Racing my wife to 1K followers on TikTok
For the past few years, my wife and I have been pretty enamored with the creator and influencer world. What really pulled us in came after our 2023 brand launch for a kids hat idea called Swap Top. As a brand new founder, I was searching for every possible way to promote our product. If it existed, we tried it. TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Meta ads, influencers, all of it.
Our first real break came from a local influencer in Dallas. She lived in our neighborhood, had kids at the same school, and would probably be considered a micro-influencer. The day she shared our product, we saw record traffic and sales for us at the time. Boom. We thought we had cracked the code. So we doubled down and started reaching out to more influencers, first locally and then through the LTK platform.
Within a couple of months, three influencers in Dallas shared Swap Top. One of them was definitely not micro (she is pretty huge Mom-influencer) – Jen Reed/Sister Studio. Her single story post absolutely exploded our traffic and sales. Even crazier, she later invited us to be featured on Good Morning America as part of an upcoming Deals & Steals segment she was hosting. We were a three month old brand and could not believe our luck. That segment ended up being massive validation. We did over 1,000 orders in 48 hours. Wild experience.
But back to the point. Why are we starting TikTok now?
About a month ago, my wife mentioned she wanted to try building a personal TikTok. That part didn’t surprise me. She had talked about it for years. What surprised me was my response. I said something like, “I’ll do it with you. In fact, let’s race to 1K.” I was half joking, half serious, and didn’t think much of it. A few days later she came back and said, “I think you’re on to something. Let’s actually race each other to 1K in December.”
Oh no.
Now I actually had to do it. To be honest, I was terrified. All the normal fears showed up. What if people see it? What if I embarrass myself? And then it hit me. Every time I’ve been scared to do something as an entrepreneur and tackled it head-on, I’ve never once regretted it. Some of my biggest personal breakthroughs have come on the other side of fear. So I decided to commit.
We had a few weeks before December, so I started studying creators I liked. We chose TikTok because we’re in our late 30s and not many of our friends use it. Neither of us had a personal following, so it felt like fair ground. Huge shoutout to Higher Up Wellness, Davi, and Andy’s Watches. Those were the creators I studied & resonated with most.
So here we are. Day 12. Right after I finish writing this, I’m recording my 12th video. I’ve already had one post hit over 5,000 views with hundreds of likes. I’m sitting at 77 followers so far. And the best part? The fear is fading and I’m genuinely loving the challenge.
So what’s the idea here? What am I trying to prove?
The creator and influencer world is incredibly lucrative. We spent tens of thousands of dollars on influencer stories while building Swap Top and eventually realized something important. It’s basically a 100 percent margin business. The main inputs are time and effort. Coming from e-commerce, where a 10 percent net margin is considered good, that sounds pretty appealing. We plan to pursue this more intentionally in 2026.
For now, here are the rules we’re holding ourselves to:
One post per day minimum
Post every single day of December
Don’t tell friends or family yet (we’ll do that in January)
Don’t worry about cringe or fear
Be authentic, honest, and see what resonates
And of course, get to 1K followers before my wife 😉
If you want to follow along (which I would appreciate!) – you can find me @heckendorn on TikTok…
