Amazon Performance, Website, Email & Investor Pitch — 2026-04-05

Overview

Marketing call with Mark and Lucy Doudlah, Jason Doudlah, and the Asymmetric team (Mark Hope, Karly Oykhman, Gilbert Barrongo, Avokerie Onorimuo). Primary agenda: review Amazon YTD performance and margin trajectory, diagnose a critical website checkout breakage introduced during a server cleanup, plan a Google Workspace email overhaul, and align on Mark Hope's participation in the warehouse investor pitch.

Attendees:
- Mark Hope (Asymmetric)
- Karly Oykhman (Asymmetric)
- Gilbert Barrongo (Asymmetric)
- Avokerie Onorimuo (Asymmetric)
- Mark Doudlah (Doudlah Farms)
- Lucy Doudlah (Doudlah Farms)
- Jason Doudlah (Doudlah Farms)

Key Decisions

• Skip AWD; ship directly to FBA with 3–6 months of inventory on hand to minimize storage surcharges. Use single-SKU pallets for high-volume items (black beans, popcorn, cornmeal) and mixed-SKU pallets for lower-volume products.
• Target 40% final margin as the sustainable growth benchmark, reserving ~10% of revenue for advertising.
• Implement Google Workspace (~$15/month for two users) to replace the problematic Outlook setup. Create orders@doudlahfarmsorganics.com and inquiries@oldworldpopcorn.com; make the orders mailbox shared across Lucy, Mark, and Jason.
• Mark Hope joins investor pitch to present the Amazon growth story to potential warehouse project investors alongside Mark Doudlah, Jim Slama (Naturally Chicago), and Tara Johnson (Food Finance Institute).

Amazon Performance

YTD (Jan–Oct) Results

Key cost breakdown on $724k:
- FBA fees (fulfillment, warehousing, shipping): 27%
- Referral fees: 14.5%
- Advertising + coupons: ~25%

Forecast: Year-End

Margin Trajectory

Monthly final margin has grown from ~4% in January to ~21% in October, with December forecast at 29%. The improvement is driven by:
1. Growing organic sales — organic unit position improved from ~rank 20 in April to rank 1–4 by November.
2. Subscribe & Save acceleration — daily S&S orders roughly doubled from ~6/day to 20+/day.
3. Advertising efficiency — ad spend as a percentage of revenue is declining as organic share grows.

Growth Context

• 2024 sales: ~$337,000
• 2025 projected: ~$950,000 (~283% YoY growth)
• 2026 projection (discussed): ~$2,000,000 with ~40% margin = ~$800,000 net before marketing and packaging costs

Cash Flow Discussion

Despite healthy margins, rapid growth creates a cash crunch: every incremental dollar of sales requires reinvestment in inventory, packaging, and labor before Amazon payouts arrive. Mark Hope noted that at 29–40% margins the business should be cash-flow positive, but labor and farm-side costs (not captured in the Amazon P&L) are contributing to the squeeze. Mark Doudlah requested the spreadsheet be shared so he can trace where cash is going.

Inventory & Shipping Strategy

• AWD discontinued — Amazon's AWD program created imbalances (too much of some SKUs, stockouts on others) and did not deliver expected cost savings.
• New approach: Ship directly to FBA in pallet quantities.
• Maintain 3–6 months of stock per SKU to avoid long-term storage surcharges (>6 months triggers surcharges; <3 months is risky for popcorn and cornmeal).
• Single-SKU pallets for black beans, popcorn, cornmeal (high velocity).
• Mixed-SKU pallets for lower-volume products.
• Split shipments to multiple Amazon fulfillment centers to reduce inbound placement fees.
• Harvest constraint: Karly sent a smaller priority order to Jason to work around current harvest limitations. Full order to follow in segments.
• Shipping economics: Full truckload (FTL) is ~30% cheaper than LTL, but Amazon distributes inventory across multiple FCs, so shipping everything to one location incurs redistribution fees. Optimal approach: 3–5 destination FCs per shipment.

Website: Checkout Bug

Background

The site had been suffering from 6+ second load times and frequent 502 errors (server out of memory). Root cause: massive accumulation of log files and junk data, likely generated by bot attacks targeting gift card and gift box products. Bots were running automated checkout attempts (card testing), generating thousands of failed orders and bloating server logs.

Cleanup Results

Countermeasures implemented: removed gift card product, added CAPTCHA (iterated through Cloudflare Turnstile → multiple CAPTCHA variants), bot activity stopped.

Current Critical Bug

The server cleanup broke the WooCommerce checkout page — customers cannot complete purchases. Mark Doudlah confirmed via a forwarded customer email and live screen share during the call. Mark Hope confirmed checkout was functional the afternoon before the call, suggesting the issue was introduced during final cleanup steps.

This is a P0 issue requiring immediate resolution.

Mark Doudlah's login to the WooCommerce admin is also broken (password reset prompt returning an unexpected error). Both issues assigned to Mark Hope.

Email System Overhaul

Current Problems

• Outlook storage cap (~2,000 emails) causes the account to stop sending/receiving when full; requires constant manual deletion.
• No separation between Doudlah Farms Organics and Old World Popcorn inquiries — creates customer confusion when Lucy replies from a @doudlahfarms.com address about OWP orders.
• Jason needs access to order emails for warehouse fulfillment but has no shared mailbox.
• Three separate calendar systems (Outlook, Gmail, iPhone) causing missed meetings.

Proposed Solution: Google Workspace

• Cost: ~$15/month for two users ($7/user/month, Starter tier)
• New addresses:
• orders@doudlahfarmsorganics.com — shared mailbox accessible to Lucy, Mark D., and Jason
• inquiries@oldworldpopcorn.com — dedicated OWP inbox, replies sent from OWP address
• Shared mailbox: All order-related email flows into one place; any team member can respond without exposing personal addresses.
• Mark Hope will set up the workspace, configure it on Lucy's computer, and add Jason as a user.
• Mark Doudlah to call Mark Hope with credit card to initiate subscription.

Future Consideration

Migrate personal email from Outlook to Gmail to resolve storage limits and consolidate calendar sync across devices. Mark Hope noted the migration is manageable — the main adjustment is behavioral, not technical.

Investor Pitch & Warehouse Project

Status

The warehouse project is at a critical decision point. A Tuesday meeting is scheduled to decide whether to proceed with site work. Mark Doudlah is working with:
- Jim Slama (Naturally Chicago) — investor network connection
- Tara Johnson (Food Finance Institute) — investor facilitator; 2:30 PM call scheduled

Why Mark Hope Is Needed

Investors need to understand the Amazon growth story — the trajectory from $337k to ~$950k in one year, the improving margin profile, and the path to $2M+ — as evidence that the business can service warehouse debt and scale into the new facility. Mark Hope is best positioned to present and defend these numbers.

Action

Mark Doudlah will formally introduce Mark Hope to Tara Johnson via email and invite him to the 2:30 PM investor call. Mark Hope should prepare a clean version of the Amazon performance spreadsheet suitable for investor review.

Action Items

Related

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