Affiliate Program Wind Down & Next Steps

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1d • Home

I want to start by saying thank you. Thank you for the work you've put into promoting these books I spent years writing. Thank you personally, and thank you on behalf of the business owners and aspiring business owners who will read those books and have their lives changed as a result. None of that would have happened without your effort.

To quote Warren Buffett, "Lose money for the firm and I will be understanding. Lose a shred of reputation for the firm, and I will be ruthless." [Comment directed towards Tik Tok Shop]

-->Skip to the end for next steps, you can read the in between for reasons why<---

As you can see in the headline, I've decided to wind down the affiliate program. And I want to be clear, this is NOT because of anything you guys did. It's because structurally The Tik Tok Shop platform

creates too much reputational risk for anyone with an established brand for 3 main reasons:

The platform doesn't clearly communicate to creators why a commission does or does not get paid (over which the brand has no control to communicate or even adjust). This is an automated system controlled by Tik Tok (not us) and it makes it seem - entirely through poor communication - that the brand has withheld money from the creator. Which is insane.

2. There are not enough ways to enforce brand guidelines. Meaning - if a hook says "Alex Hormozi is scamming you...if you buy his book for full price when you could buy it here for less through me" that's obviously something no brand wants to have - no matter how many sales it generates. And having to purely be reactive to this content you're literally paying commissions on, is really tough.

3. It encourages aggressive discounts. Again, this is structural, not on y'all. This is how retailers work - not great brands. In the immortal words of Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman at Ogilvy: "Any fool can sell something for less, it takes great marketing to sell the same thing for more". The platform is not conducive for building and reinforcing a brand. To be clear, this is not for me specifically, because I am happy to give information away for free, but the global incentives are purely discount driven. Not ideal.

Again, I’ve given more books away than just about anyone - I’m just commenting on the marketplace overall.

For these reasons, keeping the affiliate program open on Tik Tok Shop is no longer a risk I'm willing to take until the structure of the selling environment changes (and it may never). To be clear, this is also not an insult to how anyone makes their money. You need to do you and play the game you're in. If brands are operating within this structure, you do what you can to win. I'm saying the game needs to change. The players just play to win. 0 fault on yall.

Also - I want to be up front, since its inception, net of all fees and costs, this program + group + incentives has lost $106,242. But that pales in comparison to the damage it caused. It has lost me trust with y'all - the creators who painstakingly put in effort to promote the book. And it has lost me trust with your audiences who either were led to believe from a few upset creators (about the points I made above). Unacceptable.

-->With that said, the next steps will be as follows:<--

We're stopping any new affiliate sign ups effective 12/8/25.
We've turned off all ads effective 12/8/25
We're removing additional incentives to promote effective 12/8/25
We will pay out all creator payouts from existing videos as they continue until their views end and we will zero out all accounts. To be clear, every person here will be paid for their contribution. And if you have any issues whatsoever, PLEASE LET US KNOW. We will get it handled. I am more than capable of paying everyone what they are owed.
After accounts are zeroed and all payouts handled, we will wind down/delete this group.

I hope this provides a complete picture behind the decision and the next steps. If the platform structure changes in the future, I'd love to work with creators like you again in a way that serves everyone well. ACQ will always do what's best for its long term reputation - including making sure that you are all compensated for the work you have done.

Thank you again,

Alex

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