I buy & operate DTC brands (@rayconglobal, @linjerco etc). I bootstrapped myself to 9 figures of revenue profitably.
Hong Kong
Joined July 2014
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Roman Khan retweeted
We recently brought together 150 of the world’s biggest media spenders and leaders from every major ad platform, 100+ floors up at One World Observatory, for the first-ever Northbeam Conference.
And yes, @VancityReynolds really did have a few things to share.
1.5 days of honest conversations about where marketing is headed, what it takes to make decisions you actually trust, and how AI is changing all of it.
Plus a night at Manhatta with Danny Meyer, filled with unparalleled conversations.
Thank you to everyone who took the stage:
• @KatColeATL — @drink_AG1
• @dhmeyer — @USHGNYC
• @evanspiegel — @SnapForBusiness
• Adam Foroughi & Rafael Vivas — @AppLovin
• @MarkDouglas — @weareMNTN
• @VancityReynolds — Maximum Effort
• @Seanfrank — @ridgewallet
• @winer_danny — @hexclad
• @itshudsonblake — @comfrt
• Josh Friedman — @drsquatchsoapco
• Mohit Arora — @TikTokBusiness
• Damian Wandler & Piyush Bansal — @MetaforBusiness
• Yingying Kuang — @kitsch
• Keegan Tigges — @david_protein
• Tony Chopp — @CommnThreadCo
• Michael Ting — @Jaxxonjewelry
• @RomanEcom — @rayconglobal
• @MAustinHarrison & @mkobach — Northbeam
To everyone in the room: this only works because of you.
See you next year 💙💜💙
Roman Khan retweeted
Fair point. I think this is TAM expansion.
Currently they are in the business of contextual marketing (aka like the Inception movie) - where they need to create demand. Great example with the Ridge wallet.
This is a move towards query based (Google) with added data that fuels the contextual engine.
I think we've never seen something like this before and it will be bigger than we think if they have a product that actually retains users vs something like Threads that did not
Roman Khan retweeted
A convo with @RomanEcom changed my life.
We both have dedicated a decade to building ecommerce brands.
And we both succeeded.
We own top 1% brands by any metric- revenue, profit, growth.
But those brands are basically worthless.
Let me explain:
Ridge is an amazing business.
Multi 9 figures in revenue.
I’ll even grow 9 figures this year.
But if I take my foot off the gas, revenue will fall 70%.
We are an acquisition machine.
We lack network effects.
A wallet sold today does not guarantee a wallet sold tomorrow, this year, or next year.
If anything, at scale, the more wallets you sell the harder the next wallet is to sell.
I’ve out executed everyone.
Built a 1% brand
And we will trade on a multiple of earnings, like a car wash or a storage unit lol
A generational brand, one that could last 50 years, and the multiple will be the same as your local HVAC roll up.
These businesses need to be built for cashflow.
That’s how they are sold, that’s how you will be rewarded for running them.
If you want revenue, there are publically traded brands, great brands, like gap, trading for a fraction of annual revenue.
If you want to sell something-
It needs compounding network effects.
Where a customer added helps get the next customer.
Where a signed deal will bring more signed deals.
Where the more you add, the better the margin gets.
Build in Ecom for fun, for cash, to learn.
But for the big swing, you need a network effect.
Roman Khan retweeted
On stage @RomanEcom talking about @northbeam Apex.
"Over the next few years, [Apex] is what's going to drive incrementality for us."
He's not alone - this chart shows our testing of Apex/Custom Attribution.
Average +29% new customer revenue with the flip of a switch.
I'm telling you, Apex is the future. It's crazy that we aren't charging extra for this
Roman Khan retweeted
this is the Strava screenshot of DTC
iykyk
@RomanEcom
Snapping necks with our ops manager for a few days 🇨🇳
Let’s goooo
Roman Khan retweeted
1/ Best way to win here is product. The rest flows. Don't confuse product with marketing. We all know 10 out of 10 product always wins
2/ Yup
3/ Biggest factor is time. The good news is you can buy time (e.g old IP) or the endorsement of an older trusted celeb with your target avatar. E.g David Beckham for IM8 etc
Roman Khan retweeted
10 lessons from the movie with @RomanEcom
If any of these hit, go watch the full thing. No fluff, dense, high value. Link in bio.
01 Micromanagement is a gift when it's structured, daily, and predictable. What people hate is random, unstructured criticism, not the feedback itself.
02 Your ad and your landing page have to be the same conversation. Matching the products from the creative to the collection page drove a 30% conversion lift.
03 If you're not making six figures in distributions per month, the stress of running an e-com brand is not worth it. Go get a job.
04 Consignment is the holy grail of payment terms:
the factory delivers, you pay when you sell. It exists, go ask for it.
05 The BOM (Bill of Materials) doesn't just cut costs. It opens your brain to product decisions you'd never think to ask otherwise.
06 Start a business so the business works for you. Most founders just give themselves a bad job with a lot of liabilities.
07 99 out of 100 founders don't have a detailed understanding of there cost of goods. That's not a stat, its an opportunity.
08 Partnership ads are the most underrated lever in Meta right now. 50% of the best-performing accounts are whitelisted. Most operators haven't started.
09 The offer is the thing. 90% of stuck accounts at 25 to 50 million are running a stale offer, not a broken channel.
10 EBITDA is not cash.
Roman Khan retweeted
Extremely Valuable Podcast. Looking forward to meeting @RomanEcom at his event in Shenzhen next month.
Production wise, he’ll end up saving me 7 figures.
Management wise, I rebuilt my entire comms flywheel through his methods.
He also knows a bit about D2C 😅
This episode will change a lot of operators’ lives if you actually put it into practice.
Next: Open Residency x @RomanEcom
Roman Khan retweeted
Excited to introduce Icon, The First AI Admaker.
We’re backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund & execs of frontier AI labs like OpenAI, Pika, & Cognition.
Icon (icon.me) is like ChatGPT + CapCut, but for making winning ads with AI in minutes.
How it works:
1. Icon looks at your video library & tags scenes (e.g. "close-up," "unboxing"). These scenes become reusable clips used as lego blocks for making ads.
2. Prompt Icon’s AdGPT to generate scripts focused on specific angles & audiences.
3. Icon finds perfectly matching clips for every script scene & generates an ad that is 80-99% complete.
4. Make edits with our CapCut-like video editor until you're happy.
3-person creative teams make 30 ads per month. With Icon, they make 300.
We co-built Icon with $100M+ revenue brands like Ridge, Jones Road, Immi, Backbone, & MUD\WTR to solve big pain-points:
1. Making lots of ads is extremely painful. Icon helps you automate the tedious parts of scriptwriting, scene matching, video editing, audience research, UGC creation, & more.
2. AI-generated ads look like trash. Icon remixes your existing footage into new ads, matching your production quality & maintaining brand aesthetics.
3. Existing solutions charge $2K-$30K/month for:
🔍 Competitor ad spying & cloning
📈 Creative analytics
📹 Custom & stock avatars for AI UGC
👥 Audience research
📁 Video storage & tagging
Icon does scriptwriting & video editing on top of everything above for just $999/year (their margin is our opportunity 😉).
If you’ve made it this far, we have a surprise for you 👇🏻
Roman Khan retweeted
Great clip from @RomanEcom on @9operators podcast talking about the value of QLS and why he sees the value for @rayconglobal and @LinjerCo
Roman Khan retweeted
$APP stock over the past 24 hours of trading:
+10% after earnings
-5% thirty mins later
+8% for funsies
closes AH trade flat
opens -3%
up 8% right now
Roman Khan retweeted
one thing @RomanEcom khan drilled into me was to go line by line through the business. just from one canton trip:
- pillow cost: $15.8 → $11
- payment terms: 30/30/40 with 60d on the final payment
- sea freight: $12.04 → $5 per pillow
small operational wins compound fast. – at Central & Western District, Hong Kong
Roman Khan retweeted
Y Combinator alum Skio sells for $105M cash, only raised $8M, founder says techcrunch.com/2026/04/30/y-…
Roman Khan retweeted
Philippines in such a rough spot: 7,000 islands , 6,900 of them getting internet for the first time via Starlink only to discover that AI super intelligence has now made all their call center and data entry skills basically worthless.
Roman Khan retweeted
Charlie Munger: "I've had my Berkshire stock decline by 50% three times and it doesn't bother me that much. It's a part of the game."
We are having unprecedented volatility, but it’s natural, we have to see past it.
If fundamentals keep improving, price will always recover.
Roman Khan retweeted
My conversation on @turningpropod with @RomanEcom is officially live.
We covered a range of topics, from his experience scaling Peak21 to a $200m+ brand portfolio.
→ Why growth becomes dangerous the moment cash flow is ignored.
→ Why most brands lose margin as they scale (and how to prevent it).
→ What founders should never outsource early, even when it feels “smart”.
→ How supply chain rigor quietly becomes a massive competitive advantage.
→ Why AI lowers costs, but raises the bar for focus and execution.
Let me know what you think!
youtu.be/V6mzqLFvg6g?si=ddYx…
