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Hot of the Pod 🎙️ Nik Sharma: CEO @ Sharma Brands
In this episode, I caught up with Nik Sharma of Sharma Brands.
Nik got his start in one of the most unique ways we’ve yet to see on this podcast: by managing social media for influential celebrities like Priyanka Chopra and Pitbull when he was just 15-years-old. With that experience under his belt, Nik decided to forgo college to make his mark in advertising and marketing. He made his way to Hint Water to lead their Direct to Consumer (D2C) business. Eventually, he also built audiences for Bustle Media Group and Refinery 29 and served as Head of D2C for VaynerMedia.
This all paved the path to Sharma Brands, where Nik advises companies on how grow and scale online. The portfolio of companies he advises and has invested in spans Morning Brew, Pill Club, JUDY, Orgain, and The Juggernaut. Every week, he sends out a newsletter to over 15K people covering the ins and outs of brand building. And because advising wasn’t enough, he recently launched a rolling fund called Masala Capital. In this episode, we dive into Nik's moniker as the "D2C guy," his origin story, and what it means to define brands of the modern era.
Excerpts from the pod below:
So you’re 15 when you start managing social media for stars like Priyanka Chopra and Pitbull. Sure, you had Priyanka’s manager, Anjula Acharia, by your side, but how did you get these guys to take you seriously?
Well, one thing that helped was I knew what I was talking about. I worked on the organic side of their socials, and I understood the strategy really well. This experience wasn't my introduction to social marketing. I was applying what I’d learned in high school, which wasn't a formal education, but I knew all the ins and outs of the platforms. I knew how to drum up engagement — what worked and what didn't work. So being able to properly speak to it and answer questions in a way that made sense to them helped. But also, thankfully, I was mostly on phone calls or email with them as opposed to Zoom — so I was able to get away with not showing up with braces in my mouth and looking like random teenager!
Tell me about the path to starting Sharma brands.
One of the biggest frustrations I had while working at Hint Water and other D2C companies was that a lot of agencies didn't understand how we operated internally as a direct-to-consumer brand. They didn't understand that we have a ton of money available to spend, but we have to test into each strategy or campaign. We’re not a large company where if you suddenly say we’re going to do a large campaign with Refinery29, we’ll say, “Great here’s $100,000, go run it.” As a DTC company, we’ll start with $5K or $10K as tests that will unlock the $100,000.
I realized I could create that platform where we can actually help brands test strategies. D2C is still fairly new. Most D2C brands — their strategy is to just copy other D2C brands. There's very little actual innovation. And so I thought ‘Hey, I already have some knowledge on how D2C works and the different pieces. Is there a world in which I can help another company launch their D2C strategy?’
One of the first companies I did that with was Cha Cha Matcha, a matcha cafe based out of Los Angeles and New York. They came to me and said, ‘We want to take our cafe experience online. We want to sell these lattes and iced tea cans on our site. Can you help us come up with our strategy?’
I thought it was fascinating. The project was basically building a site and working with them on pricing, fulfillment, and packaging. Then, I did a second project with Super Coffee, basically doing the same thing. Then for a third project, I worked with a fragrance company to launch a fragrance for Cher, the singer. At that point I realized, okay, this isn’t like an agency, where I'm coming in and these companies are telling me what they want to do and expecting me to execute. I'm coming to them with all the ideas, and they're saying, ‘Yes, let's do it.’ So that’s how Sharma Brands came to be.
My rolling fund is officially live! 🙌 I'm excited to back founders who believe they can change people's lives, make real money, and proudly support underrepresented communities. View/Invest: angel.co/v/back/masala-… More on @MasalaCapital... 🧵👇What advice do you have for people looking to build their brands or build themselves in the public sphere?
The one piece of advice is the very cliche Gary Vee thing: document, don't create. People always ask me, ‘How far in advance do you plan your emails? Do you schedule your tweets ahead of time?’ The answer is no.
I might leave a meeting and think, ‘That was really insightful I'm going to put that on Twitter, because I'm sure if I thought that was interesting, tons of other people will also.’ Or for my brand building newsletter I send out to 15000 people, I just look at my calendar and notes from the last week. I ask myself, ‘What were the two or three things that people had issues with the most over the last week?’ And then I write about the solution to answer those questions for thousands of people at once. Everybody's an expert in what they do — meaning if you work at at Southwest and you fix airplane engines when the screws are loose, you're an expert in that. If you are an optometrist, and you scan people's eyes and give them prescriptions, then that's what your expertise. Everybody's an expert in something — use it.
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What we’re following 👀
🌎 Scenes Overseas
India fast tracks emergency visas for citizens of Afghanistan. Malala Yousafzai’s writes an op-ed, ‘I fear for my Afghan sisters.’ The implications of the Taliban takeover for Sri Lanka, Pakistan, and others. The National Gallery of Australia will return $2.2M worth of stolen art to India.
📺 In Culture
Mindy Kaling’s Never Have I Ever gets a Season 3. Suraj Sharma is cast in How I Met Your Father. Riz Ahmed launches a fellowship for Muslim directors and screenwriters.
🎵 Listen to emerging South Asian artists.
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