Happy Friday!
I'm building a private community called TKOwners for people who want to turn all these insights into real businesses. We have a slack channel where we drop insane AI tools and possibilities everyday. If you're serious about staying ahead of this AI revolution, check it out at tkowners.com. It's where the hundreds of action-takers hang out.
Okay, let’s get into it.
I sat down with a guy named Kip who was doing $150,000 a month in revenue on Amazon. His account got suspended for 180 days. He found out while his wife was in labor. So he needed a new plan fast.
He'd heard about live selling on Whatnot. Opened a brand new account with zero followers, zero experience, picked up a load of liquidation kitchen appliances, and went live. First stream: 150 items sold in under two hours, $2,000 in profit. A year later he's doing $45,000 a month in revenue, averaging $170 in profit per hour.
And if your interest is piqued, you can get way more info on the full episode I did with Kip, on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Live selling is projected to be a $2.5 trillion industry by 2033. That's a 41% annual growth rate. Most people have never heard of it. That's the point. Here's the playbook.
What Live Selling Is:
The concept is simple. You go live on a platform like Whatnot or TikTok, and you auction off items one at a time. Start the bid at a dollar. Let each mini auction run for 20 to 30 seconds. Sell it. Move to the next item. You're doing roughly one item per minute, and the platform is sending strangers to your stream in real time, whether you have followers or not.
The products out there are mostly liquidation goods. You're buying customer returns and overstock from retailers like Target, Sam's Club, and Costco at 80 to 90% off retail. Try Bstock (bstocksupply.com)- a public liquidation marketplace where you can access lots from major retailers with just a resale certificate. Then you sell them on live at 50 to 60% off retail. The buyer gets a fun experience, the thrill of the chase, and a steal. The seller makes 25 to 35% margins. Everybody wins.
Buy with math, sell with emotion.
His best sourcing win last year was a load of shoes at $5 per unit. That one purchase drove a disproportionate chunk of his $100,000 profit for the year. Jewelry is another category he's bullish on. Small to store, high perceived value, easy to ship, works great in an apartment.
In this quick style of buying, perceived value determines everything. A basic Ninja air fryer and a premium Ninja air fryer go for almost the same price at auction because the buyer can't process the feature differences in real time. They just see "Ninja air fryer" and they value it accordingly.
Kip’s operation:
He purchases liquidation with low unit costs and high perceived value
Streams typically run 1 to 4 hours. Kip shoots for 4 hours as much as possible.
Average profit per stream: $680 (profit per hour: $170)
Gross margin: 25 to 40%, averaging around 30%
Time to first $10,000 profit month: about 4 months in
His first stream did $4,500 in revenue. He came out of it with 400 followers, an understanding of the platform, and the confidence that this thing worked. Three streams later, the numbers started to really move. You just have to start.
Whatnot vs. TikTok:
Whatnot is community-driven with high buyer intent. People can show up to your stream with 10 viewers and do real business. The audience is there specifically to buy. Kip knows sellers with 10,000 followers whose audiences are so locked in, he's genuinely jealous of them. The follower count is less important than the community quality.
TikTok is bigger by volume (180 million monthly active users in the US) but buyer intent is lower. You'll typically need 100 to 200 people in your stream to generate the same revenue you'd get from 10 committed Whatnot buyers. An upside is that TikTok just launched live auctions, which is huge. Kip went live two days before our interview- selling soccer jerseys, a category with zero competition on the platform. He sold 90 jerseys in two hours at $22 net each, with a $12 unit cost. A $2,000 profit from one stream.
The best play right now:
Build your foundation on Whatnot.. but start testing TikTok with unique inventory that nobody else is bringing to the platform.
How to Make Your First $1,000 in Profit:
Source items under $5 a unit. Starting bidding at a dollar. If your cost is under $5, you're profitable the moment it crosses $5 in auction. Low cost means low risk while you learn.
Pick a category with high perceived value. Kitchen appliances, jewelry, brand-name footwear, food from recognizable brands. If someone can't tell it's valuable in 20 seconds, pick something else.
Figure out fulfillment before you go live. You can sell 100 items in an hour. (Both Whatnot and TikTok have integrated shipping built in.) Labels, packing boxes, shipping. Systematize this before your second stream.
Overcome the shipping objection early. Viewers balk at paying $6 shipping on a $3 item. Bundle items together. Sell three for the price of two. Throw in a freebie. Make the math feel right.
Treat your show as the product, not the items. Kip doesn't evaluate individual items in isolation. He looks at the stream-level profit and optimizes from there. This reframe changes how you prepare, how you present, and how you grow.
Live selling works because speed is the whole game. A buyer has 20 seconds to decide or the moment's gone.
Most service businesses are the opposite. Studies show responding within 5 minutes makes you 21x more likely to close. By end of day, they've already booked someone else. HighLevel's AI Employee fixes exactly this. The moment an inquiry hits, whether it's a text, a DM, a missed call, or a web form, it responds, qualifies the lead, and books the appointment on your calendar. All while you're sleeping, hanging with family, or working on something else. Follow-ups run automatically too.
Someone got a quote but ghosted? HighLevel nudges them three days later. That's money you'd never see without a system catching it. Go to gohighlevel.com/tkopod for a 30-day free trial.
You Don’t Have to Be an Extrovert to live sell. If you're even interested in doing this, you're already good for it. The business side, sourcing, fulfillment, pricing decisions, that's what separates winners from people who quit early. The on-camera part you figure out fast. You will have to turn it “on” for the camera, but plenty of sellers out there are on the quieter or calmer side.
I did a stream at my house a couple weeks ago. I'd never gone live before. We made $900 in 90 minutes selling protein bars I'd tasted for the first time on camera. I was sweating by the end, but was having the time of my life.
Energy matters more at the beginning, when the algorithm hasn't validated you yet and every viewer is a stranger. Once you have a real audience, authenticity carries more weight than charisma. People follow people, not product categories. Kip started selling kitchen appliances, moved to women's fashion, then tested food. His returning customers followed him across all three because they trust him, not because they needed more toaster ovens.
Start This Week
Go create a Whatnot account. Get a resale certificate in your state (usually takes a few days and costs nothing). Go to Bstock and find a lot in a category you actually find interesting. Look for under $5 a unit. High perceived value. Order enough for 100 to 150 items.
Test your products before the stream. Price them realistically. Go live. Start everything at a dollar. Talk to your viewers. Be a real person.
You might not make money on stream one. Kip didn't, not really. But you'll walk away with followers, feedback, and a clearer picture of what your next buy should look like. That's the education. That's the real asset.
The best time to start was when Kip started, a year ago with no followers and no idea what he was doing. The second best time is today.
You can just do things.
And again- if your interest is piqued, you can get way more info on the full episode I did with Kip, on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify.
Lastly, I'm always looking for cool, unique businesses to share on my podcasts. If you have one and are comfortable sharing your journey, drop your info here!
Have a great week!
Chris
P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.
