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Moe Hayek
DTC POD
Moe Hayek
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Speaker
Blaine Bolus
MH
Speaker
Moe Hayek
RB
Speaker
Ramon Berrios
03:58 Exploring opportunities in growing nootropics market led to NZT 48. 07:32 Successful ecommerce brands use TikTok, hiring creators to stimulate virality and boost sales.
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“What's up, DTC Pod? Today we're joined by Mo Hayek, who is the CEO and founder behind the Limitless Pill and a whole bunch of other stuff.”
“But the world, obviously is all going towards biohacking brain functionality, right. Natural ingredients, et cetera. So we're like, okay, how do we go ahead and position ourselves in this market with a product that has a unique selling advantage and it can compete with multimillion dollar brands and, yeah, NZT 48 was born, and the rest is history. I guess now we'll dive into it.”
“So for the TikTok native brands, the main thing you want to do is essentially you want to hire these kids or creators that will run their own secondary pages that can be very aggressive or very non formal in their language and their marketing. And you pretty much just give them the freedom to do whatever they want, post whatever they want on third party pages, not your main brand page. You keep your brand page as official, as clean, as on par as you want and as you can. And then those kids can do whatever they want. They can talk conspiracies, they can talk about FOMO scarcity, very sales, non sales AI. And you kind of count on them to push viral and impressions, virality and impressions to your page. And from your page, they see the representation and the trust. They end up being in a purchase.”
“So I definitely want to expand on the TikTok strategy, but before I want to take a step back to that first two weeks of 25 million views.”
“It's somebody who understands the context and just gets it.”
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What's up, DTC Pod? Today we're joined by Mo Hayek, who is the CEO and founder behind the Limitless Pill and a whole bunch of other stuff. So Mo, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you just tell us a little bit about your personal background and some of the projects that you're involved in in the space.
Yeah, personal background. Dropped out of college, got into Ecommerce when I was like 1718 years old. And back then it was all about drop shipping and finding the next hot product as quick as possible and making as much money off that. And then obviously, once I learned the skill sets, I'm like, I got to do something way more valuable than just finding fish lenses online and back posture correctors and selling them for two months. And then now I'm stuck with my balls in my hands, essentially.
Right.
So the Nash revolution of that process was like, how do you build micro brands that you can essentially build enterprise value in, right? Generate revenue, maybe even not even that much profit, but be able to sell that as an asset down the line. So fast forward a few years between drop shipping, learning the game obviously properly, and testing a fuck ton of products. I landed on some brands, or I landed on some brand ideas. And now the current brand that I'm pushing and operating is a Limitless pill. So I'm not the founder and CEO myself. I'm actually the main operator. And I do have a partner as well that found the actual product. I just made it viral.
Okay, amazing. Well, we're more interested in talking to operators anyway, because you guys are the ones making it work. So yeah. Why don't you tell me a little bit more about the concept behind the brand and then let's go through what it actually takes to get it off the ground and what you're doing.
Yeah, absolutely. So the concept behind the brand is we're pretty much so my partner Jazz at Limitless on Instagram. Funny enough, he had trademarked the word NZT 48, which is the same exact trademark within the movie from Bradley Cooper.
Yeah, I remember that.
And he's been sitting on that trademark for years, essentially. He did, like, a soft launch, I think, in 2016. 2017, when I first was learning Dropshipping. Funny enough, he owned the trademark of this product. So fast forward a few years later, I meet him, and he has a bunch of products or brands, essentially, that need to go viral, right. Or start moving off the shelf. So I'm like, this is the one. This one makes a lot of sense, obviously, on it has already paved the way in the market.
Right?
They already sold, like, $300 million. Joe Rogan did a lot of educational so the market's penetrated. Then you see Thesis come into the market, then you see, like, other neurohacker Aqualia. So the market's been penetrated, but there's still so much opportunity, because if you look at the supplement market overall, and then the Nootropics is, like, very small amount because it's still growing. But the world, obviously is all going towards biohacking brain functionality, right. Natural ingredients, et cetera. So we're like, okay, how do we go ahead and position ourselves in this market with a product that has a unique selling advantage and it can compete with multimillion dollar brands and, yeah, NZT 48 was born, and the rest is history. I guess now we'll dive into it.
That's actually super fascinating, the fact that you've got, like, a trademark around a term that comes out of a movie. So you've got brand equity already established.
You ever got a season desist?
No, we actually send those out more than we get.
Oh, my God. How does getting a trademark for something like that work? Right? If there's IP that's essentially created in a movie or somewhere else, what does that look like?
Yeah, it's really just, honestly, a timing game. Think about it as, like, flipping domains or patent pending products. As soon as you know the patent is about to expire, or the domain is about to expire, and there's opportunity to snipe it, that's what you got to do. And luckily for me, I didn't have to go through that process.
Yeah, of course.
My partner is really good at it, and he put enough money, obviously, up on the bid, was able to snipe that, and then a few years later, now their project is going also.
I'm sure at that time, they weren't even thinking of, like, we should trademark this because somebody's going to make an actual product out of it. It's also, like, the timing really worked out for you in the sense that by now, probably movies are trademarking. Like, every product that they invent in the movie or whatever.
Yeah, what's really interesting is obviously the movie is, like, almost a decade old, but now they just released a show. So it's like, not only are we able to maximize off the first generation of viewers and adopters, but now we're getting even more of a natural boost because of the show actually going live again.
So how did you launch? Like, what was the first go to market?
Go to market is always, like, MVP, the minimum viable product that you can launch as long as you have a really good product, which we had. We're like, okay, let's just put a shitty website up and launch some ads and see kind of how it works. Sorry if I'm shaking.
Before the inventory, before having the product.
No, we had the product. You have product. It's been in development for, like, eight months before we launched. So we already know we had formulated it to be the best on the market that we could find.
Right?
Like, one of the main advantages we had was being able to pack all the ingredients that, let's say, an on, it has in two pills in one.
Right?
Or like, Aqualia has in four pills. We have it in one.
Right.
So that was our main advantage, is being able to give you a full serving, full nootropic dosage in one pill. And we launched with literally, like, if you guys do history of our website, like, the shittiest front page with the shittiest product page, and we're like, let's just put some ads out, obviously, and take over TikTok. And literally within the first month of running, between a little bit of TikTok organic and ads, we were able to get like 25 million views. Like, first month out the gate, right? The first 29 days, nothing would pop off. Like, literally day 30, we had one video go crazy, and then from there, it was just like a snowball effect.
Was this organic content meaning well, it was organic content, but was it produced in house or was it using creators?
Yeah, the TikTok strategy right now for any successful ecommerce brand that you're seeing, or like, a new generation brand, is always TikTok first, right? So for the TikTok native brands, the main thing you want to do is essentially you want to hire these kids or creators that will run their own secondary pages that can be very aggressive or very non formal in their language and their marketing. And you pretty much just give them the freedom to do whatever they want, post whatever they want on third party pages, not your main brand page. You keep your brand page as official, as clean, as on par as you want and as you can. And then those kids can do whatever they want. They can talk conspiracies, they can talk about FOMO scarcity, very sales, non sales AI. And you kind of count on them to push viral and impressions, virality and impressions to your page. And from your page, they see the representation and the trust. They end up being in a purchase.
So I definitely want to expand on the TikTok strategy, but before I want to take a step back to that first two weeks of 25 million views. Were you getting conversions? Were you getting sales? What happened from there? Sometimes people really hit the mark with virality. They might not get the sales, they might have gotten the views from the wrong country or something like that. How did that translate into the trajectory of the business?
Yeah, the key sauce here is usually what a lot of people don't understand is once you go viral once, it's not going to generate you a lot of money because that video is more structured for views, it's not structured for sales. But the way you maximize all the traffic that you're getting from that viral video is by posting another one right after it. That's specifically salesy. And the way we do that, for example, is we'll go viral off one video that's talking about, if you don't take these pills, for example, or these ingredients, you're going to die in three days.
Right.
It's like very controversial.
Right.
So it'll engage a lot of people. People will start giving you their opinions. Then what you want to do is you want to find one really good comment and you want to reply to it.
Right.
And you're like, actually, here's why this is true. And then you actually go into the product benefits, the features, and give credibility to the brand. And that's the video that's actually going to generate you sales.
Yeah, it reminds me just a side note of the slot video. We'll tell you after that.
No, I'd love to know because I think this is like a major challenge for any brand. They know that Organic Social is a channel that's tough to crack. And I mean, Ramon and I have been through it. We were running a creator sprint for Cast Magic, and I think we went through how many different creators? A whole bunch of different creators, a whole bunch of turns. And literally on the last one before Ramon was going to be like, fuck this, I'm turning this channel off. It hit 6 million views, and we probably brought in 20K worth of MRR in a week.
Right.
So I'm curious what it was. And the other thing is, for our creative that performed, it was also something that I didn't even think was going to perform.
Like, all these other ones, I'm like handholding trying to tell them everything about the product, and this guy just made some it was a random listicle tools, and it just blew up.
So I'm curious for the limitless pill, right? For that creative that really popped, what was the concept behind it? And then maybe talk me through some of the concepts that you also thought were going to maybe perform and didn't perform.
Yeah, I can't even take credit for the content. Like the first content piece that popped off because it wasn't my idea. Creators shout out to that creator, Sydney, specifically, that we had at the time. But the video was so organic, and we've tried to duplicate this video so many times, and it never worked again, which is kind of crazy to think about. But the main theme was like, conspiracy style videos. Like, hey, do you remember the movie? Okay, well, here's what you didn't know about the movie.
Right.
This pill, there's actually a real life version of it, but it's banned in all these big pharma stores because they don't want you to be as smart as the elite.
Right.
So it's like that conspiracy theory that plays into the native TikTok audience of younger demographic, younger audiences that's so into conspiracies and paradigm shifts and whatnot. And yeah, that literally ended up doing, like 2 million views in the first day. And then from there, I think it's done like, 10 million more views.
Wow.
Okay.
So when you look for these creators, you can go for the creator that you're like, all right, this person. Because how beautiful the content is isn't necessarily a factor. It's somebody who understands the context and just gets it. And you can identify these people by looking at their TikTok page. And however, some of these could already be like they could already have over 100K followers. They might be expensive. So how do you spot the talent in the ones that might just be kids that they don't even know yet, that they have the capability of going viral? Do you go after the ones that are already?
That's a great question. So the new thing is, especially because of TikTok, there's an opportunity now, or at least like the Arbitrage is like, TikTok allows any mom, dad, or child to be a viral sensation overnight as a first time user.
Right?
And we've never had that opportunity in our lives ever before.
Right.
So because there is this platform that's TikTok, and it has this behemoth of an opportunity where anybody's a fucking creator, you can go literally find anybody with a brain that's willing to follow instructions to run content for you. And essentially, that's what we do.
Right?
So we go on Twitter or we go on these sub communities, whether it's on Facebook or working with specific communities, like my boy Jimmy Farley, shout out to him. He has a great creator community that he kind of trains content with. And we just find kids that are willing to work, get paid, obviously, and do content every single day.
Right.
And as long as they can do that, you give them enough of information where they can use Chat, GBT, Dolly, and Submagic, and they can create unlimited content, unlimited ideas, and hopefully hit one dart for sure. And that one dart can make you endless amounts of money.
So in practice, incentive alignment is tough. I feel like with some of these creators, I feel like there's a lot of magic in incentive alignment because you don't want to be chasing them. Like, yeah, you need to get content up today. Well, incentives should be in place for them to want to do it, to get paid. If you don't want to do it, that's your problem. You're not going to get paid.
Right.
So does this consist of a flat fee with upside commission and bonuses on performance? Is it always changing? There's no blueprint. How do you approach incentive?
Yeah, I think here's the thing. Just like, influencers got really hyped up, and the rate until this day, nobody knows what the fuck the rate is per million followers, right. With creators, there's like this idea of per video, right, which is like per video, I want 30 or 50 or $100. For us, we focus on finding creators that are willing to work with us for three to $500 to post one video a day on TikTok for 30 days, plus the ability to earn 20% commissions. And then where the advantage is, is being able to post those same videos you make on another YouTube or Facebook channel. So now, instead of giving yourself one shot a day, you give yourself three shots a day with the same bullet.
Yeah. And it's a volume game at that point. Right. You reach out to 185 will say no, and then five will say yes. And so then it becomes like a game of just oiling your machine of reaching out and finding those people, especially like that community you mentioned. That's a great place. There's a lot of these communities that you could tap into. They've already taken the courses.
Exactly.
They're hungry, they're ready to get their first gig, and you can tap into those community.
Yeah. One thing I was curious about, in terms of the system that you're setting up to be able to do the outreach and manage the whole program, how.
Do you run that?
Is it just manual with a lot of work?
No, really, it's pretty simple. It's funny because I literally just had a coaching call earlier today from somebody who's doing like $2 million a month, but they are doing nothing on TikTok and they're like, where do I even start?
Right?
So the idea is you want to not overstress or overwork yourself and try to make everything perfect. Day one, right? So, for example, you hire three to five creators. Month one. Your job is not to babysit them and micromanage. You just want to give them enough information where they can go ahead and do the selling for you. Your day is not to check on their content every single day. Make sure they post it, make sure their scripts are aligning with your brand messaging. That's the last thing you want to do.
You just want to let them like it's kind of think about it as a dog or a child. You just put them out and you let them do their thing. And that's what you want to do with these creators when you first start. And then within a month or so, you'll start seeing some creators really get the product, really get the brand and start improving. And some won't. And those that won't, you gunt them off. And those that do, you double down on them, give them more education, and you let them do their thing.
So you're just basically like, your time is worth more than trying to push around for $500, whatever that's so cost, because whatever works is going to make up for whatever.
It's like old ecommerce ways or even till this day, right? Like, you spend $1,000 into scripting editing, finding the perfect influencer that matches your perfect brand image just to make a video that will most likely flop, right? Instead of investing all that time, you're like, fuck all that. Here's three to $500. Give me 30 videos and hopefully one of them works. And usually one out of 30 is like a very high chances of you finding one, right?
Yeah, I really like that because, Ramon, we've even seen it when we brought in, what, five or six, seven creators into our kind of pool that we're working with. And some of them were really good. And not only that, every video they did would get better and better in terms of their way to speak about the product and what they're doing. And then we'd have some that were, I think, remote would just be slack and be like, dude, what is going on here? What is this? This isn't it. But I think to your point, rather than worry about that, that's just kind of the name of the game.
Exactly.
It's all your brand. Like you said, it's a separate page, so who cares? I mean, some of them, I could tell, they get stuck on a loop of same concept over and over. It's like, really doesn't get it. Let's talk about I'm curious about TikTok shops. So actually, that's how I came across your work. I saw you were posting stuff on TikTok shops. It's still really early there. So is this for the Limitless bill that you're working on? TikTok shops, is it for other stuff? What's going on with TikTok Shops.
Yeah, I mean, TikTok Shop is like the new again arbitrage opportunity, right? It's like Amazon Day One. What people don't understand is a lot of people are running to TikTok Shop as dropshippers because it's like low barrier entry. But that also means for you as a dropshipper high saturation rate.
Right?
Because if you can set it up, then there's a million other kids that can do the same thing. In reality, the way you want to look at TikTok Shop is like Amazon Day one. The people who launched the first protein workout or first house brand or first sheet brand on Amazon are still dominating until this day. Why? Because of SEO keyword rankings, obviously page and reviews. TikTok Shop is building the same exact infrastructure that Amazon has. So if you treat that for your brand the same exact way, and you can go ahead and leverage the on platform SEO, because now TikTok, if I'm not mistaken, I think I read a stat 40% of Millennials and Gen Z use it as a search engine.
Right?
So imagine search engine for content. And with that content you have product listings with every single piece of video, which we've never had before.
Right?
That's like going on Google. The first article you find has a product plugged in which is not there anymore.
Right.
So that's the opportunity right now that's being built with TikTok Shop and to even make it sweeter because it's such a new product for TikTok and it's in their best interest to win and make it successful. Not only are they paying customers to use the TikTok Shop, but they're paying brands a credit incentives and helping people go viral just for using their new product. Yeah, so the way it works is.
Basically a brand will upload a video link to their product and then people can check out right there. Does it have to be an actual company or can a creator link to a shop?
Yeah, as of right now. So the way we have it set up, for example, is first we built a TikTok army, and then now that TikTok army has the opportunity to connect to TikTok Shop. I see, so now all those kids and all those pages connect with our TikTok Shop in platform affiliate, in platform commission, in platform sales. So it's a no brainer.
It's crazy because now there's many playbooks to run with TikTok. Like Instagram is like sponsor an influencer and then it's like make reels go viral. But this is the biggest threat to Amazon at the moment.
Correct.
Is like doing stuff in UGC, et cetera. But TikTok is getting so far ahead. You can run the organic content playbook, you can do ads, you can run.
The influencer play now you can do.
Shop, now you can run SEO, I mean, just the SEO alone, it's like a whole strategy. And how you put the keywords? I was looking the other day, there's tools already that help you find for SEO, even real estate. It's wild. So I'm curious, what type of success have you seen? What are some of the numbers that you've seen that made you say, all right, my attention should be here?
Yeah. Well, number one thing is, TikTok, I believe, pays about $20 for each brand new customer on TikTok to use TikTok Shop. So if I'm selling a $30 product, my customer is only paying $10. So if I can position myself in front of a million customers, for example, they're only going to pay one third of my product cost, but I'm still going to get paid the full revenue thanks to TikTok. So that's already a no brainer. Two is if you run ads to TikTok Shop, which I haven't done much yet, they're still giving you as a brand credit to run ads towards their TikTok Shop. Three is just the early adopter movement.
Right.
So the earlier you are, the better, because you get to be infiltrated in the system, you get priority support, and you get to kind of see what's good and what's bad in the platform and be a part of that success early on.
And I'm curious, what are brands selling? Are brands selling 20 grand a day, 40 grand a day? Is the algorithm pushing for more, less?
Yeah.
I mean, right now, there's a max of 200 orders a day per new brand, and then usually after like, 30 to 60 days, once they see that your 200 orders a day are being fulfilled on time within two to three days and your score rating is 100%, then they allow you to extend.
Oh, wow. Right.
So what people don't understand is TikTok is taking this very seriously because they don't want drop shippers, and they made that clear because they don't allow you to ship from China, the US. That's completely banned.
Right.
Are there products that are banned?
There's no products that are banned, but you can sell pretty much anything as long as you have certifications.
Okay.
So TikTok will ask you for specific certifications invoices proof of business. They want to make sure they're not selling shit product because at the end of the day, it's their customer.
Right.
You're not getting access to their emails, their names, et cetera. So they want to make sure you're selling good quality products. Yeah.
So I'm curious. Let's say I'm the brand that you had the call with. I'm a brand making $2 million a month. I haven't done anything on TikTok, and I'm overwhelmed. Like I mentioned before, I can do the organic, I can do the shops. Should I hire an agency? Should I consult with someone and then build the playbook in house? What is the best way to yeah.
For me, agencies are a no go. They've always been a no go just because they kind of treat you like a one night stand.
Right.
I think every single agency out there. And again, I can say this because I've been an agency and I've been a brand holder. You're only cool for the first month. If that right. You're usually only the top priority client for the first week. And as soon as I sign somebody else, fuck this guy. Let me go help this. So agencies always suck, so you never want to pay those guys.
What you really want to do is try to do this thing in house furry TikTok right now, as speaking. Yeah, obviously, VAS just in house talent, whatever the case may be, your main goal should be to one, build as many secondary pages as you can through other creators. Because now you have a content building machine and you have a workflow of virality, essentially, right? Now, once you do that, because of TikTok Shop, they have their own creator marketplace. So inside of your TikTok Shop, you can actually go ahead, set specific parameters for the type of influencers you want to work with, for example, and allow those influencers to request free samples from your product so you can say, hey, this month of November, I want to go ahead and give away 1000 free samples. Okay? So what you can do is you can say, anybody with 10,000 followers, 30 videos in the last month, and $10 generated can get a free sample from me. And TikTok requires every single person that requests a free sample to make a video for you. So now you're pretty much letting yourself automate an affiliate machine on TikTok Shop, plus all the viral content that you have, right? Because you don't want to look for creating viral content just to generate sales. You want views and you want to find more affiliates.
And the best way to do that is by seeing your content over and over again, go viral. So they're like, hey, I'm a creator. I want to go viral. Let me sell this product. Dude, that's crazy.
It's almost like, I know Facebook or Instagram just shut down Instagram Shop and all of this, but it seems like it was so backwards because they just tried to take a shopping experience and lump it onto Instagram, whereas TikTok is saying, no, let's build out the whole value chain. Let's factor in the creator, let's factor in the affiliate component, and let's factor in the brand to really build the flywheel.
Yeah, I mean, it goes back to the idea of instagram wasn't built for shopping, right? It never was. And they kind of put themselves in this corner, this pedestal, when Instagram started becoming, like, the luxury lifestyle education platform, right? And once you go more like education and information, then you can't natively connect with people. The reason why TikTok Shop is crushing it compared to Instagram is because, again, going back to that first point, anybody can go in, either make money or get really good fucking deals, right? Instagram didn't do that. People don't go on. Instagram to do either or. And on top of that, TikTok is entertaining. So if you can get entertained, get coupons, and make money, why the fuck would you want to be on Instagram Shop?
I'm curious what the stack would look like for a company to run this in house. And I'm curious because our sponsor of this episode actually it's more now it's a manager VA company, but they focus on management level. We use a bunch of know. They basically do a bunch of our work too. So I'm big on VAS. I'm curious, what is the ideal team stack for running this operation? Like, how many people for TikTok specifically? Yeah, you want to crush TikTok.
Let's say you didn't really have a solid TikTok strategy in place. Maybe you had a couple of creators making videos. But let's say you wanted to build out automations for the recruitment of TikTok creators that are spinning up pages as well as layering in TikTok Shop. What does the lift look like?
I mean, our business does over a million dollars a month and we have seven people. So let that sink in. Like, for TikTok specifically, we have a VA and a manager to manage that VA. Essentially, as long as your team is full of athletes, right? Essentially, that can play multiple positions. That's the key thing. But in general, one VA is able to manage and onboard the brand new TikTok creators and then go ahead and do outreach and message those people. It's not rocket science.
Yeah.
The other people, though, are eight players.
Yeah, I mean, I would say so. But at the same time, again, running an ecommerce business is not hard and it's not rocket science. It's like you need one video editor that can create really good video ads. You need one really good graphic designer, a creative strategist that can tell you the type of ads and then a media buyer for each platform.
Right.
If you can do that and structure a really good squad, then you can probably run it up as far as you want, as long as operations is on hold, et cetera.
Right? Sweet.
So let's take a step back. I want to talk about some of your other experience before Limitless Pill. I know you've worked on a whole bunch of different brands. What were you focused on before it and what's some of the other stuff you do?
Yeah, so Mid COVID, actually I came across Trends.com I'm not sure if you guys heard of. Yeah, yeah.
Trends.com and trend IO that was owned.
By Vanpar and Sharp Urea. Yeah, exactly. So I came across Trends, literally Mid COVID and I signed up for a dollar, and I came across an article talking about the online plant industry is going to boom. I still have that fucking article bookmarked. And I read through the article and they give me the top five plants I should sell, who the top competitors are, the operations and the hurdles you need to get over. But long story short, here's a gold mine, essentially for you to dig in. I'm like, okay, let me try selling plants online. It's COVID.
You can't leave the house, so it makes all the sense. So long story short, I copy paste the website. Literally like the whole website, just copy pasted, changed the logo, and I'm like, let me run some ads, right? I've never been to a nursery. I don't even know what the plants are called still. I just copy pasted them, right? And I launched. And I think within the first week, we make like $20,000 off, like 2000, $3,000 in spent. And I'm like, holy fuck, people are really buying plants. So now we refund all those orders, sit down, try to figure out the nursery, the operations, the packaging.
And throughout the year of COVID after figuring all that out without going too much in depth, we did close to like $2 million in sales selling plants online. And that was like the first experience of what a brand looks like and what you can do when you have a brand versus selling drop shipping products. And from there, it was like, okay, plants was really fucking tough. It was a really fucking headache. Because we're selling live plants right now, are dying on the way to us. They're dying on the way to the customer. They're dying in the fucking warehouse that we're storing. So it was overall a headache.
I ended up closing that business down. It lost money after the first year. Funny enough, we had an offer that I declined. Yeah, I would definitely take that offer back now. But that was kind of the first brand experience that I had. And from there it was like, okay, what's the next thing? And one thing led to another, and.
Now we are really excited to announce that Dtcpod is officially part of the HubSpot Podcast network. The HubSpot Podcast Network is the audio destination for business professionals. And we're really excited about being part of the network because we're going to be able to keep growing the show, bringing you guys amazing guests, and obviously helping you guys learn from the best founders, marketers and builders of the most successful consumer brands. So anyway, keep listening to DTC, Pod, and more shows like us on the HubSpot podcast network@hubspot.com. Slash podcastnetwork.
Yeah. And I'd love to talk about some of the considerations because like you're saying, when you're selling plants, I think a lot of people who get into ecommerce, they're really focused on a product, a pain point they're solving. But sometimes maybe it's not really well suited for an ecommerce direct consumer motion. So I'd love to talk through some of the challenges that you had, like doing the plant stuff. Like you said, the plants are dying, they're live, they're big to ship. How do you store them? How'd you find them, how'd you ship them? Break it down.
There's a lot into that. It's funny because if I were running that business now, I would have made it like ten times more profitable because I know all the things that I could have fixed early on. The main issue, at least one of the main issues was the actual industry and the product, right? The product was perishable and the industry was outdated. The only way now, when I look back at it, to really win in that industry was to pretty much own the actual supply, as in the farm, and grow my own plants.
Right.
Because one of the main issues, we actually faced a lot of trouble on Black Friday, and we ended up shutting down, like February and March the year after, because we couldn't fulfill all the volume we did on Black Friday. So we sold close to $180,000 in sales in one day on Black Friday. All plants. And these are like $100 plants. So you do the math on how many orders, right? I call my farmer up, which is my supply chain. I'm like, hey, I need this amount, no problem. The week after, I get like one 10th of the amount. Hey, what happened to IPO? Oh, we had a storm.
All the crop died the week after. We had a fire the week after, all the plants aren't ready enough. The week after, the leaves are too small, right? So it's like one thing led to another to another, and now you have angry customers, you have chargebacks, you can only do so much consolidation. And that business just turned into a headache. That's one side is the supply chain, the other side was like the actual packaging. So we sold potted plants. Not just plants, meaning we got the plants from Florida, right? We had to ship it to our warehouse. In our warehouse, we repotted them.
So we took it from the shitty nursery pot into a ceramic pot because we were selling luxury plants. So we would buy the plant for $10, sell it for 150. So we had to put in a nice ceramic pot. Now, after potting in that ceramic pot, we had to essentially hire people to learn how to pot plants. And then those same people had to learn how to package, right? Which the packaging was like a ten step formula that we had to come up with. So it was just like a complete headache. But going through that business, I learned the hardest stage of operations, I feel like, where now I can sell anything in any manner, in anywhere, in any shape, because I've been through the hardest shit.
I mean, counterintuitively, there are then markets where there's no barrier to entry, so then it gets rapidly saturated, right? Like the fact that, yeah, that was a huge pain point, but that's why also not many people were probably trying to do it at that point in time. I'm curious, are there specific criteria for the products that you want to do that they must have in order. For example, they say the richest isn't the niches, but at the same time, does stuff that's niche go viral? Does it have to be, like, super broad consumer and apply to literally everyone in order for this stuff to work?
Yeah, great question. So it's like, think about it this way, right? Society or the ecom culture is training you to make $10,000 a month drop shipping the product, when in reality, you can take that same product, build it for three to five years, and sell it for $100 million, right? And that's been proven over and over again with multiple brands. So for us, we look for products that solve a problem correlate to a passion, and they're perishable because we want to resell the customer, we want to engage them emotionally, and then we want to be able to solve their problem in their life that they face often. So as long as the product falls into those three categories, then we continue selling that product and build around that idea. I like that a lot.
That's a great framework. I'm curious, just going back to the plants for a second. How did you guys scale all this sort of stuff? Who are you hiring? Where did you go to do it? Where was your warehouse?
Dude, the thing is, as an entrepreneur, you never think about how you're going to do it. You just do this and you figure it out. Every single time I was in a position where it's, like, sold the product, then I figured out how to deliver. I took over the warehouse, and I figured out how to pay for it. I just hired a person. I figured out how to train them, right? It's never like, oh, I have this magical system that I have now. Just come in, go through the system, and life is perfect. So looking back at it, I remember our first facility when we were shipping plants from Miami to Boston, and then shipping from Boston.
We had taken over a warehouse. Our USPS guy, our Ups guy at the time, this guy Phil, was like, the most depressed Ups driver. It's like, what's up, dude? Every fucking guy would show up. He's like, what are you guys fucking doing?
Right?
Like, first week, he's like, picking up three plants, ten plants, 20 plants a day. He's like, you guys need help. I was like, yeah. So he literally calls up the local hockey kids that work in that city, and they all need jobs. So we literally hired, like, half the hockey team, dude, to fucking fulfill products for us.
That's epic.
Yeah. And they've never done no packaging. They don't even know what ecommerce is. They just came in there, right? So that was, like, one big blessing. And then we moved to another warehouse, and we ended up knowing a friend that his mom was a realtor. So we ended up working with her, and then she recommended kids from his high school, and then we ended up doing the same thing here.
Right.
It was just like just being very resourceful. That's what it is as an entrepreneur. You just got to pull strings, figure out who you have, and then between God and your plan, things will work out.
So here's my question. You said there were a couple of things you'd do differently if you could start your plant business over from day one. What would those be? If you had to execute on a plant business today, how would you spin it up?
Yeah. One, I would own the supply chain right away. I would go to work with a farmer and make sure that I can literally ship and manage the farm myself.
Right.
Because if I could ship from the same moment I'm picking the plant out, then my chances of success and that plant being in great shape is like 30 times.
Well, how do you know that's a worthy investment?
Because that's what the biggest competitors in the industry do now.
But for that specific vertical or product.
We'Re saying if he has to do his plant business all over again, you.
Already validated, so you know it's worth to do correctly.
Correctly. And there's brands like the SIL or Bloomscape. These are all brands that do millions of dollars a month, and that's their business model to it.
Right.
That's number one. Number two is invest in packaging. We bootlegged our packaging, meaning we bought foam, we bought boxes, we bought inserts to make this one unique packaging, instead of spending 100K up front to develop a specific box that can hold your plant and make sure it's not going to break it. And the third thing was I would build a community based brand where I'm charging, let's say, $20 or $8 a month to generate more profits, to allow people to maintain and further take care of the well being of their plant. Because that's one thing. We did good, but we didn't do great. And I think between good and great, there's a lot of plants, for example, that as soon as you get it, it might look dead today, but you give it some water, you put some sun on it, for example, you give it some more educational, it'll survive. So between making more profit as an info product, owning the actual supply chain, and then investing in the most important thing, which is the packaging, those are the three main things that I would do to turn that business around.
What about on the marketing front? What would you have done differently?
Nothing. Marketing wasn't the problem. Marketing is never the problem. It's always the supply chain.
So what was the marketing then, for that business?
TikTok wasn't around at the time, so it was Instagram and Facebook and influencers.
Yeah.
We had literally, like, Kylie Jenner's friends, like Stassy, Chantel, Jeffries, like all these people who are locked in their home, especially girls who absolutely love plants, which I had no clue, just ship them a free plan. We would have a post from, like, 10 million followers, say, I love plants. And it was like a new thing, right? When have you ever gotten reached out by a plant company?
Right? Yeah.
Marketing is never the problem. Marketing is always the easiest thing. It's how do you fulfill your promise that you're doing on the marketing side of the know?
It's a funny story. During the pandemic, I ordered tuna from Hawaii to my apartment, and it was really good, but it took so long to get there, and so they were just, like, backed up, backed up. And I was like, this actually came all the way from Hawaii, and I'm from the Caribbean, so I'm like, all right, well, I should just get lobsters from the Caribbean and sell them online. So I made a landing page. I ran ads. It was called Caribbean Catch, and the ads blew up. Average order value was, like, $300 on lobster and tuna, and I didn't have any of the supply figured out. So then I started cold calling places in Jamaica.
They supply lobster to red lobster and all this stuff. I was like, I got to get back to software. Just like frozen foods, just having to figure out the shipment of it has to arrive frozen, and the zoning and all that, the cost, the margins, just it reminded me of that.
Selling lobsters online. Wow.
Live lobster.
I thought plants was hard. You're trying to sell animals?
Yeah, some live lobsters online. That's cool. So what else do you do?
Now?
You say you do some consulting with brands too, so why don't you walk me through that? What do you do with brands? What's your process?
Yeah, the main thing is the main thing, it's always ecommerce. We just kind of do different things. So whether it's we operate brands, we incubate brands, or we help grow brands, as simple as that. So brands will come up to us. They'll say, hey, we love what you're doing with brands, so and so on TikTok, can you help us do that? So we'll easily go in, consult, help them build the system out, recruit them, the creators, if we want to point them towards the right direction. But there's no magic sales pitch. It's just like, brands need help and specific things that we're really good at, and we just go ahead and help you with that.
Sweet.
And then why don't you talk to us a little bit about the incubation side? That's really cool.
Yeah, the incubation side really just comes down to finding opportunity in the market and being able to maximize that opportunity. Like, now the game is for me because I have the leverage is I go ahead and let's say I want to launch a new supplement. My goal was not to do the R and D and develop the supplement with my own money. It's to go ahead and find a manufacturing facility that has the money, has the resources, and has the machinery and be like, hey, I'm running this brand up. Here's my portfolio. I'll give you 10% of the brand if you could do the R and D for me and make me this specific product. So that's the idea of incubation. And we specifically focus on supplements and beauty.
It's either feel good or look good, because those are recession proof industries, and people always want to do those two things. So we go ahead. We partner up with a manufacturing facility. All usually in the US. Or Mexico right now is a really hotspot you give them part of your portfolio or give them part of your brand. You partner up with that manufacturing facility. So you save yourself a fuck ton of costs and time and then you go ahead and incubate it in a brand new market.
I bet that portfolio looks good.
It's pretty healthy.
It's a tough sale. Probably for anyone who's like approaching. You've done it before, and you've proven it over and over. So how do you vet those partners?
To be honest. I'm going to answer your question. But it's not really a hard process because think about it this way. When we first started this podcast. You guys are really good at SaaS and you're trying to do direct to consumer. And it's like for me, it's the other way around. So for the suppliers, the issue is they always see be brands like us ordering from them all the time, but they don't get it. They don't understand where they're selling it or how they're selling it.
But they want to be involved, right? Because they're fulfilling the invoices that you're paying.
Right.
So it's a really easy sell if you're like. Hey, who do you manufacture for? Well, I manufacture for I don't know sweet dreams, for example. Oh, really? Okay, well, I'm going to do something very similar. Do you want to own part of sweet Dreams?
Right.
So it's pretty organic. But for me, in terms of vetting those partners, usually it's either word of mouth or just seeing what other products they've done. And if they've done other products for other brands that are really good, then obviously they can produce something really good for me too.
Yeah.
And I think it makes a bunch of sense, right? Because their focus and their core competency is manufacturing is not an easy thing to do, especially if you've been inside some of these factors, getting those things up and running. And Ramon, the olive brand that we're working on, they process 500 tons of olives every day. Just imagine the Cap X to build out a facility and run an operation that does that, but then to go and scale out the actual brand component of it. There's a lot like going and recruiting creators and running Facebook ads and getting behind their computer. It's a different right.
So there's a reason why every manufacturer doesn't have an it's. Like they don't that's not what they do, but they would love to do it, they just don't have the time and the capability to do so.
Yeah, and then you've got all the brands that are like hammering the distribution and the consumer side. So it's just different sort of markets. So I'm curious, why don't you tell us some of the brands that you said you like looking at? Supplements and beauty. So what are some other products that you're looking at that you've worked out? What are some concepts that really have excited you and stuff like that?
Right now there's a few industries that really excite me. They all revolve around health in a sense. Like, for example, one thing I do see in the upcoming, I think two to three years that will be really popping is the opposite of what's popping now, which is like energy.
Right?
Everything being sold online right now is like testo, boosting energy, get high, get more energy, more caffeine, et cetera. I think the opposite kind of loop is going to come around the next two, three years. It's like you've taken all these supplements to fucking boost your energy. It's time for you to take supplements to wind down. So not to go to sleep, but just wind down, maintain your energy levels, good mood, et cetera. So I think that's one really big, broad industry that is going to pop off pretty soon. Another one is actual health, the idea of health, but more tailored specialty health. Meaning you take supplements, right? I take supplements.
Have you ever tested what supplements you need for? Yeah, have you? Me either. But why do I take them? Because online tells me, right, gurus, other people tell me this is the right thing to do. So, for example, I think 90% of men take testosterone boosters, but they've never measured their testosterone. So think about the idea of selling a health kit that can go ahead and help people measure their health at home, return it to you, and then you sell their supplements to it.
Right?
So it's like just the idea of tailored health towards where we're going to specifically around the biohacking or the calming down and the whole Zen energy thing. I think that's what really excites me right now.
Yeah, I think the biohacking industry, it's so interesting to me because you have people like Huberman and all these other people leading the charge around it. It's just so fascinating that it took this long before a Stanford professor and now everyone in the world is tuning into a Stanford professor. And then on top of that, you have all these influencers who are typically going out drinking, dressing up, going to events, and now all of a sudden they're reciting complex neurological terms like being like absolute biohackers. But I think part of it too is as creators, they're educators as well. They have audience and this is really exciting content that they can share. And they want to share new and novel ideas and content. So I think that really pairs it's just an interesting pairing between creator like science, something new, novel. People need to be different.
Exactly.
I'm curious on that note. So what makes a great brand?
That's an interesting question. So yesterday I was at an event where the founder of hims and hers, which is a billion dollar brand, was talking and then another founder from Glow Recipe, which is like 100 million dollar brand, was talking. They were both talking about the idea of like, what makes a brand? At the end of the day, a brand is really just the way you communicate to a specific group of people and doing it consistently for a long period of time. That communication can be whether it's through product, which is having a really high quality product every single time. It can be through customer service, having really good customer service every single time, or from a visual representation, which a lot of people think what a brand is a really nice logo color that's consistent on every single platform. So the idea of brand is just being consistent to a group of people for a very long time. If you can do that, then you have a brand with a thousand loyal followers that'll go ahead and do a lot of science or a lot of marketing for you for the rest of your life.
Yeah, it's funny because there's a lot of actually, this is a great timing and a market opportunity for M and A. I saw you had a post of you sent this tweet of Beekeepers brand is like, they have the brand they're established, they're doing absolutely nothing on TikTok. That's a perfect roll up opportunity. I mean, that's probably what OpenStore is going to do. And all these other people, it's like you could buy these brands that are established and just run the playbook. Is that something you're actually interested in yourself?
Yeah, I think there's opportunity. Not only a lot of people can't afford to buy brands like Beekeepers, for example, taking them online, right. But there's like opportunity for you as the online expert to go work with these big brands and say, hey, give me a piece of equity or a really high salary, for example, or a piece of what I make here. A lot of honey for building your online piece.
Right.
Because the way I think about it, business is this, right? For example, the reason why my partner worked up, partnered up with me, he owns a jet. He's super fucking rich guy's, probably worth like a hundred million dollars. He worked with me because, one, I'm young, two, I'm more involved in the industry than he is. And somebody who's older than you that's already crushing it in a specific department, like, let's say Fiji, for example, right? Just stupid example. They're already doing a lot of good things that are right. They're not going to waste time and try to relearn what the new strategy is. They want to go ahead and hire somebody who does so for you as an entrepreneur, the best opportunity you can do now is be really good at this skill, whether it's TikTok shop or ads or creative strategy and go find brands that are lacking that online presence and say, hey, I'll run the whole show for you. You just need to give me X, Y and Z and there's a huge opportunity to do that.
Yeah, I think it's always like that. It's like a tale as old as time. I feel like when I was graduating college, apps were like a really big thing and no one had a mobile app. And it's like if you could build a mobile app for someone, it was like the biggest thing now. And now apps are like a dime a dozen. And even the way we think about building apps, it's like it doesn't make sense to build an app unless you really need an app and there's a real use case around it. But at that time, when there's a shift in culture or what people are focused on, that's where there's an opportunity for, you can go and learn the new thing and then the bigger business, who they don't have to worry about. Their core competency is somewhere else they can kind of bring it.
Mean as we kind of wrap up here, why don't you tell us about miami? Right. How long have you been here? How's the e commerce scene been? What do you like about it?
I love the weather in Miami. I love the food and I love the culture to some degree. But I also hate how absorbing it is.
Right.
Like, if you don't have a good head between your shoulders, it's really easy to get sucked in and fall for what Miami truly is, right? And the grass is never greener on the other side. And that's true definition of Miami. Like, they can be driving Lambos and wearing jewelry and popping bottles at the club, but in reality, they probably go back to their mini apartment, their million dollars in debt and their family hates, right? So when I first moved to Miami, I kind of went through that whole Miami phase of going out Thursday through Sunday and Kiki on the river and Komodo and Live and all these cool stuff. But then you realize you're like, oh, I'm just wasting my money here and this is here forever. It's not going anywhere. Like, oh, Connie is here today. Well, he's going to be here next year. Same exact drake's here today.
He's going to be here next month. Same exact time. So it's like you never miss out on anything. But yeah, that's kind of. Like, the story of Miami.
Right?
It's like if you have a good head on your shoulders, it's great to network, like great people like you guys, obviously, the community, the hustlers is like a lot of that inspiration that you need is here. But that same inspiration can make you feel, I guess, depressed and feel like you need to compete or do stuff that you're not really supposed to do.
Yeah, 100%. I feel like for us, I got lucky. I feel like I'd been kind of over that phase of my life, I guess. So for me, it's like a great home base, and I love being able to meet up, especially do a lot of in person stuff. I think it's great for, like, New York might be almost a little bit overwhelming because everyone in the world is there so you can balance your life. I think it's been I think it's.
Still early here, though.
Yeah, I think so too.
There's so much going.
But yeah, man. Anyway, this was a whole bunch of fun. Why don't you shout out your socials working people?
Where is the main thing? The mohayak? Or just go to mohayak.com and you'll find a book.
How do you spell that?
Moehayek.com.
Sweet.
Well, thanks for coming on the show.
Thank you, boys. Well, it was great.
That was great, man.
Thanks for tuning in and we hope you enjoyed this episode of DTC Pod. If you enjoyed the show, we'd love your support. A rating and review would go a long way as we continue to host the best builders in DTC and beyond. Follow and subscribe to the show and make sure to check out our show notes. Where you can find our socials and weekly newsletter, visit us on dtcpod.
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1️⃣ One Sentence Summary
Moe Hayek discusses ecommerce strategies, branding, TikTok, and his entrepreneurial journey.
💬 Keywords
TikTok strategy, ecommerce brands, viral videos, creator hiring, Moe Hayek, incentive alignment, entrepreneurship skills, app development, Miami lifestyle, networking opportunities, recession proof industries, manufacturing partnerships, health-focused industries, biohacking, branding consistency, Limitless Pill, plant business, ecommerce consulting, brand incubation, outreach strategy, content creation, TikTok Shops, Amazon Day One, organic content generation, affiliate marketing, in-house operations, online plant industry, perishable products, supply chain ownership, warehouse operations
🔑 7 Key Themes
TikTok strategy for successful ecommerce brands.
Creating viral videos for product visibility.
Importance of incentive alignment with creators.
Challenges and opportunities in Miami.
Moe Hayek's journey in ecommerce.
Tips and strategies for entrepreneurship.
Lessons learned from running a plant business.
📚 Timestamped overview
03:58 The nootropics market, despite already having prominent players like Joe Rogan and brands like Thesis and neurohacker Aqualia, still presents significant growth opportunity within the overall supplement arena. A unique product with a competitive edge, NZT 48 was launched to leverage the trend towards biohacking brain functionality using natural ingredients.
07:32 Successful ecommerce brands increasingly use a TikTok-first strategy, hiring creators to run secondary, informal pages promoting their brand. The official brand page remains clean and official, while the secondary pages generate virality and drive impressions, leading to purchases.
09:54 Organic Social is a difficult channel for brands. Through numerous trials with various creators for Cast Magic, a notable success was achieved with a post hitting 6 million views and generating 20K of MRR in a week.
14:07 The speaker discusses the ambiguity of payment rates for influencers and creators, focusing on partnering with creators willing to post daily TikTok videos for $3-$500 and the potential to earn 20% commissions. They highlight the advantage of posting the same content across multiple platforms.
17:03 The speaker appreciates working with various creators, noting their improvement in video making and product representation. However, there are challenges with some creators not meeting expectations. The speaker views these challenges as a part of the process.
18:23 TikTok Shop, by replicating Amazon's infrastructure model, offers a significant commercial opportunity for early users. Success on the platform can be achieved by leveraging SEO keyword rankings and reviews, much like Amazon. This appeals to Millennials and Gen Z, who use TikTok as a search engine.
23:25 Use TikTok's in-house talent to build secondary pages through collaborations. Utilize TikTok Shop's creator marketplace to send influencers free samples, set based on set parameters, in exchange for promotional videos. This is an automated way to generate affiliate marketing, viral content, increased views, and sales.
25:12 Instagram's focus on luxury lifestyle education limited its ability to connect natively with users and facilitate shopping unlike TikTok, which effectively combines entertainment, coupons, and earning opportunities.
29:15 Despite challenges with shipping live plants, the company made nearly $2 million in online sales during the COVID year, highlighting the power of a distinct brand versus drop shipping products.
34:01 The speaker suggests that instead of making quick, low earnings through drop-shipping, individuals could build a brand over three to five years and sell it for a significant profit. Ideal products would solve a problem, elicit passion, and be perishable to promote repeat customers. For those, they focus on continuous selling and brand growth.
37:12 The speaker suggests three keys to business turnaround: investing in cost-effective packaging, establishing a community-based brand with a subscription fee for additional profits, and prioritizing the product supply chain. They also urge the importance of education for product maintenance.
41:01 Incubation involves identifying market opportunities and maximizing them. Using leverage, new product development, like supplements, can be outsourced to manufacturing facilities with resources, in exchange for a percentage of the brand. This method is applied specifically in the supplements and beauty sectors.
44:35 The current online market focuses on energy-boosting products, often packed with caffeine. However, a shift towards relaxation and mood maintenance supplements is anticipated within the next few years. Additionally, customized health supplements designed for individual needs are also expected to gain popularity.
46:53 The essence of a brand lies in consistently communicating a message to a specific group of people over time, showing quality in product, customer service, and visual representation. Success is having a brand with loyal followers who support and market for you endlessly.
48:41 A wealthy, older business partner chose to work with the speaker due to his youth and industry knowledge. The speaker suggests that entrepreneurs seize opportunities by mastering a skill, like TikTok, ads or creative strategy, and then offering their expertise to brands lacking an online presence.
51:50 The speaker feels fortunate and content with their current phase of life, appreciating in-person social interactions, while acknowledging that the busyness of places like New York can be overwhelming.
📚 Timestamped overview
03:58 Exploring opportunities in growing nootropics market led to NZT 48.
07:32 Successful ecommerce brands use TikTok, hiring creators to stimulate virality and boost sales.
09:54 Struggled with Organic Social until achieving success.
14:07 Influencer rates are uncertain; aim for multi-platform creators.
17:03 Working with several creators improved video and product presentation.
18:23 TikTok Shop is emulating Amazon's successful infrastructure and SEO dominance.
23:25 Leverage TikTok Shop to automate affiliate marketing, creating viral content.
25:12 Instagram's non-shopping design fails compared to TikTok's entertaining, profitable shopping experience.
29:15 Made $2 million selling plants online; experienced difficulties.
34:01 Culture pushes quick profit; thoughtful product development yields millions.
37:12 Invest in packaging, build community brand, maximize profits.
41:01 Incubation involves leveraging resources to maximize market opportunities, particularly in supplements and beauty.
44:35 Future health industry trends: energy maintenance and tailored supplements.
46:53 A brand is consistent, targeted communication over time.
48:41 Entrepreneurs should develop key skills and assist brands lacking online presence.
51:50 Feels lucky, enjoys in-person meetings, balances life.
❇️ Key topics and bullets
TikTok Strategies for Successful Ecommerce Brands
Hiring creators for TikTok campaigns through Twitter, Facebook, and social communities
Aligning incentives through flat fee, commissions, and performance bonuses
Maximizing traffic with sales-focused video after a viral video
Insights on Entrepreneurship
Moe Hayek’s entrepreneurial journey from college dropout to successful ecommerce entrepreneur
Importance of developing specific skills and targeting brands that lack online presence
Observations on Apps and Lifetsyle
The decreasing potential of apps in the digital market
Drawbacks and advantages of city life in Miami
Discussions on Manufacturing & Branding
Partnerships with local manufacturing facilities
Vetting process for potential partners
Challenges faced in manufacturing and branding industries
Health-focused Industries & Biohacking Companies
Moe’s interest in health-focused industries such as supplements and biohacking companies
His brand, Limitless Pill, which aims to tap into the growing market of biohacking brain functionality
Experiences from Moe Hayek’s Plant Business Venture
The strategy of utilizing Instagram and Facebook influencers for promotion
Importance of resourcefulness in entrepreneurship
Lessons learned from operating the plant business
Moe's Work as an Ecommerce Consultant
The incubation process for brands and the outreach strategy
The importance of an efficient outreach and management system
Discussion on TikTok Shops
Description of TikTok Shops as a new arbitrage opportunity
Utilizing TikTok Shops for SEO and product listings
Procedures and incentives of TikTok Shops for brands
Illustration of TikTok’s potential threat to Amazon
Moe's Venture: Online Plant Selling Business
Discovery of online plant industry through Trends.com
Challenges faced due to perishable nature of the product
Key takeaways from the business experience
Moe's Future Business Strategies
Emphasis on problem-solving, passion-centric, and perishable products
Hiring and training approach in his ventures.
✏️ Custom Newsletter
Subject: Dive Into the Viral World of Ecommerce with Moe Hayek - New DTC POD Episode Out Now!
Hey there,
It's time to plug in those headphones and get ready for a brand-new episode of our DTC POD featuring the young, dynamic, and adaptive Ecommerce guru, Moe Hayek. As you tune in, you'll dive deep into the ever-evolving realm of viral marketing, ecommerce trends, and brand development. The intriguing journey of Moe's Limitless Pill brand to its viral status is a roller coaster ride you don't want to miss!
Here are 5 sweet takeaways from this episode ready for your listening pleasure:
The Magic of Viral Marketing: Uncover the secrets behind a successful viral video, plus get a sneak peek into the TikTok strategy of successful ecommerce brands.
The Power of Partnership: Learn why Moe chose to partner with a wealthy individual and how to incentivize alignment with creators for your brand.
The Challenge of Manufacturing: Understand the nuances and challenges of manufacturing, plus get a peek into the world of M&A opportunities.
The Get-Your-Hands-Dirty Approach: Discover Moe's journey from college dropout to an ecommerce entrepreneur, his transition from dropshipping to building micro brands, and his unique approach to early-stage brand launches.
The Evolution of Social Media Marketing: Get a grasp on new opportunities in social media marketing, including using TikTok Shops and on-platform SEO for brand growth.
Wait, we've also got a fun fact from this episode. Did you know Moe kick-started his plant selling venture by simply copy-pasting another plant website, changing the logo, and launching his own site? Although the business faced some hiccups, it nailed $20,000 in sales in its very first week!
In this episode, Moe also talks about the ups and downs of his journey in the lush lanes of Miami, and how the city is both an inspiring and absorbing battlefield for entrepreneurs. So, buckle up for a wild ride in the world of ecommerce with Moe guiding us every little step of the way.
And... that's a wrap! But before you go, make sure you act on our call to action - tune in now and learn from the mastermind behind limitless pill! Remember, every episode brings in new learning, so make sure to subscribe!
As always, we love hearing your thoughts and feedback. So, drop us a line after your listen.
Happy Listening,
Blaine & Ramon
The DTC POD Team
🐦 Business Lesson Tweet Thread
1/20 🚀 Moe Hayek, a young ecommerce wiz, once sold plants online. Made $20K in sales within the first week... but eventually closed shop. Why? Because he sold a perishable good without owning the supply chain. Let's unpack this. 🧵
2/20 🌿 The plant boom took off during COVID. Moe saw an opportunity, copy-pasted a plant website, changed the logo, spent $2K-$3K on ads, and boom...$20K a week in sales.
3/20 📉 But, as many discovered, running an ecommerce plant business wasn't a walk in the botanical garden. Plants aren't plush toys. They die. In transit, in warehouses... It was an operational mess. Moe's profits shriveled up.
4/20 🌱 Key lesson? When you sell perishable stuff, OWN the supply chain. Grow the plants yourself. Why? Because it reduces risk and brings supply-chain efficiencies.
5/20 👌 Moe is a fan of products that resonate emotionally with customers. His logic? People get attached to perishable goods - they look after it, nurture it, it's personal.
6/20 🧠 But plants weren’t the end for Moe. He took his learnings, pivoted to biohacking brain functionality with the Limitless Pill, and it went viral! What’s his secret?
7/20 🎥 TikTok. Rather than focus on polished videos, it’s quantity over quality. More vids = more opportunities for that viral hit. This is the 'content machine.'
8/20 👍 Recruit creators, give them what they need and let them run wild. Don’t micromanage. Focus on the creators that soar. This is your army.
9/20 💸 Viral doesn’t necessarily mean sales. But a sales-focused video posted right after a viral video? That’s where the magic happens.
10/20 🛍️ And TikTok's new feature? TikTok Shops. It's like Amazon Day One. It doesn't just pay creators; It pays brands, too. This is your opportunity.
11/20 💼 What's the blueprint? Simple: Build a small battalion. Hire a VA, a video editor, graphic designer, a strategist, and a media buyer. That’s your tactical team.
12/20 🏬 TikTok Shops doesn’t allow drop shippers. You need to be hands-on. You gotta own the supply, just like Moe learned with his plant business.
13/20 🎈But the potential? HUGE. You can target millions of customers while earning full revenue.
14/20 😏 Moe’s plant business may've wilted, but it taught him more than any course ever could. He lost, but came back. Stronger, wiser, ready to win.
15/20 🚀 Whether you’re selling plants or inventing Limitless Pills, remember that building a business isn't about a quick buck. It's about learning & adapting.
16/20 🔥 Whether you’re a college dropout like Moe, or a tenured entrepreneur, there will always be losses. They are but stepping stones to success.
17/20 💡 Remember: Smart entrepreneurs aren't just in it for the cash. They learn, adapt, take risks, own their supply chains, and build businesses that last.
18/20 🌍 But, keep in mind, geography matters too. Miami’s a hotspot for entrepreneurs, but beware of its pitfalls. Every city will give and take.
19/20 ☝️ Finally, think carefully about what maintains its value during a recession. Tap into the industries of looking and feeling good. Those always stay afloat.
20/20 🧠 The key learning? Entrepreneurship is a journey. Sometimes it’s a bed of roses, other times it’s a field of thorns. Learn, adapt, and keep pushing. You might just bloom into your own success story.
EOF = End of thread.
🎓 Lessons Learned
"Harnessing TikTok for Ecommerce Success"
Maximize traffic through strategic video posting that mixes viral and sales-focused content."Creator Incentive Alignments and Commissions"
Ensure creators are motivated by adopting pay structures like flat fees, performance-based bonuses, and commissions."Importance of Skill Development"
Entrepreneurs should focus on specific skills to fill gaps in brands with poor online presence."Vetting Partners for Success"
Identify credible partners through word of mouth or past performance review."Industries of Interest: Health Sector"
Biohacking, tailored health kits, and supplements are industries of interest with significant potential."Importance of Consistent Branding"
Steady communication and consistent branding are essential for building a loyal customer base."Plant Business: Lessons Learned"
Owning supply chains, investing in packaging, and building a community-based brand could have salvaged a failing plant business."Ecommerce Consulting and Incubation"
Finding manufacturing facilities to develop products in exchange for a brand percentage offers a win-win arrangement."TikTok Shop: The New Frontier"
Brands can harness organic content, ads, influencers, SEO on TikTok Shop for unprecedented exposure."Key to Success: Solving Problems"
Products that correlate with passion, solve a problem, and have a perishable nature engage customers emotionally.
💎 Maxims
A successful TikTok strategy involves hiring creators to run secondary pages and post aggressive or informal content.
Viral videos should be followed immediately by sales-focused content to maximize traffic.
Incentive alignment with creators is key. Implement different payment structures such as flat fees, commissions, and performance-based bonuses.
Don’t follow trends – create apps and platforms only if there’s a genuine use case.
Focus on developing specific skills as an entrepreneur and target brands that lack an online presence.
Embrace the vibrancy of cities like Miami for inspiration and networking opportunities, but be aware of the potential drawbacks such as unhealthy competition.
Partner with manufacturing facilities close to home to save costs and time, vetting partners through word of mouth or track record.
Consistency in communication and branding is crucial to building a loyal following.
Be proactive and resourceful as an entrepreneur. Pull strings to make things work.
When starting a business, consider owning the supply chain and investing in packaging and community-building.
Outreach is a volume game. Be prepared for many rejections before finding potential clients.
Set up a simple management and outreach system, and avoid micromanaging your team.
Leverage new platforms like TikTok Shops in their early stages to capitalize on emerging business opportunities.
Hire an in-house team instead of outsourcing to agencies. Create secondary pages through other creators to facilitate organic content creation.
Always look for products that solve a problem, align with a passion, and offer an emotional connection with customers.
Learn from past business failures and experiences to prepare yourself for future challenges.
As an entrepreneur, it is critical to adapt and learn. Hire and train people as per your needs.
Embrace health-focused industries, considering the rising interest in industries like biohacking and tailored health kits.
Ensure your brand is consistently represented across all platforms, and regularly communicate your brand's story and values to your audience.
Location can make a huge difference in a business, hence consider it wisely depending on what you are selling.
TikTok can be a potential threat to giants like Amazon, especially with its more holistic approach to shopping and its strategies.
The importance of a minimum viable product cannot be ignored while launching a brand. Start small, gauge response and iterate accordingly.
🌟 3 Fun Facts
Moe Hayek started his entrepreneurial journey by dropping out of college and getting into Ecommerce at a young age, where he made his current brand, the Limitless Pill, viral.
Moe launched a successful online plant business, making $20,000 in sales in the first week with only $2,000 - $3,000 spent on ads. Despite this, the business closed down due to issues with the perishable nature of the plants.
Moe once hired hockey players to help fulfill products for his plant business, showcasing the importance of being resourceful as an entrepreneur.
🎤 Voiceover Script
"In this episode of DTC POD with Moe Hayek, we uncover the ins and outs of viral marketing strategies, the benefits and pitfalls of operating in Miami, and delve into Moe's journey in ecommerce and the plant industry. With insights into TikTok Shop's new arbitrage opportunity, building valuable partnerships, and the trials of building micro brands, this episode is packed with wisdom for any aspiring entrepreneur. Tune in as we explore the resilience and innovation behind successful ecommerce trends."
📓 Blog Post
Title: The Winning Formulas in Ecommerce: Insights from Moe Hayek's Episode on DTC POD
Subheader: Navigating the world of ecommerce entrepreneurship with industry veteran Moe Hayek.
Section 1: Harnessing TikTok’s Power For Ecommerce Success
Today's successful ecommerce strategies involve more than just having a great product. Advancements in social media have allowed businesses to leverage platforms like TikTok to create secondary brand pages and post engaging content to drive traffic and sales. Viral video strategies hold a crucial place in this ecosystem with views translating into sales.
The trick, as our guest Moe Hayek pointed out, revolves around maximizing traffic by posting sales-focused videos right after viral ones. Finding these content creators isn't difficult if one knows where to look – Hayek recommends scouting Twitter, Facebook, and even specific online communities. His approach underscores the significance of creators taking an aggressive or informal stance, which helps tap the younger TikTok audience effectively.
Section 2: Embracing Opportunities and Understanding Challenges
Turning to entrepreneurship at a young age, Hayek's journey in ecommerce started with dropshipping, graduating to building micro brands for enhancing enterprise value. He now operates the viral brand, the Limitless Pill, a venture into the fast-growing market of biohacking brain functionality.
Operating successful brands in a competitive online space isn't without challenges, but as Hayek points out, it also presents incredible opportunities for Mergers and Acquisitions with well-established brands. Packaged with specific lessons on consistency in communication and branding to build a loyal following, his guidance outlines a surefire blueprint to ecommerce success.
Section 3: Lessons from Experiences
Hayek found success through unique ventures like partnering with hockey players to fulfill orders for his plant business or working with manufacturing facilities for his brands. Such strategic collaborations shaved off costs and time, making operations smoother.
However, every venture doesn't draw the same success. Hayek's attempt to penetrate the online plant industry, though initially shooting up to impressive sales figures, fell through due to difficulties in shipping and storing perishable products.
Despite the steady flow of challenges, including struggling with the plant business supply chain and issues with packaging, each experience proved to be a stepping stone to his ecommerce journey's next phase.
Section 4: TikTok Shop – The New Frontier of Ecommerce
Recognizing TikTok Shop's potential in its early stages and on-platform SEO and product listings, Hayek outlines a possible playbook to harness this new frontier in ecommerce. Adopting an in-house approach for managing operations, he advocates brands hire a versatile team capable of catering to various strategic fields, from managing creators to strategizing media buying for each platform.
Section 5: Key Takeaways
Hayek's journey underscores the need for ecommerce entrepreneurs to be resourceful, flexible, and ready to adapt. Owning the supply chain, investing wisely in packaging, community-building, and finding allies in unexpected places can set you apart in the crowded ecommerce landscape.
Conclusion
Moe Hayek's candid sharing during the DTC POD episode presents clear insights on navigating the vibrant world of ecommerce. His experiences underline that there are indeed many paths to success, but being open to learning, adapting, and embracing challenges is the shared route everyone can take.
🔘 Best Practices Guide
To craft a successful e-commerce brand on platforms like TikTok, hire creators to run secondary pages and post engaging content. Focus on views rather than sales when creating viral videos. Align incentives with creators through payments involving flat fees, commissions, and bonuses. Partnerships with experienced individuals can broaden your knowledge and resources. Venturing into recession-proof industries like health and beauty will ensure longevity. Owning the supply chain, having precise packaging, and creating a community around the brand enhance business success. In online marketing, consistency in communication and branding are key to building a loyal following. Being resourceful, adaptable and focusing on skill development are crucial aspects of entrepreneurship. Lastly, always vet your collaborators, and build diverse teams that can play multiple roles in operational and marketing tasks.
🎆 Social Carousel: Do's/Don'ts
Slide 1: "10 Business Insights from Moe Hayek"
Cover text: "Learn from a seasoned entrepreneur's experiences"
Slide 2: "TikTok Strategy"
Maxim: Harness the power of creators for organic content generation.
Slide 3: "Maximizing Traffic"
Maxim: Use viral videos for views, post sales-focused videos immediately after.
Slide 4: "Vetting Partners"
Maxim: Use reviews and word-of-mouth for thorough check.
Slide 5: "Role of Apps"
Maxim: Develop an app only if it provides a real solution.
Slide 6: "Miami's Catch-22"
Maxim: Leverage networking opportunities but beware of the possible downsides.
Slide 7: "Focus on Health"
Maxim: Biohacking and tailored health kits are the future.
Slide 8: "Branding Consistency"
Maxim: Make it a priority for building a loyal audience.
Slide 9: "Outreach Tactics"
Maxim: Keep rejections in stride; omnichannel outreach is a numbers game.
Slide 10: "Learning from Failures"
Maxim: Use failures as stepping stones to grasp opportunities.
🎆 Social Carousel: Do's/Don'ts
Slide 1: "Maxims From Moe Hayek - DTC POD"
Slide 2: "Omni-Presence"
Master every online platform to increase brand exposure and drive sales.
Slide 3: "Go Viral"
Create catchy, engaging content. Viral videos attract views, while sales-focused videos convert them to clients.
Slide 4: "Creator Coalition"
Hire creators from various platforms, assign them tasks, and monitor their progress. Don't micromanage; instead, empower.
Slide 5: "Deep Dive"
Properly research and choose potential partners, make sure incentives are aligned for every partnership for best results.
Slide 6: "Own Your Chain"
Control as much of your supply chain to solve problems effectively and reduce dependencies and vulnerabilities.
Slide 7: "Harness Innovation"
Embrace opportunities TikTok Shop offers, similar to the potential of Amazon Day One, for your brand's growth.
Slide 8: "Product Packaging"
Invest in product packaging, it's the first physical impression customers get of your product - make it pleasant.
Slide 9: "Incubation Sequence"
The process of finding manufacturing facilities involves not only having a product but ensuring quality over quantity.
Slide 10: "Resourcefulness"
Entrepreneurship requires adaptability. Being resourceful and adjusting tactics is crucial for success. Every failure is a learning opportunity.
🐦 Business Lesson Tweet Thread
1/ There's a big wave coming, hidden beneath the TikTok dance trends and viral videos. It's called TikTok Shops, offering brands an unprecedented growth opportunity. Let's dive in.
2/ Picture Amazon Day One, the adrenaline rush, the potential. That's what TikTok Shop is right now. Its early stages offer a golden chance to leverage platform SEO and product listings.
3/ By connecting your TikTok Shop to an army of affiliates, a new sales and commission revenue stream opens up. TikTok is even incentivising brands to jump on board now.
4/ But, there's also a threat. TikTok's playbook includes organic content, ads, influencers, all designed to lure brands away from Amazon's grasp.
5/ A small, multi-skilled team can run operations. You need a VA, a video editor, a creative strategist, a graphic designer and, of course, a media buyer for each platform.
6/ But this isn't about copying the big brands, it's about disrupting them. It's about throwing out the rule book and using creators to run secondary pages, post aggressive content, and start a content building machine.
7/ There are entrepreneurs out there, like Moe Hayek, who are already riding this wave. His brand, the Limitless Pill, broke through the noise and went viral. A result of aggressive content on TikTok and a shitty website.
8/ Brands now have a shot at reaching a million customers and still pocketing full revenue, thanks to TikTok. $20 for each brand new customer is on the table.
9/ This isn't a game for the established. No agencies, no corporate oversight. Strong focus on in-house teams and content creators to foster a genuine, organic presence.
10/ Wrap it all up, and TikTok Shops presents an exciting challenge for the daring and the quick. Now is the time to ride the wave.
🎠 Social Carousel
Slide 1: "10 Insider Tips Every Ecommerce Entrepreneur Needs to Know"
Slide 2: "Harness TikTok"
Harness TikTok for sales-driven content posted after viral videos.Slide 3: "Incentives Matter"
Align incentives with TikTok creators through commissions and performance bonuses.Slide 4: "Master Skill Sets"
Develop specific skills to target brands lacking an online presence.Slide 5: "Vet Partners Wisely"
Use word of mouth and reviews to effectively vet potential partners.Slide 6: "Opportunistic Branding"
Tap into thriving markets like health and biohacking for brand growth.Slide 7: "Leverage Outreach"
In operations and client acquisition, treat outreach as a volume game.Slide 8: "Max Out TikTok Shop"
Use TikTok Shop like the early days of Amazon to optimize SEO and listings.Slide 9: "Own The Supply Chain"
Control the supply chain for smoother operations and better profitability.Slide 10: "Embrace Learning"
Learn from each venture to acquire the skillset needed for selling any product.Final Slide: "Get More Tips"
Want more? Tune into DTC POD for more invaluable ecommerce insights!Interview Breakdown
In today's episode, we deeply explore the intriguing journey of successful entrepreneur Moe Hayek. From his early beginnings in the ecommerce world to the skyrocketing growth of his current viral brand, Moe shares all his secrets.
Today, we'll be covering:
The TikTok strategy for scaling ecommerce brands and turning viral videos into sales
Moe’s guiding principles to entrepreneurship, including his emphasis on networking and developing essential skills
The challenges and lessons from his online plant selling business that resulted in both insurmountable sales and unforeseen setbacks
The lowdown on innovatively using TikTok Shops as a new platform to reach and connect with customers
Moe's inspiring transition from college dropout to ecommerce guru, pushing boundaries and tapping into booming industries for maximum success.
One Off Tweets
Manufacturing and branding are not easy tasks. Grit, attention to detail, and tenacity are needed. Glory in the struggle – it's where greatness starts.
The ephemeral nature of products can make the customer connection more emotional. Cherish the challenges they bring – they're building blocks to an unforgettable brand.
Don't just focus on the immediate sale. Know that for every viral video, there is a strategically placed sales-focused video waiting. It's all about the long game.
Embrace the variety in payment arrangements for creators, from flat fees to performance-based bonuses. Harmony in incentives is the key to exquisite content.
The beautiful allure of Miami can lead to inspiration or depression. Balancing the highs and lows is much like navigating the twists and turns of entrepreneurship.
Consistency. That's the one string that ties all successful brands together. It's the melody that tunes your brand into the hearts of loyal followers.
Entrepreneurship is a winding path of resourcefulness, from hiring hockey players as plant fulfillers to finding manufacturers in non-mainstream locations. Where there's a will, there's a creative way.
The Limitless Pill may have started with a bare-bones website, but 25 million views later, it's proof that micro-brands can explode in value. Bigger isn't always better.
Miami is home base for us - a hub of in-person connections and energizing opportunities. But no matter where you are, remember - home is where your business thrives.
Handle rejection like a champion – every "no" brings you closer to a "yes". When doing outreach, remember that volume is king and tenacity is queen.
Weekly Newsletter
Subject: New Episode: How Moe Hayek Makes Brands Go Viral – TikTok, Nootropics, and the Art of Operating Ecommerce
Hey DTC POD family,
We’re back with another can’t-miss episode. This week, we sat down with Moe Hayek, a serial brand operator and product launch expert who’s built and taken multiple e-commerce brands to market (and viral status) faster than most people can spin up a landing page. If you’re an operator, founder, or a marketer in the DTC space, this is an hour you need to get into your queue.
Introduction:
In this episode, Moe recounts his wild ride from dropping out of college and learning the ropes through early dropshipping hustles, to eventually partnering on viral nootropics brand NZT-48—yes, that’s the “Limitless pill” made famous in the Bradley Cooper movie. We dig into the tactical realities of building sticky brands, orchestrating explosive launches, managing TikTok creator armies, and what it really means to operate at scale in today’s DTC world.
This isn’t theory. Moe breaks down exactly how brands are making it big in 2024, what’s working right now, and how you can apply these lessons to your own venture—whether you’re a 7-figure operator or just kicking off your first side project.
5 Keys You’ll Learn in This Episode:
1. The Art of Launching a Viral Brand (Even With a “Shitty” Website!)
Moe shares how the Limitless pill brand went from MVP to 25 million TikTok views in a month, leveraging raw creator content and aggressive testing. Spoiler: it’s less about a polished launch and more about iterating, learning from organic hits, and giving creators room to try crazy ideas.
2. Building (and Managing) a Creator “Army” for TikTok Domination
Want sustained brand reach? Moe maps out his strategy for recruiting, incentivizing, and managing a distributed team of TikTok creators running secondary pages—key to driving impressions and conversions, all while keeping the main brand page clean and on-message.
3. Early Adopter Advantage: Why TikTok Shop is the New Amazon
Moe unpacks the tectonic shift in social commerce, describing TikTok Shop as “Amazon Day One.” He walks us through the platform’s unique incentives (think: up to $20 paid by TikTok per new customer), why the algorithm is supercharging early sellers, and why established brands can’t afford to lag here.
4. The Power (and Pitfalls) of Product Selection in DTC
From selling live plants during COVID to nootropics, Moe reflects on what makes a product viable for viral, scalable DTC commerce. You’ll learn the criteria he uses—perishability, solve a recurring problem, emotional connection—and why operations matter even more than marketing.
5. Incubating Winning Brands and the Value of Operator Leverage
Why start from scratch when you can partner with manufacturers, leverage your operator skills, and scale faster? Moe describes how he now approaches brand incubation: finding market white space, working with suppliers, and launching in industries built for margin and repeat purchase (supplements, beauty, specialty health).
Fun Fact from the Episode:
Moe’s first truly viral brand wasn’t a sleek supplement, but a live plant business built by copying a competitor’s website, reselling $10 plants for $150, and fulfilling orders with the help of local hockey teams just looking for a side gig. The punchline? The real pain wasn’t in finding customers (they did $2M in year one) but in staying ahead of operational hurdles—storms, fires, dead inventory, and rapidly improv’d packaging. This underscores Moe’s mantra: Marketing is rarely the limiting factor. It’s all about having your back-end dialed.
Outtro:
If you’ve been chasing the next growth hack or sweating over the perfect brand guidelines, Moe’s playbook is a refreshing, field-tested perspective. He doesn’t sugarcoat the grind—whether it’s hiring creators off Twitter and Discord, dealing with TikTok’s strict fulfillment SLAs, or building out seven-person teams that drive millions in revenue. But he also shows how scrappiness, speed, and the willingness to hand over control to trusted operators are the hallmarks of today’s winning DTC plays.
Moe also spends time consulting for other brands, and shares frameworks for vetting products, building creator systems, and thinking bigger about the compounding value of brands (building enterprise value, not just cash flow).
Ready to Stop Overthinking and Start Operating?
Catch the full episode now on your favorite podcast platform, or head over to [link] for the transcript and highlights. Dive in if you want actionable advice on TikTok strategy, launching profitable brands with minimal bloat, and what it takes to turn ideas into assets that last.
Make sure to reply and tell us your favorite takeaway—or hit up Moe directly if you’re ready to connect with an operator who’s actually in the trenches.
Thanks for listening and building with us.
– The DTC POD Team
P.S. If you found the episode valuable, forward this email to a fellow founder or marketer who needs to see what’s possible when you combine operator grit with TikTok-first thinking. And as always, drop a review to help us reach more builders.
DTC Pod Linkedin
@Moe Hayek has launched and operated brands doing over $1M/month, cracking the code on going viral and building high-growth DTC businesses.
Moe joins @blaine and @ramon on this week’s episode of DTC POD to break down how he went from teenage dropshipper to operating Limitless Pill, leveraging unique trademarks and TikTok virality to build powerful micro-brands.
We dive into how Moe spots products with real potential, the systems behind recruiting creators for organic TikTok success, and how to leverage early opportunities on TikTok Shop for major growth. Plus—what he’d do differently if he had to start his 7-figure plant business all over again.
Full episode here: [Spotify Link]
#dtcpod #ecommerce #tiktokmarketing #dtcbrands #brandstrategy #growthmarketing #founderstory
Twitter Post 1
This 1 TikTok trick helped Moe's brand hit 25M+ views in a month.
Let creators run wild posting from secondary pages, not your main brand account.
Organic viral content + controversy = boom!
Mindsets
If you’re looking to build and scale a standout DTC brand in 2024, here are 3 mindset shifts inspired by Moe Hayek’s episode on DTC POD:
💭 Shift from “perfect launch” to “iteration mindset.” Instead of obsessing over the perfect website or flawless rollout, start with a minimum viable product you believe in and launch fast. Let TikTok and organic traffic show you what resonates. You can iterate and improve as the data—and virality—start coming in.
💭 Move from “single creator” thinking to building a “content army.” Don’t hinge your growth on one creator or influencer. Instead, recruit a pool of hungry creators, give them clear info about your brand, and empower them to experiment. Allow secondary pages (not your main brand page) to embrace wild ideas, conspiracy hooks, or edgy storytelling. Virality is unpredictable—it’s a numbers game.
💭 See ops and supply chain as your real differentiator—not just marketing. Moe’s plant brand story shows: marketing can win sales, but without bulletproof fulfillment and a solid supply chain, your brand can unravel fast. Winning DTC brands treat operations and customer experience with the same obsession as their content game.
Curious to hear more tactical DTC wisdom—and wild war stories? Give the Moe Hayek episode on DTC POD a listen!
Tactics
If you’re looking to take your eCommerce or DTC business to the next level, here are five under-the-radar tactics and strategies inspired by Moe Hayek’s approach on DTC POD:
💡 Build an “Unofficial” Creator Army. Instead of relying on your brand’s official page, recruit creators to run secondary pages where they’re free to experiment with edgy, unverifiable, or even conspiratorial messaging. This allows for high-volume, high-variance testing without risking your core brand image—and lets you tap into viral trends much faster. (Pro tip: Let them handle the narrative and avoid micromanaging!)
💡 Incentivize creators like growth partners, not gig workers. Skip the flat-fee-per-video model. Structure deals where creators get paid a base rate to produce daily content for a full month (think $3-500 for 30 videos), but layer in meaningful commission upside for conversions. Plus, repurpose each video across multiple platforms to maximize your odds of a hit.
💡 Don’t over-engineer your MVP. When launching a new product, resist the urge to build a “perfect” website or airtight funnel. If your product delivers real value, ship a barebones landing page and pump out content—a scrappy front end won’t stop you from going viral if the offer’s right.
💡 Leverage TikTok Shop’s incentive flywheel—today, not tomorrow. TikTok is aggressively subsidizing acquisition: They may pay your customers $20+ to buy from you (meaning your $30 product only costs them $10). If you get in early, you can profitably blitz the market before caps tighten or the ecosystem saturates.
💡 Outsource with intent, not abdication. Hiring VAs or managers can drive massive leverage, but only if they’re set up to act as “athletes” playing multiple roles—not as box-checkers. For DTC, a lean squad (one VA, a manager, a sharp video editor, and nimble creators) can outperform a bloated agency—and keep you closer to what’s working, right now.
Try plugging one or two of these into your business—and don’t forget, the biggest breakthroughs often come from testing what others overlook.
In Depth Thread
Overrated: Obsessing over a perfect brand page for TikTok.
Too many founders waste time polishing their main account, treating every pixel like a storefront window.
Underrated: Third-party viral pages (run by creators you barely manage).
Here’s the actual playbook Moe Hayek used to rack up 25M+ views and 7-figure months:
Third-Party Army
Don’t just post on your own TikTok account. Hire 3-5 hungry creators, let them run wild with their own pages. Conspiracy, controversy, FOMO—let the creative chaos rip.
Your “official” TikTok stays clean and on-brand. The real action (and sales) come from these auxiliary channels dropping videos that would make your legal team sweat.
Speed > Aesthetics
Forget agonizing over brand guidelines at launch. Moe’s early “shitty website, shittier front page” still hit millions of eyeballs—because the first goal isn’t to impress, it’s to move product.
Viral + Sales Hook
Virality ≠ Sales. First video goes viral, pulls the crowd. Second post? Reply to the top comment and pitch—talk features, benefits, and specifics. That’s where conversion happens.
Volume > Perfection
Target: 1 video a day/creator for 30 days.
Pay: $300-500/month + 20% commission.
Method: Find unproven creators in Facebook/Discord/Twitter communities—"kids that are willing to work"—don’t sweat follower counts. Virality can come from anyone.
Automation, Not Babysitting
No micromanaging. Let creators do their thing, track who “gets” your product, double down on those. Cut weak performers. Simple.
Multi-Platform Blast
Don’t stop at TikTok. Repost winning videos on YouTube Shorts and Facebook Reels. Same asset, 3x the chances. Spray and pray.
Early Adopter Goldmine
Don’t just ride TikTok for traffic. Set up TikTok Shop now to get platform credits, affiliate plays, and algorithm love. Brands are getting $20 per new customer from TikTok—don’t wait until it’s saturated.
Proof Over Pretty
Millions of views and seven-person teams are beating massive brands by going fast, iterating with user-driven chaos, and actually fulfilling (not just pitching).
Stop sweating your main page’s “brand feel.” Build a creator flywheel, unleash a messy army, and let the market show you what works.
If you want the Limitless Pill playbook, it’s above.
New Idea
Idea #1: Leveraging Viral Organic Content for Ecommerce Growth
Utilize organic, viral content as a core driver for ecommerce brand growth by:
Harnessing Conspiracy-Style TikTok Content: Moe explains that their breakthrough viral video was a conspiracy-themed piece referencing the “Limitless” movie pill, blending pop culture and controversy to quickly amass millions of views. (“The main theme was like, conspiracy style videos. Like, hey, do you remember the movie? Okay, well, here's what you didn't know about the movie. … that conspiracy theory plays into the native TikTok audience of younger demographic…”)
Developing a ‘TikTok Army’ of Independent Creators: Instead of focusing only on polished, branded posts, Limitless recruited a variety of independent creators, often younger and less established, who ran secondary pages with more freedom to create edgy, viral content. This strategy meant more darts thrown at the wall for potential hits. (“…hire these kids or creators that will run their own secondary pages that can be very aggressive… You pretty much just give them the freedom to do whatever they want, post whatever they want on third party pages, not your main brand page.”)
Prioritizing Volume and Speed Over Perfection: Moe shares that getting content out quickly, even if it’s not perfect, is more valuable than meticulously crafting the “ideal” video—which often flops. The approach is to produce high volumes of content cheaply and let the platform and audience pick what works. (“…you spend $1,000 into scripting editing, finding the perfect influencer that matches your perfect brand image just to make a video that will most likely flop, right? Instead of investing all that time, you're like, fuck all that. Here's three to $500. Give me 30 videos and hopefully one of them works.”)
By focusing on organic virality, leveraging platform-native strategies, and empowering a community of agile, creative contributors, ecommerce brands can ignite growth with speed and authenticity—a stark contrast to traditional top-down, highly controlled marketing.
Tweet thread on learnings
Tweet 1:
So @MoeHayek built microbrands from scratch, went from dropshipping viral fads to running multimillion-dollar ecom ops & incubating brands.
He cracked TikTok, sold plants online during COVID, and now helps brands scale with simple, scrappy teams.
My playbook takeaways from a DTC operator’s perspective: 👇
Tweet 2:
Going from Dropshipping to Building Real Brands
Quick wins in dropshipping are fun—until you’re left holding dead stock. The real opportunity?
Learn the ecommerce fundamentals, then pivot to building brands with long-term value you can actually sell as assets.
Tweet 3:
Viral on TikTok ≠ Sales—But There’s a Playbook
The first viral TikTok may just get you eyeballs, not dollars. To convert, follow it up FAST with a sales-focused reply to high-engagement comments. That’s where the revenue comes in.
Tweet 4:
How to Scale UGC:
Don’t micromanage creators. Let them experiment, be weird, post controversial takes.
Keep your main brand page polished—let your “TikTok army” run wild on burner accounts.
One hit can cover 30 misses. It’s a pure volume game.
Tweet 5:
TikTok Shop: The Next Big Ecom Land Grab
TikTok Shop is day-one Amazon energy: SEO + native checkout + credits to brands and buyers. Early adopters can crush by maxing out affiliates + volume before the big brands catch up.
Tweet 6:
Lean Ops > Big Teams
Running $1M+/mo? Moe does it with 7 people. That includes just ONE VA & manager for creators, a solid editor, designer, strategist, and media buyers.
Focus on recruiting athletes who can play multiple roles, not bloated org charts.
Tweet 7:
The Hardest Ecom? Doing What No One Else Will
Shipping live plants cross-country = nightmare logistics. It’s brutal but creates built-in defensibility. If you solve the hard ops, your competitors won’t dare follow.
Bonus: Always own your supply for niche/complex products.
Tweet 8:
Actual Brand = Consistency, Not Just a Logo
A real brand? It’s how you talk to a tribe, repeatedly and reliably, across product, service, community, and visuals.
Nail that, and your customers will be the marketing for you.
Tweet 9:
Skip Agencies—Build In-House
Agencies treat you like yesterday’s priority. Find founders, creators, or athletes to own your TikTok + UGC from the inside. Leverage creator marketplaces + communities, and use commissions to keep everyone hungry.
Tweet 10:
Find Your Edge—Then Roll Up or Consult
The brands winning big aren’t just building single products—they’re running playbooks: incubating with manufacturers, consulting for equity, sniping early platforms, and rolling up brands that haven’t figured out TikTok yet.
Missed the last wave? Just pick up a proven one and run the play.
LinkedIN - Start from Scratch
If I had to build a $1M/month brand in 2024 with (almost) no resources, here's the TikTok creator engine I'd deploy:
(This is the exact playbook Moe Hayek used to take multiple DTC brands from zero to viral out of nowhere.)
To get new eyes on your brand and convert them at scale, you need to:
• Go where organic reach is unlimited (TikTok)
• Let creators produce volume (not just polished brand ads)
• Incentivize the right way so the machine keeps running
So...
How do you do it like Moe?
By building a TikTok “army” – a decentralized, always-on content machine.
The system has 3 pillars:
• Recruiting unpolished but hungry creators
• Giving them freedom (and direction) to test viral hooks
• Incentive structures that prioritize volume, not vanity
Here’s how it works:
Hire 3-5 creators to start. Don’t overthink it.
Don’t chase big names. Find ambitious people who can follow basic briefs. TikTok’s algorithm doesn’t care if they have 100k followers or zero.
Let them launch content on their pages (not just your brand’s).
You keep your main page clean and “official.” Let your creator army go nuts with conspiracy hooks, controversy, whatever gets attention.
Pay for output, not polish.
$300-$500/month for a video every day – plus 20% commission if they convert. The magic isn’t one viral banger, but 90+ experiments per month across the team.
Don’t micromanage. Kill what doesn’t work, double down on what does.
Your job isn’t to review every TikTok. Fire what’s flat, multiply what pops.
Is it that simple? Yes — and most brands still miss it. They obsess over “brand-safe” content and over-scripted UGC. Meanwhile, the real winners are pumping out hundreds of testable hooks and learning in public.
You can even turbocharge it:
• Syndicate creator videos to YouTube Shorts and Facebook Reels for 3x the shots on goal
• Plug your army right into TikTok Shop – so every creator can earn (and sell direct in-app)
• Use affiliate incentives to grow distribution, not your brand payroll
The biggest mistake? Overthinking. Trying to script or brief “the perfect viral.” Moe’s first massive TikTok was 100% unscripted — and never repeated.
The secret is volume and letting go.
So if you want to build a brand with limited cash and unlimited reach:
Let TikTok’s chaos work for you
Build your creator army ASAP
Incentivize for output, not just influence
Anything you’d do differently?
Drop your playbook or ask questions below.
—
Check out the full convo with Moe Hayek on DTC POD:
https://linktr.ee/dtcpod
And follow along for more behind-the-scenes DTC growth strategies for 2024.
Future State, 6 reasons post
In just a few months, we turned a nootropic brand into a viral sensation, capturing 25M+ TikTok views, driving massive sales, and building brand equity around a movie-inspired product. But most DTC brands are still stuck using outdated influencer and paid ads tactics—while leaving TikTok and creator-led growth on the table.
THE OPPORTUNITY:
Most brands still see TikTok as a risky experiment or a channel for sporadic organic wins. They stick to:
Over-produced influencer content
Rigid, brand-owned pages
Heavy reliance on paid ads
Manual, slow creator recruitment
No direct link from content to checkout
“Spray and pray” agency relationships
But a new era of DTC is here—brands are building creator armies, plugging into TikTok Shop, and scaling viral, sales-driving content at a fraction of the effort and cost.
Old DTC Playbook:
Brand-owned, polished social pages
High-cost, big-name influencers
Manual video production and coordination
Disconnected checkout process
Agencies treat you like a one-night stand
New DTC Playbook:
Creator-led, viral content on secondary pages
Lightweight, flexible creator deals and incentives
Automated creator recruitment and crowdsourced content
Native checkout via TikTok Shop and instant incentive alignment
Programmatic testing and rapid iteration
Transitioning to this “TikTok-first, creator-led” model is the #1 unlock for modern DTC.
Here are my 6 recommendations for any DTC operator who wants to move from “old playbook” to a viral, TikTok-powered growth engine:
Recruit continuously from fresh talent pools: Tap into creator communities, Facebook groups, and Twitter—don’t just hunt for big-name influencers. Train and incentivize agile creators who “get” viral formats.
Launch a network of secondary pages: Don’t rely on your polished main account. Let creators go wild with informal, edgy, or conspiratorial content that hooks the TikTok-native audience.
Volume > perfection: Pay for volume—e.g., 30 videos for $500—instead of overproduced one-offs. Incentivize with commissions or bonuses to align motivation.
Automate outreach and management: Use VAs and light-touch managers to onboard creators, manage posts, and monitor progress. Avoid heavy manual oversight—let performance dictate who you double down on.
Plug into TikTok Shop ASAP: Move from clicks to instant checkout: set up shop, connect your creator network, and leverage TikTok’s early incentive programs for outsized organic reach and margin.
Create a feedback flywheel: Spin up “controversial” or viral angles, then follow up with sales-oriented replies and sequels to capitalize on viral spikes. Learn, iterate, and scale what works.
I’m convinced: every DTC brand not running a TikTok army + Shop + creative flywheel is leaving 6–7 figures a month on the table.
What’s holding your brand back from going all-in on TikTok and creator-driven growth? Have you tried any of these tactics—or found something that’s working even better? Let’s compare notes 👇
About the Episode
Moe Hayek is a serial e-commerce operator and growth strategist known for launching viral DTC brands and pioneering winning strategies on platforms like TikTok. With a background that spans from early drop shipping hustles to building valuable microbrands, Moe brings an operator’s mindset to brand-building and digital marketing in highly competitive spaces like supplements and wellness.
On this episode of DTC POD, Moe breaks down the tactics that propelled NZT-48, a nootropics brand inspired by the movie "Limitless," to explosive growth. He shares how his team leveraged a unique trademark advantage and wasted no time validating product-market fit—launching with a basic website and immediately testing ads and organic TikTok content. Insights include the importance of positioning in a partially saturated market and using the cultural cachet of a trademarked pop culture name as a wedge.
Moe goes deep on his TikTok-first approach, showing how recruiting and incentivizing creators to run raw, viral-style content on secondary pages can spark outsized attention. By embracing a high-volume, hands-off approach—giving creators freedom to experiment and iterate—he’s found repeatable formulas for sparking virality and quickly converting views into sales. He also highlights the rising opportunity of TikTok Shop, likening its early-stage potential to Amazon’s early days, and explains how brands can harness in-platform affiliate and SEO features to maximize reach and conversions.
The episode spotlights Moe’s emphasis on speed, volume, and early adoption—ranging from minimum viable product launches to building a nimble team that can scale TikTok outreach, manage creators, and ruthlessly prioritize what works. Listeners get a firsthand look at why blending viral experimentation with operational discipline can be the difference-maker in today’s direct-to-consumer landscape.
Episode Summary
Moe Hayek is a veteran DTC operator who started in e-commerce as a teenager, honing his skills in dropshipping before pivoting to building micro brands with real enterprise value. Currently, he’s the main operator behind the viral nootropics brand Limitless (NZT-48), leveraging creative branding, strategic partnerships, and a robust TikTok content engine to carve out a space in the booming supplement market.
In this episode of DTC POD, Moe breaks down the tactics behind launching and scaling Limitless, including acquiring unique IP, building viral content strategies with independent creators, and using TikTok Shop as a growth channel. He shares lessons from previous ventures, the realities of supply chain and operations, and what he looks for in new product opportunities. The conversation covers creator management, incentive structures, early adoption of new channels, and how brands can build audience trust in a crowded landscape.
Success Strategies
Build a creator-driven TikTok “army”
Moe Hayek credits much of Limitless Pill’s momentum to a unique, decentralized TikTok content strategy. Instead of relying strictly on polished, in-house content, Hayek recommends recruiting a roster of hungry creators—especially those just starting out and open to experimentation—to run secondary and third-party TikTok pages. These creators have the freedom to be bold, unfiltered, and even controversial, allowing them to test new hooks, trends, or conspiracy-driven content that might not fit the “main” brand feed.
By empowering creators to operate independently, you create a high-volume, multi-angle content machine. The brand benefits from volume, authenticity, and the viral potential of content that is native to TikTok yet isn’t handcuffed by heavy-handed creative controls.
Turn viral moments into sales-driving content
Viral videos grab eyeballs, but virality alone doesn’t build a business. Hayek’s playbook is to immediately follow a viral moment with a more direct, sales-focused response. For Limitless Pill, this often meant piggybacking off a surge in views by creating a reply video to a highly engaged comment, shifting attention from pure controversy to clear product benefits and credibility.
This two-step approach—first, spark engagement through viral, organic hooks; then, directly address questions and highlight product value—ensures traffic is channeled into conversions, not just empty views. Brands should anticipate the viral cycle and use each spike as an entry point to educate and convert.
Exploit early-mover advantages on new platforms (e.g., TikTok Shop)
Hayek emphasizes jumping on new channel opportunities before they become saturated, with TikTok Shop as a current example. Brands that treat TikTok Shop as a serious, SEO-driven platform (not just a dropshipping playground) benefit from algorithmic preference, customer incentives, and early infrastructure support. For early adopters, TikTok even subsidizes sales and incentivizes both creators and customers to use Shop, creating a window of rapid, cost-effective growth.
By focusing on SEO, keyword optimization, and scaling in-platform affiliate partnerships, DTC brands can secure favorable positioning and build durable advantages before mass competition floods in. Early investment in operational compliance and customer experience also pays off with better platform support and higher sales ceilings as the channel matures.
Success Strategies v2
Turn TikTok into your creator-powered launchpad
If you think brand-building is only about polished content and main brand pages, think again. Moe Hayek’s approach flips the script, showing that direct-to-consumer brands can turn TikTok into a low-cost engine for both rapid awareness and sales—if you play it right.
Here’s Moe’s playbook:
Skip the endless planning and perfectionism—just get a minimum viable product ready, put up a simple landing page, and start running TikTok ads.
Build a “TikTok army” by recruiting a bunch of hungry creators (not just big influencers, but anyone with creativity and hustle) to post experimental, sometimes wild or controversial videos across secondary pages. Let them run with their own tone and style while you keep your brand account official and clean.
Maximize your chances of hitting viral gold by prioritizing volume over perfection. If you bet on 30 videos, odds are one will pop—and when it does, quickly follow up with content that’s more sales-focused to catch the wave and drive conversions.
The best part? It doesn’t take a big team or legacy agency overhead. Tap into low-cost creator communities—offer them a small retainer plus a juicy commission, and let them fire off daily content. This increases your odds of virality while freeing up your time to double down on what works.
Exploit first-mover advantages on new native shopping channels
The big brands are still sleeping on TikTok Shop, but Moe says this is Amazon 2012 all over again.
TikTok is pouring incentives into its shop feature: paying brands, subsidizing customer purchases, and rewarding participation with algorithmic love. If you’re early, the benefits are massive: free or cheap customer acquisition, on-platform SEO juice, automated affiliate and creator discovery, and an army of paid creators able to close sales right inside TikTok.
How to capitalize:
Launch your product on TikTok Shop while there’s a cap (200 orders a day per new brand) and the early-adopter algorithmic boost is still in play.
Integrate your army of TikTok creators with Shop’s affiliate features—let them connect, promote, and sell for you natively.
Use every tool TikTok offers: credits for running ads, automated sample sending for creators, affiliate programs, and listing optimizations for search.
Stay nimble: This is a window that will close as the platform matures and competition grows. Take advantage while customer subsidies and organic reach are supercharged.
Moe’s advice: Treat it like SEO land-grabbing on early Amazon. Every day you wait, you’re making your competition’s job easier.
Nail problem-solving products—and build operational advantages from day one
Flashy marketing can get products off the shelf, but supply chain gaps and operational headaches can bring you down just as fast. Moe’s journey from slinging plants online during the pandemic to running potent supplement brands proves it: operations are the hidden battleground in DTC.
Here’s how to futureproof your brand:
Choose products that check three boxes: they solve a real problem, tie into a passion, and are either consumable or create recurring engagement. This sets you up for repeat customers, emotional buy-in, and long-term growth.
Don’t let your marketing outpace your fulfillment. If you’re getting traction, double-check your supply chain, packaging solutions, and community-building already. Refine as you go, but don’t skip the fundamentals—otherwise, you’ll end up with angry customers and costly refunds.
If you’re launching something complex (perishables, supplements, anything with logistics hurdles), secure control or deep partnership on manufacturing and fulfillment early. Lean into info products, subscription models, and community engagement to add profit and reduce churn.
Marketing is never the bottleneck. The brands that win are the ones who can fulfill their brand promise with reliable, scalable operations—and keep the customer experience tight as the orders pour in. Don’t get seduced by early sales or viral moments to the point you neglect the basics. That’s how you make success sustainable.
Castmagic LinkedIn Post
Going viral on TikTok isn’t just luck — there’s a strategy behind every hit.
Moe Hayek joins Blaine Bolus & Ramon Berrios on this week’s episode of DTC Pod. Moe is a seasoned ecom operator behind multiple 7-figure brands, including the viral nootropics brand NZT-48.
In this episode, we break down the art of launching “micro-brands,” using TikTok to drive fast growth (organic & paid), building and incentivizing a creator army, hacking product-market fit with smart trademarks, and stacking early-mover advantages with TikTok Shop.
Tune in to hear what it really takes to build breakout brands in today’s DTC landscape.
Listen to the full episode here: [link]
#shopify #dtc #ecommerce
IG Reel Vids
Moe Hayek went from college dropout to running million-dollar ecommerce brands—all before he turned 25. After getting his start drop shipping viral products as a teenager, Moe realized the real money was in building micro brands with true enterprise value. Fast forward: he teamed up with a partner who owned the trademark for NZT 48, the “Limitless pill” from the movie, and used TikTok’s viral machine to turn it into a breakout nootropics brand. Moe’s secret? Leveraging TikTok creators running their own aggressive pages, engineering viral conspiracies, and then capitalizing with sales-driven follow-ups. The result: 25 million views in the first month and millions in sales. Now, Moe is helping other brands crack the code, incubating new products and showing that in DTC, bold strategy and fast execution are the real cheat codes.
IG Video
This pill brand went viral on TikTok and you’ve probably seen it without realizing it. The company is called Limitless, and they sell a real-life version of the NZT-48 pill from the movie Limitless. Moe Hayek isn’t the founder, but he is the main operator who helped take the brand to the next level. The secret? Moe and his partner already had the NZT-48 trademark, giving them serious brand equity out of the gate.
Their launch strategy was simple: a basic website, a great product, and a creator-driven TikTok blitz. One viral conspiracy-style video—hinting that big pharma didn’t want you to know about their pill—exploded to 2 million views in a single day. From there, Moe set up an army of creators making content on secondary pages, pushing virality and driving sales.
Limitless is proof that with smart branding, a unique product angle, and understanding how to go viral, you can break into a crowded market—even against multimillion-dollar competitors.
📢 Short VO
Sometimes the next big DTC brand starts with selling the weirdest products and learning from failure.
I just had Moe Hayek on the podcast. Moe’s story is classic operator: he dropped out of college and learned the ecom ropes with dropshipping—testing everything from fish-eye lenses to posture correctors. But it wasn’t until he shifted his mindset to building micro-brands with real enterprise value that things clicked. Now, he’s the operator behind NZT-48, a nootropics brand that leverages a unique trademark and viral TikTok-first strategy to stand out in a crowded market.
In this episode, Moe breaks down the power of controversial, native TikTok content, the importance of building a low-lift, high-volume creator engine, and why brands should ignore agencies and build in-house. We also get into his wild success with selling live plants online during COVID (and why supply chain nearly killed it), lessons from brand incubation, and what he’s eyeing next in health and wellness.
It’s episode [insert number]—give it a listen, and let me know what you think!
Hormozi Prompt
When I started out in ecommerce, I was 17 or 18.
I didn't build with venture funding.
I didn't chase the next big brand name.
I didn't try to perfect every website before launching.
I didn't spend months on product R&D before seeing if something would actually sell.
I didn't rely on fancy hires or huge teams.
I learned by drop shipping random products—fish lenses, back posture correctors—two months at a time.
I tested hundreds of products.
I learned to catch market trends as soon as they popped up.
And when a product didn’t work, I moved on with zero ego.
That’s what let me stack real skills: product sourcing, quick launches, marketing for views, and going straight to the source.
That’s what let me spot a brand with built-in cultural momentum, like NZT-48 straight from a movie, and turn it into a viral business.
That’s what let me go from hustling with dropshipping to operating and scaling brands with real enterprise value.
Over time, I realized you don’t need to pour resources into something until you have traction.
You just need a minimum viable product, a good product, and an audience that cares.
You go TikTok-first—hire hungry creators, let them try wild things, and double down on whatever performs.
You build systems that let you hire three- to five-person teams, not giant ten-floor offices.
Everyone loves to say, “Build the next great DTC brand overnight.”
But putting in the work, testing a ton, and rolling with the punches is how you actually get there.
This worked for me. Do what works for you.
Just keep moving and figure out the rest as you go.
Timestamps Trial
00:00 Moe’s background: dropping out, early days in ecommerce, and moving from dropshipping to building micro brands
02:28 The Limitless pill: landing on the NZT-48 brand, trademarking, and product concept
03:58 Entering the nootropics market and leveraging movies for brand equity
05:54 Trademark process and the advantage of smart timing
06:47 Go-to-market strategy: MVP launch, packing value into one pill, and early TikTok wins
08:25 TikTok content strategy: creators, third-party pages, and sparking virality
09:46 Translating TikTok views into sales: content sequencing and reply tactics
11:05 The creative that went viral: conspiracy-style videos and tapping into TikTok’s native audience
12:31 Spotting and incentivizing TikTok creators: finding new talent and building a creator pipeline
14:07 Compensation models for creators and maximizing video output across platforms
15:17 Managing the system: scalable approaches to creator management and performance
16:38 Creator selection, optimization, and learning from what works
17:35 TikTok Shops: opportunity overview, differentiation from Amazon, and first-mover strategies
19:34 How TikTok Shop works: affiliate armies and seamless checkout
20:27 Multiplying playbooks on TikTok: organic, paid, SEO, and influencer layers
20:51 TikTok’s incentives, early mover advantage, and growth numbers
21:43 TikTok Shop’s order caps, fulfillment standards, and certification requirements
22:36 Advice for established brands overwhelmed by TikTok: avoid agencies, build in-house, and leverage automation
24:37 TikTok Shop’s creator automation: free samples, affiliate growth, and leveraging internal tools
25:57 Instagram vs. TikTok Shop: why TikTok is winning the ecommerce race
26:27 Building a lean in-house operation: ideal team structure and role breakdowns
27:41 Key hires for scaling ecommerce and content engines
28:38 Past experience: launching an online plant business, leveraging trends, and initial growth
31:13 Realizations from plants: supply chain nightmares, perishability, and why operations matter
34:01 Product criteria: passion, perishability, and solving ongoing problems
34:49 Scaling operations: resourcefulness, local hiring, and figuring it out on the fly
36:34 What Moe would do differently: owning supply, packaging, and creating community
38:15 Plant business marketing: leveraging influencers and why marketing wasn’t the problem
39:43 Ramon’s lobster experiment: executing on wild ecommerce ideas
40:19 Consulting, incubating, and growing brands: Moe’s current focus
41:01 The incubation playbook: partnering with manufacturers, focusing on feel-good/look-good markets
42:42 Vetting partners and matching incentives in incubation deals
43:09 Manufacturers vs. brands: opportunities and core competencies
44:21 Vertical bets: wind-down supplements, tailored health, and future ecommerce trends
46:53 What makes a great brand: consistency, communication, and customer experience
47:46 Untapped M&A opportunities: rolling up legacy brands and bringing them online
48:41 Bringing new skills to established brands and the power of joint ventures
50:15 Miami life, ecommerce community, and balancing productivity with the city’s temptations
52:30 Where to find Moe online and final shoutouts
Custom LinkedIN Post Format
If I had to spin up a viral DTC brand today, here’s the exact TikTok playbook I’d use:
(This is literally how Moe Hayek and his team took a nootropics brand – Limitless Pill/NZT-48 – from scratch to millions of views and breakneck growth, all while keeping ops super lean.)
To break through on TikTok, focus on 3 core elements:
• Leverage an army of relatable creators
• Test wild, native content (not stuffy brand ads)
• Double down when something pops – and translate the attention to sales
Here’s how...
Build a “TikTok army” of creators.
Don’t just rely on your official brand page.
Recruit everyday creators or “kids with a brain,” hand them your product, equip them with info and let them experiment on their OWN pages.
You want volume and variety – think five creators posting daily for a month = 150+ shots at virality.
Let the creators run wild with concepts.
The best-performing videos are NOT high-production or hyper-polished.
They’re native to TikTok’s tone: raw, even a bit conspiratorial, unfiltered and FAST.
Ex: The biggest viral hit for Limitless was a wild, borderline conspiracy theory about a “real-life Limitless pill” (it landed 2M+ views in one day).
Let creators go edgy, weird, even wander into hot-topic debates – just steer clear of misinformation.
When content goes viral, activate SALES mode.
Virality ≠ sales... at first. When something takes off, instantly REPLY to top comments with a follow-up video that’s clear, benefit-driven, and points straight to your offer.
First you get the views, then you focus on converting those eyeballs.
More winning tactics:
• Incentivize creators with flat fees plus commission upside (3–500 bucks/mo + 20% of sales = hungry, motivated talent)
• Recycle the best videos across YouTube Shorts and Facebook for 3x the shots at a winner
• Use TikTok Shop to catch the wave early – TikTok is incentivizing brands with $20/customer, platform credits, and priority support for early movers
Keep your team lean. Moe runs 7-figures/mo with just 7 people – one VA, one manager, a couple athlete-style creative strategists, and video editors. Ops don’t need to bloat.
No overthinking, no chasing trends too late, NO analysis paralysis.
Launch. Let creators test. Double down on what works.
If I was starting from square one again, THIS would be my DTC launch stack.
—
More tactical breakdowns from Moe Hayek’s episode on DTC POD here 👇
https://www.dtcpod.com/episodes/moe-hayek
#DTC #TikTokMarketing #UGC #Ecommerce #BrandBuilding
WEEKLY LINKEDIN SAMPLE POST
If I had to launch a new DTC brand from scratch and get traction on TikTok (even with zero following or budget), here’s the playbook I’d follow:
(This is the exact viral UGC framework Moe Hayek shared on DTC POD, breaking down how he took Limitless Pill and other brands to millions in sales, capitalizing on modern TikTok organic and TikTok Shop growth.)
There are 3 main things to focus on to blow up a brand fast using TikTok:
• Build a creator army (not just a brand page)
• Let creators go wild on their own pages
• Leverage TikTok Shop’s incentives and affiliate structure
Here’s how...
Don’t just post on your brand page. Find hungry creators to run “fan” pages.
The trick isn’t hiring influencers with millions of followers. It’s getting “kids with a brain” (Moe’s words) who can follow simple instructions and post every day. You don’t care about the polish—let them use conspiracies, FOMO, controversy, real reactions, whatever. Many are just starting and want their first paid gig.
Recruit in creator Facebook groups, on Twitter, or dedicated communities. Your coaching and expectations? Minimal. Let them be as aggressive and non-corporate as they want on their personal/side pages, while you keep the official brand page clean.
Volume beats perfection. Incentivize daily posting, not just results.
A creator posting once a day for 30 days is better than hoping a single high-priced influencer "gets it.” Moe’s system: Pay ~$500/month per creator + 20% commission per sale. Give access to brand info and tools (ChatGPT, Dall-E, Submagic) so they can keep content fresh. If 1/30 videos hits? That’s all you need for a snowball.
Most virality comes from unexpected angles, wild hooks, or UGC that feels almost “too native.” The Limitless Pill blew up when creators riffed off the NZT-48 movie conspiracy. Moe: “You can’t predict the hit—the right creator, in the right voice, makes it happen. Sometimes it’s just luck.”
Use TikTok Shop to turn impressions into direct sales (and get TikTok to pay YOU).
The underrated cheat code: TikTok Shop. Moe’s team plugs their product into Shop, lets creators link it, and TikTok itself is throwing money at brands—bonuses, ad credits, even subsidizing $20 off for the first customer (TikTok covers the difference).
Build your creator army, link each of them to your product via Shop’s affiliate system, and you now have a content/sales machine across the TikTok ecosystem. Early adoption = better ranking, support, and first-mover brand equity (think early Amazon).
A few more tactical notes from Moe Hayek:
• Don’t hire agencies for this—do it in-house for speed, control, and learning
• Use a VA to manage dozens of creators; double down on those who get traction, drop the rest
• Always measure views AND sales: once a video pops (often conspiracy/controversy based), follow instantly with a reply video that sells, addresses a comment, and links the product
• Repurpose all winning UGC to Facebook, YouTube Shorts, IG Reels for more shots on goal
TikTok, as Moe says: “Never in history could anyone go from zero to viral in their first post. You just need the machine and enough tries.”
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Want the full viral DTC playbook? Listen to Moe’s episode on DTC POD here:
https://dtcpod.com
#dtcpod #ecommerce #ugc #tiktokmarketing #dtc #founderstories
dtcpod newsletter NEW (test)
Moe Hayek dropped out of college and started in ecommerce at 17, quickly cycling through dropshipping “hot products” in classic hustle style. Dissatisfied with the lack of long-term value, he moved on to building microbrands and landed as the operator (not founder) behind Limitless, a nootropics supplement brand leveraging the NZT-48 trademark from the movie Limitless.
What you’ll learn:
How Moe leveraged an iconic movie trademark (NZT-48) to grab instant brand awareness and why timing is everything in sniping IP.
The core advantage behind Limitless: packing the full nootropic dose into just one pill (vs. competitors’ two or four pills).
Moe’s “TikTok army” strategy—how hiring low-follower creators to run “wild” secondary pages fuels hyper-viral growth while keeping the brand page pristine.
Why going viral on TikTok is about controversy, conspiracies, and strategic reply videos—and how to actually convert those views into sales.
Building scalable systems for creator recruitment: how they use VAs to manage hundreds of creators with minimal hands-on (and what incentives actually get creators to deliver).
The ground-floor opportunity Moe sees with TikTok Shop for DTC brands—how TikTok’s early-stage incentives and in-app checkout threaten Amazon’s dominance.
Some takeaways:
Owning a pop culture trademark (NZT-48 from Limitless) provided a massive head start, giving the brand instant equity—sometimes, the best “product-market fit” is product-pop culture fit.
TikTok’s viral opportunity isn’t about polished brand content—it’s about aggressive, native, sometimes controversial storytelling from creators who “get” platform context. Allow their creativity to flourish on secondary pages, not your main brand profile.
Virality itself won’t convert—pair a broad-appeal, conspiratorial video to spike views, then immediately follow with a “salesy” reply video that addresses comments and pitches product benefits.
Recruiting creators is about volume and identifying raw talent—not follower counts. Use communities (like Jimmy Farley’s) and subreddits to find motivated, hungry creators, incentivize with modest flat rates and commissions, and focus only on the few who “stick.”
Early-mover brands on TikTok Shop can get $20 per new customer in subsidies, seriously reducing acquisition cost. TikTok also enforces high product and supply standards (no dropshippers, must store/ship from US) to protect its burgeoning ecommerce ecosystem.
”Marketing is never the problem”—Moe’s biggest ecommerce headaches were always operations and supply chain, never getting demand. If supply can’t scale, no amount of viral campaigns will save you.
Managing the TikTok creator engine is process-driven and lean: for Moe’s $1M+/mo business, just one VA and a manager handle hundreds of creators, freeing up the core team for product and strategy.
Looking back, Moe’s toughest brand was selling live potted plants during COVID—a crash course in mastering perishable logistics, supply chain risk, and packaging innovation.
Where to find Moe Hayek:
Instagram: @themoehayek
Website: https://mohayek.com
In this episode, we cover:
(00:00) Moe’s path from college dropout to ecommerce operator
(02:01) How and why the Limitless/NZT-48 brand exists
(05:54) The “wild west” world of movie-inspired trademarks
(06:09) Launching with MVPs and why a janky site is fine if you have a viral angle
(07:25) The TikTok creator playbook: why third-party pages dominate modern growth
(08:57) How to convert TikTok virality into revenue
(11:05) Finding, training, and incentivizing raw creator talent at scale
(14:07) Structuring creator deals for volume and performance
(18:06) The TikTok Shop “land grab” and what separates it from Amazon
(21:43) Platform controls, order caps, and why TikTok bans China direct shipping
(23:01) Why Moe thinks brands should always build TikTok in-house (no agencies)
(26:45) Running a $1M/month brand with a 7-person lean team
(27:54) Moe’s “plant brand” story—hard lessons in operations and fulfillment
(34:01) Filtering winning ecommerce ideas: perishable, passion-driven, and problem-solving
(41:01) The importance—and limits—of marketing vs. supply chain
(44:21) Future ecommerce bets: calm-down supplements, tailored biohacking, at-home health kits
(46:53) What really makes a great brand: consistent communication and exceptional product/service
(48:41) The roll-up/TikTok growth opportunity for legacy CPG brands
(50:27) The Miami effect: why location and community can be a double-edged sword
(52:30) Where to find Moe online
Referenced:
TikTok Shop: https://seller.tiktok.com/
NZT-48 (Limitless movie): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limitless_(film)
Trends (Trends.com): https://trends.co/
Jimmy Farley creator community: https://twitter.com/jimmyfarley_
Key quotes:
“Marketing is never the problem. It’s always the supply chain.”
“TikTok lets anyone become a viral sensation overnight, so you can literally find anyone, anywhere, who just gets the platform—it’s never about high follower counts.”
“If you hit one out of 30 videos on TikTok, that’s all you need. And you’d be shocked at the scale.”
For anyone looking to crack DTC virality or leverage TikTok’s new commerce engine, Moe’s approach is both blueprint and cautionary tale—focus less on the ‘perfect’ campaign or page and more on the people and systems who can out-execute at scale.
[New] Show Notes
Episode Summary
Moe Hayek is a seasoned ecommerce operator with deep experience in launching and scaling viral DTC brands using cutting-edge TikTok strategies. Currently the main operator behind Limitless Pill (NZT-48), Moe has worked across dropshipping, brand incubation, and consulting, leveraging nootropic trends and digital virality to build brands with real enterprise value.
In this episode, Moe shares his journey dropping out of college to enter ecommerce, his evolution from dropshipping to building sellable brands, and his playbook for explosive growth using TikTok organic content and TikTok Shop. He breaks down what makes a product go viral, how to recruit and incentivize creators, lessons learned from launching a plant delivery brand during COVID, as well as what it takes to build a lasting, scalable operation in the crowded DTC space.
Episode Notes
At age 17-18, Moe Hayek got his start in ecommerce through dropshipping, quickly realizing the need to move beyond short-lived trends to build brands with lasting value. Today, as the operator behind the Limitless Pill (leveraging the iconic NZT-48 name from the movie “Limitless”), Moe shares how trademarking and clever positioning can jumpstart brand equity.
This DTC POD episode dives deep into Moe’s viral TikTok growth formula—unpacking how to blend organic and paid, work with armies of creators for virality, and turn high engagement into real sales. Moe talks candidly about building his COVID-era plant delivery business, the headaches of perishable logistics, maintaining operational simplicity, and his lean seven-person team driving seven figures a month in revenue.
He also discusses the massive opportunity with TikTok Shop, focusing on UGC, SEO, and leveraging TikTok’s early-mover brand incentives. From consulting and incubating brands to scouting new supplement trends, Moe shares his framework for choosing products, executing go-to-market, and shaping a winning ecommerce stack.
On this episode of DTC POD, we cover:
Moe Hayek’s origins in dropshipping and evolving to brands with enterprise value
Trademarking NZT-48 and the Limitless Pill’s viral positioning
TikTok-first growth: organic, paid, creators, and “conspiracy” content strategies
Structuring creator partnerships for sustained volume and performance
TikTok Shop playbook: organic, affiliate, SEO, and why it’s the new Amazon
Operational challenges building a live plant delivery business during COVID
How to hire, train, and manage creators and VAs for content at scale
The power of arbitraging trends and product launches on emerging platforms
Brand-building vs. product “flips” and long-term asset value creation
Supplement and health niches: where Moe sees the next big opportunities
What makes a brand “great” and how to spot winning products
Consulting, incubation, and partnering with manufacturers for new product lines
Life, business culture, and networking in Miami’s ecommerce scene
Timestamps
00:02:01 – Moe’s background: from college dropout to ecommerce operator
00:03:18 – The Limitless Pill and trademarking NZT-48 from the “Limitless” movie
00:04:41 – Building instant brand equity and entering the nootropics market
00:06:09 – Go-to-market: MVP product launch and early viral TikTok ads
00:08:57 – Converting TikTok virality into sales through sequential content
00:11:05 – The breakthrough TikTok concept: conspiracies, trends, and native style
00:13:04 – Recruiting and incentivizing new creators for TikTok volume
00:15:29 – Managing creator output: autonomy, selection, and doubling down
00:18:06 – TikTok Shop as the next Amazon: setup, SEO, and early-mover credits
00:21:43 – Order caps, fulfillment quality, and TikTok’s anti-dropshipper stance
00:26:45 – Running a lean operation: team structure, VAs, and million-dollar months
00:29:15 – Plant delivery during COVID: supply chain and operational hurdles
00:34:01 – Moe’s framework for choosing brands and products that scale
00:40:19 – Brand consulting, incubation, and partnering with manufacturers
00:44:21 – Supplement, health, and wellness: emerging DTC trends
00:46:53 – What actually makes a successful, lasting brand
00:50:15 – Miami’s influence: local ecommerce culture and community
Listen in for tactical takeaways, real-world stories, and inspiration on building breakout DTC brands in today’s fastest-moving channels.
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