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At 28 years old, Zhang Ye leads the supplement brand O City. In an interview, he claims to have become the largest seller on TikTok Shop in Latin America, earning about 1 million reais per day and having spent five years in the red before taking off.
Zhang Ye’s journey, linked to the TikTok Shop, is presented as a surprising turnaround. The son of a Chinese immigrant who left everything to seek a better life in Brazil, he grew up selling tea in a small shop in the interior of São Paulo and almost went bankrupt in 2021. Today, at 28, he claims to earn about 1 million reais per day and has become the largest seller on TikTok Shop in all of Latin America, leading the supplement brand O City.
The numbers he cites are impressive, but they come from the entrepreneur’s own mouth. According to Zhang Ye, the company earned 115 million reais last year and aims for 500 million this year, selling between 800 thousand and 1 million bottles per month. The story was told in a video interview, and it’s important to clarify that these figures are claims of the interviewee, without independent verification. The information is based on a video published on the Cakto channel on YouTube.
From the tea shop to the top of TikTok Shop
The origin of the story is far from the current luxury. Zhang Ye defines himself as the first generation of his family born outside of China and says he grew up in an environment of traditional Chinese medicine, learning about herbs and natural treatments. At 15, his mother put him to serve customers in the market shop, in direct contact with the public.
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It was from this universe that his interest in supplementation was born. Tired of selling third-party brands, Zhang Ye decided to create his own brand with the founding partner, betting on formulas he describes as transparent and cost-effective. According to him, it was this combination that explains the rapid growth of the business, which entered TikTok Shop only in July of last year and, according to his words, has already surpassed 100 million reais in revenue on the platform in less than a year.
The goal of 1 million reais per day
The most attention-grabbing number in the interview is the daily revenue. Zhang Ye claims that the company reached the mark of 1 million reais per day on November 6, 2025, after placing a plaque with this goal in the office to keep the team focused. In February, according to him, the average was around 900 and a few thousand per day.
More than the value itself, it highlights the team’s mindset. Zhang Ye states that, for his employees, earning 1 million per day has become normal, while other business owners are shocked by the figure when he mentions it in lectures. It’s worth emphasizing that this revenue is self-reported and has not been independently audited, something the reader should keep in mind when evaluating the real scale of the business described in the video.
Five years in the red before success
Behind the current revenue, there is a long phase of difficulties that he insists on remembering. Zhang Ye states that the company spent almost five years in the negative and that the path was far from easy. Before getting it right, he recounts having tried several physical businesses that failed, such as jewelry stores, clothing stores, and Chinese product stores.
The hardships of this period were significant. According to the entrepreneur, he lived with five other guys in a single apartment, where they competed to see who spent the least per day on food, and part of the team earned about 1,000 reais per month working until midnight. He also reports that he had to sell a car and move to a cheaper apartment in 2021 or 2022, when the company was struggling to pay the bills.
The subscription and recurrence strategy
One of the business points explained in the interview is the subscription model adopted by the brand. Zhang Ye explains that the company created a coupon subscription, where the customer pays a small monthly fee and receives progressive discounts to use on purchases. The idea is that the benefit pays off on the first use.
The central goal of this strategy is recurrence. According to him, the biggest battle in e-commerce is getting the customer from the first to the second purchase, as this is the biggest drop, and the subscription serves precisely to encourage this return. The logic presented is that, once loyal, the consumer tends to buy repeatedly, which would sustain revenue growth over time more predictably.
The bet on live streams and international expansion
Inspired by the Chinese model, Zhang Ye sees live broadcasts as the next big step for the business. He states that, in China, TikTok Shop is much more advanced, with live streams that can generate huge sums in just a few hours. Therefore, the company is setting up studios to broadcast and sell 24 hours a day on various platforms.
The expansion plans also include going abroad. Zhang Ye reveals that the company has just opened an operation in Hong Kong, aiming to ship from China to the whole world and, according to him, target a revenue of 1 billion. As with the other figures, this is a goal declared by him, not a result already achieved, which calls for caution when interpreting the ambition presented in the interview.
The honest advice for those who want to start a business
Despite the tone of success, one of the most interesting moments is when he discourages part of the audience. Zhang Ye claims to be, to some extent, against the idea of people starting their own brand from absolute scratch nowadays, considering it very difficult. For him, promising easy success would be misleading to the viewers.
Instead of promises, he offers a more technical path. Zhang Ye recommends that beginners understand logic, mathematics, sales funnel, and digital marketing tools before starting, warning that the biggest risk is not just losing money, but losing time. He shares that he entered the digital world in 2020 without even knowing what an ad manager was, learning in practice during the company’s construction, and today leaves the technical work to trained employees, as he himself did not complete any of the three colleges he attended.
And you, do you believe it’s possible to repeat a story like Zhang Ye’s on TikTok Shop, or do you think these revenue numbers are too good to be true? Share in the comments what you think of this journey and if you would bet on this type of business.
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