â From starving artist to multi-millionaire â Hey Contrarians, Successful beauty brands. They arenât always worth replicating. Pull back a few curtains, and youâll often find string-pullers: a savvy manager or corporation who leveraged a rich womanâs personal brand. Cynical? For sure. True? Not always. Especially not in the story I want to share today. Youâve never heard a tale with both so much real struggle and so many fake eyelashes⦠â
Today in 10 minutes or less, you'll learn: âï¸ Contrarian framework: The underdog advantage âï¸ The woman who went from starving artist to $50M/year âï¸ Lessons from a 27-year-old millionaire âï¸ How Iâd replicate this in 2023 â
Sponsored by Ethos Life insurance that gives you freedom to live. â[Ethos]() offers life insurance without time-consuming medical exams or blood tests â just answer a few health questions in a quick, online application. They've eliminated the paperwork and put you in control of the process. No hassle â [protect your loved ones here.]()â â
Contrarian framework: The Underdog Advantage Business is hard. Directly competing against Fortune 500 companies? Downright terrifying. Being intimidated is part of the game. But fyi: the big guys arenât invincible. Why? Because you have an edge⦠Something I call the Underdog Advantage. As someone whoâs worked for a few top-dog companies, believe me when I say most donât give a ratâs ass about the customer. To them, we arenât humans with thoughts, feelings, and complex lives. No, we are but numbers in a spreadsheet that must be beefed up alongside a dozen other KPIs. Thatâs where you come in. With a teaspoon of soul and a dash of care, itâs possible to steal customers right out from under them. Today, weâre spilling the tea on Ann McFerran, a Thai immigrant who did exactly that â went up against the big guys, and won big. Hereâs her story. â
The woman who went from starving artist to $50M/year Itâs 2018, and 26-year-old Ann is sick of being an artist. Sure, she sells paintings for $5,000 to $10,000, but thatâs only when she can find buyers. Not sure if youâve noticed, but not everyone is willing to drop $10k on a piece of art. â Tired of feast and famine cycles, Ann decided she wanted to do something else with paint. Enter: makeup. In a quest for eyelashes, Ann discovered most on the market were total crap. The adhesive ones got glue in your eyes, and the ones that claimed to be magnetic were next to useless. At the time, companies that made magnetic lashes opted for a cheap, machine-operated manufacturing process. Of course, this made the magnets stick worse, but who cares, eh? As long as we lower costs. Learning this sparked Ann's light bulb moment. Fed up with the marketâs shortcuts, she decided to launch her own magnetic lashes which would be 100% handmade. The big question: How would a semi-starving artist/psychobiology major manage that? After months of research and binge-watching product development and supply chain management videos on YouTube, Ann claimed the handle [@glamnetic]( on Instagram. [$1,500 later](=), she made her first bulk order â 100 units each of 5 different eyelash styles at $4 a pop. In July 2019, her first batch of eyelashes were ready to sell for $30. Two months after launch, sheâd sold $1M of inventory. One year later, she was cruising at [$50M in annual revenue](). â Scaling from $0 to $50M in <2 years is impressive for any industry. But to do it in e-comm, where [90% of businesses fail in the first 120 days]()? Let's look at the ingredients in Annâs recipe. â
Lessons from a 27-year-old millionaire Lesson #1: Embrace the struggle One look at Annâs [Instagram](=) and you might be quick to label her. A spoiled millennial who lives off Daddyâs money. But that couldnât be further from the truth. Born into a poor family in Thailand, she wore bruises inflicted by an abusive alcoholic father. Watched as he bashed her mother. All before she was forcefully torn from her sister in a bitter divorce. Thatâs a ton of baggage for any 5-year-old. Even after moving to the US with her mother, her looks made it difficult to fit in. When youâre the new Asian kid in an all-white school, you get awkward stares. Pointing fingers. Unwelcome hands. With that kind of attention at that age, itâs only a matter of time before you feel the need to blend in⦠Like Ann did with makeup. Instead of folding under her struggles, she turned them into fuel. Her makeup obsession led to a multi-million dollar product. The chip on her shoulder helped her scale from $0 to $50M in a ridiculously short timeframe. Next time youâre tempted to run from lifeâs struggles? Remember: the life you want is on the other side of them. Not the opposite direction. â Lesson #2: Hustle hard In my years on Main Street, I've learned that resources donât matter as much as we think. Endless capital, graduate degrees, or multi-millionaire mentors doesn't bring success. Hustling does. Aka, finding a way to get sh*t done, even when you donât know how. Take Ann, for example. The first ever models she ever got for Glamnetics weren't pros she hired off a fashion runway. Nope, they were girls she hustled off Bumble BFF. After 11 right swipes, she wrangled them into her 300 sq. ft. studio apartment in Koreatown to try out her first batch of eyelashes. Days after final product testing, she messaged all 30k of her Instagram followers to score some sales. No bots. No VAs⦠All Ann. If you don't have money? Use time. Where there's a will, there's a way. â Lesson #3: Start with what you have Turns out, 40% of prospective entrepreneurs donât pull the trigger on starting a biz because they say they donât have enough capital? Of course, it can be a valid reason. You need money to spend money to make money. But how do you know when you have enough? Are you sure youâre not just mentally inflating that number as an excuse to procrastinate? Many of your favorite companies were started on a budget. What these founders lacked in capital, they made up for in scrappiness. In Annâs case, she invested $5k of her personal funds into her first batch of inventory. That's when she realized she didn't have anything left for product photography or marketing. But instead of panicking or borrowing (which I'd probably have done), she pulled out her laptop and learned how to do it herself. To this day, Glamnetics is a 100% bootstrapped brand. Itâs never taken on outside investors, and it doesnât seem like itâll ever have to. â Lesson #4: Success favors speed At the end of 2020, Glamnetics expanded into press-on nails. Not a novel product, but what's interesting is Glamnetics' approach. Every month, Ann releases a new collection based on trending topics on social media and Google searches. Thatâs 12 a year. Most brands release 5-6 in the same timeframe. â This approach is similar to Ryan Reynolds' [âfastvertisingâ](=) â all about speed and culture. There's no spending months on R&D. No endless back-and-forth with upper management. No supply chain headaches⦠Just shipping product. â
How Iâd replicate this in 2023 1. Choose the right niche Myth: all the good niches are saturated. Major players know itâs only crowded at the bottom, never the top. If I were starting out in e-comm, Iâd select a niche at a valuable crossroads: Something I have knowledge of + something that has substantial market demand. Iâd research the competition, identify gaps, and understand my target audience's preferences and pain points. â[Google Trends]( would be my first stop for this kind of data. â 2. Create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP) First rule of sales: You donât have to be best on the market. You just have to be better than the guy selling next door. In Annâs case, her USP was selling eyelashes with magnets that had been attached by hand, not pressed on by a machine. If you think weâre over-exaggerating just how bad these things were back in the day, hereâs a few things people had to say about magnetic eyelashes in 2018. â â 3. Find a good manufacturer How often do you go to page 2 of Google results? That approach may work with search engines, but with D2C, you can't go with the first supplier that crosses your path. Quality starts at the manufacturer. Ann chatted with 500+ suppliers before she found her guy, and thereâs a chance your number will be even higher. But itâs worth it product you can sell proudly. â 4. Create a content engine Billion-dollar products are zero-dollar products if no oneâs buying. And the best way to get eyes today is content. From email marketing to social media, Iâd go full throttle on all things digital marketing. But my focus would be TikTok, Shorts, and Reels, since short-form videos have [the highest ROI](). How so? Those silly 30-sec clips we love/hate generate [80% of all mobile traffic](=). Too big of a channel to ignore, and way easier to execute on than most people think. Especially with the right help. I recommend [ViralCuts](), the editing company I bought for this very reason. I'd kick off with these 4 types of content: - Tutorials and how-to videos
- Product demos
- Paid UGC ads
- Customer reviews and testimonials â Of course, all this is easier said than done. As someone whoâs tried her hand at e-commerce before and failed, believe me when I say Iâm not crazy about the space. Still, thereâs something to be learned from the Glamnetic story. You can do anything with zero experience, less capital than youâd like, and 100% hustle. Let that be your takeaway this week. Underdogs win all the time. I want you to be a builder in a world of users.
â - Codie â â â ð¤ We canât CAPTCHA up: [Guess what %](=) of 2022 internet traffic was bots? ð° Which is more expensive: being rich or [being poor]()? ð How (and when) did you meet your spouse? See how you align [with trends](=)â ð´ Here is [a photographic tour](=) of the year before FTXâs collapse ð Inflation has finally [dropped to ~3%](), but [the damage](=) has been done â
Ready to become part of the Contrarian Crew? There are 2 ways to join: âï¸ Enroll in our [Small Business Acquisitions Course](). It's like an MBA â but actually useful and can be completed within 1 month! Learn how to build freedom and income through "boring business" acquisitions. âï¸ Apply for the [Unconventional Acquisitions Mastermind](). Buy your first (or next) business with our expert guidance, support, and accountability. Check out the incredible results you can achieve [here](. What Did You Think of This Week's Newsletter? How ya feeling? Did we crush it? Blow your mind? Make you cry? How can we do better? Hit reply to let us know! Spread the Wealth Making serious bank with boring businesses is anything but boring. And the good news is, you can now spread the wealth by sharing our newsletter with your squad, fam, or Tinder match. Plus, you'll get sweet rewards for each friend who signs up. Share your custom referral link: [( Your referral count: 0 [Start Sharing Now]( â[Disclaimer â The âbe an adultâ section.](=)â Make us sad and [Unsubscribe]( ⢠Or Update [Preferences](â 113 Cherry St #92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2205