S14 E3: Inside Comfrt’s $700 Million TikTok Playbook (with Hudson Leogrande, Founder of Comfrt)

0:00Nik:Welcome back to Limited Supply, the podcast where we get deep into the tactical and strategic side of e-commerce, digital marketing, and building consumer brands. I'm your host, Nik Sharma. I've spent the last nine years building, scaling, and investing in brands. And through this show and my weekly newsletter at Nik.co slash email, I'm here to share everything I've learned. The wins, the losses, the experiments, the tactics, and the insights, all so you can unlock your next$100 ,000 in revenue. Today's episode is a good one, but before we dive in, let me tell you about our chosen sponsor for this week's episode.

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1:07Nik:Then it sends it at the exact moment that that shopper is ready to buy. BFCM is behind you and now's the time to build for your biggest year yet. Old and lame retention emails are so 2025. Book a demo by December 31st and get 50 % off your first 60 days at instant.one.sharma and set up your brand to dominate 2026. Welcome back to another episode of Limited Supply. My name is Nick Sharma and I'm your host for this week. However, fun little change up today. One of my best friends is going to actually be taken over shortly as host. We are going to insert a talk here that happened with Hudson. Hudson Leo Grande, he's the founder of Comfort.

1:50Nik:Comfort is one of the biggest brands to exist on TikTok shop. I believe the top apparel brand, if not right now, it was one of the top. It's probably still top five. He's done over$500 million in TikTok shop sales. He expects to do just over, probably between$100 and$200 million for the remainder of this year, so between October, November, December. And so I thought, let's dive into Hudson's Q4 playbook. I'm curious, what is a brand of his caliber doing? How are they planning and thinking about Q4? How does he think about merchandising, pricing, sales, TikTok Live, TikTok creators, TikTok affiliate, all the things that are known that we should be talking about, thinking about doing, researching, diving into, but still a lot of brands are not.

2:36Nik:So today's conversation, I'm going to dive all into, or rather Troy's going to dive all into the Q4 strategy and plays behind what Comfort is doing and what Hudson has orchestrated. And if you have any questions, you can reach out to myself, you can reach out to Troy, or you can reach out to Hudson directly. But I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Next week, we're back with our regularly scheduled programming. And yeah, have at it. Let me know if you have any questions. I hope you enjoy this episode. Most brands dream of cracking social commerce. Our next guest didn't just crack it, he mastered it.

3:13Nik:His company, Comfort Clothing, has generated over a half a billion dollars a year in sales through TikTok Shop alone, making his brand TikTok's fastest growing apparel brand worldwide. And the craziest part is, he's not even 30 years old. This man proves what's possible when product, brand, and culture collide. And he's about to tell you exactly how you can apply that same playbook to your brand, this Q4. Ladies and gentlemen, let's give a round of applause for Hudson Leogrand. Yeah.

4:02Nik:Yeah, now I'm looking at the owner. All right. Got the king of TikTok Shop right here. Glad to have you, Hudson. This is Lex. We'll just jump right into it. So, as the king of TikTok Shop, when you started TikTok Shop, what did you do to start driving those initial sales that got you, obviously you didn't have to originally, but what actually got you those initial first few sales? How did you get started within TikTok Shop? It was, hi, everybody. I'm really fucking happy to be here right now. This is sick. First time I've ever done this. So yes, when we started on TikTok, it was, it's hard, right?

4:43Because you don't really have that track record. So what we did was we would reach out to micro affiliates, like very, very small affiliates that never really worked with a big brand before. So they weren't used to like usage rights or rates or managers. And we just pitched them on the idea. we kind of dangled the carrot of where the business was going because we didn't have the track record. We didn't have the sales, but we knew TikTok was early on and people were really excited about it. And you could take anybody that has a nine to five that's, you know, wanting to break out of that and start making money on their own, even if it pays their rent or their car.

5:22And that was the vision that we kind of planted that seed in everybody's head. and we just started making an abundance of content. The key to TikTok Shop is quality and quantity. You need to have both. The algorithm does not know if it's a high quality piece of content. Maybe you think it's going to win, but it doesn't. So the quality and the quantity is what gets you in the door and gets your business out there enough to start generating sales.

5:48Nik:That makes perfect sense. People usually do one or the other. They don't do both. Both are essential, of course. and do the tactics they used when you first started still apply today or has the game changed within TikTok shop drastically since? No, it's the same. I don't want to work with celebrities. I don't want to work with macro creators or A-list creators. I want to work with people that are the most relatable people on the planet because my demographic, I have a huge tam. It's everybody and anybody. And I want people, I want to evoke emotion in the content. I don't want someone to look at my content and say, oh, that celebrity is getting paid.

6:26That's why they're making this content. It's not organic. It's not authentic. And people can smell that. We've been doing the same thing with e-commerce for a very long time, thinking celebrities are going to drive sales for the brand. But I'd rather have, like right now we have 600 ,000 affiliates. That's a lot. We have 500 core people in our company. They're all the faces of the brand. So I just want to add more people that are like-minded, that fit in our community, that get excited, that wake up, you know, wanting to win. And you get that with people that haven't really seen that much success yet, because they're looking at of not things for what they are, but for what they're becoming.

7:06And they're growing with you instead of they're already at the top and you're the smaller brand trying to figure it out. Yeah.

7:13Nik:And it's interesting because the big like influencer celebrity side of things, usually people steer away because of its cost per hit of the ROI is usually not there. But for you, it's more of the authenticity then, correct? Yeah, 100%. Well, you're going to get both, right? Like with TikTok, I think it's one of the biggest levers on the planet for growth for a company. Like if the halo effect of TikTok to all the other channels is unbelievable. Like I spend half a million a day on Meta. not one person says, I saw you on Instagram. Everybody says, oh, I saw you on TikTok. You're the TikTok brand.

7:52First click, amazing sales, profitability is key. But the influencers, we just repurpose all of their content from TikTok to Meta to Snapchat to AppLovin to Pinterest. So TikTok is really a great origin for all content.

8:08Nik:I love that. And with the content that you're making on TikTok, what creative formulas or hooks are you seeing working best right now? Was it like stream interviews, anything that you're doing, you guys are testing right now? Like, what do you see going to Q4? Yeah, that's a great question. So I look at the layers of content, right? So you have a hook, you have a call, you have a middle of content, which is more like virtual try-ons for my product, more of a, like an experience, right? Cause you want to evoke emotion from the consumer. You want them to feel something when they're watching that content that They're like, oh my God, that's how I feel.

8:44Or showing every color of that collection in a video. Like if we have someone wearing a black hoodie, but we have a pink, a yellow, and a green hoodie, we're going to show all those hoodies in the video to say if someone was in the market for a pink hoodie, they just found it. So we're trying to always cater the videos to, the quote that I like to use is, people don't need time to make a decision. They need information. So the information basis is hook, evoke emotion through middle of content and create FOMO and scarcity at the end of the content, which is the call to action. So I always look at that.

9:18And then the street interviews and the, and the, and the podcasts, it shocks the consumer. Like they don't fucking see that, you know, they don't like, they're so used to scrolling and being desensitized. And then you see somebody in the middle of the street, like, Hey, can I grab you for a minute? Like you, want to watch it and by the time you find out it's an ad, I've already hooked you and you're already buying my product. So it's really like you want to play the game of click-through rate, watch time, even if it's top of the funnel and then you have the more like dense UGC videos in the middle and the bottom of the funnel that are bringing them back in.

9:53But like, yeah, you want to just do something different than everybody else. I feel like everybody feels like this playbook. Everybody wants to do the same shit and expect different results. And it's like, You just got to try things and you just can't procrastinate that. So we didn't know street interviews would work, but we have one ad that has made us over$70 million. Street interview? One ad, street interview. No one's seen it before.

10:21Nik:Yeah. Well, it's funny because everyone always, the cliche is like thumb-stopping creative, quote-unquote, but everyone, to your point, does the same shit. So how do you come up with these ideas? Are you looking at trends? Are you looking at what other people are doing? You're looking at organic things that you can apply and see like your ads. Like how do you actually come up with these unique ideas? So I don't have TikTok, ironically.

10:44I don't really like it that much. But I believe that when you build such a community and a culture within your organization, you can rely on those people to be able to help you. So I have 500 people that know how my brain works, what we're doing with the company, what we're coming out with, what's worked, what hasn't worked. And they're the people that are saying, oh, my God, you have to look at this or look at this trend or look at everyone starting to buy these products. Like when we think about product and we think about coming out with something new, there's market data that goes into that.

11:22You want to mitigate risk at all costs. and one of the ways we do that is we use an app called Particle. I don't work with them. I don't get any money if you guys sign up, but you can really see what everybody else is doing. You can see what their top sellers are, how much revenue they're making. You can look at the TikTok shop sales and the reviews and how much they've sold that month. Like when you think about product, they kind of give me the idea of what I should do. And then I just make sure that it hits all of those checkpoints for the company of like, we're bootstrapped. I don't have any funding.

11:51Like if we fuck up an order, it's on me. So yeah, I think the research of content and data and what works is really coming from the people that are making the content and then just like us going through on the back end what, you know, we really have to look for.

12:07Nik:And our programs like Particle and those, is that how you're picking your next product SKUs? Because I know you guys expanded from the hoodies. You have a bunch of SKUs right now. Is that how you're expanding looking at the data on that side? Would you say the first part? I don't know how you're expanding product SKUs as the hoodies. Yeah. Yeah. So we ask like out of the affiliates that work with the company, we will ask them what they want to see next. And when any everybody there's an app on Shopify called fairing. And when anybody checks out on your Web site, you can like ask them a questionnaire of what, you know, is there something that you look for today that you couldn't find?

12:43Is there something that you would like us to, you know, come out with next? and that's kind of how we came out with blankets and like these waffle teas and uh you know also my creative director is here and she's unbelievable so uh she definitely helps me with stuff like that too because you you know i'm a little crazy i want to come out with a bunch of shit and sometimes it doesn't align with the vision the way that it should so for us it's like a one-stop shop for everything comfortable um and then we look at the we look at the market blankets there's no real leader in blankets. Like if I say, what's the number one blanket company, everyone here is not going to have the same answer.

13:21So we want to go capture that market and take over. So I think it's just whatever aligns with the customers. And a lot of what we do, if you guys don't know, we're a mental health brand. We donate to every single order. We have a portion of proceeds that goes to a mental health charity. We partner with the ADA. Like we do a lot of really fun stuff. So when you, you know, when we're working with certain products, we want maybe a weighted feel or something really soft or something with someone who has sensory issues. Or we came out with a five pound of hoodie that children with autism would wear a vest, but they would get embarrassed.

13:52So we made a weighted hoodie that they can wear in school and nobody would know the difference. So there's like, there's those places in the market that really align with the vision. And I feel like we're more worried about that. But of course it has to be profitable for the brand.

14:05Nik:I love that. And it's also what I personally love doing is looking at people search for on your site. because a lot of people are searching intentionally looking for it. Maybe they've been searching blank if there's something related that they didn't find on your site, but also informs you the future, like what products you should be adding as your next SKU. But now that they're on your site making that purchase, you said that fixed prices and constant discounts destroy your margin, and you adopted more of a dynamic pricing model. Can you dive into your dynamic pricing? Yeah. Dynamic pricing is something that we've been testing a lot, So the problem with comfort was we were selling too fast, which is a great problem to have, but it's a real issue.

14:52Bootstrapped, went broke, every other month ordering inventory, had a ton of problems with scalability. And then last year we went from$16 million to$170 million in revenue. and we have to create these different methods to keep items in stock and then also take revenue into the business. So there's two key things that we do at Comfort. One is pre-order. So we will put pre-order on the website and even if the item is in stock, you can get it at a cheaper price if you're willing to wait two months. So we act as the bank, we take cash up front, we defer the sale out two months and that's how we're able to fund the business and fund our POs.

15:31When it comes to dynamic pricing, you want to maximize profitability for the business, but you also want to maximize the amount of stock that you have in so that you're not always out of stock and people say, well, no, and I'm not a customer anymore because this company never has stock, which we used to get. So the dynamic pricing model will change depending upon the stock availability. So we want to slow velocity on some of our higher selling products. For instance, we had an airplane mode hoodie that we did about 100 ,000 units in 48 hours. It was our biggest drop ever. We thought we ordered a lot.

16:06We did not order enough. That item, even on pre-order, stayed at the same price as what we sell it at retail for, where normally we would really discount it. And just last month alone, we did like$14 million in pre-order. So when you think about the hype and the excitement around a product, people are willing to pay and it's still a really affordable price because our whole thing is affordability and having that feeling of like, wow, this is a luxury product. But for anybody here that is in a business that you're seeing a lot of scale and you're looking to maximize profitability, but also stay in stock, you have to start to build models that are very unique to your brand.

16:46There isn't like a one size fits all. So that's just kind of something that we've come up with to kind of help with our scaling.

16:52Nik:That's great. Cause a lot of brands kind of steer away from pre-sales because people think pre-sales less, you know, less purchase coming in, but like, if you don't mind sharing, like what percent of, like what roughly, what percent of your sales actually come in from pre-sales versus, if you want to share. No, no, I'm happy to share. We, we've had months where 50 % of our orders were pre-order. like fuck it's a lot like it's it's a lot because you know you got to remember we're running ads still on meta and and and and tick tock and snapchat that are the product that is no longer in stock and you're still looking at the cpa and the roas of someone who's buying to wait two months and if it still stays profitable or there's a color that's hot like we're not going to stop running the ad because the product's out of stock we're going to keep running it and hope that we're still profitable on the pre-order side of things.

17:43So there's months where it was 50. We like to stay under 20, but it's still really good for the brand just from a cashflow thing.

17:52Nik:And are you doing these through the holiday, pre-orders through the holidays? Because obviously there's, you know, people are buying for Black Friday because they want to be gifting that or wear it for Christmas or whatever the holiday might be. Are you still running these pre-orders through the holidays or How does that take effect? So we will have that there's a deadline. So there will be a deadline to pre-order a product and get it before Christmas. And then once that... So the way that we do pre-order is the dates get structured as we place POs. So if it's November 10th, once we max out that amount of orders for that date, the date moves up.

18:32And then the date moves up and the date moves up. So when Christmas is about to hit, we really try to place huge orders so that everybody can kind of fit in. Even people who bought a month out or three weeks out could still get a better price. And it's kind of like they feel like they're like hacking the system by ordering in three weeks in advance and getting a better price. But yeah, you have to be very clear with the customers. I learned this very early on in e-com. Somebody asked me, Hudson, are you being proactive or reactive? And that has stuck with me. like I say it every Monday morning meeting with my team because it's the truest statement like when it comes to pre-order you have to be so fucking proactive or those customers get back where's my order where's my order where's and then they're going to go to reddit and then they're going to go here and they're going to go so we know the game by now well we've messed up enough but uh yeah pre-order is a very very interesting model I would recommend everybody

19:24Nik:try to build that out no I love it like I said it's not as common most people try to steer away from it because they assume pre-order equals less sales.

19:58Nik:and get 50 % off your first 60 days at instant.one slash Sharma.

20:06Nik:So with the holidays coming up, pre-orders crushing it clearly. What other, like are you doing bundles? Are you doing any kind of other special offers for the holidays? Any special program, like campaigns you're running? Yeah, so the key to the brand is every single hoodie has a matching pair of sweats. So you really want the AOV to be very high for the brand. So we want to always incentivize a bundle purchase. And again, for you guys, like if you're having issues with meta, your product may just be too, it might just be too, like the price just might be too low where you don't have that delta to be able to scale and actually acquire a customer at a profitable purchase.

20:48so for us we try our best to be able to like really build value in the bundle and build big discounts so that we can spend more money to acquire a customer at a profitable rate so I think for us it's like the bundles have been really good because also people like wearing a set you know like at the airport I see it all the time like I've never seen someone in a comfort hoodie and not have the matching sweats on so for us bundling for our brand in particular has been has been very productive.

21:20Nik:Yeah, I mean, I'll say firsthand, I always see everyone in the set when it looks great. Is there any big changes you're doing that you did last year for Q4 versus you're doing this year? I'm starting earlier. One of those. Dude, I was screwed in Q4 last year. 75 % of our products were sold out before Black Friday. Yeah. Hear the reaction. No, no. This is true. We had to put everything out of stock on Black Friday and didn't run any SMS or any email. It was the most depressing thing. I woke up. I'm like, we're going to do 10 million today. And then everyone was like, my CEO was like, we're going to go out of business.