Jordan West

E-Com Investor & Podcast Host | Multiple Exits| Avid Golfer, Biker + Hiker | Dad Of 3 | CEO + CMO | Mastermind Host

My Journey 
When I was 23 I decided to buy a Taco Del Mar restaurant... I knew I had made a huge mistake at 2pm the first day when only 3 customers had walked in... (and two of them were my parents haha) 
For 5 years I worked hard to grow sales every way I could think of and in the end, tripled our revenue which still didn't seem to matter on the profit side. (I lost a lot of money 💰)

The one thing that I seemed to be the best at in the restaurant endeavor was marketing and getting people in the door. 

Fast forward to 2014 when my wonderful wife Carmen (definitely my better half) started a modest baby clothing line and was selling at craft markets. 

I asked if I could test running a few ads on Facebook... and the rest is history. I learned every up-and-coming strategy and tactic and helped grow the small start-up to a multi-million dollar company and still growing!

Since then we have acquired multiple DTC brands and have built an agency (upGrowth Commerce) to service our brands as well as others who are in a similar situation to us!

In 2019 we started the podcast "secrets to scaling your e-commerce brand" which is now in the top 50 business/marketing podcasts in multiple countries including Canada and the United States.

I love connecting with people, so please connect. (I do have a no a**holes policy though, so don't connect if that's you.) 

I talk all about scaling businesses using paid ads on “Secrets To Scaling Your E-Commerce Brand”.

Chief Executive Officer

We just helped a brand pass $3,000,000/month on TikTok Shop LAST MONTH and it wasn’t luck!!

We’re now ranked as one of the Top 5 TikTok agencies in North America at Social Commerce Club!!

What I've seen is... 

Most brands have no clue what the investment into TikTok Shop ACTUALLY LOOKS LIKE!

They guess when to spend, when to restock, or when they’ll hit break-even.

We don’t guess.

We plan every move using a forecasting system we built in-house. 

It shows exactly:

 📈 When to scale and how fast
 💸 When you’ll hit break-even
 📊 How much to invest in creators, inventory, and ad spend
 ⚙️ When to pull back or double down

That system is the same one we use daily to manage multi-million-dollar TikTok Shop brands.

And now, we’ve decided to make it available to other operators.

If you want the same forecasting tool we use to plan, invest, and measure scale... comment “Forecast” and I’ll DM it to you. 

(must be connected)

Let me know what you think!

Another random day 
Another random screenshot from TikTok Shop at Social Commerce Club 

This is ALL incremental as fas as we can measure!

PLUS HALO 

Once you nail this channel things het WILD 

But... 

You really have to invest in the beginning. 

It's not facebook ads 

The bar to breaking even is higher thann you think. 

I just built a forecasting tool that keeps EVERY SINGLE NUMBER in mind. 

Send me a DM and I'll connect you with my team to walk you through it for your brand to see where break-even happens on platform.

I want to be clear 🫠 
These daily random TikTok Shop GMV MAX screenshots that I share are from ADS driven results ONLY 🤩 

This doesn't include organic affiliate driven content 

I feel like the guy in 2015 trying to tell his friends that Facebook ads work (I was that guy lol) while the majoirty of people were waiting...

I realize that if you haven't gone HARD on TikTok shop you won't be able to to before BFCM 

But... 2026 will be the BIGGEST SHIFT into social commerce that we have seen. 

As AI content becomes more prevalent, HUMANS will crave human connection 

Which is why I believe that LIVE SHOPPING + Afilliate driven content will be the two biggest levers any brand can add to their arsensal. 

So what is my recomendation for bransnds in 2026? 

1. Talk to my team NOW to get in line at Social Commerce Club
2. If you can't afford us... I'll send you recommendations for cheaper agencies
3. If you're just trying to dip your toes in the water of TikTok shop join my skool group here https://lnkd.in/gMAu-gDZ

Me: “If you had one controversial take on what brands get wrong on TikTok Shop… what is it?”
Zohaib Rattu 🤳: “Over-subsidizing their products.”

Me: “Not could be cannibalizing your other channels… you ARE.”

That moment hit hard!!!

Because here’s what a lot of brands are doing right now:

They take their main hero SKU
Sell it full price everywhere else

Then make it stupid cheap on TikTok Shop “just to get sales” + get momentum

And then they’re shocked when

Amazon flatlines

TOTAL MER blows up

Retail partners start asking questions
TikTok didn’t break your unit economics.

You did!!

The way I think about TikTok Shop:

It’s the only channel that will pay you (even breakeven) to give you insane impressions.
If you even make $1 profit there

And you’re getting a $30 CPM worth of awareness for free
You’re winning.

The problem...

Most brands aren’t tracking the halo.
So they see “low-margin TikTok orders”

Instead of “cheap reach that lifts Amazon / Shopify / retail”.

If I were rebuilding your TikTok Shop strategy from scratch, I’d do 3 things:

1️⃣ Protect the hero
 
No more “fire sale” pricing on the SKU that drives your brand.
 Use:

 – Smaller bundles
 – Trial sizes
 – TikTok-only variants
 
And keep price architecture consistent across channels.

2️⃣ Define your blended model
 
Decide up front:
 – What MER are you happy with including TikTok
 – How you’ll measure halo (Amazon, Shopify, retail lift)
 – What CPM you’re effectively getting from organic + creator content

If TikTok is breakeven but blended MER is up and CPMs are down… keep going.

3️⃣ Make TikTok the awareness engine, not the profit center (at first) 
 
Creators get you reach.
 
Reach fills retargeting pools on Meta, Google, Amazon, retail.
 
Your job is to:

 – Seed a ton of creators
 – Let TikTok Shop break even
 – Harvest the profit off-platform

TikTok Shop doesn’t have to be “super profitable”. (at first)

It has to be super scalable.

Curious where you’re at...
 Are you still discounting your main hero SKU heavily on TikTok Shop? 

Or have you already pulled that back?

You’re talented?
Great! Let me tell you what matters more… 
And why talent is the thing that I look for last 👇👇 

Are you complainer? 
Are you a victim?
Do you not have a growth mindset?
Can you not take criticism?
Do you have a fragile Ego? 
Is it everything everybody else’s fault?


 if you answered, yes to any of the above, I don’t want you in any of my organizations.

If you are thinking to yourself, oh man, I have these people in my organization… do everything in your power to first coach and correct, but most likely you need to remove them. 

It’s incredible What will happen when you do! 

Anyone else with me?

Big ask LinkedIn 🙏
We’re looking for a head of live shopping at Social Commerce Club 

Will be insane growth over the next 5 years 

Maybe one of the biggest ops that I can think of TBH 

Will be sooooooo much work

But you will help us build something HUGE! 

NA based only 

Message me if you think it’s you. 

This role will report directly to the CEO btw

Yes yes yes 

We have been thinking more about what this role looks like from the agency perspective.

How we train fast

Who’s base knowledge makes them a good fit etc. 

And I will tell you what I know. 

99% of people don’t get it. 

They haven’t had the paradigm shift yet. 

It’s a new muscle 

It’s a new way of thinking. 

Working with creators is HARD! 

They don’t perform like ads do 😆

But this role is really big in terms of impact and responsibility 

Seems like more brands are catching on. 

But tbh I still feel like guy in 2014 telling their friends to invest as much as they can into Facebook ads and they laugh at me 🤷‍♂️🫤 when it comes to how big social commerce really is going to be!

Here’s how I look at this…

At Social Commerce Club we… 

1. take the highest performing tiktok shop content

2. Offer a percentage of ad spend (capped) to the creator to use their content on Meta 

3. Print brands cash with these ads omnichannel 

This is the 2025 playbook imo

Yesterday I was driving with my son who’s 6… 

We saw a bunch of billboards and he was asking about the messages on each

It reminded me of the classic Tim Ferris question… so I decided to ask him

“If you could put one message on a Billboard, what would it be?” 

He took about 3 seconds and said 

“My message would be “I love you””

This kid gets it ❤️

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Nathan Hirsch

5k to $12M ARR in 4 yrs (w/ Exit) 🔥 Scaling my 4+ B2B companies in the same way 🚀 Daily advice for entrepreneurs.

Over the past 10 years, I’ve built five businesses to 6, 7, and even 8 figures in annual revenue.  Now I buy businesses

In 2019, I exited one of them — FreeeUp — after scaling it from a $5K investment to $12M+ in ARR in just four years. It was acquired by The HOTH, and that journey changed everything for me.

Unique About the FreeeUp sale:
- No office
- No Us Employees
- Bootstrapped (No outside funding)
- Zero Money spent on Paid ads
- An internal team of 30+ All-Star Virtual Assistants from PH

These days, I’m focused on growing Hirsch Gillivan LLC — the holding company Connor Gillivan and I started. We're building a portfolio of 5-star businesses, each run by amazing operators who truly care about our clients. It’s been a blast supporting great people, growing cool companies, and enjoying life after our first exit.

Here are a few we own:

→ EcomBalance: Monthly bookkeeping for eCommerce sellers
→ AccountsBalance: Monthly bookkeeping for agencies, SAAS, and b2b businesses
→ TrioSEO: Helping SaaS and B2B brands drive high-intent organic traffic and revenue growth
→ HG Media: Growing Connor and my brand online + helping sponsors reach our audience
→ CFO Expertise: Reach financial clarity, optimize growth, and scale profits with an Ecommerce CFO that’s seen it all. Built for brands on Shopify & Amazon.

I’ve had the chance to be a guest on 900+ podcasts over the years — including shows like Perpetual Traffic, Mixergy, BiggerPockets, and Leveling Up.

Outside of building businesses, I'm a proud dad to Carter and husband to Quynh. I get in a daily hour of HIIT, run marathons, and play way too much softball. Always learning, always investing — whether it’s stocks, real estate, or new business ideas.

Want to learn more? Check out NathanHirsch.com, follow me here on LinkedIn or subscribe to https://nathanhirsch.com/newsletter for daily tips on entrepreneurship and growth.

For LinkedIn Sponsorship queries, please reach out to me at media@hirschgillivan.com

Co-Founder

🔥🔥Big News 🔥🔥

Really Excited to launch our new venture TrioSEO October 17th

TrioSEO(dot)com

For years we have ben putting out high quality blog SEO optimized articles for our different businesses leading to highly ranked websites

After years of getting asked if we can offer this for other businesses we now will be

Here's how it will work 👇

1. SEO Audit
We'll conduct a free audit on your site, share results, and let you know if we think its a good fit to work together. 

2. Keyword Research & Planning
We'll get to work finding the best possible keywords for you to be targeting where you have a good chance of driving traffic and leads. We'll put together a full strategy that we'll present to you.

3. Content Creation & Optimization
We'll start creating content for your site. We'll publish it directly on your site as we finish it. If there's pages or articles you already have that we think could move up in search rankings, we'll propose those as well and improve them.

4. Analytics & Reporting
We'll provide you with a monthtly report showing all key SEO data so you can track progress and stay involved in the process.

Interested in being one of our first clients (we have already landed a few)?  Lets chat

9 unwritten rules every professional forgets.
 
Your reputation hinges on what you don’t say. 

Careers aren’t wrecked by big mistakes.

They’re eroded by tiny oversights.

Master the invisible rules.

1. Avoid Loud Personal Calls 
→ Use meeting rooms for private talks. 
→ Step outside for urgent conversations. 

2. Never Steal Credit 
→ Publicly name collaborators in wins. 
→ “This was a team effort.” 

3. Keep Conflicts Off Email 
→ Tone gets lost in text. 
→ Resolve issues face-to-face. 

4. Kill “Reply All” Habits 
→ Ask: “Who truly needs this?” 
→ Spare inboxes from clutter. 

5. Skip Strong Scents 
→ Perfumes trigger allergies. 
→ Opt for subtle or none. 

6. Protect “Flow” States 
→ Slack non-urgent requests. 
→ Never interrupt deep work. 

7. Email vs. Chat 
→ Formal asks = email. 
→ Quick questions = chat. 

8. Silence Gossip 
→ Redirect toxic conversations. 
→ “Let’s focus on solutions.” 

9. Punctuality Balance 
→ Arrive 1-2 minutes early. 
→ Never pressure others’ timelines. 

Ignore these rules at your peril.

Teams remember the subtle offenders.

Upgrade your workplace EQ today. 

♻️ Repost this to help your network.

Follow me for more career truths.

7x Founder sharing daily posts on business growth | I help scale companies with my systems (Exit in 2019)

9 Workplace Unspoken Rules

Most people think sales is about logic.

But the highest performers know it’s about storytelling.

If you can tell a great story
you can sell a product
an idea
a vision
and even yourself

The best entrepreneurs aren’t just builders.

They’re narrators of possibility.

They make people feel something.

And feeling drives action far more than information ever will.

A great story doesn’t just teach.

It moves.
It changes behavior.
It creates believers.

Here’s the framework to do it well:

The 5 Elements of a Story People Actually Remember

1. Relatable Characters
Make your audience see a version of themselves.

2. Compelling Conflict
Tension keeps the brain awake.

3. A Strong Beginning
Curiosity is the most powerful hook you have.

4. A Clear Narrative Arc
If the flow is smooth, the message sticks.

5. A Powerful Ending
Leave them thinking… or feeling something deeper.

Storytelling Techniques That Always Perform

• The Hero’s Journey
Show the transformation, not the trophy.

• The Relatable Struggle
People connect most with your “before,” not your “after.”

• The Twist Ending
One unexpected shift can turn a good story into a great one.

• Humor & Surprise
Emotion = memory. Memory = influence.

Storytelling isn’t decoration.

It’s influence.
It’s connection.

It’s the reason people trust you, follow you, buy from you,

and remember you when everyone else sounds the same.

If you want to stand out,

Master the one thing most people overlook:

Tell better stories.

♻️ Repost to help more people tell stories that matter.

P.S. Happy Thanksgiving to everyone celebrating!

What are you thankful for this year?

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Jordan West

Nathan Hirsch

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