Episode Summary
In this episode, Manav sits down with Nick Sharma, the founder and CEO of Sharma Brands, often known as "the DTC guy." Nick shares his journey from running social media for celebrities in high school to building one of the most sought-after DTC (direct-to-consumer) agencies today. Sharma Brands has played a key role in launching and scaling major brands like David Beckham’s new wellness line, Jolie, and Feastables, handling everything from website design and content strategy to media buying and customer acquisition.
Nick breaks down his approach to launching successful brands, discussing the importance of true innovation, strong product differentiation, and finding the right “arbitrage” when entering crowded markets. He emphasizes that modern wellness and DTC brands must offer jaw-dropping benefits to stand out, not just clever marketing or attractive branding.
The episode also dives into practical advice for founders, including ideal launch strategies, leveraging content creators and affiliates on TikTok, and the power of authentic storytelling. Nick shares insights into current trends on platforms like TikTok Shop and the evolving landscape of e-commerce and retail expansion – using examples like Midday Squares, Waterboy, and the celebrity-driven retail strategy of Feastables.
Nick also gives listeners a behind-the-scenes look at the Sharma Brands business model, their client selection process, and the way they sometimes blend retainers, equity, and investments in the brands they help scale. He wraps up with actionable tips on building a personal brand, the importance of organic content, and how he manages his time as a prolific founder.
Whether you’re a new founder, a seasoned brand builder, or just an admirer of great product launches, this conversation offers a treasure trove of tactical insights and inspiration.
Transcript
Nik Sharma [00:00:00]:
We just launched David Beckham's new wellness brand on Monday. All the way to brands like a Jolie or Feastables. We're helping with the website. It's their content, their messaging, their media buying, customer acquisition strategy.
Manav [00:00:11]:
In this episode of Emerging founders of Manab, I got a chance to interview Nick Sharma. He's the founder and CEO of Sharma Brands. They're building the biggest DVC agency in the world. Nick is widely known as the DTC guy. He has worked with really big brands like Feastables, eight Sleep, Taco Bell, Rare Beauty, and they've helped launch and scale a lot of these companies over the last few years. Nick gave me step by step advice on what should be an ideal launch strategy for someone who wants to launch a D2C brand. Today I had a really good time talking to Nick. I hope you enjoyed this episode.
Speaker C [00:00:51]:
How are you doing, Nick today?
Nik Sharma [00:00:52]:
I'm good, brother. Thank you for having me.
Speaker C [00:00:54]:
Awesome. You're a very interesting person. You got your start really early and then I noticed like how many different projects you've done and it's kind of incredible. Like I found out you're like so in your 20s, so what made you want to start that early?
Nik Sharma [00:01:06]:
Honestly, I was just kind of in the world already. I would say like when I was in high school, I started doing social media for celebrities and that's how I got into the world of marketing and social media and understanding content and click through rates. And then after high school, I joined this ad tech company that I first interned for and then took a full time job at. So I skipped college, got to the ad tech company and that's where I learned everything around paid advertising and, you know, copywriting and ad creative. And so it all kind of just kept compounding, you know, everything that I did was sort of an evolution, evolution based on the thing I did prior. So as a result, you know, I started with organic social, then I understood the world of paid media and programmatic advertising. And then I joined a beverage company and built and grew their E commerce business. So that's where I learned everything. E commerce. And then I joined an agency and that's where I learned the agency side of the business. And Ashrama Brands feels like a combination of everything.
Speaker C [00:01:55]:
Yeah. You know, I, as an Indian, I have to ask, how was it working with Priyanka Chopra?
Nik Sharma [00:01:59]:
It was cool. That was back when I was in high school. It was very unique because, you know, I was mainly focused on the organic social side. So everything I did was really focused around content. Content around Understanding how do we get more eyeballs. And yeah, it was cool. It didn't, you know, like when you work with celebrities a lot of times you work directly with their teams so it doesn't feel like you're working on a thing. And even then, even when you have a huge celebrity, you're still, it's still in the framework of okay, this is a product that people consume. And so you think about it through that lens of if, if this person is a brand and they've got marketing, they've got content, they've got distribution, they've got, you know, the product they put out, whether it's a song or a movie, you still sort of think of it that way.
Speaker C [00:02:33]:
So a little bit context for the audience. Nick started an agency called Sharma Brands and they work with brands and they kinds of things from brands. But my impression is this is like the modern day Mad Men kind of studio where you're cooking up like logins, ads, like websites, everything. So how would you describe Sharma Brands? Because you do so much like how would you describe.
Nik Sharma [00:02:53]:
I would say Sharma Brands is like, you know, it's a modern day consulting firm for brands that focuses on the customer acquisition funnel. So a lot of times brands will usually come to us in three different stages. One is you know, pre launch. So for example we just launched David Beckham's new wellness brand on Monday all the way to you know, brands like a jolie or feast of or you know, whatever it may be. It's like we're helping with the go to market. A lot of times it's the website, it's their content, their messaging, their media buying, customer acquisition strategy. Middle bucket is brands that are usually scaling. They're doing anywhere from 30 to 500 million in revenue on E commerce. They're looking to come to us to help optimize better customer acquisition, better customer retention, figuring out new audiences to go after, trying to find new offers to go tap into. And then the third bucket is companies that are, you know, massive. They generally need like project based work. Maybe it's they need a batch of creative to drive installs. Maybe it's they presentation or a deck strategy, deck on how they're going to sell more of a specific product globally. And sometimes maybe it's just like going in and spending time with their board helping them learn new things or understand how this world of e commerce really works. So it's kind of all over the place but our main focus is really the customer acquisition for brands that are really just looking to scale online and Sometimes that also means customer acquisition offline, but done through online channels.
Speaker C [00:04:06]:
I really liked what you guys did with David Protein. I didn't even know you guys were behind it. I was like looking at the website, the email marketing was so well done and a lot of people don't even know that this is a company by Rx Par founder. Like they just found it as it is and it was done so, so well. And I'm noticing this trend with like health and wellness where people like Moise, KK Main, they're basically making existing product, like as Sean Puri would say, they find the sea of sameness and they find the category to disrupt and then they launch product. Like, is this a trend which Moise started or has this been going on forever?
Nik Sharma [00:04:39]:
No, I think it's been going on forever. You know, I think like to some degree when you start a business you have to figure out what is the arbitrage, right? Like, what are you going to do that's going to allow you to get more dollars away from what's currently being done? And part of that is I think figuring out where's the arbitrage, right? For Moyes, it was, well, first it was figuring out solving for a problem, but then the arbitrage was, okay, we can go sell online. No one's selling online. No one's competing in the world of ads. You know, a lot of the early kind of direct consumer 1.0 is that I think more today it's focused around innovation. So if you look at David, for example, David has their own proprietary technology around protein. And that's why they can get 28 grams of protein and 150 calories. Whereas typically the best, you can get 10 calories for every gram of protein. So you have 150 calories, but you get 15 grams of protein, there's no way you're gonna get 28 out of that or even, you know, 22, for example. So when I think about wellness brands that do well today, it's usually they have some form of innovation. You know, whether it's David Protein, whether it's Armor Colostrum, whether it's, you know, even K18 shampoo or virtue shampoo, like these brands all have something unique in their technology or that's proprietary to them, which gives them that upper hand when they come to market. And you know, one of the main questions every consumer is asking as they make a purchase is, well, how is this different than anything else that I can buy today in the same product set or category set? And if you can't answer that question with something that is jaw dropping or makes somebody turn their head. Like in this case the David example of 28 grams for 150 calories. Then you know you're going to lose that customer to whatever else already has trust and brand trust and brand awareness and all those other things. You sort of have to have something that sets you apart. You can't, you know like before you could totally have, you know if you think about how many skincare brands there are that came up in this era of like direct to consumer 1.0 or even 2.0, just competing well on the Internet was enough to get you a solid base of revenue. Today if you were to come out with anything, you have to have some sort of innovation angle or something that sets you apart. Ideally multi beneficial that consumers see and they, you know, then they see that as a, as a deal or a value or something of convenience.
Speaker C [00:06:42]:
Yeah, me personally as a founder like I noticed this trend of minimalistic ingredient labeling category because these products are all owned by P and G. And you see like the labels are like very own Millennial, they relate to Millenn. But for Gen Z, like ideally what should be like a launch strategy or like a launch budget or what do you recommend people to start? Because a lot of people just start and then they fail and then it just like fizzles out. So ideally what would you recommend? Let's say for example I want to do a new mouthwash that will appeal to Gen Z. What would be some advice there?
Nik Sharma [00:07:13]:
Well, I think there's a lot of ways to do it the way I would probably one way I've seen that I've enjoyed or seen work successfully time and time and time again is you know, one, you have to make sure the product has something that sets itself apart. So let's say this mouthwash has something that, that no other mouthwash has. Whether it's around taste or freshness or the actual ingredients inside it or the benefits of what it does for your gums, whatever it may be. And then one, one strategy that works extremely well, probably would work well for this too is brands are basically shipping their products to maybe anywhere from 1 to 4,5000 creators prior to launch, giving them taste or a test of the product, they use it, they post content about it, they post as an affiliate either on, well probably more ideally on TikTok. Cause that's the easiest place to get traction. And then that becomes sort of the awareness you go to market with and then start to tweak and Understand what works, what doesn't work, messaging wise, creative wise, maybe in the shopping experience, maybe in how you're speaking about the product or what benefits you're putting forward. And then from there you can start to figure out your flywheel. It might be that you can rely on just the affiliates and the organic seating model for, you know, your first couple million bucks of revenue, maybe your first five or ten. And then from there you kick on the paid engine and start using paid to acquire customers. It might be that, hey, we launch with a thousand or 1500 creators and then we immediately, you know, as soon as we start to see it working, we jump on the page made flywheel and start to get that funnel to work. That's probably how I would start. And then, you know, usually depending on how that goes, you can decide which way to go. Do you have your own paid, have your own content, have your own, you know, maybe you try advertorials, maybe you focus on affiliate broadly outside of just TikTok.
Speaker C [00:08:42]:
I like what the brand Midday Squares did like it was so raw behind the scenes marketing that essentially you're telling a story. And I don't think there's like very few brands who actually like tell a story. In my opinion. Some brands are just showing like the benefits of the product, what makes it stand out. And there are some brands that tell story. Do you have any brands that come to mind when we're telling like a really like solid story?
Nik Sharma [00:09:04]:
Yeah, I mean, I think the Midday example is fun because it's like, it's not just a story story, it's their authentic self. Right. It's actually just like transparently showing who the people are behind it. Waterboy is another brand that does a phenomenal job of this. You know, you get to know who Connor and Mike are and all of the team members behind it. I think brand, you know, I don't think that that is one. I think that's awesome and I think they've done such a good job of it. I don't think that that's the only way to do it. And I'm not saying it's. It's a wrong way by actually a very great way to build a brand because it's so authentic. At the same time, you know, there's brands that do a great job of like building their brand brand and you know, they don't necessarily have a face of the brand, but they do a good job with content with consistent results over time with good customer service, with good, more like empathetic first design customer Journey, that type of stuff. And yeah, but. And then the flip side is like the complete opposite. If you've ever heard of like Strawberry Milk Mob, she's got like a bikini brand and the entire, all the content is just her camera, iPhone, camera to her face. She's talk looking directly at you into the camera. And you know, they don't run ad creative, they don't have fancy brand style stuff. In fact, the only thing you see is just her face up against the iPhone, front camera.
Speaker C [00:10:13]:
Yeah, that's so interesting. And I noticed that you had a tweet about that. This price range of $15 to $35 on TikTok shop. I noticed because I had a wholesale store, we were selling like 2100 products from China. And that $20 to $40, like that's like such a high impulse. Like people don't really think twice before buying. It's more of a pricing thing. Or they see the price and they immediately buy what think. I saw that journal did really well on TikTok. Like what kind of other products are you seeing on TikTok shop that stand out, man?
Nik Sharma [00:10:41]:
I think it's, I think in all categories TikTok shop is doing well. It really comes down to, I think AOV is one factor, but I don't think it's the only factor. You know, if you look at like Beach Waiver or Comfort Hoodies, those are two amazing brand examples of products that are outside of the 15 to 35 AOV but are crushing. And it's really because they've architected an amazing funnel or an amazing kind of marketing push within TikTok in the sense sense that you know, Beach Waiver goes live all the time. Comfort Hoodies has thousands of creators that are posting on a weekly basis. And so you know, I don't think it has to be in the 15 to 35. Statistically speaking, the best selling products are or most selling products are probably in that range. But I think that's also like a factor of the maturity of the channel right now. I think it's the shop works well for the 15 to 35 because like you said, it's more impulse. You're not necessarily like unclear of who the brand is or, or what you're paying for. And I think they still have some like trust and social proof building to do. Like TikTok has marketplace. But at the same time I could see, you know, I don't see why in a year or two from now people are not buying couches on TikTok shop or a cookware set that's 800 on TikTok shop. Or even like, why would. Why would Apple not sell a laptop on TikTok shop just like they do on Amazon? You know, I think it's. It's just a matter of time before it gets there. But as of now, you know, when you think about TikTok shop or launching on TikTok shop, I think the 15 to 35 is a good AOV range to think about in terms of. Well, if we want to go and get social proof around number of purchases or units sold and, or review reviews, collect, then maybe 15 to 35 is where we start to sort of get that engine humming. But doesn't mean that in, you know, a year or two from now, you won't be selling $300 headphones or a $900 laptop on TikTok shop.
Speaker C [00:12:22]:
The thing that gets me excited a lot is the new business model of Congo brands, which basically, when an operator gets married to like a mega marketer, I love that because there's people like me who love operating but really don't want to be the face of the brand. And then have you seen more and more examples of that that are not mainstream?
Nik Sharma [00:12:39]:
Yeah, let's see. So a couple of thoughts come to mind. One is you have. So there's. There's obviously like, you know, Feastable. Feastables is probably one of the best examples. And essentially the framework was, you know, you've got a mass distribution of eyeballs coupled with a mass distribution of retail selling points, meaning you can walk into a gas station, a Walmart, a Target or whatever and find the product there. Most brands go, you know, they start online, they sort of start slow. Then maybe they add Amazon and then maybe a couple of other e commerce marketplaces.coms, and then they start one regional Whole Foods retailer. Then that expands to national, and then again, you test very small with a larger retailer and then go big. This model is like, all right, we have so many eyeballs. We're going to be in every, like, I think Feastables launch in every single Walmart nationwide. And that model is. It works. It's very different, but it works. The only other equivalent I can think of, you know, like to. To have that sort of penetration in retail on day one is probably really hard. There's not that many people that I bet could do that. I think prime was a good example of that. Feasibles was a good, good example of that. You know, Lemmy with Kourtney Kardashian is very similar in that Sense they're growing quite a bit on the retail side and retail well. But you know, I don't know how many of that large of celebrities exist. You know, even Selena Gomez, who's got one of the most successful brands inside Sephora, is exclusively in Sephora. From a retail standpoint, it's either Sephora or online. So yeah, I think it's definitely doable. There's probably a limit as to how many people there are. What's more interesting is like, you know, I think a lot of people tend to think that celebrity brands are sort of this like magic bullet that allows you to take off and immediately do well on the business side. But I don't think that's the case. In fact, most celebrity brands don't do well. A small percentage, percentage of them do and it's because the product is good, the product is innovative, the team behind it is really good. At the same time, the thing that's even more exciting to me is not necessarily these celebrity brands, but more so like who are these mommy bloggers or people on Instagram who've got crazy followings? Danny Austin, for example, she has a hair care brand she started called Divi 40 million in year one. Completely bootstrapped. All because the community and the audience that watches her on Instagram, you know, figured out that they have a relatable problem that Dani also had and her solution was the product which also then helped them. You know, I've helped this guy, dot Dr. Amir Khorram. He's a, he's huge on TikTok and Instagram. He launched a skincare brand that will do double digit millions, completely bootstrap, never run a single ad. I spoke with another brand today, also another doctor who's got 2 million or so on Instagram and I think another two and a half million on TikTok. And you know, she's going to do six to $10 million this year. Not a single dollar spent on supplements. And so those pockets to me are actually a lot more fascinating than, you know, everybody's already going trying to figure out who is the next Mr. Beast or the next Logan. Paul. Paul. But those seem a lot more fun. They're also just more capital efficient. Right. Because you don't have to go fund a nationwide purchase order for a mass retailer or something similar. You can basically start online, start testing things and then quickly ramp up as you see things working.
Speaker C [00:15:34]:
Yeah. One acquisition that got me really like punt and excited for the person was max tuning, selling sour strips to Hershey's. I was kind of like rooting for Max because I've been calling it his content for five years. In my opinion, like, no matter what price Hershey's paid for, they got a great deal because Max has this like insane back catalog of content that's going to keep getting that those views and eyeballs, which is going to roll into more sales for Hershey. And that was an incredible story. And Danny Austin also, like I heard they talked about it on mfm, she also had a great story. It was solving her own pain point and that led to like her starting that company. I want to segue into like New York for a second. Why do you think? First, I know you were in San Diego. Why did you decide to go to New York instead of la?
Nik Sharma [00:16:15]:
New York's it's got an infectious energy here. Like every time I used to come out to New York when I worked at Hint, you know, I'd sleep three, four hours a night, but wake up feeling like I slept 10. And it's not, obviously that's not a great thing to do more than a few, few days. But I used to live in San Francisco when I was starting in this world of E commerce and direct to consumer and there was like nobody there. There was maybe like three other brands, Stitch Fix, Madison Reed and third Love that I would get to talk to. When I got to New York, it was like everybody's here. Every ad, ad tech vendor, every publisher, every, you know, so many content creators and influencers are out here, so many other brand people, the VCs, like this whole ecosystem is out here. And the other thing I love about New, the whole city is walkable or subwayable. So you can literally get from anywhere to anywhere within, you know, 15, 20 minutes or less. And some, you know, I could get from here to Central park in 10 minutes on a bike or I can get there in 10 minutes on a train. You know, you can't in LA it's like you have to kill yourself to go anywhere past than 30 minutes and then spend another 30 minutes on parking. So yeah, I mean, LA is great. I love going there. I think a lot of people in LA are quite mellow and I like the hustle and bustle of New York City. So I love going there. But you know, more than four or five days, I get tired.
Speaker C [00:17:27]:
Yeah, I would have to agree with that actually. Like in New York, you just, even the amount of friends you make in New York is like way higher compared to la. Like L A is much more like invite only kind of city. So it's hard to like, get going in L. A. I want to talk about the business model of Sharma brand. So for example, anyone listening to this episode, they are a brand and they decide to work with Sharma brands. Is there like a minimum requirements you guys look for in a brand to qualify to work with you guys?
Nik Sharma [00:17:52]:
Yeah, totally. We typically look for brands that are doing at least 15 to 20 million in sales and looking to grow sometimes. Sometimes it's smaller, sometimes it's larger. It kind of depends. If they're smaller, then they usually have a pretty clear directive to become a category leader. And then if they're larger, of course, then you know, we can get a lot more tactical on the performance side. But our whole thing is if you're at least that size or if you're at least spending a couple hundred thousand bucks a month in advertising, then it makes sense for us to go and get our hands dirty and try to get as hands on and like tactical as possible.
Speaker C [00:18:24]:
And is this like a retainer business model or you guys also like, take equity in the companies that you're scaling? In my opinion, I would say the equity part would be like much more rewarding.
Nik Sharma [00:18:33]:
Yeah, we do some. Like, not every brand is the one we'll take on for equity, but we definitely have some brands we've taken for equity or, you know, taken a percentage of our billings as equity. Or another thing we'll do is like, sometimes if they're raising money, then we might invest alongside our engagement of working with them. There's also been brands where like, we'll invest and then, and then they end up coming back to say, hey, wait a second, you guys invested, you know, why don't you guys do our website or why don't you go ahead and do this for us? So all different ways to do it. I would say in majority of cases we don't take equity because that also requires us to hopefully ensure that this company is going to be run really well and has a good financial outcome on the other side. But yeah, there's definitely been instances.
Speaker C [00:19:13]:
Yeah, it reminds me of Tim Ferriss when he took like advisory shares for Uber and like he had to do some work in return. I just want to ask a couple more questions. This is a question about personal branding. And for anyone trying to run ads on their personal brand, like, for example, not a brand, but I want to grow my personal brand and then scale that and eventually launch a product on that brand, what advice would you give? Because you have been a master at this and you grow your Twitter like so well, and in my opinion, Twitter followers are worth like 10 or 100 times more than an Instagram follower. What was like the inflection point of growing your Twitter? Can you give me some advice for that?
Nik Sharma [00:19:46]:
Yeah, honestly, there was no goal with it when I joined a company called Hintwater. I would just take whatever would do well that I would run and I'd put it out on the Internet. And as a result, every time I would do it, I would get DM'd by a couple of other people saying, you know, we're trying to do this, or we're doing this, or hey, how'd you do this? Or hey, we tried this. And it worked really well. Want to grab coffee? And I just started meeting a lot of cool people. And then I was like, wait, this is a hack. I don't have to go to these stupid networking events. I can just post what works on the Internet and then those people find me. Like, the coolest people will find me. So that's kind of how I just did it. And then it just grew organically. I think when I started doing it, I probably had like 15,000 followers on Twitter. And then, you know, just started really focusing on all things sort of direct to consumer, e commerce, media buying, performance marketing. And it just grew from there. But there was. There, there still is no intent behind any of it. I mean, if you. I. I probably haven't tweeted in a long, cause I've just been so busy. But there, you know, there's no like schedule, there's no goals, there's no numbers that are trying to be hit. It's just like, something works, I'm gonna post about it and you know, hopefully I'll meet cool people from it. I think when you try to over engineer it, it becomes really bad and really corny.
Speaker C [00:20:51]:
You become the thread guy.
Nik Sharma [00:20:53]:
Yeah, exactly. You become like the thread guy who's kind of just got the viral fluff stuff, but nothing that is of true tactical value.
Speaker C [00:21:00]:
Awesome. I've learned a lot from your Twitter. Like, this is all a lot of useful insights. I just want to ask, like, how do you devote your time? Because you seem to be doing like a lot of things. The newsletter, being active on Twitter, like speaking at events, running the company. You have another startup. Like, there's like so much. I mean, even like thinking about it gives me anxiety. Like, how do you manage all that?
Nik Sharma [00:21:20]:
Yeah, it sounds like a lot more than it actually is. So most of my day, from the time I wake up to the time I sleep, is focused on Sharma Brands, talking to new brands, working with our existing clients, building the team, working with our team internally thinking about strategy for brands. You know, figuring out how we're going to execute things like Black Friday, all that kind of stuff. When I go to the bathroom, when I walk to the bathroom. Bathroom and take a piss, that's when I'm on Twitter on Saturdays, you know, I'll wake up and try to find three, four hours. That's when I do the newsletter. And then usually at some point during the week, I record a podcast episode. And that takes me maybe 60 to 90 minutes to prep for and then another 45 minutes to record. So typically, like, my day is scheduled between 8 or 9am to usually like 9 or 10pm and then Ramiz, who's my assistant, he will decide, like, basically what I'm doing every 30 minutes. Like, he will literally say in my calendar. Nick wakes up at this time. Nick gets ready here. Nick travels to office. You know, Nick works on this list of tasks, then jumps on these calls. Then there's this list of tasks to work on. And then you have this meeting and then you work on these three tasks in the last 30 minutes. He'll call me. If he knows that there's an open. A blank spot on my calendar, or if he doesn't see that I'm responding to something or whatever, or he hasn't heard from me, he'll call me. He's like, hey, what are you doing? This is what you need to do right now. So a lot of it is like, kind of having the team around me that helps me make sure I'm working on what I should be working on. But, you know, Sharma Brands is also a team of probably 40, 50 plus people. So there's a lot that's kind of always going on, or sometimes it's like I can ask a little bit of input to something that can give the team maybe two or three people a whole thing to go execute.
Speaker C [00:22:50]:
That's. Oh, my God, your VA is incredible, by the way. I had a chat with him. I was like, this guy's a machine.
Nik Sharma [00:22:54]:
Yeah.
Speaker C [00:22:55]:
Wow. I'm really stoked to hear that you guys are already 40, 50% team. I'm honestly rooting for you guys to be like, one of the biggest ad agencies in the world. You guys have for sure found your niche and mastered it. And one thing I love about everything you do is the design. And I noticed the design. Design is like, on point. I don't know who the design team is behind the scenes, but they're incredible. So anyone listening to this having a shitty landing page, please hit up Sharma brand if your brand is doing 15 to 20 million minimum revenue because they can really level up your landing page and take your brand to the next level. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Nick. I really appreciate your time. Hopefully we can do another like recap episode in a year or two to see where where you guys are at.
Nik Sharma [00:23:35]:
Would love to do that.
Speaker C [00:23:36]:
Awesome. Thank you Nick.
Nik Sharma [00:23:37]:
Thank you.
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