What was GlowGum
GlowGum was a beauty chewing gum brand created entirely from scratch. The concept was simple: a chewing gum with ingredients that actively benefit skin health. Not a supplement, not a cream, not a serum. A gum. Something you chew every day without thinking about it, except this one also happens to make your skin look better.
Zero tech involved. No codebase, no API, no algorithm. That's exactly why it mattered. None of my technical skills applied here. Everything had to be learned from zero, every lesson earned through action.
Building the brand from zero
I started with a blank page and built every layer myself. Brand name, visual identity, product formulation, supplier sourcing, packaging design, e-commerce store, marketing strategy. Each of these would normally be handled by a different specialist. I did all of it solo, learning each skill as I needed it.
Supplier negotiation taught me the most. Finding manufacturers for a cosmetic chewing gum meant researching ingredient suppliers, understanding food safety regulations, negotiating MOQs, and managing quality across multiple sample rounds. Packaging had to stop someone scrolling but still look credible enough to buy. I iterated on the design myself, learning print production along the way.
The TikTok growth
All marketing was organic TikTok. No paid ads, no influencer deals, no growth hacks. Just content. Within fifteen days the account hit 12,000 followers with zero budget.
The entire content strategy sat on one idea: this gum improves your skin. Novel enough to stop someone scrolling, specific enough to stick, polarizing enough to generate shares. Most brands spend months and real ad budgets trying to hit those numbers. I did it in two weeks by understanding how the platform actually works.
What I learned
Four months, zero technical skills involved. Everything I took from GlowGum compounds in the background of everything else I build.
- Digital marketing and content creation — how to hook attention in the first second, structure a narrative in fifteen, and make content people share without being asked
- E-commerce operations and logistics — store setup, inventory, orders, shipping. All the unglamorous operational work that keeps a product business running
- Supplier negotiation — finding manufacturers, requesting samples, negotiating MOQs, managing quality across production runs
- Brand strategy and positioning — defining what a brand stands for and how it communicates in a crowded space
- How to sell a physical product — margins, packaging, shipping, returns. Every unit teaches you something new
Bottom line: GlowGum had nothing to do with code. That was the point. Building and selling a physical product from scratch forced me to operate way outside my comfort zone. The skills transferred to everything I've done since.
Why it stopped
The brand was working. The audience was growing. The product had traction. But after four months, the pull toward AI and robots was stronger than the pull toward scaling a consumer goods brand. I moved on deliberately, bringing everything I'd learned about sales, marketing, content, and operations back into the world of technology.
GlowGum is no longer active. The brand and TikTok account still exist but aren't maintained.