After dropping a few hints here and there, Dave finally asks Mike the big question: what are you looking for in your next business? After getting into the mindset of selling all of my brands and getting back to the part of Amazon FBA that I really enjoy, I realized that it's not as fun as it used to be with my current business. I am trying to build it for the eventual sale, and after start a new business that's still within e-commerce.  As most of you have probably noticed, I've dropped a few hints here and there about starting a new brand, and what better way to do so than discuss it with Dave on today's podcast!  In this episode, we'll discuss a few criteria on what I would want my next venture to be, and whether Dave thinks they're unrealistic, or downright wishful thinking.  Here's some timestamps to get you started:   Introduction - 0:00  How was BFCM for you, Mike? - 0:53 The next project for Mike - 3:56 Struggles that Mike's trying to avoid in the future - 5:24 Mike's checklist for his next business - 12:17 Priorities with higher margins - 12:56 Increasing repeat business - 18:27 Products that work multi-platform - 24:47 A defensible moat around the business - 30:31 Making complexity an opportunity - 34:30 When is the new business getting started? - 36:39  I hope this is super helpful for those out there who are thinking of expanding their brand portfolio or starting a new business. If you are, leave a comment below on what you think your next business would ideally look like!  As always, if you have any questions or anything that you need help with, reach out to us at [email protected] if you're interested.  Don’t forget to leave us a review on iTunes if you enjoy our content. If you have any questions, send us an email at [email protected]. We'd love to help you in any way we can.  Full Audio Transcript Mike Jackness: This is Mike and welcome to this edition of the Ecom Crew podcast. How's it going, Dave? Doing good. We're doing some recordings here after American Thanksgiving. So I feel I feel full and thankful, I guess. And yeah, we're doing some podcasts today. DJ: This is Dave. DJ:  I'm doing well, how about you? DJ: How was your Amazon balance though? Is that full and thankful after Black Friday? Mike Jackness (00:28.134) Not really. It was not a real great Black Friday, Summer Monday for us, but it never really is with the brand that I kept. I didn't really expect to have a huge Black Friday, Summer Monday. In fact, I didn't even open up my app over the weekend because I was like, I don't want to see it. Just because we didn't run any Black Friday deals. I mean, we talked a little bit about this on the podcast over this year. And so, I mean, hot and cold therapy packs are not giftable items. They're not the type of thing that people buy and gift them. There were lots of people in my space running Black Friday, Supper Monday deals. I imagine they just got crushed in terms of paying a lot of fees and giving up margin. I don't even remotely see how it's feasible. I mean, I see all these deals running. I mean, they're paying $300, $500 or more per deal, giving up a bunch of margin. DJ (01:10.195) Yep. DJ (01:15.27) No, I don't either. Mike Jackness (01:23.182) I can barely make it without even doing that. I just assume that they're losing money just to have an ego boost and that isn't interesting to me. We just go in a little bit of hibernation for this part of the year for this business. From late November to early January is just a dead zone for us. Early January things have to really pick back up. Going into the spring becomes our best months. Just roll in with what we have. When we had other businesses, we focused a lot on Black Friday and Summer Monday. We sold our baby brand this year. I'm sure they had a really great Black Friday, Summer Monday. We've sold color. That was always my favorite time of the year, although it was stressful. Black Friday, Summer