Transcript [EN]: Vince Nijhof's $100M+ Ecom Playbook

We are on pace for 20 million this month. Everyone is openly talking about pushing volume, creative output. The more you do, the better. We basically scrape that. We are in e-commerce for eight years. We really launch [music] everything as a oneshot killing. We want to make sure that if we shoot, we shoot, right? >> You have the best ability to pick product categories. How do you pick these products? How are you researching everything? >> We've been launching more than thousand products. We went from product to product to product to product and we learned what categorizes a great product. Knowing what you know now, how much would you budget to test a new brand? [music] >> Uh first of all, I want to welcome you to the studio. >> Thanks for having me. >> I've been super excited to show you this space. >> Yeah. Uh you've got an audience also. These guys >> all know about you, know the work you're doing. >> Uh this my man over here >> uh heard that you were coming to town in particular. I mean he's from you're from uh Netherlands, right? >> Sick, guys. >> So you got >> I appreciate it. I appreciate it for sure. >> Um all right, brother. We got so much to catch up on my >> Yeah. A great way to do so. Thanks for having us. For sure. >> For sure. >> Maybe just start like with a quick intros. Of course, I have a few people know me, but for the ones who don't. So I'm a founder of Oak Brand Group. We started in e-commerce like seven, eight years ago more like with the drop shipping, but we quickly like knew okay we want to like build real assets, want to build real products. So um yeah, so we we own Hairs and Dorse and that's the brands that we are publicly about, but we also own a few that we on purposely don't share because yeah, we don't really see the benefit of doing so, right? as like his and Doran Rose are I would say true assets that if you would just look at them it's very hard to copy or basically do what we do >> and yeah more of like go go try to copy it it's really hard especially here is with like a patented product like two years of R&D the barrier to entry is super high but I would say nowadays with AI and how easy it is to copy stuff I purposely don't share yeah of course some of the other brands that we are more of like um yeah if you if you would want to you can like rip it overnight and I don't think it's great for the brand we want to achieve because also even with with Doran Rose we got so many like we you have these tools right now like DMCA takedown tools like thousands of copies and it's more of like it's really hard to sell that product so I know it's not affecting it too much but yeah it's really easy to to rip now so purposely don't share it but we will share it once the time is right for sure yeah >> and how many are you not sharing right now >> three so We we have two we have three founded brands and one we don't share the one that you do know and then we have two brands that we have acquired equity in um which we also not share right now not necessarily for us but also for the yeah I would say the business partners that we have right because of course also because of our audience just like extra eyeballs on a brand that's just more of like in the scale up phase um both of them are now just just reached seven figures still pretty fragile at one point I would say if you really have everything dialed from like omni channel, multiple presence, multiple channels is mostly only matter right now. And I think if you would just publish it, especially with so many Yeah. like people like looking also at like what other brands are doing, especially in e-commerce, it goes so quickly. I don't really see the benefit of sharing those also because we already of course have the benefit of well-known brands as here's Dan Rose um which is more of like assets and then this one is more of like I would say cash flow uh profit first brand building. >> Let's just knock out some basics real quick. So you're managing about five brands. >> Well, not necessarily managing. It's more of like ownership in a way. >> How many are you directly operating? >> Yeah, of course. Like I've I've helped build the internal playbooks, right? I've helped build the strategy. It's my own strategy that we apply on all the brands, but I would say getting great operators with you, of course, also great business partners. It makes things easier. And at one point, it's more of like, hey, helping with the strategy is what I love to do. I have a very strong background in performance marketing. It's what I love to do. That's my bread and butter. I implement that. I look at all the brands that add libraries. But beyond that, I'm not really trying to bother too much, you know, also not for example on small stuff. Oh, this headline is wrong on the static. You see what I mean? Like I'm not bothering that. More of like overall strategy, implementing new things. For example, AI big thing. Very excited of all of that. So I like doing that. I like being in involved. But like really running the brands at like a level that I've been doing before. I don't even want to be that extent anymore involved because it's just Yeah. Yeah, it's exhausting. Oh, conversion rate 1% down like stress. Yeah. Now I look at a a weekly. I don't I don't manage people by people. I just look at numbers, metrics. And now I would say with company command centers, with AI insights, you can get so much information without being too much obsessed in terms of time, right? You can get really easy uh feedback on how things are going. So more of managing metrics than people in a way. >> How big is the team right now? >> Yeah. So over all brands, we are 100 plus people. >> Wow. But the brand that we are really scaling, we purposely keep it as lean as humanly possible just because we know it is possible to do so. So I would say we have human signoffs like video editors and inputs but I would say the rest is like 80 90% is AIdriven right now. So >> are you disclosing how much revenue that you're doing or I know you've sent me some numbers but are you disclosing that or you guys keep it? >> Yeah we yeah we we can share it openly as well like we are on pace for 20 million this month and it's been scaling really really quickly. 20 million this month. >> Yes. So, previous month was 10 million. Just to put in perspective, it's because the new unlock and basically the unlock is more of like just doing much more with much higher intent and less just trying to push on on on volume. So, I would say that's already like a really thing that was a huge unlock for us. Everyone is openly talking about pushing volume, creative output. The more you do, the better. We basically scraped that and we said I'd rather launch five 100 out of 100 perfect as much as we can than trying to put like a thousand video ads out just because we want to hit a volume or a KPI. And now we found the sweet spot. We've got so many winners. And that's also what we do right now. That's like since since months that we have built our internal data bank and we are in e-commerce for 8 years and I'm questioning how come we've never done that before. There is so much free value out there on the internet that your customers are telling you through support tickets, trust pilot forms, Amazon reviews, competitor reviews, even like emails. Like there is so much info and I would feel like it was always already there, but now it's much easier to extract that info and do something with it. Turn it into marketing angles, but also product development, product launches, what do people actually need? And then you come back to like the messaging market fit, right? you know you have a product you know you have the product market fit because you're already doing numbers people are buying it but where you make the real unlock is by understanding the messaging market fit how do I speak to my ICP my ideal customer profile right and I would say when we really started to understand that um we are not making assumptions anymore basically our customers is telling us what they do like about the product what they strongly don't like about the product and with the brand that we are scaling aggressively it's also we scaling so hard now because a repeat purchaser coming in. Our goal was this year to do 100 million, but we are pacing harder than we than we thought we would. >> The thing I admire most about you from like a business dork perspective is you have literally the best ability in my opinion in the game to pick product categories. >> So here's >> Yeah. >> I think is an incredible category. >> Yeah. >> And then Dorse also >> Mhm. But it's not that you're just making it. I know you're not just making guesses. >> No. >> Is impossible. >> Yeah. >> So, I want to hear from you. How do you pick these products? How are you researching? How are you the margins that you're designing the size of the product? >> Mhm. >> Everything. >> Yeah. I think what's really one benefit that also allowed me to do multiple brands is my back my background was in general drop shipping, but not just the normal how most people know it. What we did is we've been using fennel pages for the longest. We were running like a special theme on Shopify which allowed us to create sort of like ops which is like stands for one product stores. So we've been running funnels before I even know what the funnel was. >> Yeah. >> Right. It was because I we just thought hey that's the best way to position our product. So we went on Shopify/pages we advertise only through that page. So the customer would land and would see a dedicated funnel with them four sections about the product where we were basically not necessarily listical tutorials but more of like a glorified product page with explanations on the product how it works a little seven reasons why you should buy it but then much different but we've been doing this for the longest time the it's funny the the team is called Ecom tricks it was from two Dutch boys like way back they just launched the team never touched it again I believe they're not even in ecom anymore but like especially shout out to their their team because they teach me funnels already way back. Um started to learn more about awareness stages way back. But to get back to the point because of that we've been launching more than thousand products because that was the thing we've done. We went from product to product to product to product and we learned what categorizes a great product. We were selling like cleaning towels, kitchen tools, um everything literally like gadgets, right? I can I can name up many things even like special toilet brushes like everything that you could sort of give like a magical twist that people not have seen before. So through ads they see, hey, this is a special product. Oh, it's nice. Oh, it's only this cheap for a great offer. That's how we always like been optimizing stuff. And also note, this was always been shipping from China. So we do had to have in our mind we cannot ship fridges, we cannot ship bricks, we need to optimize based on the economics on the units. And that's where you like sort of get a hang of it, right? It started to make sense. We started to selling jewelry, emotional jewelry, special best friend, motor bracelets. So we started like automatically and I was really young. I was like that's already six seven years ago you know that we were doing that. >> How old are you now? >> Uh 27 just turned 27. So I I I moved to Dubai 6 years ago and the only thing I did was like building funnels also together with Ry who's here with me. He's been with me already working for 6 years. We were doing this together. So now he's also >> I don't think you realize this but you're ecom machine bro. [laughter] >> Yeah. And I think definitely that that drop ship background, it just teach me so much stuff to how to run a real business because I had to do everything like from custom support and then of course I brought Nick my brother with it with me because I was not good with the backend stuff, the finances, the support. I just wanted to do one thing and that's make ads and scale ads, you know. I have a gaming background. My ads manager was like a video game to me, you know? >> I want the only thing that I wanted to do is be my ads manager and I wanted to do that all day. >> Yeah. And I was like, "Nick, yo, I need your help on this and that and that because I don't like to answer emails, support tickets and finance and please get me out of this, help me." And then we became business partners in the drop ship business. And then of course we made a lot of money with this and we invested basically yeah I I invested in Nick and Bob to help them build Doran Rose. So I haven't been as much involved as a operator but also as more of like a board partners and we've been doing that of course for already four years right now. Hey, I'm Anishh and I just want to quickly give you more context on the world of Elevator. I'm one of the managing partners. Elevator is broken out into several groups. We've got Elevator Goods, our very own in-house brands and agencies that we're currently building every single day. Brands like Fluffco and Jiggies. Elevator Capital is where we invest in other brands, young founders who we believe are on the comeup. 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And back to the show. >> So, going back to the the product though, like again, what what is the X factor? >> Like if you had to pick a new product today, if you had to start a new brand. >> Yeah, 100%. >> What is the X factor? Is it TAM? Is it like >> if you've ever had a brand before or starting fresh is it for me a big difference? Because if I would pick a brand with all the experience I have, I would look at it different than a starting brand because a starting brand you're not started to necessarily aim for nine figures. So what we look first huge time non-negotiable then also like knowing of course the product market fit is something that we can create. Messaging market fit is something that we also create because even if you would want to like you know like basically the the quote that we said like we can sell send in the Sahara depends on how you position it, right? So the only first thing that you really look is a TAM and also then of course the unit economics to scale hard and paid because we are paid ads driven. If we cannot spew a lot of money back into our ads, we also probably not going to hit nine figures because that's where we mostly see our revenue coming from in the beginning. >> What rorowass do you guys operate at? So now with the brand that we're really pacing, we unlock the US, which the break even rows in general is lower than I would say 1.3 1.3 and a half. Um, but also lower order and we focus really hard on the lifetime value as well. So we we if people won't come back, we won't be profitable. >> So okay, you just said something that I really want to get into. So you're the break even rorowass >> is 1.3. >> Yeah. Three three, but we we got it down. We started at 1.6, six, but we buy insane amount of volume. We literally just I came back from Grungal this morning, placed a PO of 2 million items. That changes the conversation if you play 10 10,000 or 2 million units. The cash flow benefits, but also like the unit cost because the factory is buying ground materials. And I learned >> the factory must think you're insane. >> Yeah, he thinks we insane. We had so much fun. We had so much fun, bro. I haven't been out for like like I don't even remember last time I went out. Probably last summer. And I went out with the guy yesterday or the day before. Guo. It's so funny. >> So you're hung over today? >> No, no, it was the day before and I don't I don't drink too much, but it was still like going out like I don't really go out. I have my ears in. I I do I do it easy. >> But it was more it was more for the fun, not really to go for full send or something, you know. >> Okay. So 1.3 is your break. What's your scaling target? >> 16. >> Yeah, we we scale 167 >> and Wow. And that's global. >> Yeah, but mostly US-driven. UK is even cheaper because UK shipping is much cheaper than US. >> So going back now to the question of how do you pick products? >> You're basically thinking to yourself unless you can scale it at a 156, you're probably not getting into that category, right? >> Yeah, true. That's also learning from Doran Rose. Dorne Rose is scaling break even rose too, but we still still scale it, but we have to hit 2.8 eight for for good AITA >> and it makes it harder to scale like D Rose is doing great numbers but >> like we always thought we are doing the best and the most insane numbers until you see what's possible with a brand like this see what I mean >> of course >> and even like that also when I was discussing with with Nick like we like it sounds maybe weird but we don't appreciate the numbers of Don Rose anymore because of this as in like >> are you comfortable at least sharing the category >> yeah so we are mostly focused on health we have launched for the longest we I was in uh body sculpting devices as well and then we saw okay we can also launch like a related products also like I already knew of course the numbers that the supplements brands were doing. I have a drop ship background where I connect with a lot of performance marketing, direct response people that also transition into becoming a brand. First thing they reach is or supplements or more of like a very outcome driven brand, right? Product solution, not necessarily a brand like let's say Doran Rose where it's more of like aesthetic sleep where also of course also a little bit problem solution with the deep sleep mask and the pillowcases antiagn but I really knew like supplements teach me a lot as well like hey lifetime value subscriptions. I was very interested into this because we've never really been doing this. So now also we have dedicated funnels more on subscriptions and like a lot of AB tests and I think that's that's really funny to to look into as well because yeah like the lifetime value um actually making people come back that of course also yeah what I said like my drop ship background really realized that if you really want to like build something you you make sure people come back >> huge >> 1.5 scaling rowass which by the way I think is insane >> like >> yeah yeah I would say That's so impressive. >> I would say if we hit 1.5 now, I wouldn't necessarily be happy. >> Okay. >> It it would have been a sort of like a bad day. So, >> so let's say targets 17. >> Yeah. 1 17 for us is great. For example, the numbers we are doing now in 17 would be really good. >> And at that at 17, what is like the profitability of the company? What are you what are you aiming for? So, from a percentage perspective, >> like if you just only look at okay, what are we looking to acquire on meta? Then I would say yeah, 1.6 1.7. But the reason why we scal right now as well is because our blended ros is being helped by the recurring customers, right? Okay. >> Like we do emails like some really great email campaigns that bring in so much revenue that even on rows we could like on meta that day we could have hit like 1.2 2 1.3 still be crazy profitable because there are so many people coming back it and of course >> profitability 15 20 >> yeah 15 because we're very lean there's there like opex we don't even have to calculate with it also that's funny because we look at contribution margin right and almost the opex that for example if we would do 100k a day or the opex on 800k a day it's shrink it's almost not visible anymore and that that makes it funny as well e-commerce exactly so if we would do 100k a day the break even rows would would also have been than um than now on 800k days. And that's also the reason why I would advise don't blindly stare on break even rows. But really look at your contribution margin as well because your contribution margin can be really good but if your OPEX is really high you might end up with with a loss. So I can also explain that in a bit. Let's say you will do 10k a day and I think here is a great example with her. We have a very high OPEX because we have a lot of great team members that deserve a great pay. We have to hit a much higher target on our paid ads because we are like 150k 200k opex. But if you would put that in perspective, our other brand has less opex and we do many times more the revenue, right? >> Yeah. >> So, um if you would like make the calculations on that, uh let's say if you let's say 200k opex, that means almost like >> this is per month, right? >> Yeah. 200k per month. Then 6k a day already on OPEX that you need to catch up with. Like if you would like six times 30 almost 180 >> your brands are all individual teams >> mostly. Yes. >> Okay. >> I've made that mistake before. >> What's the mistake? >> Like if you if you have a great hire in one one brand you immediately want to deploy and use them everywhere and then it's not the great hire anymore. It's too much. You you break him or >> so you want to keep people focused on their one brand. And I'm not saying that the team should not work collaborative in a way that when we unlock angles or frameworks or new tactics that we share. We we are in each other's atria. So we can look out all the time. We we understand each other's m uh like uh output and performance. But yeah, of course that's that's something we've learned. Okay, I would say back to the profitability and the break even ro the reason why you should definitely focus on the contribution margin is then because you understand how is the business really performing on like performance right because or you just need to shrink your opex or you know okay my contribution margin is healthy now I'm doing like only 50k a day but if I will do 100k a day I turn profitable without necessarily changing the costs or the target you see what I mean of course because the contribution margin is already good but because your opex is so high for example here 6k a day the first 6k profit we make basically on the contribution margin goes to the goes to the opex right so by unlocking that and understanding that is sometimes also already a big unlock that you just know >> I can just do more revenue on the same rorowass on exactly the same metrics but because my my OPEX is then just in percentage show instead of like it it just shrinks the more you grow revenue >> okay so we covered picking products >> now I want to get into either creative strategy or funnel strategy Yeah, I think for us it's like sort of like similar right now as we feel like if I would look at the creative strategy right now where we have seen crazy unlock is by understanding awareness stages and what 99% of brands are doing too much is launching middlefunnel ads and thinking that the top of funnel ads and also want to explain our our unlock is the more you get consistent fresh new eyeballs into the into the funnel into the awareness stages top of funnel net new eyeballs they haven't seen your brand for you will see your middlef funnel is going to perform so much better as well because what others are doing they launch middlefunnel ads consistently the first three four five days they see great performance performance goes down they say hey I have creative fatigue or hey my creatives are not working anymore but I'm telling you we've had this before it's not that the creatives are fatigue there are simply no new people to show it to because you can like make make the craziest like middle funnel awareness stages ad but if there are no new people entering the funnel you just showing the same ad over and over again to the same people. I'm sorry, not the same ad, but like the same bucket of people, you're just showcasing the new same type of ads. So really building top of ads and then really really building top of ads is for us a big unlock and I would say think storytelling formats like really long storytelling formats like not necessarily introducing the product just more of like getting into your ICP again to the messaging market fit. So we really focus on like three, four, five minute VSSLs taking them through a whole story line especially also would say like selling to a bit older audience they they they spend time on their phone they watch it and I also feel that Meta is rewarding this Meta is rewarding this so much. We are launching the same type of messaging into like shorter and let's say 30 second clips and now into long VSSLs three to five minutes and then to a dedicated advator prelander saying the same message. This is top of funnel top-notch topunnel and if you even do it right you can convert them from top of funnel to middlefunnel into the same sequence because they spend so much time on the brand first with the VSSL then they read like a long format landing page as well. They're already in their mind spending so much time with you and they get convinced and they understand and they go from like totally unaware to to problem aware solution to where product aware. So you really do believe in like cuz what you're describing is I would say OG marketing 101 like looking at people in the problem aware solution aware top of funnel middleunnel b a lot of people these days I feel like they just bulk launch ads without considering that. >> Yep. I think that's that's for many people a big unluck because I've been like that as well. Do you need to be at a specific scale to because again you're spending you know >> you're spending yeah >> pretty significant you know three 400k a day >> I' spent a day and also like more omni channel now that's also why I wanted to talk about to you later because I know you're big on omni as well but first back to to to this I I definitely feel that is going to be a crazier unlock because of course if you don't spend a lot today you would less see creative fatigue right I would say if you really scale your ad spend obviously you're going to see much quicker creative fatigue so the that I just explained where you think that it's your creatives. It's not your creatives, it's your audience that's fatigued. So that's why I'm saying if you really focus on the top of funnel, make sure that you get consistently new people entering the funnel, your all your other ads are going to work better. And even like what I we can touch base later on the channel also going to perform much better because everything just helps to the whole ecosystem to convert and like really focusing top of funnel will make everything flow much better. And what based on your question like I think many people are just indeed launching random ads based on what they see not necessarily labeling and and classifying it and that also brings me to the point what's great creative strategy great creative strategy is being very intentional about what you launch why you launch it and make sure that you track it and especially the last because if you track everything you do so we would have our like creative brief we have the use case the angle awareness stage the bucket and the bucket is like is it a video a static a VSSL or a creator. So that's the bucket. But also in this bucket you can put it in a different framework. So what type of static is it the split screen is it the etc etc etc. And [snorts] then you can diversify this as well. So for example a split screen static is working really great where you see a problem solution outcome. You can turn that static into a video. You can turn that static into a creator doing the same message. You can turn that creator with the same message into a long format VSSL as long as the messaging stays clean. So a great ad is tracked but also intentional. One clear objective. So one hook, one one mechanism, one story line, one outcome, one offer, one product. Everything needs to stay very all aligned even to an extent where do you send them after? So after the click also very important for creative strategy. >> Yeah, we'll get to funnel in a second or landing page in a second. But can you walk me through your creative team? >> How do you structure the physical people? >> Yes. goals, all that. >> I've really seen the collaborative gamifying leaderboard type of style where we before had a huge team. Everyone was doing this, this and that. Now we have a huge team in very small pots. So for the specifically brand, we have seven pots, one strategist lead, two editors and then one creative coordinator that manage all the pots. >> So seven pods in that structure. Yes. >> Creative strategist, editor, coordinator. >> Yeah. So you've got seven pods of that and then you have a leaderboard >> which shows which pod's crushing. >> Exactly. And then every pod has two vis editors. We are only crushing it mostly on videos because we feel like statics is a piece of cake right now with all the tools that we have and also we can repurpose it so easily. So our say we will divide it into into splits. Um I always said like yeah we do 70 30% statics but since we are pushing so much heavier we are leaning more to 90% video 10% statics 80% top of funnel 20% middlef funnel and then our retargeting and retention campaigns is a dedicated pot on its own because it's not really utilized that much. >> So seven creative strategist. >> Yeah. So we we have seven pots and then we have for example strategist like also assigning multiple pots to it. Where the most effort is being spent now is in the editing itself. So that's why we have like the dedicated editors that like basically control their own pod. Um but we we we we were trying to push for seven uh strategists, but right now we do seven pots with with with five strategists, but [snorts] we are hiring like we we want like we are hiring. We are we have so many open drop positions. >> So you said 80 to 90% video. >> Yeah. >> What percentage of that is AI versus real footage? On the real footage, how are you acquiring that footage? Yeah, it's a it's it's a mix. Um, I would say we definitely try to use AI as much as we can where it makes sense. For example, even to the extent like creating really great looking B-roll or talking heads. Um, but also also repurposing of course like our existing pool of content with real creators. And I think still even with AI voiceovers, it's it's absolutely um a a no-brainer to use it because you can make the message so much more intentional and direct and like real and authentic. And that's what you want. Like it's funny like AI sounds more authentic than the real stuff if you get what I mean of course because you can tweak it like a small mistake you can polish it and it's not a one prompt thing. It's still human human efforts human signoffs human final pushes but I would say like you can really make so much nicer great messages um because you can just like do it based on what's working so well right so you come up with the best possible script but if the execution is weak the whole script also doesn't work and that's something that we've like seen for the longest with some creators. It was always the question, hey, how do you work with so many creators? How can you make sure they make like real authentic content? Because the best ads of course look native and they are like true and authentic. Um, so yeah, we definitely use a lot of AI, but that also like again helps uh it goes back a little bit to the creative strategy. Top of funnel, mostly storytelling is AI, but middle of funnel where you want to have real creators with real experiences with real inboxes with real comparisons. So it really labels it on the the way and the type of ad that we want to push and bring the message because we really focus on the message and then we're going to look hey how are we going to distribute this message as diverse as possible in as many ways as possible but keeping it really tied to the same message because the message the messaging fit on a specific use case and audience and an angle is something that we want to like guard that it like really clear on the thing that we solve but you can say it in a thousand different ways. Let's talk about the messaging uh and how you test. >> Yeah. >> I mean, you must be testing thousands of hooks, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. So, also it goes a little bit back into that we prefer to I say a funny thing like we really launch everything as a oneshot kill intent. We want to make sure that if we shoot, we shoot, right? So, we we started like that and now because we have so much valuable data, we can do more. But also I would really always advise don't necessarily think I have to launch a thousand ads to be really scale like really scaling because for the longest our ad account was only scaling on two three videos and now we cracking it more. We feed it back into the data bank. The data bank is coming up with better IDs. Those IDs turn into much better VSSLs and you unlock this crazy amount of skill. But I believe it really starts by intent first always not volume. Really intent first. Launch just one really good video instead of trying to do a 10 or 100. like you you will really see that because also >> I think this is a big mistake that 90% of e-commerce people are making right now. I think the more I launch the better because meta so smart >> without thinking about what they even launching >> 100% >> frankly I make that mistake you know sometimes you just whatever just throw it out there Meta will figure it out >> and then you kind of lose sight of like >> yeah I'm guily I've been guilty on that for a long time as well and I think like the the best meta ad accounts the main impact is not made inside meta but outside meta like what do you feed and then meta is just like a vehicle on how can you like launch and scale as much as possible while still keeping the best overview you and read the best signals and get the most information back on what what what you need to put back into the ad account again. And that's also what I mean with the intention because if you get a few really great videos that is already so worth >> because you with that great videos you can make so many more videos right reusing existing winning data repurpose it into more new creative ideas come up with new creative uh like concepts and um brief it into multiple formats but it needs to start somewhere and that's where you have the messaging market fit for the first time you really start to get a hang of it and you start to understand okay this is what my audience likes to see this is the type of messaging this is the type of pain points and and audience and that is really how they resonate and then you have like product market fit, messaging market fit. If you have those two, you just really focus on creative output but still keep it very intentional. >> What percent are you spending on meta right now? Is it 80 like would you say 80% on meta? >> It was always been for the longest on like that. Uh we are spending a lot on Google right now as well mostly on YouTube. So it's also funny. >> So what's the breakdown percentage? Um I would say for example yesterday I think 30 300k on meta 50 60k on uh on Google >> 50k on Google 50 60k and that includes YouTube. >> Yeah and then we have like 15 20k apploin which we're trying to unlock. It's not we we've been scaling it for before um >> people make apploven sound so easy honestly >> I heard the same like I know I know brand's crushing it. Um, I do definitely think we have to like crack it, but we just recently started like hiring a dedicated pot for it as well because I know that's just a true unlock. It's again new audiences and new way of of showing them and we just want to be everywhere with our brand right now. >> Tik Tok show. >> Yeah, we we're trying. We're trying. But I I I know like Tik Tok is always for the longest because we didn't have like a US presence. It was like very hard and we were shipping shipping from China. So for the longest time we were like okay Tik Tok shop we just focus on meta first because that's also what I advise to everyone who's asking me oh I heard this what what should I do Tik Tok Amazon this and that I always advise just make sure you crack meta first because the skill on meta alone is already enough to set yourself up to crazy meta >> exactly so >> once you hit let's say indeed already eight figures you should be looking into how can I diversify how can I be more omnipresent how can I like uh activate Tik Tok shop. So yeah, we are we are on Tik Tok shop as well. Uh but it's not scaling as hard. But >> so the bread and butter is meta 100%. >> 100%. >> But what I do definitely see the impact on Amazon right now. >> That's crazy. Yeah, this is a whole other thing to discuss. >> I I was surprised because I was always like yeah you know like they're international brand they they will just order. But since we are focused so much on the US because of course for the other brands we were international. You don't feel the impact as much as how we do now where we are 80% US. And if we are out of stock on Amazon, our blended rows is like tanking. And I didn't expect the correlation to be so big. But I also realized the correlation from YouTube to Amazon is even crazier. So that's where we really noticed now because we are spending like so much on Google or YouTube um that if we are out of stock, which we are right now on Amazon, you feel it. >> You say you have five credit strategies across seven pots. So what defines a pot? >> A pot is more like a team, but we call it a pot because we don't want to call team team team in our big team. So it's more of like a pot. It's like a system. It's if you see the orchard, it makes sort of more sense. Yeah. >> But a pot is more of like creative pot one is one creative lead, two uh two video editors and then graphic designers. With graphic designer, we uh allocate across multiple pots because we don't need seven graphic designers, right? >> So there's no different responsibilities for different parts. It's just like you're a pot, you have a creative strategist, two video editors. >> So like a pot can have multiple responsibilities. For example, a product launch, we assign two pots only to work on the new product launch. So you do necessarily have like specific skill sets with inputs. For example, in our case, both one and two, we know they're correct on VSSLs and really great with AI. So of course, we would like make them only do that, right? We I'm not going to ask them to work on a on a new product launch because I just want them to do what we get the most revenue out. >> How are you paying your video editors? Do you pay them upside? >> Very very transparent, very clear. 2K flat $500 uh dollar bonus per winning ad. Sounds like a lot, but you earn it back. >> So, you're not giving them necessarily like an incentive on the percent of spend in that sense. I know some people do that, but obviously at the volume I mean, >> look, what what we do is we basically see a winning concept at after 50k spend and then it's just like a onetime bonus. So, we can like we have an ad that's spending like 2 three million and like it doesn't make sense to then give an ad spend share. So like for them, let's say 50k spent on our target rollers, which in this case then is 1.7. >> Like there's editors making 67K right now. They're cracking VSSLs. Um >> where they mostly based. >> Yeah, like I have a hidden jam which is like Malaysia editors and Filipinos and also a few from Latin America. >> Okay. >> So yeah, that's my go-to for the editors. And I I like >> So 2K flat and then $500 if they hit if one of the ads hits 50K in spend. >> Yes. per ad. If you have multiple winners, it's multiple 500. >> Definitely. Yeah. Like we we had one editor that launched five winners in one week at 2 and a halfk. >> Okay. >> Just extra on top of it. And for them, it's like the world. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> And I like that as well because everyone can see it. No, we don't hide anything. They can see their performance. They can see how their ads are performing at all times. And they can also learn from each other. Um and yeah, like who who creates the best ads earns the most. >> Let's talk funnels. >> Yeah. >> Landing pages. How are you thinking about that? How are you building? Are you testing? >> Yeah, good question. I think it really um resonates as well with what I just mentioned about the top of funnel because I feel like if you do top of funnel really well, you convert you can convert them to a new awareness stage in the same funnel in the same sequence from seeing the ad going to that tutorialistical and like getting really familiar with the product getting more trust authority and eventually even convert them in the same funnel. Before I felt like people had to see like six, seven, eight times our ad to convert. But now by applying like these land lists at vtorials, people are already spending so much time that they feel the the buying intent already. They feel the desire, they feel the trust, they understand the real pain point and they actually believe. I think that's the biggest part what the listical can do. They believe that this product can finally work for them because obviously they've tried already. There have countless times look oh this is the perfect product that does and promises this. Butistical you can actually show them and we call then like the belief mechanism where you make them sort of like realize oh that makes sense. [snorts] Just for example an example on a pillowcase um silver ion infused that pushes bacterias out with like a really nice gift that shows how it works. People then believe oh I actually believe that because of silver ions in a silk pillowcase probably I can get a more clear skin. They have to see it. They need to like understand it and if they do so they'll probably buy and you you can do that through a listical already um honestly like 90 90% of our traffic is being sent to pre-landers. >> Wow. >> Yeah. >> How many are you like when you find a lander that works? >> Are you kind of just going heavy and really pushing traffic there or are you constantly iterating? >> No. I think that's a thing that we've learned as well. We don't try to launch as much funnels as humanly possible. Yeah, >> we scale in three, four funnels max. >> Yeah. Again, I think this is another big misconception you'll talk about. >> Yeah, you know, it's really true because you don't want to break something that's working perfectly fine. >> Yeah. >> And of course, it it comes with a lot of research. Again, like we launch our funnels not by a random guessing ID. We launch our funnels by exactly knowing what the pain points are and then reverse engineering them with the solution. This is why you think it's not going to work. This is the reason why it's going to work. and showing that with visuals, explanations, testimonials, results. Like I I really like like that whole part. Taking them through their all of their buying objections and they're just showing them so much that at one point they especially combining with a great offer, great product. Yeah. They like too good to refuse in a way, right? >> For sure. >> Straight to product page. Could have never done that. And also especially also like also I uh I know we've talked this about about this before like people try to choose between performance marketing or brand either either one of the two right I feel like with this you can do definitely do both there's many ways to still protect your normal clean aesthetic brand page still go heavy on direct response whit listing pages authority pages third party pages backed by true um yeah authority figures I would say don't fake it that's something that you should definitely not too because it's easier than ever and can might feel that might feel like attracting oh I just launched a doctor with fake this and that but that's definitely not something that I advise that's also not something that we do but if you have a real authority figure you can advertise through that authority figure send them through an authority uh landing page yeah that's not necessarily a brand but still heavy direct response but still it's a blend in between because like if someone highly talking about your brand he's making the claims the brand's not making the claims right so by doing more of like those third party pages, you can make claims that you won't necessarily make on your main brand page. That's also why we call like the perfect blend between. You can do both and you just need to be careful and like yeah, don't make claims that are not true or work with authority figures that are not really backing you or in a way. >> Your best performing funnel, what's the conversion rate on that? >> Five 5%. But that's I would say it's it's a pre-lander and from pre-land the product page. Um but it's funny we've recently built this totally yourself. So we've for the longest been using those tools for it. But now we've built an internal tool where we make also the landing pages with where we can also spot the metrics with which makes it a lot easier. >> What is that tool? >> We've built it ourselves. So we hosted on a railway first I believe. So I did it with my team. So we we we've built it completely ourselves. All the data points we collected in our own data center. Now um we are rolling this out. We started with the one brand that we're talking about now. We've doing this. We get all of the info. That's also for example the creative boards. Everything comes there. I saw you created this like brain. I I actually screenshotted that post of yours because I wanted to make it for us too. It's like >> I call we call it elevator brain. >> So it's connected to bizarre voice. It's connected to Trustpilot. It's connected to Amazon reviews. It's connected to >> uh Facebook comments, Instagram comments, >> it's connected to our press trackers like >> input feed feeds like the brain and then it spits out so valuable. Yeah. So we we also use that to build our own landing pages where we can also me measure our metrics because also we for example want to watch clickthrough rate which is a very big metric that before we haven't looked at because we didn't get that info but now we can actually see okay we get 100 visitors 15 people press on add to cardart meaning 15% clickthrough rate and then the data is getting interesting because we want to optimize for the smaller metrics that makes the higher uh the outcome in one point and then Yeah, we've been doing we still do AB tests, but we don't really see the benefit of like launching so many different funnels if one funnel is just working really well. Um, so yeah, 5% conversion rate is then on the Shopify. Um, but you cannot necessarily spot the conversion rate on the pre-lander because they go to product page and then they mix together with the Shopify, right? So, >> okay. And what about upsells? How do you >> Yeah, big big really big. It can be the unlock for massive scale if you can just like have a little bit extra room for paid. It can be the difference between nonprofit or profitable and very profitable. >> I think for us speaking about fluff now, >> the only like our the most recent level of scale we've achieved is because of upsells. >> Our AOV is like 2.5x [clears throat] >> a single unit. >> Holy >> Yeah. And that >> has allowed us to be competitive on meta >> because the natural CPA is actually much higher than I than it used to be. And so I'm curious like how do you guys test upsells? And also how do you smoke test upselles? Because that's also another thing I'm trying to do more of is like we have a product idea. Okay, instead of going >> straight and putting a purchase order in, like you really want to get a little bit of data, but that involves selling something that you might not actually have in inventory and then going back and canceling that order. How do you do you >> I think the first thing brands really need to do is looking at a product that actually really complements the main product as well. So if you can find a product that can make the main product better um then it's for example let's say deep sleep mask a travel case for the deep sleep mask >> okay >> those type of upsells if we put on a discount it will be 30 40% take rate which is huge on our volume for for dors >> so that's where you start by looking and for some products it's a little bit harder to match but you can always find stuff again example here's we have just the ear plugs we find a bumper protection case $9 take rate 20% or cleaning for your ear plugs. Like it doesn't necessarily think about it first. >> That's good. >> Yeah. So because it's like a really nice um look here's a went from 42 nonprofitable to now 64 very profitable not only because of upsells also because we changed the offer. So you will see one two three sets which before we just had one and then they can buy multiple. We made the huge AB tests on the product page, the offers, bringing all products together, bundling them, um giving discount on the second and the third. All of those things is also first way optimized. And then like a upsell is is definitely important, but how you come up with upsells, I think it's really really dependent on the brand. Of course, it needs to make a sort of sense to buy together. It's not like, oh, I'm going to like a random product on discount. So um yeah how you come up with those is of course also there's a lot out there in the internet again I think right now as well with all the tools we have doing proper research that's where you start first so even if it's like a upsell is it the product launch is it the marketing ideas the concept start with proper research understanding your brand your competitors your market the product the the what all what is already out there you see what I mean because there's so many good stuff already that's out there for free if it's not from your customer telling it to you it's from competitors doing it or from reviews. Um, >> yeah, the fact that it exists, the fact that someone's doing it, someone's thought through that, it's not it's not random. >> 100%. >> Um, okay. So, that's funnel. I want to talk about brand as well. >> So, again, something just that I love about you guys and what you do is you really invest in brand. Like, here's dropping St. Laurent collabs. >> Crazy. >> You know, which like look, if I had to guess is probably not a huge revenue driver, but as and I could be wrong, but the positioning is incredible. Mhm. >> Actually, uh, someone on our team asked me to ask you about like how are you thinking about brand? By the way, I actually interviewed Bob. The podcast hasn't come out. So, >> yeah. Shout out to Bob. He's been crazy on the Wise Up collab. >> So, I'm just think like how much do you guys shoot in like, you know, photo shoot in real life? How often are you creating content? >> Cuz you're creating these brands, but you're >> again what separates, I think, good brands from excellent brands >> is literally the brand. 100%. >> Right. Not just like a URL on a website that does well, but like actually a brand. >> Yeah. Yeah. Brand is also people that really people want to buy it not only because of the product, also because of the brand, right? They really feel like, oh, if I buy there, I'm 100% going to have a great experience that and that's also what I said in the beginning of the podcast as well. Like if you really want to build a very profitable big brand, you need to make sure people come back because everyone can sell them once. >> Yeah. You know, and that's also where we of course focus on creating a great experience, trying to be very smart with most cost efficient, the highest perceived value, trying to find like the perfect blend. Where do we where do we invest? Where do we try to uh um take an an advantage because yeah, that's I would say really important. We still really try to find uh especially for for hairs, we really find ways to like um optimize the profitability because we started not profitable, but like it was not our first brand. How long was that phase? The unprofitable phase? >> Yeah, too long. >> I know, but how long? >> Yeah. Um, I would say the first six months, but we just like like the brand. Like if it would have taken 5 years, we still would be down because obviously here's for us is also like something we really like. We find it really, really cool. It's a patented filter. Took 2 years to design. Uh, like the R&D process took forever. Nick and Bob has had like countless back and forth driving to Spain to to like the design studios in the Netherlands. Like this has not been a Alibaba offtheshelf thing. And that's also why if it would have taken 5 years to be profitable, we would be good. But of course with our experience that we bring from the other brands and just in general great with performance marketing, we know how to sell stuff. So we we we knew eventually it would work. >> It's funny cuz 6 months to get profitable. >> Yeah. But if you come from Best in class, bro. That's best in class. I mean, >> of course. Yeah, it's still it's still >> you're just again what I love about you is you're you're very harsh on yourself in that sense like you expect excellence. Like you shoot to kill like you said >> and if you're upset with 6 months like [laughter] >> I mean >> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean like funny like from the drop ship times if my ads were not profitable on the first day K done never look again. Yeah. >> So [clears throat] no like but the other brands like yeah product to market you want to be profitable on the on a new customer acquisition for the longest time we really struggle to get profitable and now even also because our opex is extremely high because we want to best of the best quality we invest a lot back in the brand we have custom molds huge cash flow into stock because multiple warehouses for for his production is not done in China for no it's custom molds and uh Nick and Bob was like hey we have a patented filter We have patented protected product. Chinese manufacturers don't really care about that. They would just replicate it if they would get it. And yeah, we were more of like cautious with like doing it there. And also the costs were not that crazy different. It's more of like the complexity and much more cash flow needed to make it happen to produce in Spain, assembly in Romania, ship it to China, ship to the US. It's so complex. But again, like we invest so much in it. We're going to launch a sleep ear plug in a month. Extremely cool. Wow. >> Extremely cool. Works really bad. Really great. So even that like we not just go product to market. The f the the first prototype was one year ago. We've sent it more like 30 40 people just to test them feedback improve and back to the market. So we really built this for the long term for the longevity. We don't really look for profitability in here. Also of course that we have the favor of running really profitable brands on in our brand holding already. We cannot be copied. We use ourselves. I put that one on the shelf. You know what I mean? Like here is just a really cool brand. We can talk about it because like people try to copy but it's really hard even for us like selling this online you need to be really good. Of course [snorts] there's there's a huge competitor doing crazy numbers. I think Loop is doing 300 million a year. So we know it's possible but they are in the game for a very long time and they also are in multiple categories. So I'm really excited for sleep because I know for thousand% that we going to crack that. Doran Rose has been scaling sleep niche for five, six years, five years, I must say. Um, and we know everything already. We have we have the data from the sleep niche. We know what works. We know the angles. We know what what what sticks. And we now turn it into a sleeping earplug. We're going to launch a collab sleep mask earplug between the two brands. >> How do you think about cuz you're generating a lot of cash. >> Mhm. >> Profitably. >> Yeah. >> And you're investing a lot right now into new products. But how do your investment layers grow, I guess, is what I'm asking. Like how do you think about keeping cash, preserving it, just paying yourself out, whatever, like enjoying your life versus aggressively maybe through acquisitions or >> uh patents or more R&D? Like how aggressive is your investment approach? >> It's also like we really structured this per brand like the one brand is fitting dividend out like there is no tomorrow and and the other ones everything in the company for example here is we don't take anything out. I haven't got one year out. In fact, I just keep putting money back in to grow it. Okay. >> Right. So, it's really per brand. And then uh in terms of like the cash flow, of course, you know, like 3 years ago, we've started EcomFlow, which for us was a huge enabling getting much more freeing up cash flow much more. [snorts] Instead of like four complex warehouses overseas with multiple millions into inventory, we now have it straight uh next to the manufacturer shipping one or two days post production. Much less capital needed to really scale, easier access to the whole market. we can ship worldwide from one location. Um, but of course also come back to the unit economics where we really focus on building the brand um being able to ship from China as well with like the weights. We don't ship as I said like no fridges, no bricks, no heavy stuff or like pillows of 4 kilos. [laughter] >> Tell me about it, bro. >> Yeah, >> tell me about >> I know that's why I'm saying like I know the heavy pillows they are a on on shipping them from China. Um, but that brings so much free cash flow because we simply don't need that much gas in the business anymore. Besides now as well, like really great payment terms with factories. It just getting better and better at this point. We build trust. We have track record to show for other brands. Our conversations are getting easier. We're getting much much stronger payment terms. A lot fuels back into marketing as well. as well like for a new brand like in the beginning you are making profit but if you scale so much month on month the profit straight goes back into marketing for example the being able to do ad spend our Shopify payments are like 10 days still because um the USLC if you switch your bank account once it's it it resets back to 10 days we were like oh my god and doing these revenues on 10day payouts in Shopify it's like eating cash flow as well so we have to of course be cautious but we can like ple a bit from left and right but Yeah, really good finance understanding. I would say it goes hand in hand with really big skill as well. So a good skill starts by understanding cash flow, understanding maintaining inventory, um not too much complex uh yeah supply chain setup and those three really that having that dialed uh allowed us to go full on creative and just making sure that we deliver the best of the best ads. Um we have the best marketing heads. Um really blessed with our team. I'm definitely not want to take credit here for all of that. We have such incredible people, really smart people. I learned from them. They come with the newest of the newest AI stuff that I'm like, man, this is crazy, you know? Like I'm not like they I I see it all and I'm just getting really excited. >> I said it the other day as well. Like right now, I haven't been so excited to just work because things are just you see what I mean, right? Like what's happening now? Like we this is the golden era. This is the moment. And I feel it like that as well. like we already like I feel like every day that we're not >> Sunday the office is full. >> I I love it man. I love it. Yeah. I love this game and I really again also like so excited in this ecom game again because just things are I I said this um I posted two days ago on Twitter like we are entering an era that the top 1% is taking the whole market and 99% is starting to fight for the crumbs because the real operators last and the copycats fight for the crumbs you know. So you told me that the last six, seven months have really been uniquely a big unlock for you. Is there anything that you've [clears throat] in the last six months experienced or learned that we haven't touched on that you want to share? I would say it it is definitely a part of like the real understanding of creative strategy because for the longest we've been running creative strategy and like okay marketing marketing marketing but but really like you you you said it yourself actually the my my unlock like going back to the OG marketing understanding the real awareness stages like your real messaging like how do you speak to your ICP like even like the data bank for example for the longest we were just looking at competitors oh they do this ad swiping let's make something similar iteration iteration iteration iteration I feel like many brands are doing that right? They over iterate, over iterate. But where the real skill is for us, net new concepts and also I'm saying the past six or seven months been so great for me because I've been in my creative zone again. >> I've been for the longest working in a rushed state of mind. I think I've told you about this. >> I've I've sort I would not say struggled, but I've always been into like the next thing, the next thing, the next thing. Working very rushed. And the past six, seven months have been the best months of my life because I have so much control on my life, on the business, on where I want to spend time on not being uh putting down fires all the time. I'm enjoying it so much now. And that's why I'm also seeing so much better results because actually, yeah, I'm just enjoying it so much. And then you just do more of what you like and you have automatically better output instead of I force myself to come up with the new idea. You know what I mean? One thing that I think you just touched on which I want to double click on is like the big mistake that a lot of ecom people are making right now is it there it's just a bunch of numbers on a screen but not actually thinking about the fact that there are on the other side of that screen human beings >> that are like physically looking >> reading >> purchasing a product >> you know like I'll give you an example we've got friends >> um that launched a custom pet product business. >> Yeah. >> And weren't seeing conversion. >> Mhm. >> And Andrew went on the website. >> Mhm. >> And he physically like tried to drag a picture of his dog and the drag wasn't working. >> Yeah. >> And it's like >> until you physically understand what the human beings on the other side are doing, >> you're actually like it's it's I guess what I'm trying to say it's it's too digital. >> Like we've lost sight of the fact that this is actually like >> we're selling products to real human beings. It's not just human that you just dush out thousands of ads and then your rowass and conversion. It's it >> it's funny. Yeah. >> You know, like there's humans interacting. >> I completely get that. >> And so I think what [clears throat] you're saying, what I'm hearing is you've like really stepped back and you've dialed in the marketing, the messaging, actually reading, actually thinking, having intention. >> Yes. >> Putting yourself in the shoe of your customers. Exactly. Not just sort of like spraying and praying. I think a good way to put it is that we started to apply emotional marketing and with emotional marketing I mean indeed what you say there is a human on the other side of the screen they have emotions an angle in an ad people think oh I need to come with a new ad or I need to come up with a new angle but you can also see it hey I need to come up with a new emotion and the angle is an an emotion that's being triggered by your ad and that's also how we for example call an angle in our case it's multiple emotions it can be a good emotion or it can be fear it can be loss it can be confidence can be convenience All of that are really great angles and that's something that you need to trigger by the one watching the ad. And you can do that through a mechanism that I've just explained like showing them in a way that's not necessarily selling but make them feel attracted to the ad. And when they realize that it is an ad, they are already attracted and triggered by the ad. If you see what I mean? >> Yeah. I say they just watch something and they resonate with what they see in their head. There's something like a that's me moment existing. They see something and they live that pain without knowing that what they're watching is there to sell them something. So they're sort of like a guard down. If people are scrolling ads, they see aesthetic with a huge headline. Oh, this is what I want you to sell. They're sort of like a fence, right? Because we see so many ads on our screen. You want to catch them sort of like with their guard down, attention to the ad, attention to the story, and they feel so resonated with what they see. And that's that emotional like like that emotional desire that they get from the ad. then take them through a pre-lander listical and they're so hooked to what you are telling them because the fun thing is you they are the the ICP and what you're showing them comes from themsel like your audience is telling that through the data bank what I was explaining winning ads go back competitor winning ads go back but reviews like emails like all of the things I just mentioned to you there's so much value and like a funny thing there as well like do start looking at 150 characters plus not like oh excellent product love That doesn't tell you anything. You want to filter that. Set the filter 150 characters plus. You will get stuff like this. Hey, I'm a busy mom. I have two babies and I only can sleep like 5 hours a night and since I've been using the deep sleep mask, I don't hear the birds chirping and I wake up fully blacked out. And you see three angles why they buy your product from a review. Turn that into new scripts, new copyrightiting. And you have a great angle that actually coming not from us guessing. No, it's coming from your customer telling you why they buy it. And then [snorts] you create emotional depth to your ads. you create more intention and this is just a simple example but you're surprised with what they write. >> Let's talk about AI. What are the tools and like how are you what are the different categories of business that you're applying AI? >> Yeah. So of course I would say the the first one uh like claude multiple projects like low hanging everyone is doing it yesterday they shipped 4.7 absolutely crazy um diving into that four models at the same time. Yeah, I would say like the very deep research the data bank that that was just described yesterday got handed to you >> just literally yesterday they launched an update that everything that we've put so many manual effort is being done for you right now happened yesterday even and they're shipping every day something new >> if you look what they have been shipping over the past two weeks it's like a list of this >> no the last two weeks in particular have been I don't know >> yeah so like even like when this is out probably they have like 10 new things already so definitely like and then divide it per project. So, um we for example can have multiple projects specifically on script writing, funnel pages, store optimization, all of those things you want to like we have it in different projects into team projects and copyrightiting happens there. It's getting better and better. Um also, of course, quick side note, don't just start tomorrow and think, okay, CL is my my go-to. You really need to train the model and you want to go to an extent that you want him to make them think like you. And to make them think like you, you need to give as much feedback as you can in the start. feed him back with valuable data. really try to train the model as if it is like a human in your team and trying to become together and see the cooperative brainstorm session and then um yeah feedback what's good feedback what what you don't like and it goes pretty quickly of course cloud is really good with this that where we like get ideation then sends data back in there and then for example purely VSSL video editing you would have hick fields arch don't just blindly use that really you need you need proper creative humans to make it like workable right it's not just okay I'm going to make a simple prompt because it if you want to make hyperrealistic ads, you need hyperrealistic prompts and just like a feedback loop. It's not as easy as it sounds and oh, we use AI now we're done. But we have really strong uh blueprints as well that allow our team to work much at more efficient. We have then one database with a lot of B-roll as well. Um for example software called Arc where you have like upload all your B-roll. You can like say, "Hey, I want someone wearing brown shoes." And you see all the content that you have with someone wearing brown shoes. Making the video editors much more efficient. This is all backed by AI showing the the right footage for the right moment because it also helps with by creating really great ads. >> And uh we've been recently also using a lot for custom support. So we've built our internal tool for that as well. Just like integrated with Georgia, with Zenes. So like we we upload like everything in there. Um, it's still work in progress though, but we've been seeing great progress. >> How are you incentivizing or ensuring that your team is on top of all the AI stuff? And it's not even just using AI, but it's like, >> are you up to speed? Do you know that as of today, you can run multiple models at once on top? >> This is really interesting. >> You need to not everyone is like us on X reading the latest claw drops like a dork. Like people have real lives like you are not obsessively working the way we do. >> Yeah, it's funny. That's like a big pain point for me is I don't think my team is using it to their maximum and I'm trying to figure out how to get that. >> I I hear you. I've been thinking about this a lot even to an extent like my my executive assistant. It's funny. I had a call with her two weeks ago and there's like I'm working with her on like in a promotion program and a part of the promotion program there's uh courses of entropic that they've put out. There's like four starting courses. They in total have 12. >> Yeah. >> But like all 12 makes no sense for an executive assistant. But the first four if your executive assistant understands those four and they get the certificate from Entropic >> like my there's like they put a certificate out if you pass for it. So if my assistant had that she automatically overnight becomes a beast. So that was my first step. I [snorts] think especially at one point you can have video editors, um, strategists finish those things like like not necessarily >> having your team go get that certificate. >> Like my assistant like I'm really really good with her. So I was like, "Hey, I know that this is going to help you so much, not only me. I'm not forcing you to do so, but I just think it would be really nice." And she was like, "Wow, this is so cool. I'm going to go all in on this. Thank you for the opportunity. Also, salary increase. All of that comes with it because I know she's going to work 10 times better if she finish all of that and she actually going to use it. We've built our executive hub where all of our different companies come together. She can oversee that. She can input that. She can monitor that. Wow, my life is going to be great. Obviously, it's going to be worth more because she's worth more, right? So, that starts with the exact but then looking to the team members. I definitely think this is something that even on resumes on like for us we are AIdriven our output of the team if you are going to be delivering much better results if you're going to be much more efficient you can get a better pay because you are bringing more value so at one point I would even like say hey if everyone finished the course there was just a higher pay because you work much better but at one point I would say there's a mix and I'm also lucky to have like really smart people in the team already that basically teach me stuff about it as well he's also here with us today like we're going have chat with him later as well. >> Yeah. >> Like he he knows everything inside out but he already like three four years was on top of this right. So like he's helping as well the team members like few editors how to again better B-roll how to create better scripts how to he's like our strategist lead as well right so head of strategy co of the of the creatives [snorts] >> you wanted to talk omni channel. >> Yeah because I know you crush crushed it crazy on Amazon as well like overnight insane scale. Um, and I I also slightly already mentioned this omni channel for us. I didn't realize how important it was, but now I realize that in general the whole funnel ecosystem marketing, it all helps each other at one point by being present everywhere because of course we have like a huge meta background. Um, again, I feel like from 0 to 10 million, don't necessarily think about it. Focus meta. My my my story. Um, after 10 million, omni channel is going to be more and more important. Um also because for example for us blended now we're out of stock on Amazon. We immediately feel it. So yeah we like omni channel is very important and this was curious on on you like your biggest unlock on uh on Amazon as well. >> Our strategy is honestly been omni channel since the very beginning. >> It's obviously our Shopify Amazon but then it's like walmart.com target.com Macy's you know and so forth. Like anywhere we can put the product literally anywhere. >> Yeah. Also retail >> always sign up. all we actually we're not in physical stores so it's 100% e-com yeah yeah yeah >> um and honestly that's intentional retail is so different you know this I launched a product in Apple >> and it is such a different business >> that's like a that's a that's a different team >> like you cannot run an e-commerce business with the same team >> as a retail business >> that makes sense yeah >> like for example >> they have multiple layers >> I guarantee you those are two different as you would say pods >> yeah Yeah, he made a post about it >> on LinkedIn. Like he was talking about like all the different layers and heads and this and that. Like he was basically having multiple teams with their own CEOs of their teams. That was crazy actually. But he said also not not also mainly on protecting your own search that for example they would on Walmart go look for Fluffco and someone else would pop up with their pillow because they advertise more. That's why you protect your own brand. >> Yes. But I guess what I was going to say is like the attribution. >> We we're not super focused on in platform attribution in every place. >> We're focused on the blended. >> I see. >> Because I don't care where a customer buys the product so long as they buy it. And we also add on TV. Do you do TV? >> No. >> So that's been another big unlock for us. >> So you don't put a QR code on the screen. >> It it doesn't even matter to be honest with you because it it's again it's the same thing. I think that's also going to be interesting like that you advertise but you can measure it because for me I want to see return on my ads. >> So we use Tatari >> um and they have AI that will tell you what your CPA is for TV ads specifically but it's all frankly. >> Yeah that's like how >> it's impossible. >> Yeah. >> So again it's all about the blended right. So >> yeah blended. Yeah for sure. >> I think the craziest thing about e-commerce right now is I mean you already said it but it's just the trends right when >> meta ad spend comes down all platforms come down. >> Yeah. And so actually the most important thing is just getting your ad sp on meta and then everything goes up. Walmart goes up, Target goes up, you know, >> crazy. >> Amazon goes up. It's it's a a rising tide floats all ships. >> And so we're not focused on in platform attribution right now. I'm just saying it's not perfect. >> Yeah. You just want to make the full ecosystem flow. >> The full ecosystem because I I I read a stat that says people don't purchase until they see your product or ad 13 times. >> I see. Now, that's a madeup number, but that's the point is that you have to see it in multiple places. You got to see the billboard, you got to see the TV ad, you got to see the meta ad, you got to hear a friend talk about it and then you go buy it. And in that moment, >> whoever gets the credit is that's not fair credit, right? In theory should have been the first person, they all claim it. [laughter] >> Um, >> but the I guess the point is that so long as the blended works >> Mhm. >> and TV to me has been it's been a hard pill to swallow. I read that the My Pillow guy is a big competitor for Fluff was spending a hundred million US dollars a year >> on TV >> on TV alone. >> And so I think TV is another layer. >> But then that's probably also his main thing. No. >> Yeah. He's a TV >> exactly >> brand. But nonetheless, >> his whole company's optimized for that type of spend on that type of channel, I believe. So because 100 million on TV, you must be like seeing returns in ways. >> Yeah, that's another channel that And and how's native doing for you? >> Not that not that well. And we've not been able to crack app to be honest with you. >> That's another thing like we we have friends >> that talk about app oven like it's so easy >> and then you know I've we've gotten burnt >> and we turn it off >> but it's like it's just tough because you know some people make it sound so easy but it's really actually a bit difficult. I think what's funny about omni channel and how the best way to prescribe is you you catch people on different different stages. For example, people on Google are in a different mental stage than that they are scrolling on on on Tik Tok or on on on Instagram or on Facebook than same for example for Ablo and they're on a different stage. They are on the platform to read a lot or for example above and play a game right. >> Yeah. also unscapable ads like there are so many different stages and that's why I think omni presence is so interesting because you catch people in a different yeah at a different time at a different moment at a different mental stage and that's also why I think using then only because my main expertise is on meta the same thing for example with like multiple buckets diversification of the ad account is just a different type of matches in the same way and catch them on a different moment and just one point at one point the aesthetic works better at one point the video works better right just are they in a they see one headline and the same with with omni channel presence like you're just catching them on multiple methods and multiple ways and like uh I think that that makes it really interesting. Uh >> so I'm curious just to change subjects a little bit but you know you've been in the game now long time >> the scale you've cracked is insane. >> Yes. >> Where like what are you building towards right now? Like where is this all going? Are you building to sell? Are you building just >> to run it for cash? I'm just curious like where where are you taking this? >> Yeah, it's funny because of course you would say why another brand? Why another journey? Why another this? And I for the longest always believed in I want to build all of my businesses with a competitive advantage and that's even like for example we also spend like time on like building a personal brand connecting with others. We learn a lot from other operators as well. Also of course at one point we are getting a lot of cash liquidity that we can deploy on others and enabling them to grow even quicker. >> That's a competitive advantage. If I have 500k ready for you for cash flow for 20% of your of your business with not only bring the 500k also our knowledge our expertise and everything that we do within our brands you will happily give me the 20%. I'm not going to run the business. We both are very happy. That's again like sort of like an advantage that we can create and in [snorts] all the businesses I I prefer to like create like competitive advantage that Yeah. because I would feel that's the way to win in business nowadays. Right. There's like the the the barrier to entry is so low. Shopify made it easy. I can start the store tonight. I can go to market. You need somehow a competitive advantage even to the extent that we we've built. Uh of course also infrastructure, right? Think about the packaging factory that we are business partners with. Think about ENFlow that we've invested in our business partners with we've like built a full ecosystem as well to build like sort of an competitive advantage and now that we are at a stage that we can connect with other founders we are opening an advisory layer that we can even like look at other their brands then you create like a sort of like advantage right because you have so much data that you can use enabling them to grow building the brand holding because I've always like inspired to build the brand holding comes like it's a it's a very long story but we can keep it short I was in Tokyo and I met like this guy he's called Jamie Salter the owner of authentic brand group right I met him really short in the elevator looked up what he was doing and from there onwards I feel like all the brands right now they can elevate each other and the more data we get from all the brands the better one brand goes so I also have conversations why you just not put all your eggs in one basket and go for a grunt story and you sell one brand for 1 billion and I feel like I love building so much and I love as much building like a health brand as like a earplug brand and I'm super creative and I just want to build multiple things and I also feel sort of like if they can elevate each other if you can get great team members if you own [snorts] the infrastructure and it also brings you cash that you can then deploy again on others where for example yeah if we would get equity just freeing up cash and knowledge it's not that I would say you can do a lot of this of course but you want to be very careful by just like doing that so like let's say uh writing a check of course there goes like a thought process and a big process for us in advance So it's sort of like a as a blind date, right? You're not just writing a check just because it looks there. It looks great. So what we for example have been doing first start like sort of like in a consulting way. We just come into the brand look at the brand also understand how they operate this because I feel like it's not just the brand that's important. It's very important the operators the founders behind the brand because you can give them the systems you can give them the the strategies you can give them the playbooks but they need to execute it. Yeah. >> So that's something that we look at and then we already have the cash and then we are building and so far it's going really well. The two brands that we acquired the similar story we first consulted them was like holy working with you guys is crazy. Um take my equity you know what I mean? Uh and then also there's like a mutual already synergy energy and we've also had consultant that were like you know this is not a match for marriage in a way because like a three-month consulting I can do with everyone like you you help them you you bring them up and you give them advice and it's fun to connect with other operators but yeah getting equity getting skin in the game it started like a long-term commitment to both bodies right you want to make them grow and like I don't want to be in the business with everyone for me is really important to also understand who I'm doing business with >> and it's just funny to me cuz you're running brands at like couple hundred $100 million in revenue. >> And this is not an insult. It's just like slightly objective. Like people don't know your brands in that sense. Like it's not a >> let's keep it like that. >> That but that's what's crazy to me. It's like >> Yeah. I think >> you're running these hundred million dollar businesses that like if I asked a normal person outside, they probably would not have heard of it. >> And and I'm not trying to give you a dig. It's just I find it funny cuz like there are some brands that everyone knows and talks about, but you're actually at a >> Look, obviously Grooms >> Yeah. is gigantic, but you're not that far off in scale. Like you're equally big. >> Yeah, I I'll say so. I feel like our brands, especially where of course we are Dutch in the Netherlands, I think there is not one person in the Netherlands in ecom that doesn't know our brands and also of course like the people that buy our products. We are pretty known I would say also there. Uh in the US, we're of course entering the market and probably our brands they they they see us in the ad library probably if if they will see them, they're like, "Oh, that's the brand." because there are like those few brands in the ad library that everyone looks to for ads and aesthetic and so like one of our brands is definitely bookmarked at everyone's like spying tools and everyone because you can see actually how many spiders and stuff you have in your ad library. >> I was looking at yours yesterday. >> I mean like there is so much eyeballs on our ad library which I think is a compliment for sure. And I also feel like the real way to scale aggressively is not copy but come up with new net net new stuff yourself of course like and we are inspired by other brands great ads and we we look at other frameworks formats how other stuff are doing but the real scale is when you come up with something new like a new format or doing something that really accelerates the ad account. >> So that's exactly what Grun did like the eight gummies in a packet >> 100% all the time like >> everyone was doing gummies >> Mhm. >> one at a time. Who the hell once had one gummy? >> Yeah, >> right. >> I think the best thing he did is he he made it enjoyable to to use. And LTV is is is great, >> but the eight in a packet, like it sounds so simple, but that's like actual innovation. >> Mhm. >> Like he couldn't he was reading this, he couldn't find a supplier that could do it for him >> on in the beginning. And that's how he knew that there was a real moat in this >> cuz the simple notion of eight in a packet is like a new format like you said. So you've kind of alluded to this of how anyone can copy anyone now >> and these days in e-commerce like you don't even sometimes want to say the brand that because you know you don't it's just unnecessary attention. >> Yeah% I would argue actually that >> look everyone's got cloud everyone's got all the tools everyone's got archives and Atrian Higsfield everyone knows all of that now >> but actually what they don't have is just like the >> fundamental knowledge and experience that you have. >> Yeah. Like I I would say the mo biggest moat right now in e-commerce is just the operator >> like the person behind >> the fest the execution >> just the quality of the operator that's the moat% >> and so I'm curious what you think cuz yeah like okay even if you have a patent there's copycats even if you have >> innovation and you launch a new format there's copycats >> but like the quality of the operator is in my opinion the final moat would you agree with that >> I think I explained it as well like the operator is the most important I'm not necessarily afraid that someone is going to build a bigger brand or do more revenue. It's more I don't really want to see overnight 100 or 200 new stores copying exactly our angles, exactly our list of goals, exactly our copy, exactly our product in a way that they pretend like they are selling exactly the same because that's where my pain point is in. We've built and spent so much money in getting a great product but people cannot see on a Shopify screen showy product image if it's a great product. They need to buy, receive, try and see and feel themselves how great the product is. >> Yeah. >> Copying it just on a picture, making it look amazing with AI. Everyone can do that. And my pain point is this. They will use our our messaging, our positioning, >> sell their >> Yeah. Sell their cheap version of ours where they're also take the credibility and the trust in our angles and our positioning where we we do deliver what we promise. And I'm afraid that if people would know because it's not it's not hard to say the same stuff as what we are saying. It's hard to deliver with the same >> quality and the execution that we've accomplished. And same for example like it's uh I I just really don't like I I will definitely show the brand later because um I think from one and a half years from now we have if we can maintain this scale we are doing to going to do a crazy milestone and [clears throat] potentially also an exit. And then of course I'm going to make a full case study because we've been documenting everything. Um but I know this is not the time right now with also a lot of eyeballs on us. Of course we're growing the brand. We have a yeah I would not say huge following but we have definitely ecom following right. People that can that are looking basically what are we doing? So we're going to copy them. That's that's that's sort of like our own not in not in a bad way. >> They look at for example hey when fins is posting something I'm going to see if it's something valuable. So, let's say if I would% I read your post, I learn like you were It's just funny cuz we're we're me and Andrew are looking at a category right now >> um for a new brand >> and actually there's one incumbent but that incumbent filed for bankruptcy >> cuz it was so poorly managed. >> Y >> and H&M bought them. >> Crazy. >> But it's just funny cuz when we heard when we saw that, we were like so pumped because H&M doesn't know anything about e-commerce. >> Yeah. Right? They're a retailer. >> So the people that bought this business, a retailer bought them. So >> like I guess what I'm trying to say is >> real e-commerce in 2026. >> Mhm. >> Like you are the epitome of ecommerce in 2026. Like the game has changed so much. Like everything we just spoke about for an hour and a half. Like >> dude, your mastery and knowledge of >> e-commerce in 2026, winning in 2026. Yeah, >> it's actually quite rare. >> Like you are the epitome of e-commerce knowledge in 2026. >> Thanks man. Yeah, I think also what uh I really realized from the start if you just first make sure that you are able to scale like you have the the the foundation for scale. So I said get flow, inventory, supply chain setup. Those three is the first thing you look at put it well and not necessarily look at it too much again. Just make sure it works. Of course it works. Then there's all the effort goes. We are paid ads driven brands. Our attention, our efforts, our outcomes, everything should be around getting our product in front of as humanly as much possible eyes as possible through our ads because like it's it's funny if you think about like everyone holds their phone every single day. There's so much attention. There's so much eyeballs. And I've been interested in ads since the longest. I started this not just with ecom. I started as like running ads. I've been always obsessed with ads. always obsessed with with with this because I just knew it it's actually crazy and I just like went deeper and deeper and deeper into it and now even now with like more of like the awareness unlocks and all [snorts] of that but yeah to answer that I think right now indeed if you just mainly purely talk e-commerce your 90% of effort indeed should be unlocking the sickest marketing of course like brand is part of it definitely but that's of course also my main expertise and where we see main skill is definitely just making sure you create the best possible ads with the best possible messaging. And >> it's funny cuz the way you put it makes it sound so simple. [laughter] >> Yeah. >> He's dying to ask. >> Yes. But I love to understand um how your you and your business partners roles >> have evolved since the very beginning until now through the milestones. How have you gone from like your dayto-day of what you do? How has that changed and evolved and what sort of like key hires have you done to move through this through this >> Great question. Yeah, it's a really good one. So of course like the oak brand holding we are with three business partners. It's me, my brother and Bob. So how this started was I mentioned it shortly. I've like invested in all the stock that we needed for Durros in the start. So I more came in like a strategic and investor because I was still running the other stores on the site as well. Like that was my main focus and I just helped uh build the performance marketing departments always and basically once it's sort of like ready I'm sort of like going out again. So if you would see it into like roles into the brand [clears throat] group, I'm more of like the I would say the CEO of the brand holding where I also really focus on like the strategy, the strategic what are the next moves for even like let's say acquiring equity in other brands or infrastructure plays um top level hires um but also implementing new things internal blueprint frameworks speaking with the most important people in within all the brands and of course also uh mainly focusing on the performance marketing side. Nick has been since the start also a lot of like really a beast in in operations. He's he's he's he's capable of doing anything basically. So he's going more of like the the back end uh product management uh team building, hiring. Uh he's for the longest been also always a chief of staff. I was our go-to person for team members and like really managing the team and this and and the back end and this and like the the foundation so to say. So it's been we started always like I do performance marketing marketing he does uh supply chain and uh and and support so back end basically but now we feel like there's so much like there is like it it really feels sort of like naturally and starts to go per brand but um we we we quickly understood like where we can like for example if we would make a priority list we understand okay I'll take these you take these um because we just know that's more of like a um yeah >> what about org chart Like how do you you know for example we've got you know head of growth you know brand marketing social media person like what is what are the key titles in your org chart? M yeah it depends again per brand um >> in general >> yeah three or layer uh three layer or chart I would say really important especially running multiple things you don't want to have communication layers with everyone um and I move out like pretty quickly I would say especially looking at like let's say the ops and door and rows the only person I speak to is head of crow and Nick and Bob I don't speak to anyone else basically um and then yeah for for new brand I'm I'm more deeply involved in in creatives um also work like closely together uh with our head of strategy, head of growth u and then yeah it's more of like uh we have those implementations [snorts] then orc chart um >> key titles >> like creative strategist >> yeah so like what what our big unlock was especially in in a performance marketing team is like building internal pods um and then creative coordinator really important creative coordinator then manage for example our our notion naming conventions formats just the style making sure that when we upload is correct. See see every ad feedback data come up with like like just like a second filter for everything that goes live. >> Yeah. um really important for us also like following up on like editors, meeting KPIs, deliverables and big unlock like just that that person is basically just not not necessarily creating themselves but just make sure the whole creative engine flows and that's a really good one especially if the team grows there's just consistent uh accountability throughout the teams. So my ideal um performance marketing team is um head of growth uh lead strategists bots creative coordinator. >> Okay. So there's a lead strategist above the creative strategist in each pod. >> I would say the lead strategists they all have their own own pots in a way but if you grow to in size of seven pots yes but it's it start let's say you only have two there's just one lead strategist that that yeah that then there's no head of growth. You see what I mean? >> Yeah. And so the pods like are you just going to keep going 7 8 9 are you? >> No. I think as as well like um with with seven we should be able to do 300 mil a year. >> Okay. >> At at one point because then then you would go to an extent that you just launched to launch. Yeah. >> And the output right now is really strong and uh we can like go harder on output. Then also we are going into the reason why we're hiring now more pots. So we started with five. I don't think we need more than five honestly. We just launched two new which are still also in hiring yet I we are having trial cases and a lot of like exciting team members coming on the two pots will be allocating let's say batches for product launches batches for specific promo marketing moments um where the main pots focus on the main revenue driving you know what I mean >> so I think as well like allocating at one point if you have multiple pots you allocate 70% of where you see the I would a the proven angles, the proven products, the proven outcomes like what makes the business drive and then at one point depends on the volume you will have more space to like also trying to product launches if they also scale on on ads as well because now all our retention products or our product drops are mostly retention products. They're not necessarily scaling as hard as our no we have two heroes that we are scaling and we have we're selling 20 to 30 products and we all sell them but we don't get the new customers. We don't acquire new customers with those products. But I do think that at one point we do can we we can do that. [snorts] >> For example, uh you had the you had him from I'm a the founder CEO. Very interesting as well because he sort of like creates uh different products with one product. If if like he's targeting a tennis player and at the same time he's targeting a buzzy mom and he's selling the sort of like the same product. So I think that's really interesting. He goes so deep into like the use case and the persona and creates like all of these mini funnels inside one big funnel. That's really interesting. But I also think that you can definitely do that with multiple products then too. >> By the way, I don't know if I've told you this, but the CMO of IM8 works out of the studio. He works right there. >> Yeah. Really cool. >> He's what they're doing is beast. >> They're also like very performance marketing driven. They just have that true unlock of like getting new eyeballs into the funnel consistently on many different ways. So the messaging market fit they understood okay we can do this multiple times again and again we can sell to professional athletes we can send to older older audience we can sell to busy moms we can send to students >> yeah they've mastered the personas absolutely insane >> exactly and I also think at one point like I do definitely believe you should not try to scale 10 products at the same time if you're starting just focus on one two max heroes make sure you crack those first before you try to launch everything but now we are so dialed Then I feel like also the question why would you need seven pots not to go all in only on this product because we are I I don't think we need a higher output right now. It's already really really great. >> That's good. Yeah. >> But we want to expand. Um yeah >> D had a question. >> When you're setting up these pods >> um you know and you're using your account that's offshore. >> Yeah. you know, for for us, you know, we have we look at like a lot of be women and find the ones like, "Oh, wow. That guy knows exactly what to do and like we're we're holding on to that pod for forever to make these like five high performing pods." How how many did you have to like look at how many teams or how many pots you have to f go through before finding these or were you like were you able to just be like, "Nope, these are the guys." >> Yeah. >> And they they crushed it. >> Yeah. I think it's also how complex the the thing is that you want them to execute right. So for example for us we have such a strong internal blueprint and the how basically the video editing for us if they are a little bit creative we can just make them really great video editors by allowing them the tools that we allow them to use that we give them the handouts to use. So we the first two pots were extremely difficult uh until we've cracked it and then you can scale aggressively. For example, you say, "Okay, I'm just triing 10 editors. Survival of the fairest. The two best editors stay." And you have a pot, right? We we just went crazy on a hiring spree. I think we did this like like in the coming the past two months. We've been through that. So, we started two pots, three pots, and then we went from three to five. >> Oh, this is just past two months. >> Yes. We we we we we unlock the skill on only one and two parts because I also believe then is where you really get the the proof of concept the engine and then when you find something that's is scaling so aggressively the only thing you think of like okay we need to do this like we need to feed more winners consistently and then we can do these numbers and that actually also happened. So I was thinking like we just need much more of this and then it will automatically spread and then I was like okay we just want to have a high output but don't uh comp like don't compromise on the quality. So we can ask our video editors to do more but I don't want them to compromise the quality. So our solution was like hey they don't need to be distracted about everything else they just need to be stay doing what they do and for example not bringing more team members with them they just stay in their own lane and that's how I came up with the pot system in a way where I was just sitting with the with like we just have to have everyone in their own lane and just every sort of like individual extra income of creative like extra source of creative >> um and then not necessarily distract the other pots that are already crushing it right >> and then also and then we came up with like the the leaderboard gamifying performance and now it works really well. But we we've been always scaling on on three two to three pots. So yeah, to answer your question, I definitely think it's the first two three pots, they should sort of like show the incoming pots how it's done because then it's easier and then also at one point we have great video editors that uh get compensation for training new video editors. And I think that's always a great thing to do. We've done the same in customer support. Um, if there's a new customer support agent coming, the best of the best agent is training the agent. And that's the same thing with the editors. Same thing with the graphic designers. They get [snorts] sort of like a like a like a trial month where they just we we make them really great by just showing them how it's done >> and [snorts] that's how you can scale up the team really quickly. So like really like uh enabling each other within the creative team, enabling them with the best systems, enabling them with like how we already doing it, SOPs, blueprints. This is we have really great blueprints on notion. I can show you those as well like this is do how you do this, this is how you do that and then if there's questions like we are very collaborative teams as well. I really try to like build that more in teams as well. There's of course team performance bonuses but also like in general it's just cool to there's like a big opportunity for them as well. That's also what during [snorts] the HR process we tell them like hey we are sitting on a rocket ship you can be you can be part of it. Um [snorts] you get spent incentive and this is we are spending so much and like we're also recruiting with that mindset. All the editors, they start on the 2K base. They work in agencies for one, one to four, one to five, and then they all feel like, holy this is my time to to to step up. And that's also our we are not looking for starting editors. >> That's part of the hire process for us for sure. >> Yeah. No, that's great. It's funny because we we experience the same thing. It's like we've set up the process. There's always like you got to figure it out and then once it's set up, then it's like you go they train other people. So, in setting up these first two pods, you said it was like, you know, a little bit difficult. What were the difficulties you saw in actually getting them set up and then, you know, and then now you're kind of off to the races? >> Yeah. Yeah, that that's that's that's definitely what happened for us. So, the first uh team was just like very small was basically still still me also with my business partner just like trying to get it off the ground, trying to work, testing a lot. um like also trying playing around with AI to be honest like we we for the longest like AI was not looking as good as how it's looking now. So it was always a trial and error trying a little bit of this a little bit of that to still okay maybe we should just choose more creators. So it was not necessarily the pot that was an issue. It was more of like what is the direction that we are going to double down on because I don't really think it's logical to open five pots if you don't have true uh hit if you see what I mean. Now we know we have such a strong proof of concept, such a strong message to market fit, such a strong product market fit. The more we push now on the same angles, on the same message, the better. But before you get there, of course, you first need to crack it. And then I would say you don't need five spots. You just first make sure that you have that angle unlock that audience unlock the pain point, the listical that takes off. And now when we had that take off, then we said, okay, now it's double down to really go aggressive on hiring uh and making sure that we can get our output up as well. But that again starts first with the intention as well with the within the team. You can definitely just start with with two pots and then you can just like focus for for like I would say 80% and already what's working 20% trying to find something new that takes up really well. Um but yeah, I would say really the team building setup uh yeah five spots is not necessarily needed for for yeah if you don't uh see the return on on a short term right away if you see what I mean. >> Who else had a question? Brian. Yeah, I just wanted to learn more about what is your thought process behind launching new brands and how do you launch them for your brand specifically? So what are you testing and what are your signals you're looking for? >> Yeah. So I think uh for launching a new brand is for us the same uh thought process that we go through launching a new product. Um I say right now you have so much uh data. Um, so for example, the data bank that I explained right now, you can already build something like that before you even go live because there's like potentially competitors, um, people that are in the same sort of niche or huge audience for a specific outcome. So, you really want to understand, okay, you want to focus on like the the total market. You want to see if there is a product market fit and it doesn't necessarily needs to be the product, but you can also look at it like, hey, I'm not selling a product. I'm selling an outcome to someone. And you can definitely do research if there is an interest on an outcome for example like uh becoming more let's say more fit right there's you can find many products that make the outcome if you see what I mean and then you're just trying to find a huge time and then you just look a product that fits that use case that you want to sell or the the the pain point of the emotion that you want to sell and then you just find a product that really matches with that because I would definitely reverse engineer not necessarily looking for a product but look for a market look for a problem and then stick a product on that and you can definitely right now do that with a lot of research already [snorts] going even like for example on Amazon big sellers or European market bring to the US or visa versa what's going in the US bring to Europe um but yeah like how to find a new product of course is it's it's very it's very hard to like say okay do this and you find something it really comes with research and then also when you have that feeling hey this actually makes sense then also So my advice is really go for it because if you launch it then you also really need to go double down and not not just test one ad and three creators but just make sure that if you pick a product and I also said that just now you you should be able to sell yourself like hey if I want I can sell send in the Sahara the product only is just going to make it easier for me and I'm just going to find the right messaging market fit to make this product sellable right so you can sell anything and then you just need to make sure that the economics are in your favor that the audience is in your favor and that you can build a nice storytelling around it and then the product just checks the boxes. So instead of finding a product, you find the audience to put the product in and then I believe that you can make everything work. >> And are you focusing also on top of funnel straight off the bat or you trying to conver? >> Well, well >> in the very beginning or like imagine you're at zero. Yeah, I would say as well like top of funnel for us was the huge unlock to go from let's say 10 to 100. But in the beginning storytelling is also what makes people engage right away because also if you're just starting you still want to get people entering the funnel. Um so yeah definitely launch everything but might your your split maybe is different. So top of funnel, middle funnel, bottom funnel, maybe you should like set up a different split. Um because for us right now the main importance to get new people in but in the beginning that's sort of like similar right so top of is just also a way to stand out and build authority and trust and launching a new brand the first thing that you actually want to do is try to get as quick as possible trust authority and uh proof of concept for your brand that people actually believe in what you sell and that you feel like hey there's like a proof of concept there's a product market fit and then you can then you can go all in in a way but my thought process behind that. Even like if we would launch a new product, we don't just randomly think, oh, we want to launch a new product. We really take our time for it and then we just better make sure that we make it a winning product because we have that you have that in your own hands. You have in your own hands to make a product winning. It's just depending on how you position it, the offer you you have for and of course, yeah, really you can actually make everything winning because you're on paid ads, you're not selling the product, you're selling the outcome for someone that's watching the ad. you're setting a better outcome, a better scenario, better life. Um, and that's just like a product is the way on on doing so. >> So, if I were to build out like one pod fully like say today one let's say editor, one short editor, a creative coordinate design as well. >> Yeah. >> What is like your bar or the KPIs like take quality all the stuff into consideration? quality and attention but is still volume after that. >> What are you expecting from >> that team to models? >> Yeah, look for example fees 3 to 5 minutes takes a lot longer. Um we focus now a lot of visels. So obviously the net new concepts in terms of like quantity goes lower but we always had like 60 concepts per strategist a month. So it's like 15 a week per all final assets. So that's also effective. >> Yeah. Like but if you would also include like our split is then a bit different because we push a lot more top fo but if you also have middle fo bottom fo automatically you create more statics you can also push for 80 KPIs I don't think there's the best answer it's more of like the best use case for your brand for your product for your team because you really just need to set it as a starting point you say okay 60 is a great starting point like deliver 60 concepts you see the quality of the concepts and then you also look okay I I think we can push for more. I think we can do 70. Let's try 70 this week. See how the strategist and the team responds on it. And then you can just set the pace. We started always at 80 concept. But I also understand like 80 concepts on statics and 30 secondond videos is different than 3 to 5 minute VSSLs where every single piece of B-roll is highly important for the outcome of the video. So I'd rather have them spend all day on one VSSL and deliver me the most exceptional VSSL I've ever seen. Then they push out three and they all three are not really worth looking at. >> If you could put a firm budget on testing a new brand, >> what would it be? Like in order to again assume you're at zero. >> Yeah. >> Knowing what you know now, how much would you budget to test a new brand >> all in just to validate it before you decide whether it's worth it to keep going or kill it? >> Mhm. Mess a little bit on on how fast and the pace. Um, but yeah, I [snorts] do like it's it's really tough. I would say right now if after like for me if I would have put like 20K in, I still want to try it after I've done all my research. You see what I mean? >> I'm very stubborn on giving up after I've put so much time. >> I was going to say 50k is like a little bit. >> Yeah. But like for starters like saying this, I would make I'm I don't want to make them scared to start because you can definitely do it on a lower budget than oh if I don't have 50k I cannot validate the brand. But I would say for you and me, [snorts] I would put like if I'm confident, I've done my research, I've know that damn I've like I would have I would even if I'm like 500k down. >> Yeah. Like I'm I better going to make this sellable. I just find a new angle. I'm just going to find a new painoint. I'm going to find a new audience. I'm going to find a new funnel. I'm going to create even better ads. I'm not giving up. there is an unlock because for us also for the longs we've been trying and then at one point that unlock is there and then this is like 10x 100x and the unlock is is it like I've I've had this post as well like it can change over like this and it's true it is true it really is true with ads one small unlock can accelerate the whole funnel >> one ad can literally change everything and the scalability I don't think >> like until you see those numbers I don't think people realize the scalability of e-commerce like it's >> it's absolutely insane Crazy. [laughter] >> Yeah. Like >> Yeah. Because also this happened for us. The the ad that break was the our breakthrough is now till they spent 4 million and that was the ad that made the rest work better as well. So that comes again back to the full ecosystem. That ad made all the ads. We've even launched those ads before those that winning crazy like home run shot went live. Our other the static started performing better. the started performing better because they just like entered the funnel and that just helps the main funnel and that that video just brought so much audience in. We got so many great comments, impressions and just like we were just being pushed by meta and our ads started performing better and that was our unlock. That was our breakthrough and now everything just like goes like on on on the back of it and we just like diversificate and the same message. But yeah, testing a new brand is like really also on how aggressive you you go, what tools you use. Uh but I also know like yeah like also you you can with five or 10K already see this is going to be something if you see what I mean. >> Yeah, of course. >> Um but yeah, maybe I I said this as well. Um I get this question often. Hey, I I'm new in e-commerce. I want to start a brand. I said you should not start by having your own brand. You should start by >> working working for a brand as a strategist. Make sure that you deserve to run your own brand by like getting winning concepts because that's where you can test for free if you're smart enough to do this >> or not necessarily smart enough but like you can learn the game you can understand how the brand is doing it and you can validate yourself as like a real uh because that's where the real ecom starts like it starts with the paid ads of course all [snorts] the other aspects and fundaments of running a brand is important >> builds on top of that >> but if you start in a brand and you see your own concepts picking up at one point you feel hey I think I can also do this on my own. You learn a little bit. You basically play with the the the ad budget of of the brand. Um so yeah, start as a strategist, start as a video editor, start as a graphic designer. Um actually we had I had a I had a guy on here. >> He [snorts] DM'd me so many times to like, hey, I would love to work for you. He's already working there now for one and a half year. He just like a month ago launched his own brand as well. >> And you backed it. >> Yeah. Like of course like he he he was always looking up to it. No, I did not backed it but more of like supporting him. Yeah, sure. Go for it. Right. not necessarily like together with us, but he just worked for us. He learned a lot from us. Um, he he delivered great work for us. So, also that's why I yeah, he deserves to to do that because that was always his goal, but he also knew like, hey, I'm not there yet. So, he had a great salary, great bonuses, and with that, he started building his own brand. Um, and then you also feel more secure, I would say. So, completely starting out of the blank. Um, it's not worth it to go down 10K in depth to start your own brand, buy stock. That's the worst thing that that I can that you can advise someone really get practice um starting the learn the e-commerce game but because it's a really cool thing and um yeah building brands is the future for sure. >> I want to double tap on the creative calls cuz we we have a very similar setup but we are much slower than you. We have one creative strategies and one media editor and have free of those. Uh and when he said you go for low volume, high quality, we're focusing also on like very high quality, one one volume, nom thing. Then he said 60 concepts per day per per part. >> Yeah. >> We just cracked 20 >> per month per month. >> Yes. We just cracked 20 by implementing a lot of AI with little things. So I'd love to understand like what is >> what is it that your creative strategist does in their day exactly that and and what do they know? Yeah, what are they specifically going to shoot? >> Yes, a good one. I also think of course your pot has only one editor which also automatically makes the output as half as much. >> Um but at the same time our strategist um with the tools that we have now with already so much data that we have he can come up with a sort of like a few uh lowhanging fruit concepts that are sort of like net new iterations based on what's winning already. Like if I if I want myself, I can sit down with my laptop and I create 20 very high intent concepts tonight myself. The ideation, the execution is the most important part. The the ideation is also very important. But the bridge from ideation to execution with the video editor, that's where like the real because the idea is started. Now [snorts] making sure that the idea is getting alive as how you intended it to get alive is where the magic happens. And that's of course also why we have two editors. And the strategist just make sure to put the concept as much as detailed as possible. So his ID which is also backed by our data bank is getting alive with as much intent as possible in the most uh high potential method. Right? So the strategist is coming is doing the ideation is doing the research and but the video editors is actually doing the heavy lifting because they make the concept come to life by looking for the matching B-roll looking for the great content and that's also where like the that's why it's also really like a team commitment like they're really doing it together. So they create the creator briefs, they chase the content. Well, the content manager chases the content of creative coordinator. >> They the creative coordinator. So >> So the creative strategist doesn't touch the the create the creator communication at all. >> No, our our strategist doesn't talk to creators. They only talk like hey this is the the briefs we need. We have a dedicated pot. So I didn't mention this but one of the pots is purely creative pot. >> So one of our pots is only creative pot. So strategists the only thing that they do is come up with new ideation net new concepts on VSSLs. So what I'm saying like our our 80 80 90% of our output is going to top of funnel VSSLs. They don't even bother talking to creators. They just come up with the ideas. They come up with the ideation and then where the real magic is is making sure that ideation comes to life within the same intent that how they had it envisioned. And the power of the strategist is trying to make it as easy as possible to follow that same briefing in the best possible way that [snorts] as I said like the idea comes to life as how it was intended from the strategist in in that way. Um but yeah of course like creative management is in our brand uh a department on its own. Strategists should be doing what they're good at and that's coming up with strategy ideations and making sure we have great concepts. Talking with creators can be really exhausting. Oh no I want 200 for a badge. No, 300. No, we don't want to waste their time. We want to make sure that their time is being used in the most paterning way for the brand and that's just come up with great new concepts and of course they come like hey I I'm looking for mature uh creators and our creative team takes care of that. We have a huge database to choose and also we use a huge um yeah internal data bank where we have already all the B-roll and the concepts and but within that creative briefs you can create a lot of uh intention behind it by requesting for example 20 B-roll shots not just the UGC itself requesting for a lot of B-roll repurpose it across the whole film all the VS editors can use it and that's just uh yeah like something that you should always do it's uh helps the rest but I think that's also the big difference like that if strategist is dealing with creators all the time. It moves a lot of the output. >> By the way, um I think let's wrap this up in a second, but we didn't even talk about this, bro. Comfort. >> Oh, yeah. >> Have you been studying Hudson's playbook? >> Yeah, I've met him like one and a half year ago and >> cuz like Okay, there's Grunes of course. >> Yeah, >> dude. The other standout brand right now in my opinion is Comfort. >> Yeah, >> it's insane what he's built. >> Yeah, 100% respect for that. I think it's a complete it's it's sort of like an opposite thing of our marketing. They just do creator army new new field. Really interesting. I think he unlocked something insane. He he tapped into the Yeah. trying to make it as native as possible, not looking like ads, trying to really make people resonate with something, feel part of something and do that on mass volume. So, major respect to him. I I've had some back and forth with him before. We've talked about it. Uh >> one thing he said, he was on his Operators podcast. He was like, "I am the best at e-commerce." And he wasn't saying it in a definitive way. It was just like that's his mentality. >> Yeah. >> Which I think I think is so important. Like he actually has the confidence and he he thinks to himself and he obviously has a brand to prove it. >> He has a revenue to back that confidence. >> Yeah. But he literally is like I am the best. >> Yeah. But >> I feel like you have that same like I am the best. When I shoot I kill. >> Yeah. with what I do. I believe that there's not many brands doing it with the same thought process, same structure, same intent because I said like e-commerce is a broad thing. Like there is brands on Amazon that are doing crazy that are also doing it amazing. But I could have never. Amazon is a small part of but there's someone else completely managing that. I haven't opened Amazon once in my life and we doing 50 60k a day but I don't know anything about it. I'm not great in Amazon, but I know it's important and that's basically all I know. And I just focus where I'm really good at. And that's performance marketing. Making sure I have new customers acquired every single day as much as possible because that's where we see the real scale. And yeah, what what Hudson is doing is of course also great, but completely different as what what we are doing with ads. >> Yeah, it's totally different. >> Yes. So he's the the best in in that creator army. He basically invented it, I would say. So >> but it's like his playbook, right? And I feel I with our brand holding we have our own playbook as well like no one is doing it like us and how we are doing it is arguably also one of the best possible ways on acquiring new customers building true assets because um you you asked me this before why do do we need to choose between brand or performance marketing and we've created something that you can do both at the same time >> which >> I think you are the >> Yeah, >> I think you might be the best at that. >> Sick. >> You really do think that? >> Yeah, my man. Thank you so much for having me. >> Too good. It's just too good. >> Yeah. >> Vince guys, beast, brother. [applause] >> Now, I'm so glad you got to come check out the studio, too. This is the ecom factory. >> Yeah, it is. So, guys, thank you so much for all showing up here. Was a was a nice chat.