The Trendsetter - TikTok Shop & Creator Marketing

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The Trendsetter is the go-to show for marketers, founders, and creators shaping the future of commerce through content.  Hosted by the Jake Bjorseth and the team behind Return On Creators, we dive deep into the stories, strategies, and insights of those building the social commerce economy... one video, one product, and one partnership at a time. From viral TikTok creators to brand builders innovating on new platforms, each episode brings you candid conversations, actionable lessons, and a front-row seat to the shift from traditional retail to community-driven commerce. Whether you're scaling a brand, creating content, or launching a new product, this is your place to get inspired, stay sharp, and plug into the next wave of commerce.

  1. Oct 9

    Top Shop Breakdown: Comfrt, Mellow, k2o, Final Boss, and More... | TikTok Operator Pod

    It's week one of Q4, and TikTok's BFCM window opens November 11. Instead of another checklist, Jake and Kevin pull up Kalodata and walk through five brands they obsess over, and what each one is actually doing right. What we get into: Comfrt: high AOVs that break the "under $30" rule, plus top creators posting 100 to 300+ videos a month. A deep affiliate roster turns into a team of part-time sales reps.Mellow Sleep: a not-so-novel product that wins on branding and listing images taken from the Amazon playbook. TikTok creates demand that search alone can't.Final Boss Sour: packaging designed by a video game artist, gamified sour levels, constant new flavors, and a brand account that's live almost all day.K2O: what happens after a celebrity launch spike, and why a TikTok dip can hide overall growth once retail kicks in.O Positiv: a separate 40+ shop for perimenopause products. Is this how brands work around GMV Max targeting? The big takeaway: a "good" TikTok Shop depends on your category. For a consumables brand going after retail, $2–3M a year of incremental new customers and content can beat chasing $10M.Plus advice for creators: go deep with three brands instead of spreading yourself across twenty. Chapters 00:00 Q4 check-in and the BFCM window 02:14 Kalodata vs. FastMoss 03:27 Comfrt: high AOV and the affiliate army 12:13 100 part-time fractional sales reps 12:44 Mellow Sleep: branding, images, and demand creation 22:40 Final Boss Sour: packaging, gamification, and live 29:59 K2O: celebrity spikes and retail shifts 35:40 O Positiv: splitting shops by audience 38:45 Wrap and Halloween plans

    Top Shop Breakdown: Comfrt, Mellow, k2o, Final Boss, and More... | TikTok Operator Pod

  2. Sep 22

    $1M on TikTok Shop ≠ $1M on Shopify | TikTok Operator Pod | Jake Bjorseth & Amy Leffingwell

    Part two of Jake's series with Amy Leffingwell (Upmarket Digital) picks up where the Closed P&L Problem left off and gets into the mechanics of what TikTok Shop is actually for. Amy walks through cash multiplier as the working substitute for LTV, the math that decides how many CAC dollars a brand can afford to spend, and the diagnostic she runs when brand P&Ls look off. Jake makes the case that TikTok Shop only works when it's pointed at net new customer acquisition, that the best offer belongs on Shopify, and that a rising in-platform repeat rate is a channel eating itself alive. They get into the merchandising architecture that forces the hand-off, why $1M on TikTok Shop underwrites nothing at the bank, and how brands should be mapping the second purchase before they've built the first.

  3. Sep 8

    The Closed P&L Problem | TikTok Operator Pod | Special Guest: Amy Leffingwell, Founder @ UpMkt Digital

    Most brands are measuring TikTok Shop, Meta, and Shopify like three separate businesses. Then they wonder why the math never works. That's the closed P&L problem: channels measured as monoliths in an era where the consumer is anything but. In part one of a multi-part series with Amy Leffingwell, founder of Up Market Digital and one of the few people in performance marketing who thinks like a CFO, we get into why contribution margin has replaced ROAS as the number that actually matters, why "profit now, profit soon, profit later" is the only useful way to bucket a brand, and why the CAC-to-LTV math has to be run across channels before a single dollar goes into a new one. We cover:  – Why in-platform ROAS is a lagging, context-free number  – How to price TikTok Shop against Shopify and Amazon without cannibalizing LTV  – The unit economics most operators can't answer at the SKU level  – Why some months should be planned for negative contribution margin on purpose  – How brands kill TikTok Shop by underwriting it against its own P&L instead of the full picture Amy runs the numbers. Jake runs the shop. The channels only work together when someone is doing both. New episodes of The Trendsetter drop weekly.

    The Closed P&L Problem | TikTok Operator Pod | Special Guest: Amy Leffingwell, Founder @ UpMkt Digital

  4. Sep 3

    Your Guide to a Winning Q4 | TikTok Operator's Pod

    Think you're ready for TikTok Shop's Q4? Think again. As Kevin & Jake enter their fourth Q4 in the TikTok Shop ecosystem this duo has been there and done that. But in a platform evolving new rules and optimizations every 90 days... it's not as simple as copying over the learnings from last year. Kevin covers his mental model for Q4, a window that drives 50%+ of his brand's annual sales. How do you optimize promos for typical ecom windows? What do you prioritize? How do you protect margin? Jake organizes a Q4 readiness check for brands, shares his Q4 hypothesis, and breaks down the critical tasks that need to happen now in September to win big in Nov/Dec.

    Your Guide to a Winning Q4 | TikTok Operator's Pod

  5. Aug 7

    Priced to Lose the Sale: How the Best Brands Actually Win TikTok Shop | TikTok Operator Pod

    This one runs deep on merchandising and product innovation built specifically for the channel: why the best operators price higher on TikTok Shop than on their own site, why you don’t actually own the customer you just sold to, and why the halo effect only works if you force the action toward a customer who was ever going to come back. Kevin breaks down how ChocBox turned a throwaway moment on a live stream into an entirely new product line, why the product has to be the content, and the twenty-second street test for whether something can win on social commerce. Jake makes the case for building your whole strategy off-platform first, setting a real business objective before you list a single SKU, and killing products that are selling fine because they’re pulling the wrong customer. Hero SKUs, variant stacking, Discovery SKUs, pricing ladders, and why almost none of the broad TikTok Shop advice you hear survives first principles. New episodes weekly.

  6. Jul 21

    The Shelf Follows The Feed | TikTok Operator's Pod

    For weeks I've been harassing Matt Goldbloom to join me on the pod. Selfishly, I've been captivated by his LinkedIn content and needed to learn wtf 'Off Price Retail' is.  Matt is the founder of Common Shelf, helping modern CPG brands grow through off-price retail without sacrificing brand equity. Sound familiar? The parallels between TikTok Shop and this rising retail lane of "off price" speak to a consumer market vastly misunderstood by us marketers that audit funnels, analyze the beverage aisle, and know how to pronounce Erewhon.  If you're interested in Matt's work, give him a follow on LinkedIn here.

  7. Jul 13

    How Top Brands Are Deploying AI Today | TikTok Operator's Pod

    On today's pod I'm joined by a long-time TikTok Shop operator, Sohun Sanka. Sohun has been a day one player in TikTok Shop on the brand side, software side, and now with this own venture: Clankers - A consultancy working with top brands and agencies to deploy their own AI Operating System. Together we explore the real use cases of AI inside top brand operations today. How brands are using AI to find the right creators, connecting the dots org-wide to put TikTok content to work everywhere, and why it's mission critical that businesses operate on their own O.S.

  8. Jun 25

    How Chocbox Became the #1 Food Brand on TikTok Shop | TikTok Operator's Pod

    ChocBox climbed to #1 in the food category on TikTok Shop. Then it used that traction to walk onto retail shelves. Episode 1 of TikTok Operators. Jake Bjorseth sits down with Kevin Nemandoust, Co-Founder of ChocBox LA, one of the original TikTok Shop CPG brands. Kevin tells the real version of the story: a brand his wife started, the decision to leave his corporate job and go all-in right after they got married and found out she was pregnant, and what it actually took to reach #1 in the food category with nothing but a chocolate brand and a TikTok Shop account. What we get into: Building real demand on TikTok Shop before any retail footprint existedPioneering the Dubai Chocolate trend and what it did for the brandTurning platform traction into retail distributionWhat operators starting today should copy and what they should ignoreNew episodes weekly. Subscribe so you don't miss the next one.

    How Chocbox Became the #1 Food Brand on TikTok Shop | TikTok Operator's Pod
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About

The Trendsetter is the go-to show for marketers, founders, and creators shaping the future of commerce through content.  Hosted by the Jake Bjorseth and the team behind Return On Creators, we dive deep into the stories, strategies, and insights of those building the social commerce economy... one video, one product, and one partnership at a time. From viral TikTok creators to brand builders innovating on new platforms, each episode brings you candid conversations, actionable lessons, and a front-row seat to the shift from traditional retail to community-driven commerce. Whether you're scaling a brand, creating content, or launching a new product, this is your place to get inspired, stay sharp, and plug into the next wave of commerce.

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