Make Products For Yourself

Robert Oliver shares his experience with building successful brands on TikTok, particularly focusing on his cologne brand Top Shelf and skincare brand Evil Goods. He discusses how he identifies market opportunities, leverages social media for growth, and approaches product development.

Building Successful TikTok-Driven Brands

• Impressive Results:

  • Top Shelf cologne brand is doing "close to a million bucks a month"
  • Evil Goods (beef tallow skincare) has "gone just nuclear"
  • Achieved 600 million views in a month with about $100K in marketing spend

• Product Selection Strategy:

  • "Pick something you like and see some area of disruption and make stuff for yourself"
  • Chose cologne because he likes high fashion and design
  • Wanted to "build a Creed for Gen Z" (Creed being a luxury fragrance brand selling at $250/bottle)

• Market Opportunity Identification:

  • Look for categories with "grassroots movements" (like beef tallow in skincare)
  • Target areas where you can "market to fear" (big pharma, toxins in products)
  • Focus on products where "people feel like they're learning something"

• Brand Positioning:

  • Consider aggressive naming (Evil Goods) which could be risky for retail but potentially powerful like Liquid Death
  • Position luxury products at more accessible price points
  • Connect products to larger cultural movements (holistic wellness, anti-toxin)

• Product Development Process:

  • For cologne, hired a "professional nose" through business connections
  • Started with multiple samples, selected one to scale
  • First month only did $700 with "murdered with bad reviews"
  • Had to learn the industry from scratch

• Marketing Insights:

  • TikTok creates a "flywheel" effect: social views drive Google searches and Amazon rankings
  • Uses tools like Kalo Data to track top-performing products on TikTok
  • Recognizes the power of scent in marketing: "the least used sense in marketing"

• Scaling Approach:

  • Initially focused on Amazon sales without sophisticated tracking
  • Now adapting to TikTok Shop's commission structure despite changing unit economics
  • Maintains multiple products in top rankings