Everyone can be an entrepreneur: from taxi drivers to millionaires, a startup success story

In 2018, two partners and taxi drivers from Terrassa (Barcelona) felt they had to change their business. Joan Bartra, 45, and Joel Cuscó, 42, had started together in the real estate world and the 2008 crisis sank them. Then they went to the taxi, which was a good business until boredom and the arrival of Uber made them speed up the search for alternatives. "The arrival of Uber makes you more attentive, and also at 40 years old, you didn't want to be in a taxi until you were 65," says Bartra.

At Amazon they investigated for months which products worked well in the US and were not in Europe. They opted for a foam barrier for children's beds from two years old and created a brand called Banbaloo. They contacted a Chinese supplier, adapted the product, created a website and in January 2019 they landed on Amazon. Now, two and a half years later, they have sold their creation "for more than a million euros" to Yaba, a new Spanish company that buys sellers on Amazon to make them up and take them to another level. Yaba does not want to disclose the exact amount of the deal.

The process illustrates how technology has changed the way in which a company can be created in an extraordinary way: two computers, some English and a lot of dedication are enough without leaving home. "Before, it was done by companies, now it is done by individuals," says Sergi de Pablos, chief technology officer and co-founder of Yaba.

Cuscó first heard about selling on Amazon in mid-2018 at an annual potluck with a group of friends. One had researched how selling on Amazon worked, had taken a course in English, and told him the details. But he had never started it. Cuscó got home and started watching YouTube videos. He had time because the taxi was driven by two employees: a single vehicle fed four families.

Cuscó does not have an academic background in economics. "When I was in BUP sophomore I started selling beers at concerts," he says. But there was YouTube to help. They bought two courses from two channels of digital sales experts, Libertad Virtual and Hermo Benito, for just over 1,500 euros in total, at the current price. They also acquired the Jungle Scout program, which estimates product sales on Amazon in different countries. With all this, they looked for products that were already working in the US and were not yet in Europe. "We narrowed down to about 20 options, but we stayed with a foam barrier for babies," says Cuscó. "Finding a product, an objective. It is the most important job," adds Bartra.

When the time came to see who could manufacture that, they chose China. AliBaba is a platform to buy wholesale in the Asian giant and there, in an internal chat, they started looking for foam manufacturers. They found an acceptable one, asked for a sample, and Bartra and Cuscó slept for a week with barriers on their beds. It worked. They created an Instagram account to promote it, but the key was to buy advertising on Amazon for the keywords: "bed rail". The offer then was wood and metal. The foam could have a gap, placed between the mattress and the fitted sheet. And he had it.

The path to success was already established, but there was still a long way to go: the offer had to be diversified. Banbaloo today has about 30 products: various barriers, cushions, blankets. They no longer have just one best seller. While the range was expanded, care had to be taken that success did not leave Amazon's warehouses without inventory. When the order did not arrive from China and the stocks ran out, they raised the price euro to euro. But sales kept going up. Thus, half a rebound, they detected that the margin could grow.

Yaba's bet is for now Amazon, but deep down there is the conviction that digital commerce still has a lot to explore and grow. "We have people who are experts in advertisements, logistics, and a larger warehouse," says De Pablos. "So far we have bought five companies," he adds. But the plan is to keep growing.

"It is a risk to depend now only on Amazon, but we believe that it will not change much in the coming years or raise rates, because if sellers stop being profitable, they leave," says De Pablos. Amazon is voracious and huge, but clothing, DIY, sports or electronics have increasingly powerful and consolidated platforms. A growing range of options opens up.

Five years ago, getting to Amazon with any product was a huge advantage, but there is still room. "In 2016 Amazon was the gold rush: what product do I have in my life that is not on Amazon," says De Pablos. “And today you can be making millions with that product just because the first one came in and had triple the reviews and a lot more sales than the second one,” he adds.

Source: El País Spain