Trends

Sam's costliest mistake: pricing Trends at $300 instead of $30,000

Sam calls underpricing Trends one of the most expensive mistakes he ever made; for similar work and cost he could have charged $30,000 a year instead of $300, and didn't understand that for a long time.

“We, right now we charge $300 a year. There's a world where it wouldn't have had to been that much different and it definitely would have been a similar amount of work. We could have charged $30,000 a year. Right. And I didn't understand that for a long time.”

Steal thisBefore defaulting to a low price, ask whether a near-identical product could be sold for 100x to a different buyer.

The Hustle's playbook: build a big free list, profit on ads, reinvest in high-margin products

Sam describes The Hustle's day-one vision as a flywheel: grow a large email list of business-minded readers, monetize early with advertising, then use those profits to launch higher-margin direct products like Trends and eventually invest in members' companies.

“We said that we wanted to build up this really large email list and we're going to do it for like these, this entrepreneurial business-minded person. We're going to make profits early on, which we did with advertising. We had about an 8-figure advertising business. And then as we grow, we're going to use those profits to launch more stuff that we could sell directly to them.”

Steal thisBuild a free audience first, monetize with ads, then plow profits into high-margin products you sell directly to that same audience.

Sam built Trends himself: designed the page, ran ads, called the first $50K of customers

Sam describes how he personally launched Trends - designing the landing page, running paid traffic, and calling customers to learn what they liked - before handing it to better operators to scale. His point: he's a starter, not a runner.

“it was me who made, literally designed the page, ran the paid marketing to it to get a little bit of traffic, called the customers to figure out what did you like about that, what did you not like about it. And I did that for about $50,000 worth of customers. And then we decided to launch it and I kind of helped people figure out the vision. And then I gave it to other people like Trung and Steph who are way better than me at it.”

Steal thisValidate a new product yourself - design the page, buy traffic, call early customers - then hand it to stronger operators once it's working.

Removing checkout friction can 2-3x conversion

Sam explains that for Trends, forcing users off-platform to be sold and sign up caps conversion; cutting friction (e.g., stored cards, Apple Pay, in-app one-tap purchase like a native Twitter subscription) can lift conversion from ~1% to 3-4%, and Apple Pay users already convert at a much higher rate.

“And we know that removing a little bit of friction can increase the amount of users you get by 2 or 3 times. So you could have a 1% conversion rate, and then if you change just a few things, you can have a 3 or 4% conversion rate. And if Twitter can make this so my credit card is on file with them and I'm just doing this like, oh, I want this, pop up, done, got it, it's going to go through the roof. And I could tell you that the people who buy with Apple Pay convert at a much higher rate.”

Steal thisCut every step between intent and purchase - stored cards, Apple Pay, one-tap checkout - because removing friction can 2-3x conversion.

One 'whoopsie sale' email drove ~7 figures in recurring revenue

Sam ran a 'whoopsie sale' marketing campaign (a borrowed tactic) via a single email that generated close to seven figures in recurring revenue for Trends.

“Yeah, so we made close to 7 figures in recurring revenue from that one email.”

Sam's 'fat finger' email did 7 figures to 250K people

Sam ran the leaked-discount tactic on Trends, sending to about 250,000 people and making seven figures in a single push. He learned they normally discount too much and that almost no existing customer was angry about not getting the prior discount.

“So I set mine to like 250,000 people and we made, I'll just say, 7 figures. Yeah. So here's a few things I learned. The first thing is that like we normally discount trends and we actually discount it way too much. We need to raise the prices.”

Only offer annual billing for subscriptions

Sam says he interviewed Aptiv's founder and 10-20 other subscription companies, and they uniformly wished they'd only done annual billing. His own business Trends bills annually only, which improves cash flow and certainty significantly.

“I went and talked to Ethan of Aptiv as well as 10 or 20 different subscription companies and they were like, "I wish we would only do annual billing." So we only do annual billing and it helps significantly.”

Steal thisDefault subscriptions to annual-only billing; the upfront cash and lower churn outweigh the conversion hit if your copy and brand are strong.

Charging for free content makes people value it more (Trends NPS ~90)

Sam's playbook for paid information: repackage normally-free content as paid, charge upfront with no freemium, and pack pages densely with info. He cites Trends' NPS of ~90 (versus the free Hustle) as evidence people enjoy content more when they pay for it.

“And so what I've seen with our NPS for Trends versus The Hustle, which is free, the Trends NPS is significantly higher. It's like fucking 90, which is crazy high. And I believe that the content is great, but also people enjoy it more because they pay for it. So I think people, builders out there need to think to themselves, man, there's this weird mindfuck that I can just literally charge for something that normally is free and people will like it more. The second thing is I think people need to charge upfront, no freemium.”

Steal thisCharge upfront with no freemium tier; the price itself raises perceived value.

Build in public: share weekly video updates and get an army rooting for you

Shaan praises a UK founder who posts weekly video updates on his digital-tithing build inside the Trends Facebook group. He argues working in public is underrated: it recruits supporters, opens doors, and keeps you accountable.

“I love when people work in public. I think it's an extremely underrated thing to do. And every time you do it, you get this army of people who are rooting for you and opening up doors for you as you go.”

Steal thisPost weekly public progress updates on your build to recruit supporters and stay accountable.

Trader Joe's wins by breaking the rules: 4,000 SKUs, overstaffed, private-label

Shaan breaks down Trader Joe's model from a Trends write-up: it carries ~4,000 SKUs versus a typical 40,000, deliberately overstaffs for experience, and private-labels nearly everything to capture fatter margins. Doing the opposite of industry norms is the playbook for standing out.

“Trader Joe's has on average, I think, 4,000 SKUs. An average grocery store will be 40,000. So 1/10th the number of SKUs. The next thing that I thought was interesting was they overstaff, not understaff.”

Steal thisTo stand out in a crowded industry, deliberately invert its default rules instead of copying competitors.