Wisconsin

Scott Fleming didn’t set out to create a best-selling product when he made his first StoveShelf prototype. The Wisconsin woodworker simply wanted more storage space in the kitchen, so he glued a couple of magnets to a piece of wood and snapped it onto his stove’s backsplash. When he searched online and found nothing like it, he decided to turn it into a business.

In 2017, he launched StoveShelf in the Amazon store, using tools like IP Accelerator and Brand Registry to secure a trademark and protect his product from copycats. When sales started to take off, Fleming turned to Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) to handle storage and shipping. Since then, he’s grown from selling a few units to friends and family to running a multi-million-dollar business.

In a quiet corner of Appleton, Wisconsin, Ben Wolfgram and his father embarked on a retirement project in their garage that would transform their lives. Their weekend hobby making unique glassware has blossomed into BenShot, a thriving small business with 45 employees and $7 million in annual revenue - and Amazon, they said, has played a pivotal role in their growth.

“Amazon helped us a lot with building brand trust,” Wolfgram said. “We started doing $500 a day at our first art show and right now we’re doing $25,000 a day on our website because one of our creations just went viral.”

Thanks to Amazon, Wolfgram said they’re able to capitalize on every click.

The minute his foot could reach the clutch, young Adam Waldvogel began driving tractors in his family’s Wisconsin ginseng fields. Twenty years later, life wasn’t so simple: Waldvogel held a corporate job and was miserable.

In 2018, Waldvogel made a life-altering change. Waldvogel repurposed the ginseng that was once his family’s commodity crop into a consumer product, launching a small business selling ginseng products globally in the Amazon store.

In his first full year, Waldvogel’s sales were $140,000. Five years later, that number has ballooned to almost $1 million.