What if your pickup truck could transform into a fully roadworthy camper in under 10 minutes then fold up and disappear when you're done?
That was the wild idea behind Flated, a brand that didn’t just launch a new product… they created an entirely new category.
In this week’s DTC Daily Podcast, co-founder Ken Hoeve reveals the one growth engine that took Flated from $0 to multi-million dollars in sales:
👉 Educating the market through social media.
The Challenge: Sell Something People Don’t Know They Need
Before Flated, there were no inflatable camper toppers for trucks. No search volume. No competitors. No blueprint.
The Flated team had to do two things:
Prove the product worked (check ✅)
Show people why they needed it without relying on search or existing demand
The solution? Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube — anywhere they could show the magic.
📈 The Growth Driver: Video That Shows, Not Sells
Forget fancy shoots. Flated’s breakout moment came from a simple iPhone video of Ken’s teenage son unboxing and inflating a topper on his new truck.
No hard sell. No paid ads. Just real people using the product.
That clip?
🚀 Over 9 million views on Instagram
📲 Thousands of new followers
💸 Massive spike in awareness—and sales
Why It Worked
The product is visually compelling. You have to see it to believe it.
They focused on short, authentic content. No smoke and mirrors.
Each video showed a different use case—camping, storage, or commuting expanding perceived value.
Instead of telling, they showed how the product fit into real lives.
Ken puts it best:
“Social media is like coffee—people consume it, love it, and want more. You’ve got to keep feeding the appetite.”
Advice for Founders
Thinking of launching something totally new? Here’s Ken’s playbook:
✅ Build a great team—you can’t scale a category solo
✅ Be the first, and show up often
✅ Create content that feels real, not rehearsed
✅ Use every video to answer one question: ‘Why do I need this?’
🎧 Listen to the full episode to learn how Flated made inflatable truck toppers a must-have for adventurers → Watch on YouTube
👉 Spotify
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