Rohan Thambrahalli of DimeTyd: Five Things You Need To Know To Run A Very Successful Amazon Business

As a part of my interview series about “Five non-intuitive things you need to know to run a very successful Amazon business, I had the pleasure of interviewing Rohan Thambrahalli.

As founder of DimeTyd, Rohan Thambrahalli is a serial entrepreneur and innovator focused on advancing e-commerce. With over 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, and business development, Rohan is a leader passionate about refining and re-engineering e-commerce technologies to drive exponential growth for global brands ranging from beauty, health, and personal care to electronics, automotive, and industrial/commercial.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you share with us the “backstory” about what brought you to this specific career path?

I started in B2B sales for industrial and commercial products. My customers included many Fortune 500 companies, schools and universities, and even local, state, and federal government entities. From there, I shifted into e-commerce and the online retail world. I held positions where I was responsible for issues ranging from data governance, product information management, and digital asset strategy.

Businesses and enterprises that live in this space, in the online retail world in such sizeable markets, have historically relied on distribution companies–far too often, their merchandise, product, and even message get lost in the process, struggling to reach customers. Here is where I saw firsthand the need for maximum efficiency, consolidating time and resources, and the necessity to streamline processes to bring a product to market.

In September of 2021, I founded DimeTyd. Those years of experience, personal observations, and awareness led me to help bring to life an automated, logic-based engine that helps Amazon vendors recoup profit leakage and maximize profitability.

Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority about doing business on Amazon.com?

DimeTyd was designed to help Amazon Vendors by former marketplace e-commerce veterans. We’ve been fortunate to work with hundreds of brands and helped them launch their Amazon business. DimeTyd just recently exceeded auditing $1 billion in transactions to Amazon 1P Vendors.

What I’ve noticed — and what is often a universal truth — is that the time, resources, and needed hands are all in short supply when it comes to being an Amazon vendor. This includes monitoring, analyzing, and optimizing the multitude of intricacies and millions of data points needed to maneuver through Amazon’s Marketplace.

My years of hands-on experience, and now working alongside some brilliant minds, help bring an understanding of the Amazon market and meet vendor needs.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I’m a firm believer that an organization is held together by every single link in its chain. Early on I learned to engage the opinions, feedback, and observations from employees in all departments at any station. If you limit yourself to viewpoints, inevitably you’ll miss out, experience a deficiency, and fall short of taking advantage of all the talent around you.

Are you working on any exciting projects now? How do you think that will help people?

It’s an exciting time at DimeTyd. We’re building the first and fully automated FinOps platform for Amazon vendors. So far, it has saved Amazon vendors over $7M in profit leakage. In addition to automatically finding and solving complex accounting errors, DimeTyd fundamentally frees up Amazon vendor teams to have more space and time to focus on their business, repurpose saved resources, and hone in on product innovations.

Ok. Let’s jump to the core of our discussion. You are a seasoned Amazon expert. Can you share with our readers five, nonintuitive, insider tips, in order to be as successful as possible on Amazon? Please share a story or example for each.

Sure, I’m more than happy to give my feedback and insider tips. First and foremost, I’d remind each Amazon vendor that this is your journey, your product brought to the online market, it’s your path to creating scale. At the end of the day, follow your heart and do what you feel is best.

1. Know your product to the point of immaculate perfection:
   You need to be an absolute expert on your items or people will detect that you might not know important details and ultimately pass on a purchase.
2. Stand out in a crowd:
   Online shoppers are always asking themselves, why should I purchase from this vendor? It’s important to create your own identity, your own brand, and a unique message that gives you leverage.
3. Be flexible:
   It’s important to remember that the only constant in life — as well as the online business world — is continual change. An Amazon vendor needs to be able to adapt to circumstances, market changes, and adjust as new trends emerge.
4. Automation is key:
   Being an Amazon vendor means taking on time, learning new processes, and a commitment to your business. But there are several tools available to streamline operations, mainly the use of an API to automate your listings, letting technology do the work, and saving you time and money.
5. Have a positive mindset:
   A positive outlook can make a huge difference in life, and when it comes to being an Amazon vendor. Any person can start a business — a personal drive, motivation, and belief in yourself and your product, helps lay the foundation for future success.

Amazon sellers have a reputation for being great guerilla marketers. Do you use any clever and innovative marketing strategies that you think large legacy companies should consider adopting?

Speed, time efficiency, and responding to your customers are important and should always be top-of-mind. Time and again, large companies–with all needed operations in place and anticipating success–simply fail to respond to the voice of the customer, fail to deliver, and suffer as a result.

Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

I would create an online community to help democratize new development and product commercialization. The process is currently lengthy, difficult to maneuver through, and often reserved for a select few. It really is time to change that, remove structural barriers, and provide access to those wishing to participate.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

If you do your homework every day, you never have to worry about the exam.

Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them :-)

Mike Rowe. His voice and stature in recognizing all the jobs that keep America working are indispensable.

Thank you so much for these great insights. This was very enlightening!