Nick Fowler: From $0 to $2.5M: My TikTok Shop Success Story | DSH #1507

Because you kind of have to have a consumer mindset when it comes to finding products yourself.

I would say, and I'm genuinely honest about it, I am definitely a consumer.

I love to buy stuff.

So, um, so like I kind of come from my own mind.

Like, what would I want to buy?

And, like, if I had a certain problem, would I want this product?

And if you can look at that and it kind of catches your eye, then that's where it's like really nice to have.

Shop.

He is also a Navy rescue swimmer.

Good to see you, man.

I know you got work tomorrow.

Yeah, yeah, appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

So you're still active in the military right now?

Yeah, still in.

I got work tomorrow.

Wow.

You're able to do that with the TikTok shop at the same time.

Yeah, it's pretty, um, it's pretty weird.

Uh, definitely a huge time management issue I have to deal with every day.

You know, go to work, deal with the whole workday, and then I come home and then work a whole nother workday doing this whole other side business.

It's like two different worlds, like go military to a very structured life to a very like I'm self-structured in this business.

So it's pretty weird.

Yeah, that's impressive.

I feel like that's also a good opportunity, though, the fact that you could still make money on the side doing something like that.

Yeah, it's weird because it's like I've always been into business stuff, but to have it like completely take over the whole military income, like I completely took over my own military income off of just TikTok shop, which is a very interesting thing to have happen in such a short amount of time that it did.

Did that kind of like make you think about life a little differently?

Yeah, definitely.

yeah it was definitely like because i'd never made much money my entire life oh really you know until this like i mean the military was the most money i ever made it was nice it's great um but then to have like making my entire yearly salary in like a month yeah because this took off quick yeah super quick 2.5 million your first year yeah in sales and then

yeah which is insane like it takes people lifetimes to ever achieve those revenue numbers i feel like yeah and i was expecting to have it take a long time i was like i'm going to be patient with this um And I've generally been into like business stuff like this, but I was like, I'm going to let it wait.

I'm going to take its time with it.

But then to have it like first month, it was my first full month,

January of 2024.

I was actually here in Vegas for it,

or here in Vegas for New Year's.

And I was just with my wife and I was just checking my phone to see like what the sales were.

And I made like $900 in a day.

And it was my first like couple of weeks doing TikTok shop.

And then out of the blue, it was like, you know, $1,000 the next day.

Wow.

Like, and it was just like $3,000, $5,000, $8,000 a day in commission um taking home every day was just insane but um and that was only a couple weeks into it which is the wildest part about it i was like i was not expecting that whatsoever yeah and then just yeah whole life changed after that it's so relatable because like the average person could do this like you you were talking earlier a bunch of your family members are doing this right your mother your sister yeah so it's really cool yeah yeah i mean i So once I did that, like once I started making a good amount of money, I told my sister and I told my two best friends and then they started doing it.

And my sister, she's the number one TikTok affiliate in the entire world for home and living category products.

So she made $7 million her first year or $5 million her first year.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

In sales.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

And then so she blew me out of the water with sales now.

And then my two best friends, they made about $2 million in sales each.

Wow.

And then my mom, I got my mom onto it.

And my mom's at, I think, $2 million in sales.

And she never even had the TikTok app.

She downloaded the TikTok app, started doing this, and then made $20 some thousand dollars her second month.

That's insane.

In commission.

All in your guy's first year.

You're shooting these numbers.

Yeah.

So crazy.

And then I started teaching like a bunch of other people.

I taught my physical therapist brother.

He's one of the biggest live streamers on the app for like live streaming products.

And then just a bunch of other people.

And I think it was like 21 million out of the people in sales our first like think year and a half or so.

So crazy.

So

is going live the strat?

Is that your strategy?

No, I think live streaming is the future, but I don't think it's currently the best.

I think it's best for conversions.

So for the amount of viewers that you're getting on a live stream

versus a video.

So if you get a video, people are not likely to purchase as much as they would a live stream because it's in that moment.

It's like QVC.

So people are more likely to purchase then.

But if you're...

Like thinking right now, I think the easiest way to maximize your time for money is videos.

And they just like, you could pump out like 40 videos.

And I'm even getting my wife on this right now too.

And like the more that she pushes out, the more money she makes.

So it's like, if you just follow basic strategies of making content, you'll make good money.

The power of content.

Plus, it doesn't take much money to film content.

Yeah, not at all.

That's the nicest part about this is that you could start with literally no money involved and make a ton of money.

So they send you the products for free?

Yep, completely free.

Yeah, that's actually a very underappreciated part of this.

People are like, oh my gosh, I get like free products and it's so annoying.

I'm like, it's not annoying.

I get free stuff every single day.

I bought a few things off TikTok shop.

The push-up board.

Yep.

I bought the electric nose hair trimmer.

That one's been viral.

But there's some good products.

Yeah, they're moving.

So that was the thing.

They had a huge stigma of like, these products are Chinese drop shipped products and they're not that good.

And so they started to fix that by bringing in a lot of these big players like Crocs and Ninja and QVCs.

Obviously, got a lot of like name-brand stuff like GoPro and

just tons of big name stuff now, which is nice.

That's smart because that was the downfall of Wish, if you remember that site.

Everything was so cheap.

Like you could buy stuff on there for a dollar, I think.

And

people just complained about the quality and there was no customer service.

Yeah, exactly.

And that's, I mean, what they're bankrupt now, right?

Yeah.

It was like a $20 billion company.

Yeah, they're down with batter now.

But they kind of paved the way in a sense for TikTok shop, I feel like.

Yeah, that's the thing with like, that's the thing with Amazon is Amazon is like an intentional purchasing platform.

And I think very similarly, Wish was as well.

Obviously, like you're intentionally going there to either purchase something because it's so cheap or you're going there to find something that you want and it's because it's cheap.

Whereas if I'm going to TikTok, I'm going there to be entertained by content.

I'm going there to doom scroll on my phone.

And if you can make content that is selling this product and entertaining them at the same time, you ultimately get these sales like crazy.

So you're kind of trying to impulsively get someone to impulsively purchase a product, which is a very different field than most e-commerce is.

Yeah.

It is.

Your guard is down for sure when you're on there.

You're not really like in a purchasing mindset.

But you'll come across a really relatable video and be like oh i could use that you know yeah yeah it's it's definitely a different world um and that's i think one of the big parts about tick tock shop that makes it so unique in the uh in the grand scheme of things when you're thinking of like how many skills do i need to put together to do this kind of job um like you're a salesman you're a content creator i mean you're a content creator foundationally, but then you're also good at sales.

Then you're also good at tonality and you're good at editing.

You're good at like producing.

You're good at like time management.

It's so many different factors.

of the tri-light from therisage is no joke medical grade red and near infrared light with three frequencies per light deep healing real results and totally portable it's legit photo biomodulation tech in a flexible on body panel this is the tri-light from therisage and it's next level red light therapy it's got 118 high-powered polychromatic lights each delivering three healing frequencies red and near infrared from 580 to 980 nanometers it's sleek portable and honestly i don't go anywhere without it fall fall into this category of TikTok shop affiliates.

It's pretty interesting.

Yeah, I also like it because followers don't really matter on TikTok, right?

Yeah, followers don't matter at all.

That's a big thing.

Everyone says a million times, like, I need 10,000 followers or I need 5,000 followers.

But I have an account that's all about this specific topic.

Do I need to post products on this specific topic of, you know,

like teachers or whatever?

Like, no, you don't have to at all.

Like, you can do completely the opposite of whatever it was.

Like, my account, my TikTok account that I made my money on was country music clipped footage from YouTube.

And I just clipped country music videos and then posted them, grew a following to like 120,000 followers back in like 2020.

Completely forgot about that account for years.

And then I was like, oh, I can do TikTok shop.

Let me try this.

I'm just like, I have no idea.

But I thought I had to post country music like apparel and like boots and stuff.

And so I was getting these types of products and I started posting them.

And I was just, this isn't like fun.

This isn't like good products.

So I started posting like electronic products and just like gaming equipment and like supplement pills and stuff and then those started taking off I was like so they have no they have no correlation to the followers that you have because the followers don't even see your content on TikTok specifically

like 93% of your content views are coming from the for you page they do not come from your followers so the followers don't even really matter Crazy yeah and more platforms are sort of adopting that strategy I noticed Instagram I'm getting more views now from non-followers on Instagram right now very interesting.

Where it used to be the opposite.

And I think, and Gary Vee says this too.

I think that it is moving in that direction that followers are going to slowly become obsolete.

It's just more of like an ability for you to find your person again.

And that content, each specific content that you produce will reign king or not.

Yeah.

Shout out to Gary.

That's the goat right there.

I grew up in Jersey.

So there you go.

Sometime hero.

Finding products.

Is that, do you have a technique for that?

Are you just kind of testing everything?

I definitely have a technique to it um i would say a lot of it is very hard to like show somebody because you kind of have to have a consumer mindset when it comes to finding products yourself i would say and i'm genuinely honest about it i am definitely a consumer i love to buy stuff so um so like i kind of come from my own mind like what would i want to buy and like if i had a certain problem would i want this product

and if you can look at that and it kind of catches your eye then that's where it's like really nice to have where like if i'm I'm sitting there scrolling for products to promote, which I believe everybody should do, you're sitting there scrolling for products to promote and you go, ooh, that's interesting.

What is that?

That's already a good product because if it's catching your eye, it's going to catch someone else's eye who's scrolling on TikTok.

Smart.

So that's what I do.

I look at that.

And then once I can look at the metrics, so like, you know, the star reviews, how many sales it's been,

if it has good commission, stuff like that, if it has 15% commission or higher, it's like, that's amazing.

And then I'm like, cool, I'll request it.

And if I think it's a really, really good product, I'll maybe, maybe even buy it just so I can get it quicker from like Amazon.

Yeah.

But usually I just get free samples.

Nice.

What's the main country you're selling to right now?

Is it the U.S.?

Yeah.

So it's very weird.

TikTok is still growing.

So the U.S.

is like 99% of people's sales that are in the United States.

So if you're...

promoting a product in the United States, you're going to sell it to people in the United States unless you choose an option to also promote it outside the country, which you should, but it's not very many sales.

Majority of your sales are going to come from the United States.

But they're starting to expand to like Germany, Mexico, Spain.

So it's definitely going to go worldwide.

That's exciting for other countries to get involved, right?

Yeah.

You know, it's working here, but we, U.S.

sets a tone in a lot of markets, I've noticed.

Yeah,

definitely.

It's like a giant portion of sales.

So it's like, even with these other countries getting involved, I don't think it's going to be drastic in sales.

But it's definitely good that they're happening.

When I was in high school, college, I remember dropshipping was hot.

That's how I made like my first money, but then it got super saturated.

So this feels like the dropshipping 2.0.

Yeah, 100%.

That's what, uh, so that was the thing is like, I always feel like I'm missing out on these opportunities of like drop shipping, Amazon FBA.

Like I tried Amazon FBI, I tried drop shipping.

I tried like all these different things and like nothing seemed to work.

But it was also because I was kind of late to the show.

And I mean, anything can work.

Obviously, everything can work if you put enough work into it.

But the kind of easy money aspect of it is late to the show a lot of times.

And I would say this is still very, very early to the show,

in my opinion.

I mean, my wife, she just started.

She had never had experience with this whatsoever.

And she made 500 bucks her first month and maybe did like six hours of work.

Wow.

And like 500 bucks her first month, like ever doing it.

So I thought it was an amazing start.

I mean, what other industry can you like have no experience in and then start making money within with only like six hours of work?

It's like pretty nuts.

So and I know people left and right all the time that are making like you know their whole yearly salaries their first month still.

I mean that's not as common.

Like it happened to me, but it's not that common.

I mean, but it is very, very realistic to see somebody who's making good content, who's picking good products, who ends up making like $60,000 their third month.

Like that's very common.

What's the most you've seen someone make off this?

My sister is the second highest I've seen in a month.

She did $5 million a year, right?

Yeah, $5 million a year.

I mean, there's somebody who I know, or I've heard of her.

She did like 30 million or something in sales crap um what was she selling and like i think majority beauty products oh god um but like i think it's you can promote like pretty much anything like i promoted female products before and i've sold a ton of those really i've sold uh like electronics i've sold outdoor equipment i sold like anything a lot of people think they have to niche into a subject but i and i think that's smart but then it kind of corners you Whereas like I promote anything I like.

I'm like, this is cool.

I'm going to promote it.

But yeah, I mean, my sister, she she made $100,000 in commission in one month.

That was her best month.

I think she might actually have a better month now.

But that's nuts, dude.

Yeah.

Almost a million dollars in sales in a month just off of making videos.

So crazy.

Yeah.

I'd love to see your guy's garage.

You probably have like a thousand products in there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's a, I have a whole office space and it's just like the whole corner is just filled of just products.

You could probably have a garage sale.

I know.

That's what I'm thinking.

I was like, I should make a whole business.

And that's the thing.

A lot of people are like, well, you know, TikTok shop affiliate is not scalable.

Like you can't scale this to another.

Like, like, how you can only make so much content on this profile.

Yeah.

And I'm like, well,

I think that there's a good method.

And this is what I was telling my sister.

I was like, you should consider like, like, creating like a garage sale and have somebody run the garage sale.

And you're just giving products to that garage sale, basically, and you're just filming the products and just giving it.

So now you're making a second source of income.

Oh, smart.

Yeah.

Because you're filming it, getting the you're just getting as many products as you can and filming as many as you can so you can sell as many as you can.

Yeah, someone should be the first to do that.

I think it would do well.

Yeah.

You know, I'd have Gary Vee pull up and buy some stuff.

Yeah, that is another source of income.

Yeah, have him negotiate.

Yeah, there's been some really viral products on there, like the Shilajit.

Like, so many people buy that one, right?

I always see the supplements crush.

Obviously, the push-up board.

Have you publicly, I don't want to like ruin your source of income, but like, was there one you used to sell that did well in the past?

Oh, yeah.

I'm super open about the products.

Like, if I'm promoting something that's working, I tell everybody that I'm teaching and the people that I can.

I'm like, hey, this product's working.

I hope you guys are enjoying the show.

Please don't forget to like and subscribe.

It helps the show a lot with the algorithm.

Thank you.

And like it might lower my sales, but like I'm also in the field of mentoring as well.

So if it helps them, my biggest product that I had was a retractable car charger.

So it just plugs in your car and it retracts the cord and stuff.

That thing, I think just one video, I think made me like $30,000 in commission.

It took me like five minutes to make.

I had like no experience with editing at all.

I was just like tried it.

It wasn't even a good video.

I look back at it.

I'm like, that that was not a good video.

But yeah, that thing made me like $30,000.

I was actually on a run.

I was on a 30 or a 50 mile.

50 mile ultra marathon run.

Jeez.

And midway through my run, my buddy calls me and he's like, he's like, your video is going viral.

And I was like, really?

What's it at?

He's like 16 million views.

And then I checked my phone while I was running and I made like 20 grand while I was on the run.

It was insane.

It was just such a weird world to be on a run and then finding out that I just like kind of probably made you run even faster.

Yeah.

I was like, I want to get home, make more.

Yeah.

You do ultra marathons, like on the side?

I did.

I kind of slowed down now that I'm just so busy with this stuff.

I'm trying to get back into it because I do want to do a hundred-mile ultra-marathon.

Jeez.

Those are my, that's like my goal is to finish with one of those.

I've had, you know, Oz, Oz Pearlman.

Oh, gosh, that sounds so familiar.

He's an ultra marathoner.

Oz.

He's the mentalist.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a beast, dude.

But he'll be, he'll be talking shit during the race, getting in your head.

I love that stuff.

That's awesome.

Yeah.

Ultra marathon.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

What's the farthest you've ran?

A 50.

That was my, that was my longest.

Yeah, 50 miles through San Diego Trails.

And

yeah, that was like, I think I did like 11 hours or something.

Jeez.

It wasn't very fast, but I was like, I just want to finish this in like a decent time.

But then I want to finish, just finish 100 miles, like my goal.

I'd imagine with your swimming background, you're a beast at triathlons.

Yeah, I did a, I did a, what was it?

I think it's out here.

Well, not out here, but Indian Wells.

I did one

and it was a half Iron Man.

So it was a 70.3.

Jeez.

But I also didn't prep.

I just kind of, I didn't do any bike or swim.

I just did the run.

I just at all.

I just ran.

I was just doing running.

And I was like, because I have a swimming background with the military and then also high school and stuff.

So I was like, I'll be fine.

Swimming I could get, but biking.

Biking, I was like, I have not been biking in a while.

I had done a bike in Hawaii.

I did a

hundred-mile bike ride in Hawaii.

And I was like, okay, this is fun.

And then I kind of stopped doing that.

And And I was like, I'll be fine for the Iron Man.

But was that the toughest part?

The biking?

Yeah, the biking was definitely the hardest because I didn't prepare.

But

the run was a lot better.

And that was the end of the race, which is very funny.

Damn.

Yeah.

Do you have a set revenue number where you're going to quit your job if you hit?

I'm trying to quit right now.

Oh, yeah.

I mean, love the military, but

I don't blame you.

Yeah,

it's a great gig.

And my job specifically is very fun.

Like, I get to do a lot of cool stuff.

Yeah.

but the military is not making me as much money and fulfillment now as my business does like I like I make triple my military income easily off of just tick tock shop

and so I'm like well why don't I just pursue this thing that I'm really good at and I really enjoy so yeah yeah you could probably impact a lot more people

amassing some wealth and then teaching others how to do it you know yeah I think so too I think

That's also a big goal of mine is I just want to see, like, that's so, it's, it's enjoyable to me to see these other people.

Like, um, like, I teach them something and then they come back to me and tell me that they just had like a life-changing month on TikTok shop.

Like, there's just something cool about that.

And, like, I was at an event with my sister for TikTok, and some lady came up to me, and she was like, hey, like, I saw your video about TikTok shop.

I started it, and I quit my job, and I do this full-time now.

And I was like, that's a crazy, because I don't even know who she was.

And she's just like, I, I quit because of you, and I did this because of you.

Yeah.

So crazy.

Did you get called out to that flood in Texas?

The other, the other day?

Oh, no, no.

It's kind of weird with mine like that's Coast Guard guys that are generally doing that right now um I'm also an instructor duty space so when I was stationed out in Hawaii I was doing a lot of like search and rescue stuff and then doing a lot of like mission-based stuff out there but uh out here in San Diego I'm in instructor duty so I teach in a classroom setting okay um a lot of people are going through like the training and stuff so I don't really do it as much anymore.

I saw one guy.

I don't know if this is true.

There was like a viral thing.

He rescued like 20 people.

No, yeah.

The guy in Texas.

Yeah.

He rescued 160 people.

What?

160 people, a bunch of kids and everything off the river.

Yeah.

It was one of the biggest rescues.

I don't want to say it in the history, in the Coast Guards history.

I'm not entirely sure, but it was one of the biggest rescues.

I know that.

And he was,

he, he had just gotten out of his training six months prior.

Oh, my God.

So he just got out of like rescue summer school, I think, like six months prior.

And then he makes a 160-person rescue.

That man put in work.

Shout out to him.

Yeah, literally.

Oh, the coolest thing.

Yeah, that flood was crazy, though.

I couldn't believe seeing that.

Yeah.

I have a buddy buddy who is right on the river who does a TikTok affiliate as well.

Yeah.

Actually, just met him at an event, and he was talking about it.

He's like, insane, how much

struck water?

Like, was it?

I have no idea.

I mean, it looks like it was insanely deep.

From the footage I've seen,

the entire place is just like, there's no river.

It's just like a lake, giant lake moving.

And it was kids.

So they had, they're all young, and probably some of them didn't even know how to swim.

Yeah.

That's serious.

Have you been caught in a riptide before at the beach?

Yeah, a little bit.

Really?

A little bit.

Not Not much.

I'm pretty good about that stuff.

That's the thing.

If you know what you're doing, you can usually get away from it.

Yeah.

Or you can, what you do is you just let it take you out and then you just swim out of it.

Yeah, you can't fight against it, right?

Yeah.

That's where people get hurt.

Yeah.

But that stuff's,

yeah, it can get sketchy.

Especially in Hawaii.

Yeah.

Hawaii gets real sketchy.

A tough way.

Compared to like San Diego or something.

San Diego's like, you know, whatever.

How long can you hold your breath underwater for?

I think the best I did was like four minutes.

Holy crap.

I think.

That was the best.

I knew people could do longer than that, like five, six minutes.

Yeah.

Well, I've heard stories where the training, you got to like hold your breath until you blackout or something.

Yeah, there's, I mean, the training that we go through, it's not as intense as like anything you'll hear on the internet as much, but like the thing that we did that was, I thought was pretty cool is like we would do like underwater.

So it's like you're swimming under the water and you have to like hold your breath.

You got all this gear on, but it's buoyant.

So you're also fighting yourself to keep under to get across the pool.

Damn.

And so you're fighting with all this gear on trying to get across the pool.

And as you're going, you're like chickennecking and your body's trying to suck in water.

You're chickennecking.

Yeah, it's pretty nuts.

Yeah.

A lot of people pass out.

Yeah.

And like pull them out of the water and stuff.

Did that happen to you?

No, luckily.

Thank God.

Dude, this has been cool.

Where can people learn from you?

I know you said you teach also, right?

Yeah.

I have a YouTube channel.

My YouTube channel is at the Nick Fowler.

And I have my Instagram, Nick Ross Fowler.

And then I have my TikTok, which is at the Nick Fowler as well.

Awesome.

And people can learn how to go viral, how to pick products, all that.

Yep.

Cool.

Yeah, all that stuff.

I just give out as much free information as I possibly can.

Awesome.

Well, we'll link that below.

We'll link your Instagram for people to DM you as well.

Anything else you want to close off with?

No, I think we're good.

Awesome, man.

Thanks for coming on.

Yeah, thank you very much.

Check them out, guys.

All the links will be in the video below.

I'll see you next time.