Story
Zillion Beers: a cameraman built a $1.6M merch brand on Twitter in 10 days
Barstool cameraman Dana, told by Dave Portnoy to stop trying to make 'zillion beers' a thing, bet he could sell merch. The bet escalated to $1M in 5 days for a $100K prize — and he sold $1.6M of Zillion Beers merch in 10 days, almost entirely via Twitter, growing from ~1,000 to ~150,000 followers.
“So he created a brand essentially on the fly, Zillion Beers, and in 10 days sold $1.6 million in merch. And throughout this process, pretty much the, the way in which they sold merch was pretty much all Twitter. And so I was watching, like, as a marketing person, I was looking at— Dana went from having 1,000 followers on Twitter to whatever he has now, maybe 150,000 followers on Twitter in 10 days.”
Framework
Sell a movement, not merch: 'help me beat the man'
Shaan's takeaway from Zillion Beers: people don't buy the merch, they buy into being part of something. The narrative — underdog cameraman, boss betting against him, a live race to $1M — is what created the momentum, not the product.
“And people want to be a part of something. And so it's one thing to just sell merch, it's another thing to be a part of something, which is like, oh my god, once it gets the momentum of we're going for a million, holy shit, we're gonna do it, my boss bet against me, help me beat the man. I think it like, it just caught this wave of— it wasn't about the merch, obviously. Like none of it was about the merch.”
Steal thisWrap a product launch in a live, underdog-vs-establishment story so buyers are joining a movement, not just buying a thing.