How August Became TikTok’s #1 Period Pad Brand—Without Paid Ads
August offers a customizable subscription service for period care products, including pads, tampons, and liners, made from sustainable and non-toxic materials.
When Nadya Okamoto launched August in 2021, she wasn’t just introducing a new period-care brand—she was rewriting the growth playbook for feminine care. With $2 million in pre-seed funding and no intention of leaning on traditional paid media or influencer deals, Okamoto took a different route: she made herself go viral.
And it worked.
By posting up to 100 TikToks a day in the brand’s early days, Okamoto built an audience of over 4.3 million followers. Within five months, August’s site traffic spiked, its tampons sold out, and Okamoto proved a radical hypothesis: that founder-led, content-first brands could scale on authenticity alone.
TikTok Live Changed the Game
August isn’t just winning on TikTok—it’s dominating. In Q4 of 2024, more than half of its sales came from TikTok-exclusive bundles, making it the platform’s #1 U.S.-based period pad brand.
The secret? TikTok Live.
Okamoto began hosting regular livestreams—sometimes as much as 8 hours per week—ranging from polished studio setups to casual sessions on her bedroom floor. The result: real-time engagement, trust-building, and sales conversions at scale. More than 60% of August’s sales last quarter came from live sessions.
Why It Works
Feminine care isn’t a typical impulse buy. It requires trust, education, and space for vulnerable questions. TikTok Live creates that environment—instantly. Viewers can get their concerns answered in real time, often anonymously through chat, and then convert right on the platform.
For Okamoto, that immediate feedback loop is the most rewarding part of her work: “TikTok Shop has felt very meritocratic, and in a world that is not meritocratic, it feels very rewarding.”
Leading a Movement
August isn’t alone. Fellow period care brands like Saalt and Salt.Xo are also seeing explosive growth via TikTok Shop, with some livestreams netting five figures in under two hours. But what sets August apart is its full-throttle commitment to content as community—Okamoto doesn’t just sell products, she starts conversations.
As the feminine care market nears $5B in annual U.S. revenue, August is setting a new precedent: direct, authentic, and built for the algorithm and the customer.
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