Thread by @landforce

My wife just bought a small DTC brand and quit her job to build it.

Last week she had her first $1,000 day.

How she got here, where she's goin:

(THREAD)

Yeah so @kelschan is gonna kill me for tweeting that pic without official clearance but had to run it. RIP.

Anyway -

A while ago I asked @JamesonCamp if he knew of any small eComm businesses for sale, told him Kelsey was in the market.

He sent me a super niche DTC product. He was passing because he didn't know the space and it was too small for him.

I clicked the link and almost couldn't believe it.

The product was for people who suffer from what is known as "asian glow" or Alcohol flush reaction.

Kelsey is half Chinese and has dealt with asian glow as long as I've known her.

I barely knew James at the time, he had no idea this would line up like this.

Bananas luck tbh.

Here's the deal - A large % of people of eastern Asian descent suffer from alcohol flush reaction - some caucasian folks too.

When they drink they turn red, their heart races, headaches, etc.

You probably know someone who deals with this whether you realize it or not.

The symptoms are caused by a missing enzyme, one that breaks down and processes alcohol.

She has previously dealt with this by taking Pepcid prior to drinking (which it turns out is terrible for you), by avoiding sugary drinks, the like.

(Image via wikipedia cuz facts!)

You might think "so what don't drink".

For sure. I just turned 35, we're old af, we don't drink much anyway.

But Kelsey literally can't have a sip of wine without lighting up, getting a terrible headache, and being hungover.

Millions of people deal with this.

So, the brand is called Glowless.

It's a topical patch jam packed with a proprietary blend vitamins and anti-oxidants.

88% of people who try it experience significant relief.

It's an absolute game changer for a lot of people.

The business did a little south of 6 figures in revenue in 2019 when it launched, and then floundered in COVID. The creator had moved on to other projects and was keeping it on life support when we met him.

It was a passion project, so Kelsey kept him on the cap table.

She bought it in June, but was still at her job til October.

The next few months it was fulfilling orders and planning.

In dormant mode it was getting 50-60 visits/day but converting the traffic pretty well for a fairly stagnant 1 page site.

In the purchase, she got:

- The IP and vendor relationship
- Tons of content, images, etc
- 4,000 patches of inventory
- Email list and small social
- Webflow + Shopify site

Note one big thing was missing...

Packaging!

At my behest, she ditched Webflow and Shopify for WooCommerce, and sourced generic packaging and stickers. It was DIY af but got the job done.

She needed to get new packaging ordered but also wanted to revisit the brand's color to make it less... pink.

She opted out of the packets the previous owner had used, and moved on a monochrome (cuz color agnostic) pouch for the medium term. Redesigned the back too.

She hit up my plug in china and got the ball rolling... shipment would land by the time she was ready to ramp up.

LFG

Now: brand refresh.

Hardly that tbh, more of a re-color.

Then a big refresh on the website.

Tbh she had landed on the new color about the same time the packaging landed stateside, but the next version will look incredible with this green. Stop gap works fine for now.

I shot these in a $40 photo tent on our dining room table. Retouched by a hitter in the Eastern Bloc.

Finally, some SEO.

There are lot's of long tail keywords around this. We did some keyword research on Ahrefs and found a great writer on Upwork who is very familiar with Asian glow and got some articles in the queue.

More seeds planted every week, and they're growing.

Next she fired up Klaviyo to get started with a run of the mill email strategy.

- Cart abandonment
- Email capture on site

Now that she's left her job, it's game time.

She fired up the first email blast to a stagnant list, I helped with some copy...

Damn near $1,000 LFG

Now, she's starting to make some content.

She's absolutely going for it. Editing videos, joining convos on social, and FITFO.

Figure It The Fuck Out.

There are massive TikTok videos on the topic. She's already pulled down some sales with 3 videos and 30 followers.

Next up:

Campaigns and creative.

I think a "free just pay shipping" offer on a small pack will convert like crazy and pay for itself. Esp with a 100% money back guarantee.

Time to get it out there and let the product do the talking.

Then: Fulfillment.

She's running w/ ShipBob for domestic and Australian fulfillment, and we're talking to a potential partner in Singapore to handle Asia.

Australia, and of course Asia, are huge markets for this.

I'm super excited for @kelseychan's journey - if we're lucky she's gonna share a lot about.

If you deal with Asian glow or know someone who does.... glowless.co

It works for 88% and it's got a money back guarantee.

If you're new here, I build businesses and tweet about it all day every day. Come follow along if you don't already!

> @landforce <

Builders build!

Here's a little more about me:

https://twitter.com/landforce/status/1382061877895835651

TLDR:

Bought a small DTC brand with PMF
Revamped some basics
Start SEO and Content
Run the email playbook to get moving

There's something to be said for buying something that's already selling - different energy than starting from zero.

Lol wrong username it’s @kelseychan I am killing it

My gals are out here

https://twitter.com/kelseychan/status/1456655414221705220