Roman Khan | Buying $10-50m DTC brands
@RomanEcom
Followers
11,275
Following
1,008
Media
171
Statuses
3,428
I buy & operate DTC brands ( @rayconglobal , @linjerco etc). I bootstrapped myself to 9 figures of revenue profitably.
Hong Kong
Joined July 2014
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
Cheney
• 487384 Tweets
Michigan
• 184932 Tweets
England
• 144945 Tweets
Ireland
• 121886 Tweets
MSNBC
• 69078 Tweets
الكويت
• 50822 Tweets
Lookman
• 44685 Tweets
Grealish
• 31738 Tweets
Arkansas
• 29132 Tweets
#MustafaKamalinAskerleriyiz
• 28690 Tweets
Kentucky
• 27555 Tweets
PLANETARIO FURIOSO
• 24085 Tweets
Iowa
• 22415 Tweets
#كاريزما63
• 19864 Tweets
Musiala
• 16749 Tweets
Penn State
• 16054 Tweets
Pedro Almodóvar
• 13526 Tweets
Ewers
• 12390 Tweets
#BaşkomutanErdoğan
• 11572 Tweets
Riya
• 10113 Tweets
Pinned Tweet
We sold $200,000,000+ worth of earbuds in 3.5 years.
All bootstrapped with zero funding.
Here’s how we did it. 🧵
114
211
2K
We will buy close to $30,000,000 worth of goods from China this year with an average of 85 day payment terms blended.
These are 9 frequent mistakes I see founders make when sourcing from China 🧵
49
92
902
Just talked to a 21 year old kid via
@mentorpass
He’s doing $110K a month with $30K in profit drop-shipping something from China.
Mono-product store with an off the shelf
@Shopify
template that cost $20 and an attractive BOGO offer
Takeaways:
1.
@Shopify
is an insane
51
34
685
How to turn $5m into $100m+ in a few months:
What Copycat King Oliver Samwer taught me during my early days at Rocket Internet.
Trust me, the story is crazy.
🧵:
23
45
338
We pay on average $450 per Virtual Assistant (and no recruitment fees).
We have more than 100+ VA's around the globe.
I have never understood why people pay more than $1K on Twitter.
Below I'm sharing our 5 step process for hiring Virtual Assistants at scale.
I hope this
@obviceo
We pay on average $450 per VA. We have more than 100 across all our companies.
Never understood why people pay more than $1K on Twitter.
If you’re looking for a VA - then your screening exercise will be key. We have some templates and processes
Then you just post it on the
16
6
98
38
93
262
@ecommercefuel
Our playbook:
Year 1: Google Ads + Facebook Ads
Year 2: Google Ads + Facebook Ads + influencer marketing
Year 3: Optimize the above and blitzscale
5
8
203
Building in public:
At Peak 21 we're about to acquire a very large asset.
I am contemplating building in public:
- Share numbers pre-acquisition
- Provide quarterly updates post-acquisition
- Provide transparency on fuck ups and things that go well
Is this something my
32
0
140
@ecommercefuel
My main takeaways?
1. Start with the right product.
2. Be like Ray. Do your homework. 🤓 😈
Now, want to know exactly how we scaled our influencer marketing?
Reply with INFLUENCER, and I’ll write a thread.
37
1
119
Anyone who knows me knows I’m a huge Brad Jacobs fan.
Re-reading this for a 2nd time this week (bought it 2.5 weeks ago approx)
Highly recommend it to anyone wanting to think big
20
0
118
Back in SF for the first time in 5+ years and I forgot how bad a lot of vc funded companies are at ads
wtf is clickup
53
0
117
Oh btw his product images were AI generated 😂
6
0
112
You get to wear up to 6 hats in life:
1. Father
2. Husband
3. Son
4. Brother
5. Friends
6. Operator
I am turning 39 this year. Divorces are spiking like crazy in my friend circles right now.
It was pretty obvious who was gonna get divorced from day 1.
Usually it is the mans
I’m about to be a father!!! 🤯
What’s your BEST piece of parenting advice?
979
17
2K
12
3
102
Forget website CRO.
The most important CRO workstream in 2024:
Garner a continuous stream of product reviews on YouTube.
If you’re sub <$10M but > $5M:
5 to 10 reviews a month.
Above $10m:
1 new review per day
Post purchase surveys tell us that 4 out of 10 customers watch
15
6
96
@obviceo
We pay on average $450 per VA. We have more than 100 across all our companies.
Never understood why people pay more than $1K on Twitter.
If you’re looking for a VA - then your screening exercise will be key. We have some templates and processes
Then you just post it on the
16
6
98
@ecommercefuel
Our sales grew from $100 to $20,000 a day in less than two weeks.
200x sales with just one product.
Wireless earbuds.
5
1
94
Making the most of this trip to NYC! Stayed in Manhattan (close to meetings: time = money), hosted dinner with eCommerce friends, and met new people.
Most importantly, trip was short & sweet, so I can get home to my kids*.
*budget = 40 days away from my kids per year
11
2
93
Cost Cap Update
#6
:
I was lucky enough to have
@DaveRekuc
swing by our office in NYC 10 days ago.
He audited 1 of my ad accounts that is 100% cost cap (we run another account for non cost cap for the same brand).
He convinced me to switch all of the campaigns from 1 DC + 7DV to
21
1
94
I just spent 1.5 days in Austin.
Met with 25+ D2C founders.
1 person doing $1B+ a year (omni)
2 people doing $100M+ a year
5 people doing $50M+
Crazy. 🤯
Surprised by how many high quality D2C companies there are in the city.
I’ll definitely be back
Thank you to
Hosting a brunch in Austin on the 9th of March. I hope to see you there.
Founders only. No service providers.
1
0
7
12
3
81
@ecommercefuel
Our sales skyrocketed over the next few years.
2018: $7 million
2019: $32 million
2020: $72 million
All bootstrapped. All profitable.
How did we do it?
5
1
84
Our youngest one spotted with Peak 21 merch
12
0
86
@ecommercefuel
I looked through their product categories to identify the most promising one.
The CAGR for wireless earbuds was insane.
And Google Trends, keyword volume… everything pointed in the right direction.
Earbuds should be the focus.
1
1
85
META COST CAP UPDATE:
1st of January we made an extreme pivot.
We moved 100% of
@linjerco
Meta spend to cost cap only.
Our thesis:
Running cost cap ONLY would lead to MORE spend at the same if not HIGHER ROAS.
Before this test:
- 85% of spend ASC / ABOs
- 15% cost cap
The Twitter D2C Cost Cap Mafia finally got to me.
This week we turned off all campaigns and are running cost cap only.
24 hours in and its yielding decent results.
Pray for us.
I'll share our post mortem here.
7
1
56
14
2
83
Oddity IPO seemed to have been mispriced.
Stocks jumped 40% on opening.
They have two brands Il Makiage and Spoiled Child.
Insane company. I'm shocked by the numbers:
2020: $110.6m sales @ $11.7m net income
2021: $226.6m sales @ $13.9m net income
2022: $324.5m sales @
18
3
83
The most frequently asked question I get:
"What category would you go after if you had to start from scratch in D2C? - and what attributes would you look for?"
(Watch the clip at 1.5x the speed as I talk too slowly)
This 5-minute clip from
@RomanEcom
will teach you more about starting a business than most semester-long MBA courses.
2
2
46
6
3
83
I’m in NYC this week. Most of my followers think I live here, but I actually live in Hong Kong!
❤️🇭🇰 Why I love living in HK:
- I have two young kids, and it's easy and affordable to get support at home with nannies.
- Extremely safe. No random shootings, thefts, etc. Never
17
2
81
Prediction:
In 5 years someone will build a brand as large as Gymshark focused on exercise gear made of natural materials (non synthetics).
Go to market might be female focused to start - i.e more Lululemon focused audience with leggings etc.
22
0
80
@ecommercefuel
On Monday, I gave Ray some homework.
Produce 3 landing pages and 20 ad creatives for a wireless audio brand.
Due Friday.
Meanwhile, I went into his ad accounts to set up pixels and prep campaigns.
5
3
79
I often find agency people to be great hires.
They’re used to neurotic clients who are never satisfied - and every week they are at the edge of being fired by their client.
Makes me come across as an angel when they do join my team 😂
16
1
78
Here’s how losing 24 pounds led me to $24 million in revenue.
It’s also a story about why I buy “transformative” businesses at Peak 21.
A very personal thread 🧵:
10
7
74
@ecommercefuel
Why earbuds?
Because Apple had just removed the headphone jack from iPhones and introduced AirPods.
So I had an idea:
Earbuds at HALF the price of Apple’s.
Kill the e-bikes and other random shit and become a premium wireless audio brand.
4
0
73
Just closed the biggest transaction we’ve ever done.
Super hesitant about building in public given the responses here lol
I think our CEO and CFO will shoot me
Building in public:
At Peak 21 we're about to acquire a very large asset.
I am contemplating building in public:
- Share numbers pre-acquisition
- Provide quarterly updates post-acquisition
- Provide transparency on fuck ups and things that go well
Is this something my
32
0
140
16
0
74
2. Founders don’t visit their factories frequently enough
You’ve found PMF. You’re growing.
Your factory is your most important partner
Focus on meeting them at trade shows in addition to at least 2 factory visits per year.
You’ll achieve three things:
A. You build
2
1
72
Unspoken truth:
Your personal liquid net worth dictates the quality of your decision making as a founder.
Especially if you’re a bootstrapped.
I became a better founder when I passed >$2.5M in liquid networth (net all liabilities).
What is your magic number?
12
2
71
The best CEOs in consumer are the CMOs
14
2
69
The reason it’s so hard to replace a D2C founder for a growth role is because the founder is allowed to make gut based decisions and an employee is not.
When an employee fails at an experiment - founders have a tendency to say: “but what did the data say?”
When a founder does
10
2
69
I am a huge fan of
@DenneyDara
YouTube channel.
My team learns a ton watching her videos and I highly recommend subscribing to it
7
1
67
I stopped listening to podcasts 5-6 weeks ago and I’m way more productive.
I’ll listen certain episodes occasionally but vast majority of pods are a waste of time or hustleporn / distraction from getting shit done
14
1
64
Just had a call with a eCom SaaS founder who just told me he wanted to start a D2C brand.
I told him - that's like me saying I want to start an airline - the quickest way to loose money 😂
The grass always seems greener my friends
14
1
63
@ecommercefuel
Why did I advise him not to sell shoes?
I’d also tried to start a shoe biz a few years earlier.
SKU, colors, size, styles… too complicated.
Too much working capital needed.
We failed quickly.
I wanted Ray to learn from our failure.
2
0
62
@thesamparr
3,500 sqft is too big. You want to wake up to the sound of your kids. Life is too short not to. 600 sqft per child x 4 kids (your KPI) = 2,400 sqft
11
0
62
When people waiting on your downfall but you a goat
4
1
60
D2C Rule at Peak 21:
Never dip below $1M in revenue per FTE p.a (run rate) for more than 6 months.
We’re at $1.5M+ for most of our companies (ex VAs).
When Alibaba acquired Lazada (ex employer) I had already left the company. I heard though, from ex-colleagues that when Jack
6
1
61
If you liked this thread: please follow and share. I am trying to grow my following this year.
I buy grow and sell D2C companies for a living.
If you know a D2C brand I should buy: please refer me. I pay up to $100K for any things the leads to an acquisition.
5
0
60
Cost Cap Update:
We’ve cracked it 🥳
Higher efficiency at much higher spend 💪
1. We fixed our OOS issues
2. We’ve figured out how to line up cost caps with merchandising events
I think if it was not for the OOS issues we’d crack this in 8 weeks or so.
META COST CAP UPDATE:
1st of January we made an extreme pivot.
We moved 100% of
@linjerco
Meta spend to cost cap only.
Our thesis:
Running cost cap ONLY would lead to MORE spend at the same if not HIGHER ROAS.
Before this test:
- 85% of spend ASC / ABOs
- 15% cost cap
14
2
83
9
1
61
I just hit 10,000 followers🙏🙏🙏
Thank you for following me.
About me:
I’ve been in D2C the past 10 years and now focus on buying D2C companies that do $5-50M in revenue.
DM me if you’re thinking of selling your company.
If you know a founder looking to sell - I’ll pay you
I am 330 followers away from hitting 10K goal for Q1.
14 days to go.
7
1
35
6
0
61
@ecommercefuel
If you’ve read this far, you deserve a voucher.
Use ROMAN20 to get 20% off on .
4
2
60
This book that you probably never heard of is one of my favorites.
I actually find myself re-reading it at start of each year (just finished it again).
It's been instrumental in my thinking and I find myself gifting it to founders who are contemplating selling to Peak 21 or
12
2
59
3. Buy some chopsticks off Amazon for $2
It’s 2024 learn to eat with chopsticks. $2 investment that will make you look less like a fish out of water
3
0
58
8. Hire a reputable QC agency until you have scale
It pays for itself. QC every shipment. Don’t trust anyone.
One bad shipment and you’re in the red for the year.
In eCom you live or die in the decimals.
Once you achieve scale take QC in-house and recruit the most
6
1
55
I’m now on
@MentorPass
to share my expertise from growing brands like
@rayconglobal
and
@LinjerCo
.
If you book a call with me, 100% of the proceeds will go to the charity of your choice (thanks to Ben Cogan for the inspiration).
📄 Details:
My rate starts at $200 per hour.
12
1
57
The Twitter D2C Cost Cap Mafia finally got to me.
This week we turned off all campaigns and are running cost cap only.
24 hours in and its yielding decent results.
Pray for us.
I'll share our post mortem here.
7
1
56
In 2017, Ray Lee contacted me on
@ecommercefuel
(a platform for ecommerce pros).
Ray wanted to start a shoe business.
I told him not to.
That was the end of our interaction.
2
2
55
Thank you for having me on.
This was so much fun
Operators E048
Roman Khan: Buying and Growing DTC Companies
@RomanEcom
@SeanEcom
@mikebeckhamsm
@JasonPanzer
@mbertulli
6
1
38
16
2
56
Founder to follow:
@pauljauregui
made a killer presentation on how he scaled Tik Tok for BK Beauty at
@ecommercefuel
live.
Mandatory homework for anyone who wants to learn: not necessarily how to scale TT, but how relentless focus pays off big time. Diversification is for the
5
3
54
Started Tweeting in April this year.
It's been fantastic. I've made so many new friends.
Resolution for 2024 is to Tweet more.
Thank you the people who follow me and the love.
Hope to make more friends next year
9
0
52
Every week the M&A team at Peak 21 will present 1 or 2 brands that are having extreme growth (Raycon style) - because of product market fit and impeccable timing of launch.
Usually the products have a cool set of features or a unique spin to something old.
Whenever people say
We sold $200,000,000+ worth of earbuds in 3.5 years.
All bootstrapped with zero funding.
Here’s how we did it. 🧵
114
211
2K
5
1
52
Just wrapped up my first
@prenuvo
scan.
What a money printing business 😅🤯
Prenuvo offers full body MRIs.
Doing full body MRIs help with pre-emptive care (i.e catch cancer early).
High level numbers:
- $2,500 for full body scan
- 90% of people do a full body scan
- NYC
15
1
51
10 year anniversary for
@ecommercefuel
Live.
Congrats to
@youderian
for building the most vibrant eCom community in the world
3
1
50
Life hack: no meetings Monday and Friday
12
1
51
9. Lastly: negotiate hard but be fair
Make sure to negotiate a fixed factory margin so your factory does not suffer with a BOM led approach. They need to eat.
A starving partner is a liability, not an asset.
6
2
50
100 ads live vs 1,000 with a 100% cost cap structure does not result in a linear scale in spend but an exponential one.
Ads = Fuel
Brand = Car
Creative Team = Lewis Hamilton
9
2
51
AMAZON AGGREGATOR RUMOURS:
Thrasio merging with someone else
Perch going under
The beginning of the end of an era ?
Im hearing most listings are going for 1.5 to 2x SDE. I’d love to hear the reality of it if anyone can share what they are seeing
20
3
49
Our fastest growing marketing channel grew 1,000%+ last year and fueled more than $5,000,000+ in revenue at an insane ROAS.
We think it will fuel more than $10M+ this year.
I bet you'd never guess what channel it was.
Hint:
It was NOT:
- Meta
- Google
- Tik Tok
- Email
- SMS
9
2
46
I'll be in the US from the 3rd to the 13th of March this year.
Please DM if you'd like to meet.
I am a founder of Peak 21 and we buy D2C companies.
Itinerary:
3rd - 5th: NYC
5th to 8th: New Orleans (speaking at eCommerceFuel)
8th to 9th: Austin
9th to 13th: NYC
Looking
8
0
47
Meta has been really rough in March.
I wonder how April will be.
Jan & Feb were so so strong. Got my hopes up for the year lol
10
0
47
2024 will be an insane year for D2C imo.
1/ Meta is back
2/ We’re not in a recession
3/ Dumb VC ad dollars are gone
4/ and: meta is back.
ecom investment fell hard.
harder than even crypto
This is ecom bottom.
I think the great dying is over.
Lack of funding will lead to the last little squeeze of shutdowns in q1.
Q2 2024 starts the cycle over.
8 YEARS OF UP!
Stay in stock.
Stay in business.
LETS GO.
21
8
174
6
1
44
Another level of going all in on building when you’ve already made it:
6
0
45
The easiest $100,000 USD you’ll ever make:
Read below👇then like and share 🙏
-
I just wrapped up
@AWConferences
Bangkok for
@Peak21_
as a headline speaker.
This is the first time I do public speaking since I left Rocket Internet a decade ago.
The goal is to get in front of
10
1
46
6 POWERFUL ways to manage your ENVY
Last week I spent time with an ex-colleague who missed out on joining a unicorn as a co-founder because he said no to the opportunity when it was at the "garage" stage.
The FOMO passed the fine line into envy and jealousy.
He kept trashing
9
3
46
BFCM recap: ~flat Y-o-Y. Profits are up, not out of choice but because we could not scale at acceptable CAC levels
My main takeaways this Q4:
- Meta is back thanks to ASC. We underinvested
- TT sucked balls for scaling during Q4 for our brands
11
0
45
4. Negotiate payment terms, margin and lead times with transparency
Instead of going in hot headed throwing random numbers around, focus on common ground.
E.g this year
@LinjerCo
will grow quite a bit so we outlined the COGS growth potential.
We told our core supplier in
2
2
44
"When things are going well, be calm. Don't think you're on top of the world."
Wish I'd had De Niro in my ear when I made my first million in 2017. I let success go to my head and went blitzscaling too early too fast without the fundamentals in place. Nearly went bankrupt 🥲
5
5
44
1. Don’t be an obnoxious foreigner
Don’t discuss politics, religion or state of affairs. You’re not there to win hearts and minds. You’re there to make money
1
1
44
Much easier to build an audience on LinkedIn than X
22
0
44
Hot take: Real men don't play video games
37
2
43
If you found this thread interesting:
1. Follow me
@RomanEcom
for anecdotes and insights about DTC, entrepreneurship, and investing.
2. RT the tweet below to share this story with your followers.
We sold $200,000,000+ worth of earbuds in 3.5 years.
All bootstrapped with zero funding.
Here’s how we did it. 🧵
114
211
2K
14
4
42
7 figure idea that requires $0 start up capital:
Help 7 and low 8 figure
@ShopifyPlus
stores geo localise their store experiences.
I’d pay $500 per month per country (sub store) for:
- Maintaining translations (you can charge for new words)
- Maintaining product catalogues
3
6
42
This is the
#1
HACK for D2C brands sourcing from China:
I am just about to borrow HKD$9M (US$1.15M) at 3.625% APR (floating) pegged to HK prime rates.
This is for a company that will do US$25-30M this year.
AMA
We will buy close to $30,000,000 worth of goods from China this year with an average of 85 day payment terms blended.
These are 9 frequent mistakes I see founders make when sourcing from China 🧵
49
92
902
10
1
42
Woke up to this today (I'm in Bali right now)🤯
Thank you for all the love Twitter.
11 days into the year and my resolution was to build an audience. So glad to see that my content is resonating.
This is the energy shot I needed to keep going
More to come.
10
0
41
@ecommercefuel
A year later, Ray reached out to me again about another business.
He had just launched a consumer electronics brand with the artist Ray J.
Their catalog ranged from $1,200 e-bikes and hoverboards to Bluetooth mics and wireless speakers.
2
0
41
He looks like a straight up crook still. Nothing has changed
11
0
41
Proud investor
Introducing my newest company, Kanpai Foods.
We are a Freeze Dried Candy manufacturer based out of Los Angeles.
Since launching in late 2023, we have added 1k+ doors to our retail roster, and we expect to double that by end of Q2.
I couldn't have done it alone.
I have an
28
3
99
2
0
41
I just spent the day in Shenzhen visiting our jewellery factories for
@LinjerCo
.
One really interesting takeaway:
The local demand in China for engagement rings is shrinking dramatically according to the local suppliers and basket sizes are coming down like crazy (people on
4
0
41
Harsh truth:
If you’re a D2C founder you’re a glorified category manager for Meta*
In 9 out of 10 cases you have worse economics than a senior VP at Meta.
*assuming >70% of your ad budget goes to Meta
9
0
41
@ecommercefuel
I told him I wouldn’t work with him if he wasn’t serious and didn’t do the homework.
On Friday, he turned in the homework.
We were off to the races.
2
1
41
$100,000,000 idea?
I wonder why none of the big meal plan providers have not jumped on
@bryan_johnson
trend and launched a Blueprint meal plan.
I feel like all the
@hubermanlab
bros would pay $50 a day for these meals to be delivered on their doorsteps
4
1
40
Being in a US time zone for the past 20+ days has doubled my net worth.
8
0
39
25 day road trip to the US starts now:
- HKG to SF as landing spot
- Vegas to attend the ABC Show
- Back to SF for meetings with investors
- LA for a day to meet a company
- Columbia, Missouri for
@CapitalCamp
- St Louis to see
@jspujji
- NYC for Commerce Summit
- Then in NYC
15
0
39
6. Master the art of a BOM negotiation
BOM = bill of material
Google what it means and for examples. Every single SKU should have a BOM.
E.g for
@LinjerCo
lab diamond prices are dropping like a rock. By having a BOM we automatically benefit from these price drops. We update
4
2
38
I want to thank the American consumer for feeding my family.
Thank you 'MERICA 🇺🇸
3
0
37
The most rewarding feeling you experience as a founder is to see your product in the wild.
90%+ of
@rayconglobal
sales are in the US.
I live in Hong Kong and never really see our customers.
The past 4-5 days I’ve seen so many customers with our products (I check out peoples
5
0
36
Never procrastinate on getting rid of a bad apple
3
3
37
I am 330 followers away from hitting 10K goal for Q1.
14 days to go.
7
1
35
My goal this year is to grow my Twitter following. If this post was of any value to you - please hit the follow button.
If this post gets traction then I'll do follow up posts talking about:
1/ How to manage an army of VAs at scale
=> I'll share our async report templates
=>
12
4
36