2 brothers built a fashion empire by locking people out

Is the best way to sell clothes is to make them impossible to buy?

Two brothers from Spain thought so.

Moad and Ibrahim started Trikko in 2018 from their bedroom with zero funding, zero connections, and zero business experience.

Six years later, they're generating seven-figure revenue entirely through organic marketing.

How’d they do it?

A password-protected website that stays locked 99% of the time.

You can't just browse their store whenever you feel like buying something.

You have to join a waitlist, wait for them to send you a password, then hope you're fast enough to buy something before it sells out in minutes.

This sounds like the worst possible e-commerce strategy until you realise they have 100s of thousands of people on that waitlist, all desperately waiting for permission to spend money on their clothes.

I think this is brilliant.

Instead of making their products easily accessible like every other brand, they've made access itself the product.

Getting the password feels like joining an exclusive club.

Actually managing to buy something before it sells out feels like winning a competition.

Trikko competes on exclusivity, and it turns out that's way more powerful than anyone realised

They've gamified the entire shopping experience.

Each monthly drop becomes an event that their community looks forward to, talks about, and shares with friends who aren't on the inside yet.

The scarcity isn't artificial - they genuinely produce limited quantities - but the anticipation drives genuine emotional investment in the brand.

The content strategy supporting this model is equally unconventional.

Moad appears in videos wearing a signature mask, using distinctive AI voiceovers to tell stories about building the brand from nothing.

Their social media doesn't feel like typical fashion marketing.

It feels like documentary footage of two brothers trying to change their lives through sheer determination.

They're not selling clothes as much as they're selling identity.

Their tagline is "By brothers, for game changers" and everything they do reinforces this aspirational positioning.

They explicitly tell potential customers that their brand isn't for people who "sit on their butt" or are "followers not leaders."

This is reverse psychology my friends.

It attracts more customers by creating a sense of aspiration and exclusivity.

They've also integrated music collaborations with artists like Central Cee and Rauw Alejandro, crazy!!

My only question is…

Can you maintain exclusivity indefinitely as you grow?

Will customer FOMO fatigue set in over time?

How do you expand beyond your core demographic without losing authenticity?

But right now, Trikko have proven that making your products harder to buy can actually increase demand, that authenticity often beats polish, and that selling identity is more powerful than selling products.

Their success challenges every assumption about modern e-commerce.

Trikko literally added friction deliberately and discovered that the friction itself became part of the value proposition.

The brothers recently moved from their basement to a dedicated office space after six years of grinding, with plans to reach eight-figure revenue by 2026.

Apparently the best way to get people to want something is to make them work for the privilege of buying it.

Who knew!

If you’re curious, you can check out their Instagram here →

Remember, the creator mindset is all you need to grow 🌱

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