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How I Actually Made $861K in 30 Days (It’s Not What You Think) — Transcript

by Meg Heckman · 2,782 words · 396 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00In the last 30 days, my two print on
0:02demand brands, Sloth Hiking Club and the
0:04Zero to Seven Figure Store, combined did
0:07over $861,000
0:10in sales. Now, before we go any further,
0:13let me be honest and say that is revenue
0:15or sales, not profit. But don't worry,
0:17I'm going to break it all down in this
0:19video. But I'm sharing this because
0:20there's no hack, there's no shortcut,
0:22there's nothing exciting that I am about
0:25to tell you in this video. And honestly,
0:28that's the whole point of it because if
0:30you sat next to me for a normal week
0:32running both of these businesses, you
0:34would be bored out of your mind because
0:36it's the same product, it's the same
0:38handful of moves, it is the same routine
0:41every single day for months and years.
0:44And that is exactly why we have been
0:46able to hit numbers like this. So today,
0:48I want to walk you through what boring
0:50actually looks like and why every person
0:53trying to find the exciting version of
0:56this business is the one who's going to
0:58lose. So let's talk about what boring
1:01actually means. Look, when I say boring,
1:04I want to be very specific about what I
1:06mean because there is a fantasy version
1:09of running a print on demand business
1:11that you've been sold somewhere on the
1:13internet. And the fantasy goes something
1:15like this. You wake up, you check your
1:17phone, you see a sales notification, you
1:20launch a viral product, you catch a
1:22trend, you go viral on TikTok, you make
1:25$50,000 in a day or a weekend almost
1:28immediately after launching your store.
1:31That fantasy sells courses, that fantasy
1:34gets clicks, that fantasy is the entire
1:37reason there are 8 million YouTube
1:40videos about the next big POD trend,
1:43product, niche, you name it. Now, here
1:46is what running a real profitable multi
1:49six-figure a month business actually
1:51looks like. You see, we generate new
1:53designs, we put those designs into
1:56testing through paid ads like Facebook
1:58and Instagram. The market then tells us
2:01yes or no. If a design works, we scale
2:04the ad, if it doesn't, we turn it off.
2:06And then we email the customer list two
2:08to three times per week and then we do
2:10the exact same thing the next week and
2:13the week after that and the week after
2:15that and the week after that. We
2:16generate, test, scale or cut, email,
2:20repeat. Five things. That is the entire
2:23operating system of a brand doing
2:25$861,000
2:27in 30 days. It is not exciting. It is
2:30not viral. It is not a hack. The reason
2:33that most people don't have a brand like
2:34this is not because they couldn't do
2:36these five things, it's because they
2:38couldn't tolerate doing only these five
2:40things week after week while everyone
2:43around them and all the videos on the
2:45internet are telling them to chase the
2:47next shiny object, the next viral thing.
2:50So, let me show you what this actually
2:53looks like in a real brand. Let's look
2:55at Sloth Hiking Club for example. That
2:57is the brand that I talk openly about on
3:00this channel. We sell Comfort Color
3:02t-shirts in the hiking niche. That's it.
3:05We launched this brand in January 2025.
3:08So, as you're watching this, it's been a
3:10little over a year that we've been
3:11running this brand. We built Sloth
3:13Hiking Club for one specific reason. We
3:16wanted to spin up a brand and test
3:18pricing on a more premium t-shirt while
3:20also going directly at a niche that
3:23everybody on the internet says is dead,
3:25hiking. That it's saturated, there's too
3:27much competition, you can't stand out,
3:29it won't be profitable. You've heard all
3:31of it. So we picked it on purpose
3:33because if it works in the niche that
3:36everyone says is over, the saturation
3:38argument falls apart on contact with the
3:41data. So here's what happened. Sloth
3:43Hiking Club was not profitable for the
3:45first two months. Two months and that
3:47was coming from us working on this,
3:50people who already know how to run one
3:51of these brands. It took testing, it
3:53took iterating, it took learning exactly
3:56what that customer was and finding
3:59designs that actually spoke to them. And
4:01until that happened, the metrics weren't
4:03where we needed them to be and the brand
4:05wasn't making money. Then the metrics
4:08started to move. As we dialed in the
4:10audience, we dialed in the designs, we
4:12dialed in the funnel. And from there,
4:14it's been the same five-step recipe
4:16every single week. Generate, test, scale
4:19or cut, email, repeat. Same loop, same
4:23product, same niche for a year now. If
4:25you don't believe me, go to
4:26slothhkingclub.com.
4:28We literally only sell hiking t-shirts.
4:30Now, as you can see, this is the past 30
4:33days for Sloth Hiking Club. We have done
4:35over $233,000
4:39in revenue on this brand alone in the
4:41past 30 days. Now, I know you're
4:42probably sitting there, well, I don't
4:44care about how much revenue, I want to
4:45know how much profit, how much money was
4:47made. Over the last 30 days, Sloth
4:50Hiking Club has run at a 16% profit
4:52margin and generated over $37,000
4:56in profit. That's real revenue, real
4:59profit in the niche that everybody told
5:01us not to touch. So, that's the Sloth
5:04Hiking side of things. What happened
5:06with our other brand? The Zero to Seven
5:09Figure Store contributed the rest to the
5:11$861,000
5:13last month. I'm not going to share the
5:14niche, I'm not going to share the
5:15website, but what I can show you is the
5:18timeline because this is the long
5:20version of the boring loop that we've
5:22been talking about in action. You see,
5:24we launched this brand in July of 2023.
5:27So, we're coming up on the three-year
5:29mark of running this. Now, in the first
5:32six months, we did $640,000
5:35in sales. In 2024, we did just over a
5:39million. And in 2025, we did $1.8
5:42million in sales. And in 2026, we are
5:45projecting to do over $3 million in
5:48sales this year because it's already
5:50April and we've already done over $1.27
5:54million
5:57That is what people mean when we say
5:59Zero to Seven Figure Store. We started
6:02at zero, not a single sale, and three
6:05years later, we are approaching over $3
6:07million in annual revenue. Now, I want
6:10to point out and I want you to notice
6:11what isn't in that progression. There is
6:14no viral moment, there's no celebrity
6:16post, there's no hack that we magically
6:19discovered. There's no trend that we
6:21caught, but what there is is three years
6:23of running the exact same five steps
6:25every single week. Generate, test, scale
6:28or cut, email, repeat. And here's the
6:30part that actually drives this. The
6:32thing that compounds the hardest in this
6:34business is the email list. Every
6:36customer that we earned off of paid ads
6:39becomes a free customer the next time we
6:41send them an email campaign. Three years
6:43of building that email list and sending
6:46two to three campaigns a week is most of
6:48the reason for this revenue progression
6:51looking the way that it does because
6:53it's the same loop with more volume,
6:55with more reach. That is the math behind
6:59the compounding of this brand. Now, the
7:01past 30 days, the Zero to Seven Figure
7:03Store has done over $627,000
7:07in sales at a 15% profit margin. That is
7:11over $94,000
7:13in profit. And I don't share that to
7:15brag or to boast, I share that to show
7:18that there is real money to be made with
7:20this fulfillment model. The difference
7:22is I wasn't expecting to make that right
7:25out of the gate. On both brands, we run
7:27the exact same five-step loop. There is
7:29no difference in the operating system
7:32from Sloth Hiking Club to the Zero to
7:34Seven Figure Store. Just the loop on two
7:37different niches that run on
7:39interrupted. So let me put these on the
7:41table so you can internalize our
7:43operating system. Number one, we are
7:45generating new designs continuously. Not
7:49upload 50 designs to the store and then
7:52nothing for two months, not oh, I'll
7:54wait for some inspiration, but a
7:56pipeline that never stops. Number two,
8:00we test designs in paid ads. This is
8:03where most people break
8:11because most people are scared to run
8:14any sort of ad. They want the
8:16marketplace to be doing the testing for
8:18them, but the problem with that is
8:20marketplaces test at the speed of
8:22organic search, which moves really slow.
8:25A paid ad can test a design in 48 hours.
8:28The people who are willing to test in
8:30paid will compound 50 times faster than
8:33those waiting on organic search. Number
8:35three, scale or cut based off of what
8:38the market says. This is the part that
8:40requires emotional discipline more than
8:43any other piece. You will fall in love
8:45with a design that does not perform well
8:47in ads and you will have to be willing
8:50to cut it. You will accidentally make a
8:52design that performs that you have to
8:54scale and you scale it even if it's not
8:57one that you personally love or
8:59corresponds with you. The market does
9:01not care what you love. The market cares
9:03about what it loves. Your job is to find
9:07out what the market loves and feed it
9:08more of that. Number four, email the
9:11existing list. We want to be sending two
9:13to three campaigns a week, not 10 and
9:16completely crushing our list and not
9:17zero and forgetting about them. The
9:19customers that you already have will
9:21just help build your brand's presence
9:24and it's utilizing traffic that you
9:26already paid for. All you have to do is
9:29be willing to talk to them. And number
9:31five, repeat. We want to repeat the
9:34exact same five things. The variation is
9:38which designs and which email campaigns
9:41are we going to send. The structure
9:42remains identical every single week for
9:45the foreseeable future. And that's the
9:47whole business. Now, I want you to ask
9:50yourself something and be honest. If I
9:52gave you that list and told you to run
9:54it for three years without changing it,
9:57could you? Or would you somewhere in
9:59because that's the actual filter. It's
10:02not a skill, it's not creativity, it's
10:04not luck. It's can you do the boring
10:07loop without breaking it or getting
10:09sidetracked or distracted. Now, I'm sure
10:12a lot of people heard step one of
10:14generating new designs continuously and
10:17immediately wants to push back. Well,
10:19isn't a thousand designs too much for
10:22one store? I will be honest, no. The
10:24zero to seven figure store has over a
10:26thousand designs on its site. Slash
10:29Hiking Club has over 600 designs on its
10:31site and we are still adding more every
10:34single week. And here's why, because
10:36that is exactly what every real apparel
10:39brand on the planet is already doing. If
10:41you are on the email list for any
10:43apparel brand and if you're not,
10:45definitely sign up for a few just so
10:47that you start seeing some of these
10:48emails. You will get a constant stream
10:51of new collections. Spring, spring break
10:54with the bathing suits, summer, 4th of
10:56July collections, back to school, fall
10:59collections, holiday. They're dropping
11:01new designs and new collections into the
11:03market every few weeks. That is normal.
11:06That is what the customer expects from a
11:09brand that they actually like. So, when
11:12somebody asks if a thousand designs is
11:14too many or adding 20 designs to the
11:16site week over week, what they're really
11:18asking is is it normal for a real
11:21apparel brand to keep producing new
11:22designs? And the answer is yes. That is
11:25the only thing real apparel brands are
11:28constantly doing. Now, the one thing I
11:30will say is this, focus on one product
11:33in the beginning. Not t-shirts and mugs
11:35and hoodies and phone cases, but just
11:37t-shirts. Get really good at designing
11:40for them because every product has its
11:42own design rules and the faster that you
11:44build one skill on one product, the
11:47faster the loop starts working in your
11:49favor. Depth before breadth every time.
11:53And the people who fail at design volume
11:56aren't failing because they made too
11:58many designs, they're failing because
12:00they stopped at 30 designs and quit when
12:03the first 30 designs didn't hit the
12:05market. The math says your one breakout
12:09design might be design 91 or 312 or 800.
12:13If you stop early, the design that would
12:15have changed everything just stays
12:16unfound. Now, I want to make this point
12:19as plainly as I can because the people
12:21who get this in business are the same
12:24people who get it in everything else and
12:26that really comes down to consistency.
12:29Take this YouTube channel as proof. If
12:31you're watching this video, you are
12:33watching a channel that has compounded
12:35over time. If you go back and look at my
12:37early videos, you scroll all the way
12:39back, they have maybe 20, 50 views.
12:42They're absolutely terrible. The framing
12:45is bad, the audio is rough, I am just
12:48trying to remember my script. They're
12:50not good videos by any means. What I did
12:53was put one out every single week
12:55anyways for a really long time and
12:57eventually the videos started
12:59compounding. The thumbnails got better
13:02because I made hundreds of them. The
13:04pacing got better because I actually got
13:06used to talking to a camera for hundreds
13:08of hours. And my audience has grown
13:10because now my videos are finally
13:11finding the right people. And that is
13:13the same pattern as building one of
13:16these brands. Business is showing up. It
13:18is doing the boring thing. Don't break
13:21the loop and just let it compound in
13:23your favor. And I'm not saying that this
13:26is just me. In fact, Tony Robbins says
13:28this. Alex Hormozi says this. Every
13:30serious operator in the business world
13:33says some version of the same thing.
13:36People who win are the people who can
13:38stay focused long enough to do more of
13:40what's working and less of what isn't.
13:43That's it. That is the whole game of
13:45business. The fact that the biggest
13:47names in business all repeat this is not
13:50coincidence. It is the actual rule. So,
13:53when I tell you that two print on demand
13:55brands hit $861,000
13:58in the last 31 days is a result of
14:01running the same five steps for years, I
14:03want you to understand I'm not telling
14:05you something unique to print on demand.
14:07I am telling you the rule that runs
14:09almost every successful business that
14:12has ever existed. Print on demand just
14:14happens to be the version where you can
14:16see the math really cleanly. Look, I get
14:19why boring is a hard sell. There's an
14:23entire industry online whose job is to
14:25convince you that running a business
14:27should feel really exciting. That every
14:29week should feel like progress. That if
14:31you're not having a viral moment every
14:33month that you're falling behind. That
14:35is the lie. That is the thing that keeps
14:38people stuck. The truth is the people I
14:42know who are doing real numbers in this
14:44space and not just in print on demand
14:47and any of the side hustle businesses,
14:49they all run boring businesses. They
14:51have the same few step loops that they
14:54run relentlessly and they don't let all
14:57that outside noise in. And the people
14:59who do let the noise in, who chase shiny
15:01objects every quarter, are the ones who
15:04are making little to no profit. Boring
15:08isn't a flaw. Boring is the strategy.
15:11There's no secret sauce. There are just
15:14the fundamentals that you run over and
15:16over again without getting distracted by
15:19all the shiny objects around you. Now,
15:22be honest with me in the comments. Are
15:23you trying to build a business or are
15:25you trying to build something that feels
15:27exciting every single day and every
15:29single week? Those are not the same
15:31thing and the answer to that question is
15:33probably the entire reason you're either
15:36compounding or you're staying stuck.
15:38Now, if this video was useful, the next
15:40step that I would suggest for you is
15:42watching my free 12-hour course right
15:44here on YouTube. I show building one of
15:47these Shopify print on demand brands
15:48from the ground up. I've linked it in
15:51the description below for you. Like the
15:52video if it helped, subscribe if you
15:54want more like this and I'll see you in
15:56the next one.

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