True Gunner

Tanner Larson's e-commerce story began in 2001, when he became a platinum power seller on eBay and was doing between $50,000 and $100,000 a month. He eventually left that business because fulfillment was painful when a house doubled as a warehouse. Years later, as automation improved for physical products, he returned to physical goods. His company, 8020 Media, runs several e-commerce brands, including a second amendment brand called True Gunner.

The brand's approach was to look for gaps rather than copy what competitors sold. In the flashlight market, the team found a hole between cheap entry-level flashlights and $300-$400 tactical models. Many buyers wanted a good flashlight but would not spend that much.

The team developed the flashlight from the ground up and created custom kits to go with it. Tanner said the first order was a 1,000-unit minimum, required before the manufacturer would produce a sample. He said "We had about $30,000 tied up in just that first 1000 unit order." The per-unit cost was around $30, rising to about $32 with shipping.

The timeline was about eight months from start to first sale. Tanner said the slow part was the back-and-forth with overseas manufacturers, not the production itself. The first flashlight sold around Halloween 2015. Tanner funded nearly all of it personally, and he said he would not repeat that approach.

True Gunner sold primarily through funnels. The front end used free-plus-shipping or discounted offers, including a penlight priced around $9-$19. Customers were then upsold to the $79 M600 flashlight, which the host noted had a $23 landed cost. Tanner said the team spent about $13 per acquisition on the front-end funnel, which roughly broke even, while the M600 served as the profit maximizer.

A continuity program at $29.95 per month was central to the model. About 20% of M600 buyers joined it, and Tanner reported about 7,000 members in October 2016. Members received a drip-fed monthly box, which helped with inventory planning.

The M600 became a top seller, with about 4,400 units sold in the prior 12 months, and Tanner described it as one of the best-margin products the company had. Hotjar session recordings were a major source of conversion improvements.

The company also faced setbacks. Supply chain problems left it short on a specialized circuit component, which led it to buy raw materials in advance. Production bottlenecks forced it to slow growth. The team also lost about 2,000 continuity members during a shopping-cart platform problem, which prompted a migration to Infusionsoft.

At the time of the interview, Tanner was focused on making the flashlight an even bigger part of the business. He said the team was still refining how to sell it, but it had become a significant portion of the company's revenue.