How to make money selling on Amazon: advice from an experienced entrepreneur

Dr. Jenny Wu, founder and CEO of Mind Brain Emotion, has 5 sources of income. She earns $142 a month on Amazon alone. Wu told CNBC, how to avoid the three main mistakes in side hustles.

Photo: iStock.com/ariya j

In 2018, Wu was a full-time graduate student working part-time at her university. She was inspired by how she was able to overcome all the difficulties associated with work and decided to start selling special games on Amazon. Wu created a series of educational card games and mental health tools to help children and adults develop human skills, emotional intelligence and critical thinking in the age of artificial intelligence.

This part-time job helped Wu get by for the next five years while she completed her doctorate. When she started her project, she knew little about running a business. But today, Wu has five sources of income. Read about professions for remote work that do not require experience in our article.

The businesswoman now speaks at schools and businesses, teaches an online course on emotional intelligence, lectures at the University of California, Irvine, does freelance business consulting, and sells Mind Brain Emotion games through her website and Amazon. Wu earns $142 a month from his Amazon business alone. How to find remote work in the USA - read our material.

On the subject: Joy to Work: 37 Jobs with Lowest Stress and Good Pay

When she talks to aspiring entrepreneurs about how to create a side hustle that best fits their schedule and lifestyle, Wu always advises them to avoid the following pitfalls.

1. Don't overcomplicate your product

“When I started working part-time, I had impostor syndrome. To compensate for the nagging doubt, I spent a lot of time researching and developing compelling product features. I thought they would surprise people, but in the end it just confused my users and created more work for me,” Wu admitted.

Her advice is to resist the urge to complicate things. This will not only slow down your work, but will also increase your costs.

The key to success is not in piling on features, but in understanding the core value of your brand.
So before you start any side hustle, ask yourself two key questions:

• What fundamental need does my product or service satisfy?
• what is the least number of steps I can take to get there?

Once launched, use real-life feedback as a guide. You can iterate and evolve based on actual customer needs, rather than on your assumptions and guesses. A simple solution can be a breath of fresh air in a world cluttered with choices.

2. Don't settle for substandard service, even if you're on a budget.

It's important to remember, Wu says, that if you have an employee who is constantly growing and changing, just like your side hustle, you risk receiving unpredictable service.

“Last year I parted ways with my social media manager and SEO provider. They were both self-employed and wanted to turn their side jobs into agencies. In an effort to expand, they handed over my business to new employees who had very little experience in my industry,” Wu led the way. “While I always believe in giving people the opportunity to learn and improve, ultimately I was not given the attention and priority that I was promised.”

The key to success is not in piling on features, but in understanding the core value of your brand.

“When it comes to SEO, I stayed with this vendor for too long despite being unhappy with the service. This actually cost me money because it affected my income for the year. In November (usually my best time of year for sales), revenue was down 55% compared to my best month in 2023,” she stated.

While collaboration can be beneficial, it is important to be careful about who you hire. If you feel like something is no longer working, don't be afraid to make changes.

3. Don't rely solely on networking to promote your idea.

As a solopreneur, Wu wanted to have clear plans and decisions, so she applied to and was accepted into business incubators at Harvard, UC Irvine and the University of Southern California.

A university business incubator is an institution that provides services and support to aspiring entrepreneurs in the form of mentoring, rental space and access to a network of investors and experts.

She had access to senior executives and advisors. She took advantage of this, but such meetings often left Wu confused and depressed.

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“Despite good intentions, many of these experts ended up projecting their own ambitions and mistakes onto me,” she concluded.

Her advice is to pay close attention to skepticism and feedback in meetings like this, but try not to be influenced by ideas that are thrown at you. Wu found that too much outside monitoring weakened vision and slowed progress.

An expert's perspective can be helpful, but the responsibility for action lies solely with you. According to Wu, it's important to trust your own judgment and remember that the journey is your own.

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