Lisa Harrington is the founding father of Purrfect Portal.Courtesy of Lisa Harrington
Lisa Harrington’s e-commerce profession started on eBay. She bought no matter she might discover in her closet.
In 2012, she used her eBay earnings to launch her first product on Amazon: canine harnesses.
Her second product, inside cat doorways, went on to develop into a bestseller, bringing in seven figures.
Lisa Harrington felt unfulfilled together with her company life and in want of a aspect mission.
“I actually did not like my job. It wasn’t going wherever. So, I ended up, for enjoyable, simply promoting stuff on eBay from my closet — previous purses, sneakers, something I might get my arms on,” she advised Enterprise Insider.
Because the objects in her closet dwindled, she figured the subsequent logical step can be creating her personal product to promote on-line.
“I simply fell into this e-commerce analysis gap — this entire world of with the ability to analyze provide and demand,” she mentioned. “Finally, I discovered a canine area of interest.”
She determined to promote canine harnesses, discovered a producer by way of Alibaba, and ordered about $5,000 price of stock utilizing her eBay earnings. The product arrived at her doorstep, and “it took me three hours to get them upstairs as a result of it was carton after carton after carton,” she mentioned.
Harrington listed and bought most of her preliminary stock on eBay.
This was in 2012, when promoting on Amazon was nonetheless uncharted territory. However when she found the comparatively new platform and created an inventory, “they bought out inside 24 hours,” she mentioned. “And so I did the maths: If I truly saved this in inventory, how a lot would I do a 12 months in income? And it was simply 1,000,000 {dollars}.”
Her on the spot success on Amazon doubtless had extra to do with timing than her product.
“In 2013, 2014, there weren’t many choices on the market, so it was straightforward,” she mentioned. “Yearly will get tougher.”
For years, Harrington bought canine harnesses whereas working her 9-to-5. She ran a lean operation from her residence in Arlington, Massachusetts, utilizing the web as a enterprise coach: “Google was my finest pal. I taught myself learn how to import, learn how to discover a manufacturing unit, learn how to wire cost, learn how to do advertising, learn how to discover a bookkeeper, learn how to learn a revenue and loss assertion.”
By 2016, her e-commerce revenue matched her wage, and she or he left the unsatisfying job that inspired her to start out a aspect mission within the first place.
Having gained an additional eight hours a day, she launched her second model, Purrfect Portal, to fill a niche within the pet house.
Harrington has designed and patented a number of inside cat doorways.Courtesy of Lisa Harrington
“I’m a cat girl — I’ve at all times been a cat girl — and I actually needed an inside cat door,” mentioned Harrington. “After I went on-line, there was just one choice.”
And it wasn’t nice, she added: “It was the quintessential, ‘I can do that higher.’ I understand how to do that. I’ve discovered a manufacturing unit in China. I’ve discovered learn how to deliver cargo from one a part of the world to a different.”
Nonetheless, designing a cat door can be a totally totally different and extra advanced mission than producing canine harnesses. A mentor she discovered by way of the enterprise program SCORE linked her with engineers and a producer who would assist create the plastic product.
Her cat doorways had been worthwhile however not a right away smash hit.
“It was the smaller of my two companies, and it was simply chugging alongside and rising 12 months by 12 months,” mentioned Harrington, who began to note a recurring buyer remark: Folks had been determined for a closable door, slightly than a cat door with flaps.
The answer to her buyer’s woes was born out of a contented hour with pals.
“Somebody mentioned, ‘What a couple of miniature door? A bit human door with a little bit doorknob and a little bit window and a little bit door knocker,'” recalled Harrington. “And everybody simply misplaced their minds, even the non-cat folks. And in my intestine, I knew folks would find it irresistible.”
It took two years to deliver the pleased hour imaginative and prescient to life, however when it launched in 2020, “folks simply misplaced their minds,” she mentioned. “It catapulted to the highest of the bestseller listing fairly rapidly. We had been promoting 100 items a day.”
In 2025, “we are the No. 1 promoting cat door on Amazon, and we’ve got superior patent safety on the invention,” she added. BI confirmed her seven-figure income by reviewing her Amazon gross sales dashboard.
Earning money on Amazon in 2025 is tougher than it is ever been, mentioned Harrington, who supplied three items of recommendation to potential sellers.
First, for those who do not discover a dependable producer, you may fail earlier than you even listing your product.
“They’ll make or break your corporation by way of actually producing one thing that is top quality, after which additionally the belief round wiring cash to the opposite aspect of the world,” mentioned Harrington.
After almost a decade of working with the identical manufacturing unit, she’s making a significant adjustment in response to the unpredictable tariffs. By October, “80% of our catalog goes to be made within the USA, which was not on my BINGO card,” she mentioned.
The swap is not to chop prices. The truth is, producing within the States will price her extra. However she mentioned the peace of thoughts is price it: “I’ve actually simply had so many sleepless nights over the tariffs. I have been doing this for 10 years. I’ve by no means been in a situation the place my price of products might double in a single day or triple in a single day, and I simply could not deal with that stress anymore.”
Harrington and her crew of three staff work remotely.Courtesy of Lisa Harrington
The following ingredient within the success recipe is your community. You wish to encompass your self with individuals who have already achieved what you are aiming to do.
“I can hint so many aha moments and massive profitable moments in my enterprise to conversations with sure people who find themselves extra skilled or additional down the highway than I’m,” mentioned Harrington, who’s a member of an elite group of seven-figure Amazon sellers known as Million Greenback Sellers.
A significant perk of the membership is entry to occasions, the place Harrington can join with friends in individual.
“You find yourself leaving with pages of notes and to-dos,” she mentioned. “There’s at all times one dialog — it might be 5 minutes or an hourlong — however there’s at all times some dialog you’ve gotten with somebody randomly that simply fully transforms what you are going to work on while you get residence.”
Lastly, to become profitable on Amazon in 2025, you might want to provide a superb and distinctive product.
“In some circumstances, you are competing with manufacturers which can be the manufacturing unit or have a decrease price of products, so it is actually laborious as an American model to compete that manner,” she mentioned. “I believe to essentially succeed on Amazon as we speak, you might want to have a moat — and the moat is both one thing that’s sourced in the US, one thing that may be very tough to make, or mental property like a utility patent.”
As soon as you choose your product, “make it as superb as you presumably can, set a low value, spend on advertisements, and provides it time.”
