There's a moment every Amazon seller faces. It's not the first sale. It's not even the first profit. It's the moment somewhere around month two, maybe month three, when the initial excitement fades and the doubt gets loud.
The dashboard refuses to move. The wins from that first week feel like ancient history. And that voice in your head, the one that's been whispering since day one, finally becomes impossible to ignore: “Maybe this isn't going to work for me.”
If you're in that moment right now, I want you to know something important: you're not doing it wrong. You're standing exactly where every successful seller has stood.
The Scaffolding Phase
When construction began on the Eiffel Tower in 1887, Parisians hated it.
They called it an eyesore. An industrial monstrosity. A disgrace to the city. Artists and writers, including Guy de Maupassant and Alexandre Dumas, signed petitions demanding it be torn down before it was even finished.
And honestly, during those two years of construction? They weren't entirely wrong. It looked like chaos. A skeleton of iron beams jutting into the sky with no clear vision of what it would become.
Gustave Eiffel kept building anyway.
Nobody remembers the scaffolding phase.
Your Business Is in the Scaffolding Phase
Here's what I've learned from coaching Amazon sellers through the messy middle: the business you're building right now doesn't look like what it's going to become.
The numbers don't reflect the work you've put in. The dashboard is lying to you because it can only show what's already happened. It has no way of displaying what's building beneath the surface.
This is the phase that separates builders from quitters. Not because quitters lack talent or strategy. Because this phase is genuinely hard, and nobody warns you about it.
What's Actually Happening When Nothing Seems to Be Happening
The messy middle feels like failure because nothing visible is occurring. But invisible doesn't mean inactive.
During this phase, you're building sourcing skills you don't even realize you're developing. Every product you evaluate, every listing you analyze, every test you run is creating pattern recognition that only comes from repetition.
You're making mistakes that are teaching you things no YouTube video or course could ever teach. You're learning what your specific business needs, what works for your capital situation, your time constraints, your risk tolerance.
You're doing the unsexy foundational work. The winning sellers on the other side of this phase did the exact same work. They just don't post about it.
The Dashboard Is a Lagging Indicator
This is the concept that changed everything for me: your dashboard shows you where you've been, not where you're going.
It's like looking in the rearview mirror and wondering why you're not at your destination yet. The dashboard captures past performance. It has no way of measuring the skills you're developing, the patterns you're recognizing, or the foundation you're constructing.
When you're building a house, there's a long stretch where it looks like nothing but dirt and concrete. The beautiful part comes later. But you can't skip the foundation phase and jump straight to the finished product.
Your business works the same way.
The Pattern I Keep Seeing
After coaching hundreds of sellers, the pattern is undeniable: the ones who quit at month three and the ones who break through at month six face the exact same challenges.
Same flat dashboards. Same doubt spirals. Same “am I doing this wrong?” moments.
The difference isn't talent. It's not luck. It's not even having better products or more capital.
The difference is whether they kept building when it felt pointless.
Momentum Is Built, Not Found
This might be the most important thing I can tell you: momentum is constructed, not discovered.
You don't stumble into it. You don't wake up one day and suddenly have it. You build it brick by brick, test by test, even when you can't see the tower taking shape yet.
That's the part that messes with your head. You want evidence. You want proof it's working. You want the dashboard to validate your effort.
But validation comes later. First comes the building.
What to Do When You're in the Messy Middle
This is exactly why The Olsons built the Builder’s Circle: to give sellers a place to keep building when motivation fades.
If you're reading this and recognizing yourself, here's what I want you to remember:
First, stop comparing your behind-the-scenes to other people's highlight reels. The sellers posting wins were in your exact position not that long ago. They just don't post about the messy middle.
Second, track leading indicators instead of lagging ones. Instead of obsessing over sales numbers, pay attention to tests completed, lessons learned, and process improvements. These predict future success better than current revenue.
Third, take one action. When doubt gets loud, the cure is movement. Test one ASIN. Source one product. Make one small improvement. Action creates clarity. Waiting for clarity before acting is a trap.
One of the highest-leverage “one actions” you can take is improving the quality of what you test.
A solid lead list doesn’t replace skill; it accelerates it. Instead of spending hours hunting for marginal ideas, you start with pre-vetted leads that lower sourcing friction, reduce testing costs, and help you build a real OA pipeline faster.
That’s exactly what FBA Lead List is designed to do: give you momentum when momentum feels hardest to find.
Find out more about our Premium 44 and Elite 22 OA lists here.
Fourth, remember the scaffolding. The Eiffel Tower was ugly once. So was every beautiful thing anyone has ever built. The scaffolding phase is temporary. What you're constructing is not.
The Foundation Is the Point
It feels like failure. It's actually the foundation.
You only get to experience your first time once. This season, as frustrating and uncertain as it feels, is part of your story. One day you'll look back at this moment and realize it was the scaffolding phase. The part nobody photographs. The part that made everything else possible.
The Eiffel Tower is beautiful now because someone kept building when it looked like a mess.
Your business can be the same.
Keep going. You're closer than you think.
About the Authors: Brian and Robin Joy Olson coach Amazon FBA arbitrage sellers, helping them build sustainable businesses through systematic approaches to sourcing, compliance, and operational challenges. Learn more at OfficialOlsons.com.
Ready to build with a community that gets it? The Builders Circle is where modern arbitrage sellers come together to learn, grow, and keep building through the messy middle. Learn more at officialolsons.substack.com