#684 - From Shark Tank to TikTok Shop: NeuroGum’s Story

#684 - From Shark Tank to TikTok Shop: NeuroGum’s Story Speaker 2: Maybe you've seen NeuroGum on Shark Tank or seen Joe Rogan using them, but today we have them on our show and they're going to talk about their Amazon strategies, TikTok shop strategies, and even how they've been using Helium 10 for years. How cool is that? Pretty cool, I think. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Serious Sellers Podcast by Helium 10. I'm your host, Bradley Sutton, and this is a show that's completely BS-free, unscripted and unrehearsed, organic conversation about serious strategies for serious sellers of any level in the e-commerce world. And we're very privileged today to have a really popular brand and longtime Helium 10 users come onto the show with us. We've got Jonathan from NeuroGum in the house. How's it going, man? Speaker 1: Nice to meet you, Bradley. Thanks for having me. Speaker 2: Now, before we start, just like Joe Rogan does on his podcast, I'm going to have to pop a NeuroGum here. I see you've got something in your mouth too right now. I'm not sure if you've got the gum or the mint possibly there, but I need to get some energy. Oh, you've got the mint, right? Now guys, there's no sponsorship here or affiliate action going on just with like the Joe Rogan show. I'm being all organic where I literally use this stuff myself. So this is, I think, a popular brand that's been used for quite a while. And I was actually on the I called my team this morning, my team from the Philippines, and it was like 3, 4 in the morning. I couldn't see their bloodshot eyes. I was like, hey, guys, I was up until like 4 in the morning last night, and this is what kept me up, this NeuroGum. And then they actually went. I was like, hey, maybe you should check to see if you've got NeuroGum there in the Philippines. And they went on Lazada or TikTok Shop, and they found NeuroGum there. Unknown Speaker: There you go. Speaker 2: There you go. But now we've got a lot of product placement action going on here. Maybe some people think this might be like a Korean drama or something for this product placement, but there's maybe some people out there who don't know too much about NeuroGum. So we're definitely going to talk about the origin story there. But first, I want to get to know Jonathan. First of all, now, you had just told me off camera that you're from Vegas right now or in Vegas right now, but you're originally from Jersey. So is that where you were born and raised? Speaker 1: I'm not born and raised. Born in Korea. Grew up a little bit in Texas, but spent most of my life in New Jersey. I met Kent through a friend in an agency world Just three years ago and honestly feels like a lifetime ago, but you know what? They had ambitious goals to grow the business. They had moved from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. So we packed up our bags drove across the country and I came to Vegas a year ago. Speaker 2: Okay. So how old were you when you left Korea? Speaker 1: I was three. Speaker 2: Three. Okay. So did your parents you like keep over the language? Did you keep your Korean? Speaker 1: It's good enough. It's good enough. Speaker 2: Okay. For me, just a token. I think that means like a little bit, right? But like I said, I didn't even know you're a Korean, but I don't watch much American TV. People know that about me. I only watch Korean dramas and that's how I know they always have these like product placements in Korean dramas. So you said after Texas, growing up there as a kid, you went to Jersey? Speaker 1: Now I was just there as a kid for a handful of years Grew up in Corpus Christi, but I've been in New Jersey Most of my adult life 20-25 years now. Speaker 2: Okay. So did you go to college out there? Speaker 1: Yeah, I went to Rutgers University. Speaker 2: Rutgers, that's a mascot like Scarlet something, right? Speaker 1: Scarlet Knights. Yes. Speaker 2: There we go. Scarlet Knights, Rutgers, you know, good football team sometimes, but sometimes they're really bad football team. I know. Now, what was your major over there? Speaker 1: That's a funny question, Bradley. I majored in communications, entrepreneurship and art history. Speaker 2: Art history is one of my favorite subjects in the entire history of subjects that I've taken in my scholastic endeavors. It changed my life, especially the way I travel and appreciate things when I go places. I think entrepreneurship is pretty cool. I wish more colleges would actually teach entrepreneurships. Speaker 1: Honestly, I was never a bad student, but when I got to college, I just couldn't justify, I had a hard time understanding why I needed to go to the English class to do business or anything like that, right? Yeah. Speaker 2: Yeah. Okay. So how did you get into one of those, maybe majors there, like after, after college, you know, I was a pretty diverse field. Like you can be an entrepreneur, you can be an art history major, but then what are you doing? Selling books on art history online or which of those fields did you actually get up, get into upon graduation? Speaker 1: So funny enough, I actually started my career a little bit late in a traditional standpoint. Like I said, I didn't really see the point of college. About halfway through, I took a break. I went back and finished, but needless to say, I got really bored at my first job. I was an e-commerce, I was like a low e-commerce person at Bed Bath & Beyond. So that takes my time a little bit. Speaker 2: Interesting. Speaker 1: Yeah. And I just saw like, I didn't see my future there. It was a little bit mundane. I wanted to like break something and build something new. And long story short, the way I got into Amazon actually and found out about Helium 10 is through a YouTube video. I think it could have very well been yours. Speaker 2: Yep, could have been me. Odds are maybe it was. Speaker 1: Yeah. I ended up selling my motorcycle going down the rabbit hole at night and learning how to do all this product development, working on Alibaba, and I launched my first product just about 10 years ago. Speaker 2: Wow. That's awesome. If it was 10 years ago, it probably wasn't me because I wasn't around yet then. I might have been the founder of Helium 10, Manny Coats. So you were an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, I guess, started your own business? And then how long did you do that? Speaker 1: I did that for about a year and a half. I actually, I launched a diaper caddy product. I knew just about nothing about product development or marketing or anything like that at the time, but I learned everything about Amazon from start to finish in a three to four months span. And it really jumped, jumpstarted my career as a, as an Amazon seller. Speaker 2: Awesome. Awesome. So then like since then, have you been pretty much consistently in like the e-commerce world? Speaker 1: Yeah, I've been an Amazon seller for the last nine and nine to 10 years. Speaker 2: Okay. Speaker 1: And most recently have gone all in on the TikTok shop business about a year and a half ago. Speaker 2: Awesome. Awesome. Okay. Now we're definitely going to talk a lot about that. Now, let's go to the origin story. We got the origin story of you. Now, let's go to the origin story of NeuroGum. Now, I know you weren't there in the very beginning, but some of you guys out there might have seen NeuroGum like we said before from Shark Tank or maybe they heard about it from Joe Rogan's show or other things like podcasts that the founders have been on. But what's kind of like the cliff notes of how NeuroGum came to be? Speaker 1: So the NeuroGum founder story is honestly like as organic and as beautiful as it gets in my opinion. So there's two best buddies from college, Kent and Ryan. Long story short, these guys are high performing athletes. Kent was doing martial arts overseas here, trying to compete for the Olympics. Ryan is the same. He's like big time cross country runner, just super active guys. And long story short, they found that they couldn't really get the supplements they wanted accessible. And so Kent, who has a science background, was kind of mixing his own blend in his dorm room, sharing it with Ryan. And like loose powders, clear baggie, not labeled, not a great look, not accessible, not delicious, definitely not shareable. So that's how NeuroGum was born. They made caffeine, theanine, and B6 vitamin included mints and gums right out of their dorm room, which is like really, really cool. They made it for themselves. And Shark Tank, Joe Rogan, the rest is history. Speaker 2: Okay, so then they went on Shark Tank to try and get some funding, but I think one of the reasons why they got famous on Shark Tank was didn't they actually deny the offer? It was like from Mark Cuban or somebody. Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. They don't have a business background per se, but they're very scrappy entrepreneurs that always like know their numbers, dive deep and really spend a lot of time understanding their business, right? So they were prepared. They were prepared. They smelled that it wasn't a great deal for them and they passed. Speaker 2: Now, in the early days, even when they got on Shark Tank, they were already selling, I know. But where was their revenue coming from? Was it distribution, wholesale? Were they on Amazon already in those days? What was going on? Speaker 1: Yeah. They were already on Amazon. They're primarily an e-commerce business. Between D2C and Amazon was the majority of the business. As of the last few years, retail has been a big emphasis for us as well, and of course, TikTok Shop. Speaker 2: What would you say is the breakdown of online sales now for NeuroGum as far as from Amazon, Walmart if you're on there, TikTok Shop, your own website, etc.? Speaker 1: I would say about 60% Amazon. Man, it's really hard to say, Bradley, because over the last six months, 12 months, 18 months, our business has transformed so much because of TikTok Shop. But I would say Amazon still makes up the great majority of our business in terms of online. TikTok Shop is A near second, D to C last. Speaker 2: Okay. Now I think I saw Kent, you know, founder of NeuroGum on a podcast recently and he was talking about, unless I misunderstood it, that he actually dialed back some of the maybe advertising spend on Amazon because he found that, you know, like it was actually more profitable to divert that a little bit to some of the TikTok. Did I hear that right or am I confusing something there? Speaker 1: You sure did. You sure did. And I know it's not, uh, popular to say that or common at least, but we found that the best Amazon advertising actually happens on TikTok. Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. So like, talk about that for a little bit. Um, because I, you know, obviously the, the, you know, attribution and things are a little bit more difficult, but obviously it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that, Hey, this video went viral. And then all of a sudden the product that the video talked about on Amazon, you know, doubled in sales. So, you know, uh, you know, you don't need attribution to understand that. What did you start seeing that was affecting it? How did you double down and what kind of effects was it having on Amazon? Speaker 1: The reason why we even went so bullishly on TikTok was because I smelled a lot of the same things that I saw in the Amazon space in the last seven years that I'd worked in it. Seller side, agency side, brand side. Because I saw a lot of the same signals, I decided to go all in with Kent actually. It was our New Year's resolution in 2024 to make content every day personally so that we could really get familiar with the platform. What we noticed after going viral for the first time, it took us, I don't know, five or six months to go viral on TikTok. We saw our Amazon number skyrocket like overnight, right? And so the attribution is super weak. But like you said, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see the synergy, right? Speaker 2: So when you say go viral, are we talking about just like regular brand videos or your TikTok shop was going viral? Speaker 1: One of our creators had a viral video. I'm an Amazonian by trade, like I said. I used Amazon to do everything. I was very famous in my community for telling people not to do D2C, not to go retail. Amazon is the only answer. Coming from that, I know it's a bold statement, but I went from seeing Amazon as not just a great place to sell a product to new customers and repeat customers. I transitioned that business and that philosophy to Amazon being a digital shelf, more like Google, and I drive the attention and brand awareness off platform, i.e. TikTok. So I find that people are coming to Amazon now just not for caffeine gum or energy pills or energy gummies, right? Those are the alternative keywords you'd find on Amazon for our product. But they come for searching for NeuroGum, straight. And I see that in the search results. I use Helium 10 to look at the keyword data. And it's really fun to tell, this is a really fun fact, but NeuroGum as a search term was searched more than gum itself last month. Imagine that. Speaker 2: That's crazy. And that's when you've got good brand recognition, brand penetration. Not many people can or not many companies would be able to say that. That's pretty cool. Speaker 1: Yeah, really, really cool. Speaker 3: Thinking about selling on TikTok Shop? Or maybe you are already in it and you're ready to scale. Unlock all of Helium 10's brand new TikTok Shop tools with our diamond plan. Everything from bulk Amazon to TikTok listing conversions to instant Amazon MCF fulfillment. Best of all, you use the code TT10 to get 10% off Diamond for six months, even if you've used a coupon before. So go ahead and upgrade and let Helium 10 do all the heavy lifting for you so you can focus on what really matters. For more info on our new TikTok Shop offerings, visit h10.me forward slash TikTok. I'll see you there. Speaker 2: I'm actually gonna look up really quick here in Magnet some of some of the search lines. I'm sure it's kind of crazy. Let's see neuro gum Okay, so I'm like looking here in magnet like a lot of keywords that have to do with neurogramming neuro gum itself I've done tens of thousands of searches, but look how many different variations of keywords there are here that all have NeuroGum in them. Fancy NeuroGum, NeuroGum Focus, NeuroGum Mint, Caffeine Gum, NeuroGum. All of these have a total of thousands and thousands of searches. Total click share and brand analytics. Obviously, you're dominating your own keywords, which is important that you're not losing a bunch of sales to some competitors. This is what brands want to be able to see. When you started 10 years ago on Amazon and even like maybe 8 years ago, 5 years ago, people didn't think too much about building a brand on Amazon like, oh, I got to build brand recognition. They're just like, I'm just looking for the keywords or I just want to dominate the nootropic gum keywords or something like that. But nowadays, that's what sets you apart. That's what a lot of the Factories in china whatever they're selling directing people i can't compete on price but where american companies can compete on is the branding in the brand recognition that the. The chinese indian companies were the factory director are never gonna be able to match so. How did this build up? It wasn't just, hey, let me find one creator and this guy just randomly went viral. You probably have some science to it about how you look for creators, how you develop the relationship, what you tell them to do, cadences. Can you talk a little bit about that? Speaker 1: Well, it was totally Wild Wild West stuff when we first got started. There was no playbook. There kind of is one now, but I would say we were just very early on to the game, so the marketplace was totally undeveloped on tap. What TikTok did super well was it gave creators, normal everyday creators, the opportunity to make content, advertise it in a very organic way. And it's totally independent of follower count. You can have one follower or a million. It almost doesn't matter. And that's the beauty of TikTok is what we've learned. We hired 15, 20, 30 creators to partner with us, make content every single day, just like Kent and I's New Year Resolution. Speaker 2: What did you use to find them? Obviously, there's tens of thousands, I don't know, maybe hundreds of thousands of creators. You don't just pick them out of a hat or pick a name that looks cool. Do you remember, how did you identify those 15, 20 creators? Speaker 1: There are tools like Helium 10. Speaker 2: We've incorporated some of them into Helium 10 Influencer Finder, which is why I'm asking this question. If I'm using the Helium 10 Influencer Finder, were you doing by GMV, by keywords, by engagement? What kind of metrics were you looking at? Speaker 1: At a high level, definitely GMV and within the category. What kind of sellers were actually driving GMV already? A.K.A. they knew how to sell, they knew the setup, they knew how to do the product tags, all the technical parts of it, which is not that complicated, but it was early days, right? And then two, I wanted to see that they've actually sold stuff in the health category, because selling a coffin decor, for example, to anyone, very different, right? Speaker 2: Yeah. You found those 15, 20 creators and then next step. Speaker 1: Next up, we're making content every single day. And we provided a lot of resources, brand guidelines, hook ideas, product benefits, all the normal stuff. But really, we let creators run wild and free with it. We didn't dictate too many, we didn't put any hard guardrails of how we wanted the content to come out because we wanted to take advantage of that organic native aspect of TikTok. So we did that for a few months. We saw our GMV growing incrementally like any platform would. But then in reality, what really changed the game for us was one video, just one video went super viral. It seemed like on that day, all of TikTok all of a sudden found out about NeuroGum. And on Amazon alike, we saw the sales go up. It spawned pretty much a brand new TikTok shop e-commerce business. And that was about a year and some change ago. Speaker 2: Now, when you say, going back to that original 15-20, when you say hired them, was it just the standard thing like you do with tools, like you can do with Helium 10 or other tools where you give the offer of like, you know, 20% commission or something, they just accept it, and then that means anytime they make a video about that product, they get that amount? Or did you actually hire hire them, like have them on a retainer or have a contract with them? Speaker 1: We did both. So these creators on our team, They're definitely paid retainers. And it's just like any other agreement, you know, 30 days, 30 posts. If you don't meet it, we don't pay it. And if you do, we pay it. No questions asked. And then anyone that works directly with us, we give them special commission rates. So, for example, our open plan commission rate on TikTok Shop, anyone can join, advertise NeuroGum. If they make a sale, we give them 15%. But if you work... Speaker 2: Did you say 15? 1-5? 1-5. Speaker 1: And then if you work with us, we do somewhere between 20-25% depending on what kind of GNV that you generate and the partnership level. Speaker 2: There are some people who it's a constant cycle. I have a metric where we need a hundred reach out every day to get 50 influencers to post 40 videos weekly or something like that. So do you guys have something like that where you're still constantly giving out free samples and trying to get new ones or are you just focused on like that, this core number and then maybe adding, subtracting here and there? Speaker 1: So that's a great question. And a lot of brands struggle with this because of the free sampling, right? Because sampling at the end of the day can be very, very expensive, especially if you have 500 or 1000 or thousands of creators reaching out to you every day. So in the beginning, we were pretty Loose about free sampling. We wanted to work with every creator that we had access to or that showed any interest in our brand. And then as time progressed, what we ended up doing was we started putting some filters around what would qualify for a free sample. So, for example, you had to have had at least $500 worth of GMV all across TikTok Shop in the last 30 days. It shows that you're not just here for a free product, but you're actually here to make some money and partner with us, right? Those are the kind of filters that we use to scout the mass of creators. Speaker 2: How are you fulfilling the orders? Are you using your Amazon inventory? Are you shipping from your own warehouses, logistics place? Speaker 1: So we've actually tried all the shipping options. Early days, we used our own warehouse in Las Vegas. We're shipping it out ourself. And then just like Amazon Prime, TikTok Shop opened up their own facilities called FBT. We tried that, beta tested it. It was kind of a disaster. It was about a year ago. So we pulled it back, brought it back to Vegas, and now actually we're transitioning back into FBT. Speaker 2: Fulfilled by TikTok. Before, I knew some people who did it, but then obviously you know about Amazon placement fees and stuff last year where it's like, hey, if you try to send it all to one warehouse and they put a surcharge. I heard TikTok came up with something like that a few months ago where it was even worse than Amazon's, believe it or not, where it's like, yeah, because what we were doing, there's a big depot here in Southern California, one of their main ones in Ontario or something like that. I have a warehouse at my house and I fulfill orders for some TikTok sellers or my family. It's a side business my family runs. There's one guy that was doing big numbers on TikTok shopping, so we'd rent trucks and then just take seven pallets up there. We'd just go there and then drop it off and boom. It was so easy and so convenient because it cost us maybe higher my son and to rent a truck like what 500, 600, 700 bucks for a day to do that, and then that's it. The product is available and fulfilled by TikTok the next day, but then we haven't done that in a while because he said, man, those fees drastically went up. If we don't ship all around to their warehouses and try to just go there, it becomes just really eats into the profit margins. Are you guys doing that or are going to do that thing? Are you just sending it to one location or are you having to do like on Amazon where you send it across the country to different fulfillment centers? Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we're sending it to multiple fulfillment centers. What I do know is that FPT has made a lot of changes in the last few months. Great card and fees included, some positive, some negative. But yeah, what I see is that they're definitely trying to replicate all the pros of FBA, right? Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, for sure. And I think that's where there's a big race, not just TikTok and Amazon, but Walmart is always trying to get in on the game too. Are you guys selling on Walmart.com at all? Speaker 1: We were. We pulled out of it about a year ago. Okay, well, why was that mostly because it was disrupting my buy box issues on Amazon. Speaker 2: Ah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah That's a big issue. Any other platforms on your website like Timu or anything else like that? Speaker 1: It's funny you bring up Timu. I think we are going to start exploring Timu. I thought I'd never say that, but yeah, we are. Speaker 2: Well, Timu today is completely different than Timu of like two years ago or one year ago where, yeah, I don't think I would never have suggested somebody, but now it's mainly US. It's almost like a TikTok or Amazon where it's mainly US-based fulfillment and And more decent prices the thing I've always I think I think the thing that has held some people back is is. The inability to control the price, the retail price on Timu. And so we know that Amazon right now is not price matching Timu like what you had with Walmart. But if that ever happens on Timu, then that's going to be a problem because you can't just, you know, on Walmart, you still technically could have just, all right, let me go change my price on Walmart, you know, and and everything's fine. But you can't really do that in Timu. I do think Timu is is is a good market to sell on like right now in 2025, you know, who knows, maybe a year from now. But because 80% of the sellers based in China are kind of like not selling anymore, it's a little bit better. What are some of your Amazon strategies? Obviously, your main goal, like you said, is locking down your branded searches and things, but are you still going after nootropic related keywords or caffeine gum and stuff like that? Are you monitoring those kind of things? Like, hey, where's my using Helium 10 keyword tracker? Where am I on these non-branded searches or are you just all in on branded searches? Speaker 1: So for the last year, I've been all in on branded searches. I've really been, I pivoted my strategy, like I said, from Amazon being like a new customer acquisition channel Ranking for keywords, all that good stuff, right? All the good stuff that every Amazon seller knows about. And then the last year, I focused really on using Amazon as a fulfillment. I mean, in terms of operations, fulfillment and customer satisfaction and confidence, Amazon is the best, right? And so we use Amazon as a digital shelf where product that you come across on TikTok You buy there confidently. We'll say in the last month, though, we finally got enough gum to go after it again on Amazon. So I am going to start going after those keywords like Nutropic gum. Caffeine gum, caffeine pills, all that good stuff. So excited to use Helium 10 again a little bit more actively to track those keywords. Speaker 2: How do you guys decide for product line extension? I don't know what was first. I'm assuming the gum was the first and then mints came later, but then you have like sugar-free stuff. Are you just listening to customers? Are you doing like Helium 10 research on keywords or in Seller Central where you're like, oh man, there's a lot of people all of a sudden looking into this kind of product or flavor or something like that. You're not just NeuroGum. I'm assuming this is probably maybe the first product that you started with, but now you've got, I don't know what, 20, 30, 40 SKUs or something. How did you get there? Speaker 1: We do, but I will say unlike more common Amazon businesses and sellers, Our founders are very, very specific about what they want. They don't ever want to give away or move away from gum or mints because it's a confectionary, shareable, accessible, travel-friendly format, right? And that's kind of like our special sauce. We're not out there like many other brands getting into every single supplement category. I will say, though, it's funny that you bring that up. And maybe this is my Amazon brain, but this is my new baby. It's vitamin D3 and K2 in a mint form. So I am starting to bring some of those elements of Amazon sellers into the business. This is our first big bet. It's the sunshine vitamin in an easy mint, right? Freshen your breath. You get some D3. Speaker 2: I like it. I like it. Because you know, especially me, I stay inside the house all day long. I don't get out in the sun. I need that D3 with my caffeine. So there we go. That might be my next shopping cart. Hey, if you need a new influencer, I have a TikTok account. I'll take a free sample of 15% commission. Speaker 1: I'd be happy to send you some. Speaker 2: What strategies do you think that you guys do on Amazon or TikTok shop? Obviously, we've talked about some of them just naturally here, but what are some other things that maybe we haven't talked about that, like the way you set up your listings, the way you're handling other aspects of the creator game, the way you're doing advertising, like if you're doing TikTok lives or having influencers in your lives, talk a little bit more about some of your secret sauces. Speaker 1: Sure. I think as much as new stuff is happening in the e-commerce space in 2025, I think the root or the foundation of a lot of our success is based on what everyone knows. Every e-commerce business is just two things. It's either traffic or conversion, right? And so with the traffic side, we've kind of figured out this new play with TikTok Shop, working with creators, creating viral content for mass brand awareness and product awareness, right? Done. But what we're now seeing is that every channel and every touchpoint, it serves a different kind of customer or viewer. And so what I mean by that is you might come across TikTok, NeuroGum content on TikTok, Hear about it for the first time. Be excited that caffeine is in gum, right? I like to call it adult gum. But if you buy it once on TikTok Shop, you might actually want different information on Amazon, right? So on TikTok, we talk a lot about, for example, the product benefits, the founder story, that kind of stuff, right? Introducing the product to the customer. On Amazon, if they feel more comfortable subscribing there or buying for the second time there, We want to, for example, be a little bit more scientific. Why do we only include 40 milligrams of caffeine instead of 100 or 200 like some of these other products? What's the science between the half-life of caffeine in the body that actually contributes to focus, not just jittery energy, for example? So we found that in different parts of where our product is available or how people come across our product and brand, we need to tailor the message to who they are. Speaker 2: Interesting. Interesting. I think that's important. Now, something I just thought about when we're talking about differences of Amazon and TikTok, I would assume, you can correct me if I'm wrong, that a decent amount of your sales compared to like my coffin shelf are subscribe and save. You know, nobody's subscribe and saving coffin shelves. At least I hope not. Otherwise, I'm going to worry about their mental health. But On TikTok, there is no subscriber saver, is there? Speaker 1: They just launched it this year. Speaker 2: Look at that. All right. So how is that, like, how do the percentages compare, like, the percentage of overall sales that turn into, you know, continuity replenishment like that Amazon versus TikTok shop? Is it less on TikTok since it's a newer thing and maybe not as natural of a segue like it is on Amazon? Speaker 1: Yeah, you have to nail on that. I mean, It's a brand new feature and it was in beta in Q1 or 2 this year. They released it to a bunch of sellers just this past two months. And needless to say, I think the consumer experience is totally different. And so we find that Amazon versus TikTok, the subscribe and save take rate is much lower on TikTok Shop. But I think that makes sense when you really think about the differences between the platforms. One is like a digital shelf, right? Just like a grocery store shelf or a Walmart in-person shelf. Whereas TikTok is more of a interest, entertainment, kind of shopping platform, right? And so I think it's more, a little bit more impulsive, a little bit more discovery and interest based on TikTok shop versus, you know, your dishwasher detergent or your favorite energy gum or your coffee that you need every month or every other month, you kind of use Amazon for. Speaker 2: Okay. I like it. I like it. There are certain things that, only you guys can do because you're NeuroGum. It's not like Joe Rogan talks about everybody's products and so you can double down on stuff like that. But if you were to advise newer TikTok shop sellers, maybe they're established on Amazon. They're just trying to break into TikTok shops. So they've got the products already and they're decent, six, seven figure seller or whatever. What's a generalized playbook on how they can get started? Obviously, the first step is to migrate your Amazon listings over. Helium 10 has one button. You can just combine it and we do it with AI and stuff. Set up the fulfillment and all that stuff, of course. How would you advise a newer TikTok seller to start their affiliate outreach? I would assume that that's where you should start. Or is it a combination of from day one affiliate outreach and start doing a crazy amount of their own branded content? Speaker 1: It's content. It's all about content on TikTok. So kind of like your last point, The recommendation, and it always sounds more simple than it actually is to execute, is content is king. On the brand side, I would turn all of your social media teams to focus on TikTok, making TikToks. And the main difference is it doesn't have to be this polished Instagram kind of content, right? That's beautiful, perfect, sunny California every single time kind of thing. It's more native and organic, right? So TikTok bloomed this new term called EGC. I mean, I've never heard of it before TikTok, but it's employee generated content, not UGC, but EGC. Speaker 2: Interesting. Speaker 1: I lead the TikTok and Amazon business on NeuroGum. I'm constantly throwing out these little internal campaigns of, hey, let's make videos together. Highest views gets cool prizes and that's happening internally but also externally. Speaker 2: It goes on their private accounts or on the NeuroGum corporate account? Speaker 1: On the NeuroGum account. Speaker 2: Okay, cool. That's what we're trying to do here at Helium 10. Instead of just me, we joked about that at the beginning where my face is on every single video. We're 700 people in this company. There should be other people out there generating some of this content, you know? Speaker 1: Right. Because you never know. Again, we're kind of moving away from the social media era into an interest media era, right? And we all have different interests. We natively look different, sound different, come across differently. And so when you use multiple different faces to represent one brand, you just don't know who's going to resonate with who, right? So that's the playbook, in my opinion, on the brand side. I like the affiliate side, you kind of have the same approach. You want to treat them more like your internal team and not like external affiliates or whatever you call it in the or influencers. We treat them as an extension like our sales team. Their vehicle is making videos and so we heavily incentivize them. When they win, we win and vice versa. We send out plenty of samples. We dump a lot of resources into equipping them to sell our product well, represent our product well, and we found that to be very successful. Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. All right. Normally I ask guests like, hey, how can we find you on the interwebs? I think everybody knows how to find NeuroGum. Just type in NeuroGum to anywhere and you guys will be able to see. Are you active on LinkedIn? A lot of people can follow your Ys. Wise discourses on linkedin before we go though like how about you know you've obviously give us your strategies throughout this episode can you think of like a thirty or sixty second tip either on amazon on. Product development on staying cool in las vegas under one hundred twenty degree weather i mean to be about any possible thing. Speaker 1: So this is, I've been on the podium saying this to my friends and family. I'm sure they're sick of it for the last two years, but is make a personal TikTok account with whatever weird interest that you have, make one. Because TikTok, it monopolizes the views. It's all interest-based. And a lot of us, especially Amazon sellers who are savvy on Helium 10 and love Helium 10 as a tool, The dream is to one day live your version of your rich life, right, and do the thing that you love every single day. I think there's no better opportunity than to do your crocheting, your dog walking, whatever it is on TikTok, and you just never know what's going to happen, right? So that's my 30-second tip. Speaker 2: Awesome. Awesome. I love it. I love it. All right. You ever go to any of the conferences around there like Amazon Accelerate or anything like that? Speaker 1: I might be at Accelerate this year. Speaker 2: If you do, let me know and we'll link up. If anybody out there sees him walking the floor, I'm sure he'll have some of that new vitamin D3 NeuroGum mints there. You can probably cop one off of him. I look forward to collaborating with you guys more and any help you need with Helium 10. Let me know and I wish you guys the best of success in the future.