I tested 200 products, then built a $52M brand
About this episode
Leo Iciano started out flipping shoes on eBay, found dropshipping seven and a half years ago, and dropped out of college in his junior year. With his business partner Margarita he tested over 200 products. The 202nd became a brand that has now done $52 million.
He covers the shift from dropshipper to marketer, using comments and post-purchase surveys to find real pain points, fixing product complaints with the supplier, making 10 to 15 pieces of content a day from four core concepts, and why adding subscribe and save moved his focus from AOV to LTV.
Key takeaways
- Sell to a problem, not a product. Products die but problems do not, so once you solve one problem, look for the next problem the same customer has.
- Let customer complaints shape the product. Their top complaint was noise, so they asked the supplier for a quieter version and had it in two months.
- Out-produce the competition on content. Competitors made five or six pieces of content a week, while his team now makes 10 to 15 a day.
- Iterate on proven concepts. They still run the same four concepts from launch, such as negative positives, and keep changing the format: skit, car, vlog, apartment, voiceover.
- Play the LTV game, not the AOV game. Subscribe and save, added a year ago, put their LTV at around 10 times the competition, so they can spend more to acquire each customer.
Chapters
- 0:00 From dropshipping to $52M brand
- 0:56 Podcast intro & brand overview
- 1:47 Leo's e-commerce origin story
- 2:50 Becoming a marketer, not a dropshipper
- 3:37 Testing 200+ products to find a winner
- 5:56 Solving problems vs selling products
- 7:51 Deep customer research & surveys
- 10:28 Rebranding and standing out from competitors
- 16:53 Offers, subscriptions, and LTV focus
- 25:25 Building a business with a partner
Recorded in person in New York. Every guest runs a 7 or 8 figure brand, across every category. Hosted by Sam Jacobs, co-founder of Commercive.
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