July 2020.

World's going crazy. COVID everywhere. Lockdowns. People panicking.

Me? I'm in my room playing Red Alert Yuri's Revenge. Classic RTS. If you know, you know.

Government job had me on a two weeks on, two weeks off schedule. So half the month I'm literally getting paid to sit at home and game. Life was good.

Then my wife taps me on the shoulder.

I pause the game. She shows me her phone.

"Wanna try starting a fitness brand?"

I'm like... huh? What?

She goes on this 4 minute explainer about how she's bored, stuck at home, wants to try something new, saw people selling stuff on Instagram, thinks we could do it too.

I look at her. Look at my game. Look back at her.

"AFFIRMATIVE." 😂😂

If you've played Red Alert, you get it. My wife's Slavic by the way. Only real ones will understand why that makes this even funnier.

By morning, the idea actually started making sense. Everyone's stuck at home. Gyms are closed. People, especially women, need ways to work out. They're going stir crazy.

Resistance bands. Small. Cheap to ship. Easy to use at home.

Alright. Let's actually do this thing.

First thing we did? Alibaba.

Started messaging suppliers in China. "Hey, we want resistance bands, send samples."

This is where most people screw up. They find one supplier, get excited, order a bunch of inventory, and end up with garbage they can't sell.

We ordered sample after sample.

Trash. Thin rubber that would snap after a few uses. Stitching that looked like someone did it blindfolded. Packaging that screamed "this cost 50 cents."

We burned through $130 just on samples. Took us weeks. But we finally found a supplier who actually delivered quality.

Then we negotiated whitelabeling. That means they print YOUR brand name on the product and packaging. Cost us a one-time $100 fee. Minimum order quantity was around $1,000.

Here's something our supplier did that saved us money every single time.

In Bahrain, if your shipment value is under $800, you don't pay customs tax. Our guy knew this. He intentionally batched our orders to stay under that limit.

Smart guy. We stuck with him.

Let me break down the actual money. Because nobody ever does this.

Each resistance band pack had three bands inside. Strong, medium, easy. All packed in a mesh bag.

Our cost per pack? $12.

We sold it for? $40.

That's $28 profit per sale. About 70% margin.

Total starting investment?

$1,000.

Here's how it broke down:

That's it. We never put another dollar in. Everything after that first $1,000 came from reinvesting what we made.

That $1,000 eventually turned into $53,000 in total revenue.

When I saw that first batch of orders come in, my brain immediately went: "Okay... if I can make this much now... what if I 10X this? What would that even look like?"

That thought kept me going.

We had zero budget for a photographer.

So we grabbed the products and drove to Malchiya beach.

I'm not gonna lie. That first shoot felt so weird. Standing there with resistance bands, trying to adjust the products, my wife directing me. It felt surreal. Like, are we really doing this? Is this going to work? I felt kind of nervous and kind of ridiculous at the same time.

But we pushed through. Natural lighting. Simple ideas. Clean shots with the beach as a backdrop.

It worked because it looked real. Not some overproduced studio thing. Just real people, real product, nice scenery.

As we made money, we leveled up. Started organizing actual shooting days. Random cafes around Bahrain. Even some tennis courts. We brought in friends to model. Eventually hired a couple of actual models for bigger campaigns.

The vibe shifted from "product photo" to "lifestyle." Women could picture themselves in the content. That's when things really took off.

Our first Instagram ad cost us $50 total.

Not daily budget. Total.

We targeted women in Bahrain. Ages 20 to 45. Interested in fitness.

Nothing complicated. Good photos. Clear price. That's it.

100,000 views in two days.

Sold out in a week. That $800 in inventory became $4,000 in revenue.

After that, we got smarter. Started running A/B tests. Put up two different ads, watched which one performed better, killed the loser, copied the winner, scaled up.

We also connected with two personal trainers to help spread the word. One was a Brazilian fitness influencer living in Bahrain. Around 13,500 followers. She was a legit personal trainer too, so her audience actually trusted her recommendations.

Did we pay her? Nope. Sent her free products. She posted. Orders jumped.

That's the play. Find people whose audience overlaps with yours. Give them something valuable. Let them do the talking.

Static posts worked well for us through 2020, 2021, even into 2022. We never really bothered with reels. Looking back, that was probably a mistake. But at the time, we were making money so we didn't question it.

No fancy website. No Shopify store. Nothing like that.

Customer sends us a DM: "Hey I want this product in size M."

We check our inventory. Reply: "Got it. Total is X with delivery."

They pay through BenefitPay ( A local payment gateway) or cash on delivery.

Done.

One small trick that helped us grow: 10% discount to anyone who reposted us on their story.

Cost us almost nothing. But suddenly real customers were showing off our products to all their followers. Free marketing running every single day without us doing anything extra.

Okay here's where it gets funny.

We were so locked in on getting customers. Sourcing products. Running ads. Replying to DMs.

We completely forgot one thing.

How are we going to actually deliver all this?

Orders start flooding in. I'm panicking. Calling delivery companies. Nobody can move fast enough. Customers are waiting. I'm not about to make them wait and ruin our reputation before we even get started.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

I became the delivery guy.

$3 per delivery. 20 deliveries a day. Five straight days. Morning until evening. Driving all over Bahrain like a madman handing off packages.

Was it exhausting? Absolutely.

But I learned something important. When you don't have a system, you become the system.

After that nightmare, I found a local delivery guy who charged $4 per drop. Worth every dollar. Never went back to doing it myself.

Once the bands sold out, we spotted a bigger opportunity.

Women weren't just buying bands. They wanted complete workout outfits. Leggings. Sports bras. The whole look.

But here's the problem.

Local brands were charging $130 to $210 for a single pair of leggings.

Come on. That's insane.

We found suppliers. Sourced our own stuff. Our cost for a leggings and sports bra set? $16 to $21.

We sold them at $53 flat.

Same quality as what was out there. A third of the price.

Started with a small test batch of 40 pieces. Sold out. Then we expanded. Tops. T-shirts. Hoodies.

Customers loved us because we weren't trying to squeeze every dollar out of them.

Orders kept growing. Things got chaotic.

WhatsApp messages everywhere. "Did she pay yet?" "What size did this person order?" "Wait, who even is this?"

We were losing track of everything.

So we set up a simple CRM. Nothing fancy. Just a system to track customers. Name. Phone number. What they ordered. What sizes they bought.

This changed everything.

When we dropped new products, we didn't just post and hope for the best. We messaged our past customers directly. WhatsApp. Email.

These people already bought from us. They already trusted us. They converted way faster than random people seeing our ads.

Retargeting existing customers is one of the most underrated moves. You already did the hard part of earning their trust. Don't waste it.

Not every customer was easy.

One woman ordered XS. Based on our conversations, we were pretty sure she was actually a medium. But she insisted on XS.

We sent it.

Few days later she's furious. She forced herself into the leggings and tore them. Then she went on our social media and started leaving negative comments for everyone to see.

We could have gotten defensive. Could have ignored her. Could have argued back.

Instead we messaged her privately. And we just listened.

Let her vent. Acknowledged her frustration. Didn't try to prove her wrong.

Then we refunded her fully and sent her the right size for free.

Guess what happened?

She posted the new leggings on her socials. Became a repeat customer.

Angry customers aren't enemies. Most of them just want to feel heard. Handle it the right way and they turn into your biggest supporters.

At our peak, we were reinvesting around $1,300 every cycle. Things were running smoothly. We made enough to buy our first car in cash. Used the extra profits to start a completely different business.

Oh and funny story. Early on I almost paid a branding agency $8,000 because I hated our name so much. AJUST came from a random name generator. I thought it was terrible. Wanted something more "professional." Thank God I didn't go through with that. Would have burned money we needed for inventory.

Anyway. Things shifted.

Post-COVID, people went back outside. The urgency to work out at home faded. Sales slowed down.

Around the same time, we found out we were expecting a baby.

Between the new business, the pregnancy, and the slowing sales... we just didn't have the energy to keep pushing. We let AJUST go quiet.

The Instagram page is still there. Supplier contacts are saved. And honestly?

We've been thinking about bringing it back.

Lululemon and Alo are out here charging $100+ for leggings like that's normal. Some of it's brand positioning, sure. But a lot of it is just hype.

There might be room for something real again.

If I restarted AJUST tomorrow?

Reels from day one. Static posts worked in 2020. That era is over. Short video is where the attention is now.

Build an email list way earlier. We relied too much on Instagram DMs. One algorithm change and your reach disappears. Email is yours forever.

Set up delivery before the first sale. Being the delivery guy made for a funny story. But it almost broke me. Build the system before you actually need it.

That's Friday Qahwa. Real stories. Real numbers. Stuff that actually works.

If you've been sitting on an idea, hit me up. No pitch, no course. Just a conversation to help you figure out your next move.

See you next Friday. ☕