Most 23-year-olds who hit $1M ARR in 60 days would throw a party. Oliver Brocato watched his entire business collapse instead.
Oliver has been building since he was 14. From 3D printing fidget spinners in his bedroom to scaling a "sex chocolate" brand to $11M annually through viral TikTok marketing. But when counterfeiters started ripping off his chocolate company, bleeding revenue every month, Oliver did what any pissed-off founder would do: he built his own solution.
Enter Bustem, which Oliver calls "the internet's first digital hit squad." Unlike typical brand protection software that gives you reports, Bustem gets their hands dirty and does the enforcement work for you. No upfront costs, no monthly subscriptions. They only bill you when they successfully take something down.
The company started off with a bang, but the rapid success nearly killed it. But instead of giving up, Oliver rebuilt from the ground up with real processes, a legitimate team, and a focus on execution over everything else.
In our exclusive Hampton interview, Oliver reveals:
- How he went from sleeping on couches to $1M ARR without spending a dollar on ads
- Why he nuked the SaaS model and pivoted to a service that only gets paid when clients win
- The operational disasters that almost got them sued (and how they fixed them)
- His plan to build the first truly scalable AI system for IP enforcement
- Why being 23 in Hampton has been a "cheat code" for learning from 8- and 9-figure operators
For founders who believe in execution over excuses, Oliver's journey from getting ripped off to building the solution is the ultimate case study.
Hello! Who are you and what business did you start?
Hey, I’m Oliver Brocato, founder of Bustem, or as I sometimes call it, the internet’s first digital hit squad. We protect e-commerce brands from the dark underbelly of the internet: copycats, counterfeiters, scammers, and digital parasites stealing creative, hijacking listings, spoofing domains, or impersonating ads to siphon trust and revenue from real brands. Our job is to find them, expose them, and wipe them off the face of the web.
Bustem started in January 2025 as a SaaS tool that let brands plug in their website and automatically detect copycats using scraped images, branded keywords, and videos. We had over 37 detection scripts scanning across TikTok, Meta, Amazon, Google, Temu, Etsy, Reddit, and shady sites hosted in Russia or China. We were good at showing you where the threats were. But our early users made one thing clear: they wanted more than dashboards or alerts, they wanted real execution. So we pivoted hard into a hybrid model part software, part SWAT team.
Now, Bustem is a full-blown IP enforcement agency powered by proprietary detection tech. We don’t just show you the threats, we also take them down. We gather evidence, file DMCAs, escalate to platforms, chase registrars, file with ad networks, and even pressure Google to delist bad actors. And we don’t charge monthly retainers. We only bill when we deliver results. You pay per confirmed takedown. Zero risk. No BS.
We hit $1M ARR in the first 60 days, and then everything broke — we scaled too fast, and our internal systems collapsed under the weight. I had to rebuild the company from the ground up. Hired a real team. Codified processes. Made it legit. Now, we’re profitable, stabilized, scaling again. And we’re coming back with fire.
What's your backstory, and how did you come up with the idea?
I’ve been building since I was 14. My first hustle was 3D printing fidget spinners and flipping them on eBay out of my bedroom. At 16, I started a micro-agency running social for small businesses. At 18, I got hired to a TikTok influencer for a VC-backed app. Worked on 15 side hustles from 14-18. My learning curve was vertical.
By 20, I launched Tabs Chocolate — a bootstrapped DTC brand "sex chocolate" that exploded through viral TikTok marketing. We built a view machine working with 1000s of creators and 10’s of thousands of affiliates. In 3 years, scaled to billions of views and $11M/year. No outside capital. Exited in late 2023.
But Tabs had a massive problem. Every month, we were losing money to counterfeiters, fake websites, Instagram ads using our videos, and scammers spoofing our name.
So I did what any pissed-off founder would do: built my own solution.
A kid I met off YC cofounder match flew to Miami and slept on my couch the weekend after our first call. Within 48 hours, we had the first MVP of Bustem up. It scraped my site, scanned Amazon, and found clones of my product. It was janky, slow, and barely worked, but it scratched an itch. And more importantly, I knew I wasn’t alone. I had sent millions in deal flow to other agencies and software companies through Twitter before. Why not send traffic to my own B2B offer.
Take us through the process of building and launching the first version of your product.
The MVP was minimal: you entered your brand URL, and we scraped all your assets (images, videos, text) and searched for matches across marketplaces and social. It gave you a dashboard with results. I gave early access to 30 founders in my network. Not one used it.
Turns out, founders don’t want another dashboard filled with problems. They want the problem gone. We learned that the hard way.
So I nuked the SaaS model. We kept the detection tech internal and pivoted to a done-for-you service. We did everything manually at first. The founder signed up, gave us assets and IP info, and we handled the rest. First clients paid $2K–$5K/month. I closed every deal myself. I ran onboarding. I handled escalations. I built trust through sweat.
And then we broke the business. I realized brute force wasn’t enough. So I hired a COO to handle internal ops, brought in a talented engineer to rebuild the backend, and grew our enforcement team from 2 to 8 specialists in 3 months.
Then came our smartest move: shifting to per-takedown pricing. Now clients only pay if we actually take down infringers. So no retainers. And no fluff. It removed friction from sales, rebuilt trust, and aligned incentives. Our win = Their win. That made everything easier.
Since launch, what has worked to attract and retain customers?
Everything has been founder-led and organic. I’ve never run ads. I post raw breakdowns of wins, screwups, and live takedowns on Twitter and LinkedIn. I talk like a human, not a SaaS founder. And it works. Founders relate to me because I’ve been through it: I’ve lived the pain of getting ripped off.
Most clients come through my DMs, referrals, or posts. Every client gets a private Slack channel with our team. We respond within 30 minutes. Our service feels like an elite task force embedded in your brand. That urgency, transparency, and daily progress keeps clients hooked.
But the #1 thing that makes retention easy was the Pay-per-win pricing. You only pay if we get results. There’s no buyer's remorse. No invoices to argue about. If something slips through or doesn’t work, the client never pays. And if it works? They want more.
How are you doing today and what does the future look like?
We’re lean, profitable, and rebuilding the machine. Today, we’re spending $40K–$50K/month on the team (COO, engineer, enforcement squad), but we’re profitable and self-funded. I reinvest almost every dollar back into people and product. If we aren’t at zero on the P&L by end of month, it means we didn’t reinvest aggressively enough.
Still no ad spend. Still no investors. We're running on momentum. The next stage is automating enforcement and internal workflows while keeping the agency touch. Our goal is a backend software platform with a white-glove agency front-end.
Did you ever have an “oh shit” moment where you thought it wouldn’t work?
Yes.
There were operational nightmares. One time we mistakenly reported a competitor’s legit listing and almost got hit with a lawsuit. Why? Cause we didn’t have internal quality checks or SOPs. It was chaos.
At one point, I thought the whole model was doomed. Platforms were rejecting our DMCAs. Our enforcement rate was low. Clients were paying us thousands a month and I was confident we could deliver. I felt like we were playing pretend. But we fixed it. We brought in real talent. Documented everything. Focused on quality over speed. Now our success rate is >90%.
Where do you see untapped opportunity in the market?
The biggest brands are protected by legacy law firms and $10K/month retainers. But there are thousands of fast-growing e-comm brands getting destroyed by counterfeits and fakes every single day. They don’t have legal teams. They don’t have time to file paperwork. They just want someone to solve the problem.
That’s where we come in. We’re the anti-law firm. Speed, simplicity, automation. No legalese, no 12-week onboarding. We’re just focused on results.
But the future is software. Whoever builds the first truly scalable AI system that can detect, verify, and file takedowns automatically will own this space. I’m trying to build that. And if anyone reading this is sitting on advanced scraping infrastructure for TikTok, Temu, or Amazon — DM me. I’ll pay.
What platforms/tools do you use for your business?
Slack for client communication (every brand gets a private channel). Notion for IP asset management, SOPs, and onboarding docs. Trello (legacy, slowly being phased out). Zapier to glue everything together. Stripe for billing. Twitter and LinkedIn as the growth engine.
Simple stack. Built for speed.
What have been the most influential books, podcasts, or resources?
Twitter. Not kidding. If you follow the right people, you can get a live MBA on building, scaling, selling, and failing in public. Most of my business ideas and learnings have come from talking to founders, not reading books.
Also: stop hoarding info. Most people don’t have an information problem. They have an execution problem. It’s like fitness. We all know what to do. Most people just don’t do it.
Advice for entrepreneurs getting started?
Start before you’re ready. You’ll never feel ready. Sell before you build. If no one will pre-pay, you’re building a vanity project. Do everything manually before you try to scale. Learn the pain. Then remove it. Build your audience. Your distribution is your moat. Work under a killer operator before trying to be one yourself.
How has being part of the Hampton community helped you?
Hampton has been a cheat code. I’m 23. Most of my friends are solo DTC founders. No team, no ops, just vibes. Hampton instantly plugged me into people building 8- and 9-figure businesses. People who’ve scaled, sold, hired, fired. Being in that room shaved years off my learning curve. It’s like being handed the playbook before the game starts.
Where can we find you?
Personally, I find being the CEO of a startup to be downright exhilarating. But, as I'm sure you well know, it can also be a bit lonely and stressful at times, too.
Because, let's be honest, if you're the kind of person with the guts to actually launch and run a startup, then you can bet everyone will always be asking you a thousand questions, expecting you to have all the right answers -- all the time.
And that's okay! Navigating this kind of pressure is the job.
But what about all the difficult questions that you have as you reach each new level of growth and success? For tax questions, you have an accountant. For legal, your attorney. And for tech. your dev team.
This is where Hampton comes in.
Hampton's a private and highly vetted network for high-growth founders and CEOs.
