Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Most founders want to be first in a category. Justin Soleimani and Zach Dannett did the opposite, and built Tumble into one of the standout washable rug brands without raising a dollar. In this episode, the Tumble co-founders and Co-CEOs break down how they entered a category Ruggable created, fixed the product complaints they found buried in thousands of reviews, and validated the whole thing on Indiegogo before opening a Shopify store. Then they get into the part most founders never have to survive: moving their entire supply chain out of China in 30 days when tariffs went from 25% to 175%. What&#x27;s covered: Why they launched with 120 SKUs and used crowdfunding as a demand-forecasting tool, not just a fundraiser The lot-number QC system that let them kill 90%+ of product defects within two years How pre-orders and Shopify payouts gave them a negative cash conversion cycle while bootstrapping Why they didn&#x27;t hire a single full-time employee until they were well past $20M in revenue The China-to-Thailand pivot and accidental Canada launch during the tariff crisis Their YouTube incrementality test that ran head-to-head against Meta, and tied Justin&#x27;s contrarian take on vibe coding: automate manual tasks, don&#x27;t rip out your tech stack Who this is for: Bootstrapped DTC founders, operators obsessed with margin and cash flow, and anyone building a physical-product brand in a competitive category. What to steal: The crowdfunding-as-validation playbook, the lot-tracking QC system, and the asset-light structure that let them move a supply chain overnight. Timestamps: 00:00 Why Great Competitors Make You Better 03:00 Launching 120 SKUs Through Crowdfunding 10:00 Product Feedback at Scale 18:00 Growing Past $20M With No Employees 23:00 Surviving Tariffs and Moving Manufacturing Subscribe to DTC Newsletter - https://dtcnews.link/signup Advertise on DTC - https://dtcnews.link/advertise Work with Pilothouse - https://dtcnews.link/pilothouse Follow us on Instagram &amp; Twitter - @dtcnewsletter Watch this interview on YouTube - https://dtcnews.link/video

Ep 618: Inside Tumble – Scaling a Nine-Figure Rug Brand

DTC Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** DTC Podcast

## Participants

- **Eric Dick** (DTC Newsletter and Podcast)
- **Justin Soleimani** (Tumble)
- **Zach Dannett** (Tumble)

## Transcript

A lot of people think that they don't want to have good competition so they can beat their competition. But actually the truth is you want to have the best competition because you want to learn from your competitors. The beauty of a crowdfunding campaign like that is like you get your product into the hands of thousands of people immediately. Our first day of fulfillment out of our warehouse, like we ship a thousand orders. Well, within 30 days we were getting a ton of feedback. We don't have a factory, we don't have a warehouse, we don't have an office.

And as a result of that, we were able to pick up and move our supply chain overnight when tariffs hit. Being profitable early on was extremely important. If you're profitable, then you get to take those profit dollars, those proceeds and reinvest it back into the business. We were able to bootstrap the business with the model plus being profitable from day one. Welcome to the DTC Podcast, fellas.

Had a great time catching up with you a few weeks ago about your journey at Tumble. Start me at the beginning. Give me your hero's journey. Why did you build Tumble? So it kind of starts a while back. Zach and I actually went to college together at Emory University. We had gone off and kind of done our own separate things. But we, around 2019, started getting together and talking about potential business ideas. And Zach had a background in home furnishing.

So naturally, we just started looking within the home category for different opportunities that we thought might be interesting. And we had come across the washable rug category, which was kind of new and emerging at the time. And we felt like it was a really interesting concept. We felt like there was a lot of potential and legs there and room for growth within the category. But as we dug a little bit deeper, we started to realize there was actually quite a few deficiencies with the products that were available in the market at the time.

It was kind of a whole laundry list of things that we identified as we read through thousands of reviews and talked to customers and things. But kind of the main ones that come to mind were that, you know, the rugs were too thin. The rug pad provided no cushion. The rugs would curl in the corners. They didn't have any sort of like spill-proof coating. The need to wash them was kind of a pain.

And then the fact that they had Velcro on the rug pad made them really difficult to put down and take off when you did need to wash them. So we kind of studied all those issues and, you know, got our heads together as to thinking how we could do it differently. And what came out of that about a year later was a product that didn't use Velcro at all, had pockets in the four corners of the rug to keep the corners from curling. We have a quarter-in...

Ep 618: Inside Tumble – Scaling a Nine-Figure Rug Brand

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.

Ep 618: Inside Tumble – Scaling a Nine-Figure Rug Brand

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.