Principle
Creative is now the targeting: win with creative volume and persona diversity, not media buying skill
When the platform automates targeting, the creative asset becomes the targeting input and the competitive edge.
Yeung says running persona-specific ads and landing pages is table stakes for a $100-200M DTC brand. IM8 runs 2,000-3,000 live ads (55-60% statics) and tests 500-800 new creatives a week. A few years ago you had to be excellent at ad buying; now Meta does it.
Reallocate headcount and budget from media buying to creative production, and measure the team on weekly new-creative throughput across personas.
Principle
Founders must shift gears between delusion and hyper-realism
Conviction is for the bet; realism is for the execution; the founder skill is switching between them.
Shaan frames it; Yeung agrees, saying he had to be delusional because he believed the pieces would add up despite zero supplement experience, while elsewhere insisting on being realistic about whether the product is actually best.
Label each decision as a belief call (enter a market, pick a partner) or an evidence call (is the product better, is CAC holding) and apply the matching mode deliberately.
Principle
Offline presence is an authenticity premium in the age of AI
The harder a trust signal is to fake or scale, the more valuable it becomes when digital content is abundant.
IM8 has run 200+ offline events, with scientific advisory board members present to talk about the product; seven events in seven days around the US Open. Yeung frames this as real science rather than marketing. Shaan adds that offline is less contested and changes how later ads land.
Reserve a portion of brand investment for in-person experiences where customers meet the people behind the product, especially for credence goods.
Principle
Founders can take bets hired CEOs structurally cannot
Risk appetite follows ownership; transformative pivots usually require someone with founder-level stake to push them through.
Yeung observes founders often hand the business to a hired CEO and later return because the CEO grows conservative. He says no hired CEO would have been able to take the IM8 risk, because nobody else had as much at stake.
If your company needs a non-consensus bet, do not delegate it to a salaried executive; the person with the most at stake has to own and sponsor it.
Principle
Stay in every key decision regardless of company size
Founder involvement in key decisions is a scaling advantage, not a scaling failure.
Yeung says some entrepreneurs do not like getting involved in every part of the business, but what has worked for him is being involved in every part, from factory taste tests to ad volumes, and he commits to staying that way at $1B.
Define the short list of decisions you will never delegate (product, positioning, big bets) and stay in them explicitly as headcount grows.
Principle
Everything starts with a better product; it makes branding, positioning and premium pricing easier
Product superiority is the multiplier on every go-to-market lever, not a substitute for them.
Asked what most entrepreneurs miss, Yeung goes back to product first, while conceding everyone thinks they have a good product. His test for realism is external: he tells people not to trust him but to ask an AI model which product is better. Note he also says product and taste alone do not guarantee success; positioning and brand still had to be nailed.
Before scaling spend, get an honest external comparison of your product against the category leader; if you are not better on a dimension customers can verify, fix that first.
Principle
Taste is the adoption gate for a daily-consumption product
For habitual-use products, sensory experience determines whether the functional benefit is ever delivered.
Yeung notes many brands have a great formula but neglect taste. He personally spent a full week inside the factories, testing 20 to 30 flavors each day, until the result was something people wanted to drink again.
If your product requires repeat use to work, put the founder in the factory and iterate the sensory experience in person until repeat intent is obvious.
Principle
Break the category's visual convention: a red powder in a sea of green
Distinctiveness against the category default is a positioning asset in itself.
The red came from beets in the formula; Yeung chose to go hard on it, with a big premium red box, bold name and fonts, and an unboxing experience. Eric Ryan made vitamins rectangular because every container in the aisle was round.
Audit your category's shared colors, shapes and names; if a natural attribute of your product breaks the convention, amplify it across product, packaging and ads.
Principle
Recurring subscription revenue is the honest proof that a wellness product works
In categories where efficacy claims are cheap, repeat purchase is the credible validation signal.
Pressed by Shaan on how a skeptic should believe supplements work, Yeung concedes many supplements do not work and argues that no amount of backing explains a $200M run-rate in 20 months without recurring subscriptions.
Use retention and subscription continuation, not first-purchase conversion, as the primary evidence that your product delivers, and lead with it when facing skeptics.
Principle
Make the celebrity a co-founder, but design the brand to outlive them
Celebrity equity should buy aligned commitment, not borrowed attention, and the brand must stand on assets the celebrity does not supply.
Yeung spent three to four months in conversations with Beckham, who had rejected supplement deals for decades. The pitch that landed was structural: equity and co-ownership, plus an explicit promise that IM8 would not be a celebrity brand. The rest of the build (scientific advisory board, clinical trial, dual third-party testing) exists precisely so the brand does not depend on Beckham.
When partnering with a famous person, offer ownership rather than a fee, and before launch list which brand assets would survive if they walked away tomorrow.