$0 To $1M in 12 Months: How He Turned 9 Million Followers Into A Potential $10M Business

Today we're going to go through a case study of a brand that just accomplished $1 million in sales in almost exactly 12 months. But this is just the start because the founder of this business has set the target of accomplishing a $10 million business over the next couple of years. So in this discussion, we'll not only recap the step-by-step process for how this brand became a million-dollar business in 12 months, I'll also show him what the playbook looks like to go from 7 figures to 8 figures over the next several years.

Everyone, this is Irek Wiggins. Irek just crossed $1 million in his brand. And I remember us sitting at dinner at Red Ash years ago and you being like, I think I might do this thing. So, why don't you just share a little bit about the brand that you launched that just crossed $1 million in sales?

Sure. So yeah, we, you know, I'm a content creator who built a huge audience in the low-carb space. And basically I have always made my money from brand deals and monetization and things like that, but it always feels a little out of my control. So I was like, if I had my own product similar to my book, which does really well, that would just be another layer of security. But then when I read, Ryan's book that also started breaking it down in a very simple way where it's like, well, the brands own whatever I'm selling to my audience, the platforms own my content, Amazon owns my books, but if I have a product, then I will have something for the first time that I just truly own. So I was like, I think I wanna launch something. And funny enough, me and Ryan connected in a totally unrelated way, which was, you guys just wanting me to work with Sinless. Yeah, that's right. And then I reread your book and I was like, wait, now's the time to do it. So basically our friendship had kind of started, we had that dinner at Red Ash, and I pretty much remember the conversation. I was like, so it's as simple, because like, it's as simple as me posting about my pasta and people will go buy it. And that's like what happened.

I think that the side of the world that you live in is in content creation and getting eyeballs. You're basically in media. Like, you rent that attention for brand deals and for advertising. And so the idea of building equity or enterprise value is like, what? First of all, with a $30 product or a $50 product, how does that calculate into millions of dollars or having a $10 million exit. And that was kind of like the foreign math to you. So at what point did you start to realize that the audience that you built, the eyeballs that you have, the best use of that attention may not be renting it out, it may be building an asset that can compound? Where did that start to click?

It's the formula you use in your book. It's the 4 products at $25 a day. That was like the first like aha moment where it was like, wait, this is— it just was like, that seems a little too easy. And that's actually what I said to you. I was like, wait, it just sounds too easy. It was not easy, but it was very simple.

We were talking over there about the numbers and how every, every one of those numbers matters. And you're used to just seeing the headline number of how many views or how many likes a post got, and my entire world is building up an audience of 250 people that really, really care. So I was hoping you could share in your own words that difference and how we talked about that.

Yes, so basically as a content creator, the goal is like, I need to get a million views every day, or I need to get "10,000 likes on this ad, so this brand rebooks me." You're just so obsessed with these huge numbers that it's totally different than actually building a brand because, like I said, if you have 25 people buying a product every day, that adds up over a year. I guess it's the ability to zoom out and be like, "Yeah, but what is this over the course of a year?" And then if they keep buying it again, and then if they subscribe to it, and it's just like, I guess you just kind of have to zoom out. But I will say, it's still chasing big numbers because 25 customers paying $35 is still a pretty big number, but it's like, you just have to be like, yeah, but that's 35 people. That's not 35,000 views or $7,000. It's like, that's—

I think you are used to just seeing seeing the very top number, which is 35,000 views or 3.5 million views, and all I really care about is how many of those people engaged, opted in, and became a customer, and had a wonderful experience. And that's actually something I can control. I can control the wonderful experience. I can control, not necessarily the number of customers, but the system to create the customers. Whereas if you only see the top end of the funnel, the views, like that can get really depressing if you are doing that and not getting the dopamine dump of getting views. But when you, when you realize you only need 35 people, it's like, all right, I can do a really good job for these 35 people.

It actually makes you care more about the customer too, because like you would think, oh, a creator, they're making content that people relate to. It's like, this is all about the viewer. It should be, but it's more about the number and what can I do to repeat this number? But like the strategy of just making one more sale, just getting one more person to enjoy the pasta and have a good experience with it is very much like more aligned with the, if you provide value, you'll be rewarded kind of mentality.

Would you talk about the first year of being in e-commerce?

Yes.

The things that you had to learn for the first time that, I mean, you weren't a new entrepreneur per se, but this was your first time doing something that with the intention of scaling it to $1 million and having an exit one day. So what did you have to learn for the first time?

So here's how it started. I can just go through the first year of what happened, like from start to finish of the first year. All right, so we had the conversation and you basically said it really is as simple as you just posting it. And because I already have the audience, that's like the tricky part. So you have to get an audience if you don't already have one. But because I already had an audience, it really was as simple as put money in to have a product made. You now have a product. Now you just post about it and then it sells. And so, but there's a lot of difficulties along that way. So the first step was developing it. I think we spent over a year getting the right formula. You know, I was trying to make a clean and low carb and high-protein pasta with no weird ingredients and gluten-free and all of that. And a funny story happened. So there's like, the flour we were going to use is lupin flour, and it's like the way to make a pasta that's low-carb and gluten-free. But apparently the entire supply of lupin flour in North America at the time we were about to manufacture it was eaten by rats. So my— my— the guy who like runs all of our operations called me and he's like, hey man, we have a problem.

And my rat ate my food supply.

Yep. And it— and then as soon as I got that call, I was like, oh no, we have to pivot. Like, I can't just wait another year. We just spent a year developing this. So I'm like, what if we don't try to be gluten-free anymore? What if we just go for like, this is the pasta with the best macros? Rather than the best macros.

Did we talk about this around that time? This is ringing a bell.

Yep, yep.

So then the advice I think I would have given you was stop trying to be for everybody and just pick one route and go really hard.

Exactly.

That's what I would say today. Is that what I said then too?

Yes.

All right, great. Consistency for the win.

So, so that's what happened. I was like— and the perfect reference for this is Mission low-carb tortillas. So you go to the grocery store, if you've ever been on a low-carb diet or you track your calories, you can buy these tortillas that are like 35 calories each. They just use fiber instead of carbs and they taste like normal tortillas. But you get the gluten-free ones, they don't taste as good. But it's the same macros, it's just one doesn't taste as good. So I was like, wait, everyone buys Mission tortillas. Let's be the Mission tortilla, like the Mission carb balance tortillas of keto pasta because that genuinely does not exist yet. Every other low-carb pasta is gluten-free as well. So they get mushy when you overcook them or they have like a weird aftertaste. So the rats eating the lupin flour was like the greatest thing that could have happened because the first batch he sent me using gluten instead of lupin flour and wheat fiber, I was like, oh my God, this tastes like real pasta.

So what step of the 8-step process did he just do there? Busted. That's all step 1, going from I'm just gonna make a great product that appeals to everybody to okay, I've got one person in mind and that person is gonna be the person that's obsessed with tracking their macros and I'm gonna make a pasta for them.

Which was me at the time. I had just downloaded MyFitnessPal a year before that. I had went from like a crazy keto person to like, oh, all that matters is your macros and your calories. So I literally was the ideal customer for this product.

How did you launch it?

So step 1, we made the product and I actually liked it. There's a couple steps in between that and launching it though, because I had to commit to order inventory. I feel like that's important to talk about. I'm trying to remember even how much it was. You know, the numbers we've done in the past year, it seems ridiculous that I was so terrified to put money into this, let's just call it $50,000. I had to put in $50K to make this pasta, get it manufactured, and have it sent to Amazon. I was so scared. It was like, nobody's gonna buy this. I've promoted products before for other brands that sold 7 orders. What if this happens with my pasta? I'm gonna be ruined. And I just kept going back and forth with like, man, this is a big number. But I pulled the trigger. I was like, all right, whatever, I'm gonna order it. So we order the pasta, and then there were a bunch of trials there that I don't think a lot of people know. Whenever you make a product for the first time, it's not gonna be a smooth manufacturing process if it's a new product. So we broke the pasta factory's machine because there was too much protein in our pasta. And, uh—

Actually would make a good ad.

Yeah, I think I did. I talked about it.

Too buff for the pasta.

Yes, yep. So basically we got rid of trying to be gluten-free. That gave me clarity in who I was serving. Then I got over the hump of letting go of the $50K to get it all made. And then we, it's like November 2024 and it breaks the pasta machine. I'm getting calls like, hey, this is gonna cost you another $5K. I'm like, it was such a big deal at the time.

Ryan Daniel Moran guy was a scam artist.

Yeah, yes. But I just am like, look, stay an extra week and, and let's just, let's just do it. Let's just, let's figure out how to make this pasta work. So we get it made, we get it all shipped, and then February was our launch date. So the way I talked about it, you know, the way it sells is a lot different than I imagined. Um, I had all these ads recorded before launching it that was like Here's why this is the best pasta. Here's the macros. Here's all of this. And those did okay, but the ones that actually sold the best are where I'm just like, I make a recipe and I'm like, and then add my keto pasta. And people are like, what's your keto pasta? And then I reply to them, here it is, go get it. And it's like, that's how I got to $1 million. So it's like literally just posting about it and then telling people to go buy it.

Did you launch straight on Amazon? Did you take pre-orders? What was the strategy to get that first?

So I took, so I, I took a shortcut. I hired an Amazon agency who basically got us into Amazon. So the factory made it, and then the Amazon agency handled actually getting it from the factory to Amazon and getting the— what, like, the— what is it, the page made and all of that, getting our images made. I hired a photographer, but so that happened. And then as far as getting people to go buy it, I just post a story with the link, or I post a reel as like a recipe video. And you know, you don't need a huge audience to get a viral reel. So the thing is, like, with recipe videos especially, anyone could make a recipe video, and there's a 1 in 100 chance that reaches 100,000 people, even if you have zero followers, because the algorithms, just one video may get put in front of a lot of people. So it's like, I think just making recipe videos with it is like what drives most of our sales. But now it's like the Amazon ads do a lot of lifting.

And what was the growth trajectory like? First month did how much in sales, and did that fluctuate, or did it kind of compound over the course of the year?

Could I pull out my phone and look at the seller dashboard and go over like the exact numbers?

You guys like to see those exact numbers?

Okay, so, so month 1, let's see, February 2025. It's crazy looking at it like how the—

lean over and show it the camera.

Okay. But it, I don't know if there's any, there's nothing personal in there, I don't think, so we're good. Okay, so February 2025, we did $30K. That was when we launched it. And that was—

Now, I wanna pause on that because you did $30,000 in sales first month. That's good. It's not crazy. It's not like sell the farm and put it all into this business. It's like that's a good, healthy launch. And that's to an audience of what, 8 million people?

At the time, probably, yeah, 9 million.

Okay, so 9 million people, $30,000 launch. Now some people will say that, oh, you have to have a 9 million person audience to have a $30,000 launch. I double-click on that because you guys have heard me tell story after story after story. Katie, how big was your email list when you launched? 60 people. 6-0 people. And your launch was like 7,500, 8,000. Okay, so you see how the numbers don't exactly add up here. You know, 70 people, was that it? 60 people. Okay, 6-0 people equals 8,000 or 9 million people equals 30,000. It's like, okay, the process of building this brand must be different than aggregating eyeballs and renting them, right? So this is why I say you don't need that many people to stick the launch and then start to compound.

You might be listening to this conversation so far and say, okay, well, must be nice for Irek. He's got millions of followers. Of course he's gonna have a $30,000 launch. Well, with a multi-million person audience, you would expect there to be more than $30,000 in sales. But this is actually kind of the high end of what is normal for a good launch, because if you put people onto an email list and you warm them up and you launch really hard, we've seen $10,000 launches, $25,000 launches. This is not out of the realm of possibility, even if you've got a small audience. But I also want you to know that people like Irek are gettable. You can create partnerships with influencers and advisors and other strategic partners for your business. It requires a little bit of different thinking and a little bit of a different structure than just paying them a few bucks. But you can go get people who can add millions of dollars in enterprise value to your business if you structure things properly. We'll talk about that a little bit through the rest of this conversation.

So first month you do $30,000, great, like good start. Then what happens?

Which, by the way, is only is 1,000 people.

1,000 buyers?

Yes. So the— I feel like when you have a brand and you just look at the number, kind of like we were saying earlier, it's like, it's 1,000 people. You can have— you know, one of my first jobs, I like sold sheets in Sam's Club. We probably talked to 1,000 people in a week. I don't know, what is it, how many people walk by you? And if you're there for 8 hours, like, it's like You— the 1,000 people is not as crazy as $30,000, like, when you're just starting out. But all right, so let's go to the next couple months. So from there, we ran out of stock. So we had— March was under $30,000. April was like $10,000. May was—

right, have you feeling a lot better about yourself? Let me hear, okay, the guy with the huge following, sales go down after launch, it happens all the time.

Yep, so May was right at $30,000, then June we started to get some traction. Let's say we were at $40,000. July was our, I remember when July happened because it was, what is the Amazon?

Prime Day?

It was Prime Day, yeah. So we did $77,000 in July. And that was like a huge jump. That was basically double what we were used to. And I, the main difference from there is like the way I talked about the pasta. And this is like really important. I, the first couple months when I promoted it, like I said, I felt like I had to go through all the talking points. You know, whenever, as an influencer, whenever you work with brands, they send you this giant sheet of talking points. Because you need to talk about all the benefits of their product. And when you do those videos, the conversions are like 35 people buy it or 12 people buy it versus if you're just like, "Hey, I really like this," then 100 people buy it or whatever it is. So that's kind of what changed starting in July. I dropped all the talking points and I literally just said, "My keto pasta," like, "Go get it." and the sales really started taking off.

So you stopped being so formulaic with how you promoted your product.

Yes.

And just started working it more into the natural content creation process.

Yes, like—

And by the way, still at this time, you barely have an email list. Do you even have an email list at this point?

I think, I think yes.

Okay, I almost needed to sleep with Irek to convince him to build an email list.

Yes.

So skipping everything that I believe in, and going just for straight from post to sale. So we probably could have improved that process a little bit, but you built a million-dollar business, so I can't complain too much.

Yes. So July was our biggest month at that point, and then August went down a little bit because no Prime Day, $69,000. And then what was September? Went back up to $77,000.

So here's where it's starting to compound.

And then October and November are where I was like getting a lot of confidence. They were both basically the same at $100,000. I think what we had going for us in October was they did another Prime Day, or was it Deal Day? So I noticed that for a $35 product, which is 3 8-ounce bags of my pasta, the actual Whenever we put it on sale for like under $30, sales go way up. So it is like a, I wonder if we just were permanently under $30, could I be on track to do $2 million? I don't know, but—

We can figure that one out.

Yeah.

But do you notice how for about 5 months, it was like up and down fluctuating, some decent months, bad months, and then it was around month 6 that you started 6 or 8, you started to get some real traction.

Yep.

Can you point to anything that happened in that time frame where the compounding returns started to kick on?

It could be the fact that we started putting money into Amazon ads. Up until that point, we really weren't running any because we just didn't have enough stock. And then after the whole February, March, April, May, June I had gotten enough deposits from Amazon that we could order more, and then I was confident to start running ads because being out of stock sucked. So I think it was running ads and then just the accumulation of reviews. And it's like every time I get a bad review, I make sure to go ask my audience for good reviews. Or not good, but just like, hey, leave a review. They like you, they'll leave a good review.

Do you respond to those bad reviews?

Yeah, I love it. I love— I think that bad reviews are helpful. It's like if someone tells me that it tastes terrible or that it's so chewy, it tastes like cardboard, I'm like, thank you, we're working on making it softer. You know, I would prefer to get bad reviews because I just want it to be as good as possible.

Do you post them?

Yeah, sometimes.

Yeah?

Yeah.

How does the audience respond when that happens?

They love it. If you have an audience who likes you and you guys have a good relationship and then someone says— because my bad reviews aren't always, "Oh, the pasta was chewy." When you're a content creator, you also get a ton of people who just hate you for some reason. They hate my voice or the way that I'm sloppy when I'm cooking. So usually they'll say something personal in the bad review. So I will take that bad review and then stitch it onto the screen and open my phone and be like, "Somebody commented this, and I just wanna say thank you. You must be having a tough day. I wish I could give you a hug. But to everyone who did buy the pasta, also thank you. I love you guys." And then the response is great. It's, yeah, so I think there's value in Leveraging the bad reviews to— it's like if something bad happens, how can you be like, I don't accept this negatively impacting my life, how can I make it positive?

Yeah, audiences go crazy for that amount of— I just call it authenticity or seeing behind the curtain because you're no longer just showing the best parts of everything because everybody is going through those types of bumps along the way, so they rally to support. When they relate to that. So tell me a little bit about when you flipped into that confidence mode that you mentioned. You said around November, December you started to be like, okay, maybe this is a thing. Like, I'm knocking on the door of a million-dollar business.

December, so December I got a lot of, even though we went from $100,000 in October and $100,000 in November to $80,000 in December, that was actually when I got the most confidence because I didn't post once in December about the pasta. I wanted to see, do people genuinely like eating this pasta?

Or—

because basically the whole point of this is I don't want people to buy it because I'm some guy they like on Instagram, so they're gonna buy my pasta. I want them to buy it because they want a keto pasta with good macros that they enjoy eating. So in December, I was like, look, we're spending all this money on Amazon ads. I basically said whatever, so to the agency, I said whatever our profit is, let's just roll it back into ads. So we're spending all this money and I'm like, is this even doing anything or are the sales just coming from when I post about it? But December came and I said I'm just not gonna post and I didn't post once and we still did $80,000 that month. So I was like, okay, I think something is working that isn't just me. And that's the most important thing for an exit too. If you're like an influencer-owned company, there's a good argument that if I want to sell the pasta, people are gonna be like, yeah, but if you're not promoting it, is anyone gonna buy it? And it's like December proved that yes, they will.

So one of the things that I hammer into the brains of my community is one-to-one outreach, is interacting with everybody who leaves a comment, every new follower, every customer, Most people don't have a 9 million person audience, so that one-to-one interaction matters a lot. You've got a 9 million person audience, so how much one-to-one interaction, if any, were you doing in order to grease the wheels to get sales?

At the beginning, all of it. So the, you know, you can have 10 million followers and you can have posts getting millions of views, but you don't get millions of comments. So, and you don't get millions of DMs. So you might get 100 DMs a day. And 500 comments a day. That is not much time. Like, that's not all day sitting there typing.

I'm so glad you said that because I have a hard time getting the people with 5 comments to reply to their damn comments.

They're like, 500 comments is not a big deal.

It's, it's like the— that's how I built my whole brand was in 2018, I got really into Gary Vee and he said I would— when I started building my personal brand, I would reply to every single person who mentioned me on Twitter. And I was like, "Oh, cool. Let me do this." In 2018, keto was very popular. So I would search the hashtag keto on Instagram, and every single person that posted, I would just say something on their post about whatever I liked about their post, or if I related to what they were saying, or if the food they posted looked good, I'd be like, "That looks so good." And I basically— so my whole thing is, Responding to everyone is so valuable and you make friends. There are so many people— shout out to DeeDee, she is one of my followers who always would join my lives. We were just messaging the other day about a walking pad because she talked about needing to get her steps up. But this is just someone who follows me that I've become friends with and I could think of 100 people like this. The amount of replies you're willing to do is— because at the end of the day, that is where the business grows, is like, and providing value. And if people like you, they're more likely to support your product. And if your product is good, they're more likely to tell other people about it and like—

Or leave a review, or add to subscribe and save, or buy through a keyword, or post about it on social media. It's all people. And I think when you forget that there's people behind all of the numbers, you tend to look for shortcuts.

Yes.

But when you realize that there's just people, then every interaction matters.

Yes. All right.

I want to interject here for those of you who are still climbing your way to the first 1 or 2 million. Notice that Eric was still in the DMs of his business doing a 1-to-1 outreach for his customers. This is one of the most valuable skills that you can do until you're at at least 1 million. But some of our clients will do this until they're at 2 or 3 million, because those 1-to-1 interactions become the raving fans that buy everything that you sell. They leave the best reviews. They become the people who create a piece of content that becomes an ad that gives you $100,000 in sales. Those little micro touchpoints matter so much, and a lot of entrepreneurs neglect them. If you're willing to do that grindy work at the beginning, it makes your launches and your growth to the first million happens so much faster.

So Ira, obviously you create a lot of content and primarily you wanna grow the audience, but now you have something to sell. You want people to go buy the pasta. So how do you manage making content just to grow the audience versus going for the ask? And when you go for the ask, does it ever compromise the, growth of the audience that comes organically when you're just in that mode?

So, I would say reach is like my oxygen as the content creator. It's like, I, that is all that matters, is, is this post going to do good? Then I will have a good day. Is this post going to do bad? Then I will have a bad day. That is the life of a content creator.

Okay, can anyone relate to that in their own, like, sales are gonna be good, so I'm gonna have a good day. Sales are bad, so I'm gonna have a bad day. I love how Chris is pouring a drink as we go over that statement.

So I would say whenever I'm trying to sell something, that is still, like, even if this is gonna get me $20,000 in sales, I don't care. I'm not gonna post it if it's gonna hurt my reach. However, the more reach, the better my pasta sells. Like I said, the talking points kind of You know, like, I thought that diving deep into what's so amazing about this pasta would make more people buy it, but the reality is, well, less people share it and less people repost it and less people like it because they're like, "Oh, he's just selling me something." So I would say I don't even think about selling at all. I just think about, "Hey, this is the pasta that I use." Oh, that's really interesting.

I'm really glad you said that. Because it makes me think what one of my brands, Switch Supplements, we have a sleep supplement. That product does about $100,000 a month in sales. And I can't tell you how many of my personal friends that I didn't even know bought the product. Bought it, put it on subscribe and save, told friends about it, and they're like super fans of the product. And I ask them, how did you discover it? And they usually say, oh, because you posted your Oura Ring data. On Instagram and you tagged your own company. And that's— I never quite understood that about like, oh, that's like a happy accident that they found it. But when you say it, it actually makes sense that I'm just incorporating it into my life and saying I'm using this sleep supplement versus holding it up to the camera and saying, let me tell you about the blend of this amazing sleep supplement. That content, way overrated. But showing it in the context of here's how I use it in the context of my life, this is how most people discover it. And that's what you're saying about the pasta.

Think about ads. Think about a commercial for what is a common product people buy. Let's say the Dyson, if you're a girl, my wife wants the Dyson Airwrap, right? It's like this thing for your hair. Do you know how much more likely you are to buy that if your friend tells you how amazing it is than if you see 77 advertisements for it. It's like, the ads just go in, like, they just go right past you. So it's like, the less it feels like an ad or like you're selling something, and the more it's like a friend giving a recommendation, the more it's gonna sell. It's just, yeah, I hate when brands send me talking points for ads because it's like, I know, Nobody's gonna buy this, even though that is your goal.

That's so true. So there's gonna be people listening to this who are content creators or who have audiences that are now intrigued that you pursued a different business model, and they're now gonna be asking themselves, okay, if I were to go this direction, what would I sell? How did you go about determining that the keto pasta was the first thing that you wanted to bring to market?

Because everything else has already existed forever. It's like since— so when keto started in 2018 as like this fad diet that was like super popular and everyone was doing it, every brand created a keto product. So there were low-carb tortillas and protein bars with low carbs and like keto cookies. And so everything existed except a good keto pasta. There were like a couple, but nothing that you could just go into Walmart and buy. And that's kind of what made the pasta so like apparent that this is what I have to do because it's like you just go into the grocery store and there's a keto version of everything except pasta. And so that's kind of what I identified. I was like, well, these do exist, but not like at scale.

Have you made a point to stay in the keto lane or have you started to move more into like macro-balanced or high protein? Because your entire brand was built around keto and I used to joke that you're like one of two relevant keto influencers left, like the two last of this species. And now you're not keto anymore either. Have you made that pivot or have you decided to stay in the lane of making a keto pasta?

I think there will always be people— well, here's the thing about a keto pasta. You don't even have to promote it to people doing a low-carb diet because it just has less calories. So it's like if you are a bodybuilder who eats rice and chicken at every meal, you can have a meal of chicken and keto pasta that's going to not add 200 calories to that meal during a cut. So it's like there's a million reasons why taking the carbs out of pasta doesn't have to mean you're on a low-carb diet. So that's one reason. Just get your carbs from more satiating foods like potatoes and fruit rather than noodles. But also, there's a lot of people with diabetes, with like blood sugar issues. So I think I can help both of those people.

So you, but you went in the direction of still calling it keto or low carb, knowing, knowing that that would attract that audience, but it would also bring the other audiences with them.

Yes, because people— so it's easy for me to promote to my audience and say my keto pasta, but if someone's just scrolling on Amazon who tracks their calories, they have an understanding that if this pasta has 120 calories, that is better for me to not lose my mind during a cut than eating the pasta with 220 calories.

Okay. This is the part of the conversation where we switch from talking about building a 7-figure business to growing an 8-figure business and how we can position that business to maximize its exit. Eric has never gone through that process before, so he's going to ask me some questions about what his next moves need to look like in order for him to go from 7 figures to having an 8-figure business. Again, Irek read my book. He did a launch and he followed the playbook that I gave him to build a million-dollar business. Now he's sitting down with me and saying, how do we grow this thing to 8 figures? If you want the same type of help, if you want to sit down and look at what it looks like to build an 8-figure business and go from a 7-figure entrepreneur to an 8-figure owner, You can find out how we work with 7-figure clients to help them build 8-figure assets over at Capitalism.com/partners.

So Eric, you wanted to talk about going beyond $1 million. You wanted to talk about basically what happens now. So tell me where you're at, what you're thinking, and I'll advise you on the next steps.

Awesome. So like I said, December I saw that we could do $80,000 with zero help from me. January, we did about $140K. This month, we're probably gonna do, let's just call it $120K. And obviously, I expected a little bit of a downturn from January because, as we said, keto, everyone's buying keto stuff. That's like the number one diet people do for 2 weeks and then quit. So you would expect New Year's to have a lot of customers. But yeah, it's like, okay, so I feel confident that this year, based on last year's sales and how we did well even October, November, December when no one's on a diet, that we can be a million-dollar brand. But it's like, what are the things I can do every day that get us to being worth $5 or $10 million? Because it's like, I can't just make an extra post about it every day. Because then my audience will just stop watching my videos if everything is an ad. So it's like, what are the things I can do every day that get me closer to, let's just say, 5 million?

Mm-hmm. So if you are still optimizing for the million, my answer would be every day you're gonna block off at least 2 hours, and then you're going to create content around this brand, and you're going to reach out to those people who respond, one-on-one, and you're probably gonna feed your mind, like read a book. And if you do that consistently, chop wood every day, it's gonna compound. Ask for reviews, do the basics, and you'll get to $1 million. You've already done that. You're at that point now. How many reviews actually do you have?

Like 500, 600.

Okay, awesome work. That's great for a first year. The plan once you're at $1 million It changes, and this is what you don't get in my book because it's called 12 Months to $1 Million. Once you're at a million, the game changes dramatically because we go from trying to get enough sales to have a million-dollar business to, okay, now how do we grow something with enterprise value that can scale and sell? And for you, your target is between $5 and $10 million. Right? So, what we would do is we'd sit down and we'd say, "Okay. Let's go make the pitch deck for this company for sale at $10 million." Now, we're going to backtrack what needs to be true in order for that to become a reality. Well, we're going to need a product roadmap of what does this line look like beyond one product.

Rice is next.

Okay, rice. Cool. And so we'd probably come up with 2 other products that would exist in the product roadmap. Then we'd say, okay, who does Irek need on his team in order for this to be a $10 million business? Because it's probably not going to just be Irek, and there's probably going to need to be a brand manager. There's going to need to be somebody in charge of sales development or Amazon management or whatever channels you're going to be on. You might be in charge of influencer relationships or who else you're going to bring to the table in an equity partnership in terms of other influencers. You don't need to do any of this. This is just an example of what the deck might look like. And over the course of a day or so, we'd set up everything that needs to happen for this company to be worth $10 million. Then we're going to start filling in those pieces. I want to start filling in those pieces by filling in those roles or by going to another channel or by setting up the timetable for the next product launch. My guess for you is the next step, and to answer your question of what to do every day, is you're now at the point where it would make sense for you to start building the waiting list for product number 2. So, if you wanted something to do every day, I would be posting about the waiting list in your stories, just showing it being used, showing the prototype, showing how many days are left once a day, sending people over to the waiting list so that when you have that second product ready, it has an audience ready to launch.

So, to jump in here, speaking of the second product, so this will give you some more information. So when we first launched, we had 7 SKUs. This was a terrible mistake. I was so convinced that selling flavored pasta would be the game changer that makes everyone go buy it. So we had roasted garlic, sun-dried tomato, and plain. Well, when we launched, 90% of people just wanted plain. So when I talked about our sales in February last year being high and then March and April being down, it's because we sold out of plain and all that was left were the flavors, and nobody wanted the flavors. So that's why those months were lower. So basically we were like, at this point I'm just ready to scrap all of the flavors. We still have a variety, like, so now we have 2 SKUs. We have the 3-pack of plain and the 3-variety pack.

Would you like to know why that is?

Yes.

So if you add a variation, whether that is a flavor or a sizing change or a color difference, that can improve sales, but it'll improve sales by like maybe 20%, right? Because somebody is probably only going to buy plain or roasted garlic. But if somebody was not convinced to buy this product, they're probably not going to buy because you have a new flavor. So you don't— you might get a small conversion increase, but it might be 15 to 20%. But if you launch a second product, that second product could have the potential to double the business because people who bought product number 1 are going to come back and buy product number 2. People who didn't buy product 1 because they didn't want it see product number 2 and buy it, like it, come back and buy product number 1, and you get this compounding effect that happens. Plus you have people who buy both of them and your average customer value goes up. So you might get a small increase from the variations, but you can have a monumental 50 to 200% increase from having a second complementary product.

Which leads me to this question. So we are about to launch a new shape, which is penne. So we, so our current shape is rotini, it's the twisty noodles, and the next one is penne, which is like in production right now. But then we're gonna do rice. Is penne considered the second product, or do you think that's more along the lines of like a flavor variation?

I think it's more along lines of a variation.

So I shouldn't expect penne to double our business the way rice may?

I would not expect it to double the business. I would expect that if you were to launch rice, that that may double the business. But variations of different pastas will have a modest increase. So when we're laying this out in your product roadmap, I would want us to look at, okay, we're going to do noodles, we're going to do rice, we're going to do, and then two other very different products, not what variations are we going to have. And this is how— if we assume, and I know this is not fair math, but let's just assume that every time you release a product, sales double. So you go from $1 million to $2 million to $4 million to $8 million. You need to have 4 very different products and you have an $8 million business that can sell for between $5 and $10 million. It can be that simple.

Okay, so this leads to my next question. So launching the rice will probably cost me, let's just call it another $50,000. Basically Keto Snacks has been funding all of this. Keto Snacks is about to buy a house. And despite living well above my burn rate and all of that, I have a lot of anxiety about the increase in what our mortgage is gonna be. It's like double. So I think I'm fine. Like, I think I'm gonna be okay, but my backup plan, the part of—

Are any of you relieved that this still goes on in your brain no matter what level you're at?

Yeah, I'm gonna be broke tomorrow is like what's always going on in my mind. So the, If I do just say— let me just put X— say the rice, because there's always something that goes wrong, say the rice ends up costing me $100K, but it doubles the business. Is there— I'm not taking anything out of the business right now. If our margins are good, like 30%, is there an argument that once we're doing $2 million, if I ever needed to, just to calm the anxious part of me that's going to be broke tomorrow, Is there a reasonable way to say, hey, if you launch the rice and it puts you at a $2 million run rate, you probably can pull out $100K a year from the brand? 'Cause that's kind of like what I'm hesitant on is like, I don't wanna part with a bunch of cash this year and then have a down year next year with the higher mortgage. It's like, that's kind of—

There are multiple ways to crack this nut. The most direct way that you could do tomorrow is you could pre-sell the rice. So especially with your audience and now that you have customers on a first product, if you go promote the pre-launch of the, I'm guessing it's keto rice or lower carb rice. If you do that and you sell 2,000 units at $30, that is $60,000.

Which is how much it costs to launch it. Okay, great.

So now it's paid for. And you've already got more than 2,000 customers, got more than 2,000 people on an email list. You talk about it publicly as an experiment, and you're probably gonna pre-sell all of that inventory and get as much as you need in order to do the inventory run, and now it's risk-free.

Mm-hmm, that's the whole thing. That's where I was when I was launching the pasta too, by the way, is I didn't wanna put money into it because it's always a risk. You know, it's like, what if nobody buys it?

Right. So you can do that. That is—

But here's the thing. So there's another level of risk, which is, but I'm not allowed to take money out of the company.

Okay, so let's talk about how to crack that nut next. So for where you are in the, you know, 4 years to $10 million journey, I'm— you're not paying yourself, and I'm guessing that you're bootstrapping all of it and returning all of your profits back into the company. Yes. Is that right? So one of the things I like, this is not a recommendation, but this is something that we advise everyone who's going through like the Capitalism.com incubator over $1 million, something they should consider is when you have a product that is getting consistent sales of at least $25,000 to $50,000 a month, it is worth considering financing that inventory with debt. Are you using any inventory financing now?

No.

Okay, so let me run you through the numbers just real quick.

Okay.

If you have a $100,000 purchase order for inventory, most brands like yours are going to take the $100,000 in profits that are in the bank account, and you're going to send it to the manufacturer, and it's going to sit there for 3 months while they make the pasta, Then they're going to send it, send you the pasta, and you've got to sell it for the next 3 months until your $100,000 replenishes, and then you've got some leftover for the inventory that's there, and then you got to make another order. Does this sound familiar?

Okay.

So, over the course of 6 months, you might turn that $100,000 into $200,000. Great ROI, right? Well, we can do this smarter way, I think, which is if we, instead of sending $100,000 over to the manufacturer, we get a loan for $100,000. We send the loan of $100,000 to the manufacturer. Now we have $100,000 in our bank account, and we owe $100 grand. Over time, we might accrue 10% interest on that $100 grand. So, our real cost of that inventory is $10,000. Our cost to us is $10,000 and we're going to sell that inventory for $200,000. So, instead of having a 2-to-1 ROI, we have a 20-to-1 ROI. So, just real quick. Now, we freed up $90,000. Actually $100,000 in today's like what's in the bank. To invest into product development, to put into advertising, or what do you know, pay ourselves a little bit of money because us calming down and not being anxious about money is actually the best investment that the business could possibly have. And the debt gets paid for once the inventory sells in the same way that it would be paid for if you weren't financing it with debt.

Ah, that makes sense.

So that's option number 2. How does that feel?

That feels good, and it makes me think that a lot of the obstacles to growth are like emotions and psychology. It's like if I was just a machine who only made decisions based on what will grow the business, I would just go put my family in a studio apartment. I would just be like, let's just put every single dollar that comes my way into growing the business, and it will be worth $10 million twice as fast. But it's like kind of what you're saying is like taking debt can get me out of the equation. It's like, hey, I'm not—

You can get your angst about money out of the equation.

Yes, yep, exactly.

And that is actually what will grow the business the fastest because now you've got $100 grand in retained earnings that you can put into more profitable investments. You know, putting $100,000 into an inventory order is not your best ROI. Because that $100 grand could be used to buy the first round of product number 2, and that could double the business. So it's a much better investment to put that $100 grand into product number 2 than it is to tie it up in inventory for product number 1. Much smarter to have debt, other people's money, finance the first product that you know is going to sell and free up the profits to put into more profitable investments.

Ah, so like when it's time for us to be like, hey, we're gonna run out again, Keto snacks, you gotta put some money into this. I can be like, okay, let me take debt to fund the thing that's already selling. And instead of now taking money out of my pocket to fund that, I can take the money out of my pocket to make the rice happen.

Bingo.

Ah, okay.

You could also use debt to fund product number 1, pre-launch product number 2, and pay yourself the money that's in the bank. That is also an option.

Which I do not plan on paying myself, by the way. That is only the part of me, if everything collapses, if being an influencer is no longer sustainable, then I go down the road of paying myself.

I'm laughing 'cause I'm just so happy it's everyone.

But it's like, I guess these are the things that will help me get to 10 million. Like, I have to iron out all of these kinks before I can get to $10 million because I feel like I am in the way a little bit, and it's like, what can I do to get myself out of the way?

Yes, so you are at the point now where it makes sense for you to start building out the team. You've got a million-dollar business, you don't need the cash from this, you're going to grow probably to 2, 2.5 over the next 12 to 18 months. Now is the time for you to start looking at what that team looks like, and in our process, the first hire is taking the platform that you're taking your sales on and making sure you have really good support so that you can walk away and sales are still going to happen. Sounds like you're about 80% of the way there anyway.

So I have an Amazon agency. I have, shout out to Chef Gabe, I have a guy who has a whole company now that helps me with all of this. So they do projections and placing our next order and helping to get our, cogs down and all of that. So I have, I could step away, and like I said, in December I did step away. Yeah. But the growth comes from two things: me posting and me putting money into it.

Yep.

So it's like where I guess a team, so who is the next hire?

Yeah, so, so in our process, once we have eliminated the low-level tasks, which you've done at least partially, the next hire is going to be a brand manager. And a brand manager is a full or part-time person who is, you can call this person a COO if you want to go that level, a project manager. This is your number 2. This is the person who is taking the vision that's in your head and that deck that we laid out and say, these are going to be the next products, this is going to be the plan. You're now in charge of moving this forward. And now you're going to go into either continuing to post or taking a step back or building the rest of the team or working on the next product. That's the next person whose job it is to make sure that like the house is secure no matter what you do. And now you're freed up to actually go build a vision. Sometimes that vision is going to be more excited about keto snacks. Sometimes it's going to be about Carefree Pasta and— or Carefree Kitchen. And you're going to be able to follow that excitement because you already have a brand manager in place.

Okay, okay, so next question. So what do the numbers look like if I just, let's just say $10 million, right? We're doing $1 million. Say we launch the rice and things keep going well with the pasta, and now next year we're doing $2 million. And say we have 30%, I'm sure once we're doing $2 million and we're placing bigger orders, the margins for the pasta go down a little. But it's basically just like, They go up a little, the costs go down. The costs go down. Oh, yes, yes, that we get better margins. So what do, like, what do the numbers look like in a $10 million exit as far as like just sales and how much is going into my bank account from those sales?

So we can, we can go poor man's math just to set up some targets. Yes, right, and then we can go refine it a little bit. Your poor man's math equation is going to be that your business will sell for approximately 1x top line revenue or 4-ish times EBITDA. So, if your brand is doing $2.5 million in profit, 4 to 5 times that, that's your $10 million exit.

So, the 2 numbers I should be focused on are getting to $2.5 million in profit or $10 million in revenue? Poor man's math, right? But it's like, just like when I'm like, yeah, just like when I'm fully zoomed out, like those are—

It is, again, like for brevity, way oversimplification. If you're just looking for permission to go pursue $10 million, yes, go pursue $10 million. But there's other levers that we can pull there in order to get to that number faster. For example, who who you sell to matters a great deal. Kraft coming to you will pay $10 million for this if they got your audience with it. Kraft is only gonna care about distribution, so they're gonna look at a million-dollar business and be like, we don't care about that, we care about the distribution. They might pay $10 million for the brand now if it came with a certain size of audience or some other magic thing that made their entire portfolio more profitable or more valuable versus the guy who just went through Cody Sanchez's course about buying businesses is going to be negotiating only on top line and profit because he or she is not you and is not looking at the total enterprise value. They're looking at the cash flow that he or she is going to make by having a blue-collar business. So who you sell to is going to matter a tremendous amount. So that 4 times profit or 4 times profit is poor man's math, assuming lots of different factors. But you may sell for $10 million when you hit $5 million revenue because a strategic acquirer looks at you and says, this is a perfect complement to our portfolio, let's buy this. Another factor that falls into this is once you cross that, that million dollars in profit, valuations go up several points. So if you're doing $500,000 in EBITDA, you might only sell for 3 or 4x, so you might get $2 million. But as soon as you're over a million, you can sell 4, 5, sometimes 6x. And so the the multiple goes up, not just the number. So that's another factor. We could do this all day. We could pull in all these factors.

No, you've explained it well. That makes sense.

Okay, this is really the part of the conversation where Irek is starting to think like an owner because he's looking at how he can maximize the value of the business when he sells. There is a different threshold that you hit once you have $1 million in profit, because then you start to value the business not just for what the profit it produces, but also the other assets in the business. When you're over $1 million in profit, that is where you start to break into the upper valuations of your business. This is where you start attracting more strategic buyers who are looking to buy assets rather than just by income. And so that is where all of these other resources and possibilities become available to you. So once you're over $1 million in EBITDA, that's where you're gonna maximize your valuation, but also be able to invest in the other things that drive up the most enterprise value. If you want some help finding out where those opportunities are and creating the most enterprise value for your business so that you can prepare for an 8-figure exit, you can find out how we work with clients at Capitalism.com/ partners.

So the day-to-day, you've talked about hiring a brand manager, basically someone I tell my vision to and they make it happen. Where do I find this brand manager?

The best people that you could possibly hire, like a low-level, entry-level, are gonna come from your audience. They're gonna be your super fans. If, however, you wanted to not train someone you wanted somebody who was better than you, you wanted to truly walk away, then you might be looking more at, okay, I'm going to do the traditional recruiter route and poach somebody away from this brand that I admire. So, the two routes are somebody works under you and they learn everything about you and everything about the business and you're training them up and that's a more entry-level person. It's going to be more work on you, but that person is going to come in, take things off your plate, and start to learn the business and transition over into running this business. You might even call that person an EA, an executive assistant. Like their job is to take things off your plate until they can run the company. Or if you're like, I need somebody who can help me grow this to a $10 million company because I just want to think about product launches and I want to think about scale and I want to think about vision, then you might be looking at a company that you admire and trying to recruit somebody from there. You're looking for a project manager over at that pasta company or that food brand, and you're gonna offer them maybe an equity position or upside, and now you're freed up to think about sprinting to $10 million.

[Speaker] Okay, another question. So in the meantime, before I hire a brand manager, let's just say we're spending $500 a day on Amazon ads. And I don't really know what— like I said, I don't know if— I'm sure they're working because December I didn't post and we still sold a lot of pasta. But it's like, how often should I be experimenting with like the types of ads? Or maybe I should take half of that and put it into Meta ads? Like, because you can't just sell to your audience all the time, right? Like, so like, especially for me with an audience, I can't just post about it every day because I have brands who pay me to post about their product today.

This is an excellent question, Irek, and you're in a bit of a unique position with this. But let me give you the standard answer first, and then I'll customize it a little bit. Right now, you have a million-dollar business on Amazon alone where you are running ads and talking about it sometimes, and you got to $1 million and you can walk away from it, now you're looking at product number 2. Don't change a damn thing.

Okay.

That's what I would tell most people, right? And that would still be good applicable advice for you. Like, you have a doubling, you're like, you have $2 million just like right in front of you. Like, if you don't change a damn thing, you'll be at $2 million and probably 4. So we don't need to worry about adding other channels or running Facebook ads or changing up anything in the strategy because we have a pipeline to get to the goal of $10 million exit without changing much. However, with you specifically, you have a TikTok audience and it may be worth considering adding TikTok Shop to your strategy. I actually wouldn't recommend it for you as the next step, but maybe 2 or 3 steps from now, TikTok shop may double just the pasta itself. And I would consider making that the, the second channel. I think, again, I know I'm repeating myself, but there's a couple steps that I would put in between there. But I would suggest that be your second move rather than other advertising channels? Because you've just got this obvious win in front of you that is perfect for the business that you've already built.

So if I want a $5 to $10 million exit, as long as I just keep doing what I've been doing and keep launching new products that people actually want, I'm probably on my way if I just don't change a thing. But I can get there faster if I— basically, it's like kind of where I'm getting to is like you're saying, You can add a sales channel or you can add a product, and those are all ways to double the business. So it's like every time you add something, you can grow. So whether I add a new product or I add a new distribution like TikTok Shop, that's an opportunity for growth. So my day-to-day should be— because my day-to-day is just what keeps making Keto Snacks money, not what keeps making Carefree Kitchen money. Like, it's crazy. I basically don't do anything for the pasta company at this point other than It's really hard. It's, yeah, it's— but it shows the value of building an audience, you know, because like this, I wouldn't have got this much traction momentum without an audience, right? But it's like, so my day-to-day is just continuing to nurture my audience, and that translates to Carefree Kitchen.

That is true. The question that will come up is, as you double and double again, what's gonna break? and you will have operational things break, you will have supply chain things break, you'll have customer service loops break. So those are the things that we need to start putting people in place so that you are not pulled from nurturing audience to answering this angry customer email or worrying about this PO that's a little bit late because you didn't see it, you were posting content. So that's why I say that adding another channel is a couple steps from now. Because there's a couple team additions that I would recommend slip in here before we go aggressively double the business. But assuming those things were in place and they didn't break, yes, adding another product, probably going to double the business. Adding another channel, probably going to double the business.

Can you get tactical about TikTok Shop?

You want to know?

Like if I just wanted to go home and spend the next week, just every waking hour making TikTok Shop a success, what would that look like? Okay.

So for most people, TikTok Shop is all about getting influencers and other people to do content that they tie to TikTok Shop. And the grind of TikTok Shop is getting to that first $100,000 in sales through other creators because once you're at about $100,000 in in total sales on TikTok, you start to show up in their marketplace and be fed to other creators and influencers who will then organically pick you up and post about you. For you, you're going to blitz right through that because you've got a following on there and you can whip out content very quickly. So once you're set up on TikTok Shop and you make a few videos that are not sending people to Amazon, they're actually natively got the TikTok Shop button on that piece of content, you have $100,000 in sales after a couple of months, you might put some ad dollars behind the posts that do fairly well. You'll be able to track all that in TikTok Shop. Now you're starting to show up organically in the TikTok marketplace.

So it's basically like a different game. So the game I play on Instagram and Facebook is I make a recipe video. Let's just say they're very quick. So like, let's just say "if you make, or if you put marinara sauce, Alfredo sauce, chicken, and my keto pasta in a Crock-Pot for 4 hours, you get the best dinner." And then in the caption I say, "Find my keto pasta by searching Carefree Kitchen keto pasta on Amazon." And then that leads to a $5,000 boost or $10,000 boost in sales. So, but if a post doesn't result in as many sales, I know the one that did well, would be smarter to put ad dollars behind. So it's like, okay, well, I can take what's working on Meta and just do that same strategy on Facebook or on TikTok. But it's like the hurdle is how do I actually get my product on TikTok Shop is kind of what I meant when I said technical.

So it's a process just like getting set up on Amazon. You submit some forms, you go through the application process, you send inventory over there.

So basically the same way that when I manufacture pasta, we send 10,000 pounds to Amazon, I would then tell the guy who manufactures it, hey, we're also going to send 2,500 pounds to this warehouse that fulfills for TikTok.

That's correct.

So it's basically just like Amazon.

Correct. Now you can actually get TikTok and Amazon Fulfillment to talk to one another. But for simple terms, let's just assume you're going to send them to two different places.

Is it smarter to send it directly?

I would, yeah, from a cost perspective, yes. Now here's where you're going to benefit from TikTok Shop. When you do an Instagram video, you say, you take these ingredients, you take my Keto pasta, yay! And people go over to Amazon, type it in, find it, click the cart, buy it. Great, big sales day. TikTok, they watch the video and they hit buy. So it's right there.

So it could actually not just double it, but it could be more than double it. It could. If we're spending, say, $15K a month on Amazon ads, if I'm spending $15K a month on TikTok ads, but we're doing it with content that already performs well and converts well, is $15K a month likely to translate to hundreds of thousands of dollars in TikTok shop sales, or is there no way to know?

Let's not speculate just yet because we haven't even seen what the organic responses?

Well, the organic response is good. I get similar engagement on TikTok as I do on the other platforms.

But you're not set up on TikTok Shop, right? So we may— you may discover that just being able to have it bought right on TikTok way outperforms anything that is going over to Amazon. Doesn't mean it will, but in a lot of cases it does. So I would suggest you test that and then you worry about what you're gonna spend on TikTok. And once again, we are assuming that this is something that's gonna be done right away. I would suggest a few other steps before you go this route 'cause I don't think it would be a good idea to scale that quickly. But 3, 6 months from now, this may be a lever that you wanna pull.

Okay, and should I, does running out of stock on TikTok Shop damage you the way it does on Amazon?

Not as bad. Because TikTok can be turned on much faster, whereas Amazon is a compounding machine that you've gotta keep feeding. And you can respond, like you can get back to where you were when you run out of stock on Amazon, but it does happen faster on TikTok.

Okay, that's important to know because if I do do this as a test, it's like I don't have unlimited inventory. So I have to decide, are we gonna send 10% of this batch or 20%? It's like you're saying if you want to do a small test, it's not a huge deal because it doesn't matter if you're—

That's correct. That's correct. Yeah, don't do it at the expense of Amazon because that is already a 7-figure business.

So, no matter what I do, do not hurt the thing that's working.

Correct.

And that's why you say hire someone because if I'm in the way—

There are some defensible moves that need to be made to make sure that this very healthy growing 7-figure business continues to maintain its growth rate. And then there are experiments you can run to see if you want to make the boat move faster. All right.

Did you catch how Eric was kind of new to this idea of TikTok shop? He's maximized his exposure on Amazon and to his audience. Now he's looking at adding another channel. Notice how Eric is only asking these questions once he is already at $1 million. I think it is a mistake for entrepreneurs to be on multiple channels at the beginning of their business. It's only once you're at 7 figures that you should consider adding on TikTok Shop or adding on your own funnel. Maximize the channel where you are until you're in the low 7 figures, and then you can use those profits to invest in other channels and hire people who are already established and can help you make a splash. That's when you can have multiple channels that are all performing, not at the beginning of your business. Once you're at 7 figures, then invest into diversification. And we have seen where a 7-figure business adds in a channel like TikTok Shop and they go from $2 million to $8 million. I have a brand in my portfolio that did exactly that, but they could have never done it if they hadn't done the foundational work of having an asset that was already in the low 7 figures. Once you're there, it makes sense to invest into other places. If you want help making that transition of going from low 7 figures to building an 8-figure asset and adding multiple channels with service providers and agencies that we work with. You can find out how you can work within our ecosystem to go from a 7-figure business to in striking distance of an 8-figure asset. And you can find out more about how we work with people at Capitalism.com/partners.

All that happens is that you grow 10% a month this year. You've tripled the business.

But the problem is we may go down because like I said, the keto diet, people jump on it the first 3 months of the year and then they hop off of it. Should I— how do you respond to those? Say March is like we went from 140 to let's say 120 this month. Let's say it goes to 100 in March. Do I just say, "Oh, that makes sense. More people just fell off the bandwagon and stopped ordering keto pasta," or do I say, "Something must be going wrong. We have to go figure out what's wrong"?

Do you invest in stocks? Okay. Do you invest in stocks?

Yes, yes.

Okay. So you ever hear people talk about bubbles and there being like a 20% correction coming?

Mm-hmm.

What do you, what do you, what do you do to hedge against the 20% correction?

Nothing.

Right. Now, why is that?

Because if you just stay in the market, you generally end up ahead.

There is that. And also, you don't know when the bubble's going to burst. So if, in a lot of cases, when people are worried about bubbles or 20% pullbacks, the market will go up another 15%, 20% before there is a bubble that bursts, and you come down another 20%. So that pullback is actually still higher than where you were previously.

Ah, it's like the— if January is 140, and then we go down in February, it's still like triple what last February was.

Uh-huh, yes. And so your job is to continue those tailwinds. And so it doesn't necessarily mean something is broken. If you were to see 3 months of consistent downward trends, now it's time to investigate something. But in most cases, for a business like yours, you are growing so fast in the aggregate that your job is just to continue those tailwinds. And what does that look like? It means being really good to your customers, getting lots of reviews, posting those reviews, responding to negative reviews, posting about the product once in a while when it feels good, building the email list. That's what it looks like. And as you do that, those compounding returns continue to add up over the next 12 months. So you become less and less affected by seasonality because you have people unsubscribe and save and repeat customers and people discovering you for the first time. And you, you don't worry about those temporary downturns so much. Then a few months from now, you launch product number 2. And these are the things you think about rather than what happens if there's a seasonal downturn.

That makes sense. Okay.

So I think you're sitting on a $10 million business. I've seen a few of these. So this one looks really obvious to me. Is there anything else that you feel like is in your way of doing that? Because, right, to me it just looks like more good products and time and the right team.

Yeah, I would just say, I think I'm the only person in the way, and it's like the more I can take advice like this and do the things, you know, I'm not the person in the way because—

You're also the driver.

I'm also the driver. It's like, if I keep responding to every comment and every time someone messages me about the pasta and say they love it and I say, "Oh, did you leave a review yet?" It's like, It's like, so I'm in the game of you post and then you get 3 million views and that feels, you get a huge surge of dopamine. And then also, or a brand emails you and they're like, we wanna pay you $20,000 for this campaign and you get a huge surge of dopamine. But it's like the 10 DMs you sent that day aren't as rewarding. But it's like, I just need, I need to attach replying to those 10 messages with some sort of— it just, I guess it just comes down to discipline. Like, it's like you don't need a huge reward to do the things.

There is that, but once again, Eric, I shared with you the plan getting beyond a million is different than the plan of getting to a million. And there are some boring systems that you start to develop over a million so that your team is continuously reaching out to customers and asking them for reviews.

So like you said, a brand manager.

Yes.

That's where I can refocus on the, the other things.

You go launch the rice and you're suddenly excited to go ask for those 10 reviews because going from 0 reviews to 10 reviews is actually a great dopamine dump.

Exactly.

But going from 600 reviews to 610 reviews, not a very good dopamine day.

Exactly.

So you are freed up to focus on the next shiny object. That grows the business while the team is maintaining the systems that just need to be there to grow the overall health of the business.

I think that's a good— the shiny object is like a good way to put it because it is like, that is the way to make myself excited. And when I'm excited, I can just run through walls. It's like, but when I'm not excited, it's like a little more of like a, like, tough journey.

Yeah. And that means that the next step for you is to have proper people in place to support the boring stuff. And you're never gonna, you're never gonna believe this, Eric. There are people actually like the boring stuff.

Yeah.

They want to do the boring stuff. And now you're freed up to go pursue the next breakthrough, which is what is going to take this to $10 million.

Yep.

Great.

Thank you. I'm very excited to get there.

I'm rooting for you, dude. Really excited. Give it up for Eric Wiggins. Thank you.

The process of building a 7-figure business is creating a high-margin product that you believe in, getting those first initial customers, building the highway to consistent sales, and then launching as many products as you need to get to that 7-figure run rate. But the playbook to getting to 8 figures is very different. It looks like graduating from entrepreneur and becoming an owner. It looks like bringing in the relationships that are required in order to support the growth of that business, that have skill sets that you may not have. It also looks like having the proper structure and the proper valuation of the business, because when Ira goes out and raises a little bit of capital to professionalize the business, he's now got an asset that he can use to recruit talent and recruit operators and recruit better terms with his supplier. That's the type of conversation that becomes possible once you're at 7 figures, and that's when you can start building an asset that could potentially be sold for an 8-figure payday. If you'd like some help and some support from myself and my team on making that transition of going from 7 figures to 8, you can find out how we work with people at Capitalism.com/partners. And if you want to support Irek's business, you can find out more by just searching Carefree Kitchen and buying all of his products. Irik is actually one of the partners that we work with inside of one of our brands. He owns a little bit of equity in our business because we're using our own formula of partnering with influencers and investors and advisors, giving them a small piece of the business so that we can grow a much bigger pie. That's how you grow from 7 figures to 8 figures. And I hope you enjoyed this case study of how Irik built a 7-figure business that now he's gonna grow to an 8-figure asset.

Asset.

I'm Ryan Daniel Moran with Capitalism.com. Thank you for watching.

I'll see you guys next time.