How I Built a Data Product for Amazon Sellers: Lessons Learned
In this article, I am going to talk about how I used Gumroad, Google Sheets, the Keepa API, and Unbounce to build a landing page to sell a data product. Lots of lessons learned from this experience.
After completing over 20+ independent projects pulling data from the Keepa API for my clients on Upwork, I decided to launch my own standalone product.
I learned a beautiful thing through this journey: that people will pay good money for a CSV data file.
I have been working with APIs since 2018. However, once I found the Keepa API I realized that lots of Amazon sellers needed data from the API to solve a need that they had in their business.
While the particulars of the seller use case are varied and unique, the principle is that people will pay a premium for the exact data they need.
Let me outline the steps that led me to launch a data product.
Step 1: A client messages me for a specific type of data from the Keepa API
Step 2: I figure out the easiest way to give them this data is to create a Google sheet that pulls the data through a custom API connection
Step 3: Teach customer how to deploy the solution on to their own Google Sheet
Step 4: Get Paid
Over 20+ Happy Customers
The fact that I have so many satisfied customers screams that I have found product market fit — link to my page.
Transition to a Product
Rather than selling a custom API connection in Google sheets to each customer (which doesn’t scale), I realized I could package the code and sell a file that people would pay for. This is also referred to as “integration” in the software world.
Below I will describe these steps in more detail.
Lesson 1 — Transition to a Product
Sell a .gs file on Gumroad.
Gumroad is a fantastic tool for digital sellers. As their website says, “With Gumroad, anyone can earn their first dollar online. Just start with what you know, see what sticks, and get paid. It’s that easy.”
Lesson 2 — Build a Landing Page
Unbounce is the leader in landing pages. It costs $149 per month.
Lesson 3 — Marketing is Hard
The lesson here is that I needed to drive traffic to the landing page. Easier said than done.
My marketing video had over 48,000 hits on YouTube. I hired a freelancer on Fiverr for $50 to make this video.
Lesson 4- Google Ads is Expensive
I found Google Ads to be a leech. They kept calling me asking me to spend more money on ads. They even billed me after I was led to believe that my campaign would end.
Lesson 5 — Understand the Market
Selling on Amazon is a huge market. Lots of other companies are in this space. Lots of tools have already been developed. I got lots of traffic to the page but very few conversions.
Recap of Lessons Learned
Floyd Mayweather says that everyone loses fights. As a Data Entrepreneur, the goal is always to deliver value using data and sometimes that fight will take many iterations to get right. Until then, I will continue trying, experimenting, and connecting with Amazon sellers to unlock the potential of the Keepa API.
Next Steps
I am continuing my journey to provide value to Amazon Sellers using the Keepa API. Please reach out on LinkedIn to chat further — https://www.linkedin.com/in/basil-latif/
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