How we scaled to $100M in under a year (ft. IM8 co-founder Danny Yeung)

Episode of My First Million · September 7, 2026 · 54 min

Shaan Puri interviews Danny Yeung about building IM8, the David Beckham co-founded supplement brand, plus his earlier e-commerce and COVID testing businesses.

Summary

Shaan Puri hosted Danny Yeung, co-founder of the supplement brand IM8, who said the company reached a $100 million annual revenue run rate in 11 months and $200 million in 18 months. Yeung recounted his career from teenage timeshare telemarketer in San Francisco to restaurant owner, hotel furniture importer with a $4 million MGM contract, founder of the Hong Kong group-buying site later partly acquired by Groupon, and founder of Prenetics, which became a major COVID-19 PCR testing provider in Hong Kong and the UK before its revenue collapsed by 95% after the pandemic.

Yeung described meeting David Beckham, who found supplement routines overwhelming, and insisting Beckham be a co-founder rather than an ambassador while the brand outlive celebrity association. He explained IM8's positioning as a red 90-ingredient daily powder replacing 16 supplements, its naming, a scientific advisory board, third-party testing, and inbound athlete ambassadors such as Aryna Sabalenka. He described running 2,000 to 3,000 Meta ads at once, testing hundreds of creators weekly, and said customer acquisition cost fell even as marketing spend doubled, which he partly attributed to over 200 offline events.

The pair discussed rejection in sales, with Puri recounting his uncle's practice of pricing each "no," and Yeung telling how persistence won a key Hong Kong restaurant partnership. Yeung explained rapidly laying off about 2,000 staff after COVID testing ended, contrasting Prenetics with overbuilt competitors. They closed on the primacy of building the best product, founder involvement versus hired CEOs, and Puri's view that founders must alternate between delusion and realism.

Chapters

  1. 0:24

    Danny Yeung's background

    Yeung outlined his path from telemarketer to restaurants, hotel furniture, Hong Kong e-commerce, and Prenetics.

  2. 2:56

    Prenetics' fall and the Beckham meeting

    Yeung described the post-COVID collapse in valuation and how a conversation with David Beckham led to IM8.

  3. 6:51

    What IM8 is and its growth

    Yeung explained the product, pricing, and record revenue run-rate milestones.

  4. 10:07

    Category, positioning, and branding

    Yeung discussed overcoming board opposition, taste testing, the red color, and the IM8 name.

  5. 14:46

    Science and credibility

    Yeung described recruiting a scientific advisory board, clinical trials, third-party testing, and the Sabalenka partnership.

  6. 19:59

    China market and paid acquisition machine

    Yeung discussed entering China and IM8's Meta ad volume, creator testing, CAC trends, and offline events.

  7. 27:58

    Telemarketing and handling rejection

    Yeung and Puri discussed early sales lessons, persistence, and the Sandeep restaurant deal.

  8. 35:54

    The MGM furniture contract

    Yeung explained how sourcing furniture from China led to a $4 million MGM deal.

  9. 38:14

    Scaling COVID testing in Hong Kong

    Yeung recounted Prenetics' at-home PCR tests, government contracts, and fast layoffs when the pandemic ended.

  10. 46:37

    Lessons for entrepreneurs

    They discussed building the best product, founder mode, and balancing delusion with realism.

Key points

What was said, by whom, with the exact words. Timestamps jump to the moment.

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said Prenetics generated over $700 million in revenue during three pandemic years, with over $100 million net profit.

    “Those three years, we did 700 million plus revenue in three years' time”

    Listen from 2:51 · COVID-19 testing in Hong Kong

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said he insisted Beckham be a co-founder but that the brand must outlive him rather than be a celebrity brand.

    “I don't want you just as ambassador, I want you as a co-founder, but this brand has to live beyond you”

    Listen from 4:59 · IM8

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said IM8 replaces 16 supplements costing $250-300 a month at a $90 monthly price.

    “It has 90 ingredients, replaces 16 different supplements in a powder sachet”

    Listen from 7:32 · Dietary supplement industry

  • Linked moment · 8:35Skip to 8:35 using a listen link in the info box.

    Danny Yeung

    Yeung said IM8 reached a $100 million revenue run rate in 11 months and $200 million in 18 months, faster than Gruns and AG1.

    “We hit 100 million annual revenue run rate at 11 months”

    Listen from 8:35 · IM8

  • Shaan Puri

    Puri argued category and positioning are underrated and hard to recover from if wrong.

    “I think those are highly underrated and most people are terrible at that. And it's very hard to recover if you have category and positioning wrong”

    Listen from 9:18 · Brand positioning

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said his board opposed entering supplements and he offered to resign if wrong.

    “If I'm wrong, I'm going to resign. I'm going to quit, right? That was my position”

    Listen from 11:14 · Entrepreneurship

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung acknowledged many supplements don't work and argued recurring subscriptions validate IM8's efficacy.

    “can't be a 200 million plus business without recurring subscriptions. And that means the product works as advertised”

    Listen from 18:24 · Dietary supplement industry

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said most American companies fail in China and he would need an entirely new team to enter it.

    “99% of American companies go into China and think they can just succeed with the same business model”

    Listen from 20:38 · IM8

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung argued ad buying has become a commodity because Meta handles targeting, so creative diversity is what matters.

    “All you need to really figure out is how do you get really good creatives and really good creative diversity on the different personas”

    Listen from 23:43 · Meta advertising and creative testing

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said IM8 doubled quarterly marketing spend yet its customer acquisition cost fell slightly.

    “We doubled it from about $17 to $33 million in a quarter. Our CAC actually went down by $4 from $305, $301”

    Listen from 24:13 · Meta advertising and creative testing

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung argued offline events matter especially in the age of AI, when people cannot tell what is real.

    “especially in the age of AI. You don't know what's real, you don't know what's fake or whatever, right?”

    Listen from 26:40 · Experiential marketing events

  • Shaan Puri

    Puri recounted that his uncle became a top door-to-door salesman by assigning a dollar value to each rejection.

    “I put a price on the word no. So he said, if a yes is worth $100 to me”

    Listen from 35:16 · Telemarketing and sales rejection

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung said quickly laying off about 2,000 staff when COVID ended was the right decision, unlike competitors that overbuilt and went bankrupt.

    “It was right when we knew COVID was over. I let go of 2000 people very, very fast. And that turned out to be a really good decision”

    Listen from 44:39 · COVID-19 testing in Hong Kong

  • Danny Yeung

    Yeung argued founders take risks hired CEOs won't and should stay involved in all key decisions.

    “the founders were able to take risks that a CEO wouldn't be able to take”

    Listen from 47:01 · Entrepreneurship

  • Shaan Puri

    Puri argued founders must alternate between delusional faith and hyper-realism.

    “somebody who's never delusional, they end up being an employee. And somebody who's only delusional ends up being a failed founder”

    Listen from 52:27 · Entrepreneurship

People

In the conversation

  • Shaan PuriEntrepreneur and investor, co-host of My First Million, former Twitch executive
  • Danny YeungEntrepreneur, co-founder of IM8 and founder of Prenetics

Discussed

Topics

More from My First Million

From the publisher

$1M+ problems worth solving (90+ business ideas): https://clickhubspot.com/phfl Episode 859: Shaan Puri ( https://x.com/ShaanVP ) talks to Danny Yeung ( https://x.com/DannyYeung_ ) about how he built a $200M business in 18 months. — Links: • IM8 - https://im8health.com/ — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton (joinhampton.com): My community for founders. Average member does $25m/year. Many of the guests are members. Get after it...apply: http://joinhampton.com/mfm — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire worldwide talent like Shaan and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than US equivalents. • Mercury - Shaan uses Mercury across all of his companies. you can too: http://mercury.com/ Mercury is a fintech company, not an FDIC-insured bank. Banking services provided by Choice Financial Group, Column, N.A., Members FDIC • I run all my newsletters on Beehiiv and you should too + we're giving away $10k to our favorite newsletter, check it out: beehiiv.com/mfm-challenge My First Million is a HubSpot Original Podcast // Brought to you by HubSpot Media // Production by Arie Desormeaux // Editing by Ezra Bakker Trupiano /

Summary, chapters and key points were generated from the episode transcript on October 4, 2026. Quotes are checked word for word against the transcript.

Categories: Entrepreneurship·Marketing·Nutrition