What follows here is his 5-step guide which teaches “how to hit $1M in 2 years, my 12 years of experience, in 5 minutes.”
Nik claims that “There is no way you won’t hit a million if you follow this thread step by step. It’s hard, but doable. I promise.”
So let’s take a look at his 5-step, 2-year roadmap for reaching 1-million dollars in revenue.
Quick, ImportantNotes:
This content was appropriated from Nik’s original twitter thread, and has been edited for clarity, completeness, and ease of use (and for my own safe-keeping).
I wouldn’t take this as a be-all-end-all guide, but I do think it is a useful blueprint. Most of us would probably do better to follow this than endlessly consume “wantrepreneur” type content.
You’ll notice that virtually every step here requires some money. Many steps also require a lot of time and experimentation. So fair warning – this is a roadmap to one-million dollars, after all.
If you happen to read this guide and think an even more in-depth guide (more recommended tools, a better breakdown of costs, research steps, and execution) would be helpful, please let me know. I think I might like to create one.
Quick Overview Of The 5-Steps To DTC Success
Step 1: Don’t Start A Brand Broke
Step 2: Only Focus On What Matters
Step 3: Sell What’s Hot
Step 4: Find Your Customers
Step 5: Scale To $1M+
Step 1: Don’t Start A Brand Broke
Starting a business looks sexy from the outside. But it isn’t. It’s difficult, and it takes money.
You don’t want to start a business on loans.
There are two ways to start with cash in hand:
A. If you want to quit your job before starting, be sure to have 24 months of runway before committing. For example, if your personal expenses are $4K/month, save $96K before quitting your job.
B. Run your business as a side hustle until the $50K ARR mark. You can quit your job once you hit this amount. Moonlight until then.
Step 2: Only Focus On What Matters
Focus on these three things until $1M ARR:
Something to sell (a good product)
Someone to sell to (a hungry market)
A way to communicate (content + distribution)
Having a sales team, a branding team, and a customer service team are all important. But you cannot focus on these things until you have a profitable product and a way to connect with your customers. First scale to $1M. Then think of scaling further.
Step 3: Sell What’s Hot
Create a list of products you can sell. Focus on what is already selling in the market.
This way you can learn from their success & grow fast.
In your list, only include those brands which have:
50K+ website visits/month (analyze using similarweb.com)
Significant traffic through paid ads
Local suppliers available
Promoted by influencers
If you need a tool to make a neat list of potential products/markets, consider Notion, Airtable, or even Google Sheets.
Example: Sneakers
Let’s say you decide to sell sneakers to 18-39 year olds. Perfect choice.
Gen-Z and Millennials are crazy about sneakers so there is a huge market.
Before asking anyone for money, get your house in order.
You need:
A couple of SKUs (sneaker designs)
An online store with a landing page
Your Meta account + Analytics
A local supplier
Create Your Sneaker Designs
Go to Fiverr and find a sneaker designer.
Find someone who is affordable and who has a portfolio of designs you like.
The quality of your product matters a lot.
Create Your Online Store & Landing Page
Set up a Shopify instance.
Create your storefront with Builder.io (pick from their LP templates)
Create a high-quality PDP (product detail page) for each sneaker.
Set Up Your Meta Account
You’ll need to set up Meta pixels with your Shopify store. This will help in analytics later.
If you are not a celebrity and don’t have a fan-following like Mr. Beast, paid ads are your best friends.
To run successful ads, you need to:
Research pre-existing ads
Create your own ads
Run your ads
Refine your ad strategy
Research Pre-Existing Ads
Make a list of popular sneaker brands. Go to the Facebook ads library. Find popular ads from the last 12 months.
Create Your Own Ads
Create 10 similar ads for your sneakers.
Get creative with the:
Ad copy
Hooks
CTA
Use ChatGPT to jerry-rig this.
Run Your Ads
Start your ad account with a daily budget of $20.
Put 5 ad variations on here.
Spend $280 for two weeks.
Note down which ads are working well.
Refine Your Ad Strategy
After a week, dump the worst-performing ads.
Keep the high-performing ones an aim for an ROI of 2-3x or more.
Fulfill Your Orders
After 2 weeks, fulfill your orders through the local manufacturer.
Optional: Order 2X the number of pre-orders you receive just in case more orders come later.
Set up packaging & logistics. Send them your products and they will take care of packaging and shipping. Rinse and repeat.
You could do this yourself for the first 2500 orders, or outsource it. I recommend doing it yourself.
Step 5: Scale to 1M+
Here are strategies to scale to 1M+
Create High-Quality Organic Content
Create high-quality, organic content on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and Tiktok.
Understand what works on a platform and stay updated with pop culture.
Once you figure out virality, you won’t need anything else.
Create a “Halo Strategy” worksheet to know your customers at a deep level. This sheet will help you identify what emotional need you are fulfilling with your product.
Set Up Your Tech Stack For Scale
If you want to stay lean and scale beyond 1M, having a tech stack is necessary.
Start Influencer Marketing
Focus on micro-influencers (10K-100K followers) because the ROI is huge.
To do this, first create a list of 100 micro-influencers:
Then start with 10 influencers.
Followers per influencer = 100K Average cost per post = $500 3% conversion = 3K
10% of those buy = 300 (depends on your offers + landing page)
Total new customers = 300 x 100 = 3000
Cost of acquiring one customer = $18.8 Not bad at all.
In Summary…
Growing a business requires embracing risk. Many businesses fail.
But if you focus on:
Creating a quality product for a hungry market
Creating engaging content at scale
Distributing it to the right audience
Understanding hooks
…you will easily crush $1M in 2 years.
FAQs (Taken From Twitter Comments)
Q: “Hey Nik, love the thread. In an instance where you can’t afford the upfront bulk order from a supplier, what would you suggest? For instance I know beverages charge a high upfront cost here in the U.K. for the bulk order.”
A: It’s tough! Beverage is the hardest because not only are you paying a ton for product, but you’re also FIGHTING for cans and shipping costs and paying for product development too. I would recommend you could either raise a friends and family (what most bev founders do
Nik Sharma’s 5-Step, 1-Million-Dollar DTC Business Roadmap
A Roadmap From A DTC Veteran
Nik Sharma has helped to launch brands like Feastables, Jolie, and Cadence. These companies have generated $100M+ in revenue.
Nik tweets prolifically about DTC businesses, runs the agencies Sharma Brands and Hoox, and also writes a weekly DTC newsletter.
What follows here is his 5-step guide which teaches “how to hit $1M in 2 years, my 12 years of experience, in 5 minutes.”
Nik claims that “There is no way you won’t hit a million if you follow this thread step by step. It’s hard, but doable. I promise.”
So let’s take a look at his 5-step, 2-year roadmap for reaching 1-million dollars in revenue.
Quick, Important Notes:
Quick Overview Of The 5-Steps To DTC Success
Step 1: Don’t Start A Brand Broke
Starting a business looks sexy from the outside. But it isn’t. It’s difficult, and it takes money.
You don’t want to start a business on loans.
There are two ways to start with cash in hand:
A. If you want to quit your job before starting, be sure to have 24 months of runway before committing. For example, if your personal expenses are $4K/month, save $96K before quitting your job.
B. Run your business as a side hustle until the $50K ARR mark. You can quit your job once you hit this amount. Moonlight until then.
Step 2: Only Focus On What Matters
Focus on these three things until $1M ARR:
Having a sales team, a branding team, and a customer service team are all important. But you cannot focus on these things until you have a profitable product and a way to connect with your customers. First scale to $1M. Then think of scaling further.
Step 3: Sell What’s Hot
Create a list of products you can sell. Focus on what is already selling in the market.
This way you can learn from their success & grow fast.
In your list, only include those brands which have:
If you need a tool to make a neat list of potential products/markets, consider Notion, Airtable, or even Google Sheets.
Example: Sneakers
Let’s say you decide to sell sneakers to 18-39 year olds. Perfect choice.
Gen-Z and Millennials are crazy about sneakers so there is a huge market.
Before asking anyone for money, get your house in order.
You need:
Create Your Sneaker Designs
Go to Fiverr and find a sneaker designer.
Find someone who is affordable and who has a portfolio of designs you like.
The quality of your product matters a lot.
Create Your Online Store & Landing Page
Set up a Shopify instance.
Create your storefront with Builder.io (pick from their LP templates)
Create a high-quality PDP (product detail page) for each sneaker.
Set Up Your Meta Account
You’ll need to set up Meta pixels with your Shopify store. This will help in analytics later.
Follow this guide: Meta (Facebook) Pixel Guide: How To Set Up and Use It (2023)
Set Up Microsoft Clarity
Microsoft Clarity is Hotjar on steroids, and completely free.
It gives you heat-maps, scroll depth maps, and user session recordings.
Follow this setup guide: How to setup Clarity manually | Microsoft Learn
Set Up Google Analytics
To set up Google Analytics, you can use this guide: Shopify Help Center | Setting up Google Analytics 4
Find A Local Supplier
Find a reliable supplier in your area.
Use sourcify.com to find one.
Congratulations! Now you have a product to sell.
Step 4: Find Your Customers
If you are not a celebrity and don’t have a fan-following like Mr. Beast, paid ads are your best friends.
To run successful ads, you need to:
Research Pre-Existing Ads
Make a list of popular sneaker brands. Go to the Facebook ads library. Find popular ads from the last 12 months.
Create Your Own Ads
Create 10 similar ads for your sneakers.
Get creative with the:
Use ChatGPT to jerry-rig this.
Run Your Ads
Start your ad account with a daily budget of $20.
Put 5 ad variations on here.
Spend $280 for two weeks.
Note down which ads are working well.
Refine Your Ad Strategy
After a week, dump the worst-performing ads.
Keep the high-performing ones an aim for an ROI of 2-3x or more.
Fulfill Your Orders
After 2 weeks, fulfill your orders through the local manufacturer.
Optional: Order 2X the number of pre-orders you receive just in case more orders come later.
Set up packaging & logistics. Send them your products and they will take care of packaging and shipping. Rinse and repeat.
You could do this yourself for the first 2500 orders, or outsource it. I recommend doing it yourself.
Step 5: Scale to 1M+
Here are strategies to scale to 1M+
Create High-Quality Organic Content
Create high-quality, organic content on Instagram reels, YouTube shorts, and Tiktok.
Understand what works on a platform and stay updated with pop culture.
Once you figure out virality, you won’t need anything else.
Create a “Halo Strategy” worksheet to know your customers at a deep level. This sheet will help you identify what emotional need you are fulfilling with your product.
Set Up Your Tech Stack For Scale
If you want to stay lean and scale beyond 1M, having a tech stack is necessary.
Start Influencer Marketing
Focus on micro-influencers (10K-100K followers) because the ROI is huge.
Use hypeauditor.com to find the right ones.
To do this, first create a list of 100 micro-influencers:
Then start with 10 influencers.
Followers per influencer = 100K Average cost per post = $500 3% conversion = 3K
10% of those buy = 300 (depends on your offers + landing page)
Total new customers = 300 x 100 = 3000
Cost of acquiring one customer = $18.8 Not bad at all.
In Summary…
Growing a business requires embracing risk. Many businesses fail.
But if you focus on:
…you will easily crush $1M in 2 years.
FAQs (Taken From Twitter Comments)
Q: “Hey Nik, love the thread. In an instance where you can’t afford the upfront bulk order from a supplier, what would you suggest? For instance I know beverages charge a high upfront cost here in the U.K. for the bulk order.”
A: It’s tough! Beverage is the hardest because not only are you paying a ton for product, but you’re also FIGHTING for cans and shipping costs and paying for product development too. I would recommend you could either raise a friends and family (what most bev founders do