Ster retweeted
People will doubt you at $0/mo.
Laugh at $3k/mo.
Ask questions at $20k/mo.
Call you lucky at $100k/mo.
It’s all part of the script.
Ster retweeted
sat next to a guy on a flight who smelled like old money
rolex. tailored suit. reading a physical newspaper like it was 1987.
figured he was some finance executive or inherited wealth.
we got talking. I mentioned I sell stuff online.
he put down his newspaper.
"what kind of stuff?"
digital products. courses. ebooks. that kind of thing.
he smiled weird.
"I made $4 million last year selling a PDF about aquariums."
I thought he was messing with me.
he wasn't.
this guy is 61 years old. spent 30 years as an accountant. hated every second of it. retired at 55 with decent savings but nothing crazy.
his hobby was aquariums. had been keeping fish tanks since he was 12.
"my wife told me to start a blog so I'd stop boring her with fish facts."
so he did. wrote about aquarium stuff 3 times a week. water chemistry. tank setups. fish compatibility.
for 2 years nobody read it.
"I had maybe 50 visitors a month. all probably bots."
but he kept going because he had nothing else to do.
year 3, one article ranked on google. then another. then another.
suddenly he was getting 100K visitors a month. all people searching for aquarium help.
"I realized these people would probably pay for a complete guide. so I wrote one."
147 pages. everything about setting up and maintaining an aquarium.
priced it at $47.
first month: $6K
first year: $340K
last year: $4.2 million
from a PDF about fish tanks.
I asked about his marketing strategy.
"I don't have one. google sends people to my blog. blog mentions the guide. people buy it. I go play golf."
no email sequence?
"I have a newsletter. I send fish tips once a week. sometimes I mention the guide at the bottom. that's it."
no upsells?
"I made a second guide about saltwater tanks specifically. $67. people who bought the first one usually buy the second. that's my whole business."
no team?
"my wife helps with customer service. we get maybe 10 emails a day. most are just people showing us their tanks."
this 61 year old retiree built a bigger business than most "entrepreneurs" I know.
no ads. no funnel hacks. no growth strategies. no personal brand.
just mass expertise in one weird niche and patience to let it compound.
before we landed he gave me advice I didn't ask for:
"everyone your age wants to get rich fast. that's why most of you stay broke. I wrote about fish for 2 years before making a dollar. now I make more than I did in 30 years of accounting. speed is overrated. patience pays."
the plane landed. he grabbed his newspaper and walked off.
probably went home to feed his fish.
Ster retweeted
Here we go again... Please help @ShopifySupport @Shopify @tobi @harleyf
Our Shopify Payments was suddenly disabled due to a “rise in chargebacks” and “elevated risk” but our actual chargeback rate is 0.2%
Everywhere online you’ll read that staying under 1% is healthy
Shopify higher-ups have told us merchants are fine under 1.5%
And today I spoke with another Shopify leader who said anything under 3% is acceptable
We’ve been a Shopify Plus merchant for 3 years, processed 8-figures+ in revenue, and run a fast-growing subscription brand with $1M+ in monthly recurring revenue
We have our own custom formulas, verified Eurofins certificates, CN + USA manufacturing, and patents in progress. We operate fully legitimately
This year we’ve dealt with multiple copycats impersonating our brand, causing customer confusion. With our last viral tweet, Shopify successfully took one of them down. Now we’re here again
Recently Shopify placed a 10% reserve on our payouts. We didn’t fight it. We accepted it and continued proving we’re a trustworthy merchant. We even received a $2M Shopify Capital offer which we partially used
Yet now we’re facing an instant disablement with no warning and a full hold on funds
We’ve already sent Shopify every document requested and more than needed for full due diligence
If Shopify chooses not to reinstate our payments, then at minimum they should migrate our subscription tokens and cancel our Shopify Plus plan so we can continue operating without losing our entire subscriber base
This situation is critical for us and our customers
Please review our case ASAP 🙏
I’m offering $500 to whoever connects me with a legitimate ecom payment processor — no shady agreement clauses, fully transparent, and already trusted by other big brands. If I end up working with the processor you refer me to, you get paid.
Easiest $500 if you have an actually good, legit processor that already has big brands running with them.
Ster retweeted
You don’t need books and school. Life will teach you everything you need to know.
But only IF you pay attention.
WHY did this go wrong.
HOW did I allow this bad thing to happen.
WHAT will I do in the future.
Self-analyze more, “learn” new things less.
Wisdom > knowledge
This is how Shopify Support responds when they’re holding over $200K on your balance (not a hold, just delayed payouts on all new stores started after August 2025) and you ask when payouts will return to the normal 2–3 days.
They can’t even say if payouts will ever be fixed, let alone show any care for the issue. I explained that new businesses can’t open additional stores under these conditions, and they don't even care.
Dropshipping is dead for all new people (using US Shopify Payments) that dont have experience and dont have tens of thousands in the bank, because of delayed payouts. It's impossible to pay for your ads and scale, not to mention paying your supplier. Even with 30%+ profit margins like i have.
Has there ever been a $100B Company with support more useless than Shopify?
Have people stopped running new stores this Q4?
Why is nobody complaining about the 7-10 day payouts on all stores created after August 2025?
It's impossible to run a new store with paid ads at the moment.
Shopify has killed dropshipping and ecom in general unless you have hundreds of thousands beforehand.
Contacting Shopify Support everyday and they do absolutely nothing as always.
