Amazon Funding Partners…No Interest, No Credit Report, No Personal Guarantees

Don Henig is the Co-founder of AccrueMe, a financial technology company that provides funding and support to small and medium-sized Amazon businesses. Don is also the President of Propzy, an app that allows users to buy, rent, and sell real estate via social media. In addition to this, Don boasts an impressive and eclectic background as the creator of an entertainment company that produced the Broadway show, Rock of Ages, the founding partner of a physical soccer publication, and so much more.

Rob Stanley is a successful entrepreneur and the Chief Marketing Officer at AccrueMe. With over 20 years of experience in the e-commerce industry under his belt, Rob is a well-known expert on Amazon, eBay, YouTube, Google Ads, and more. Before joining the team at AccrueMe, Rob successfully founded, scaled, and sold two 7-figure e-commerce brands.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• Don Henig and Rob Stanley discuss how Amazon sellers can grow faster with AccrueMe versus Amazon Lending
• How Don raised $100 million in funding for AccrueMe with his first pitch
• AccrueMe’s process for providing growth capital to Amazon sellers
• How to access AccrueMe’s dynamic growth and revenue calculator
• What is the largest—and lowest—amount of funding you can receive from AccrueMe?
• Don discusses the non-monetary benefits of using AccrueMe’s services
• How can AccrueMe assist current Quiet Light clients?
• Rob reveals how AccrueMe protects itself from loss

In this episode…

Are you tired of pouring all of your time, energy, and money into growing your business, only to experience no results at the end of the day? What if there was a way to significantly scale your business without losing an arm, a leg, and all of your savings?

Starting a new business can be one of the most thrilling experiences in the world, but every business owner must face one formidable challenge: growing their company to success. While you want to achieve your revenue goals, you may not have the funding to keep up with inventory, advertising, or even day-to-day bills. So, how can you take practical steps to dramatically scale your business without breaking your bank account?

In this episode of the Quiet Light Podcast, co-host Joe Valley sits down with Don Henig and Rob Stanley of AccrueMe to discuss how Amazon sellers can receive abundant growth capital without interest, monthly payments, or loss of company ownership. Listen in to learn about AccrueMe’s simple process for providing funding to Amazon sellers, why Amazon Lending could hurt—not help—your business in the long run, and how to start expanding your Amazon store today. Stay tuned!

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Quiet Light
• Mark Daoust
• Joe Valley
• Don Henig on LinkedIn
• Don’s email: [email protected]
• Rob Stanley on LinkedIn
• Rob’s email: [email protected]
• AccrueMe
• AccrueMe’s Growth Calculator
• Quiet Light Podcast email: [email protected]

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Quiet Light Brokerage, a brokerage firm that wants to help you successfully sell your online business.

There is no wrong reason for selling your business. However, there is a right time and a right way. The team of leading entrepreneurs at Quiet Light Brokerage wants to help you discover the right time and strategy for selling your business. By providing trustworthy advice, effective strategies, and honest valuations, your Quiet Light advisor isn’t your every-day broker—they’re your partner and friend through every phase of the exit planning process.

If you’re new to the prospect of buying and selling, Quiet Light Brokerage is here to support you. Their plethora of top-notch resources will provide everything you need to know about when and how to buy or sell an online business. Quiet Light offers high-quality videos, articles, podcasts, and guides to help you make the best decision for your online business.

Not sure what your business is really worth? No worries. Quiet Light Brokerage offers a free valuation and marketplace-ready assessment on their website, quietlight.com. That’s right—this quick, easy, and free valuation has no strings attached. Knowing the true value of your business has never been easier!

What are you waiting for? Quiet Light Brokerage is offering the best experience, strategies, and advice to make your exit successful. To learn more, go to quietlight.com, email [email protected], or call 800.746.5034 today.

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:07

Hi, folks, it’s the Quiet Light Podcast where we share relentlessly honest insights, actionable tips, and entrepreneurial stories that will help founders identify and reach their goals.

Joe Valley 0:29

Hey folks, Joe Valley here with the Quiet Light Podcast. Thanks for joining us for what might be the third or fourth episode in 2021. today’s podcast is brought to you by Quiet Light. We are an online m&a firm specializing in online business transactions. Our largest transaction in 2020 was 25 million. We had another one that was a close second to that our lowest at about 16,000. And I’m no longer the big dog on the team. We’ve got a couple of guys that have outshine me by a longshot, Walker. And Brad, if you haven’t connected with them on larger transactions, please do reach out. Today’s guest is actually pretty impressive. He was the number one salesperson for the Long Island Press at 11 years old, claim to fame right, there you go. He actually bought an ice cream truck at the age of 19. So this guy’s obviously a serial entrepreneur. He’s cleaned bathrooms, he was a shorter to cook, and began his career as a financial planner after you know, growing up and becoming an adult. that’s the sign of a man that is eventually going to do some pretty amazing things. I never want to go to his funeral and hear the eulogy. Because it’s going to make me feel quite inadequate. I’ve been in that situation before and I leave sad because I lost a friend but also because I feel like I have to do more in my life. So this guy’s name is Don Henig. I hope I pronounced that right Don, I didn’t ask. I gotta write good. And his real story, at least the adult one is that he’s flipped over 300 houses in his career. He also created a company that created and produced the 27th longest running Broadway show Rock of Ages, he created and produced the eight feature length film movies and testified before the House and the Senate at about 30 years old. And now he’s on to his next adventure. It is pretty impressive. And it’s specifically for Amazon business owners. It’s in the Amazon funding space AccrueMe is an Amazon funding business that helps Amazon sellers grow quickly increase and increase their profits. It’s kind of weird, this this almost seems like it’s too good to be true. So we’re gonna dig into it. There’s no credit check, no monthly payments, no personal guarantees, no long term commitment, zero interest charged, and no loss of ownership. Now, everybody out there that’s running an e commerce business specifically in the FBA space knows the biggest challenge that they face when they’re growing like crazy, which hopefully you are in is running out of inventory and trying to keep up with growth and focus on that. Amazon offers money for that, but AccrueMe is offering it in a better way. According to these guys, we’re gonna dig into it and hear more about it. Don and Rob Stanley are with us today. Thanks for joining the podcast today, guys.

Don Henig 3:12

This is great.

Joe Valley 3:14

Great to have you, you know what

Don Henig 3:15

I and I’ll and I’ll invite you to my funeral, right?

Joe Valley 3:19

I’m gonna feel so I have a lot of work to do before I leave your funeral and feel like a decent human being. You know, it’s just I live. You know what I literally, it was 2018. And I by my best friend lost his dad and went to the funeral in Georgia. And I’m sitting there and Andrews reading the eulogy and I’m like, God dammit, I gotta do more with my life. His dad was incredible. And and so I’m sure a lot of people are gonna feel very inadequate when they go to your funeral. But let’s let’s have that, you know, many, many decades out into the future. So tell me about AccrueMe talk to me about what you guys have put together on this next big adventure of yours.

Don Henig 4:00

And, you know, I gotta tell you, you did a great job there explaining AccrueMe and I was ready for the mic drop. You know, that was right there there. Yeah, really, I think we should just be calm. We’re done. But you know, you brought up the Amazon Lending. And it’s really an interesting thing. And I’ll just touch on that for a second. I you know, we did the analysis of how our seller can grow with AccrueMe versus Amazon versus the other options that are out there. And in every scenario, a seller can grow faster with AccrueMe than anything else.

Rob Stanley 4:34

The Amazon is a good Amazon Lending is a good thing. The thing is if you took out $100,000 from the Amazon, you’re going to end up paying interest you’re going to end up making monthly payments. And what happens is every month they basically you get this money, right? You make your money and you’ve spent all your time making this money and every month you’ve got to give a cut of that money back to Amazon.

Joe Valley 4:57

They just take this goes they don’t even give it to you. They just take it Exactly, yeah.

Rob Stanley 5:01

And so to all the other funding companies, right, I mean, payability, sellers or seller funding, they all want that chunk every month. And the problem is that it doesn’t necessarily give you a chance to grow, because now you don’t have that full amount of profit that you made plus what you invested to be able to go buy more inventory and grow the company. And that’s where we kind of come in. And that’s where we do things different. Right? Joe mentioned a whole bunch of things that we don’t do, right, we don’t charge interest, we don’t know monthly payments, that type of thing. So it may throw people off a little bit because they’re like, well, are they just handing me money for free? I mean, are we just giving away money? Well, yeah, we kind of are. And so think in your head profit sharing, that’s the best way to describe it is profit sharing. So I’ll just give you a scenario. Joe, we’re gonna jump right in on how it works. And hopefully Don can jump back in.

Joe Valley 5:54

I hope I get it and understand it. But I’m going to ask you some questions along the way. Before we get before you do that. Rob, I want to know, let’s establish what you guys have done here. You haven’t raised a few million dollars in funding because people think well, Amazon’s got lots of money. They’re gonna give me some doubt. Yeah, don’t don’t you went out and you raise 100 million 100 million 100 million in funding?

Don Henig 6:16

Yeah. 100 million in funding from our first opportunity, our first appointment, if you will, with a hedge fund in New York City,

Joe Valley 6:25

you got friends in powerful places that

Don Henig 6:27

it turns out, I do know, the the guy who runs the place who’s a multi billionaire, and he’s always wanted to work with me. And you know, so the door was open to pitch this, but we didn’t expect that, you know, we’d walk away with such a large amount, plus an investment in the company as well. Okay, so yeah, we have $100 million to invest.

Joe Valley 6:47

And when when did you start AccrueMe? How long? Have you guys been in this?

Don Henig 6:51

We were on our second year, the first year, all we did is to give out money. We had no system, we had no underwriting criteria, we literally went to sellers and gave them money. With no requirements. We want to see how this would work. Yeah. And it worked out well. And I, we only got 100 million and less than a year ago now. And we only have our system built for about maybe last four months. So now we’re starting to grow. Now we’re in scale mode. And so early stages, people get to know about you. And Rob, you came on last year as the CMO Is that right? Now we’re swamped. People come? Yeah, Rob is our CMO?

Rob Stanley 7:31

Yeah, yeah, I came on board a couple months ago. Very end of 2020. And, you know, it’s one of those things I actually and there’s a funny story to this job. We don’t mind going off on a tangent slightly. So a couple months before I came on, I actually had Don on my podcast. And Don and I were talking on LinkedIn. And he’s, and he was trying to explain to me how AccrueMe works. And I’m going, well doesn’t I mean, everybody provides loans. And he’s like, No, no, this is not like loans. This is much different than his growth capital. He kept saying growth capital. And I’m like growth capital, that still sounds like everybody else. And he’s like, no, trust me. So Don got me on a phone call, which is very hard on LinkedIn, you got to impress me, because as you know, Joe, we all get hit on LinkedIn, many times with sales pitch, sales pitch, right? So I’m thinking, Don’s just sales pitching me, you know, but I’ll give the guy a minute to get on the phone with him. And he starts explaining it to me. And again, we’ll go into a little bit later, but starts explaining it to me, and I’m like, Hey, this is really cool. This is really different. Let’s get you on the podcast. So I get him on the podcast. And him and I just started, you know, going back and forth and talking a lot about how it works. And at the very end, because I don’t want to give it away, because we got more more to talk about. But at the very end, Don and I ended up talking for a good 45 minutes after. And I was just super impressed on how different AccrueMe Is it really puts the seller first. And there’s not a lot of software slash programs slash services out there that put the seller first, right, the Amazon seller first. And I was like, just blown away at how different this was. And I told Don, I said, Hey, I said, You know, I said, Who does your marketing because I’m looking at his social media while he’s on and I’m like, you’re missing this, you’re missing that things aren’t right, you know, why don’t people know about this and Don’s like, it’s funny, you mentioned that we are looking for a marketing person. There you go. Uh, you know, Don, and I ended up talking quite a few more times after that. And so I ended up actually pursuing them for a job because I just I love what what we’re doing over

Joe Valley 9:41

here, and I’m glad we’ve connected. Let’s jump into it. Let’s talk about you know, we’ve got an audience of FBA business owners and they need more capital, they need more go down growth capital. That’s right, either to hire employees or do more marketing or buy more inventory. I’m sure they can use it for all of those things. Is that correct?

Don Henig 9:57

Yeah, mostly they want to buy inventory. Most of everybody, I’m talking to Joe there, they’re all, you know, looking to buy more inventory, they’re creating new products. They’re they’re growing, and they want to grow in 2021 in a big way, that and walk us through the process, how does it work, we’ve

Joe Valley 10:14

got somebody out there that’s got a business three years old, they’re doing a million to 5 million in revenue, and they need some more inventory, they just can’t keep up, give us an idea of what the process is what they do.

Don Henig 10:26

Okay, real simple. I, they just go to our website, and they fill out a brief questionnaire with like, you know, takes maybe three minutes asks basic questions, how much business they do, how long they’ve been in the business, the basic things. And with that, we give them an instant proposal. So it’s a good estimate of what we’ll do, you know, overall, then we ask for access to their cell central to the NWS, we pull down their inventory, we match their cost with it, which takes, you know, same day, pretty much. And we give them a formal proposal, exactly what we will do broken it down with details. And now we get on the phone with every single one of them. And truthfully, I get on the phone with almost every single one of them. Because I want to make sure everybody understands completely what this deal is, before they get in one thing. I don’t ever because it’s no, it’s different. I don’t want anybody to ever come back, say I didn’t understand that. Not a chance. Anybody that’s gonna be in our program understands. And then we fund the account and go,

Joe Valley 11:26

Okay, so so everybody understands that. with Amazon, they’re going to reach out to you, they’re going to say, hey, look, you qualify for a loan of this amount. Do you want it? You take it? And essentially, I think it’s what anywhere from 12 to 15% interest rate is the way people understand it, and that Amazon is going to take the money out of your account before it’s deposited. What is it going to cost me as a business owner, if I need to half a million dollars to buy some inventory and grow or $50,000? What’s it going to cost me?

Rob Stanley 11:55

Let me let me jump in here. And I’ll do this one Don sure scenario. So so let’s let’s go with 100,000. Let’s say we qualified you your capital is $100,000. Okay, Joe, so and it’ll be relative the way I give the example. Okay, so you’ve come to us, we basically said, Hey, you qualify up to $100,000. Now, you don’t have to take that full amount. Okay, so you have 100,000 in capital, from your inventory, or FBA seller, and you have 100,000 in inventory. And we say, hey, we’ll give you another 100,000. Okay, so you have a decision to make? Do you want to read about it?

Joe Valley 12:29

Again, I’m gonna interrupt and ask dumb questions all along the way. So go for it. You said I’ve got to have. So I’ve got I’ve got an assets worth $100,000 right now in cash and inventory. Okay. So now you’re going to loan me that same amount to that same amount, okay.

Rob Stanley 12:45

Up to that same amount. All right. Okay. So, so if we go at the full amount will go the full amount, if you decide, hey, I want that entire 100,000 that we’re offering you, that’s fine. So look at it this way, if if you have 100,000 in capital, the cash the inventory, and we just gave you 100,000, that’s 50/50, right? We technically just gave you 50%. Of what? It’s a 50/50 at that point.

Joe Valley 13:11

Okay, my other total capital of the total total capital, not the value of total capital. All right, okay.

Rob Stanley 13:18

So just keep this in mind. We, we never, at any point, want to be more than 50% of the total capital. Okay. So if you decide to go that full max of the $100,000 or 50%, what we would ask for is 25% of the net profits on the item sold down net profits. And Don, if I missed something, let me know. Yeah, let’s define a good. The cost of goods sold, and PPC. Okay, so a loan on Amazon and and all Amazon fees third party platform fee. So yeah, everything. Yeah. That’s after Cost of Goods Sold Amazon fees and your PPC, which we know everybody needs to have advertising to get things going.

Joe Valley 14:04

It’s kind of gross profit, but you’re adding in the the advertising PPC fee.

Rob Stanley 14:07

Yeah. All right. Now, that might throw people off thinking, Wow, that’s a large percentage. Now 75% of that

Joe Valley 14:12

in this situation. 25% of that figure is what you’re looking exactly. Okay. So people can do their own calculations, but let’s hear it on that 100,000

Rob Stanley 14:19

got 25% of how much you make. So it’s not like your margin is 30%. More taking 25 please understand that it’s 25% of the profit you make. Okay, so yeah, if at some point, let’s say you make $10,000 profit, then we get 25% of the $10,000. If you make 30,000, then we get 10. We get 20. Sorry, we get 25% of the 30,000. But it’s also this is why we say you know, we basically grow with you, okay, we want you to succeed, because if let’s say whatever that is that product that you got, and you only broke even then we we made nothing and this is where it gets a little, you know, different if you don’t make money? We don’t make money.

Joe Valley 15:07

Yeah, somebody could blow up there a cost and you guys are sitting there not making any money right now. Right? But eventually you’ll get your money back plus that point, but how does it work? We hope so. But just you know, what if? What if I bought my A, Don, hold on what’s nice breakeven and then I sell the business.

Don Henig 15:23

But hold on one second. Yeah. Well, then we didn’t, then we didn’t earn anything. Okay. But you know, this past year with COVID. You know, we have plenty of clients that couldn’t send in any any any inventory and started losing money for a few months.

Joe Valley 15:34

We didn’t make any money. They didn’t always they didn’t always a penny. How’d your hedge fund buddy feel about that? What am I doing?

Rob Stanley 15:42

Yeah, I’m sure they did. But we told them what was going on, they didn’t like it. What ended up happening is during that COVID time, nobody can make payment. Okay? And, and that’s fine. If you can’t make the payment, that’s fine. What ends up happening not making any money, they didn’t have any profit, forget about payments, there are no payments.

Joe Valley 15:58

So that’s a dramatic difference between Amazon and AccrueMe is that Amazon’s gonna, they’re gonna take it no matter what, regardless of

Don Henig 16:06

these guys would have been put out of business. Yeah. In a normal situation. Okay.

Joe Valley 16:11

All right. So let’s continue up. I want to kind of want to get a handle on and I know it’s going to be hard, but I’m sure I’m not the first one to ask. And ultimately dumb it down Amazon, it’s gonna be 12 to 15% interest rate. I want to dumb it down to what’s it really gonna cost me?

Rob Stanley 16:26

Yeah. So let’s back up that scenario slightly, because I want I want to cover this a little bit more. Okay, so you’ve been approved for that 100,000? You know, we went through this scenario that you took the full 100,000, which is a 50/50 of the capital and then 25% of the net profits. Okay. So let’s bring that down a little bit. Let’s say you decide, hey, I don’t need that full 100,000. Right. Now, let’s go with 50,000, which is approximately at that point about 33%. Is what what we now have, right? Because I’ve got 100 in capital and right, adding 50. Okay, so you took Yeah, your 100,000 plus the 50. You took from us? Yep. is about 33%. So we get half of that. So call it What about 16.5% of the net profits now? So whatever you take percentage wise, it’s always half of that. For the profits. Let me get so is that part clear? Joe? Yeah.

Joe Valley 17:18

Changes monthly. It does. It changes monthly, depending upon the capital. Okay.

Don Henig 17:24

Yeah, yep.

Joe Valley 17:24

So you’re each month you’re getting updated reports on capital, meaning inventory value, cash on hand. Okay. Let me just, there’s there’s a timing and logistics challenge here sometimes. So tell me when your gross profit split starts? Is it once I get the money? Or is it after the inventory lands at FBA? That took 12 weeks for me to order?

Don Henig 17:51

Which one is it?

Joe Valley 17:52

Did you understand that question, but I just start knocking.

Rob Stanley 17:56

Yeah, go ahead, Don.

Don Henig 17:58

Yeah, now I. So we the first month, we don’t earn any profit. We don’t take anything, nothing. And then we start in the second month. So at first, nothing for the first month. Okay, brilliant.

Joe Valley 18:08

Okay, so there is another start? Is that the same with an Amazon? Or is there no delay with it? No, there’s no delay. Without no delay, you take 100 grand from Amazon, you start paying it back? Yeah, it’s your next payroll cycle.

Don Henig 18:18

So think about it, I hope I don’t freeze again. But if you took out an Amazon loan today, by the time you got to the third quarter, and fourth quarter, when you really need that money, it’s gonna be down to maybe a third, right? You know, think about it, you’re gonna be paying it back every month, and you really need the money, you’re not gonna have it. And you can’t re up that until you’re done with us. You take money out today, you might get be flush with cash in a few months, you pay us down, we’re gonna have a smaller profit percentage in q3, and q4, you need more money, we’re gonna give you more money, and you’re not gonna be making any monthly payments. So our, our capital is there for you when you need it. And when you’re flush with cash, when it’s right for you to make payments, you’re going to send us money, because it’s in your best interest. All right, that’s the way it works.

Joe Valley 19:12

If you want to pay us, all right, keep going on the on the dumb down to 12% versus you guys.

Rob Stanley 19:18

Yeah, so whatever percentage ownership we are, it’s half of that on the profits. Now, when I say, you know, hey, you sold it, and you owe us, you know, 25% back, it doesn’t mean that at the end of that, you know, 30, 60 or 90 days, you got to make that payment, right. So this is where it gets a little tricky. Okay, so let’s, let’s go back to the $100,000 100,000. In capital, you took the full 100,000 from us, okay, that we would now share in 25% of the net profits, let’s say after 90 days, you’ve sold all that inventory that came in, and you got back the $200,000 for both of us, and there’s a profit involved right whatever the profit It is, you could turn to us, Joe and say, Hey, instead of paying you guys that 25% right now, plus the 100,000 that I originally borrowed, I want to take that full amount and buy more inventory. Because Hey, we’re taking off things are going good. Q threes coming up q fours coming up. Let’s take that whole thing. You still haven’t paid us anything. Remember? No monthly payments, no interest, right? We’re with you. Go get it go buy more inventory. So

Joe Valley 20:26

now I’ve got more capital in the bank, can I come back to you for more money?

Rob Stanley 20:32

That’s right. As long as long as we don’t go over that 50% threshold? Gotcha. Okay, that’s where that like, if you took the first 50,000, came back and said, I need another 50,000? Then we’d be fine with that. Yes.

Joe Valley 20:44

All right, I’m going to I’m going to answer my own question that I’ve been asking, and that is this 12 to 15%. Versus you guys, I really think it’s apples to oranges, if you will, I feel a bit like you’re more of a partner, if you will, in providing growth capital and giving people flexibility, versus, you know, a loan shark, that you get money, and that’s all you get, and you’re gonna get a high interest rate, you better pay it back. That’s where, you know, you’re going to go out of business. Now, with with Amazon, I think there was a recent change in their policy, you know, it was a good deal for sellers for a long time, if they, you know, took money and ended up going out of business because they didn’t make any profit, and then couldn’t order more inventory because they didn’t have the cash because you’re paying back the loan and COVID and things of that nature. I don’t think there was any personal recourse. Is it true that what are we talking today’s? July? I’m sorry? Yeah, I wish it was true is January 2021. Did Amazon just change their policy to make it a personal guarantee? Or is it still just the company? Rob?

Rob Stanley 21:53

Yeah, yeah. So just just recently, in the last several days here, or, you know, first couple weeks here of January 2021, they did change that. Now, they do require a personal guarantee, AccrueMe does not require a personal guarantee, no credit checks, none, none of that. So we are going into business with you as a partner. Again, think profit sharing, we want you to succeed, we want you to be profitable. This is growth, capital, keep growing, keep growing.

Joe Valley 22:25

I have a question. And if the answer is no, maybe it’s just a suggestion for you but on on AccrueMe, which is accrueme.com? Is there some sort of calculator that, you know, I can just plug in the numbers and sort of see what it’s gonna look like for me? Because I’m sure every business is different, and that 25% is going to be dramatically different? is there is there is there something where I can plug in the numbers and sort of pick out what my you know cost is going to be?

Don Henig 22:56

That’s exactly what we suggest everybody to start is on our website, we have we do have a calculator.

Joe Valley 23:03

I really didn’t know that folks. I had no idea. I didn’t do anything.

Rob Stanley 23:07

So yeah, there there is a calculator on our site. So if you go to our website, it’s right towards the top, not the very top. But right towards the top, you can click on it, it’ll take you to our calculator, put in what works for you put in, how much are you looking for, you know, what are you looking to take out every month because everybody needs, you know, living, they need to live on money, right? I mean, we should do this for fun. So we can even put in, you know how much you need to take out to survive every month. And it’ll instantly adjust everything on the right for you all the pie charts, all the growth charts, everything will instantly adjust for you showing you I think, if I’m not mistaken to chime in on this, but it’ll show you also not using AccrueMe versus AccrueMe, you know, if you just tried to do it on your own, and you know, keep trying to go versus getting that extra funding for us that could Excel you, it will show you the comparison in there. And depending on when you’re listening to this, we are working on a calculator they’ll show you against other third parties on how it’ll look. Just not quite out yet. But coming very soon.

Don Henig 24:17

Like how much you could grow with our capital versus Amazon or any other lending source. Excellent.

Joe Valley 24:23

That’s how confident we are, again, a true growth partner.

Don Henig 24:27

Yeah, yeah.

Joe Valley 24:28

whatever else you want to call it. Alright, so assuming we stay at or below the 50% What’s the largest amount of money I can get from AccrueMe as an Amazon seller?

Rob Stanley 24:40

Gosh, that’s a good one. I don’t think we have a limit right now. I know that we funded I can get 100 million on it all.

Don Henig 24:49

Right now over 100 million. I think we’re gonna fly out and have a meeting Joe.

Joe Valley 24:53

Yeah.

Don Henig 24:54

So let me let me just jump chime in on that. Yeah, we don’t have a limit. But I would tell you that reasonably, it works up to about 500,000. And then we can grow with somebody like that higher. But when they come, and they’re much larger, like a $10 million guy, it just hasn’t worked. Well, you know, just so our real niche, I’m going to say is from the small guy will go as low as $10,000.

Joe Valley 25:20

You’re kidding, really? $10,000. So,

Don Henig 25:23

and we did that on purpose.

Joe Valley 25:25

Wow, that’s great.

Don Henig 25:30

We wanted to help when they did that. That’s when a seller really needs to feel when they’re small. And we want to help them. You know, I swear to God, we signed up three new people today, one actually a little bit lower than 10,000. Just because they’re great. And they have a great business and the great plan. Okay, okay.

Rob Stanley 25:43

Yeah. And they’ve got good plan and what happens so that they’re in a hurry? Yeah, I’ll take over done. So what happens is that there is kind of a sweet spot, it works better. And we have done below the 10,000. But Don’s right, we seem to find that people hit that growth right there. So let’s just go slightly over what kind of the minimum requirements are for AccrueMe, okay, because I think that’s important people know. So again, as Don said, $10,000 in capital is the minimum, we prefer that they’ve been selling at least six months, profitably on Amazon. Okay. You also, for right now, it’s FBA only, but coming up soon as fbm. And that’ll be coming up soon. But FBA also need to be an LLC, or if you’re selling, if you’re out based outside the country, let’s say Canada, but you’re selling in the US marketplace. As long as you have a US LLC, and a US tax ID number. We will also look at giving you funding, so no s corps, no s corps at this time unless you are willing to be an LLC. Well, what’s that? Well

Joe Valley 26:54

to go ahead and technically in 60 seconds, tell us why.

Rob Stanley 26:59

Yeah, by Don.

Don Henig 26:59

So first off, the sub Corp can own the LLC 100%. So if you have a sub Corp, you can open an LLC and own it. So it works well there. And the reason for it is with an S with an LLC, you have an operating agreement, so we can adjust the operating agreement without owning your business. So we put ourselves in as the profit share partner, you’re the equity owner, so you own 100% of the equity of the business. And you can’t do that with a corporation. Okay.

Joe Valley 27:30

Do you help with the sellers? Let’s say they’re six months old, they’ve got one hero SKU, and they want to launch another one. That’s not exactly the same thing. Do you help with new SKUs, a new product launches as well, if I need inventory money for that?

Rob Stanley 27:42

Yeah, I’ll take that from here. So you’re gonna, what happens is, no, we don’t, but there is a way to do it. And we do get asked this a lot, Joe. And so we’re in the business of helping you grow with existing products. We’re not in the business of putting up money to risk on new products that have been proven. But let me go through a quick scenario on the way you could use us to be able to fund your own new product launches. And that is, you could do it a couple different ways you could either put us into existing products that you’re already selling, you already have inventory on Amazon, and we would go in and become a partner on those existing ones. And let’s say like that scenario, we gave you the, you know, $100,000, you could turn around and say, hey, I want to put you guys into these. But I’m gonna instead of me, taking out let’s say you’re just about ready to buy $50,000 of brand new inventory on a new product, what you could do is decide, hey, I’m going to keep 25,000. And out, I’m sorry, but let me rephrase that. Yeah, if you were going to rebuy some more of the current inventory, what you could do is say, Hey, guys come in, and partner with buying that new in that current existing inventory with me, and I’ll take 25,000 out of the 50 I was going to do and launch this new product on my own. Now, once you’ve launched that new product, what let’s say you’ve got it going Joe for about three months, and you can prove to us that it is successful, and it’s making money will come in and fund that also. So that that’s one way you can do it. Or we come in with the existing products, you could start taking some of the profits off of those existing products that we’re funding with you and launch your your new products that way. So it’s kind of a two parter.

Joe Valley 29:29

So that I can simply answer’s no, but you get creative and the answer is yes. So that’s, that’s awesome. What about anything outside of just you know, offering money? Do you guys do anything else besides just, you know, lending on the 100 million to folks or do you help in any other way?

Don Henig 29:44

You know, we have a lot of experience. My partner Eric,

Joe Valley 29:47

he got a little bit yeah.

Don Henig 29:52

My partner Eric’s a lawyer. He’s a Wharton grad. You know, smart, son of a bitch. I got to tell you, guys But he’s got all that kind of experience. And we both have bought and sold many businesses and built many businesses. So we have helped many of our sellers, on transactions on legal documents on things outside the business. And sometimes Joe is truthfully it’s motivation. Like I literally get on the phone with some of the younger sellers. And I’ll get on the phone with them every Friday and talk to them one on one. And, you know, talk them through what you know, what they’re not doing. And sometimes it means they’re not working their ass off when they should be, you know, and and there’s things that you need to do. And you know, sometimes they need an old guy to kick them in the ass.

Joe Valley 30:38

Yeah, I think I’m gonna borrow some money just so that I can talk to you every Friday and get some advice. Just to encourage him in some ways. It’s, it’s just and and that’s the fun part of the business.

Don Henig 30:49

We’re here to help them grow. We love that.

Joe Valley 30:50

What about, we’ve been around the block a couple of times, right? And we know a lot of different Amazon sellers. No matter what in every sort of bushel is about Apple, right? When do you guys say no? to that? Is it? Is it a gut feel that yeah, this doesn’t add up, or you’re just looking at math and numbers and, and logic, a little bit of both.

Don Henig 31:15

There were a couple that I can tell you personally, that it was a gut feel. There was something wrong, I couldn’t put my finger on just something uncomfortable. And you know, I’m a firm believer in going with your gut, I’m firm believer in it. And so we’re not doing those deals, you got to be good people. Good people. Good humans.

Rob Stanley 31:35

I also joke that if the margins aren’t right, like if their profit margins are too low, we don’t want to come in and hurt them. We don’t want to come in and start taking, you know, our Yeah, being partners with somebody doesn’t have enough margin that just that doesn’t help them, right. If we come in and take some money at some point, not that we’re taking it but they you know, need to give us money at some point or want to, we don’t want to hurt them. They want their business succeed. You know, what we’ll usually do on somebody like that is tell them, Hey, keep going. Keep building the business, when you get a little bit bigger, come back and see us or, you know, if you get new products that the margins are better on, come back and see us,

Joe Valley 32:12

guys, so you guys know what we do for a living here at Quiet Light? Yeah, right. We help people grow their businesses through having people like you on the podcast, we share content, we’ve all built, bought and sold our own online businesses. And now we’ve, you know, touched to half a billion dollars worth of online assets over the last few years. What does AccrueMe do to help our clients? You know, really, I understand the scaling of the business, but talk to us about how it gives them a more valuable business to eventually exit, if you will.

Don Henig 32:46

Yeah, I’ll jump in real quick.

Joe Valley 32:50

Do you want to jump in at the same time?

Don Henig 32:53

First, you know, right now, if they’re selling their business, it may not be the best of times, where over the next year to two years? Yeah,

Rob Stanley 33:04

so I’ll jump in jump. So I think you know, well, as your buildings will be growing over the next few years,

Joe Valley 33:10

I think you’re right, I think you’re right down. I do think multiples will grow over the next few years. And it’s funny, I gotta take a brief aside, they’re done. I have tried to push multiples in the first quarter of every year for the last few years. And I often just get pushed back by buyers, but I think this is truly the tide has changed. And we will see those clients so alright, sorry to interrupt, continue.

Don Henig 33:33

So if you had the opportunity, if you know, but I agree, if you had the opportunity knew that multiples will increase over the next couple of years, then that this is the perfect time to get capital, grow your business, have a bigger business and then on top of that get a better multiple, it’s a homerun.

Joe Valley 33:49

Yeah, you know, it’s funny timing that we’re recording this and and and when it’s airing because you know, just at the end of 2020 and one of the last episodes that Mark and I did was all about multiples and how much we hate them. You don’t put multiples in your bank account, you put dollars in your bank account, but it’s you know, it’s it’s a reality of what we deal with. The key thing for entrepreneurs eventual exit printers, if you will, to understand is a multiple of what it’s a multiple of sellers discretionary earnings. And you got to really take your time be decisive, be creative, be delicate, on calculating that Yeah, because is missing a simple add back like cashback monies from, you know, advertising and all expenses, you know, if you’re getting $5,000 a month, cashback, that’s $60,000 a year times a multiple of four you’re losing, what $240,000 a year in value. So it’s it’s details, guys. It’s details. There’s a lot to it. Yeah. All right.

Don Henig 34:53

I can change people like you, Joe.

Joe Valley 34:54

Yeah, well, I like it. I really do. You know, everybody knows the adventure. The growth of the aggregators, right? They they’re, they’re people that have figured out, people like your hedge fund guy, right? 100 million dollars, they’ve figured out that they can roll up these Amazon businesses, buy them at a really low multiple, often direct from the seller, and immediately go from a two and a half multiple to a 10, they’re getting a ton of instant equity. The problem is that they’re buying them at what we call an ignorance discount. Number one, they’re getting a little multiple number two, the sellers giving away a lots of inventory, which supersedes the the fee that they’d be paying the advisor. Number three, the deal structure is not always great. Now, look, we when when the guys at Thrass, and they’re, they’re great people, by the way, if you don’t know them, get to know them really good people. There’s a lot of folks like them now. But when they got their $780 million valuation in the spring of 2020, we had sold them about 20% of their total transactions. And our clients that sold to them were happy. And in many times, our clients have sold to them needed to really sell to them because they had some heroes SKUs and there was more risk. One SKU representing 70% of the revenue or one SKU that was in the electronic space. And it was a giant fear of obsolescence. Sometimes it’s right to sell to an aggregator. And the most important thing I think, is when you’re going to sell to an aggregator really try to avoid that ignorance discount do work with an advisor. And yes, I know that self serving, but it’s the competitive market space, you don’t want to just go to one, you want to go to all of them. And then you don’t want to just go to all of that you want to go to the entire buyer marketplace. So everybody’s competing for your business. On average, guys. 47% of our transactions in 2020 sold at or above asking price. Wow. It’s not because we went to one aggregator. It’s because we went to them and everybody else. You price it right you do the right thing. You help the entrepreneurs like you’re helping them now. Yeah, with with growth capital, and it’s desperately needed. So I really appreciate that you guys are doing what you’re doing. It’s creative. It’s your you know, as I said, well, you should create a calculator on your websites, you can do the math, you’ve already done it. You’re a brilliant man. Yeah, no. How about that? I think it’s fantastic. Fantastic.

Don Henig 37:12

Let me just add one thing I’ve sold, you know, multiple businesses. And some mistakes I’ve made was one, I sold way too early. Because it was more of an emotional sale. I took a beating one year, and then I was making a fortune the next year and sold it. And if I held on for a few years, I would have made an absolute fortune. Yeah, my biggest mistake there was I didn’t go through an advisor. And I can get fill you in on some of the details of the stupid things that I did when I was you know, 30 years old with this business. Yeah. And I learned a great lessons. I don’t know this stuff. I’m not an expert in it. I’m pretty good. But I’m not an expert in it. And my lawyer wasn’t an expert in it. I needed an advisor to guide me properly. And I this is God’s honest truth. Yeah, I would never do it again without that fee is

Joe Valley 38:03

this is not a paid endorsement, folks. It is what it is. It’s reality. We’ve we’ve been out there. Yeah, we sold this I built I bought I sold. And you know, I’ve said I’ve got this, like a teenager. I got it that no problem. And I totally screwed it up and lost a fortune. In my house. We call it the dumping a Jackie right? We you know, somebody in our house, I got two boys. I’m from New England, otherwise ass. And I say don’t be a jackass. And we shortened it to Don’t be a Jackie. And the term, you know, I got this is what we’re all susceptible to we are entrepreneurs, we work our tails off. We work hard. We work smart. And we get lucky. You gotta have the combination of all three. Yeah. And it sometimes inflates our egos to the point where we say I got this. Yeah, and I think you said it early. You don’t know what you don’t know. And, you know, I’m just going to one, one, add back example. And then we’re going to wrap this up and tell where people need to go to meet you guys, although we’ve already given out the URL and I want them to go to it. But one example is in terms of ad backs, and where people lose a ton of money when they sell directly because they say I got this a client that raises their prices by $4 a unit on their number one selling SKU six months before they sell their business. That’s an add back. How is that an add back Joe? They added $6? Well, you take the first six months of the year, you sell 1000 units a month for those six months times $4,000 is 4000 is $24,000. In that six months, that’s not on the books. But you’ve you’ve improved the business. And in a queue of a process QE process. That’s a carry forward growth there. It’s an add back. It’s an adjustment to the sellers, discretionary earnings in the ebacc schedule. I’m very, very black and white and acceptable. And I can tell you most sellers that sell directly they say I got this have no clue that that can be done and is done. Right. Not only that, if you’ve renegotiated your cost of goods sold a couple of bucks a unit in the last six months, you got to go back to the first six months of the year. And and make an adjustment because that renegotiation is carrying forward to the benefit of the new owner. And what we used to call it is is is instead of calling it sellers discretionary earnings when we were young and dumb, we called it owners benefit. Yeah, that’s right. What’s in it for me at the end of the day, what’s my benefit? Now, it’s, you know, more sophisticated is complicated sellers, discretionary earnings, but you got to go, what’s the owner benefit? And what’s going to carry forward to the new owner of the company Ryan’s calculations, I got my little pitch in there on that.

Don Henig 40:45

That’s great information that really is really important. I love that.

Rob Stanley 40:48

So Joe, I want to I want to also mention something. So people might be thinking, like, how do we protect ourselves? Right, we gave out a lot of information on what we don’t do. So let’s talk a little bit about the not so fun part of it, because I think people need to have a full understanding of everything.

Joe Valley 41:04

Alright, so this is where the inventory sits too long, or somebody goes out of business and that kind of thing.

Rob Stanley 41:08

Well, if the if we see up front that the inventory is sitting too long, that’s something we won’t fund anyways. Right? So we’ll, we’ll take that out of there, they get 100% of whatever they make off of that. But let’s go with the scenario, we’re kind of talking about, like, you know, you have 100,000, in capital we gave you 100,000, at the end of those 90 days, you ended up not making any money, well, we didn’t make any money. But let’s go with a scenario that, you know, let’s say of a couple $100,000, you bought an inventory by the end of 90 days, and you only had 150,000 back. Okay, so you actually took a 50,000 loss, I think people need to understand this, that, as AccrueMe, you know, what we’re gonna try to help you obviously get out of that and get, you know, to a point where you are profitable, but if something happened, and you’re kind of done, and you just want out, we will require that we get our 100,001st before you get your money back. Okay, we take priority. Yeah, we take priority. So I think people need to know that. Because your first you know, that that is how we protect ourselves by not doing the background, you know, the personal guarantees, and things like that is that we will we will get paid First, if there is a really bad scenario, we have not had that scenario that I know of no, since I’ve been here, Don saying no. Okay. So, you know, because we are pretty good at making sure that we do a lot of due diligence upfront. And you know, talking a lot with them. I’ve sold two seven figure businesses, ecommerce businesses, we have an amazing team behind us that are just absolutely incredible. Don, when it comes to finance, Don is absolutely incredible. I spent 22 years selling an e commerce and only in the last like two years doing marketing. But of course, as you know, you’re also doing marketing when you’re running your own e commerce business. That’s just part of it. And so we have a great team that can help anybody out there. And you know, you can get a hold of Don and I it’s really easy. If you don’t mind, Joe. So accrueme.com absolutely takes three minutes to fill out the form.

Joe Valley 43:03

Don for myself, just to get it right AccrueMe go ahead and

Rob Stanley 43:06

yeah, so AccrueMe, accrueme.com it’s really simple. You can just type that in or so you’re reading that.

Joe Valley 43:21

Rob, for those listening, instead of watching, we do see Rob’s I shifted left.

Rob Stanley 43:27

I don’t want to mess it up. Next time I’m just gonna have a little thing to hold up that has on there so anyways, what you could do is go ahead and go to accrueme.com or email Don or myself directly. It’s really simple Don [email protected] or [email protected]. Either one of us be happy to help you out. answer any questions did Joe? Wow, you’re you’re awesome. You got great information. I want to get you on my podcast, man. Yes, he’s

Joe Valley 44:00

got some great info. I look forward to a you know, just a thought came to me. You know, maybe in another six to nine months before the end of the year, we ought to have not just you guys back on but somebody that has had some great success in growing their business because of the growth capital it provides.

Don Henig 44:17

We have some great stories. Brilliant.

Joe Valley 44:19

Let’s keep that in mind. Guys. Appreciate your time. Appreciate your stories. I appreciate your success that you’re sharing. And look forward to hear more about it coming here guys

Rob Stanley 44:28

looking. Thanks, Don. Thanks, Joe.

Joe Valley 44:29

Thanks for your time, guys. Appreciate really. And that’s a wrap guys. Thanks for listening to the Quiet Light Podcast. If you wouldn’t mind, help Mark and I out do us a favor. Please give us a rating, a review on iTunes or Stitcher or whatever your app is of choice. We’d greatly appreciate it. We’re finally starting to ask for that in late 2020. Thanks for everybody that’s gone ahead and given us a review and bumped our total review count up. Please help us out. do that as well. We read and appreciate everything. Every one of them. We’ll see you next week guys.

Outro 45:04

This podcast was produced by Rise25 and the Quiet Light content team. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast subject or guest, email us at [email protected] Be sure to follow us on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram, and subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening. We’ll see you next week.