In January 2022, I was sitting in a basement in New York with a laptop, a few thousand dollars, and a decision that most people in my position would have called reckless. After seven years working as a Sports Coordinator with the NYC Department of Education, I walked away from a stable salary to go all-in on something I had been quietly building on the side: an Amazon FBA wholesale business.
That decision was not impulsive. I had spent months studying the model, testing it with small capital, and watching the numbers grow. But the moment I went full-time, everything accelerated — and so did the mistakes. This is the honest account of how I built Abuv The Par, what it actually took to scale to seven figures, and the principles that now drive everything I teach.
When most people think of Amazon FBA, they think of private label — finding a manufacturer in China, slapping your brand on a product, and hoping it ranks. I looked at that model carefully and decided it was not the right vehicle for where I wanted to go. Private label requires significant upfront capital, months of lead time, and a willingness to compete in a crowded market where one algorithm change can wipe out your entire investment.
Wholesale is different. You are selling products that already have demand, already have reviews, and already have a proven sales history on Amazon. Your job is to source those products at the right price, build relationships with the brands and distributors who supply them, and execute the logistics efficiently. The margin is thinner per unit, but the volume and reliability more than compensate.
"Wholesale is not about finding the next trending product. It is about building a reliable supply chain and owning your piece of existing demand."
The first six months were humbling. I made every beginner mistake in the book. I approached brands before my account was properly set up. I ordered inventory before confirming I could actually sell it on Amazon. I underestimated the importance of ungating — the process by which Amazon approves you to sell in restricted categories. These were expensive lessons.
What saved me was a commitment to systems. Every mistake I made, I documented. Every process I figured out, I wrote down. By month four, I had a playbook — not a perfect one, but a real one. That playbook became the foundation of what would eventually become Abuv The Par's coaching curriculum.
The single biggest lever I pulled to scale was hiring a virtual assistant. I was spending the majority of my time on tasks that did not require my judgment — sending outreach emails, tracking inventory, updating listings. Once I systematized those tasks and delegated them, I was able to focus entirely on supplier relationships and deal evaluation. Revenue doubled within 90 days of making that hire.
This is the insight I now consider the most underrated in eCommerce: your time is the most expensive resource in your business. Every hour you spend on a task that someone else could do for $5–$15 per hour is an hour you are not spending on the decisions that only you can make.
By the time I co-founded Abuv The Par with Tayeb Rahim and Shofi Ahad, I had a clear thesis: the reason most people fail at Amazon wholesale is not lack of effort — it is lack of a clear, sequenced system. They get the right information in the wrong order, or they get overwhelmed by the volume of advice available and never execute anything consistently.
Our program is built around a three-step framework: establish your account foundation, build your supplier network, and systematize your operations. Every piece of coaching we deliver maps back to one of those three stages. We do not add complexity for the sake of appearing comprehensive. We add clarity for the sake of producing results.
If I could go back and give myself one piece of advice in that basement in 2022, it would be this: the goal is not to work harder. The goal is to build something that works without you. Every system you build, every process you document, every hire you make is an investment in the version of your business that runs while you sleep.
That is what Abuv The Par is ultimately about — not just Amazon FBA, but the broader principle that a well-designed business should give you both financial freedom and time freedom. We have seen students reach $45,000 per month in revenue with a single virtual assistant. That is not luck. That is system design.
If you are building an Amazon wholesale business and want to shortcut the learning curve, watch our free training and see if our approach resonates with where you want to go.
← Back to All Insights