Great biz ideas are attached to great trends
And TiktokShop + Affiliates + Ads is one hell of a great trend
Today i’m going to stray a bit from my normal genre of article and talk about some things that i’ve learned about finding a good business idea.
It’s something we discovered in the course of our Reviv business and I think it’s a useful frame for others that are thinking about starting a business.
So let’s dive in.
TiktokShop is going crazy in the US
In 2024 TiktokShop in the US surpassed $9bn GMV and grew 650%+ in a single year. This after only launching in September 2023.
Americans have been going crazy about Tiktok and now they’re filling their living rooms with stuff from it. Because it is the best content-driven purchase process in commerce history.
You’re watching some highly engaging video by an influencer who is explaining the benefits of a product and then a few clicks and boom! You’ve purchased! And are back on the scroll for more.
Your address, payment details, and everything else are all saved. So you could literally purchase something in less than like 10 seconds.
Remember the old infomercials that played on TV back in the day like QVC? They’d try to sell you some necklace or a set of Ginsu knives.
Well TiktokShop is like allowing every American to create their own infomercials from their own home.
They have a very powerful affiliate system
Pretty much anyone can become an affiliate on Tiktokshop once they’ve passed 5k followers.
And so well over 100k+ people have done exactly that. These are not just young Gen-Zers… these are all kinds of people. Young and old. Men and women.
Covering every niche available.
And because of the Tiktok algorithm they don’t need a massive following to do well. Basically any video has strong potential virality to do well regardless of the following of the person that posted.
This is where Tiktok really broke away from the older social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Youtube. Back in the day on those networks the only people that made any real money were the ones with large followings.
But now they’re all copying Tiktok because they see how explosive it is.
When anyone can have overnight virality success… lots of people become extremely motivated to post interesting content. And that is the foundation of Tiktok’s success in a nutshell.
The math behind this explosive growth
I’ve seen on Youtube some young ~20 year old affiliates talking about how they are making $100-200k per month! While posting perhaps 2-3 videos per day.
How?
Simple. Virality.
A brand might offer say 20% commission to an affiliate on sales that they drive of a product with a price of $20. So a $4 commission.
Then say the creator posts a video that does 1m views. This could easily translate into 25,000 purchases (conversion rate = 2.5%).
Is getting 1m views unreasonably impossible? No. Especially given that Tiktok actually pushes this Tiktokshop content since they earn more money off it.
Is a 2.5% conversion rate unreasonable on a great piece of promotional content that is served to a well-fitted niche? Absolutely not. Just ask any good marketer out there.
So basically the affiliate just generated $100k (=$4 commission x 25k purchases) on a single post that perhaps took them not more than an hour to film and edit.
Is every post gonna be like this? Absolutely not.
But all you need is one hit and an 18-year old kid has essentially more than doubled what they would have earned for an entire year at a full-time job.
Combining affiliates with ads is a super power
This is the other thing we’ve recently discovered, which is amazing in my view. We can put ad money behind the affiliate content that is created.
And so that is what we methodically do.
We put $30/day behind every piece of content that looks decent. And then a day later we double the budget on any thing that has an acceptable CAC (cost of customer acquisition) and turn off the ad on anything that doesn’t.
We continue to leave the ads on for as long as they’re working.
On top of that we’re using a tool called Euka.ai to automate the whole creator outreach process. Not long ago we pushed out something like 10k messages and were pumping out 40+ samples per day to new affiliates that met our criteria.
This should roughly translate into about 40 new pieces of UGC (user generated content) by these affiliates per day. Note that receiving a sample obligates them to post.
Assume we put ad spend behind say 30 new pieces of content per day and at least 5 of them continue to convert at an acceptable CAC.
You can quickly see how we can create an absolute scaling machine! We’re continuing to advertise everything that worked in the past plus we’re adding 5 new well-performing (ie. profitable) ads per day.
When I saw how this worked it gave me about 10 other business ideas
When you see how this machine works it gives you plenty of other ideas and you start thinking… what are the criteria for a successful product that takes advantage of this scaling machine?
For example:
it should be a product that can be sold for <$20 and has a very high margin.
it should have a very interesting content angle that many creators can tap into. And with strong potential virality.
it should be relatively unique so that you’re not the tenth person pushing the same thing on tiktokshop.
etc.
And so there are many products that fit this criteria. My best ideas come when watching high-performing pieces of content on Tiktok.
I think to myself…. hmmm this person is not pushing any product. What product could they be pushing that would fit with the story they’ve just told?
Closing thoughts
For the folks out there that are building the millionth AI startup of 2025 I think you’re making a mistake.
For me AI is like a red ocean of startups right now.
Who is actually making money? Very very few companies.
How many of these startups can be bootstrapped effectively? Meaning they will make enough revenue to cover their costs. Answer: Very few.
Rather I recommend looking around you for what is changing in society? And where are the business opportunities from those major trends?
For example this whole thing with Tiktokshop blowing up and thousands of affiliates creating content.
When I see the entrepreneurs that are tapping this effectively i’m seeing story after story of people that are creating profitable businesses right out of the gates. No VC’s needed.
When I hear about my friends & acquaintances that are making AI startups I hear story after story of struggling for traction with loss-making businesses.
I know where i’m gonna play ;)