Best of all? A 25% stake means this entrepreneur continues to earn passive income.
In 2017, Travis gave himself 30 days to launch a Kickstarter and documented his entire process on YouTube. It went on to raise $14,752. He then began selling his product on Amazon, making $300 per day within twelve months.
I’ve been glued to his content ever since.
Four years later, Travis is a YouTuber and the founder of Performance Nut Butter: a Fulfilled by Amazon (FBA) business that he recently sold in a deal worth over $1.1 million.
He still has a 25% stake in the company but no longer has to run it. His business partner handles this and is launching new products. In many ways, it’s the perfect deal.
It’s been one hell of a ride, and I wanted to look under the hood. After chatting on my podcast, I gained a better understanding of how Travis has built and sold a six-figure FBA business.
Here’s his story.
“I was in this prison”
“I got good grades in high school, I did pretty well in college… and after that, I got a good-paying corporate job. I was lucky in a lot of ways because it was my only offer.
“It was really fun for the first year. I was like, wow, this is amazing. I’m traveling all over the world and doing cool things.
“But then the second year rolled around and I realized I was lost… I was in this prison. There was no benefit for me to work hard. I worked my butt off to get a 3% raise.
Travis wanted to get out, but he wasn’t sure how. He just knew something needed to change.
“I think October 2012 was the first time I woke up with the realization I need to quit my job,” he reflects. “I remember talking to a girl I was dating, saying yeah, I want to quit my job, I want to start all this entrepreneurial stuff — but I wasn’t serious.”
Then, like so many before him, Travis stumbled on The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. It painted a dream life and put everything he was thinking into words.
“When I finally did quit, it was a hard decision. I had a major panic attack… I went a few days without sleeping…
“I’ve purposely forgotten about parts of my life back then because it was scary. My parents were like what the hell is going on? And I’m like, no, no, no, no. It’s all good.
“By the time I finally did quit my job — February 13th, 2013 — that weekend was like the worst of the panic attacks. I didn’t sleep for days.”
Takeaway: There can be huge mental strains when ditching the 9–5.
From dancewear clothing to nut butter
After quitting his job, Travis started an online dance clothing business with his mum. He enjoyed it and learned a ton about e-commerce, but they struggled to turn a profit.
“I was writing SEO-optimised posts about leotards and crop tops, but it was slow. I didn’t know the product, I didn’t know the customer — I didn’t know anything about dance!”
SKUs were also an issue. With all the colours and sizes, there were hundreds of combinations. They had to hold a huge warehouse of stock, and this sapped their bottom line.
Although the company is still going, Travis isn’t involved. He realised something needed to change. Again. He moved back in with his parents and decided to make a product he was actually passionate about.
It’s at this crossroads that I found him on YouTube.
“I had an idea for a nutritious snack. I studied biomedical engineering at USC and was always tinkering with products to get the most out of my body.”
He realised healthy fats, like those found in avocados, made him feel better, and he discovered you need healthy fats to help your body function.
He also noted that peanut butter and almond butter are high in omega-six. “This isn’t a bad thing,” he explained to me, “but too much can mean blood doesn’t flow as well through your body, which can cause inflammation.”
After testing, he settled on a combination of macadamia, cashew, and coconut to create a creamy blend that’s keto, paleo, and vegan friendly. This would be Performance Nut Butter.
Takeaway: When building a product business, choose a niche that genuinely excites you.
Bringing his product to market
Once he settled on the blend, he tested. He asked his family for feedback, did taste-tasting with friends, and documented his progress on YouTube.
On his channel, he decided to be radically transparent. He shared the highs and lows, and the mistakes he made, as well as the costs associated with creating a new product.
He also created a Facebook Group. Here, people could follow his updates and help make important decisions, such as choosing the company logo.
This would become an important community for when he launched his Kickstarter campaign, as would the email list he’d been building throughout this time.
When it came to producing the product, Travis called competitors. Would they formulate it for him? As strange as this seems, one had spare capacity and was willing to do it for $75 an hour. Within ten hours, they’d figured out the right proportions and sent Travis samples.
With his product sorted, he hunted for a packager. He scoured Google and managed to find some US suppliers. However, they were all too expensive, so he turned to China where he found a company that could produce 3,000 boxes (instead of 10,000) at $0.42 a box.
After hustling for a month, Travis launched the Kickstarter in May 2017. He raised $14,752 from 334 backers — most of whom from his Facebook Group — and this helped pay for the first production run.
Since then, he’s faced numerous challenges. Products have been damaged, customers have complained, and he’s made countless mistakes. One of his biggest?
“A few years back, our manufacturer didn’t add the right seals to the pouches, so I had to hire someone to add them to every single one. It was painful!”
Throughout it all, he’s continued to be transparent so others can learn from his journey. This is one of the many reasons I love Travis’s content.
Takeaway: Bring fans along for the ride and hire experts when needed.
Making over $300 per day passive income
From day one, Travis’s goal was to make $300 per day passive income.
One of the main reasons was so he could look at more expensive items on restaurant menus and not feeling guilty about ordering. This was something his family could never afford as he grew up.
In his first month on Amazon, Performance Nut Butter made over $15,000 revenue and $5,000 in profit. This doubled to $30,000 in month two.
“I still had a fear that maybe the business was a fluke,” Travis admits. “Maybe it was going to go away.” He also noticed a number of competitors were creeping into his niche.
He needn’t have worried. More competitors meant the size of the market grew, and more customers got to know about his product. He sold over $436,000 worth of Performance Nut Butter in year two.
However, things took a turn in year 3. Revenue almost halved as the pandemic meant not as many people were buying on-the-go snacks. Travis was also growing weary. He was no longer spending as much time on his business and was instead focusing his efforts on growing his YouTube channel, as well as coaching others.
“Honestly, I’d kind of lost interest in the business and was spending more of time enjoying life! Travelling with my girlfriend, eating out — that kind of thing.”
It was through YouTube that he found a buyer for his business. A fellow Amazon seller introduced them, agreed on terms over lunch, and smashed out contracts with their lawyers.
Having sold over 38,000 boxes of Performance Nut Butter to date and making over $336,000 profit in three years, Travis was handing the reins to someone else.
Takeaway: Sometimes the best thing you can do for your business is to sell it.
Takeaways
Travis is an entrepreneur I deeply admire. His YouTube videos have helped me hire a virtual assistant, and it’s been a pleasure to speak with him for my podcast.
Last year, I also took part in his Amazon FBA course. I was initially hesitant about the price tag but I knew he’d deliver value, as he always does. I wasn’t wrong. Watching Travis’s content over the last three years has been the best MBA one could hope for.
If you want to unpick his journey for yourself, I’d highly recommend visiting his YouTube channel. He’s a talented entrepreneur who I’m sure will go on to even greater success.
His final words to those wanting to start a business?
“There is nothing holding you back from living your dream life except you.”