Episode #32 - Corey Ganim

#15MinuteFounder

Corey Ganim built his Amazon business on a dial pad. After flipping products on the side, he got serious in January 2019 and started cold calling brands and distributors, more than 3,000 suppliers in all, pitching himself as the Amazon specialist they didn’t have.

That business, Brand Rocket, has done over $16 million in lifetime sales and now runs on a team of three people.

Corey sells through Amazon wholesale. He buys brand-name inventory in bulk, sends it to Amazon’s fulfillment centers and lives on net margins of 5 to 10%.

In this episode of the 15 Minute Founder, he explains how that works and how it compares to private label and retail arbitrage. He also walks through the discount-stacking math behind a $50 Stanley tumbler and explains why “posting your orange bars” is the biggest lie in the Amazon guru economy.

He also covers hiring overseas virtual assistants, the management mistake that cost him a great employee, and the AI “context profile” he uses to turn bullet points into posts written in his own voice.

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Highlights From the Chat

Q: You’ve called over 3,000 suppliers. What’s your best tactical tip for cold calling?

Starting out, it was more of a volume game. I didn’t have an ICP dialed in. I was kind of just throwing stuff at the wall to see what would stick, so naturally you’ve got to make as many calls as possible to put in those reps.

But the most tactical tip is so basic, and it’s the glue of the whole thing: follow up.

Regardless of what you’re selling, you’re not going to make a sale on that first call. That first call is building rapport and positioning yourself for a follow-up down the road. You’d be shocked how many people don’t follow up even one time, much less the five, ten, 20-plus times it might take to close.

Q: What were you actually pitching on those calls?

A lot of brands didn’t know what they were doing on Amazon, and many still don’t. There was almost a knowledge arbitrage. A brand has products that sell really well on Amazon, but they don’t know how to manage it.

So I could come in as the Amazon specialist and offer to help, whether that meant selling their products or a typical management deal. I was cold calling brands all day.

Q: How big is Brand Rocket today?

We’ve gone through phases. Our peak was about $4 million two years ago. Last year was just over $3 million, and this year will be a little lower. Lifetime sales are over $16 million.

Over the years I’ve hired, and fired, around 30 virtual assistants. Now it’s a really lean team: three people, all overseas. One is in Colombia and two are in the Philippines.

Q: What’s the pro and the hidden con of hiring VAs?

The biggest pro is the obvious one: the cost of labor. One of my people in the Philippines comes out to about $8 an hour and the other is at $12 or $13, and even that’s high for the Philippines. When they started, they were around $4 or $5 an hour.

The less obvious con is that Filipino workers are very hard workers, which is a pro, but a lot of them have multiple jobs. Even if you have them in a 40-hour role, they’ll often pick up another part-time job, or worst case another full-time job.

People think they can get this labor super cheap, and they can, but a lot of times that labor isn’t laser focused. It’s a give and take between quality and cost.

Q: What’s the most unsexy task that keeps the business running?

Shipment creation, and nurturing shipments all the way from the purchase order to the product selling to a customer.

Say we buy $20,000 to $50,000 of inventory from a distributor across five, ten, 15 SKUs. We have to account for it in our finances, create the shipping plan with Amazon, then babysit the shipment from the supplier to the 3PL and from the 3PL to Amazon.

If we tell Amazon we’re sending 2,000 units, a lot of times they receive 1,700 or 1,900. Then we have to reconcile that and make sure we get reimbursed. Shipping and logistics really is what will make or break you in this business.

Q: How does Amazon wholesale actually make money?

It’s called wholesale, which is funny, because it’s really a retail business.

We buy inventory at wholesale from brands or distributors, usually paying upfront or on 15- or 30-day terms, and send it all to Amazon’s fulfillment centers. When a customer buys one pillow, Amazon ships that unit out. We do all our shipping upfront, Amazon takes a fee for fulfillment, and we collect the money every two weeks.

On a $30 product, Amazon fees are roughly 30% of the sale price. Then there’s overhead and cost of goods. People laugh at this, but net margin in this business is 5 to 10%. That’s maybe $2 to $3 profit per unit.

When someone says they’re doing $100K a month, profit on that is probably around $10K. This is a low-margin, high-volume business.

Q: How is that different from private label?

With private label you might get 15 or 20% net margins, but you’re creating a brand from scratch with no awareness. You’re developing the product, making the packaging, running ads, doing influencer marketing.

With wholesale, the awareness is built in. We’re reselling big brand names people are already searching for. I don’t have to worry about marketing. I’m just looking at numbers: can I buy this for $10 and sell it for $30?

Q: Explain retail arbitrage like I’m five.

With arbitrage, you’re buying from another retailer like Target, Walmart or Dick’s Sporting Goods and stacking discounts until there’s a margin. Say a Stanley tumbler retails for $50 at Dick’s and sells for $70 on Amazon. After shipping and fees, you’d break even.

But you use a cash back credit card for 2%, buy discounted Dick’s gift cards at 12% off and go through a cashback site offering 7%. That’s already 21% off retail. Add a buy-one-get-one or a 10% sitewide sale and you might get that $50 tumbler for $25 or $30. It’s not unethical. It’s a market inefficiency.

A lot of people know about it, but it’s a pain to do. If an entrepreneur is willing to jump through those hoops and systematize it at scale, all power to them.

Q: Which model would you recommend to a pure beginner?

Definitely arbitrage. It’s the lowest barrier to entry and the lowest capital requirement. You could discover the business model on YouTube today, be in a store scanning products an hour later, list your first profitable product as merchant fulfilled and make a sale before you even get home. The feedback loop is that fast.

Once you have some bankroll saved, transition into wholesale. It’s lower margin, but you get a lot more leverage from buying bigger quantities, building relationships and getting credit terms.

Q: What’s the biggest lie Amazon gurus tell?

Posting revenue screenshots without saying it’s revenue, not profit. In our space they call it “posting your orange bars,” because the Amazon Seller app shows your sales as an orange bar graph.

People see someone who started three months ago doing $20K a month and think that’s profit, especially if they’re new to business.

The only time I’ve shared sales numbers is from Sellerboard, which shows gross profit right under sales. There’s no hiding from that. Did you sell $10K today, or did it cost you $11K?

Q: What’s the hardest lesson you’ve learned about managing people?

I had an assistant for about two years. She was fantastic, but I wasn’t doing a good job managing her. I wasn’t being clear or setting expectations properly. About seven or eight months ago, she reached out, out of the blue as I saw it, and said her time here was done. That hit me like a train.

I had somebody who was really good, but I wasn’t good enough for her. I needed to level myself up as a manager and entrepreneur so people like her are drawn to me instead of repelled. It was totally my fault.

Q: How are you using AI in the business?

The biggest unlock is a context profile. I sat down with an AI tool for 30 to 45 minutes while it interviewed me about my writing: the words I use, my tone and examples of my work. It gave me a PDF I could upload to a custom GPT or a Claude project. Now I can type bullet points or a rough draft and get a polished version in my voice.

I still go in and change things up, but it helps me make my thoughts more concise. I’d say it’s one of the most important things to do if you make content, written or video.

Q: If you had a billboard in Times Square, what would it say?

Focus and be consistent. Focus on one business, get better at it than anybody else, then be consistent with the stuff you have to do every day to make it work.

Q: Is Amazon saturated in 2026?

There’s still a ton of opportunity. People have been saying it’s dead since I started in 2017. Nothing’s truly saturated if you’re good enough. There are more people doing it, and it’s harder than ever, but it’s still a really good opportunity.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 – The Snowball Effect: How Wholesale Capital Compounds Over Time

00:36 – The Best Amazon Business Model for Total Beginners

01:55 – How Amazon Wholesale Actually Works

03:36 – Explain It Like I’m Five: Where the Profit Comes From

04:53 – Why 5–10% Net Margins Are Normal (Not a Red Flag)

06:14 – Private Label vs. Wholesale: Which Has Better Margins?

07:06 – The Biggest Lie Amazon Gurus Tell (“Orange Bars”)

09:13 – Wholesale vs. Private Label vs. Arbitrage, Side-by-Side

12:02 – How Arbitrage Sellers Stack Discounts for Margin

14:08 – The Real Skill Behind Arbitrage