Kale Abrahamson and Taylor Hiott
Kale Abrahamson and Taylor Hiott

Kale Abrahamson and Taylor Hiott, co-founders of Nine University and creators of Honey Badger Boost and Boost Nine software, made their first million long before reaching their 30th birthdays. But like every entrepreneurial journey, their road to success wasn't smooth.

"Getting where we are today wasn't easy," Kale says. "We made lots of mistakes and dug ourselves $50,000 into debt along the way," Kale says. "There were times when we were afraid of going bankrupt and thought we'd end up paying off our credit cards for the rest of our lives."

"Thankfully, we cracked the code of how to choose the right products to sell on Amazon before we lost everything. We're lucky because we had enough capital to invest in our business and learn from our mistakes."

How Kale and Taylor Lost $50,000 In Their First Amazon Joint Venture

"The first products I sold on Amazon were cornhole lights," Kale says. "I set myself apart by selling different color combinations like blue and red — which could stand for the blue team vs the red team. I also started selling baby pillows and grew my Amazon sales up to $20,000 a month."

"Then I met Taylor. He wanted in on my company & offered to invest $50,000 to buy more products. But we really didn't know what we were doing," Kale says. "We were buying products to resell without understanding what characteristics to look for in a product before we invested in it," Kale continues.

"A couple of the 10 products we bought turned out to sell well, and when we realized that they had certain characteristics and common qualities that allowed us to predict with confidence which products we should be buying," Taylor says. "But we also ended up with a closet full of products that didn't sell."

Why We Started Nine University

"The reason why Taylor and I started Nine University was to prevent other Amazon sellers from having to experience the graveyard of unsold products that we have stacked to the ceiling in our closet," Kale says.

"The difference between someone who can help you and someone who can't help you is that we have learned from our mistakes," Taylor says. "We learned about market trends. We made mistakes with PPC where we were trying to rank for the wrong keywords like 'wireless charger' instead of long-tail keywords.

Kale and Taylor's products help Amazon FBA sellers succeed in three ways:

Nine University teaches people how to find profitable Amazon FBA products, suppliers and become an elite Amazon FBA seller.

Honey Badger Boost provides product photography, video, search engine optimization and product research tailored to the needs of Amazon FBA.

Boost Nine is product research software that identifies the products that people will actually buy on Amazon in seconds instead of hours.