E29: How to turn 50,000 followers Into 140K MRR with Oliver Brocato
In this episode of the SaaS Operators Podcast, we talked to Oliver Brocato, founder of Bustem.com and former founder of Tabs Chocolate, to unpack how he turned a pain point from his ecommerce days into a fast-growing SaaS business, protecting brands from copycats, counterfeiters, and scammers. Oliver breaks down how Bustem detects and removes bad actors across the internet, how most brands lose 5–15% of revenue to copycats, and how his platform recovers that value without expensive lawyers or lawsuits. We talk about building software as a non-technical founder, the slow grind of product iteration, and the transition from DTC storytelling to high-ticket B2B sales. Oliver shares how having 50,000 followers on X became a growth engine, how one tweet drove 400 signups in a day, and how he Bustem on authenticity and proof. He explains Bustem’s performance-based pricing model, how showing real ROI closes deals, and why transparency isn't the same as vanity metrics. The conversation dives into ecommerce versus SaaS economics, predictable inputs versus hits-driven luck, and the mindset shift from hype to value driven retention. Oliver closes by reflecting on automation, brand defense as a service, and the uncertain future of ecommerce in an AI-driven world where algorithms might shop for us before we even click “buy.”
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On this episode of The SAAS Operators, Oliver Brocato, founder of Bustem.com joins us. If you know Tabs Chocolate, that was him too. After selling Tabs, he decided to solve a pain he felt first hand as a DTC operator. The second you get traction, copycats, counterfeiters, and scammers show up. Bustem is his answer.
What Bustem does
Bustem combines software and an enforcement team to find and take down bad actors across social, search, marketplaces, domains, and payment rails. The platform scans, surfaces offenders, and then an enforcement squad handles removals through registrars, hosts, payment processors, DMCA filings, and cease and desists. No courts. No multi-year legal saga.
Customers see offenders in an “In Review” queue. Each card shows an estimated monthly revenue at risk. Approve the takedown, or deny it. Bustem pushes daily and weekly reporting, plus Slack alerts with counts removed and dollars protected.
How big is the problem
Oliver’s estimate from his brand and peers: most brands leak 5 to 15 percent of revenue to copycats and scammers. There is no silver bullet. But there is meaningful mitigation. Tie the work to dollars and brands will treat enforcement as must-have, not nice-to-have.
Pricing that maps to value
Two models.
- Performance: 300 dollars monthly platform fee, plus 50 to 200 dollars per successful takedown. You only pay the success fee after the removal clears.
- Unlimited retainer: 2,500 to 5,000 dollars per month for high volume brands.
Design goal: show clear ROI, then make upgrading obvious when volume spikes. Example: a brand came in on performance, racked up 30 to 40 kills in nine days, then signed 3,000 dollars per month for 12 months. The math sold itself.
Distribution advantage
Oliver built in public at Tabs and grew an audience of 50,000 operators on X. When he announced Bustem, one tweet did 250,000 impressions and drove 400 signups day one. Consistent content now books 3 to 5 sales calls a day.
He also runs scrappy outbound. Cold emails that lead with proof, not platitudes.
“We found 200 counterfeits using your assets and keywords. Want the list”
“Someone is duping your site and bidding on your brand terms. Want the links”
Nobody says no to seeing the receipts.
Selling the value, not just the emotion
Founders feel violated when copied. That emotion gets them on a call. Oliver closes by turning outrage into a business case. Show the inputs. Show the formula for estimated revenue loss. Expose sliders for traffic, CVR, and AOV if exacts are not available. Be transparent so the ROI is credible in finance and procurement.
He tries to hold a 5x ROI standard. Whatever you pay, the recovered revenue should be at least five times that.
One more lesson. Listing price on the site crushed conversion in his tests. For higher ACV, lead with value and the business case before you anchor cost.
From ecom to SaaS
Two big shifts stood out.
- It is slower than you think. Even small features soak up weeks. He started with one engineer and is hiring a second. Expectations must reset.
- Software is constant iteration. In ecom you ship a product and sell it. Iteration is gated by inventory, lead times, and manufacturing. In SaaS you are always shipping, always balancing product and distribution.
B2B also feels more directly correlated to input. More targeted emails, calls, and content tend to equal more pipeline and revenue, with tighter predictability than the hits-driven nature of consumer.
Product, wedge, and irreplaceability
An ROI claim is not enough if you are easy to replace. The alternative is usually a VA that misses offenders and fumbles takedowns, or a lawyer that costs a retainer for a single call. Bustem’s edge is software to find offenders at scale, plus a repeatable enforcement engine.
Roadmap and constraints
The long-term plan is to automate both detection and enforcement, then drive the monitoring fee toward zero to widen the top of funnel. Every brand gets free monitoring and alerting, then pays only for successful removals or goes unlimited if volume warrants. The bottleneck is building scrapers for platforms that do not want to be scraped. Hard problem, worth solving.
Naming and a cautionary SEO tale
He chose Bustem after passing on “Busted” for obvious reasons. Started on bustem.co to save five grand, then migrated to bustem.com later and created ranking issues. Now he is cleaning it up with SEO and branded search ads. Moral of the story. Buy the right domain up front if you can.
Ecom vs SaaS, zoomed out
Consumer feels like a roller coaster, driven by moments, waves, and channel luck. Software rewards steady iteration, stickier value, and compounding retention. If you can tie your output to revenue protected or revenue created, and keep making the product harder to replace, you earn room to grow.
Where ecom might be headed
We batted around the AI future. Agents that know your tastes, budget, and calendar will auto-purchase routine items and nudge gifts you would have missed. Search is shifting from Google and Amazon to assistants. That could grow total ecom and reduce Amazon’s share over time. It also raises consolidation questions if assistants tend to return a small set of favored brands. Either way, operators in seat when the shift accelerates will feel the tailwind.
If you run a brand and you are scaling, enforcement is no longer optional. Bad actors tax your P and L every month whether you look or not. The win is to quantify the leak, make approvals a one-click habit, report dollars protected everywhere the customer looks, and price so that upgrades are obvious at scale. That is how Oliver is building Bustem. Straight line from pain to product to payback.
