibility and reinforcement on the capital pillar has allowed for their cash flow worries to disappear almost entirely. Instead of worrying about how high international shipping costs will affect their cash flow, Roosh and his partners were able to refocus their energy on expanding the business. This led them to scale from $100K in sales to $300K in the next three months.
Before working with Viably, Roosh and his partners had been roughly tracking their spending in a Google sheet and then in rudimentary financial software. They had a rough idea of how much to spend each month in order to scale, but never needed to zoom in and review the exact numbers, instead Roosh says “we just eyeballed it.” However, once they began working with Viably they quickly realized “Scaling was just a function of how much capital we wanted to put in the business, and we could view it all clearly in the Growth tool.”
At the same time Viably has been an invaluable networking resource for his business. “You all just know so many people and providers in the Amazon space, and you ensure that they’re trustworthy.” Thanks to Viably’s partner network, Roosh has been able to connect with a number of top-tier providers and receive the help his business needs on all fronts.
Roosh and his partners have been able to continue scaling their Amazon wholesale business month over month ever since the first round of funding with Viably. With Viably’s flexible terms they can automatically extend repayment schedules to accommodate for any delays with international shipments and remain agile in their decision making, without worrying about being penalized. “The best part is that we don’t have to talk to anyone,” Roosh said, “It’s nice to have a financial partner that trusts us to just run our business the way that we need to, and can accommodate those flexible needs without a problem. It really expedites the process.”
Viably’s customizable and flexible funding solutions allowed Roosh’s business to truly scale the way they best knew how, shifting their focus from what’s immediately in front of them to what’s up ahead. In doing so, they’ve come that much closer to reaching the height of their dreams.
A financial foundation ready to support future success
With a secure funding source on top of a well-established business, Roosh and his partners have been able to take advantage of new opportunities for expansion. Although their high standards and determination to conquer the hardest challenges of Amazon wholesale first proved to be difficult, it served them well in creating an almost infallible foundation for their business to grow from.
While initially Roosh and his partners focused on revenue, they’ve shifted their sights to gross profit in order to take the business to the next level. Not only does that mean continuing to scale sales though, it also raises the question of automation. “I’m frequently asking myself and my partners, ‘How can we remove ourselves as decision makers and let all these things be done by software?’ We have the capabilities to build it,” he shared “It’s just a matter of what we want to automate.” Viably’s Growth tool has been instrumental in providing insight into their financial visibility, and Roosh hopes to use software to make even more data-driven decisions.
Right now Roosh and his partners are beginning to expand their product catalog, finally opening up to products that may not have fit their strict initial requirements. Thanks to their well-established revenue and sales metrics they have the confidence to take on products that might not have as high of a profit margin, but still have demand.
To other businesses looking for opportunities to grow, Roosh advises, “Partner with someone who understands what you’re doing and will scale with you. It’s critical that you have confidence in their ability to provide you not only with the capital you need but also with the terms that suit your business.”
He also emphasizes the importance of choosing a working capital provider that you can develop a long term relationship with, “Building a relationship like that takes time, and one closure can send it spiraling. Even Amazon Lending closed recently, all those sellers are going to have to build entirely new relationships.” Above all else Roosh believes that Amazon sellers should invest in a working capital partner that can support their business in every aspect.
As he looks toward the future Roosh is optimistic, “We’ll continue to grow as long as Viably is there to support and fund us. I’m very confident about that.”
After constantly dealing with one problem or another in regards to logistics, sourcing, or capital, it was so relieving to have true support
Roosh Reddy
BEFORE
- Growing slow and steady, but lacking scalability
- Focused on revenue instead of gross profit
- Limited to products with guaranteed high profit margins
AFTER
- Scaling rapidly with support from flexible funding
- Prioritizing gross profit over all other metrics
- Expanding product catalog to reach new customers
