Business strategy

Kent Yoshimura: help customers recommend your product

Kent Yoshimura explains how Neurogum finds customers through people who already love the gum, and why repeat purchases matter.

2 October 20262 min read7 min listen

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Its own script, written for listening.

The era of the celebrity-driven viral brand is dying. It's being replaced by something much more localized, much more human, and—surprisingly—much more profitable.

Editor's note

Why this matters now

Kent Yoshimura says Neurogum grew to more than 25,000 affiliates. The part of his interview I would start with comes much earlier in that process: finding people who already use the gum and recommend it.

Those customers know what they tell a friend about the product. Their explanations give the company material to try in its marketing.

Yoshimura also follows the customer beyond the first order. A video that sells a discounted pack has done something measurable, but the costs and the next purchase determine how much the business has gained. That is an awkward detail to leave out of a discussion about viral growth.

The source

What it says

Distilled from the original. The notes above and below are the editor's own.

Recommendations from people who use the product

Yoshimura's social media strategy starts with trusted customers and smaller creators. Someone with a modest audience can have a close relationship with the people watching.

He wants the recommendation to come from experience with the product. Neurogum's affiliate network gives the company many people trying different ways to describe and demonstrate it. Yoshimura reports more than 25,000 affiliates.

The company looks for hooks that get a response, then tests variations. This supplies feedback on the opening and the product story. It does not make the next video's success predictable.

Which first purchase leads to another?

Yoshimura uses Costco's rotisserie chicken as an analogy for a product that brings customers in. A business then needs to understand what those people buy afterwards.

His example compares gum flavours and whether customers return for other products. The flavour comparison is illustrative. It is a way to think about different customer paths, and should not be read as published data about the performance of particular Neurogum flavours.

A first order can look good while discounts, advertising, platform fees, and weak repeat purchasing leave little behind. Looking at the customer across purchases changes which products a brand should promote.

Platform conditions can change

Yoshimura describes TikTok Shop becoming more dependent on paid promotion. He discusses live streams and the way he believes they affect later visibility.

These are his observations from running Neurogum. The interview supplies no platform documentation establishing the algorithm claims. They need checking before they become a budget decision for another company.

He also argues that highly polished commercial footage can be a poor fit for a social feed. Personally answering customers and showing ordinary parts of running the business can give a founder more useful material to work with.

Editor's note

What to do with this

Ask a customer who recommends your product what they say to a friend. Use that explanation to try a few openings, then compare the orders each brings in.

Keep going past the first sale. Include discounts, fees, acquisition costs, and repeat purchases. Yoshimura's examples become much more useful when you can compare them with the economics of your own product.

Explore The Anatomy of a Dream feature.

The original

Viral Brand Expert: The Content Strategy Nobody Is Talking About

The Anatomy of a Dream