Zero Ads, 40,000 Sales: How Exploded Sweets Cracked Temu. Joining us on The Ostrich Report as our frist guest is Rhys "Wetherspoon employee Extraordinaire" Sandford. Talking to us about his Temu success. No one ever buys something the first time they see it… said Rhys Sandford Many have reported this story because of the numbers but listening to Rhys and learning you know this will be a watershed moment in a great career. There is so much more to come from th
Learn How How a former Wetherspoons kitchen worker built a freeze-dried sweet brand that sold 40,000 products on Temu in just two months, without spending a penny on ads. This week on The Ostrich Report we sat down with Rhys Sandford of Exploded Sweets and, honestly, it was a masterclass in modern marketplace selling.
Rhys told us:
“No one ever buys something the first time they see it. You’ve got to constantly have these implants into people’s brains… where we currently use at Exploded Sweets, this cross-platform approach of being in people’s faces. People’s attention spans at the minute – they’ll scroll through 100 TikTok videos within ten minutes… having that cross-platform advertisement helps build those imprints into people quite early on.”
💥 Key numbers that stopped us in our tracks:
– 40,000 units sold on Temu within the first 2 months.
– 500 units sold in the first 3 days of launch.
– One customer placed 48 separate orders in 6 months.
– New product ideas turned around in days, not months.
– Feedback loops as fast as 3–5 days from purchase to implementation.
💡 What we learned from Rhys:
– Marketplaces aren’t just sales channels; they’re real-time R&D labs.
– Cross-platform discoverability isn’t copy/paste — you need unique twists for each platform.
– A culture of listening + iteration beats a big ad budget.
– Early adoption is a test lab, not a gamble. Rhys used Temu to refine products and discover new demographics (older generations as well as parents/kids).
– Speed is the new moat: feedback Monday, change Thursday, higher-quality product by Friday.
🍭 Why this matters: Most CPG brands are still fighting algorithms, paying to get seen, and waiting weeks for insights. Rhys built a feedback loop so tight it turns sweets into data points and customers into collaborators.
Hendrik called it “utopia” during the recording. I called it a “unicorn” moment. If you sell on marketplaces (or want to), this is your wake-up call.
🎧 Listen to the full episode of The Ostrich Report here:
Tagging my co-host Hendrik Laubscher and giving a nod to our community partners at EVOLVE Commerce Club for helping us share stories like this.
For prospective sellers, visit Temu's seller portal at
https://seller.temu.com/
