Entrepreneurs share their secrets for thriving through COVID-19

In the 1850s, Levi Strauss opened a branch of his family’s dry goods business out West. As the legend goes, he and his partner looked at the miners, ranchers, cowboys, and railroad workers populating the Western states, and saw a need for more durable clothing. Blue jeans were born.

While blue jeans moments are rare, successful entrepreneurs share Strauss’s understanding that it’s not about the quick buck you can make today from Clorox wipes, but about anticipating the long-term needs of an ever-changing world. Nothing in recent history drives home that lesson like the coronavirus.

The pandemic that paralyzed world trade, travel, and industry has hobbled a staggering number of businesses. But the news it not all bad. With tenacity, creativity, and help from Above, many entrepreneurs succeeded in meeting the COVID challenge. Here, five individuals share their experiences — and the takeaway lessons that can help you craft your own success story.

Online Is Where It’s At

Daniel Weiser
Occupation: Online Sales
Location: Boro Park

Coronavirus taught David Weiser, a 31-year-old Satmar chassid from Boro Park, that he could swim upstream.

It started in February. “Everything that could have gone wrong, did,” says the online seller with four years’ experience in the field.

Take his vitamins line, which he sells on Amazon. While most us were blithely unaware of the looming storm back in late January, production in China stopped for the Chinese New Year — and never reopened. The holiday bled right into the coronavirus crisis, and almost no stock left China, where Weiser’s vitamin components are manufactured, for three entire months.

In March, the owner of the warehouse he was renting caught the virus and closed up shop. Truckers, fearful of getting sick, stopped coming to work, which meant that even if Weiser obtained the merchandise and found another warehouse, there was no way to transport the vitamins to the company that bottled them. The packaging company couldn’t fulfill his order in any case, since they were overrun with massive orders from Walgreens. To top it all off, , there were no bottles in stock — they’re made in China — and the workers at the labeling company were no-shows. It was the stuff of nightmares.

But Weiser quickly realized that the misfortune held opportunity within its cracks. “I knew that if I managed to hold onto a steady supply of stock despite the circumstances, my standing on Amazon would rise considerably, which is the ticket to success. My formula was simple: think out of the box, work as hard as humanly possible, and be willing to take monetary losses. Almost all problems can be solved with creativity and willingness to go the extra mile.”

So Weiser found a new vitamin manufacturer in Israel. He leased a garage and office space to store his merchandise. He rented a 24-foot truck and taught himself how to drive it, enabling him to pick up the vitamins in New Jersey and bring them to his makeshift warehouse in Boro Park.

Now he had the product, transportation, and storage space. But how would he get the vitamins into the hands of consumers?

“My solution was to rent an unused hall and fill it with yeshivah bochurim. We bought printers, ink, labels, shipping boxes, tape…. and got to work. We had to stick labels onto the bottles, print out shipping labels, and package it all up. From there, I drove them in my truck to the post office for delivery to customers. We filled thousands of orders a day, working until we dropped, at about 2:00 or 3:00 am.”

The mad enterprise bore fruit: his competitors were out of stock, while he steadily climbed up Amazon’s ladder. His refusal to get stuck in old ways of thinking allowed him to reach the number one and two spots for certain vitamins, and to earn the Amazon’s Choice seal. Business soared.

David Weiser also sells high-end pillows on Amazon. In March, at the height of uncertainty and fear, pillow sales dropped precipitously; who would invest in luxury items at such a time? But he did some research and saw that Home Depot was doing well, likely attributable to the fact that people quarantined at home naturally turn their attention to home improvement. In a counterintuitive move, he bought an overabundance of pillows, despite poor sales. He wanted to be ready.

“March was catastrophic, April was somewhat better, and by May, we hit an all-time high,” he says. “Our pillows are the most expensive ones sold on Amazon, yet we sold the most pillows on the site, during a pandemic, no less. Learning from adjacent industries can be invaluable.”

The Takeaway

The pandemic has changed e-commerce forever — Amazon alone, David says, has gained millions of new customers. Ebay has had a tremendous increase in sales as well. “Online sales is a great direction for people to go in right now.”

Even if you’re not a salesman, you can cash in. Know how to write? Every Amazon page needs copy, and a premium-quality write-up can earn hundreds of dollars. Love photography? Everything sold online needs its picture taken. Invest in a $100 photography studio, practice taking shots, and if you’re good, the work will come, David says. Ditto for those in graphics and package design. “The demand for these talents is sky-high and continuing to grow,” he says.

Finding a way in is less daunting than it sounds; WhatsApp and telegram groups connect sellers with every pool of needed talent. Keep your rates low at first, just get in the front door. The e-commerce explosion has also created greater opportunity in areas like warehousing and customer service.

As for what to sell: There is more demand than ever for every subsector in the online sales universe. But outpacing them all is anything tech-related. “Every new home office requires a computer, server, networking, a phone system, and more. These have really shot up,” he says.

Don’t quit your job while developing a new skill set, he advises. Learn all you can about whatever you’re pursuing — everything you need to know can be found online, for free. Reach out to others in the field and ask questions, put your extra time and money into it, and with time and Hashem’s help, you’ll get ahead. Once your side income surpasses that of your regular job, it’s time to make the switch. Just a small amount of effort to outshine your competitors results in a huge pay-off, he says.

“And above all,” he cautions, “disconnect from the news. Bad projections can be depressing and discourage you from moving forward. Stay driven, stay positive, and keep on pushing.”