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The Lifting Society
Abstract.—I graduated with a biochemistry degree, skipped medical school, and spent two years making TikToks instead. Near-daily posting grew a fitness channel from 124 to 528K followers and produced one video with 1.52M likes. In September 2022 I converted that audience into The Lifting Society, a direct-to-consumer apparel brand that sold $211K over sixteen months before winding down. This section documents what I built, what it sold, and why I paused it.
Background.—I had a biochemistry degree, a vague plan to sit for the MCAT, and no business background. What I did have was a working feel for sales funnels from prior retail exposure, a short list of manufacturers I had already made contact with, and a camera. I wanted to post every day and see what happened.
Method.—I operated alone. I designed every garment, built the Shopify storefront and every sales channel, and produced every video, graphic, logo, and product photo myself. Media and marketing contractors were hired tactically for shoots and paid ads — never on retainer. Source material came from the gym floor: hundreds of short interviews with lifters from every background, which produced both the content stream and, more transferably, reps in speaking with strangers.
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- “Lift and Uplift” tee, 2022.
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- Society hoodie, worn.
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- Trucker hat inner label.
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- Staged for fulfillment.
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- Mailers out the door.
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- Hat and shorts drop, self-modeled.
Fig. 1. TikTok follower growth, Jan 2022 – Apr 2024. Source: TikTok data export. Month Milestone 2022-01 124 followers. 13 videos posted that month. 2022-03 84 videos posted. Crossed 10,000 followers. 2022-06 Crossed 100,000 followers. 2022-07 Crossed 250,000 followers. 2022-09 One video reached 1.52M likes. Shopify storefront launched. 2024-01 Storefront past $211,000 in lifetime sales. Table 1. Milestones, Jan 2022 – Jan 2024. Results.—The content engine was volume. 401 videos in twenty-four months, near-daily for six months, peaking at 84 videos in March 2022. One hit 1.52M likes. When the audience was large enough, the September 2022 storefront launch cleared $20K in its first full month and ran at a similar level through early 2023, totaling $211K over sixteen months before demand faded.
Fig. 2. Shopify storefront cumulative sales, Sep 2022 – Jan 2024. Source: Shopify. Postmortem.—TLS is paused, not folded. Two forces pushed it there: higher-priority projects in my portfolio took bandwidth, and by late 2023 my appetite for daily video had cooled below what the storefront required. The costliest mistakes were managerial — I scaled content operations by contracting out without developing the team-lead skills to direct them, and I was better as a one-person shop than as a hub. What carried forward was more durable than the brand itself: fluent sales-funnel instinct, supply-chain relationships, an audience-first product playbook, and — most of all — the communication reps I built interviewing strangers in gyms. I consider those interviews the real education and apply them forward.
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Pump Daddy
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- Stencils lined up on carts.
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- Supplies staged, night prep.
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- Peeling the stencil off the van.
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- Shaking the can.
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- Finished pieces, end of the run.
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TOT Nail Supply
Abstract.—My father spent years formulating spa products — pedicure soaks, gels, creams — without a proper way to get them into Texas salons. TOT Nail Supply is that distribution channel. We opened on Bellaire Blvd in Houston's Chinatown in October 2024, selling our in-house brands alongside a curated list of third-party lines, and now ship to salons across the U.S.
Field Value Opened October 2024. Location Bellaire Blvd, Houston, TX (Chinatown). Model B2B and DTC. Ships nationwide. Assortment Everything a nail salon needs except furniture — gels, creams, pedicure soaks, tools, disposables — in-house brands plus a curated third-party list. In-house brands TOT SPA, TOT NAILS, Geyser Spa, SACH (under TOT Brand Co). Primary funnel Facebook (@totsupplies) → Bellaire storefront + Shopify. Systems built Logistics and shipping, internal ops portal, AI agents for reporting / analysis / customer service. Table 1. TOT Nail Supply — operating snapshot. Results.—Facebook is the top of the funnel — product posts into the Vietnamese-American salon-owner community on the Gulf Coast, the same media playbook I used at The Lifting Society, pointed at a B2B audience. Most sales close in the Bellaire store; Shopify is one channel of several. Behind the counter, I built the logistics and shipping system the business runs on, an internal ops portal, and a set of AI agents that handle reporting, analysis, and customer service.
Metric Lifetime Total sales $3,068,400 Orders 14,327 Average order value $236.85 Returns (share of gross) 12.7% Table 2. Shopify channel, lifetime (Oct 2024 – present). One channel of several; in-store sales not included. Source: Shopify. -
TOT Brand Co
coming soon