ADbag is, at heart, a distribution business.

We distribute mailing bags to online sellers. Those sellers distribute products to customers. And, through the bags themselves, brands can distribute their message directly into UK homes.

Yesterday, I was reminded that distribution is not only physical.

Of the 215,000 initial order, we had 132 packs of our 10" × 14" ADbags remaining, with 100 bags in each pack. We are readying for the next 300,000 ADbag delivery, so needed this managed and solved quickly. I chose to add them onto TikTok Shop, recorded a quick video and posted it.

Within two hours, all 13,200 packs had been claimed.

The morning’s problem was how to move the stock.

The afternoon’s problem was how to pack, label and dispatch 132 parcels quickly enough.

It would be easy to describe this as a successful sales video. But I think the more important lesson is about access.

Most start-ups do not begin with a shortage of ideas. They begin with a shortage of attention, contacts, credibility and routes into the market.

Traditionally, reaching thousands of potential customers required a sizeable advertising budget, an established distribution network or someone influential deciding to open a door.

TikTok can remove much of that distance.

It allows a founder to explain an idea directly, put it in front of people who may find it relevant and receive an answer from the market almost immediately.

Sometimes that answer is silence.

Sometimes it is criticism.

And occasionally, it is 132 orders arriving before you have fully considered where all the postage labels will be printed.

This is the second time TikTok has created a significant moment of progress for ADbag. That does not mean virality is a business strategy. Attention is only valuable when there is something real behind it: a useful product, a clear proposition and an operation capable of dealing with the response.

But for an early-stage company, attention at the right moment can act like a bridge where previously there was only open ground.

At 57, I am probably not the person many would picture when imagining a TikTok success story.

But perhaps that picture is now outdated.

Digital platforms are becoming less concerned with whether someone looks like a conventional creator and more concerned with whether what they are saying is useful, interesting or worth sharing.

Experience still matters.

Knowledge of your product still matters.

Passion still matters.

The skill is learning how to carry those things into a new medium without pretending to be someone else.

Yesterday, TikTok distributed our message.

Today, we are distributing the bags.

The algorithm opened the door.

We still had to carry 132 parcels through it.