I Make $11M/Year Selling One Product

Starter Story • • 13min • #8
I Make $11M/Year Selling One Product
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Summary

  • Oliver Brocato

    • Started Tabs Chocolate during Christmas break of his freshman year of college, at age 19
    • Drained his entire bank account, $30,000 saved from previous ventures, to fund the business
    • Became a millionaire by age 21, generating $11 million in revenue in two years with no outside investment
    • Constantly reinvested every dollar back into the business to fuel growth

  • Products and Offerings

    • Tabs Chocolate is an edible supplement product designed for sexual wellness
    • Combines popular natural supplements typically sold as pills or powders into a luxury chocolate format
    • Each chocolate features a branded two-T logo and a clean break line for splitting
    • Packaged in custom-designed boxes with a premium, high-end feel

  • How He Found the Idea

    • Discovered the concept by scrolling TikTok and saw a video of a teenage girl reviewing sex chocolate that had 8 million views and 2 million likes
    • The original product had no website, no social media presence, and no real brand infrastructure
    • Recognized the concept was already validated as inherently viral and saw an opportunity to build a real brand around it
    • Spent a full year developing the product before launching, obsessing over every detail of the customer experience

  • Manufacturing and Supply Chain

    • Boxes are designed in-house using Canva and Figma, then sent to a manufacturer in China
    • Chocolate and anything that touches the chocolate is manufactured in the United States for quality control
    • Supplements are sourced from four or five niche manufacturers, each specializing in a specific ingredient
    • Individual chocolate wrapping has its own dedicated manufacturer
    • The full supply chain involves coordinating multiple independent suppliers across different countries

  • Metrics and Financials

    • On track to do approximately $11 million in revenue this year
    • First month generated over $280,000 in revenue at roughly 50% net margins
    • First three weeks sold out of all inventory, immediately moved to pre-orders
    • In the first year, was out of stock more months than in stock, yet still did around $4 million in revenue
    • Started with $30,000 total startup capital

  • Strategy and Growth

    • Built the entire growth engine around short-form social media, primarily TikTok
    • Created a content machine with over 60 creators producing videos daily across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and other short-form platforms
    • Content is designed to look native, riding trending sounds, movements, and formats to maximize organic reach
    • Exploits a loophole in the TikTok algorithm where emotionally provocative content, regardless of the emotion, gets pushed out and shared widely
    • The product itself is inherently novel, which triggers emotional arousal and drives people to watch, share, and engage
    • Uses a web of accounts to repost content across thousands of profiles
    • Supplements organic efforts with paid placements on meme pages with tens of millions of followers
    • Runs some Google ads and uses email and text message marketing for bottom-of-funnel conversion
    • Focuses on building a brand with cult-like loyalty rather than chasing short-term dropshipping trends
    • Brand equity creates evergreen customers who return for new product drops and SKUs

  • Lessons and Advice

    • The power of a brand is that a product can sell out in 30 seconds because of the identity and community built around it
    • Dropshipping lacks brand equity and makes it nearly impossible to build long-term value
    • Founders focused on building real brands will always win over those chasing short-term trends
    • To find manufacturers, Google extensively, go through pages of results, build a spreadsheet, and start calling and emailing directly
    • Many manufacturers ignore small founders, so finding a smaller operation willing to take a bet on you is key
    • An MVP e-commerce brand can be started for under $10,000
    • The biggest startup costs are research and development and producing the first sample
    • Inventory management is a perpetual challenge; ordering as much as possible in advance helps but demand forecasting remains difficult
    • Shipping inventory by boat instead of air is cheaper but takes four times longer and can cause devastating delays
    • His core advice: just go out and make things happen, because progress compounds daily and one day you wake up having built something massive
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