Business owners, operators, marketers, really anyone who works at any company is always aiming to do one thing: sell products. So when Nick Guillen and Nick Ajluni, the co-founders of Truff, say their strategy isn’t solely focused around this, it makes you sit up and listen. At least, that’s what I did when I heard what they had to say. 

On this episode of Up Next in Commerce, the two Nicks explained how they built their truffle-infused sauce brand by reverse engineering products specifically to live and resonate on social media, and then why they decided to lean into creating epic content without attaching CTAs. It’s an interesting idea, and one that has worked pretty well for them, actually. After all, Truff is the No. 1 hot sauce brand on Amazon and was included on Oprah’s favorite things list two years in a row. So how is Truff creating content that brings people in without being transactional, and what platforms are the Nicks most excited about in the future? Tune in to find out!

Main Takeaways:

• The CTAs are MIA: Social media should be viewed as a friend-to-friend communication platform and a place to build relationships, not just a space to add a discount code to a post or a picture and try to get people to click. By taking the transactional messaging away from social content, you become a brand that seems more like a friend putting out content you actually want to see, rather than an ad people scroll past.
• It’s Never Too Late: On a platform like Tik Tok, it is never a bad time to join. Because the platform rewards the content as opposed to the number of followers an account has, all you have to do is create one piece of content that hits just right to find success and go from nothing to selling out your products in seconds. But you have to be willing to experiment and try everything to find the right kind of content that will resonate.
• Don’t Rush Into Retail: In many cases, the best route for new brands is to start small and establish yourself and your consumer base before trying to move into the retail market. In retail, there are numerous costs, fees, and sales expectations that all create a burden on the brand, not the retailer, so before committing to a retail path, ensure that you have a strong digital foundation you can build off of and then create an omnichannel experience from there that includes but is not dependent on retail.

For an in-depth look at this episode, check out the full transcript below. Quotes have been edited for clarity and length.

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