Dude, Lucas, welcome to the pod.

Welcome to the sweat equity podcast.

Oh, yeah.

Super excited to have you, man.

So you've got 400, 000 followers on TikTok.

You obviously have a personal brand, but how'd you sort of go

about the process of selecting what products you wanted to sell?

I'd just love to hear about the beginning there.

That's a good question.

I think a lot of people ask me, Yeah, like why workout clothes bro out of

everything you could start an app you could have a paid community why workout

clothes and I think a lot of really bright minds number one are Avoiding

simple products like that because they don't see it as very flashy, right?

So they're going for these newer types of businesses, which can be very profitable,

profitable and very successful.

But you can still do very well in a very simple business like that.

And to be honest, like, even though the clothing industry is really

challenging, there's never enough clothes.

Like there will always be a newer brand, a better brand, and

it's, it's more about community.

Obviously the quality of the product matters, but it's really about like story.

community and, and how you get people following that journey, right?

Even you look at a brand like as successful as Lululemon, right?

It started with focusing when Chip started it.

I know he's a very controversial guy, but Chip Wilson started Lululemon with

the goal of building a brand for like the new young boss woman, which was coming

out in the early two thousands, right?

Girl, you know, women were like, For the first time in history, having

higher graduation rates than men.

And he's like, these girls are making a ton of money and they're really

successful and they feel independent.

He's like, I'm going to make a brand for them.

So with me and my platform, it's majority guys.

All of my content is self help.

Just like the, the truth behind how hard it is to be a

young entrepreneur these days.

So.

Most of my content isn't even really about my business.

It's just about like me, voicing my thoughts or yapping as people

say, being a young entrepreneur.

And I think the easiest funnel to get started on that journey

of self improvement is fitness.

Yeah.

So like, in my mind, people, you know, I think what a better product.

to sell to people, then the first thing they could use if you're just going from

maybe not knowing how you should start to, I'm going to start working out.

Does that make sense?

Totally.

I think that

aligns perfectly with what you're talking about if, if, yeah,

if, if what you're preaching about is self help or the content is related

to self help and then fitness is the number one thing that you focus on.

Yeah.

The medium.

Yeah.

Then the next most important thing is.

Is the product that you're launching organically going to be placed

into your content and feel native?

Like, it feels like it's supposed to be there and it doesn't feel

like it's getting promoted, right?

And you're doing that with workout apparel or fitness apparel, and specifically

with these shorts, where it just feels like it's, it's a product that you wanted

and therefore you created it for you.

And there's a lot of people that follow you, that look up to you, and

they're going to want that shit too.

I definitely agree.

And I appreciate the kind words.

My whole goal with the brand is, You know, over the next five years as my

platform grows and I don't even want to be the face of it, honestly, like

I'm trying to grow it with my, with my own personal brand, but you know, not,

not because of it not be limited to just my audience, but the goal is like

all these young guys that are 18 to.

I would say as our primary demographic, as they grow up and as they move

into the real world, they're probably going to be higher earners than the

average person because they're already focused on self development and

growth and business and mindset young.

So they're probably going to be higher earners, right?

And they're going to be more likely to purchase products.

At a higher price point who they've seen the growth of, you know what I mean?

So similar to Lulu, but with young, ambitious guys is like

our, our model right now.

Yeah, it's an

interesting bet.

And it definitely seems like that's an underserved segment sometimes

in, in pop culture these days.

I'm curious, you mentioned chip and Lulu in that story.

Did that have a big impact on when you were founding this brand and

who you wanted to make it for, or did it come more so from the natural

alignment with your audience?

Well, I didn't even read chip's book and hear about his story until about

Probably over the summer, I think was when I first started reading his book.

But it kind of just like reinforced the whole idea behind the brand

of you need to build, you need to know where you're going, right?

You can't just like build it and have no idea.

So

what's the reasoning for the name?

What's the story behind the name?

Because I asked Brian and Brian's like, I'll let you, I'll let

I'll let Lucas, yeah, tell the story and kind of give it up.

My favorite thing about when I met Lucas was the

explanation of the squid name.

Yeah.

So I think you can make a brand and give it a generic name, but, and that

might help you grow the brand at the beginning, but you're really not going

to differentiate yourself at all.

You look at all the biggest brands that have stuck around.

They're very unique, right?

Like I, I'm not going to shit on anyone's brand in particular, but you

can, you could pick a lot of, you know, like, I think Alex Eubank is a cool guy

and I have a lot of mutuals with him, but his brand like Elysium athletic,

like it's just not unique enough.

Right.

I don't think that can go very far and he's making good money, but

how, what's the longevity of that?

So on the opposite side, you look at a brand like Viore, Lulu,

Aloe, even Nike, like Phil Knight.

Hated Nike, the name of it at the beginning, he hated the logo.

He was not a fan.

And now it's like the most prominent name in sports, right?

And all the same with Adidas and all of apparel.

Yeah.

Right.

So squid, Haas, the reason behind that is it's very unique.

There's literally nothing that sounds like it.

So if you look it up, like we don't even spend money on SEO.

It's just, it's the top thing.

But the idea behind the squid Haas name is.

Squid is this term, as I told you, that means like pussy,

weak, spineless, nerd, docile.

It's like an insult, right?

Yeah.

Ha is the exact opposite.

That guy's ha right?

Yeah.

Exudes confidence done.

Right.

Good at everything.

So there's polar opposites and the whole brand is about that, that journey,

that transformation from x to, yeah.

From squid.

Ha.

Right?

I like to call it like.

A climb that never ends because you're never actually going to get there.

And this is part of the reason I think a lot of people think

that the brand is named after me because my social handle is good.

Pactor kind of the opposite.

Like I named myself.

After the brand, kind of like all the phase guys named, you

know, phase banks, phase rug, whatever, named it after the brand.

So I'm kind of like eight miling myself.

Gotcha.

So, so it was the, the original TikTok handle of squid packer was not kind

of like a self defecating thing where.

Yeah.

I just thought, I thought to myself, like, I mean, part of the reason I

created the brand was because I, myself went through, and I'm still trying to

like improve every single day, but I used to be the biggest loser ever, bro.

I had no friends, no girls like me, no respect for myself, no

happiness, like just felt like a loser, felt like a waste of air.

And, you know, unfortunately, like if you talk highly about yourself,

it sounds cocky or whatever, but I love myself right now.

And I feel very blessed to like, to be in a point in my life where I'm very

proud of what I see in the mirror.

And I have a lot of awesome people around me that help me every day.

And so, yeah, I'm going through my own squid hoss journey right now.

Nice.

And yeah, the, the point of naming my Tik Tok squid Pactor

and then my podcast squid talk.

Is tying into this idea that everyone you meet, that seems like a stud,

like they have shit figured out more often than not was actually

the guy that was picked last, right?

Tom Brady, Michael Jordan, right?

Greatest of all time in their field, but they didn't make the team.

They were picked last.

They were the backup, you know?

Yeah, it's super true.

So I want to get into like some of the meat of, you know, why we're

doing this episode on this podcast.

We like to do super tactical kind of marketing strategy

stuff and squid Great brands.

You kind of, how, how recently did you start it?

I think we launched a year and a half ago.

Okay.

And then, you know, haven't even launched paid media yet.

I mean, I'm launching today.

So, you know, still kind of getting to that stratosphere.

I'm not sure how big it is.

Six, seven figures.

You don't have to share anything.

I'm happy to share.

I'm

fully transparent with everything.

I mean, we've, we've ran like some Instagram boosted posts and stuff, but

nothing that was like targeted really.

Like we had an ads team for a couple of months, but it didn't really work out.

So we just shut it off for the last four last four months.

The first couple of months of the business was me, like, just

figuring out what business was, what the business was going to do.

So I wouldn't even count that.

It was like a real start.

I mean, it was me, like, playing around.

It was me being a entrepreneur.

So we've only been in business for like, For real for like eight or nine months.

But in the first year we did, I think like 650 K in revenue this year.

I think once we can get the ads figured out, now that we

have this good foundation, we can do two and a half to three.

Because it was just shorts the first, like it was one product.

I'm very, I'm very confident that we can do well this year with more

variety, more of a foundation.

And yeah.

What

drove that 650 K was it just primarily organic content?

Organic.

I mean, I would, it'd be lying if I said it wasn't a bit based on me,

but we also had a lot of athletes.

Dude, they're so loud, like no other shorts look like them.

So, you know, the designs are great.

Thank you.

It's interesting because a lot of people shit on it at the beginning.

They're like, bro, that's fucking hideous.

I would never wear that.

Really?

And then my strategy was, I'm just going to hit up every stud that I

can find on social media who I'm able to get a hold of every house.

Every house, right?

Doesn't even have to be a fitness guy.

I hit up like cool entrepreneurs.

I hit up anyone.

I just liked and respected.

Dad.

And I sent them free shit with the hope that like, I don't want to say

average people or normal people, but like anyone who did have people

that followed them,

yeah, people that followed them would see this guy who they look up to and

be like, Oh, that's a very loud product on a loud person who's on social media.

Where'd you get the shorts?

You know, you kind of want to engineer that question whenever

someone posted it, even if they're not tagging you, they want it to be

like, okay, where'd these come from?

It was just influencer

seeding or greater seeding in many ways.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

And so that was kind of influencer was the primary revenue driver.

And then what are you seeing this year?

Because I've noticed that you've done pretty well on tick tock shop.

I'd love to dig into how you view TikTok shop content as someone whose

audience is built on personal brands.

And that can dilute your relationship with your audience if you spam

them too much with that content.

Yeah.

And it's a, it's a slippery slope and it's it's not reliable.

I would say at all.

I think TikTok needs to figure their shit out.

Cause right now they're kind of testing a lot of different stuff, but I think

I made a video on this before we went from like really struggling in October.

Cause I was just such a rookie and I didn't plan for.

Like in the clothing industry, like so much of your success is based on seasons.

Yeah.

So my sales are doing really well for a startup in the summer because

everyone's buying shorts and like numbers are getting higher and higher.

So I'm ordering more and more.

Yeah.

And just didn't prepare at all for the winter.

Like, yeah.

You just, you know, Rookie move.

Honestly, we get to mid October, it starts getting colder.

They'll start tanking and I'm just sitting on my bed.

Like how the fuck did I not think of this?

Right.

I'm such an idiot because I'm sitting on 250 K worth of shorts

and I have no money on the bank.

It was all wrapped up in inventory.

We didn't do any marketing, right?

It was just selling.

So I was like, buy more and more.

And I was like, you know what?

It'll work out.

It'll be okay.

And the next day we got on TikTok shop sold us out over the next month

or so our sales in like October and November were crazy high skyrocketed.

It was like, you know, I think September was probably best month at the time.

60 K I think.

Then all of a sudden, October and November, we're like 140 K, 150 K.

Yeah.

But when you grow that fast, like it's bound to come down.

Yeah, for sure.

Then we're out of inventory.

Now it's really fucking cold out the tech talk shop.

Start giving away their promo codes and free discounts and shit.

So.

Then December and January, especially were terrible months, right?

Yeah.

Mainly because we were out of stock, but, so yeah, it's just not reliable.

And I'll post like TikTok shop videos every once in a while

showing a new product, but I try to keep it less than 5%.

What were the videos that work there on TikTok shop when you

sold out within that month, month and a half span, or what kind of

videos, the formats, the structure?

Entertainment type, like, like not what you would expect.

So not like a video of me working out, showing the shorts.

But more me looking like a douche bag, wearing like cool, like speed

glasses, dance, something obnoxious.

Like I made a video the other day saying not to get a little

controversial, but it is clearly a joke.

And I think some people are just so soft.

They hate it.

But I said I said, I'm pretty much Martin Luther King.

Cause.

Doesn't matter what your skin color is.

Anyone that wears these will look sick and that's, that kind of stuff does well.

And it's clearly just like ridiculous, but that kind of stuff

gets people like, wait, hold up.

And if the videos do well, and then

that's so interesting that like, so you kind of, you know, you created a

controversial hook and then because the shorts were featured in the video, because

people are, you're getting the eyeballs with the controversy and then people

are kind of seeing the shorts and just.

Oh, shit.

Those are sick.

I think people also just respect

the not giving a fuck, honestly.

Like, I never go too far across the line.

And that was clearly a joke, but, dude, honestly the more I've

tried to be the more I've tried to walk the line it's weird.

The less people respect me, actually.

And comment shit.

But as soon as I get a little controversial, it's actually

like, oh, I like this guy.

I support him.

I think, yeah, you have to either you have to pick a side.

I think in today's world it's like you either have to be

On this side of the things.

And this is your opinion or it's this soft side, et cetera.

And you, and you're going to attract either, or if you're in the rock.

Yeah.

If you're in the middle, it's not, you're not going to build a fan base.

Yeah,

absolutely.

The rock is someone who like, I used to love the rock and the dude like

is perfectly trying to walk the line and everyone hates the guy right now.

Yeah,

I know.

I watched the Joe Rogan episode and my feedback was I wasted three

hours because there was nothing, he had no opinion on anything.

It was just, yeah, I agree, Joe.

And it was like, that's it.

But there's no dropping an opinion at any point.

He views that all as like a massive risk for sure.

And I understand that real opinion.

I'm not defending it, but I do think

he could be even bigger.

If you pick the side, he would lose some people like always that happens.

It happened with Nike when they, When they did the Colin Kaepernick ad

and then they, you know, their stock grew X amount, but people are going

to be only more loyal to you if you pick a side versus walking the line.

Absolutely.

Particularly on, on TikTok.

I think that's kind of known as a wild, wild west of opinions.

You know, it's a place where you can share a really raw, I mean, You know,

you mentioned some other controversial influencers, like, you know, that's,

that's how their, their stuff spread is like, they get their opinion gets clipped

up on a podcast and then it kind of enters the echo chamber on tick tock and finds

the people that also share that opinion.

Yeah, sure.

So becoming authentic, like being more authentic is always going to win out.

Absolutely.

And that's not even just in social media, it's just in general as a person, right?

I hate hanging around people that are people pleasers and

trying to say everything.

Like I would rather you say something I disagree with.

Yeah.

And you just say, Hey man, you don't have to agree with me, but this is how I feel.

I'm open to a different viewpoint, but you know,

absolutely.

Are you aware that some of the brands bidding on your, your branded search?

Are you, have you, have you Googled squid haas recently?

Cause you got, you got some pretty big brands that want to

rank whenever someone looks.

I'm curious

though.

Yeah.

So

one of them is rowback.

So they're kind of like a performance athleisure apparel.

Another one is on running.

So obviously you're in kind of the performance apparel world.

It's interesting that they're coming out to you.

Another one's pan Gaia.

Have you seen this brand?

Yeah.

I thought, I didn't even know it was pronounced that way, but yeah.

I mean, I totally could be butchering that either way.

Welcome.

And then There's proper cloth, which is world's best clothing

for men is their headline.

So you're ending up in a lot of like broad search campaigns for a lot of big

brands, which is pretty, they know about

you.

They're running paid ads on the back end of your brain.

That's

interesting.

I didn't, so yeah, I just don't understand that world at all.

I've always been like the, Maybe the idea overall vision guy, but I'm

actually very, not, I'm not very much back end let's really figure it, which

I'm trying to get better at that.

I'm trying to learn.

I think it's very important, obviously you guys are killer at that.

So

for sure.

Yeah.

It's just, it's pretty interesting.

So, I mean, there's two ways that you could end up there.

Number one would be perform like a A Google campaign where someone

creates a list of broad match keywords and squid Haas was in them.

That's maybe a little bit less likely than, you know, Google just

determining that you were in their cohort and that y'all were similar.

And so when someone like.

These people just have campaigns where they're trying to show up for any search

in the entire men's apparel category.

Yeah.

So it's more likely that was it, but I just, I thought it was interesting.

Those are

not the ones I would have expected though.

I would have expected maybe ASRV, right.

10, 000, four, seven, 10, 000 represent

two, four, seven.

Yeah, yeah,

exactly.

Uvu, I would say 2, 4, 7.

And uvu, even though they're primary, you know, primarily like UK Brands uk Yeah,

those are brands that I, I, I like a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That I definitely, those are my two favorite

brands right now.

Yeah.

They're, they're sick dude.

Yeah.

And I'm, I'm trying to actually like, take pieces from that and learn and, and

yeah, some of their products, like the.

The men's like compression running shorts, right?

That's something that hasn't really fully made its way over to the U S but

we're working on stuff like that right

now.

For sure.

Obviously you Google squid Haas and clicking on the website, you know,

something that, and this is a point where I'd recommend switching over

to the YouTube because it's going to get a very visual here, but.

You go to your website and you know, your hero image, that, that first thing that

shows upon load is kind of like a mural, like squid hoss, like death over average.

And you actually don't have a call to action button.

Like you don't have like a shop now or like, You know, explore

bestsellers or anything like that.

Is, is that a deliberate branded choice or

No, I mean, I also most 90 percent of our engagement is on mobile.

So it's actually a different picture from mobile.

Cause that one wouldn't fit on the phone.

Landscape wise.

Yeah.

But yeah, on the mobile one, it's just a a sick looking dude wearing our clothing.

And I, yeah, I actually, There really is no reason behind that.

It was just like, I picked a cool themed picture for the front.

I'm curious here.

It sounds like that's a big, we're losing a lot by not having a call to action.

Yeah.

You're above the fold

that you're above the fold.

The first thing that somebody sees.

You want it to have some form of a headline, a sub headline,

and a CTA or social proof.

And right now yours is like empty with a billboard or that graphic that if I don't

know the brand and this is my first time interacting with it, I don't know what it

is, I don't know where to go take action.

You want to make that first above the fold very obvious.

So even represent like theirs is pretty basic just because

this is a brand you like.

But it's like the vault and it does have a shop now, right?

Like there's at least a CTA taking you into their products, into

their ecosystem and letting the individual take some form of action.

Yeah.

Do you want to do that above the fold?

What button would you suggest?

I do a shop now or like a, what it was, should I directly

link it to my best seller?

Cause my thing is like, Oh, they just.

So here is, and we'll put this up on the YouTube, but here's 10,

000s.

And if you put a heat map on your homepage, you're losing at least

30 percent of your traffic by the time they scroll down a product for

context, a heat map is like, it tells you what people are

scrolling, what they're looking at, what they're clicking in it.

And it essentially gets warmer on the page.

The more somebody sees or does stuff on, on a page.

So here is, and we'll put this up on the YouTube, but here's 10, 000s.

And it's super clear copy, right?

The only training short you'll ever need.

And then presents at CTA shop now.

And it just takes you straight to their interval short, right?

This is another thing about merchandising that I'm super excited to get into

with you because you not to jump too far ahead, but you list all your

products individually as you know, old money green or something like that.

And you don't allow color selection on the actual product.

We don't have that much

variety.

If we, if we did.

There's a reason for that.

And ultimately eventually want it to look like that for sure.

But we're, we're working on a ton of new products right now that

we're going to push out, you know, probably in the next couple of weeks.

And if I did list product variety on the actual, like running shorts, lifting

shorts, Tanks, whatever I'd have like less than 10 products total on the site.

It just won't be, or maybe that's what it should be.

I don't know.

I mean, it's, this is a lot of this stuff is just like simple AB tests.

It's not necessarily something that we could conclusively

say is going to work or not.

But it is, I mean, Like these little needle movers really impact

conversion, like, especially that thing about, you know, not having

a button and, you know, a headline.

So they need to go back every single time to look at the

other colors is, that's probably driving people away is what I'm

assuming your point is.

A hundred percent.

Any, any friction in the process is, is lost revenue.

So, you know, that would definitely be that first recommendation is

inputting some sort of CTA and, you know, maybe a little bit of a headline.

Cause I mean, I think you have.

a differentiated value prop to 10, 000, you know, like

you, you mentioned something.

I thought that was really cool.

Was was it the intersection of training and fashion or like somewhere where

you're living, where your brand lives?

You know, Oren has said this really like eloquently on, on some of our

previous pods, but he's like, there's crazy opportunity in being, you

know, a Venn diagram of two things and you being in the middle of that

Venn diagram in a way that no one has.

So if you're, you know, Performance and fashion and kind of like

at the forefront of that.

That's something I would consider leaning into for that headline.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like maybe, I mean, my kind of slogan personally when

I explain it to people is like, loud clothing for loud people.

Yeah.

Definitely.

That would, that would be great.

Is that something that I should Yes.

Put on the, interesting.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that would be really cool.

Make sure that you have a, a, a contrasting color in the font.

Yeah.

You know, like have a dark black background, light font.

And then contrasting button shop now or shop best sellers and.

Do you think it'll move the needle conversion wise?

You have to

think about it from this perspective.

Increasing your conversion rate is the easiest way to increase revenue without

having to do anything differently other than change what's on the website.

If 10, 000 people visit and your current conversion rate is 2%,

but now you increase it to 4, you just doubled your revenue by just

changing what's on the website.

Definitely.

You know, and it's like, it's minor things like Brian's saying where

you could just do these small A B tests and make, build a drastic

difference for the, for the company.

Yeah, another super minor thing is and minor, but could

be major is on your email pop up.

So you actually have too many, you have, you have a few steps.

So one of we'll put this up, but it goes full screen.

So I don't have a choice to kind of like click out of it.

I got to like, really find that X, which some people like, some people don't.

You have a button to then take someone to the next step to input their email.

Instead of just presenting the email field, field right off the bat.

And so you're introducing an extra step of friction and then they

have to give their phone number.

So really it's a three step process when in actuality you could upfront

collect just the email and phone.

No,

I think you're totally right about that.

What's, what's interesting though, is.

So that, a good friend of mine is essentially like CMO of the

company Amped that we use for that.

Yeah, so

we're,

yeah.

Oh, you know, yeah, okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So we just switched from our typical pop ups made by our email guy to Amped.

And it increased our sign up rate from like 2.

8 percent for email to like 6 percent so it's already more than doubled, but I

think you're right, like I'm definitely have no problem going to Sawyer after

and being like, yo, put this on one page.

I'm sure it would, but I think you could

even do something where it's like for the email address, there's

you're going to get X offer, right?

You might get 15 percent off.

For SMS, you could be entered into this giveaway.

And now it's like two different options offers that they're signing up for.

And the track there, the friction isn't as bad because.

There is value on both ends of giving somebody SMS and getting somebody their

email.

So you don't like it where it needs to say like, put your email and phone number

in to get the 15 percent off or whatever?

I always think it's a little better to Alex's point where you

say, give us your email for 15 and then maybe your SMS for 20.

Yeah.

Because you want to give that little extra incentive to push them over the top.

Versus, you know, making it like, okay, you gave us your email.

Now give us your phone number.

Even if you don't want to, to claim this offer, which is how, I mean, that's the

best practice, the postscript attentive.

I don't know what SMS like you're using, like, this is what they tell you to do

because they are incentivized to get you the maximum amount of phone numbers.

The maximum amount of revenue will come from people that

actually want to give you that

shit.

It's not necessarily like.

Oh, okay.

You know, I get as many phone numbers as possible.

Like you're going to experience a lot more churn if you're just like

forcing people to give you their shit versus if they actually want to.

20 percent is a lot.

I'm curious if I should do 10 and then 15, but at the same time, 10, I feel like

isn't attractive enough to get someone.

Like I would rather pay an extra 10 percent more than give someone

my email and have to delete it.

And I don't

even think that that other offer has to be a discount though.

It doesn't have to be 20 percent off.

It could be, you do a giveaway every, every month.

A brand that does a really good job of this is 47.

They do the hats.

They, they build up their SMS list on the back end of giveaways.

And they do the same thing.

It's like an original offer and then a giveaway to collect SMS and they crush.

Something I like to do with my SMS, and the list isn't

crazy, I think it's like 2, 000 people, maybe even a little less.

Yeah.

But we just started, just started adding that on.

But I like to do speed giveaways, I call them.

Where I'll say like, yo, these 10 discount codes are active.

Yeah.

It'll, it'll say like, SH giveaway 1, SH giveaway 2.

Yeah.

All the way to 10, right?

Yeah.

And each one of them is.

A free pair of shorts.

So like I'll release a new product and I'll say, yo, this product is out.

By the way, these 10 discount codes, give it to you for free.

First 10 people to use it, get it.

So it just drives like hundreds of people to the site right away and sure, 10

people get it for free, but then everybody else who didn't get it now it's in their

head like, fuck, wait, do I want this?

Like, cause I'm already here.

And damn.

Yeah.

I mean, everything's at bats, you know what I mean?

You just got to get as many sessions on the side as possible.

So the next thing you kind of go into is your products and

you, I'm not, do you list every single product on this homepage?

On the homepage?

Yeah.

Cause we just don't have that many yet.

Yeah.

Open to feedback though.

I mean, it's up to you.

I think one of the best practices that I've seen a lot of brands

Institute is, you know, Kind of, you know, shot by category here.

So if you're going to introduce products right after your hero image,

I would introduce your best sellers.

Yeah.

And for you, your best sellers are a combination of things

because this is all merchandising.

So this is basically how are you guiding someone through your website's experience?

Yeah.

I would imagine that you're trying to move a lot of that bundle, right?

For sure.

And so bundle would be one of the things that, you know, I'd definitely recommend.

And then, you know, your best sellers, I'd probably only display

your best sellers here because.

For me, if I'm coming to the site after seeing your shorts, like I get

that you're trying to move, you know, the tanks in the, in the t shirts

and the stuff like that, but like, I'm probably here for the shorts.

And so, you know, I don't get me wrong.

This is not like something that could be a crazy moving needle

mover, but I would recommend going.

You know, bestsellers, maybe like a square clickable thing that would take them to

a bestsellers collection, or you could merchandise your bestsellers with just

a headline and then a shop by category.

Don't let people look at the hoodies.

Let people look at the pants.

Let people look at the tanks.

And with the shop by

category, how, how do you, how would you suggest

I set that up looks wise?

Would it be like dragging you to another page or just like.

Shop by category headline.

And then you have like shorts.

I like I like a white border with a clickable, darker colored

square and then text in that square.

Okay.

So

true classic does a great job of this.

If you look at true classic, it's shop by category.

They kill it.

Yeah.

I've watched a

lot

of videos on their strategies.

It's phenomenal.

Yeah.

It's phenomenal.

They're super dialed.

And I think you know, what you can do is.

Even for yours, you could go bestseller, merchandise, those, you know, top

selling shorts, and then go into just tops and bottoms, you know?

And then that way, like, cause there's a lot of scrolling to

get to some of these things.

And you just want to minimize, like, I'm telling you, it's, it's

very illuminating when you put tracking software on your website.

I've used hot jar a little bit, but it's always

hard to understand.

Yeah, so you guys have a lot more

experience than me and understanding.

For me, I'm just kind of paying attention to how the cursor moves.

But you're watching the

recording.

Yeah.

So I look at, I look at the drop off in the bounce.

So like how far a percentage of sessions gets to on your landing page.

So typically, you know, I'd say by the time we're at like, you know,

these tanks, like you've already lost, you know, 50 percent of sessions

that have even come to the page.

And I'd use Heatmap over Hotjar.

Heatmap's gonna give you like very obvious insights.

It's like, hey, people aren't engaging with this, they're engaging with this.

And it's the same thing.

It's like Hotjar, but with the insights given by their team to you.

Cool.

Okay, I'll definitely check that out.

I was gonna add one thing.

The other thing I would do is when you, when you create the categories,

Add the bundles to the top of the page versus at the bottom of the page.

You want that to be the first thing that they should have one

bundle right now.

But as we get more products, I'll add more.

I fully agree with you on that.

I think that's

have those at the top.

So you could increase

the AOB.

So do you think I should have like maybe the first category that pops

up the bundles or do I have like bestsellers and the bundles first?

Bestsellers.

Yeah.

Bestsellers and bundles first.

Yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So you could probably bundle your bestsellers.

I'm guessing.

Yeah.

I've noticed

though

that you don't,

you're not bundling the four inch shorts.

Okay.

Which I'm about to I mean I made that running the running shorts

bundle like two or three days ago, I think Yeah, I just started bundles.

I mean dude, it's a fluid

situation.

Yeah.

Yeah, it's we're working on it, but I definitely should I mean,

yeah One it's hard because i've been i've been thinking about like

which bundles would do best, right?

Do I do dark color bundles?

Do I do usa red wine blue bundle?

Do I do?

So yeah, if you guys have any advice on that too, totally up and

dude, that, that one's all testing.

Yeah.

I was gonna say

that's, that's based on your data.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But I mean, you're thinking about it the right way.

I think like clever things such as the USA bundle, the dark bundle,

you know, the lighter bundle.

Yeah.

Contrast bundle, like stuff like that.

So kind of shifting down the page, you get into this like

climb higher, go further section.

Which dope lifestyle shot and you are sort of a lifestyle brand, I would say this is

for a certain type of person and athlete.

So, you know, you can even consider having that be your running

shorts image, you know, like make, make this click, which one?

Like, so this image, you know, like it's cool.

You guys make that the

first one and then say shop bestseller shop.

Yeah.

Right.

And then like put, maybe you'll put a little border around

it, but like, Make this clickable.

Like people want to click almost everything on your website.

They almost expect things to be clickable.

And so having this redirect to maybe it's your running shorts collection, maybe

it's your best sellers, whatever it is,

that'll be another, I always assumed that having someone

click to go to another page is.

bad.

So that's why I've made the whole thing scrolling, you know?

Yeah.

Well, we, we just want to send them to the point of conversion, you know,

at all times, same with this one.

Like this is a dope shot.

But I think, you know, how do we kind of take it to the next level is just

making it direct to something specific.

So whether that's, you know, the more kind of graphic design shorts,

or maybe you swap in another image for the hoodies or, you know, the

tops, whatever you're trying to move.

But use that real estate, you know, because this is a whole.

basically fold in a half of scrolling that's not clickable.

Especially on a phone too.

Right.

Right.

And then you get into the reviews and I think, you know, I would

probably recommend putting the reviews a little bit higher as well.

Okay.

So like, I think the reviews probably do more for you in selling the product

than these lifestyle images do.

Because one of the first things people are going to do is, okay,

so this is an influencer brand.

Is it trustworthy?

Is it actually high quality?

Is it merch, low quality, just trying to get money out of my hands?

And, and something that has been really powerful is a lot of people

are showing a three star review to give a really authentic feel.

So you can almost have someone say some of my favorite shorts

of all time, really high quality, so great, just a little too short.

Or something

like that.

Or what about, yeah, I like that.

What about, like, you know, best shorts I've ever worn,

but I ordered the wrong size.

Yes, exactly.

And, and like have that three star review, which almost backdoors, like some of the

unique selling properties that you want to get across, like super high quality,

great for running and working out.

But just that one little thing was wrong.

But that one little thing is on the customer.

It wasn't actually on the product itself.

I like that.

That's good advice.

Yeah, I think throwing that like a little bit higher in the page like

right after those collections could be really good to kind of earn that click.

And then again, dude, always want to just have a little button right here.

You know, shop best sellers.

Just right there, just because in case that review moves the needle for somebody.

Now they don't know where to go.

Yeah, boom.

Okay, you can redirect.

And they don't have to click on the hamburger menu and then go to the

product page and stuff like that.

I think another thing too is underneath the social

proof, you could add UGC, right?

Get a bunch of UGC that you've collected from your friends or from actual customers

and put that on the homepage as well.

Like that is going to move mountains for you on the conversion side.

If you have UGC that's specific to a specific product.

Put it on the product page as well.

True Classic, again, is another really good brand at doing this.

They have UGC specific for each product on the product page.

So you get to not only just see the beautiful product images,

you also kind of get to see it in action and in on somebody.

Like the customer

review pictures they send in or whatever.

There's a lot.

It's

actual videos.

It could be an actual TikTok video, Instagram video.

But you're putting that on the actual page.

Yeah.

And you can show the stretch.

You can show someone working out in it.

You can show them after like a super sweaty workout and

that it didn't change colors.

You can show the length of the shorts.

Like there's a lot of different sort of scenarios to portray it with that UGC.

Yeah.

And it's just a carousel.

That's one thing we, I, we, no problem admitting this, we stuck at UGC.

Like, and that's, we're really trying to.

Yeah.

Get the right people and on our team to make that kind of

content, get the right influence.

You know, I'm sure you've seen on my socials, been hanging out with a

lot of the local Austin, like runner influencers, role at Ian Fonz, right?

This guy's like, very fortunate that I became friends with them

right as we were studying this, starting this new collection.

But we're, we're working on UGC hard right now.

Cause we do suck at that for

sure.

Yeah.

And I mean, you know, by the time someone's reached your product

page, They are pretty down.

Yeah, they, they kind of want your product if you think about it, but

now it's up to you to convince them.

And so what are those things that you want to convince them

on with your product page?

You know, when I checked this out, you do have a picture of it on a model,

but you know, a four inch inseam, I'm just looking at the product carousel.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like a four inch inseam.

For the UNC blues, for example, like this is really, you know, that's,

that's, that's a short, short dude.

So like, I think just talking about like where that's going to fall on

someone's thigh, you know, like.

Kind of assuring somebody like, yo, these aren't too short or like just giving

them confidence that it's going to fit is something that I would consider kind

of instituting on on this page and about

making it specific about a person like the perfect.

Workout shorts for someone wanting a pair that fits halfway up the

thigh and maximizes the aesthetic look of your legs for sure.

Something like that.

But

I, I think like what he's saying too, is when you get somebody gets

to the product page, that's where the most objections are gonna start

happening, of like, well, is the four inch seam gonna fit me well?

Is it gonna be too tight?

Is it gonna be loose?

And that's where you can tackle those objections.

You could add like a frequently asked question, something simple, just

answering all these customer, all this, these internal questions that they

have before they make the product.

Because once it gets to the PDP, PDP page, you're just trying to push them

over the edge to make the purchase.

And not let them have all these questions that push them back from making that

purchase.

Right.

And what I had written down in the kind of the playbook here was,

you know, introduce some clever copy about showing off the thighs.

Yeah.

And not looking like a dad, you know, not looking like a bozo, right?

Like I think there's a lot of you know, cultural

USP right now.

Yeah.

I just

stopped looking

like the need shorts to knees.

Yeah, dude.

And like, there's so many funny memes about like mid 2000s, super

long shorts that you could even kind of draw inspiration from.

Yeah, just, and also the versatility and the mobility of kind of having your legs

out when you're working out like that, like not having, not being restricted.

So it can lean to that performance.

Yeah.

I know.

Like a lot of girls also.

Like I noticed this on my videos.

Maybe this is something I need to point out more.

Like at least the girls that I've been around that I interact

with, like, they love short shorts, a hundred percent, right?

Like, so maybe that's something we need to, maybe that's something

we implement in the reviews.

Absolutely.

I love how my boyfriend looks in his new.

Yeah.

That's another

thing you could start doing is targeting women.

Like with your ads, like it's worth testing it, targeting the

women because they're going to be buying it for their guys.

And I can't tell you how many anecdotally, how many of my friends just

openly say that their girlfriend is the only reason that they have good style.

And I mean, I mean, I, that's why I'm looking for one right now

to buy when I go to the store.

But, you know, I think leaning into that gift, gifting angle could be huge.

Okay, cool.

Cause a lot of what is, it's something about there, there's a transformation

trend on tech talk where women will be like, I had a boyfriend, but

now I have a husband and it shows

like his

increase

in style or my boyfriend.

Now I have a man or an after my girlfriend.

You guys ever seen those videos?

Yeah,

exactly.

Exactly.

How

it started, how it's going, all that shit.

So another thing you do on your product page that I think is

interesting is you have the quality assurance and it, it shows that

you're, you're aware that, you know, people want to pay 60 for shorts.

They want it to be really strong quality.

Right?

And in the quality assurance, I think you kind of mentioned, you know,

it's at the forefront of what we do.

They're crafted from premium materials designed to provide

both comfort and durability.

I do think in today's day and age, things like that fall kind of hollow

because you're not being very specific.

So when you say you have premium materials, I think you should lean

into what are those premium materials.

Cause when we talked to Oren, you know, he's a, again, he's a

luxury product, kind of savant.

And we're like, okay, how do you position your products to actually be luxury?

Like, how do you justify charging a massive cost?

And it's about ingredients, materials, and the story behind stuff.

So you, whether or not, I don't know where you get your nylon from,

but like create a story about how that nylon is just top of the line.

It's the best quality made in Spain or somewhere like.

Single origin materials, like kind of incorporate some of that stuff so that

the materials without you saying, trust me, bro, they actually just read it.

And they're like, Oh shit, this is really quality.

In this case,

like the education builds the trust and the trust builds the confidence.

Oh, I agree fully.

I think one of the things we're doing right now is we're switching.

We're, we're testing out a lot of new manufacturing in Lulu's old factories

in Mexico that they use for a couple of different lines of products.

And it's way more expensive than China, which is where we currently

get most of our stuff from.

But and that does really hurt our margins, but maybe it does

allow us to charge a little bit more, 10 more per pair, right?

And gives us the ability to write a story in the description, you know,

these, Products were sourced using a local cotton picked in Mexico and

assembled at the, you know one of the most well known and established

local factories in Mexico city.

Yeah.

Something like that.

Dude, a hundred percent.

Just creating a story around it.

Being transparent in the first place, because people just assume you got

this for 8 from China, and that's really all you're fighting against.

If you lean into

the luxury aspect of it, that's where now those, the average I think

it's like death by average sweatpants, they go from 70 to 90, and luxury

products have luxury margins, but you got to play into the storytelling

that makes a product luxury.

Dude, that's what I thought, and I would love that to be the

case, and I actually like put all this effort and time into switching

like quite a bit of manufacturing to Mexico, looking for a new sourcing.

Right.

Been doing this over the past four or five months now because so many

people were in my comments saying, I'm not buying shorts, shorts made

from China, made in China, right?

Like Chinese dropship or like people would say all this stuff, bro.

Probably gets this shorts for.

You know, whatever price, even though it's, it's a lot higher,

like our margins aren't that great.

So I put a lot of effort into switching to Mexico, which is much more expensive.

And the quality is quite a bit better, but I don't think it's

worth the increase in price.

If you were to look at them on a chart.

But then I realized the people that are complaining about the China

products, we're never going to buy our shit in the first place.

They just don't like me and they just want to give any excuse possible because

Then I made a recent video saying, all right guys, like this is the,

this is the new product from Mexico.

The quality is for sure.

15 percent better, right?

You can, you can tell by the stitching, it is a little better.

You could tell by how clear the print is on the shorts

that this isn't going to fade.

It's going to last you, you know, the old shorts will probably last you two years

before they start getting really worn.

These will probably last you two and a half.

And they're made in Mexico.

Is that worth an extra 10?

And because a big majority of our audience is like young guys who aren't, Might

not care about a big majority of our audience is guys that don't give a shit.

They don't care that it's made in China, at least our, our customers right now.

So I'm seeing that I'm even starting to think like, damn, maybe that was

all for nothing, but we'll try it out.

We have like a couple thousand pairs coming from Mexico soon and

I'll filter them into the current.

Set a selection of products and see how they do, right?

Maybe even email some people personally say, Hey, what do

you think of this new one?

I saw you're a big customer.

I sent you a new, a new one from Mexico.

Can you tell the difference?

Yeah.

And I mean, dude, you know, you want to talk to UGC.

Yeah.

Why don't you do like some on the street interview things like, can you feel the

difference between Chinese manufacturing and Mexican manufacturing?

You know, I mean, you have a, you have a big audience.

You could easily comment, reply this.

And one of the guys who's in your comments chirping saying, you know, China bro,

and be like, dude, I hear you guys.

We wanted to have the best shorts in the game.

Like, check these out.

And then just kind of showing the difference.

Yeah,

I could, and I should do more of that.

You can also just

immediately turn that into an ad in your meta ad account.

Yeah, I bet it'll perform really well.

That's one thing we haven't touched about is like, there's so many things

you could do on the organic content side that when it works, that's when now

you're going to put it into paid instead of running paid now, testing a bunch

of shit, wasting a lot of money there.

Test it all on organic.

You're already great at making content.

You're around.

People are great at making content when it works and it drives sales and you

have proof points that like, Hey, this just went viral and sold a hundred K

worth of shorts, 50 K worth of shorts.

What happens when we put 50 K behind it in meta and we let meta do the targeting.

Yeah.

Like there's a lot to learn there from testing using organic as

like the testing grounds for what then is going to work on paid.

I like that.

Well

said.

I have a question for you guys.

So I'm actually.

You know, a big UGC video we're working on right now, like for top

of funnel is a video of Noah, you know, stud looking dude, right?

Sick physiques covered in tattoos.

And he's also just a great guy, big following.

It's a video he made for me of just doing a lot of cool activities.

And the video isn't even really.

Like centered on the shorts at all.

It doesn't even say squid.

He doesn't even mention the word squid Haas.

It just says like POV, you surround yourself with winners.

And it was just, it's him doing like a 40 foot cliff jump, him doing crazy

workouts, him running the marathon.

Sauna, ice bath, right?

Like all wearing the product.

And I'm curious if you think that'll do well.

I haven't even started running ads on it yet, but it was more going to be

like the, the idea was a top of funnel.

Like, Oh, this is a sick video.

Wait.

Oh, squid house is running this.

Okay.

Learn more.

Click on it.

It won't even maybe say shop.

Now it'll just say, learn more.

I don't know.

I think that that's a tough one.

If you post it organically.

And it does well, then I bet it will do okay.

I would not post it from his account because you'll get skewed results,

especially on, I see big on both.

Yeah.

So if it, if it does well from your brand account and a cold audience maybe,

but you know, something like that might have a strong click through rate and

not necessarily convert well, or, you know, it's just not really establishing.

Cause at that point you're really relying on this.

Product page to sell the product.

And so one of the things about meta that has been abundantly clear

over the last, like two years is.

You know, you test and scale.

And so to think that you are smarter than the Facebook algorithm

will result in a lot of pain.

And that's the most powerful algorithm in the history of mankind for advertising.

So like when you plug something in and just see if it works, it'll tell you.

Well, I guess my thought process behind it was not even solely

to drive sales off that video, but getting that person who's on the fence

about buying our stuff to see studs.

that Haas figure wearing it, right?

And the video is not even centered on the product.

Once again, it's like, maybe I'm wrong on this.

Maybe it's just not that complicated.

And you got to focus on the product itself.

But my thought is, cause I even find myself sometimes thinking

like, this is a sick ad.

If I saw this, I would buy something.

And then I test it.

organically with something really basic, like a flat lay of shorts on the

ground and the flat lay will do better.

And then I start to realize like, you know what, the average person doesn't

have a creative advertising mind like me, maybe it's actually too complicated.

Dude, not

even that.

The average person, I mean, they're just swiping through their stories, man.

Like that, they're not even like paying an ounce of attention.

And so it is interesting you mentioned that because a lot of brands

have gone more towards awareness focused type of ads in the past.

I see a lot of ASRV doing that.

Yeah.

It's not even really highlighting the product.

It's just like, what are you going to do when the time is now?

It's an

interesting mix in your ad account because you're

talking about a flat lay product.

Like a dynamic product set, which is basically, you know, those carousels where

it just goes through all your different products with a white background on meta.

That often cleans up.

The interest from that previous video.

So say people are watching that surround yourself with, you know, a bunch of

badass videos, like say people are watching that video, but not clicking

metal will then understand that.

I mean, like, okay, this person's actually a little bit interested.

Let's show them the product focused, higher converting ad set.

And that'll often do a lot of cleanup.

A brand that I used to work with was kind of in the fashion space.

And like, that was always super noticeable.

We'd have a lot of lifestyle content that would drive a lot of downstream conversion

at the dynamic product ad level.

Cause.

It's just so easy to see the product looking great with, you know, a flat

lay and just make that decision.

You know, I've wanted it for a while.

So now it's go time.

And I think on the ASRB side, they're probably leaning

into brand marketing now that they've established a brand.

They have a ton of customers.

And that is the campaign that you're seeing.

It is tailored towards brand marketing, where you're in the performance marketing

part of it, where you're trying to figure out what works, what doesn't, and then

you could use organic for brand marketing.

You need escape velocity.

And you need to be able to scale.

You know, Landforce talks about this.

He's a big follow him.

Yeah, I get his emails all the LandForce is the homie.

And he talks about this.

He's like, look, man, like fucking study Nike.

Like, you know, those guys, they're, they're so far along.

Like there's so little context about what Nike is doing now

that matters for a little guy.

Yeah.

And I wouldn't even go as far to say represent.

And ASRV might be at that level too.

For an emerging brand because they don't have to give a shit about

only conversion focused stuff.

They now have a cult following that is going to them repeatedly.

You're going to advertise for

them too.

And now you're almost creating a branded experience for your cult

following as the priority because they're trying to extend that lifetime

value of their existing customers more so than grow their, like their base.

They're trying to,

yeah, they're trying to get buy in from their existing customer base

to be like, this is my brand forever.

The same way I feel about Nike.

I'm like, I grew up with Nike.

All their brand marketing has made me be like, this is my brand forever.

I'm always getting the running shoes.

I'm always getting their shorts.

I'm always getting X, Y, Z.

And it, and it, and it's these brand marketing campaigns versus

the performance marketing campaigns.

I don't know when I bought a Nike pair of shorts or a pair

of Nike shorts from an ad.

I haven't.

I do it organically because I fell in love with the brand.

That's what represents doing.

That's what ASRB is doing.

It's a different ballgame.

Hmm.

Yeah.

I know.

I totally see the point there.

A hundred percent.

One last super technical thing that I wanted to mention have

you looked into any sort of keyword opportunities, like SEO stuff?

So you have, you have a sneaky goldmine opportunity with nylon shorts.

So nylon shorts has around 20, 000 organic searches a month with a really

low keyword difficulty rating, which is anything under 30 out of a hundred.

So that's best nylon shorts, nylon shorts for men shorts with nylon,

like all these sorts of different stems and variations of it.

So I would really consider looking into that because, you know, I

checked your, your site health.

You're probably getting anywhere from like 10 site hits a month.

Now I'm

guessing we're doing like one to 2000 a day.

It depends if we're doing campaigns or not, like with SMS email, but I mean, I

could just check on my phone right now.

It'd be easy.

It's definitely right there.

The Shopify nothing better than the Shopify app, I think.

sessions about 40 K.

Okay, sweet.

So, you know, you are looking at pretty much within six months,

I think you could probably get.

You know, 40 to 50 percent of these 20, 000 searches a month.

And if you think about what that search is, someone looking for

a nylon short, pretty, there's a lot of intent behind that.

So, yeah, they're, they're actively saying to you, I want your product.

And.

To do this, you probably, I mean, 2000, $3,000 a month in spend to an SEO agency.

That's actually pretty good.

So something to consider there as well.

Interesting.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, we do zero SEO

Yeah.

Raw.

Yeah.

It's, it's better to start now than six months from now.

Yeah.

When you're pissed that you didn't start now.

Oh yeah.

Let me know if you guys got a guy.

You guys do it.

I think he does.

You have an SEO person, right?

Yeah, a few, yeah.

Yeah.

But I don't know if he's the best for e-comm.

Okay.

There's a few guys that I, I know that we could talk about, but dude, Lucas.

Hope that was helpful.

Very helpful.

I appreciate you guys.

Yeah.

Like I said, I'm always stoked to feel like an idiot.

Yeah.

I mean, Hey, you're not an idiot, man.

You've got a brand that's, you know, going to do multiple six,

multiple seven figures this year.

Audience is crushing.

So, you know, congrats on everything and hopefully some of this helps you out.

Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Great having you here.

And it was a pleasure, dude.

Pleasure meeting you.

Thanks for having me guys.

Thanks man.

For

sure.

N/A: Yeah.

Bye.

Bye.