Fernando Campos, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiveHQ, the #1 profit and analytics platform built specifically for TikTok Shop sellers. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by TikTok’s fragmented backend—with data scattered across Ads Manager, Seller Center, and Affiliate Center—HiveHQ is the solution that brings it all together into one powerful dashboard.

Fernando isn’t new to the e-commerce world—he’s also the Co-Founder of MarketplaceOps, where he’s helped manage and scale brands to over 9-figures in revenue. Now, with HiveHQ, he’s giving sellers the visibility and insights they need to understand true profitability, optimize at the SKU level, and scale smarter and faster on TikTok Shop—and soon across multiple channels.

> Here’s a glimpse of what you would learn….

In this episode of the Ecomm Breakthrough Podcast, host Josh Hadley interviews Fernando Campos, co-founder and CEO of Hive HQ. Fernando shares his journey from overcoming financial struggles to building multi-million-dollar e-commerce brands. The discussion centers on strategies for scaling on TikTok Shop, including leveraging shoppable videos, creator partnerships, affiliate marketing, and data-driven decision-making. Fernando emphasizes the importance of focusing on one growth pillar, building strong affiliate relationships, and using analytics to optimize performance. The episode offers actionable insights for e-commerce entrepreneurs aiming to capitalize on TikTok Shop’s rapid growth and evolving opportunities.

Here are the 3 action items that Josh identified from this episode:

Here are the mentions with timestamps arranged by topic:

Special Mention(s):

Related Episode(s):

This episode is brought to you by eComm Breakthrough Consulting where I help seven-figure e-commerce owners grow to eight figures.

I started Hadley Designs in 2015 and grew it to an eight-figure brand in seven years.

I made mistakes along the way that made the path to eight figures longer. At times I doubted whether our business could even survive and become a real brand. I wish I would have had a guide to help me grow faster and avoid the stumbling blocks.

If you’ve hit a plateau and want to know the next steps to take your business to the next level, then go to www.EcommBreakthrough.com (that’s Ecomm with two M’s) to learn more.

Fernando 00:00:00  Will generate the consensus right is more videos per day. Shoppable videos are like tagged with the product is going to perform better, right? Just because it’s sending more signal to TikTok saying, hey, this product is like having a moment, like people are talking about it, and so then they’re going to push that to more people and your GMV max will run more efficiently.

Intro 00:00:28  Welcome to the Ecomm Breakthrough podcast. Are you ready to unlock the full potential and growth in your business? You’ve already crossed seven figures in sales, but the challenge is knowing how to take your business to the next level.

Josh 00:00:41  So you want to learn how to make money on TikTok, or you just want to learn how to basically sell on TikTok shop. Welcome to the Ecom Breakthrough podcast. I’m your host at Josh Hadley, where I scaled my own brand from 0 to 8 figures in sales, and now my mission is to take it to nine plus figures on my journey to nine figures, I bring you unfiltered conversations with the smartest minds in e-commerce.

Josh 00:01:05  Past guests include Kevin King, Michael E Gerber, author of The Emeth, and Stephen Pope. I’m giving you the real strategy systems and the mindset to help entrepreneurs scale from 7 to 8 figures and even nine. Today, we’re going to dive deep into why TikTok shop is the next big opportunity in e-commerce, how to cut through the noise of scattered data, and what it really takes to build a sustainable, profitable business in the new wave of social commerce. I’m excited to welcome Fernando Campos. He is the co-founder and CEO of hive HQ. It’s the number one profit and analytics platform built specifically for TikTok shop sellers. If you’ve ever felt overwhelmed by TikTok’s fragmented backend with data scattered all across Ads Manager, Seller Center and the affiliate Center, hive HQ is the solution that brings it all together in one powerful dashboard. Fernando isn’t new to the e-commerce world. He’s also the co-founder of Marketplace Ops, where he’s helped manage and scale brands to over nine figures in revenue. Now, with hive HQ, he’s giving sellers the visibility and insights they need to understand their true profitability, optimize at the skew level and scale smarter and faster on TikTok shop and soon across multiple channels.

Josh 00:02:23  So with that introduction, welcome to the show, Fernando.

Fernando 00:02:26  Thanks so much, Josh, for having me. Excited to be here.

Josh 00:02:29  Fernando, you, you and I have riffed many of times on TikTok shop strategies, affiliate influencer marketing strategies. because like, we see where the future is going. And I truly believe that the people winning in e-commerce over the next five years are going to be the people that have these affiliates, or they are able to create brand awareness at massive scale. And I see like right now the biggest arbitrage. Are these creators slash affiliates. and that’s where we’re going to be doubling down today. Fernando, I love that you have more experience than just TikTok shop in and of itself. I think you have a fascinating background that got you to where you are today, and it’s really like a story all about like perseverance and like when times get tough, how you’re able to innovate, which has led you to like the tremendous success that you’re having on TikTok shop as a seller and then also as the founder of a SaaS company as well.

Josh 00:03:32  So without further ado, Fernando, maybe break us down, help us get to know you a little bit better. Give us your kind of, CliffsNotes version of your e-commerce journey.

Fernando 00:03:43  Oh, man. Yeah. Thanks so much. You’re making me blush. there was one brand that we had that was kind of untouched. and it actually was a super small percentage of our revenue. Maybe like 5%, truthfully. But it was super profitable. And yeah, basically by November of 2020 or so, it was like kind of the aggregator craze was going nuts. We were able to like basically package that deal together and then sell that off. and so that kind of gave us like the first amount of, like breathing room. because it helped us pay off some, a majority of our debt. We were able to negotiate it for cents on the dollar, but basically it was like a year at least of, like, paycheck to paycheck. Like barely making payroll. and then. Yeah, then the the, like, last, I guess, piece was like, now we don’t really have an Amazon business because we sold everything that was remaining.

Fernando 00:04:43  And then I had this idea of like, okay, we don’t have the cash to launch inventory, which is why we did the agency. But I was like, what if we convince people based people know us like we’ve been relatively successful? and what if we get them to fund, supplements? We always wanted to be in supplements, but we just kind of didn’t prioritize it because we were growing so fast on the home and kitchen side. But it’s like if we since we’re starting over, we’ll choose a new category, but what if we get them to fund it and then we’ll give them equity in exchange for taking on that risk, like meaningful equity? And then we weren’t even sure if people would be interested because it’s like, you know, it’s a risky move. but we ended up having like, I don’t know, 15 different groups of investors being like, yeah, like, we want it. We’re, we’re we’re down to bet on you guys. And we’re like, okay, that’s too many.

Fernando 00:05:41  So we’re like, okay, we’ll do three. And then so we ended up launching those kind of like Q3, Q4, depending on the timing of 2020. And then yeah, two of those three ended up crushing. And so now they do. Each like I don’t know. 15 to 20 million in revenue. and that basically was the the beginning of our like really rebuild, rebuild. Now we own like a portfolio of supplement brands. but yeah, that’s kind of like the quick, yeah, I guess, summary of like, my history.

Josh 00:06:22  I love it. Yeah. And that that’s not an easy history. And I mean, I think it’s important to share that. And I love your story because, like, people are going to look at you right now and they’re like, oh, dude, you’re crushing it. You have all these brands, they’re doing multi millions of revenue. Each of them like, dude, you’re living the dream and you’re like, yeah, but I have walked through hell and back, you know, to get to this point.

Josh 00:06:46  And so I, I love that I love that story of perseverance and like, look, e-commerce is hard. It’s only going to continue to get harder. Like you’re going to expect some bumps and bruises. We’ve gone through the same thing for our own brand, but like lean into it because like your biggest opening, the next door is going to be even bigger than the one that just shut behind you. and it’s just like you’re compounding your growth and your knowledge on a daily basis. So that’s why you’ve been able to pivot and you’re like, all right, well, if we’re starting fresh, like, let’s go into a reoccurring revenue business, right. Which is a smarter decision. And so you take those learnings all along. So I love that story. We could talk just about your story all day long here, Fernando, but I want to dive into the TikTok shop aspect because this is where most sellers right now are saying, hey, if only I could just figure out TikTok shop, it would solve all of my problems.

Josh 00:07:41  And it’s obviously easier said than done. both you and I know that at this point, so talk to me first, Fernando. Like, what are the right types of brands that you think can succeed on TikTok shop? Because it truly is. It’s not for everybody.

Fernando 00:08:00  Yeah, it’s a great question. I mean, honestly, I’m constantly amazed with the brands that end up performing. and I think generally that, I guess the parameters increases over time. More people are on TikTok. and more creators are joining TikTok. And so I do think that it changes over time. But generally like the consensus is, yeah, fashion does super well. Like products that are demonstrable do really well. Consumables do really well. you know, things. Yeah. Yeah. Just like our visual like that can have, like, a before and an after or that are good for product discovery. I think if you’re selling truthfully, a really boring item that everybody knows that exists already, then like, I don’t know, like cup, for whatever, like, you know what I mean? Like, I don’t know, I don’t think that’s going to perform really well, but generally I think, yeah, things in the impulse purchase range tend to do better.

Fernando 00:09:16  Like probably sub $40 price point. But then again, I’ve seen like vacuums in certain certain products. Crush because again, they’re like demonstrable. And you can show like hey watch this vacuum outperform this vacuum and you can see a side by side of them. And so yeah, honestly, I think, yeah, the, the brands or products that end up performing like I’m constantly surprised. Prized.

Josh 00:09:45  Yeah, I think in general, I think you’re right. Like most brands I think have a have a fair chance of doing well on TikTok shop. You’re right. But it does require like some type of like product differentiation. Number one. that that’s obviously going to be a big component of it. But I would say like the only ones that I would say like off the bat like you’re gonna, you’re fighting a massive uphill battle is like, let’s say you’re doing like auto auto parts. And it’s like, hey, it’s specific brake pads for Toyota vehicles and stuff like that. It’s like, that’s very niche.

Josh 00:10:18  And like, you’re not like, I’m not going to watch a TikTok video and be like, I should replace my brake pads. I’m buying this right now. I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe somebody is actually crushing it in that space. But I think the more nuanced it is, where it’s like, I need this type of like screw bolt replacement parts. I think maybe a little more difficult. But to your point, anything that’s like an impulse purchase, like you go to Walmart, target and you’re like, hey, that’s kind of cool. Like, you’re just gonna pick it up anyways. Like, if that’s the case and you could see yourself doing that at a Walmart Target, then it’s the exact same thing on TikTok shop. So Fernando, like if if somebody is like, all right, I think I have a product that can do well, you’ve crushed it on TikTok shop. So walk me through like we’ve got a new brand owner. They want to do well at TikTok shop.

Josh 00:11:10  It’s an ever evolving platform, but as of today, what would you be your what would be your recommendations for somebody that’s just trying to get started and get some momentum on TikTok shop?

Fernando 00:11:22  Yeah, it’s a great question. I yeah. So and this is assuming that we’ve already like looked at the yeah, we’ve looked at the product and we’ve decided it’s worth it or or are you including that step.

Josh 00:11:36  Yeah. Let’s say that we think it’s worth it right. It’s different. Demonstrable.

Fernando 00:11:41  Yeah, right. Yeah. I guess if it were me, I would, I would focus on a two different KPI. Right in the beginning. Right. I’m thinking about how many shoppable videos can I get on a weekly basis and making sure that that’s like trending up, obviously. And I’ll talk about how to get there. And then and I would think about units sold. I think units sold on the listing is what creates the most social proof, similar to like reviews on Amazon. And so I would be constantly focused on like, okay, get to 1000 units sold and then, you know, 5000, then 10,000 like the next like milestone each time.

Fernando 00:12:26  And I think, yeah, I would just keep those two just kind of keeping me or the team just constantly, fixated on that. I would say in terms of shoppable videos. Then you have like a few different routes, right? one, you know, we’re just kind of talking prior to the call, but like, you know, one easy way that’s not super difficult is just use an outreach bot, send out tons of messages, you get sample requests, and then you send the samples and then they fulfill. I think that works. but I think it’s a better accelerant for a brand that’s already performing versus like, as a way of getting out of the cold start. But it does help you start at least getting content and the like, that shoppable video, that first KPI going. But like, is that going to really drive the results single handedly? Probably not. But I do think an important thing to keep in mind is that TikTok wants you to basically perform on like in the platform through having more videos posted about that product on a daily or weekly basis.

Fernando 00:13:46  And so having more affiliates and and which leads to more pieces of content helps you overall, even if it’s not necessarily the best performing content. And why I think that’s typically not the best is because you’re sending them one sample, and then the only commitment from their side is to do one video. And that means that they’re not really testing new hooks, they’re not really improving on that content. They’re just going to the next sample that they requested and then making a video for them. And then that’s just general, right? There’s obviously exceptions to that. But the other way that you can get your shoppable video count up is by putting creators on retainer. And so I think and that’s where you can kind of have more of a hybrid strategy that would be like identifying, okay of the ones that I sampled. Who are the best? you know what I mean? Or who are competitors or, comparable products that have similar types of creators and audiences that I can go after? And can I lure them in onto my team to promote for my brand and put them on retainer and whatever, 300, 500, even a thousand bucks a month, and then get them to do 30 pieces of content per day.

Fernando 00:15:03  Obviously, they’re still getting the same, or maybe even a slightly higher commission. But I think the valuable thing is, if you can get whatever ten people that are bought into your mission like excited about working with you in the brand, then you can get them to test a bunch of different hooks. if one video goes viral from an affiliate or from someone else that’s on a retainer, you can get, you’re paying them. They’re like, kind of, a paid contractor. So you can get them all to recreate that video 5 or 10 times. And because it’s already going viral once it’s so much more likely to now go viral again. And so you take one viral hit and it becomes five, ten, 15, and then it’s so much easier to run ads behind it. It’s so much easier to scale your GMV. Basically, you hit this kind of momentum. And generally that’s where I see like where things have moved towards in 2025 is more towards these like creator teams that I can go further into that if you want.

Fernando 00:16:04  But generally that would be kind of like my initial advice.

Josh 00:16:08  Yeah. No, I love it. And it it starts by giving out samples. You got to get some momentum. he referred to it as like the cold start, right where it’s like, if you’ve got a car, you know, in the middle of winter, the old cars. Let’s consider. Right. And you have to, like, turn the turn the keys a few times. Right to like. All right. It’s gotta get, gotta get the cold start going. Right. Let’s kind of juice the pedal a little bit to see if we can get this thing to turn over. It’s the same thing on TikTok shop you want to show like, hey, I’ve already got 100 sales on this product and then you’ve got more. It’s it’s this perpetual flywheel. We talk about it on Amazon, right? That’s like, oh, it’s the Amazon flywheel. You get ranked and then sales just we get sales, we get more sales.

Josh 00:16:52  And you just keep staying ranked and you keep getting more sales because you’re ranked higher. It’s the exact same thing that’s happening on TikTok shop. But it’s all about how many units did you sell then? As creators are filtering what products they want to pitch or represent, they’re then looking at those and be like, well, I want the the better products, right? I want the ones that are actually selling. So then you get more sample requests, right? so I love that strategy and I love what you talked about in terms of like having putting people on retainer and having them just like create more content so that yes, you give out one sample, but you get 60 pieces of content for that one sample, not just like a one hit wonder that you’re just crossing your finger. It goes viral. so with that, Fernando, do you do you see people needing to, like, buy sales up front? I mean, we’re still in the wild west of, TikTok shop. Very frowned upon on Amazon now, but you can go purchase purchases on TikTok, shop for your products right now.

Josh 00:17:58  do you see that as, like, a worthwhile strategy? And, and have you used it.

Fernando 00:18:03  Where you use it a little bit in the past? yeah, we had done. I don’t recommend this today. I’ve heard of people getting in trouble, but like, yeah, where you drop the price to like $3 for a little bit and then you purchase 20 at a time on a bunch of different phones, and then you bring the price back up. yeah. Not necessarily recommended, advice anymore. I think in the early days you could get away with it. I’ve heard of yeah. People get in trouble more recently. Yeah. The full price sales. look, I think if you’re a huge brand and you don’t really, care, you just try to move fast. Yeah, maybe that’s, a decent way of getting them social proof. I would probably go a different route, and I would just do, like, 60% off flash sales, 50% off flash sales until you get that going.

Fernando 00:18:54  I would just try that and constantly be testing different flash deals with different durations on different days, with different percentages to see what works. and then just like decrease the discount over time to try to improve your margins. But I think that’s going to ultimately lead to better, yeah, better and better signals to the TikTok algorithm versus just kind of forcing, like the sales through like a lunch service, in my opinion.

Josh 00:19:30  Yeah. No, I really like that, approach. Similar to. It’s like the old days of Amazon. Like have a really low price. You have a bunch of like the, you know, coupon codes that were like 90% off, right. but different, different flavor of that. But on TikTok shop with the flash sales because I’d be interested to get your thoughts. If you do that approach and you have people creating videos for you, and they’re posting them if it is on flash sale. Do you think there’s something in the algorithm that, like, favors those videos for a period of time? And like, maybe it helps those creators like, actually like make sales and then obviously they make sales.

Josh 00:20:08  They want to create more videos for you. or I’ve just nobody knows the algorithm. But I’m curious, like from your perspective, what have you seen as like, here’s things that we can do. We believe we could try to influence the algorithm to to benefit us, like any tips or strategies you’ve seen that way?

Fernando 00:20:27  Yeah. I mean, I think. Well, generally the consensus, right, is more videos per day. shoppable videos are, like, tagged with the product is going to perform better, right. Just because it’s sending more signal to TikTok saying, hey, this product is like having a moment. Like, people are talking about it. And so then they’re going to push that to more people and your GMV max will run more efficiently. So I don’t think there’s any like debate around that. And so I think that’s like, one piece that I’d be really focused on. yeah. I mean, I think my reason for flash deals is like, is really similar to what you’re saying.

Fernando 00:21:14  Is that, like, is it want to increase the countdown timer? So then it creates urgency, specifically for the potential customer. Summer. But then to like you kind of alluded to this too. Is that like now the verse like again thinking about like flash deal versus yeah, just doing the giveaways through like a launch service is now you’re actually building relationships with affiliates, right? Because now they’re earning commission even on this like lower price. And then so you can, really figure out like, well, who’s actually performing and who do I want to start bringing on retainer. So I think that’s kind of like the second piece is that like it’s kind of you’re getting more useful insight versus if I just like pay ten K to a large service and get this many sales, it’s like I didn’t really learn anything from that. I didn’t get any feedback. and then, yeah, the last way actually thinking about like, units sold. I haven’t done this personally because we haven’t launched like a product in a while that we’re like really focused on.

Fernando 00:22:27  But there is like a strategy where you can do giveaways on a live, and I think that will count as a unit sold where samples typically are not, don’t count. But I have heard of people doing, yeah giveaways to customers on a live and that can help. And so that if I were going to do it in some way, I would tie it in to that. Oh, and then kind of going back to the you’re asking about like how to game the algorithm. There is a lot of like game dynamics in terms of lives, which I think is really interesting. And, and I want to caveat like, I don’t think you should be really focusing on lives. Actually, I want to clarify. Okay. So if you’re doing a live specifically to get your units sold up in the beginning and you’re willing to trade time for money, like, then that’s fine. Or if you’re just doing this giveaway strategy and trying to get your units sold up, then that works. But generally, if you’re trying to scale revenue through lives, I wouldn’t really focus on that because I think that’s like the 20 and the 8020 until you’re like doing like over a thousand shoppable videos a week.

Fernando 00:23:45  And that’s what’s been shared by like, the head of TikTok shop for health, that we talk to pretty regularly, too. but anyways, so yeah, I would think about, yeah, I sorry, going back to like the live strategy, but yeah, I think the algorithm for lives is interesting where you want to send a ton of signals at the beginning of the live, and so people will do those kind of giveaways or like, hey, when we had ten people or ten viewers, we’re going to do this kind of giveaway or and they kind of start with this like, or like the first whatever, 20 people are going to get this for free or this bonus or whatever, but they’re basically trying to get, viewers to engage with it, sorry, engage with the live and to share it to other people. And then by sending those early signals, then you’re going to get more visibility on that live. And so that one, that’s another like, I guess kind of gamification, if you will.

Fernando 00:24:50  but yeah, those are the ones that I can think of off the top of my head.

Josh 00:24:53  Yeah, I love that. And I like the live strategy as well, because you’re deepening a relationship with a creator at the same time. And that’s something that we’ve learned too, is like a lot of the creators are like, hey, can I get these giveaway units? Can I get a specific promotion code just for my lives? Right? And so anything you can do that way, it’s all ultimately this all just comes down to relationships. Do you want to win on TikTok shop? Get really, really good at relationships. but Fernando, I even want to pull it back even a step further, because everything that we’re talking about is, like all about working with affiliates right now. And I believe that there’s really three different ways to have success on TikTok shop. You could, as a brand have a really good organic, like viral. You have your own probably creator team that like, you guys are just really good at hooks and you’re coming out with content all of the time and you’re posting it on your own branded content, and you’re trying to go viral time and time again yourself to push your sales and success on TikTok shop.

Josh 00:26:05  There are brands that like that’s their focus. There are also other brands, so that’s one. Number two is like they just do really well on lives, right? Like the brand themselves, they just go live. Their strategy is not like crazy viral videos they post themselves, but they they have turned it into their own QVC and they go live and it’s just the way that their brand does. Jared Mortensen, I think has that underwear brand that he’s just it’s men’s underwear, which you would think like is a commodity product, but instead they are crushing it. And he’s done it all through, TikTok lives period. Right. And then the last thing that we’ve been talking about, which is kind of your affiliate strategy and and Fernando, my recommendation is like at least to get started, don’t do all three, focus on one and go all in on one of those. do you see it the same way that those are kind of like the three kind of like pillars that you can dive into on TikTok? Or am I missing some?

Fernando 00:27:12  yeah, I mean, I, I agree, Re I in the broader bucket of like branded lives and then shoppable videos.

Fernando 00:27:24  yeah. Sorry. Branded content lives in shoppable videos. or I guess affiliates. But yeah, I guess where there’s kind of some overlap is that you could also do lives with affiliate. That could be a specific strategy. So I guess I kind of live kind of bifurcates into like branded lives versus, affiliate lives. but yeah, I mean, yeah, I think that’s right.

Josh 00:27:48  So let’s dive deeper into I think affiliates is truly like where the power sits. Right? Because if there’s one thing that you could take, let’s say TikTok, like, doesn’t have a bright future and there’s a better platform to move to in the future. I like doubling down and having my own creator army that I could then take wherever the puck moves next. Because I do believe over the next 5 to 10 years, like whoever can get the eyeballs is going to win the game of e-commerce. And so if I can have just an affiliate army that loves my brand, loves my products, if it’s YouTube shorts, they just they just get tons of views.

Josh 00:28:30  Now for whatever reason, it’s like we want to move there. Then you shift your affiliate strategy over there, right? Whereas if you’re all in on the organic side, yeah, you could move there. But I’m just a big fan of the affiliates. in general, would you tend to agree with that sentiment? Fernando, like, why have you guys focused on building your affiliate program and not just hosting your own content, coming out with it, not dealing with affiliates?

Fernando 00:28:59  Yeah, I mean, I 100% agree. I think, you know, we had some pretty early success on TikTok, and I think even before, before we really dive deep. Like I think I like, intentionally just cleared my schedule and was like, okay, this is now my priority to figure it out. and it wasn’t like acting blind. It was like I had friends that had, like, really grown their businesses, like 60% in six months or something crazy. And I was like, okay, and there are big businesses.

Fernando 00:29:33  So I’m like, okay, this is worth investing in. It’s kind of like a, you know, asymmetric risk kind of decision. And so, yeah, I mean, I think when we when we were looking at the numbers and I think we were just using kalo data at the time, but it’s like, yeah, the branded content ended up representing such a small percentage of the overall sales for, for a lot of the brands, even the top brands. And then so yeah, we decided to focus on affiliates because of that. And so it makes sense. Right. It’s like you have a branded content, it’s a you can only post so many times a day. But if I have, I like to your point like a an army of affiliates and there’s, you know, 10,000 of them, then there’s no way that I’m going to be out to sell them. And so and I think some people are kind of usually like, oh, well, your brand and content, you save on the commission and whatever.

Fernando 00:30:34  And that’s obviously right. But it’s like but your ceiling is so much smaller, right. And so yeah, I think we have just really tried to focus as much as we can. And so yeah, we’ve really Yeah, I totally agree with you. I think just like focusing on affiliates is like the biggest thing. And and if you want to, let’s say you want to do branded content because you want to invest in the brand long term, then I would hire like a killer social media marketer. like that can create your your brand branded content, but not just for TikTok, but for Instagram as well. Maybe like, and yeah, I probably wouldn’t do it myself unless I was like a celebrity or something to that effect. but yeah, that’s kind of how I would think about it.

Josh 00:31:28  Yeah. Makes sense. So if we dive into this affiliate strategy and you’ve proven it to be very successful for your brands, what does it take? What does it look like to build a successful affiliate program? So if you can walk us through like what are some of like the specific tactics that you’ve implemented to like this is how we teach, this is how we educate.

Josh 00:31:47  This is how we motivate our affiliates to keep posting for us and not the competition. And tell me more about like, what you believe has led to your guys’s success with the affiliate program.

Fernando 00:31:59  Right. So yeah, I think, you know, when we first started, like January 2024, it was just like everything everything was around sampling, right? Everybody, was just sending out a bunch of samples. We had the philosophy of. We’re just gonna send it to everybody. because that will hit our first viral video first or earlier, and then we’re betting on one video will pay for everything else, and that ended up being right. so, yeah, maybe like six weeks in first viral video. Like, basically crushes and basically ends up paying for everything else. I think that strategy is much less likely to work in 2025, unfortunately. and so I think generally the affiliate strategy that I would recommend is you like implement a bot. Could it be like us HQ or there’s a there’s a bunch out there, but basically you just need to do a ton outreach, both on target clubs and through creator messages and identify like, yeah, creators that are selling that have a high fulfillment score, which is just the if they get, let’s say, 100 samples, the fulfillment percentage is how many times are they posting? So like let’s say if it’s 75 and they posted 75 times out of those 100 samples.

Fernando 00:33:26  and yeah, those are really the main things that I’m personally paying attention to for sampling. And that’s a with the assumption, is a relatively low cost item to send out for sampling if it’s more expensive. I don’t vacuum like we talked about earlier, then I’m going to do a lot more choosing. but just generally I’d be trying to get as many samples as I can afford at least a few hundred per month for the first few months to just get that social proof, get the content, like, flowing in. and then as that content comes in, Then the best performing? yeah, the best performing videos. I’m obviously going to be driving on its behind it, but I’m also going to be following up and reaching out to them about potentially putting them on retainer. If I think that there’s enough promise, for it to make sense to pay them 300, 500 bucks a month, in exchange for the 30 videos I have seen where people are doing lower retainers, which is kind of interesting if they’re kind of newer creator.

Fernando 00:34:38  or another interesting way I’ve heard of people doing it is like with like, okay, maybe you get 30 or 40% guaranteed. And if you hit like, say like one x Roas on your retainer, you get like 70%. And if you hit two times, you get 2%, you get your full retainer if sorry, if you get two x Roas, then you get like, yeah, your full retainer or whatever. So that’s kind of interesting stuff. But when I’m evaluating the creator to put them on a retainer, I’m looking at a lot of the same thing. Obviously. Like, how well do they perform for us? But just generally, I think a key KPI I’m thinking about is what are they doing in the last 30 days in terms of GBV overall, and how is that distributed? Do they get lucky on one specific video, or did they create a bunch of different videos? And I’m hoping for more of an even distribution. And then the last thing I’m kind of paying attention to, is their score.

Fernando 00:35:35  It’s like the product selection score. They kind of got renamed recently, but it’s basically TikTok’s way of telling you how relevant is this creator specifically to promoting your brand. And then generally the consensus is above four out of five is good. And so, yeah, basically I’m selecting creators on retainer based on that. And then, and then finding a platform where I’m going to like, funnel them into to be able to, like, re-engage. And so, you know, if it’s really small and, then you could do it, I guess, in theory on WhatsApp or through text message or whatever. But I think generally the most, most brands are using discord, which has its pluses and minuses, because it’s like a quick, easy minus is that you can switch between discords really easily. So it’s like they can just switch to your competitor or to other brands. You can just forget about you. but the upside is that everybody’s on there, or a majority of creators are on their, it’s, relatively easy to use once you just kind of start using it on a daily basis.

Fernando 00:36:42  But it’s a phenomenal way of re-engaging them. And so that would be like the next piece that I’m kind of thinking about is like, yeah, how do I onboard these creators? How do I how do I train them? How do I coach them on creating better content and how do I keep them motivated? Like what you said? Very similar. Again, to, like, onboarding employees. but yeah, onboarding them, like you could create videos. I probably wouldn’t be hopping on calls with each one. But like, I know some brands that have crushed like neuro, for example, like they require to go through a few hours of training on the brand before even getting, the chance to promote the, promote them through, like, their discord and stuff. And so they, it’s almost like you have to, like, earn the right to promote them, which is kind of interesting. and a lot of people have, like, created these like tiers of like, okay, you’re like Seal Team six.

Fernando 00:37:38  You’re like our top performance, and you get higher commission and you get early access to our new products. And like you, you’re giving them stuff that other people don’t have the right to earn or whatever. And I think that’s a great way of like building motivation and stuff like that. And, and if there’s like a way that you can fall out of that and that’s clearly communicated that, you know, keeps the creators engaged. But then generally, like, you can do tons of contests, like there’s like the ones that goalie launched, you know, that were super famous. But it’s like when a Lambo or an apartment in Miami, if you hit this much in GMV within this period of time, I think that’s super motivating. Probably not as effective as it was like back then, because now every brand has kind of done it. but you could do that. We do like leadership boards within discord. So it’s like, we’re showing like who’s in the top three, and then we can give extra bonuses and prizes, to the top three.

Fernando 00:38:40  yeah. I think those are generally like a lot of the things that we do. And, and I would focus the bonuses towards what are the actions you really want to see? Like, maybe sometimes like you’re like, okay, well, I need to really start getting the community up and running so I care more about just engagement. And so maybe you could do something around like, hey, you know, who are the top three most active people in discord? More so than just like top GMV earners, especially if you already have a super high GMV earner. That would just be constantly winning because like, they’re going to keep promoting regardless because they’re already making time in commission. And so you’re not really reinforcing the the action that you need. But it could be like if you need more shoppable videos, it’s like, hey, for the top three people that post the most shoppable videos, regardless of GMV, like, you will win these prizes. And so we kind of align that, to whatever actions we need, and then we change up the, the contest every month.

Fernando 00:39:43  but yeah. And then in terms of coaching, yeah, I mean generally you can like look at the stats, you can look at their watch time like there’s like you know, six second, three second like watch times. If, the watch time is low, that means that the hook isn’t very strong. And so you can look at that relative to your other videos and then ensure that, like the affiliates are aware of that and then like, hey, if you tighten this up here, you know, you’re going to probably increase your watch time or hey, you didn’t really show your product until maybe, show the product for the first, like whatever. 20s. And so if you move it earlier, that’s going to help. yeah. Like little things like that that we have, like, our experience creators, like kind of help out with, I think is great. And so a lot of brands will do like a content coach that kind of motivates the team and keeps them engaged. but yeah, off the top of my head, that’s like, yeah, a lot of like our affiliate strategy.

Josh 00:40:43  I love it. I think it’s so important to like, you’re really building a relationship with these people, right? And incentivizing them to, like, participate in contests, get to know us. Engage with us outside of TikTok. And I think that’s the key aspect right there. These creators get thousands of DMs a day. So like, if you think you’re just gonna reach out to these people via DM on TikTok. Like good luck. Like they’re 99% of them are gonna never see it, never reply and just ignore it. So my question to you, to Fernando is like, how are you getting people into discord? How are you getting their phone numbers? Like, how does it go from TikTok sample? I’m going to approve your TikTok sample in TikTok, but TikTok’s not sharing their email address. They’re not sharing their phone number. So how are you getting that information from the creators to say, hey, come join my discord?

Fernando 00:41:37  Yeah. Great question. So we built out a team, of like international employees that are helping us recruit, the affiliates.

Fernando 00:41:48  And then you’re totally right. It needs to be taken out of TikTok seller center or affiliate center just because. You’re going to get lost with millions of other messages. and so one way is like for everybody that completes the sample request and then makes the post, we follow up with them like, hey, we know we loved your content. Thank you so much. you can also like ask for their spark code if they haven’t set up like already authorization. And then you can invite them to the discord there. So that’s like an easy one. and then we’re also just doing outbound outreach. So it’s like, oh, you know, this is a really comparable product. It’s going to have the same audience. Like I would just go through Kalodata or Fastmoss or whatever, and then just build a list of all their top creators. And then I would reach out to them and I would be like a little bit more intentional, like let’s say, you know, we’re in supplements and like, I could go to goalie, which is like one of the top brands, but like, you know, that’s going to be tough, right? Like, you know, if they’re already generating a million a month, Like, you know, for that brand, let’s say, like getting them to go on this, like smaller brand that, like, you’ve never heard of.

Fernando 00:42:56  Probably doesn’t make as much sense, right? Like, this is terrible. I’m gonna say it anyways, but it’s like, you know, the really not attractive person trying to go date, like, the hottest person. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s unlikely unless you like most swag ever. But, like, you know, I think it’s kind of going to the creators that are in a specific range based on what your business is at, right? If you’re still in the cold start, then you kind of have to work through, like doing a ton of outreach, but also just be reasonable about like the creators that you’re trying to attract. And so I think being intentional around that is important. yeah. Yeah, those are the ways that we get people into the discord for the most part.

Josh 00:43:36  Love it. Awesome. Well, Fernando, this has been a wealth of information. one of the things I want you to talk about your software here. we’ll we’ll plug that at the end.

Josh 00:43:47  But I want you to talk about, like, everything that you’ve done because like, the data in TikTok is extremely fragmented. Like, if people thought that seller sent seller Central on Amazon is a nightmare to work with. TikTok is three x more complicated. Like Amazon at least has the APIs data at least flows through like one account, whereas like TikTok’s like they’re just very disjointed. It’s just really interesting in and of itself, and the tool that you’ve built there in order to, like, scale things up because, like it’s true. TikTok is a place where you could light a bunch of money on fire and watch it go away really, really fast. So it’s important to understand, like your skew metrics and actual profitability that’s going to become more and more important over time, which your tool does. so we’ll talk about that. But Fernando, I love to leave the audience with three actionable takeaways from every episode. So here are the three actionable takeaways that I noted. You let me know if I’m missing something.

Josh 00:44:47  Number one, I would say no matter what your brand is. We talked about this earlier. Most brands will work on TikTok shop. You just gotta figure out what your angle is going to be on TikTok shop. So my encouragement is anybody that’s on Amazon and I would say this first. If you’re just starting on Amazon, you’ve got to build your foundation on Amazon. It’s going to be extremely challenging for you to also jump on to TikTok all at the same time while trying to build up Amazon, because they’re both two very big platforms, both have a lot of good potential, but I would say the threshold would be this if you’re above 5 million and especially across 10 million on Amazon and you’re not on TikTok shop, you’re making a massive mistake. So that’s action item number one. Start moving to TikTok shop as soon as you have your Amazon ops kind of locked down so that you can devote your time and attention just like you’ve done Fernando, and so have I. It’s just like I’m all in on this thing, and I’ve got to build this thing up from scratch now.

Josh 00:45:53  But that also meant I had a team that could execute Amazon to keep the lights on there. So that’s action item number one. Action item number two is going to be like truly building out an affiliate strategy. So look at going into this. This is a volume game. And I’ve been astonished Fernando the number of people that tell me hey yeah we tried TikTok shop. It just didn’t work. And I’m like, well, how many samples did you send out? And they’re going to pat themselves on the back when they say like, oh, I sent out 100 and the videos I got back were terrible. And then I say, like, try annexing that. Like, let’s get to a thousand. Can we get to 1000 a month for the next three months? Then let’s take a step back and take a look at things. But it honestly is a volume and scale side of things. Again, if you have a more expensive product like you might have to be more selective with that. But like a cheaper product where your cogs are lower, you should be given out as many samples as you possibly can because it’s a volume game, and you will learn faster by giving out samples and working with affiliates more than anything.

Josh 00:47:05  So that’s action. Item number two is like, don’t just put don’t just dip your toe in the water like jump all in giving out samples to these creators. And even it don’t worry about the selection process of the creators to begin with. Just just jump in and see who it is that’s trending to work with your products, then start to find more creators like that, that are doing well. That’s action item number two. And then my third and final action item, if you want to have success on TikTok shop, is it’s not just a sample, here’s your video and that’s it. That’s that’s not how brands are succeeding on TikTok shot. It is. They are succeeding. And I think the best analogy that I can relate this to is like the the MLM model, that was like, what took Mary Kay to the, you know, millions and billions of revenue that they have, which is because like, it’s all about the relationship. And in MLM marketing, what is it? It’s just you pigeon your products to your friends and family.

Josh 00:48:10  TikTok is the best new advanced MLM program. It’s these creators talking to their friends and family, but it’s also has the opportunity to go to millions of people all at the same time. And so think about everything that, like the best MLM companies do to incentivize re-engage their team members, get their sales team excited about talking about their products. If you implement those same tactics, you will have success on TikTok shop. Fernando. Anything I’m missing there?

Fernando 00:48:40  Know you nailed it. I mean, I didn’t. Yeah. Everything you said is so true. Yeah. We talk about it all the time that it’s, like, so similar to an MLM. It’s kind of wild, like. Yeah. yeah, 100% agree.

Josh 00:48:53  Awesome. All right. Fernando. As we wrap things up here, three final questions for yourself. Number one, what’s been your most influential book that you’ve read and why?

Fernando 00:49:03  Yeah. I love scaling up. it’s I don’t know if you’ve read it, but I think it just taught me so many important.

Fernando 00:49:16  You know, I like aspects of business that I wasn’t even aware of, but just like, you know, cash conversion cycles, actually, that was like, maybe the biggest reason we ended up going into supplements, also because it’s consumable, like you mentioned earlier, but it’s just like the time from when you pay your supplier to when you get paid is the most crucial metric. and, you know, for being able to scale without needing outside funding. And so, yeah, but then scaling up covers a lot of stuff besides that. But they cover, you know, about people and like, strategy and just like management like. And so I think that was probably the most influential.

Josh 00:49:59  Yeah, I love that book. Definitely a good recommendation. And you touched on this cash conversion cycle. If you’re listening to this and you don’t know what that means, that is the number one indicator of being able to, like, thrive and successfully scale an e-commerce period. because the shorter that window or even having a negative, cash conversion cycle, you can scale infinitely when that happens.

Josh 00:50:27  And some brands have that. So know that that’s the secret that sits behind the brands that are scaling fast. All right. Question number two for you, Fernando, what’s your favorite AI tool that you’ve been using and what have you been using it for?

Fernando 00:50:43  Oh, man. yeah, it’s boring, but like, honestly, ChatGPT, I, I, I actually asked it the other day how many questions I asked it per day, and it was like 85. Like, I’m, I guess a power user, but everything, whether that’s like listening to some of my calls using like AI, like read AI, like summaries, and then I’ll, put it into ChatGPT to, like, help me consolidate it, like, use that to, I was using it this morning where I was giving some feedback to a team on a, on a call, and I was like, you know what? Like, this call was last week, but it is kind of like in the back of my mind.

Fernando 00:51:25  So I just grabbed the summary from read AI and I’m like, hey, I want you to like, I put it in ChatGPT and I was like, hey, where was I like Frustrated. Can you, like, call those out? and then, I want you to help me frame this in, like, a constructive way. It’s like, basically hold them accountable afterwards. You know what I mean? but, yeah, everything in terms of like. Yeah, just like as a thinking partner. Like just constantly like following up with ChatGPT to get more clarification. Like figuring out what I missed. Like. And yeah, I think, yeah. By far and away, like, I’ve messed around with Nan and all that kind of stuff. But like, I think in terms of, like actual usage and like really helping me like five x my output for sure.

Josh 00:52:16  ChatGPT love it. A great, great thought partner for sure. All right. Final question. Who is somebody that you admire or respect the most in the e-commerce space that other people should be following and why?

Fernando 00:52:31  man, yeah, I love.

Fernando 00:52:32  You know, I meet with Jordan West a lot. he runs a, like, DTC and TikTok shop, agency. And. Yeah, I mean, he’s just brilliant. Like. Yeah, he’s taught me a ton. Yeah. I’m just, like, overall, like DDC marketing. Building a personal brand. yeah. Like YouTube, LinkedIn content strategy, all that kind of stuff. Yeah. yeah. Very grateful for him.

Josh 00:53:03  Awesome. Great. Fernando, you have your, hive HQ software. Tell us more about it. What is it? And what’s the pain point that it solves?

Fernando 00:53:14  Yeah. I mean, so when you’re selling on TikTok shop, it’s, like, super frustrating because, like, the data is sometimes incomplete, but. And then also, like, you just have to log into a million different places to find everything, right? It’s like you have logged in the ad center to find your ads data, and then affiliate center for the affiliate side, and then just the normal seller center for GMV.

Fernando 00:53:37  And and then like the finance side. And so we’re just like, okay, this is impossible. Our finance team was spending an insane amount of time trying to figure out, like, are we profitable or are we not like, like, or are marketing teams like, which creators should we be focusing on? Like we know who our top three or top ten are, but like, who are the new? Like, who are the new creators that are coming up like rising the ranks or like, is there certain creators, that were a top creator but haven’t posted in a while? And so we how do we re-engage them? And so basically and we’ve seen these like because we came from the Amazon space. Right. It’s like I’ve seen these like suite of tools like whatever helium ten or Jungle Scout that kind of like provide a ton of different offerings like to a specific seller. And I was like, oh, this makes a ton of sense. And so we started with the affiliate outreach app. Like there’s a million out there, but we’re like, okay, the profit dashboard.

Fernando 00:54:37  eventually, you know, brands are going to really focus on profit like long term. And so that’s been like a really popular tool. But and then, yeah, we basically pull in from all those APIs and then just make it really easy to see. So you can see, track with the most important KPI like we talked about earlier, like, yeah, you know, it’s sold or shoppable videos posted or GMV or impressions. You can see that now, like on a week over week basis, day by day, if you want, month over month and just kind of see how things are tracking. but then it also just gives you like we’re releasing later this month, like or actually. So by the time this is live, it’ll already be done. But it’s just now you can also drill into like your top creators or affiliates. And so it could be someone that’s on retainer or just a random from a sample. And then it’ll give you easier Your views. and we talked about this earlier, but it’s like they’re the 80 to 90%.

Fernando 00:55:33  And so it’s, of what’s going to drive revenue. And so we give you like easier visibility in terms of like, hey, here’s like the missing opportunities. These are the creators that haven’t posted in a few weeks, but we’re a top creator or, these are the ones that are promoting a random product but not your hero product. Like stuff like that that will give your team or you more direction in terms of where to spend time.

Josh 00:55:59  Yeah, I, I think that that is extremely valuable because I know our team has gotten lost in the data and like, where do we get this? How do we match up our ad data with the product sales data? And what’s the actual real profitability? Profitability, I would say, is like one of the most difficult things to track on TikTok shot bar none, because like is all over the place and especially if you have like retail like creators on retainer and then you have sample costs that are going out. Like there’s a lot that goes into that. And so I think you’ve created a fantastic tool.

Josh 00:56:34  I highly recommend people check you out there. Fernando. So thank you for your time today. This has been extremely enlightening, even for myself, and so I hope it was for our audience. But thanks again for your time.

Fernando 00:56:47  Thanks, man. Yeah, I appreciate it. Oh yeah, we set up a discount code. So if anyone from your audience, wanna say it’s Hadley 15 for you.

Josh 00:56:54  Hadley 15. Yeah. Awesome. I love that. So, yes. Go join hive HQ Hadley 15 for your discount. Great tool. I highly recommend it. So, Fernando, thank you.

Fernando 00:57:09  Of course. Thanks for having me. Yeah, I loved it. Appreciate it.

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