This Kid Took a Company from Idea to $11 Million in 18 Months

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• This Kid Took a Company from Idea to $11 Million in 18 Months…

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18 MONTHS

How This Kid Grew a Company from Idea to $11 Million in 18 Months…

The idea for Tabs Chocolate came when Oliver Brocato (Pictured Above) noticed a viral TikTok video about “sex chocolate,” which had millions of views.

Because of his past E-commerce ventures, he quickly identified this product as having intrinsic virality but lacking an online presence as well as proper branding. Seeing an opportunity, he decided to develop a similar product tailored for both social media virality and a luxurious costumer experience.

Development and Launch

Brocato and his co-founder, Jake Lewin, spent a year developing the product from scratch.

This included: Creating a proprietary chocolate formula infused with aphrodisiac ingredients, figuring out how to get the chocolate to the costumer without having it melt along the way, finding a manufacturer that would take them as a client despite their lower budget, and designing attractive packaging that would stand out and appeal to their target demographic.

Marketing Strat

Oliver’s marketing strategy was unconventional and used the surge of TikTok and it’s easy(er) to access virality as compared to other social media apps:

• User-Generated Content (UGC): He focused on UGC and influencer partnerships on TikTok. This strategy was cost-effective and capitalized on the platform's viral nature​. What he calls spray and pray, meaning: Try to get as many creators to post about your brand and pray they stay consistent with their posts to maximise the highest chance of going viral. (Finaloop)​​ (Social Snowball)​.

  By partnering with numerous micro-influencers as well as people with previous TikTok experience, Oliver was able to generate a significant amount of content and exposure at a relatively low cost.

  Since he decided they would make separate accounts for each creator rather than one big account this approach also allowed for more authentic and engaging content​​.

• Funnel Optimization: He structured a well-defined marketing funnel that emphasized a luxurious brand identity, attracting consumers willing to pay premium prices for the product​ (Finaloop)​.

  This luxurious brand feel as well as incorporating upsells made it so that their repeat costumer rate and revenue made per costumer drastically increased.

Challenges Faced

Oliver faced several challenges during the early stages of Tabs Chocolate such as:

• Financial Visibility: Initially, he lacked accurate financial data, making it difficult to set optimal prices and manage marketing budgets effectively. For a lot of those 18 months, tabs relied on gut feelings and for a large part of their financial decisions, which ultimately proved unsustainable as the business kept growing​​.

• Management: Managing numerous influencers and affiliates became extremely complex, particularly in tracking sales and organizing payouts. This was initially done manually, which was inefficient and prone to many many errors​​.

• Scaling Operations: As the company grew rapidly, maintaining the same level of personal engagement with influencers and customers became very challenging. Ensuring consistent quality and managing logistics at scale required more robust systems and processes​​.

Despite these challenges Oliver, as well as all the legends working besides him which made the dream possible were able to grow Tabs to $11 MILLION (yes you heard that right) in revenue which continues to get reinvested back into the company.

Learning about Oliver through different podcasts and articles made me draw down his success to a few key things (amongst a million others not mentioned):

Viral Marketing: A product designed for social media virality.

Innovative Strategies: Effective use of UGC and micro-influencers.

Continuous Optimization: Regularly refining marketing strategies and operations to maximize efficiency and growth​

Luxury Positioning: Positioning the brand as a luxurious one.

Links: Oliver’s Twitter, Tabs Chocolate

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