In August 2023, I was on maternity leave with my second child and dreading returning to my software engineering job at a large tech company. I knew other people were burning out, too, but it still surprised me when it happened to me.
I had spent years building my career, yet I couldn’t ignore the burnout. I wanted a different rhythm to my days, and a path that didn’t put a ceiling on my earnings.
My parents flew in from Nigeria to help with the baby. That gift of time gave me enough mental bandwidth to explore plan B.
My husband and I owned short-, mid-, and long-term rentals, but the post-COVID-19 interest rate environment had squeezed our cash flow. I needed a business with healthier margins, fast turns, and room to scale.
I was targeting a replacement for my $120,000 W-2 income, not a cute little side hustle.
The nudge that changed everything
Opeoluwa Fatunmbi, a senior business analytics engineer in Nigeria and a business mentor of mine, told me about Amazon’s Fulfilled by Amazon program, also called FBA, which he’d heard about and thought could be a good fit for me.
It checked every box in my head: scalable operations, the ability to start lean, and a marketplace where data matters as much as hustle.
The first $200 and the power of Q4
I started small while still on maternity leave. My first shipment to FBA was just 12 bottles of sunscreen, worth about $200. I started in late summer, just ahead of the retail industry’s busiest stretch.
If you sell on Amazon, the fourth quarter puts your systems to the test and rewards good decisions. I registered an LLC, opened a business checking account, and spent mornings sourcing products from Nike Factory Stores, Walmart, Ross, Ollie’s, and T.J. Maxx. This is retail arbitrage in practice: find discounted products, verify that Amazon allows you to sell them, run the numbers, and ship them in.
My phone was my best employee. Using the Amazon Seller app, I scanned items to confirm brand and category approvals, then checked the expected selling price and fees. As my account gained history, Amazon unlocked more categories and brands. Those quiet unlocks felt like promotions.
Fueling growth without draining savings
Within the first five months, I did $60,000 in sales on roughly $20,000 of my own capital. Since my software engineering job was fully remote, it provided me with some flexibility. For a little over a year, I juggled that full-time role and my Amazon business on the side.
I woke up around 4 a.m. to scout online arbitrage deals and prepped FBM orders so my husband could drop them off at the UPS store on his way to work. In the evenings, I either made discount purchases online or went in-store to do retail arbitrage. I used 0% APR business credit cards tied to my new business account.
Since I still had a well-paying W-2 job, I easily got approved to open four accounts, with a combined limit of about $60,000. That buffer allowed me to buy deeper on winners and build consistent in-stock positions.
Build the machine early
I contracted with a prep center that was familiar with Amazon’s packaging and labeling rules and could ship directly to Amazon’s fulfillment centers. That removed a bottleneck without hiring a full warehouse team.
I also hired a full-time virtual assistant overseas to perform tasks similar to those I handled in stores, but online. He wasn’t guessing. He had a sourcing checklist, a margin target, and a daily cadence.
Later, I added a second full-time VA to chase brand-direct opportunities for exclusivity and to reduce exposure to intellectual property flags. We routed most online purchases to a prep center in Delaware, which helped our margins by avoiding sales tax.
The layoff that pushed me all in
A curveball arrived in November 2024 when my team was laid off. I hadn’t planned to leave tech yet, but the layoff forced me to make the decision. I had a five-month severance package, and the timing coincided perfectly with Black Friday and the holiday season.
I leaned into it and bought aggressively on the best discounts I had seen all year. By the end of 2024, my Amazon store generated about $560,000 in sales with a 20% average profit margin. Those numbers felt both surreal and completely earned.
I expanded my product offerings
I started out with beauty products, then moved into apparel and shoes from brands like Nike, Adidas, New Balance, and Under Armour because the heavy outlet and clearance discounts gave me much higher profit margins and faster sales.
At one point, shoes and clothing accounted for about 70% of my revenue, but the high return rates and the risk that Amazon could suddenly restrict those brands prompted me to diversify. Now, most of my sales come from toys, board and card games, shelf-stable groceries, and everyday beauty staples, such as body wash, body oil, shampoo, and supplements.
I’ve diversified channels, adding Walmart, TikTok Shop, and eBay. Amazon still accounts for roughly 90% of my revenue, but the other channels protect my pipeline and sharpen my pricing instincts.
Tools that turn guesswork into decisions
Amazon is emotional if you let it be. I do my best to keep it analytical.
I rely on Seller Central for approvals and profitability estimates, but I always go deeper with Keepa to study historical price trends, the number of competing sellers, and the buy box behavior over time.
I use Aura (GoAura) as my repricer, so my listings adjust automatically to stay buy-box competitive without breaking my minimum margins.
I use Sellerboard for P&L, fee visibility, and error catching. It provides me with the numbers I need for tax season and day-to-day decision-making.
Returns happen. Sometimes the buyer damages the item and sends it back anyway. Early on, that used to rattle me. Now I treat it like the weather.
What I would tell my earlier self
If I could talk to the August 2023 version of me holding that first $200 shipment, I would say three things.
- First, start lean but act like a real business from day one. The LLC, business banking, a business website, and a clear operating rhythm let you scale without chaos. A clean foundation also matters when you interact with banks, vendors, and, eventually, brands for direct relationships.
- Second, buy your time back quickly. A great prep center and a reliable VA are force multipliers. They protect your energy and give you the capacity to think, plan, and negotiate.
- Third, respect the data. Great products often have boring charts. Keepa, your repricer, and your P&L tools will keep you honest. If the data indicates that a product is noisy or marginally profitable, let it go.
The road to seven figures
I pay myself $3,200 a month, about half of my old net paycheck, while reinvesting the rest to scale. Now, in the fourth quarter of 2025, I’m pacing to reach $1 million in sales by the end of the year.
The growth is not magic. It’s the product of constant, small improvements and a willingness to pull the right levers at the right time.
This is the best job I’ve ever had
People ask if I miss my old title. The honest answer is no. I miss some colleagues and the rhythm of shipping software, but I don’t miss asking permission to grow.
This business has given me flexibility, upside, and a sense of direct cause and effect. When I make a good decision, I can see it in my dashboard the very next week. When I make a mistake, I can fix it just as quickly.
I would make the same choice again.
