Roman Khan has spent the last decade building, scaling, and acquiring e-commerce brands, taking his portfolio to nine figures in revenue. From nearly going bankrupt to achieving a 3% OpEx and netting eight figures in EBITDA, Roman has mastered the mechanics of highly profitable DTC businesses. Now, he’s shifting his focus from private equity to the highly inefficient public markets.

In Episode 12 of What's Working, Roman breaks down his tactical playbooks for scaling massive e-commerce brands. He explains how to spot a winning product category using Google Trends, why the "Bryan Johnson" strategy is crucial for brand awareness, and how to use his PC1, PC2, and PC3 framework to maximize cash distributions. Plus, discover why he believes TikTok fundamentally changed the influencer game and why he thinks Hong Kong is the ultimate home base for any serious e-commerce entrepreneur.

Key Takeaways:

• Spotting the Mega-Trend: A successful brand requires the right category at the right time. Roman explains how to use search volume data and find the "whale" in a market to guarantee your product has massive tailwinds.
• Public vs. Private M&A: Roman is shifting his focus to public micro-cap companies, explaining that public markets are often mispriced. You can sometimes buy companies for less than their cash on hand or cut excess bloat to massively multiply your returns.
• The TikTok Shift: TikTok completely removed the "S-curve" of follower dependency, bringing a true merit-based culture to influencer marketing and top-of-funnel brand awareness.
• The Profit Contribution (PC) Framework: Roman breaks down how he achieves eight figures in EBITDA by meticulously tracking three levels of profit contribution (PC1, PC2, PC3) and driving revenue per employee to over $3 million.
• Cash Flow & Float: Why negotiating net-90 payment terms and shrinking production lead times is the ultimate secret to taking actual cash distributions off the table every single month.

Connect with Roman:

• Follow Roman on X: https://x.com/RomanEcom

Connect with the hosts:

• Follow Isaac on X: https://x.com/theisaacmed
• Follow Zain on X: https://x.com/NotZainAgain

Production & Scaling Partners:

• This video is fully edited and produced by Content Forge. Need DFY YouTube organic for your brand or full-service editing for your YouTube channel? Get a free consultation here: https://getcontentforge.com/
• Need help launching or scaling your brand on TikTok Shop? Book a free consultation with Zain at: https://zainith.agency/

Chapters:
00:00 - Intro & Roman's 9-Figure E-com Journey
03:32 - First Principles: What Makes a Good E-commerce Brand?
08:12 - The "Whale" Strategy & Scaling Raycon
09:51 - Tracking Google Keyword Trends for Product Validation
15:26 - Why Public E-com Markets Are Undervalued Right Now
24:26 - TikTok Shop vs. Meta Ads: Margins & Conversions
27:48 - Hitting a 3% OpEx & $3M Revenue per Employee
31:30 - Slashing Logistics & Packaging Costs by 20%
35:00 - The PC1, PC2, PC3 Profit Framework Explained
37:46 - Maximizing Cash Flow & Managing Payment Terms
44:25 - Why Hong Kong is Still the Best Base for E-commerce
46:13 - Outro & Where to Find Roman

#BusinessStrategy #EcommerceTips #WealthBuilding