This Entrepreneur Travelled to 31 Countries While Running His Business Remote

Founder of The Five-Day Startup, Scott Bartnick

From corporate America to world traveller, Scott Bartnick is living the millennial dream as a successful entrepreneur and world traveler. He has created four strong brands of his own and works as a consultant to other businesses and individuals who are trying to leverage Amazon. Bartnick’s background was not always in entrepreneurship.

After three years at a top engineering firm, he left the safety net of his day job and started on his journey around the world, while continuing to grow his business. His first eCommerce venture began when he found that he could travel to Southeast Asia and live on about $10 a day.  With an end goal in mind, he explored different ways to make money online and found dropshipping as a means to earn his first $1,000 profit. From there, Bartnick placed his first inventory order to start selling on Amazon. Today, he is a mid-six-figure Amazon seller working towards breaking a million-dollar goal by the end of 2020. 

Scott founded The Five-Day Startup to help others build and scale their eCommerce businesses both on and off Amazon by sharing his expertise on listing optimization, product development, financial analytics, website development, Amazon PPC, Amazon SEO, and influencer marketing. Bartnick’s mistakes are now lessons to every client he has, saving them time and money on the road to their success. We chatted with Scott about how he was able to make the millennial dream a reality and how he is on a mission to help others do the same.

Scott, you run your own Amazon business and you also do eCommerce consulting for other brands.  What is The Five-Day Startup in a nut shell? What happens in 5 days?

Basically I was really frustrated with making silly mistakes and struggling with my first overseas shipment. It was very frustrating. I missed filing paperwork. I ended up having to pick up my products at the port because it wasn’t done right. There were no mentors I could really find. Even with YouTube videos, people didn’t tell you the full truth or they would market their own product versus actually giving good advice. That’s why I started The Five-Day Startup. I try to work with people I know well. I meet most of my clients traveling. I don’t run any ads for my business. I consider my clients my friends. I put in more work than I charge because I want them to succeed. I hated making the errors myself. I always to try to experiment with my own stuff.

My first business took 6 months to have a product ready and a website up. My website cost $7000. The next time around I was able to rebuild the website myself instead of paying someone. It took me about 5 hours and it looked better. It wasn’t a strict five days. People get fear and paralysis about moving forward. The whole idea is that you can do it pretty quick, especially with dropshipping. You can have an eCommerce website up in an hour that’s plugged into Ali Express and start learning the process. I don’t think you can make a lot of profit but at no risk it’s a great way to play. One of my first businesses, I made all my profits dropshipping and then I purchased my first round of inventory from that profit. The business cost me nothing but time. Its just that learning curve and moving forward.

With Amazon limiting the shipment of non-essential items because of COVID-19, a lot of brands are hurting. What’s your advice for them during this time?

I think that limit ends soon. A lot of people need to have inventory go in all the time. If I was consulting with you we’d see if we can raise your price a little bit without affecting your sales too much. You can actually self fullfill. For example, if I had my own inventory, I can go to the post office every morning and ship it out. Or you can use a third party fulfillment center- and some do qualify for Amazon Prime. The real issue comes when people have supply chain issues. Asia shut down for awhile. Shipment shut down for awhile. There are a lot of companies that can’t fulfill regardless. Its more foresight and planning. I’m OCD so I always make sure to have a few tested suppliers for my products. Sometimes I rotate orders. That way they get attention and don’t drop us. It’s about preparing ahead of time.

There are a lot of high-end, luxury brands that are hesitant about having an Amazon presence because they think there are too many downsides. These brands understand Amazon is a huge customer acquisition tool and that driving traffic to your own website requires huge ad buys, but the downside is 1) they fear Amazon will use the data to launch look alike products 2) Amazon takes back almost all your returns 3) your item can be showcased next to knockoffs. What’s your POV on it? Should brands have both a presence on Amazon and off?

It really depends if you can make sales outside of Amazon. If you can make your goals without using Amazon, go for it. You’ll get great margins and you don’t have to pay Amazon the 15%. A lot of people aren’t digital marketers and the advantage of Amazon is that there is intent to buy. If your strength is developing a product but you can’t sell it, Amazon is for you. If you’re a digital marketer and you’re doing press, driving web traffic, and running great Google Ads, then you might not need Amazon. For me, I develop high quality products but the actual driving traffic to conversions on websites has always been a little harder. I only do about 10-20% from my website and the rest is from Amazon.

If a customer purchased your Product Development Package, (Design, Sampling, Manufacturing, Supply Chain, Freight) what should he/she expect?

You basically get to use my network. Anything that I can do, you can obviously do. For example, if you don’t understand the negotiating skills overseas, it would be much better to work for us. I have suppliers over there, I have people on site and I have inspections and fulfillment set up. I’ve had inspection companies that have done a terrible job and ones that have done really well. I’ve had huge freight issues and I’ve also had sea freight take 10 days. I use similar companies every time and get better results every time. Its the ability to use someone else’s network and learn from their experience. One thing that I do that is unique is that I share my network. If I’m using a resource, I give that to you as well. I include a financial analysis for free because I want to make sure you’re going to do well. I basically give you all my tools. I’ve made a lot of mistakes and have come close to losing all of my money and now I like to share my mistakes to prevent others from doing the same.

You’ve been able to travel to 31 countries while running your business remote. Do you think running an eCommerce business is sustainable while traveling around the world?  What are the challenges? What tools do you use to manage it?

Find strategies for what you are doing at the time. If your focus is on eCommerce, its about putting the right pieces into place. I have a fulfillment center in the US that does a lot of services for me so I can call them to fix any mistakes. That’s where I store a lot of my inventory. From my overseas order, I use a freight forwarder, and it goes straight to my fullfilment service and not to Amazon. The advantage I have is if there are any issues, they can do quality checks, labeling, and inspections. I use them almost as if they were my own employee. There’s a huge advantage in building a relationship with a good fulfillment center.

I’ve had issues in the past with things going straight to Amazon. They co-mingled the sizes of my product. I had to remove all my inventory eventually but if I had it go through the fulfillment first, it wouldn’t have happened. I would have set it up differently and they would ave flagged it and let me know. Its an extra layer of protection.

Do you have a permanent residence or do you have a short team lease? Do you have any travel plans coming up?

I do short term leases. Right now I’m in Orlando, Florida living with a friend. I don’t have a contract. I can leave at anytime. We’re looking to do an entrepreneur mansion when we’re able to travel again. There’s 8 people that want to get a place in Thailand. Everyone on that trip owns their own business so its going to be a cool experience.

What are the best places in Southeast Asia for ex-pats that are looking to find community?

I’m more of a solo person. I’ll end up working from hostels a lot. I just put my headphones in and work out of a hostel - that’s just the environment I enjoy being around. For actual community, Bali is a great one. Thailand. In Vietnam, I did a month in Da Nang. It’s a city and also right on the beach. They have a co-working space. Its not a huge community but everyone there was in the same boat.

I’ve never had a huge issue finding community. I always start and end at a hostel. I’ll try to find a social one and make friends and get advice. There are always ex-pat locals that hang out at the hostel where you can get advice on things like where to rent. It’s a great home base to make friends.

Do you get visas while you are out there?

In Thailand I did a visa. I was there for 3 months. In Vietnam, you have to do a visa. I was there for 3 months as well.

How do you manage your business while you’re abroad?

Basically, I run my businesses with my own cash. eCommerce is 30-40% of my time, I run my service business day to day (The Five-Day Startup) to help expand the eCommerce business.

Tell us more about how you are able to live in Southeast Asia for $10/day?

My estimate was $10/day and I had money saved. I found when I was in Vietnam, I was spending about $15-$20/day. That included my own apartment on the beach, a scooter, and eating all my meals out. It wasn’t exactly $10/day but it wasn’t crazy expensive like what I thought it would be.

How soon after you launched your brands did you start traveling?

I started eCommerce a year before I quit my job. I own that business 50% with a partner. I never wanted to consider that my own business. It was tied up and I didn’t have full access to it. I read the 4-Hour Work week and that inspired everything. I was fed up with my job as an engineer working at a desk. It was a great job and opportunity but it just wasn’t for me. So I set out a personal goal of earning $10/day. $10 a day from any kind of business. I hit that 5 days later and I booked my flight and put my notice in right away. I quit. It wasn’t a big goal, it wasn’t hard to hit. Just writing it down that I would do that when I hit that goal was important. I went from the company car, the company credit card, and food paid for to nothing right away so it was a big adjustment.

Visit TheFiveDayStartup.com for a free consultation from Scott Bartnick about starting an Amazon or eCommerce business.