$2,500 Start, Mid-Eight Figures, Then Lost $750K In 13 Months | Ben Berman
About this episode
He sold his Subaru Legacy for $2,500. No loan. No debt. Just a hunch that people buying bike frames on eBay also needed wheels, handlebars, and drivetrains. In year one, he crossed nearly $1 million in revenue.
In this episode of Chaos To Clarity, Piyush Thacker sits down with Ben Berman, founder of 365 Cycles and 365 Regroup. Over nine years, Ben bootstrapped 365 Cycles from a single eBay listing to a mid-eight-figure e-commerce business selling bicycle parts and accessories across the US on his own website, Amazon, eBay, and Walmart. When COVID hit in March 2020, sales exploded 400% in three weeks. Then a single email from his primary supplier, an Excel sheet capping every product to five units per day, dropped his revenue 70% in one week. He went from 6,000 orders on a Monday morning to looking at the ceiling every night knowing he was losing $5,000 a day. Over 13 months he lost $750,000.
In this conversation Ben walks through everything: how he survived, the $2,500-per-hour coach who turned out to be worth every dollar, why he fired his first fractional CFO for refusing to get into the details, what it cost him to automate the wrong thing, and how he eventually left for a three-week anniversary trip to Ireland and Italy and came back to a team that was growing the business without him. He also breaks down what it actually costs to sell a $100 product online, why money without wisdom makes you dumber, and the Latin lesson about teaching that a gymnastics coach taught him that completely changed how he leads people.
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Ben Berman's mentoring: https://365regroup.com Ben Berman on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Jamin.Berman Ben Berman on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jamin.berman Piyush Thacker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/piyushthacker/ Thinkonic: https://thinkonic.com
🎙️ Chaos To Clarity, an Indian podcast exploring small enterprise journeys, real founder stories, and the messy road from chaos to clarity.
📅 New episodes every Thursday, 7 PM IST
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