S16 E5: What $100M E-Commerce Brands Know That The Others Don’t

Summary

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Limited Supply Podcast: S16 E5 – What $100M E-Commerce Brands Know That The Others Don’t

Date: April 29, 2026
Host: Nik Sharma
Guests: John Coyle, Bart (Dad Gang)

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Episode Overview

This episode of Limited Supply explores the real secrets behind DTC and e-commerce brands that rapidly scale past $100 million—and why others stall. Nik Sharma brings his signature candor, along with guests John Coyle and Bart (of Dad Gang), to dig into topics ranging from the myths of PR-driven growth, to AI's real impact on execution, to tactical advice for startups. The panel also tackles actionable audience questions and unpacks the roles of ego, timing, team talent, and focus. No spin, just hard truths and spicy stories from operators who've been there.

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Key Themes & Insights

1. What Sets $100M Brands Apart?

• Not Just Product, But Brand

  • Successful brands aren't just selling products—they create true brands with unique visual identities, tone, and personality.
  • “They really stood out from not just being like a product business but like a true brand brand, like a really strong brand. It had a visual identity, a tone of voice, a personality.” – Nik (02:28)

• Relentless Product Quality & Innovation

  • Many stall at $20–$60M because the product just isn’t good enough to break through further. Innovation and relentless improvement are non-negotiable.

• Superior Execution

  • Winning teams move faster, test more, and cut exponentially more creative than those who stall.
  • “They’re not cutting one ad… They’re using AI to cut 128 ads a week and figure out which one’s going to get to statistical significance.” – Nik (03:39)

• First-Mover Advantage & Timing

  • Some “overnight” successes are just first to market, taking opportunities that no longer exist.
  • “A lot of times it’s right time, right place, to be honest...Like, they happened to be there and that opportunity is no longer available.” – Nik (02:04)

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2. The “Fast Follower” Trap

• Fast followers often skip foundational steps like product quality or deep brand-building, relying on surface-level marketing or price promos—and get capped in growth.

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3. Small, High-Quality, Multifaceted Teams

• $100M+ brands start with a top-tier but small group. They typically don’t have siloed roles or big agencies—nimble, high-caliber generalists do it all.
• “A lot of these brands...insanely nimble teams and multifaceted generalists...they’re not hiring a Facebook person and a SMS person...” – Nik (04:44)
• Prior operators' networks are a huge edge: "Second-time founders can just text the people they need." (09:25)

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4. Early-Stage Playbook—Learning From 8Sleep and Others

• Attack the middle of the funnel early ("the 8Sleep wall of love”—flooding the web with UGC, reviews, unboxing, and third-party coverage).
• Pair strict performance marketing discipline with unique, high-credibility partnerships (e.g., athletes, not generic doctors).
• Product innovation is continuous—never just ride one SKU.

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5. The Non-Linearity and Messiness of Scale

• Virtually no $100M DTC brand was a first attempt by rookie founders. Experience shortcuts speed and removes learning pain.
• “You don’t speedrun to $100M on your first brand. You’re going to stumble, get into a cash crisis…It’s the equivalent of 10,000 hours in business.” – John (10:00)

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6. The Role of Network & Access

• High-level collaboration (athletes, influencers) opens exponential partnership doors—not everything is calculated ROI.
• Long tail, indirect benefits are often far more lucrative than straightforward sponsorships.
• “Sometimes it’s just the cosign, because that cosign gets you five other things in the future.” – Nik (14:12)

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7. Avoiding “Shiny Object Syndrome”: Focus > Everything

• Top founders and teams say no to 90% of opportunities and tools that cross their path.
• Most breakthroughs happen by mastering the basics and ignoring unproven platforms/tools, not endless experimentation.
• “You gotta get good at saying no way more.” – Bart (50:08)
• Use group chats and private networks to “filter the noise,” not public hype or newsletters (even if they’re from Nik!)

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8. AI & Automation – Reality Over Hype

• The best teams already leverage AI to drastically increase creative volume/testing/discovery.
• BUT having context and first-hand knowledge is irreplaceable; AI is a tool for experienced operators, not a shortcut for newbies.
• Constraining AI exploration to specific quarterly goals or business focus areas is best practice (“confine it to your focus”).
• “You need to play with tools to see how feeding context changes everything.” – Nik (45:23)

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9. Tactical Frameworks for Operators

• For Emerging Brands:

  • Copy successful ad structures (FB Ads Library), execute extremely high volumes of creative tests, and avoid over-analyzing new channels before nailing the basics.
  • Don’t wait for perfection—run advertorials, “listicle” landers, and heavy education for high-AOV products.

• On Testing New Marketing Channels:

  • Prioritize Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok, and influencer/YouTube. Other channels are distractions until these are exhausted/scaled.

• Quarterly Discipline:

  • Each quarter, pick one marketing pillar (e.g., retention, acquisition, site) and max it out before moving to the next. Swapping priorities mid-quarter is death by distraction.

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Memorable Quotes & Highlights

• On Fast Growth:

  • “You’re not working on the business if all you’re doing is running projections. You’re just trying to make yourself feel good.” – John (74:10)

• On AI Hype:

  • “People are about to get punched in the face so hard…if you’re just outsourcing the context and not retaining it, you’re cooked.” – Nik (10:24)

• Scaling Up vs. Staying Sane:

  • "You can become king of the world or just get rich with time freedom. Most people want the latter, not the grind of a $100M+ brand.” – John (79:00)

• On Blinders and Focus:

  • “So blinders on. Like you have to have blinders on even when you’re scaling. You have to be very good at filtering through what you're doing and what you're not doing. That’s really most of the game.” – Nik (68:16)

• On Non-Glamour Business Models:

  • “There’s a lot of happiness in boring businesses. The guys making $2M selling car wash water filters, nobody’s coming for them.” – Bart (77:00)

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Actionable Advice by Segment

[01:56] – What Separates $100M Brands?

• Brand and product quality, plus timing and first-mover advantages, are critical.

[06:01] – What Did 8Sleep Do Differently?

• Heavy “middle funnel” marketing: reviews, unboxing, comparisons everywhere.
• Leveraged partnerships with credible, aspirational athletes, not just doctors or “influencers.”
• Never stopped product iteration.

[13:30] – Partnerships & ROI: How to Justify Big Swings?

• Don’t expect direct ROI from every brand play—sometimes, the true value is access, credibility, and the “cosign” effect.

[19:53] – How to Evaluate Big-Budget, Risky Sponsorships?

• Most DTC brands are better served by small, high-touch opportunities and community-building than headline-grabbing sponsorships.

[27:17] – Stuck After Early Momentum? The Real Reason is Usually Product and Team Talent.

• Upgrade product SKUs and innovate, or risk capping out forever. Larger-scale brand teams either grow talent in stages or supplement with top agencies.

[30:54] – FOCUS: The Only Cure for Shiny Object Syndrome

• Organize the year into quarterly marketing priorities (e.g., “Retention Q2”) and only try new tools/tactics in that theme.
  • If a team member is distracted: “That’s next quarter’s problem…save it for planning.”

[37:56] – Where Do $100M Brands Actually Spend?

• 90%+: Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok, influencer/UGC. Ignore Pinterest, Snapchat, etc., until core platforms maxed out.

[45:23] – AI Best Practice: Context Matters

• Use tools like Claude and Figma AI for volume, but keep all brand memory and creative context centralized for portability.

[56:07] – $50K to Launch a Brand in 2026: Operator Playbook

• Spend $5–10K on brand/identity, $25–30K inventory (negotiate low MOQs), the rest on content/ad testing (TikTok unless already world-class at Meta).
• “Test before you over-order. Don’t over-buy for a brand without demand."

[68:06] – "Blinders On" and the Truth About Endgame

• Most Ecom founders never talk about whether they really want the life at $100M+ (lots don’t).
• “What you probably want is to make a lot of money, have no investors, no board, and time.” – John (76:07)

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Audience Q&A (Selected)

• Q: Why do $100M brands scale but others stall?
  • Team quality, continued product innovation, discipline in execution and focus.
• Q: How do you decide what not to do?
  • Organized quarterly focus, robust peer group chats, and a willingness to say “no” to almost everything.
• Q: What tool stack/AI to explore NOW?
  • Figma AI, Perplexity, Claude, Journey AI, Kive, Cursor, Replit—BUT set a clear objective first, don’t just “push buttons.”
• Q: How would you deploy $50K to start a brand?
  • Identity and MVP site: $5–10K; Test MOQ Inventory: ~$30K; Ads/content: $10K+, choose platform based on target customer and in-house skill.

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Notable Tools and Tactics Mentioned

• AI/Tech: Claude (for copy & workflows), Figma AI (instant site/creative design), Kive (photo AI for e-comm), Replo & Replit (landing page/creative distribution), Perplexity (research).
• Marketing: Facebook Ads Library (for competitive research and creative copying), whitelisted UGC/ad creative, AI-powered mass creative testing.

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The Final Takeaways

• $100M+ brands win on execution, relentless creative and channel testing, continuous innovation, and unwavering focus.
• Outsized outcomes come from doing the basics at world-class level, not from hopping between every new tool or channel.
• "Blinders On": Ignore flashy trends, focus on your business, and say no to almost everything.
• Most founders should ask themselves if they really want the $100M “life”—for many, a boring but profitable business is the dream.

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Quick Reference Timestamps

• [02:28] – Brand vs product businesses
• [03:39] – AI-powered creative velocity
• [09:25] – Second-time founder advantage
• [14:12] – Partnership ROI and brand plays
• [22:32] – Advertorials & education as conversion drivers
• [30:54] – Avoiding shiny object syndrome
• [37:56] – The five core ad channels to focus
• [45:23] – AI best practice: context & memory
• [56:07] – How to spend $50K to start a brand
• [68:06] – Blinders and self-awareness at scale
• [76:07] – You probably don’t want the $100M+ operator life

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Where to Find the Hosts

• Nik Sharma: Twitter @mrsharma, nick.co
• John Coyle: @johncoyle
• Bart (Dad Gang): @dadgang

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For DTC founders, operators, and marketers, this episode offers raw, real-world perspective on building brands for the long haul. Everything you need to prioritize—cut through the noise and scale smarter—is covered here.

Transcript

[Nick Sharma]

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[John Coyle]

Okay. So the main thing I get asked from brands right now is like, it's kind of some form of the question, what are they doing? Does that make sense? The brands that we all know, you know, the true classic tees, the hint waters, the jolies, the. Well, a lot of the brands that you have been involved with, like, what are they doing that I'm not doing? Oh, it's overnight a big one that I'm getting asked a lot about right now. And some of these, I know you, Nick, have some insight into, some of us, some of them we have some insight into. But I think that's sort of the, like, theme of this episode is just, what are the big brands really doing that? Like, what's the differentiators that the big brands are really doing that? Like those ones that get to 100 million really fast?

[Nick Sharma]

I mean, I personally think the. Well, there's a couple things, like I've, I've thought a lot about, like, what are these brands doing differently or like what made a brand succeed? A lot of times it's the right time, right place, to be honest. Like, they were just first to market. They were first to canvas the market. And so, you know, I was even thinking, like on my walk here, I was passing a bodega and the bodega had a big window sticker of turkey, cold cuts and at the bottom third has the boar's head logo. Like no one else is getting that real estate again. You know, they were just right, right place, they happen to be there and like that opportunity is no longer available. Some, some of the stuff that some of the brands you named I think do that well. But I think the other thing that they did really well compared to other brands that are still like competing in their category but not able to get past a certain point or kind of falling flat at a certain point is a couple things. One is like they really stood out from not just being like a product business but like a true brand brand, like a really strong brand. It had a visual identity, a tone of voice, a personality, et cetera. Right. And then I think the other thing that they did better than their competitors was a lot of times these fast follow competitors, they skip out on product innovation or product quality and it comes through like I've worked with brands where they get to you know, 20 million online or 40 million online or you know, 60 million like across all channels. They just can't grow because their product is not good enough to let it grow past a certain point. So I mean I think it comes down to like product and also just product innovation and then brand and then you know, underneath that you kind of have everything else. Whether it's like new products being released, whether it's new formats of similar products, whether it's you know, like, you know, I just lost a thought in my head but basically like some level of, oh, some level of innovation but some level of brand maintenance. Right? Like you're not always running 20% off promos every month to juice numbers. You're like really building this brand strategically from the get go. And so like those to me are like kind of the highest of level thoughts into what makes the difference between the brands. But then I think a lot of it like that's the high level thinking. The like in the dirt is just, I just think these brands that you just named are way better at execution than the other brands that you know, hit a certain point. Like their people are way smarter, they're way faster. You know, they're not cutting one ad, they're not like working with an agency to cut four ads a week and then get two variations. They're using AI right now to cut 128 ads a week and figure out which one's going to get to, you know, statistical significance.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah, I think, and honestly I think they start out playing a different game a lot. They totally do the ones that we're talking about.

[Nick Sharma]

That's a different Mr.

[John Coyle]

Beast.

[Nick Sharma]

Well, Lemmy is Kardashian, but still kind of similar example of like small team. Right. Like a lot of these brands we're naming right now, insanely nimble teams and multifaceted generalists are doing things internally. They're not hiring a Facebook person and a SMS person and a. You know what I mean?

[John Coyle]

Yes. What I mean when I say they start out playing a different game is that they're not starting from zero. Like when you bootstrap an E commerce. They're not starting like Bart started. You know what I mean? They're not like, I'm gonna sell some hats in my garage. They're like probably raising a bit of money and hiring like a really high level team right off of the bat, like you're saying. And it's a small team, but like really good people. So the way that we help our kind of businesses that listen to us, business owners that listen to us, is we actually take their questions.

[Nick Sharma]

Sweet.

[John Coyle]

So I'm just going to get right into one. It says I have a brand similar to eight Sleep, but in the home office category. So I'm guessing they're doing some sort of tech innovation around chairs or something. We're running ads, we're testing creatives. We've been optimizing the funnel and the price points. It seems like brands like eight Sleep just explode where we don't. It doesn't feel like we're exploding in that same way. What were the early days 8 sleep like? And you know, what could I do better? Yeah. Without knowing exactly what he's doing. I guess.

[Nick Sharma]

I mean, I, I didn't work on 8 sleep for a long time, but I met their team like Alex and Mateo in 2017. Yeah. And have kind of just known them since then and did a little bit of work along the way. But in my eyes, what eight Sleep did that, the other. That like a lot of other companies don't think about. One is like they attacked the middle of the funnel like nobody's business. Like if you go search8Sleep on Reddit, on YouTube, on TikTok, on Pinterest, Google, anywhere, it's populated with like the best reviews, the unboxings, the comparison videos, like they just fill the eighth, the middle funnel. And they did that really early on when they realized that for their price point people were going to YouTube to look at reviews of the product. Right. And so that like eight Sleep wall of love, if you've seen that Link that was a thing that they started in 17 or 18 and just keep adding to every day. And then the middle of funnel, kind of like wherever you search there's good ratings, good reviews and. And then the other thing that they did well is they were very strict about their performance marketing numbers. But they also. Alex, who's the other, who's the, you know, one of the co founders, she's like a brand marketer. So she did a really good job positioning the technology and the innovation and the design system and even their partnerships. They did the collaborations. Like they don't partner with like a lame sleep doctor. They go partner with Taylor Fritz and you know, like professional athletes to show that like this is, this is the impact it delivers. So from a brand standpoint, they built the brand really well. Whereas almost every other player in the betting space or even furniture space tends to play more on like function and then using that as their performance marketing.

[John Coyle]

One thing that. Yeah, I also think to your point earlier about timing, I would say like Purple and who else really fast follows of the mattresses? No, like, I would say like Purple and one other brand that I can't think of off the top of my head really sort of like broke the dam open on bed in a box. You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

Casper, Lisa.

[Bart]

Casper.

[John Coyle]

Yes. Purple and Casper really broke the dam open on bed in a Box. Like nobody ever thought to order a bed online until you could buy one from Purple or Casper. Right. And I, in my view, I don't know if I have the timeline right here, but in my view, I think eight Sleep came on the tail of that. So it's like we don't have to people convince people to buy a bed online anymore. But to your point, it's like, but they innovated on the bed in the box, right?

[Nick Sharma]

Like totally.

[John Coyle]

Now we're going to do that. Like, it's hard to do a bed in the box. Like their innovation was that they took a whole mattress and they stuck it into a box and they ship it to you. Now we're going to do a really good one.

[Nick Sharma]

Yep.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

And the guys who made a shitload of money are right in between where they were like, oh wait, we don't even have to own the inventory. We'll just drop ship these folded mattresses after we get the money and collect it from the customer.

[John Coyle]

They made a shitload of personal money.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

EX8 Sleep made a lot of enterprise value.

[Nick Sharma]

For sure.

[John Coyle]

For sure.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Eight Sleep. Well, what's also cool about eight Sleep. And also admirable is they like it wasn't just. It wasn't working out the gate. Like they had a real couple years of finding product market fit but then once they found it, it completely took off.

[John Coyle]

I was gonna say, did you know them pretty well? Were they first time operators or were they on the second row?

[Nick Sharma]

I think they'd sold.

[John Coyle]

I bet that's gonna be a common thread across all these.

[Bart]

For sure.

[John Coyle]

For sure. They're not first time players.

[Nick Sharma]

I remember too when there's another founder that I was talking to and he was just like, yeah, the second time game is so easy. Like you just go, you open imessage and you text the people you need and you've already worked with these people, you've already done deals with these people. You've brought them stuff, they brought you stuff. Like you just basically your work happens on text when you're a second time founder.

[John Coyle]

We were talking about Breeze.

[Bart]

That's all we do is 24.7text thread.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah, we were talking about Breeze earlier and kind of a. Making the point. I was sort of making the point that you don't play the game of speedrunning to $100 million on your first brand.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Like you've got to be like, you are going to stumble. You're going to get into a cash crisis along the way. Like you got to understand all that stuff.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? And which is, which is such a

[Nick Sharma]

good point and such an underrated. Because that takes time and it takes like, you know, it's the equivalent of 10,000 hours in business.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Like now with how fast AI moves, people are just trying to fast forward that.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And they're trying to fast forward the. You know how you put together a board deck presentation, an investor presentation. Because they're just asking chat. Right. And like people are about to get punched in the face so hard. So hard.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, all the.

[Bart]

Yeah. I was watching a cloud thing this morning around like this. This guy just whipped up a full on like pitch deck. I don't know, it looked like seven seconds with branded imagery. Everything just all in one.

[John Coyle]

I will say for our. The checkouts, like sales decks for our sponsorships, for a podcast, like I just prompt gamma and it does pretty well.

[Bart]

No, you put personal sweat and tears.

[Nick Sharma]

But the other thing.

[John Coyle]

And if any of our sponsors are listening to this, I actually put 20 hours into that, my own time using only my left hand.

[Nick Sharma]

You're efficient with your time.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

No, but the difference in what you're doing and What I'm saying is you've already put the work in to know how to pitch a sponsorship deal. What should go into it, the research behind it. Right?

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

If you're just outsourcing the entire context part and not retaining that while using the tool to fast forward, yeah, you're cooked.

[John Coyle]

So I mean kind of back to this person, he's saying, hey, have like eight sleep of office. I'm going to guess, I'm just going to go out on a limb here and guess it's a product person. Like this is maybe a product he made, invented he or she made or invented or like they haven't ever, they haven't been doing E commerce for like if we talking about eight sleep breeze, I don't know who else we've brought up here but like even purple, some of those that are really category relevant to this person, it's like yeah, they weren't like they didn't make the product. The people who ran that thing up to 100 million that quickly for sure they didn't make the product. They'd just been growing E commerce brands for like a super long time. That was their skill set. Right. So that's not incredibly actionable for this person, you know. So like to, to kind of hammer on something a little bit more actionable. I don't know what do you think that is, either of you? Bart. Bart. You've been kind of quiet over there. Bart is a bit of a quiet dude.

[Bart]

No, I, I, he just looks good in the corner.

[John Coyle]

I'm not great podcasting John do all the talking.

[Bart]

No, I would agree with the, especially on the eight sleep side. Like the connection between a popular figure and why that product is important. I remember like J.J. y and like some big NFL names being like, you know, I get beat up on the football field every day. Sleep is super important. And this is why I choose eight sleep. And it wasn't like this is the product. I'm this guy. It was just naturally integrated into their everyday life. So when I thought of because my in laws actually came up in the mattress game like selling mattresses their real life. And so I saw the shift happen from like going to Vegas trade shows every single year multiple times a year to like wow, we're, we're going to trade shows, we're meeting with reps to like you're going to eatsleep.com and it's showing up at your house. Yeah, so I saw that explosion happen. I saw the like stress amongst the industry and then I would see that eight Sleep was the one that was kind of like, oh, those are the ones for the athletes, those are the ones for the, like you want to aspire to be like the healthiest sleeper or whatever. And so that would connect pretty well with consumers.

[John Coyle]

Can I ask this, maybe you have insight on this? How did. Because you said they were pretty strict about the performance of marketing numbers and given, you know, we're talking about a brand that none of us admittedly have like a ton, ton of insight on them, but we're, we're sort of generalizing across these types of brands. Usually you're right, they are strict on their performance marketing numbers. In your observation, how do they think about stuff like that, like a partnership with J.J. watt. That is a bit more of a brand play and it's a bit more of a moonshot, a bit more of a big swing. Like the performance marketing numbers on that usually aren't going to bear out super. Well, yeah, you know, but, but like sometimes you say well this, this budget is earmarked for that. How did they, how did they think about that? Would you say? Because that could be actionable for this person?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, I don't know that this is exact but just from my convos, my guess is like, well I know for a fact that they don't always look like this is a separate budget. This is not their performance budget. Yeah. This is where they'll do a partnership and sometimes it's access right behind the scenes access. You get somet. Sometimes it's the connection to the person that you're working with. Sometimes it's just the cosign of the person because that cosign gets you five other things in the future. I know for like they did a. I remember it was the F1 stuff and. Or it might have been the US Open stuff, one of those two. And like that was the response. It was like, well this, you know, this has like a good brand building effect and that's something that you have to slowly funnel resources to over time. But this thing also just enabled three other things so it actually paid itself back like immediately. Not directly, but from the three other things that came from. Yeah. And I've heard from other people, like

[John Coyle]

can you give like an accident like a specific example of what you mean by like.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

Doing this branding play opened up doors of access that we.

[Nick Sharma]

Oh yeah, for sure. So like this, this happens a lot in anytime you see like, like IBM sponsoring MSG's network showing of the Knicks game.

[John Coyle]

Yes.

[Nick Sharma]

You know, that's like IBM is just paying For a suite in out of their different budget.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And those ads are just kind of bs but like they're using that to get access e themselves. They're creating their own access in other places. It might be like a sponsorship towards something to get access into a room. You're in the green room or you're in the Paddock Club at F1. Right. It gets you in that room. It gets you to a bunch of other people in the room.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And to be clear, the reason that IBM would want a suite MSG is to invite people who are potential clients.

[Nick Sharma]

Exactly.

[John Coyle]

To games in the suite. As someone who gets invited to that being brand side, those are the things that I go to. I get invited to a dinner. I'm like, you kind of invite into a basketball game suite.

[Nick Sharma]

I'm like, it depends where the suite is. I've been at a basketball game suite. It's up in the nosebleeds.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

What's the point of that?

[Bart]

I agree though, like with kind of the long tail plays of doing stuff with athletes or doing things that don't have, you know, instant performance marketing roi. Like I mean we do it all the time.

[John Coyle]

You guys do it.

[Bart]

We work with athletes and celebrities and singers and all these people.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[Bart]

The intent going into it is never. Cause we want to be a very human brand. So like we never go into it being like, okay, if we're going to work with this guy and we're paying him this, it better be this return. It's like, no. Do you know how much working with like this one person can open up for you down the road and maybe work with other people on that team?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. In the creator and athlete world, it's like the biggest thing because when you work with one, it gives everybody else social capital that oh, these guys are legit enough to work with that person. Then why wouldn't. Why wouldn't I work with them?

[Bart]

Just a real life. I was at Strideline software stocks for six years and we worked with Marshawn one time and Marshawn is still the face of the brand and left like 2019. And so like any. And it's totally cool. Like he, he's good with doing that. But like that one thing led to so many other things. Now they have an NFL licensing partnership. Like. Yeah, it's kind of like your. You never know budget almost.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Though that's the other piece of it is like you, you can't predict what's about to come from doing these things. Like these non trackable small stuff. Yeah.

[Bart]

You don't have to go pay a bunch of money to go work with an athlete. Like, you could go do the small thing that's at your. And I'm talking to like people just building. Like, you could go work with the guy that has a high school basketball team and. But then all of a sudden like somebody else from that program wants to talk to you about this. Like, you never know. Budget.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. How do you budget for it? Like, do you got. Are you guys like just vibes you probably. That's how you guys do everything? Yeah, yeah. As long as the whole dad gang,

[Nick Sharma]

the hats

[John Coyle]

on five.

[Bart]

Some opportunities are just like. Some opportunities are just like, are you seriously not going to do this? And it makes sense.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Someone somewhere in the brand has a QuickBooks account, I assume. Yeah.

[Bart]

Or accountant.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. But like, I mean, do you look at it in terms of like, I'll give you. Like, tell me. I'm trying to ask the question of bet sizing. How much risk do you take? Like, okay, here's a thing. It seems like a great opportunity. It costs a million dollars, you know, but like it's pretty. But like a million dollars is a stretch for us. Like how much do you stretch? Can you quantify that at all or do you just go off vibes?

[Bart]

No, it's not all. It's. It's definitely like gauging impact of what will happen a little bit. But I haven't been faced with a million dollar opportunity.

[John Coyle]

But like, have you been faced with an opportunity that felt like it's a good opportunity but it's a stretch for financially for us?

[Bart]

Not quite.

[John Coyle]

Okay.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Well then you don't. You haven't had to quantify it yet then, I guess. Yeah, that's not helpful, Bart.

[Bart]

No, sorry.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. I don't know. Have you.

[Nick Sharma]

Well, yeah. How do you. It happens a lot at like these big events that want sponsors. Right. Like they want like the, the tough mudder thing or like a high rocks thing or whatever it might be. Right?

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And they usually like have some outrageous price because they're licensing their name effectively. And you know, it depends. Like there's some brands who do it. They're usually brands that just have like retail focused or local retail selling budgets to deploy. In my experience, almost anytime like a direct to consumer brand has come across opportunities like this, you start to look at, well, like the impression count is like 2,000 people and like, oh, you're 40,000 followers that get 200 likes, man. Not really relevant.

[John Coyle]

Right.

[Nick Sharma]

So those usually fizzle out. I'd say most DTC brands don't do it. Usually it's food and Bev brands that'll donate product in exchange for something for free.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. But yeah, yeah, here's the framework I use and I don't know if it's right or wrong. And this is, you know, to kind of move on to our next question. This person who's like wait, we gotta

[Nick Sharma]

finish answering this guy down. Yeah.

[John Coyle]

He says, you know, he's at 2 million. I mean his question is what do they do that?

[Nick Sharma]

It's different, you know, landing pages, advertorials, whitelisting, try some offers. Like, like even if you. Yeah, all that.

[John Coyle]

If you're the eight sleep of office, then you need to educate people on that.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, you basically just need like top and bottom. Top. Like how are you telling people what you're doing and showing them how it's different and why it could benefit them. And bottom is just Landers emails, sms, you know, Listicles running ads, testing creative.

[John Coyle]

He said that he's doing. Here's the thing, if you're running, most

[Nick Sharma]

people say that and they run four static ads to the homepage.

[John Coyle]

And let me be clear. Yeah, 2 million. I don't know, look, I don't know what the AOVA is and stuff like that, but at $2 million a year you should be testing like kind of,

[Nick Sharma]

you know, it's probably like 25 unique

[John Coyle]

ad concepts a week.

[Nick Sharma]

Facebook.com ads library.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And you can type any company in the world and see their Facebook ads. Yeah, Copy it. Like if you're starting out, go copy it.

[John Coyle]

Well, yeah, I think specifically for him, I think what happens in this like one to two million dollars zone is they've heard some stuff about how to run ads and they got a little traction. You know, they watched some stuff on YouTub. They've got like a system but the system is like, oh, I cut what doesn't have as good a CPA and I keep what does have as good a cpa. You, if you are the eight sleep of office, you also have to think about what feeds the funnel because most likely your price point is not like a one click buy.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Like most likely you're a multiple touch point. I'm guessing it's a higher AI hundred percent.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

So you probably need to look at some of your creatives that you might be cutting because they don't have as good of a CPA and say, well, what's the new impression ratio? What's the new visitor percentage? And like, like how many, what's a cost per new visitor on this. Are we getting like new eyeballs and new traffic with this and is this more of an educational. And you need to probably change the target for that and that I would actually say tactically that is one thing large like these brands that like hyper scale very fast. They get that inherently they hire people

[Nick Sharma]

they think like in eight week conversion cycles.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And they. And because they hire people who have like done it a bunch of times.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

That to our point, that is one way that manifest. Manifest is that those creatives get different keep cut scale metrics than our bottom of funnel creatives do. Yeah. Advertorials is another really good way to educate which I mean. Yeah. Good formats for advertorials. I mean you have a bunch, right?

[Nick Sharma]

Oh yeah, tons.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Five reasons I just made a site last night write Nick Co. And you can write any advertorial. Yeah, basically. But you can write any advertorial like expert level.

[John Coyle]

From there we go write Nik Co. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And plug. Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Do you like real, like real average.

[Nick Sharma]

There's no charge.

[John Coyle]

Do you like real avatar? Is it a lead magnet? Are you collecting?

[Nick Sharma]

No, there's, there's nothing going on. I just, I finished it at 4:30 in the morning. Yeah. Somebody. Two brands yesterday, by the time this

[John Coyle]

episode airs that might, you might have to give him your email and get him his newsletter to get on that. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Yesterday two brands asked me to help them with advertorials and they sent me drafts and I was like this is horrible. But instead of rewriting it I was like let me just take. Let me create a little knowledge base of all the things I know about ad advertorials over the last 10 years. Put it in and then build an app to write them.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Tell me, do you like.

[Bart]

What's the stat? Is that Claude?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

You use cloud code for it?

[Nick Sharma]

Yep. Open claw.

[John Coyle]

Nice dude. Just. I mean I crash course like so. Okay. You've written a ton on advertorials obviously. If this person's like yeah, I should do advertorials. Go find everything that Nick has written, posted, you know all the, all the stuff that material I've done on advertorials. What I'll say as a crash course is two categories here. One category is something that actually looks like an article and has like a very hooky headline. Other category is like what I'd call a branded advertorial. 5 reasons why your back hurts when you. When you're at your desk all day. Right. And that's going to be very like brand. It's almost going to be like a souped up product page.

[Bart]

Right.

[John Coyle]

And most people in e commerce have seen this. If you haven't, you can find it.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Who's somebody who does those?

[Nick Sharma]

Well, if you just Google like five reasons why Listicle, you're gonna find one.

[John Coyle]

Yes, you're gonna find one.

[Bart]

Or just ask Chat to write you the five best reasons.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Sleep does them. If you subscribe to Replo's. I mean Replo's not even a sponsor of our podcast, but if you subscribe to Replo's newsletter, they send like templates like this out all the time.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

So Replo is cheap. They're not sponsored by our newsletter, but I use them.

[Bart]

No, I just got a, like a beta look into. I'll tell you guys off cam, but like you put in any landing page. So like eight sleep's landing page that you really love and it'll just take your landing that landing page and match to your branding.

[Nick Sharma]

Nice.

[Bart]

And you know, change up the words and everything. But it'll spit out the exact same flow.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[Bart]

There's so many resources like that. But with this, like to move away from some like technicalities, making office furniture the aid sleep, I think you would have to touch that, like that partnership middle funnel stuff.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

Where like I would have so much fun taking like influential, whether it's like operators or business owners and having them use these desks or whatever it is and make content and storytelling around. Like why should you buy their office furniture when you can go to Ikea or Wayflyer or any of these other. Like you gotta add some emotion, some people to it.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, right.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You go to Wayflyer to buy office chairs.

[Bart]

I do not. I would assume most of America does.

[John Coyle]

I got mine at Staples.

[Nick Sharma]

No, Wayflyer is the lending platform.

[Bart]

No, not Wayflyr.

[John Coyle]

Wayfair.

[Bart]

Jeez.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, that's true. Another plug.

[Bart]

I'm sure Wayflyer's got a lot of office chairs though.

[John Coyle]

A lot of empty ones.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Oh, we might have to cut that. Oh yeah. Okay. So I would say that like, look, my main advice here is if you're not like a multi time operator, just don't feel bad. You've built something up to a couple million. Like you're killing it. Just keep going. Right. Probably more creative testing. Give different metrics to your, you know, top of funnel ads, bottom of funnel ads. Set aside a little bit of budget for like fun, cool opportunities. Like just set aside a little bit.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Or create your Own, like do what you're doing. Like you created all your own opportunities. And a lot of other brands do a good job of it. They host their own events, their own dinners, their own whatever. Like cheap and easy.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. I mean, look, if it's office. But the other thing is you can go enterprise here, like go into offices and be like, hey, I'm going to give you guys like five chair. Like I'm going to give five of your team members.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

And like, they're going to sell you. You know what I mean? That's another play you could do. And that's also content while you're doing that.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

Everything's content. That is actually when you're running a brand these days, just you got to think everything.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, pretty much every. Every company is now just basically a content company.

[John Coyle]

Yes.

[Nick Sharma]

And if their product to be good, they'll survive.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

All right, let's go to the next one. When you look at brands that have made it to $100 million versus ones that had early momentum and then stalled, what's the difference there?

[Nick Sharma]

Let's see.

[John Coyle]

That's like, maybe a better question.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, it comes to mind, like, one is a big one is talent. I think the talent that, you know, you usually need, like, different level of talent going like 0 to 5, 5 to 25, 25 to 75 and maybe 75 plus.

[John Coyle]

And I think that the brands like Eight Sleep, Jolie, like those. What they do is they raise some money up front and they just hire their $100 million team right away.

[Nick Sharma]

Not true, actually. You don't think so both of those. Didn't they like both. Both, actually. So eight Sleep continued to add just smarter and smarter people over time. And then Jolie, what Jolie did was they were so. They were. For the longest time, they were just employee plus two founders company and they just had the best agencies around them. So, like, they. Yeah, we were one, but they had. They just always had other agencies involved who were, you know, if they. If they weren't like able to continue pushing the boundaries and innovate, they would cycle them out. So they were very disciplined in that sense, which I think is almost just as good as like raising money and hiring up front. So that's one. I think the other one is like product innovation. A lot of brands just kind of stall. Like they figure out, oh, you know, this is selling, maybe this is even in Target now we don't have to keep innovating on product.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, there are some caps for products. That's a good point. I Think that there are like some products that can get you all the way to $30 million. For sure. For sure. But they can't get you to 100.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And so like you do have to product expand to get to 100.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

But that's tough when you made like one product line that got you to 30 because you're like, shouldn't that just be able to get me.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

It feels very risky.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, no, 100%. I mean there's some like a lot of supplement brands that have a wide variety of supplements. Like maybe 80% of their sales come from two or three products.

[John Coyle]

I would say the ones that speed run to 100 million almost always found some sort of product market fit that had that much.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally. And then they started adding stuff.

[John Coyle]

But if you get stalled, your product might, might not have had that much run. Totally makes sense. I'm not saying that very well.

[Nick Sharma]

No, no, no. What you're basically saying is the market punched you in the face and you have to like face that reality.

[John Coyle]

Yes, for the ones that stalled.

[Nick Sharma]

Exactly.

[John Coyle]

But a lot of the ones that speedrun there, it's like, yeah, they, I mean they found a space that had that much play and they scaled into it quick and they got there.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. 100%.

[John Coyle]

True classic tees is a great example of this. You tried to launch two true classic tees today, you would struggle to 100 million. It would take a long time for sure. Right. But it's like they found that, that space, they scaled it early and then, you know, other brands, there's nibbling on their toes. Yeah, I mean, I'm trying to not think of exact knockoff brands, but like dad Gang. I'm not saying you guys are gonna stall, but like if you got stalled at 30 or 40, it would just be like, okay, you, you know, like it just that, that had this ceiling of like you could only get to 30, 40 million efficiently.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. With head.

[John Coyle]

Whereas True Classic was able to get to 100 efficiently. You know what I mean? It just, it was a lot of times the biggest difference is a non controllable, which is just how much tailwind is there and how fast does it take you there.

[Nick Sharma]

Yep.

[John Coyle]

But that's not very actionable. I mean they didn't really ask for actionable, they asked for the differences.

[Nick Sharma]

Cool.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, cool. How do the high level brands decide what to focus on and ignore specifically? There's new channels, attribution tactics posted all the time and AI tools all the time. What is, how do I differentiate between Shiny Object syndrome and stuff that I should actually be focusing on. On. Well, to be honest, really good question for almost anybody.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, to be honest, I think a lot of this starts at the top. Like there's some brands I work with where the. It's. If, if the founders are like locked in and they're like, you know, we have this cat goal to hit because of this, we have to hit this. Our attribution needs to look like this. I need to see these daily reports. Like, you can bet that company is going to be totally fine. You know what I mean?

[John Coyle]

Well, they might miss some stuff that isn't shiny object. Does that make sense?

[Nick Sharma]

No, for sure. For sure. Right? I guess I'm more, I'm assuming this person's talking more on like the.

[John Coyle]

How do I ignore the how do I not get FOMO more?

[Nick Sharma]

So like, I guess what I'm trying to say is like the, like the, the. The whole push of innovation and finding new tools and figuring out what to focus on and what metrics should be their North Star and what they should look to automate versus not like, I feel like that thinking starts at the top and distills its way down it'. I mean, sometimes you'll find that there's somebody within the org who is just like, you know what? I'm going to figure out how to automate my entire copywriting process into a app. Because this is a waste of time and everything I'm doing has learnings behind it.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

But a lot of times that doesn't happen unless it's starting from the founder or like the exact level. And they're like, yeah, we need to figure out innovation or we need to figure out AI. We need to think about, you know, building our own attribution system, whatever it may be.

[John Coyle]

I would agree. So how would you advise founders on. Because I, I do think you can get on a slippery slope of playing with tons of AI tools you can get. You can save 10 tactics a day on X and LinkedIn.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I think there's so many advertising channels you can test and, and so many people say, like, test everything, try everything. And I'm like, it's like kind of the worst advice. I feel like that once you're testing everything, you're just dicking around, honestly.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

That job of the, like the conductor of the track, choosing what you ignore and what you focus on, like, is the job of the CEO. Right, Right.

[John Coyle]

So I think that if this person's a CEO or a founder asking, I think they're asking for like heuristics.

[Nick Sharma]

I mean, to be honest, if we're

[John Coyle]

having heuristics, the best people, like the best operators use for.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, well, it's a tough question because like if you're building a mascara brand and you're looking to see how True Classic is using AI and like what they find important, it doesn't make sense either. My recommendation for a lot of founders, like in the subject sub 10 million, or even if you're a marketer at a brand that's sub 100 million, is like go build a group chat with people in similar size sizes around you, maybe slightly above. And like that's where you're going to find the alpha of whatever, whether it's how you decide to better forecast inventory or use which AI tools or you know, something similar to that nature.

[Bart]

I think just like on that note, we have like a private slack that's like 22 operators, CEOs, founders, deep and, and all pretty successful brands from what I know, and a couple media buyers that have spent like billions successfully. And it's like even in that group chat there's not a lot of conversation around like, what do you think of this tool? What do you think of that tool? There's a little bit, but for how many people are in there now?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. You know why? But that's separate. Cause like everybody else is going to be like, ah, who's getting paid to say that? You know? Yeah, yeah.

[Bart]

But in this, like it's kind of

[John Coyle]

the tones when it's, when it's a tight group like that it isn't like, yeah, you know what I mean? That's like where you can talk about the stuff.

[Bart]

Yeah. We're kind of like, I started it and I kind of set the vibe around like, don't come here to like spill any shit. And then like. But it's funny this subject in general because when I was at an agency, your newsletters were like the most popping thing of all time. And so I worked on 30 brands in two years. Was stupid.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

And. But like our founder and some of these CEOs, we would like hop in the work. And like, I just, I just don't.

[John Coyle]

Sundays were the worst stuff.

[Bart]

And then you get an email and be like, okay, Bart, like, cool that we're doing this. But Sharma said, dude.

[John Coyle]

And I'm like this guy I know, you know, have you heard about these five reasons why am I.

[Nick Sharma]

No. You know what? The biggest disclaimer I need to always put is like, like this. This is what Based on what I saw in the last maybe two to three weeks.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

This might not apply, but like, find the golden nuggets that apply to you

[John Coyle]

and use if useful.

[Bart]

But they're so easy to do that you, like, subscribe to a newsletter, you go on X.

[John Coyle]

That's what I mean.

[Bart]

And then you look at your business and it's like, oh, man, I just, you know, I just saw 10 optimizations today. Why aren't we doing this? And it's like, I don't know. We at dad Game, we're always sending pictures of racehorses with blinders on.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[Bart]

Because it's like our goal is to sell hats and build community. Those are the two things. Right. And anything that can help that truthfully help it. Not like test out and try and maybe it'll work. Let's do that. But everything else is a distraction.

[Nick Sharma]

That's good.

[John Coyle]

I think that my heuristic for this right now and the heuristic I see amongst, like, pretty good operators, a lot of it comes down to we keep saying the same thing, experience. People who've done this two or three times have a pretty good filter just on their own. Right. They also have a good network of a handful of people. They can text and say, have you tried this? Is it good? Right before they, like take demos. Right. But tactics is a big one because everybody is worried that they're not using like the most the latest tactics, stuff like that. And they get newsletters like yours. And then they do what I call flyovers. Right? Founder flyovers, where they're like, why aren't we doing this with our landing pages forward? Yeah, you've ruined many.

[Nick Sharma]

I used to get those too. Yeah, I used to get those flyovers I used to get. How come we're not spending on Cheddar TV?

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Third, Love is doing a $400,000 sponsorship. We should be doing that.

[John Coyle]

Like, no, we shouldn't.

[Nick Sharma]

Absolutely not.

[John Coyle]

Let their love waste their money.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, exactly. Time for the retention tip of the week brought to you by Instant. If you run an apparel brand, here's something most people get wrong. You treat returns like a cost center, but your returns flow is actually one of your highest leverage retention touch points. Think about a customer just returned something that doesn't mean that they don't like your brand. It usually means the fit was off or the color wasn't right. So what do the best apparel brands do? They build a post return email flow that does three things. One, acknowledge the return with zero friction. Two, immediately recommend the right alternative based on what was returned and maybe the reason. Maybe it's a different colorway, a different size, a different silhouette. And number three, include a small incentive to come back within 10 days. Brands that nail their conversions flow for returns. They see 30 to 40% of their returners convert into repeat purchasers. The ones that don't, those customers are gone. Their return was their last interaction with you and it was a bad one. If you need help building smart post purchase and post return flows, Instant makes it super easy. Their AI powered retention engine generates personalized emails for every shopper automatically. Check them out at Instant one.

[John Coyle]

Sharma so here's my heuristic for it. In E commerce there are like five channels that work really well and anything besides those five channels is probably a distress. Like there's like a couple others that I'm like yeah maybe. Okay. And the five channels are Meta, Google, Amazon, TikTok and some form of influencer. Currently I think the best kind of like ROI on paying for influencers is on long form YouTube.

[Bart]

Don't forget AppLovin, Kurt.

[John Coyle]

Currently Applovin is bubbling bubble. Applovin is bubble for me. And Snapchat has been in the group before. It kind of hangs out on the bubble, gets in, comes out right. But if it's not one of those five, dude, if it's Pinterest and you're like, should I test Pinterest? I'm like, whatever time you spend testing Pinterest is going to end up being kind of a waste of time because here's what's going to happen. You're going to spend 5 or 10% of your budget there and you're not going to know what it's doing. You're not going to be able to tell. Your attribution tool isn't going to tell you. Pinterest isn't going to tell you. Nothing's going to tell you. It's better for you to just not even spend, put it out of your mind, don't do it.

[Bart]

Right? Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

And like then yeah, landing pages can help but then there's like a certain, you could, you should kind of say like so that's one heuristic is like if it's not one of those channels, like good chance you can just back burner it from a channel standpoint. And then what I like to do is I like to say like pick, pick a section of the business in marketing. So and I section it up like this. So paid acquisition. Organic. Organic, like organic content site. So like landing pages and stuff like that and retention all Right. And like in a quarter, be like, this is the area I'm maximizing in and do all the tactics there. All the other ones safe. That's for a future quarter like your team. But like, everybody's on board when we do this quarter. Like, where do we feel like we're lacking at the high level the most? Okay. We think it's retention. Yeah. Every tactic that comes up, every tool that we think might be able to help, every agency that we think can teach us something or help us out, every coach. Like, we'll. We'll try everything there just to like, we're on this like sprint of information gathering and testing things. And we put it through a filter. That doesn't mean we test every single thing. You know, there's a filter. And like a network of people like you said can help a lot. Like, yeah, I tried that. Don't. Don't bother. Or whatever. But like just do that for whatever the thing is this quarter. And like everybody decide that ahead of time. And that way when the founder comes by and says, like, yo, why does organic social suck so much? I saw this thing that Alex Garcia posted that we should be doing a social show and it's like, well, that's not our focus this quarter. And we already decided that up front. Right. So like bookmark that for our quarterly planning and we can decide if next. Next quarter organic is. So that's the best heuristic I've come

[Nick Sharma]

up with for it. Yep. I like that a lot.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

I. Yeah. No, no notes.

[John Coyle]

Cool notes. Parts like ours is a three year long if it will help us buy, sell house.

[Nick Sharma]

Oh. The only thought actually that came up is like, the reason people don't do that is because they have zero patience.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And once you get some traction and you have some resource dudes.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Then you think everything else is just a waste of time because you're like, I'm speedrunning now. But you're not.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You're speed running into a.

[Bart]

It's gotta be really bad right now with AI.

[John Coyle]

You know what you should. Oh, dude. The AI especially like the tools for it.

[Nick Sharma]

That's. That's if they're using it. Like 95% of people are still not.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Which is crazy. I would say if you're gonna tinker around with AI, like still confine it to like, if I were using that heuristic, I would still say like, so at Royo this quarter, it was site, right?

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

So I would try an AI tool or like set up a cloud cowork thing that would go spy on brands or do something like that. That would be like, okay, is this going to help us optimize our gross profit per visitor? Which is what I'm optimizing this quarter on site side, I'm launching landing pages, I'm launching pricing tests, I'm launching offer tests. Like, that's what I'm up to this quarter. So if I'm going to play with AI at all, it's got to help me do that. Otherwise.

[Nick Sharma]

And are you using AI in any of that stuff you just mentioned?

[John Coyle]

Not no. Not no. I've been. Dude, I feel a lot of AI fomo. Like, I don't think I'm up on it enough. Like, when I hear that you've got like four open claws set up, I'm like, dude, I don't know. I chat GPT stuff sometimes. I like just got into using Claude Cowork and I'm like, this is powerful. I could use this for some stuff.

[Nick Sharma]

Do you use regular Claude as well?

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah, of course. Yeah, Claude. I find ChatGPT kind of unusable now.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, ChatGPT in my head is like you go for a drink at the bar with chat GPT. But like,

[John Coyle]

why is that chatgpt is Hermione Granger.

[Nick Sharma]

Well, I don't know, but my only reasoning I can think of is the anthropic guys are apparently ex early OpenAI people. Yeah. So my guess is like they left OpenAI and they're like, oh, let's make the more like office friendly version. Yeah. And to their credit, they do like, they plug in with Fireflies, with Gmail, calendar drive, like Slack, everything. And so you've basically got a second brain you can use.

[John Coyle]

Co work is you can use Cowork for some pretty simple stuff pretty easily. Right. Like I would recommend, but like again confined it then to your like quarter focus. You know what I mean? Totally. So like I might set up a cowork thing where I say, hey, like here's my, here's like Facebook ads library every week I want you to like go look at, Go search these five brands, use it in Chrome. Go search these five brands, tell me all the ads that they've launched, you know, and click through the ads and then go to the landing pages and tell me if they've launched a new landing.

[Bart]

The other thing, like going back to network and you mentioned like, if you, if you started a brand before and you have a network, like finding people that are well versed in all this stuff, like he could hit you up and be like, hey, is Claude worth it for Roya right now?

[Nick Sharma]

Or.

[Bart]

I have a buddy who is like, the head of.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Is anybody using, like, a cloud code thing that's, like, helping with retention or, like.

[Bart]

Totally. My buddy is like, head securities engineer for Lululemon. And I'm just like, all right, let me know any of this stuff worth for me right now. And he's like, oh, we should maybe look at that. So, like, yeah, the people that are already up there doing it, you should just hit them up and be like, I'm almost distracted by this. Should I jump in? And then you can get some better.

[John Coyle]

Because on our last, like, round of shooting, you said you were just playing with everything, like, all the AI, like, image generators. And I'm going to be honest with you, I was like, I'm the worst person. I'm going to. You know, I'm going to be obsolete, like, next week because I'm not doing that.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? But I'm like, just, like, you have to confine it to your focus. Can I give you a real example of somebody who, like, I talked to today? And I think they will set up a cloud cowork thing. So they're maximizing in the category of. I'm going to call it creative, but they are. They do, like, viral apparel.

[Nick Sharma]

Okay.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? So, like, when a moment hits, they gotta release a shirt type of thing.

[Nick Sharma]

Yep.

[John Coyle]

And I'm like, okay. Like, how do you do that? And they're like. He's like, I just kind of use my taste and, like. And I'm like, all right, you need to, like, take that out of your brain. Like, go back and forth with it with Claude on it. Take it out of your brain and, like, set up some workflow for Claude cowork to go through on a normal ba on a regular basis. So, like, every single day, twice a day, it's saying, hey, here's like, like, four trends that I want to surface to you that, like, might be worth a shirt. Right. And I'm like, start there. And then over time, like, maybe create a scoring system for, like, what you actually want to launch a shirt around and stuff. And I'm like, yeah, that will probably be a pretty simple setup for him, and I think it will be incredibly helpful for him because right now he gets, like, basically four or five big hits a year.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

And I'm like, can we make that eight or ten?

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? Probably just more stuff needs to come your way.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, More context needs to be fed in. Honestly, the context being fed in is like that's part of the reason why I think more people just need to play with any and every tool because you'll understand how the patterns of how these platforms work and how you need to feed information and what it does when you don't. Versus do. And like that first party data is about to be the most, most intense thing. Right. Whether it's like two examples, it can be first party data could be this conversation transcribed and fed into somebody's clod. Like somebody who asked this question could feed this whole conversation transcript. And that's amazing. First party context, Right. That his Claude's now going to have versus others. Another example is let's say you have dad Gang and you're like, yo, I'm going to create a cloud bot to make to be. To come up with all my social media cap for social media posts, for stories. Just for stories. Right. And because it's stories, I want it to be more fast and witty and fun. So then you can go and create a Twitter account for dad Gang and a Twitter developer account and feed that home feed from the developer API into Claude. And now Claude is just browsing Twitter as your customer. Customer. Seeing what they would want to see or what kind of content they'd want to see. And then use that to make creative and then post. Yeah. And damn. Yeah. Well, yeah, back to that like first party data. Right? That is another form of like first party data you can feed in. Yeah. But the more you can feed in, the more more precise it gets.

[John Coyle]

I do want to clarify something you just said and you said that's why you need to play with any and all of these.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

If you just sold your company and you kind of got nothing going on for a little bit, then you should be playing with any and all of these.

[Nick Sharma]

All right, then I'll give you a list.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Be more practical because people are busy.

[Nick Sharma]

All right. Go to Figma AI. Go to Perplexity. Go to definitely use Claude. I would check out Journey J U R N I get Journey AI. I would check out Higsfield. I would check out Kiva K I V A. I would check out.

[John Coyle]

Is this in order? Is this an unordered list?

[Nick Sharma]

No unordered list. But they're all kind of different tools, right? Replit, Cursor. Lovable. Some are web creators, some are for AI creative.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Some are like Figma AI. You can literally design now within Figma using chat.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And I would, I would, I would yeah. Even just those I listed, I would go play around with them and see where the limitations are.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And I would. Here's. Here's how I would structure, like, play around with. Because that's. That's like a bit like, how do I play around with it? I don't even know. I would use something like Claude and say, hey, I have an hour this week. I want to play with Lovable. I want to just like, try something out with Lovable or I want to try something. Lovable's a really easy one because you can do a project in there very quickly. I want to try something out with Claude. Cowork. What would be a good idea for me and especially if Claude has a bunch of code. Like, you could ask ChatGPT if it has more context on you. But like, like, I'm going to do this for an hour. Like, what's something that could end up being useful for me even if it's just like, organizes your inbox? Is that that useful? No, but, like, it's something. Play around with it so that you can do, like, don't go into it and be like, let me push some buttons and stuff like that. Be like, let me try and do something.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Help me set up my second brain within Claude. Help me build a landing page coming from Facebook traffic. Help me. Another one I did was like, all these. Because there's so many tools and people are gonna continue to use different tools at the same time. There's no USB stick or thing you can reference to keep everything consistent. So create a folder of documents that speak all about your brand, your story, your tone of voice, your messaging positioning. And then you now understood how to create a memory system that you can then take as a zip file to every model you use so it applies the same branding or tone of voice or copy things like that. But yeah, I do think people should go in and figure out an objective and try to work toward it. Because if you have an objective, like the landing page or organize my screenshots and rename the ones that are important and delete the ones that are not important, you know, like, you're gonna start to learn how they work and where things time out or where things fall or what you need to connect. Yeah, and those are like, those are like relearning the English language for the next hundred years.

[John Coyle]

And I would say, yeah, like, to kind of answer this person's question about shiny object syndrome, what we're talking about is like, you can go down this raft rabbit hole and get shiny object syndrome and be working on stuff that is not going to be helpful to you which is like you have to constrain it some way. Probably you need a time constraint on it and probably you need to say okay, I'm only going to try and work on stuff that is in the product is then in the category of my business that I'm maximizing right now which is creative or content or you know, site or something like that.

[Bart]

Just to dumb it down. You gotta get good at saying no way more.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, for sure.

[Bart]

Any, any founders that like if you

[John Coyle]

have tractions, if you have traction, you do usually say.

[Bart]

They usually end up saying that because it's so easy to say yes to every opportunity. And then, then once again you're not working, you're just. You're just trying new things. The other one I'll add is Kai. Not you mentioned a different.

[Nick Sharma]

But no Kive. Kive. That's what I meant. Not Kiva. Oh yeah.

[Bart]

Unbelievable.

[John Coyle]

Did you just think it was pronounced Kiva? Be honest.

[Bart]

Yeah, I don't know all these weird ass names.

[John Coyle]

Like I've only ever read the name's

[Nick Sharma]

a chocolate brand I think. Oh yeah. But Kive is the one.

[Bart]

Unreal. Insane for filler content especially.

[Nick Sharma]

Now another thought I had. So like Kai, right? Like the photographs are almost too pristine. And yesterday I was at a friend's office and he was shoot, he was doing a shoot and the photographer put this spray in the air almost like hairspray and it's called atmosphere spray. And then I was thinking, wow, how do you figure out like for a person who's just getting to Kai, how do you go figure out all the little things you can. Like now I can tell Kai, pretend there's atmosphere spray in the photo. It'll feel more realistic. You almost gotta somehow study still the basics so that you can apply it in this world too. If that makes sense.

[Bart]

Yeah. The really cool thing about Kive and you've known from, from the, the Slack channel, like I always post stuff I create in there and like the one thing is that you can take photography you find on like Pinterest or any photo you see on Instagram, like even one of, of your family you could be like, hey, take this photo. Keep the exact same feel of this photo. Put X Pro at X product on it. On you know, in my case it'd be a dad gang hat on that person's head head. And it is like 100%.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Well what's cool about that Kive is like you spend a good Amount of time defining the actual product image.

[Bart]

Right?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah. And uploading a ton of references, which, like Gemini doesn't. You don't do that on Gemini because, like most people just look for a one shot response. But yeah, yeah, it's a sick platform.

[Bart]

I tried the Google one, the Google Labs Nano Banana.

[Nick Sharma]

Oh, no, no, no. You're talking about Google Labs, the branding tool.

[Bart]

Yeah, Google Labs branding tool. And they have a photo shoot tool within there now. But it's still like, hats are different. Like, you have stitching and realistic elements to it that like some AI platforms just can't get. But, but like we make a suede hat, a corduroy hat, and Kai just nails the textures. I'm like, that's 100 bucks a month. Like, ridiculous.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Do you run it as ads?

[Bart]

Yeah, but just for like product photography. It's. It's not great at video.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

Plus you're not really supposed to.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[Bart]

You know, I love dad getting hats in a video and it's not a real person.

[Nick Sharma]

Right, right. Those.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, there's, there's. I think some state, maybe it was New York just passed a law on this.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

That you, you can't. You have to like disclose if it's.

[Bart]

That's been a thing though. Like, icon got in trouble for that too. Because it's like, you can't, you can't put fake people saying they love your product.

[Nick Sharma]

Right, right.

[John Coyle]

You already weren't allowed to do that. I think you'd have to say it was an actor.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Already.

[Bart]

And now you have to say it's a fake actor.

[John Coyle]

Now you have to say it's not even an actor.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[Bart]

There's nothing going on here. It's a comp.

[John Coyle]

I like this question a lot. So let me wrap on this shiny object thing.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Say no more often you just, in real time watched us get shiny object syndrome on this podcast. It happens to everybody. And I think this, like, there is this world where, like, trying to be as efficient as possible all the time isn't the best way to operate a business. Like, sometimes you do have to go down a little rabbit hole and be like, damn, I lost a half a day to that and I got nothing out of it. But, like, that is what helps you gain context over time of like, oh, I can tell I'm down a rabbit hole. Let me pull out.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

If you never go down a rabbit hole, you don't know that. Right.

[Bart]

So.

[John Coyle]

So I think you got to forgive yourself a little bit totally when that happens. And like sometimes that's where the gold is.

[Nick Sharma]

Sometimes too.

[John Coyle]

Exactly. Sometimes you go down a rabbit hole and then three months later you're like, hang on a second and a light bulb hits. Right. I, I always say that, like super key roles in a company and if this person's a founder or CEO, I was. That it's the most efficient and inefficient efficient person in the company. Right. Here's the best example I have. I don't know how true these stories are. Maybe you do. There are stories of Mr. Beast going in just like sitting in Walmarts and watching how people act in the candy aisle and looking how often people restock his candy and stuff like that. And I think that there's a story where he made the boxes wider because of that. Because he's like, oh, if I do that right now they're putting two here, but if I make it a little bit wider, they'll actually have to put three and I'll take up more space on the shelves and like, you know, it will like be like, so he could go to Walmart for five days and nothing could come of that. And it's just the highest leverage person in your company hanging out at Walmart. Or you realize, oh, let's make our boxes a little bit wider. And then not only will we be able to like put two rows of chocolate in there, which I'm not sure if this is exactly the right story. Not only will be able to put two rows of chocolate in each box, but the last actually put three boxes up there. So we'll go from like a row of two to six.

[Nick Sharma]

Right, right.

[John Coyle]

And like that will increase our sales exponentially in Walmart.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

So it's like doing this thing that could end up being very, very inefficient and then finding the most efficient unlock, you know, in the business.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

That is the role of the founder and CEO. So you do sometimes need to let yourself go down rabbit holes if you like, if you feel like you're sniffing gold.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And if you don't find it, it's like, all right, fine, you've built a bit of a skill set and you

[Nick Sharma]

have knowledge now you learn more context.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah, Yep. I like this question. If you had 50k today to start a brand from scratch, how would you do it? And as of all, on red, as of March, start the brand as of March 2026, how would you start a brand with 50k?

[Nick Sharma]

50k? I mean, I would build a stage site and I'D get a designer developer overseas, build a visual identity on a site for like 5 to 10k all in.

[John Coyle]

Okay.

[Nick Sharma]

I'd use pretty much the next 25 on inventory. 25 to 30y and then use the last for ads.

[John Coyle]

And you'd run ads.

[Nick Sharma]

Well, it depends what it is actually. If it's like I've got 50k, you know, like if I'm in this.

[John Coyle]

Are you sitting on a brand idea at all? Can you make this more real or no?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, I mean, let's see.

[John Coyle]

So I am too. And I'll share mine too.

[Nick Sharma]

Okay, well, this isn't a real brand idea, but let's say you're starting like a kids vitamin brand. Right. You do the. Yeah. Design insight for 10. You spend maybe 25, 30k on your first PO. You go negotiate really good MOQ numbers. Ideally you get, you know, something good. There you go. You spend on boxes, you know, three pl, and then the rest is just ads.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And you would test it.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Because you, because like a category like that, you can test it on ads and then if it works, then you can do a proper launch.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. I am proficient in meta ads. That's the thing I'm really good at. So I do gravitate toward launching on meta ads, but I don't think that that is actually the best way to launch a brand today in 2020, 26. Like, I do think TikTok is a better place to launch a brand.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

And if you were and if you're neutral, like you don't have a previous skill set in meta ads, then you should probably gravitate there.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, totally.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And either make content yourself or be seating product.

[Nick Sharma]

Yep.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Bart, what do you think 50k you've launched?

[Bart]

I'm going.

[John Coyle]

You're like. I would just put. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Bart]

Well, I didn't even need anywhere close to that, so. So like I probably wouldn't spend. It all depends what you're starting. But like I wouldn't, I think.

[John Coyle]

Let me, let me actually rephrase the question that they said because the idea of this whole episode is like, what are the like heavy hitters do that others don't? If you had 50k to launch a brand and you wanted it to be one of those heavy hitter, like you can launch a brand where you're gonna make a decent personal income and it's never really gonna get to 100 million, you know. But if you're like, no, my goal is to, to like make a heavy hitter brand and have like this huge exit in the end. How would you, how would you deploy 50 bucks?

[Bart]

I do like inventory and ads as like the main places you spend because that's where you end up anyways. Yeah, right. So as your business grows. We spent 750 bucks to start our business, so it wasn't anywhere close to 50k. That'd be nuts. But like, but as you build and you grow, like your top, top three expenses or whatever you want to categorize, it's going to like, it's usually ads and it's usually inventory. And then from revenue, you're taking cash flow to buy more inventory. Inventory. But I wouldn't over buy inventory for something that doesn't have, you know, some sort of early result. So if you can somehow like half your inventory, order to test it to see if there's demand, and then have some agreement with your factory or whatever to like to re up once that demand is proven, then that's probably like a more efficient way to just have more cash still for other things as you're building. But yeah, I would still, I would still go meta first. And yeah, although TikTok's great, I don't think it's great for every brand start.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, not. Not every now. Yeah, Like Royo wouldn't have launched on TikTok. Yeah, exactly. Because basically who we found traction with early on were 50, 60 year olds who were like, oh, I can have lower blood sugar and instill eat bagels. Great. Not a lot of 18 year olds have that problem. The. Okay, here's my brand idea. All right, so this is, I think that a business that could live on its own, that literally anybody could go out and start tomorrow, is a variation of an idea that I'll cite the Corner Office podcast for, which is a super fun podcast if you like, just like random business ideas that aren't necessarily e commerce. He was traveling somewhere and he was like, oh, I saw this thing on the side of the road that's said like hole in one win $10,000. And it's just like one hole on a green in a field and you're like, I don't know, 100, 200 yards away. I think it's 100 yards away.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

You get a bucket and if you hit a hole in one, you win 10,000.

[Nick Sharma]

Nice.

[John Coyle]

And the bucket, I think is 10 bucks. So they've mathed it out and they're making some sort of profit on this.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

I think you could do the same thing in a lot of different sports and I love battles. Basketball. I think you could Go to courts all over the country and be like, three hits. You hit three threes in a row, I'll pay you 100 bucks. 10 bucks to play.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And I think a lot. Three threes in a row, I could take that.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, you can kind of set it up anywhere, but.

[John Coyle]

But a lot of people are not going to hit three.

[Bart]

I feel that don't play basketball would do it.

[John Coyle]

Three in a row is tough to hit. Like, look, there's some courts you go to, you're going to get hustled, try, you know, they can hit shots. But like, three in a row, even

[Bart]

for somebody make it three out of five.

[Nick Sharma]

This is basically the equivalent of that.

[John Coyle]

Like, this is. This was my variation. If you couldn't get somebo play, I would say start on a make. You know what I mean? So three in a row, you get to start on.

[Bart]

There you go.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

So if you missed the first.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Your first make is shot one, right?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

I think you could get people to play. I've asked a bunch of people I hoop with. Like, somebody came up to you and said that, would you do it? They'd be like, yeah, probably 10 bucks. I'll take a flyer on it. But like. And I don't know if that's the right math, but you figure out the math where it's like, I like that. 10 bucks to play 100, win three in a row, if that's the right math. Where it's like, yeah, only 1 in 20 people win. I have a margin already. I think that's a good business. And it's good content, right?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Now attach a brand to it so everyone who loses, you're like, hey, man, sorry you lost. Here's my, like, shorts from my brand. From an Ecom. Ecom brand. Everybody gets a pair of shorts, even if they lose, Right. I think this.

[Bart]

Loser shorts.

[John Coyle]

Loser shorts. Yeah. Like, I can't shoot. You know, something like that. Or like a shirt that's just like, I can't shoot. Not a shooter. Seg off, you know, like. And I do think, like, a commitment comedic basketball brand would be funny.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Like, slow, white, fat, can't jump. That's what's on my shirt.

[Bart]

Sandler basketball brand.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And so, like, everybody who loses gets that. I don't know if anybody, like, I think you would have to make it cool maybe for people to buy it. But I do think there's a bunch of people who would, like, ironically wear a shirt that says, I can't shoot to their pickup runs. You know what I Mean, totally. And so then you attach the econ brand and then I'm like, I think you cash flow it just on the game, honestly. Yeah. And so I maybe would start this brand print on demand maybe just because it's like quicker.

[Bart]

This includes like physical activity, setting up hoops and all that stuff.

[John Coyle]

So I think I'd go to like, I think where I would spend my money is I would hit up some of the street interview people here in New York to go to Washington park and to go to the Rucker and go to like some of the.

[Bart]

Oh my gosh, you would rake some

[John Coyle]

of the famous courts.

[Nick Sharma]

See, I hear that and I'm like, I'd rather sit in my boxers and make money.

[Bart]

Yeah, that's true.

[John Coyle]

Well, I'm not going to go to the courts.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, fair.

[John Coyle]

I'm going to pay. Pay some people to go to courts.

[Bart]

How many shots we get off today?

[John Coyle]

Yeah, well, look, actually I might go to the courts because I might just

[Nick Sharma]

think that was need more shots.

[Bart]

Please fix that is fun. But it could be like the debate table at the college campus too, where you're like, you can't make three threes. Prove me wrong.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

And win 100 bucks.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, that's a cool idea too.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. You could go to every city. Like, honestly, just the content play there could. You could end up building like a

[Bart]

brand called Three Threes.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Bart]

Just off that.

[John Coyle]

Three Threes.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. No, that's. So this is my idea for an ecom brand right now. I think you could probably just do the game and launch it that way. You know what I mean? And I think you could pod the brand if you want, but you could buy some inventory like you. I. I'd be fine to spend some money on like a low moq. The thing is, if you do an E commerce like an apparel brand. And this is why I'm like, okay, to get to 100 million, you do have to have a bit of a movement, for sure. You know what I mean? Either you have to have a very innovative product which I have no idea ideas, or you have to have a bit of a movement. Like dad came.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And I'm like, I think that like Hoopers who would like ironically wear a shirt shirt that says I can't shoot or things. I think that's a bit of a movement in the basketball space where it's like a very cocky space. But I also think there's people who are like, yeah, no, sag off. That's fine. Like, and then they'll hit a three on you anyway. You know what I mean? Like, I. And it's more of a. It's like a movement within that sub culture.

[Bart]

Dude, you should. I mean, Utah has a lot of basketball.

[John Coyle]

Dude. I. I have explored that. Look, if somebody's listening to this right now and they're like, that sounds dope. I want to launch this brand with you. What I have is some money and no time. So if you've got time, then let's team up. Hit me up on X or whatever. But like, yeah, I think that's why

[Nick Sharma]

I would go with it.

[Bart]

Try this.

[John Coyle]

I know, I know.

[Bart]

You sounds so fun.

[Nick Sharma]

I know.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And I. The problem is I'd probably be like, well, I actually want to go do the content. So then I would just spend a.

[Bart]

You would have to go to the first one. I mean, the launch of your thing.

[John Coyle]

But like, especially with some of these street interview, like, agencies now, it's like, you probably could be like, yeah, just like, crank out tons of these, dude. And you could probably get them to give you a bit of a discount on the pricing by being like, I'll split, like off of the game. Like, whatever we make off the game, I'll split that with you.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally. You know, you could go hire all the big basketball creators in different tier 2 tier 3 cities to go run these.

[John Coyle]

I know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And so that's. Once I had proof of concept, then I would just go to like, I mean, Tristan Jass is too big.

[Bart]

But like, like, especially people that plays everybody one on.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

Mk, dude.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, dude. He would. He. I was thinking of him the whole time FR y.

[John Coyle]

These guys are too big. That you're saying you got to get the next tier down.

[Bart]

That's okay.

[Nick Sharma]

Although that might be a good, like, face of the brand, you know?

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah. You could. You guys both. You know Jack Appleby. Yeah, yeah. He, like. I was like, he might not be a bad person to partner with on Total. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[Bart]

But he's got his own.

[John Coyle]

Right.

[Bart]

Big brand already.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. You're like, there's these and one guys. I don't know if you've heard of them.

[Bart]

No, but they're gonna. Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

Hopefully Bucket squad who already has a brand.

[Bart]

But these big creators could like, easily just hear this and then pop this up at their next thing, you know?

[John Coyle]

Yeah, no, I. And I literally think you like. What I like about it is you don't have to be famous. This is my current idea.

[Bart]

It's like a carnival game.

[John Coyle]

I'm very hot on this idea. Right now I just don't have any time to do it. But this is how I would look for some opportunity like that where it's like, could I self fund this with content somehow or could, you know, I don't know, could I, like what's a different angle? You have to have either product innovation or a movement. So how can I make a movement in a subculture or something like that? That, that's where I would look for. So I would spend with 50k maybe a bit of money on inventory, but I'd spend all my, almost all my money on people doing this content. And if I spent 50k on that many videos.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And it didn't work and I wasn't making money on the game because then I could potentially start to just self fund it with the money we make off of the game.

[Bart]

I need $100 in a basketball.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, right.

[Nick Sharma]

Not even 100.

[John Coyle]

Maybe slower. Maybe slower. But yeah, but then if it Wasn't working at 50k, it'd be like a good signal for like this isn't going to work. You know what I mean? Like with that many videos, this doesn't work. This isn't going to work.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

You know what I'm saying? That's what I would look for if I had 50k to start. Where can I say this isn't going to work if I get there.

[Bart]

What the content behind that would be so funny.

[John Coyle]

I think so.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[Bart]

It's like watching people try to make putts and stuff. Like.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah. That they're like so confident because it looks not that hard.

[Bart]

You can do this with putts, you can do this with soccer goals.

[John Coyle]

Soccer goals? Yes. Every, literally whatever sport you like. Just think of a challenge where people are field goals. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

This is what you tennis serves.

[John Coyle]

Think of every 30 to 35 year old dude, you know, who used to

[Bart]

play high school, who thinks he still

[John Coyle]

has it, who's like, oh yeah, that's easy for sure. Can't do it anymore.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Goes and looks at their high school baseball trophy in the gym.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bart]

$100.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah. Okay. I think this is a good round the table question to end on.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

What is one thing you wish every E Commerce brand owner understood about scaling that almost nobody talks about?

[Nick Sharma]

I would say like, you know, blinders on. Like you have to have blinders on even when you're scaling. You have to be very good at filtering through what you're doing and what you're not doing. Like that's really most of the game. The stuff behind that is what either gets you on a good path or gets you lost in the sauce.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And I think a lot of people just assume they can, like, they, you know, they can just copy what other people on the Internet are saying has worked for them and they think that's scaling or it's working for them. So it should work for me. But, you know, unless you put in your own, like, 10,000 hours into each part of that, you know, you can't really, like, get to a point where you're scaling and, like, doing it properly.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Like, you might just be scaling and running right into a brick wall that you don't know is right in front of you.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah.

[Bart]

Like, so blinders on.

[John Coyle]

Blinders on. Yeah. I get so, like. Yeah. Give me an example of how, like, again, contrasting someone who's, like, has momentum and then, like, fizzles versus someone who actually, like, hits $100 million. What does blinders on look like? Is it like the blinders fall off and that's why they. They fizzle?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Blinders falling off.

[John Coyle]

What does the blinders falling off look like? You know what I mean? Like, what do they get distracted by?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Blinders falling off could be. Oh, we're. Hey, we should do the CTV test. They're going to give us 10 grand in credits if we spend 20.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Spending on the damn credits. Everybody will give you.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Or, hey, we should. Our Competitor is on TikTok and Snap. How come we're only on Meta? We should be on there, too. You know, like, that kind of stuff is. Is where you want blinders on. And, like, to be honest, scaling just means you figured out something that worked and then you're putting more fuel behind it. Right. And, like, you're. While you're scaling, you should still always be testing other ways because, like, scaling is really just like a. It's like a vine, but, like, you're going to have to build other vines off of that. That one vine is not going to always take you to the end.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

So I think. Yeah, Blinders on is. Is blinders on and, like, figure out what works for you. It's not going to be the same thing for everybody.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. If I were to tag that, I think a good framework is more better new. So you should just try and do more first.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Before you do anything even better, you should just try and do more of whatever's working. And if that's not working to do more of it, you should try and do it a little bit better. And then new. New is the worst risk. Adjusted bet.

[Nick Sharma]

Totally.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. I just heard on another pod that when people are like, oh, no, that already exists, we shouldn't do it. It's like, well, why not? Something that's already existed, that means it works.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, no, that's. That's a good one. Bart, what do you think? Blinders on is probably. He stole yours.

[Bart]

Yeah, you might have taken a mine.

[Nick Sharma]

You said it earlier.

[Bart]

A little bit. But, like, for. I'm speaking for the people kind of in the beginning of stuff, like, you know, we. We went from 100 hats to almost a million hats sold in three and a half years. But the one thing we, like, kept true and working at an agency and stuff was just like, I would. I would speak to CEOs and CMOs and founders all the time that were always worried about the other. It was like, always, like, so we did a million last year. How do we do 2 million next year?

[Nick Sharma]

Why?

[John Coyle]

Let's come up with some arbitrary number that we have no proof.

[Nick Sharma]

No. You know what the worst is? A CFO being like, so our sessions look to be up by 16% coming in March. What can you expect for May sessions on the website? Yeah, like, what are you talking. I know.

[Bart]

I think. I think a lot of scale and all that talk about going to the moon and all that needs to be. Be like, it needs to calm the down in general, like, because everybody's talking about it. But when we started building dad Gang, I was like, let's see what happens, right? Rather than like, oh, my God, we sold 100 hats. How do we sell 200? Okay, 200. How do we sell a thousand? Like, that was never. The goal was to, like, wake up the next day and think of a. Of a scale goal immediately. And I. And I think a lot of people get an early win and then start thinking, oh, God, I need to be like, eight sleep. Or I need to be like Casper or I need to be like, all birds or what? Whatever you want to be like, but like. But stop thinking about scale so much. Honestly, be in the business. Be working on the business. And I think a lot of time it does show up organically. And then when you do find wins that do work for you, lean into them more. Like, let's dumb down what scale actually is. Like you just said.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, I have like a. I guess kind of hot. Take that. Like, I hate projections. And I think most brands shouldn't do them.

[Nick Sharma]

Fully agree.

[Bart]

Like, they just are talking to one that does not.

[John Coyle]

I know, and I love it. Most brands should do most brands, the projection's not worth the paper it's written on anyway.

[Nick Sharma]

Projections work if you've got like insertion orders for media with guaranteed CPMs and impressions and all that.

[Bart]

So our 3 PL asks me for projections, and this is why people do them.

[John Coyle]

People get pulled into it by their vendors and you got to just be like, I don't know.

[Bart]

No, no, no. But I will say I love our 3 PL and I like doing it for them because they need to know during the holidays, do they need six? Do they need six people on the line? Do they need 12 people on the line? But what I do is like the simplest math ever. I'm just like, all right, last year on ads, we spent this much and had this many orders in December. Right. We've grown as a brand. We have some momentum. I'm gonna project, like a little bit of a lift and a little bit of more spend. And so, like, if I'm spending this percentage more, I'm expecting this many. I literally wrote this out on cardboard one time with a Sharpie and I send them a picture of a piece of cardboard and they're like, all right, cool, thanks. And then other than that, we're just.

[John Coyle]

What I always say about it is like, if you're projecting because you need to know how much stuff to order, that's like one of the only legitimate reasons to project. Yeah, it's physical good. But you don't have to be ambitious. Like, you should under. Like you should err on the side of under projecting. Then. Yeah, it's way better to have more demand than supply than more supply than demand. You leave money on the table both ways. But one problem is objectively worse to have and ye. Or like just under projected a little bit. But then people also tie that to their projection that they do to give their team goals.

[Bart]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And so then they feel like they need to be over ambitious with their suppliers. They get themselves in a cash. I have a whole soapbox about why I hate projections.

[Bart]

No, they're just like ego numbers.

[John Coyle]

Right, right, right. Yeah. And so it's. It's like, yeah, for the most part, it's not like worth even doing. And another thing is that you spend how long doing it when you could have just been like working on the business all that time.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Like, I like what you said about like easy docs focused on focus on ease being in. In the business, on activity.

[Bart]

Or if you have an account, if you have a decent accounting team or an accountant, just be like, hey, dude, I need projections for the 3 PL. Can you look at last year's?

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Err, on the side of being conservative.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Yep. There you go. Boom. Tell Claude to do it.

[Bart]

And all the other platforms.

[John Coyle]

No, literally, I think one everything. Or what's one thing you wish every E Commerce brand owner understood about scaling that almost nobody talks about. If I'm thinking about what domestic people not understand about scaling a brand to 100 million that nobody talks about, it's that it's just a different life and you most likely don't want it. You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

I would say the answer is in the question is the brand part. Like no one knows how to build a brand. They sell products on ads mostly.

[John Coyle]

Well, if you scale to 100 million. And that was your intention up front. I mean some brands just like bop their way there. I feel like, you know what I mean? Because they just had so much tailwind in their category. But if you're not one of those. I almost just said somebody, but then I was like, that's kind of mean.

[Bart]

Yeah. You could think of like liquid death. Building a real true brand.

[John Coyle]

Do you understand though that that's a different game that most of you don't want to play?

[Bart]

No.

[Nick Sharma]

Like if you're watching this million raised up front.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You know, you're basically underwater.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Even building a brand like Jolie or like eight Sleep, it's like that's a different game that you probably don't want. Like, what you probably want is to make a lot of. Of money and like no investors, no board, no nothing.

[Bart]

And have time.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. And have time and be able to kind of do what you want and not have money dictate your decisions and not have like investors, board members, you know, having to feed a 50 person team. Not have that dictate your.

[Bart]

I always wonder what's like, what's wrong with having a decent income brand that you can run for a long time?

[Nick Sharma]

Doesn't get it. Clicks it.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. When. When you post a Twitter thread about

[Nick Sharma]

it, it doesn't click.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

And people hate on it more because they're like, wait a second, I'm struggling to raise $2 million only to do $4 million and have investors breeding down my neck every other week and asking for a board deck while you're making $700,000 of personal income every quarter.

[John Coyle]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You know what I mean?

[Bart]

I know. I know a guy that sells car wash water filters. Nobody's ever heard of him or his brand.

[John Coyle]

Yep.

[Bart]

And guy easily brings in $2 million a year. Personal income, and nobody knows about him, and he does not care to blow this thing up at all.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[Bart]

And he's been doing it for a long enough time now to be like, okay, it's going to stick around.

[John Coyle]

My favorite. My favorite one that we covered in season one was. Is Rock Auto.

[Bart]

Yes.

[John Coyle]

Rock Auto. It's just like an online auto parts store. They launch in 1996 and they just own every keyword. Do they probably do 50 or 70, 70 million with, like four people? Because they just have all this SEO.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And I'm like, nobody's ever even heard of these guys.

[Nick Sharma]

Right. Right.

[John Coyle]

Crushing it, you know, on all online. And it's like, yeah, that's the business you want now, that's bigger than. But, like, you could do 5 million, 10 million and make a pretty good personal income and have pretty good freedom. 100%, and that's probably the life you want.

[Nick Sharma]

A lot of those people in Econ Fuel, you know, like, I remember one guy, he sells, like, truck radios on Shopify, makes 6,7 million bucks skiing every day. He lives on the mountain. Mountain. Just like, dude, that's a sick life.

[John Coyle]

That's the life you probably want. And there's an article that's like, I don't know, back when articles were like, really, like blog. Blog posts were like, oh, that was impactful. I think about that once a day. Yeah. Back in. Back in 2010, somebody sold his business. I can't remember this guy's name. And he wrote an article called Rich vs King of the World. And I think that's what it comes down to is, is that most people just kind of want to be rich. They don't. And when I say rich, they want to have earned the last dollar they ever need to earn.

[Nick Sharma]

Right.

[John Coyle]

Like, they want to not have money dictate their decisions. And they want to have time, freedom. Right. That's what most people want. Some people want to be the king of the world or have their brand, their company, their thing that they built be the king of the world. Now, some people start out wanting to be rich, and then when the opportunity arises to be the king of the world, then they want that. And that is a category I could put dad Gang in, where it's like, you might have started out just wanting sort of like money and time, freedom, but then it's like, okay, now we have this opportunity, and that doesn't come along very often. And it's okay to switch what you want, but most people don't actually want to build Jolie or Asleep or Feastables or something like that. You know what I'm saying? Most people probably just want to make really good personal income and be like the guy who sells. What did you say was car radio or what was it?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, truck radio.

[John Coyle]

Truck radio. Who you want to be or like water filters for car wash. Like, that's what you want.

[Bart]

The boring industries. So my.

[John Coyle]

Nobody's coming for you. Nobody's knocking you off.

[Bart]

I had a buddy nobody knew about either, and he just sold iPhone screen protectors on Amazon and like, no brand nothing. And he was like, not huge money, but he was bringing in like 30k in revenue just by himself. Didn't barely any touched anything product and then like, kept a few thousand for himself here and there and then was like, yeah, oh, this is awesome. Now I'm gonna do phone cases. And it just kept going and going and it's just kind of like, yeah, there's a lot of happiness in the. In the building of boring businesses.

[John Coyle]

And you can become your brand, can become this huge legacy brand over the course of 40 or 50 years. Right. Like Carhartts or Stanley. I mean, they've kind of taken a damn downturn now, but, like, that can happen over the course of a really long time if you just are like, let me just build a business that, like, supports my life, that I want.

[Bart]

Isn't there nothing's coming to mind? But aren't there a bunch of, like, businesses that started making one thing and then like, 40 years later, they're known for this thing?

[John Coyle]

Yeah, I think Stanley, is that is it? Yeah. Okay. They were always making some kind of like. I think they made like, Tupperware. People put their lunches in. Construction work, workers.

[Bart]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Coyle]

But like, yeah, no. Anyway, that's probably like the main thing that I think is, like, especially if you have a brand in the early stage, you're like, man, what do they do?

[Bart]

Like that.

[John Coyle]

All the people who ask me the question, like, what are they doing? I'm like, they're doing what you don't want to do.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, exactly.

[John Coyle]

You know what I mean? You don't want to live like that guy. People ask me what Breeze is doing all the time, and I'm like, I have insight on Breeze. And I'm like, I just don't think you want that life. You know what I mean?

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah.

[John Coyle]

And no offense to Nick, but they're playing a game that, like, most people don't really want to play, you know, Or Nick and Aaron, I think they're killing it, but they've decided purposely to play that game.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, totally.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you say that's like a common thread amongst these brands that people always hold up and say, how do I be them? For sure. Yeah, for sure.

[Nick Sharma]

And the answer is literally like, look, this is not. We're not building the next, like, electric car battery. There's a very proven thing of, like, what to do to build an E commerce business. And fact is, most people just don't want to do those things. They don't want to get the eyeballs, they don't want to get the views, film content. They don't want to seed it out, they don't want to do this. They don't want to go negotiate for a partnership. Like, it's just things they don't want to do. But the things are so obvious. We probably covered the entire thing on this podcast.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You know what I mean?

[John Coyle]

If you watch one podcast and build anything, it's probably there.

[Nick Sharma]

The things are all there of what to do. It's just. So you got to do them.

[John Coyle]

Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

I always tell people are always like, you know, like, how do we get to the. From the 20 million to the 50 million mark? Well, you got to focus on building a brand and you got to get eyeballs and you got to do this. Like, they're like, oh, yeah, we thought that was the right direct. Yeah. You knew that was.

[John Coyle]

Yeah, you already knew that because you got to. 20 million doing that. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

You just have to do it now. Cool.

[John Coyle]

Nick, I. I don't know what you're up to. Just. I guess we're pretty deep in the podcast to say that. But you just sold Sharma brands.

[Nick Sharma]

Yep.

[John Coyle]

Not that long ago. And you're. I don't think you have a new project yet. Yeah.

[Nick Sharma]

Nope, not officially. So, like, you still do the newsletter?

[John Coyle]

You still.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah, yeah, still got the newsletter. Honestly, that's what keeps me, like, super in the trenches too. Right.

[John Coyle]

But yeah, so tell people where to find you then.

[Nick Sharma]

Yeah. Just hit me on Twitter. Mr. Sharma on Twitter. Nick. My site, Nicknick Co is the email write. Nick Co is the advertorial thing. Yeah, whatever you need, I got you. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next time to cut through the noise on CPG retail and E commerce. If you enjoyed this episode, why not share it with a friend? And be sure to subscribe wherever you listen so you don't miss the next one. Sam.