Neil Twa is a veteran e-commerce operator and investor who’s built and exited multiple 8-figure physical product brands. He raised $100M to launch an Amazon aggregator — and then walked away before deploying a single dollar.
Now, Neil is a partner at Patriot Growth Capital, where he focuses on acquiring businesses in the $5M–$50M range and backing veteran entrepreneurs.
Thank you to our newest sponsors:
Scalepath: https://www.joinscalepath.com/
Spacebar Studios: https://www.spacebarstudios.co/
In This Episode We Discuss:
00:00:00 - Intro & Neil's background
00:00:28 - Biggest lesson: Patience and perseverance
00:01:25 - Why Neil got into physical products
00:02:28 - Build vs Buy in physical product businesses
00:04:34 - Building businesses with the end in mind (exit focused)
00:06:17 - Sponsor: Scalepath
00:07:18 - Neil's early business journey & first exits
00:08:34 - Meeting Kevin Harrington & shift to 'build to sell'
00:11:19 - Sponsor: Spacebar Studios
00:12:14 - Timeline: affiliate - FBA - aggregators
00:16:00 - Neil 1.0 vs Neil 2.0 - mindset transformation
00:21:00 - The '5 Fs' framework
00:22:03 - Pulling back from $100M aggregator plan
00:26:33 - Operational chaos in the Amazon rollup space
00:31:00 - Mass adoption of ecommerce & timing the market
00:34:34 - Creative deal structures & leaving owners with equity
00:40:21 - Ideal acquisition targets & buy box explained
00:43:31 - One deal with massive upside potential
00:46:30 - Building a new SaaS product: Cayman Data
00:50:00 - How Neil manages focus & projects
00:51:24 - Neil's current role: investor/operator
00:53:07 - One key lesson from being in the trenches
00:56:33 - Advice: don't sell $20 products on Amazon
00:57:34 - Current frustration: Amazon TOS enforcement
00:59:11 - Five-year vision for fund and SaaS (2030 goals)
01:00:25 - Favorite book: Good to Great by Jim Collins
01:01:48 - Best investment advice: Invest without expectation
01:02:00 - Closing remarks
----------------------------------------------
Subscribe on Spotify:
https://open.spotify.com/show/6lr5bE3SNZF2uEE7Nb0DHh
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/holdco-builders/id1695713724
Follow Mikk/PrivatEquityGuy on Twitter: https://x.com/PrivatEquityGuy⁠⁠⁠
Neil on Twitter: ⁠⁠⁠https://x.com/voltagefba
This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be relied upon as a basis for investment decisions.