NOTE: This podcast discusses adult themes but we are careful not to describe too much. It’s mostly about tariffs.

Every founder hits a wall. For Brian Sloan, the guy behind AutoBlow—a high-tech, internet-connected sex toy for men—that wall came in the form of a 145% tariff.

This wasn’t his first rodeo. He’s been in the game 16 years. He lived in China, built deep relationships with his factory, and figured out how to bring a niche product to a mainstream customer. He knew his margins. He knew his risks. And still, he got crushed.

Here’s what happened: thanks to a sudden tariff shift, his previously duty-free product category was now facing taxes that could double the cost of importing his goods. A $200,000 container would now cost $300,000 just to get into the U.S. That’s before selling a single unit.

The kicker? The news didn’t arrive with much warning. So he kept selling—at a loss—hoping the situation would resolve before the next shipment landed. It did. Barely. But not without cost. Retailers got nervous. Canadian buyers stopped ordering. Every day became a spreadsheet nightmare of gambling on timing, cash flow, and broken policy.

Sloan didn’t ask for pity. He explained what actually happens when tariffs hit: they don’t hurt China. They hit American businesses, ones that design and market their products here but manufacture abroad—because that’s the only place where it’s still possible to make things at the price U.S. consumers expect. His factory wasn’t some faceless government proxy. It was a group of engineers, workers, and line managers he knew personally—folks who already operate on slim margins.

And the alternatives? Absurd. Building in the U.S. means paying someone to solder cheap electronics for a product that might retail for $100. Nobody’s doing that profitably.

Keep Going: What to do when your entire business goes up in smoke

John Biggs · April 29, 2024

Brian Sloan sells s*x toys. For a long time he sold a lot of them and most of them sold through Amazon. Then, overnight, his competitors started to destroy his business. By breaking his advertising systems, undercutting his prices, and reviewing his products unfairly, they essentially turned millions of dollars in sales into bupkus.

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Even now, with tariffs scaled back to 30%, the damage is done. Sloan raised prices. He’ll survive. But others won’t. Promotional goods sellers, housewares manufacturers, small operations locked into pricing contracts—this could wipe them out.

This wasn’t a tech story. It was a survival story. And in a moment when supply chains are weaponized and manufacturing is politicized, Sloan’s message was simple: we’re not bad guys. We’re just trying to make things people want at prices they can afford, and if the rules change overnight, the entire system breaks.

He made it through. Barely. And he came on Keep Going to talk about it not because he wanted to complain, but because he wanted people to understand: behind every line of policy, there’s a real business hanging on by a thread.