Posts tagged: shut

For years, Brittany Nemandoust struggled to keep her small business afloat.

Chocbox, her DIY chocolate-making kit company, started as a pandemic project after shutdowns left her temporarily out of work as a dental hygienist. When she returned to the dental office, the business remained a side hustle.

Sales fluctuated, spiking over the holidays and slowing down during the spring and summer.

Around April 2024, she and her husband, Kevin, sat down to discuss whether it was time to shut it down. Sales weren’t enough to cover expenses, including rent for a small office in Los Angeles and payroll for a part-time employee, and Nemandoust had taken on credit-card debt to keep the company running.

On paper, closing made sense. But she wasn’t ready to give it up.

“I was really optimistic. I’m like, ‘I know that it’s going to happen at some point. It’s going to blow up,'” she told Business Insider. “I just had a feeling.”

A few weeks later, an opportunity emerged. Nemandoust had noticed videos of a thick, pistachio-filled “Dubai chocolate” bar flooding TikTok. Influencers were trying to recreate it at home, and comment sections were filled with the same questions: Where do you get these ingredients? How do you make this?

Unlike most viewers, she already ran a chocolate kit business. Plus, years earlier, she had custom-designed a chocolate mold that was 20-30% thicker than standard molds — originally, she said, because she felt customers deserved a more substantial bar. That thickness turned out to be exactly what the viral Dubai bar required.

The couple went to a Middle Eastern grocery store in their neighborhood, bought pistachio cream and kataifi pastry, and tested their own version. Then, they filmed a video of the two of them breaking the bar in half and tasting it.

“It wasn’t a pretty video. It was just very raw,” she said, but the response was immediate.

Within 20 minutes, the video had 500 views, more than her videos typically received. Minutes later, the count doubled. By the end of the day, more than 100,000 people had viewed the video, and orders were pouring in. She hit TikTok’s daily cap for new sellers, 100 orders, that day and again the next.

There was just one problem: She didn’t have hundreds of kits ready to ship.

Managing quick growth after a viral moment

Going viral was exhilarating, but chaotic.

Two ingredients in particular — kataifi and pistachio cream — were difficult to source. Online suppliers were sold out, so she and Kevin started calling Turkish markets across Los Angeles. They even phoned gelato shops, knowing pistachio cream is often used in pistachio ice cream.

They also needed extra hands to pack orders, so they called friends, family, and anyone willing to pack boxes at odd hours.

“When you go viral, you need it now,” Nemandoust said. “You don’t have time to go through a hiring process or wait a week for a bulk order of items. You need it ASAP.”

In addition to pulling from every resource they had, they worked 15-hour days, waking up around 6 a.m. and finishing late at night. They often livestreamed their long days, which helped build their community that would be integral to sustained success.

“We would be up and just livestream at like 11 pm at night, blasting music, and I honestly think that’s how we started building our community — showing people the rawness of what it means to go viral,” she said.

As chaotic as that time was, the couple still focused on building systems to keep up with demand. They created instructions for assembling a kit, for how it should look when complete, and for packaging and labeling it correctly. They printed photos of finished kits and taped them to the walls, and recorded short videos demonstrating the packing process so new helpers and employees could avoid mistakes.

“The worst thing you can do when you go viral is not fulfill orders,” Kevin, who quit his corporate job in 2025 to help grow Chocbox, said. “People are dying for your product, and if you don’t send it, that can almost instantly kill your momentum.”

They also resisted the temptation to assume the viral spike would last forever. Instead, they focused on turning a moment into infrastructure: improving sourcing, tightening operations, and gradually expanding capacity. They moved from a 5-by-6-foot cubicle to larger office spaces in the same building, eventually upgrading to a 6,000-square-foot warehouse. Today, they employ eight people.

Strategies to build a lasting business

Going viral brought new customers, but didn’t guarantee customer retention. To create a lasting business, they’ve focused on building a community and creating the best possible product.

From the start, Nemandoust leaned into community-building. She livestreamed on TikTok, assembling kits in real time, answering questions, and interacting directly with viewers.

“I want people to think of me when they think of Chocbox,” she said. “I want to be part of the brand.”

The livestreams weren’t just sales channels. They became a means of building trust. Customers watched orders being packed, saw the behind-the-scenes scramble, and felt included in the growth.

Affiliates became another key pillar. TikTok’s native affiliate system allowed creators to tag Chocbox products in their videos and earn commissions. At first, influencers were simply buying the kits themselves and posting about them. Over time, the couple built a more intentional network of roughly 30 highly engaged affiliates, whom they call “Chocboxers.”

“We invest in them, and they invest in us,” Kevin said, noting that some of their affiliates earn thousands of dollars a month in commission. “They’re an extension of our brand.”

Beyond community, they’ve maintained discipline in their product strategy and kept a tight focus on a hero product: the chocolate-making kit. They later added refill kits and a jarred version of their pistachio filling, branded as “Dubai Dip,” but resisted flooding their website with dozens of flavors.

“When we release products, they have to be really good,” Nemandoust said. “It’s never going to be mediocre.”

They’re constantly engaging with their customers, asking them what they want and using that feedback to create products that excite their community.

Today, both Brittany and Kevin work on Chocbox full time. Sales still fluctuate seasonally — peaking during the holidays and around Valentine’s Day, slowing in summer — and growth still comes with stress, but the conversation they had in April 2024 feels distant now.

They said the company recently surpassed 300,000 units sold on TikTok Shop. Just a couple of years ago, they were preparing to shut Chocbox down. From the outside, the milestone looks like an overnight success. It’s anything but, said Kevin: “If people really knew how hard it was behind the scenes, the amount of turbulence it took to get here is insane.”

That turbulence, the couple says, is the part most aspiring founders don’t see. At the end of the day, starting and maintaining a small business is “really hard,” he said. But if you want to do it, “the only thing getting in the way of starting a business is truly yourself. Just start.”