Samuel Wennberg looks into the camera, smiles wryly, and asks his thousands of followers if they want to "turn over 100,000 a day." If so, he has the solution. It's about following what he calls his "ingenious model" in e-commerce – a kind of unique and secret recipe. The model has "given me a life that is completely limitless – where I can travel constantly, drive all my dream cars, and buy all the timepieces I want. Which has simply given me a life that everyone really wants," Samuel Wennberg tells his audience. Young followers on TikTok and Instagram are urged to pay between 6,000 and 16,000 SEK to access the recipe called X-Commerce. They then get to attend Samuel Wennberg's training, and during the course sections, he's supposed to reveal all the secrets, not least in marketing. "Perhaps the most valuable of them all," he writes. Samuel Wennberg is 26 years old and made a name for himself when he and his father sold the racket company Tengo to the sports group Wesports a few years ago. Since then, he has appeared regularly in the media, both locally and in industry press. For example, he has been featured in articles on Breakit and in a podcast from Dagens Media titled "How to build an e-commerce business." He has over 42,000 followers on TikTok and almost as many on Instagram. Some of his posts have over half a million views. "There's no one better than me in Sweden. Not even internationally is there anyone with my results," Samuel Wennberg says in a TikTok post about his own e-commerce expertise. His videos are often filled with graphs and other testimonials from course participants. Almost all of them are about how quickly revenue has risen, very few about other things that are important if you want to create viable e-commerce companies, such as profitability, liquidity planning, and inventory levels. [https://cdn.breakit.se/assets/media/images/cf2cd9c44347e3dca7b4bf823dfec50d.png] Samuel Wennberg's social media accounts are also overflowing with fast cars, expensive dinners, and luxury hotels. This is what your life could soon look like, is the underlying message. In another post, Samuel Wennberg talks about a 17-year-old named Carl. Four months after starting and completing the training, his company is valued at 8 million SEK. By whom is not stated. Carl lives in Spain and, according to the video, has not even seen a package his company has sent to customers. "Everyone is capable. He and I – we are just like you," Samuel Wennberg says in the video. "You can't learn this better from anyone else," he continues, as he jumps into a lime-green Lamborghini and urges followers to sign up for X-Commerce. There are many, many similar videos. HOW IT STARTS "We are ruined by this," says course participant and entrepreneur Richie Hunjan. Richie Hunjan is one of several course participants Breakit has been in contact with for this investigation. Most are young and inexperienced, but their testimonies are similar. Richie Hunjan is 24 years old and attended a university in Chicago. He now lives in Gothenburg. In the spring of 2024, he buys a course from Samuel Wennberg, and they meet a month later. They become close and start socializing. Samuel Wennberg promises to mentor the new company, Naturexperten, which Richie Hunjan has just started with two friends. In exchange, Samuel Wennberg gets an opportunity to become a co-owner through a kind of option arrangement. During the summer, Naturexperten opens its e-commerce store – without much start-up capital. This is one of the starting points in the model taught via X-Commerce, according to the sources Breakit has spoken with. That companies can be started with minimal capital, perhaps even as a sole proprietorship. In that case, you don't need share capital, but you are also liable to pay the company's debts with private funds, which can have devastating consequences. The next step in the model is to choose a niche and contact suppliers within it. The entrepreneur offers to sell their products in the store being set up in the Shopify e-commerce system. In Naturexperten's case, it was products for hiking, camping, and running. The assortment is then uploaded to the website, however, without having any inventory of its own, as that would have required larger start-up capital. Product prices are set slightly below competitors', which is also part of the model. When the first orders come in, the money is used, not least, to buy more ads, for example, "Google Ads." This is possible thanks to credits from suppliers. The ads boost sales even more, and then the process continues in the same way. In short, you act as an intermediary. The recipe includes little or no own inventory at all, where products are ordered as orders come in – and the money received is used, not least, to boost sales. This leads to revenue curves that point to the sky. Samuel Wennberg posts many of these curves on his social media to attract new course participants. Revenue also rises quickly for Richie Hunjan and his partners at Naturexperten. In the first month, the company sells for about 1 million SEK. But something is bothering them. The founders wonder if the product margins are too low but still focus on "scaling" the company, completely in line with the so-called model. "We blindly trusted him and the model, and therefore continued to scale up the business," says Richie Hunjan. HIS OWN BANKRUPTCY Breakit became aware of Samuel Wennberg's courses in connection with the bankruptcy of We Are Ecom. This is the company behind the e-commerce store Kids One Store, which Samuel Wennberg started after selling his first company, a padel racket company. When we interviewed Samuel Wennberg shortly after the bankruptcy became known, it was clear that he wanted to distance himself from the company that had just gone bankrupt in various ways. He pointed out that he had not been active in the company for several months. But his father had been active all the way until the bankruptcy. Samuel Wennberg also claimed that a theft at the warehouse led to the bankruptcy. It was so large that it caused a significant financial blow. Despite this, the major theft was not discovered until the company was about to be sold. On Trustpilot, among other places, we also saw that many customers were angry and had written an unusually large number of reviews about undelivered goods from Kids One Store, and not just close to the bankruptcy. So we encountered unclear circumstances and a multitude of question marks – far too many for us to be able to publish Samuel Wennberg's full version of how everything happened without first finding out a lot more. It wasn't long before we realized the extent of Samuel Wennberg's course activities. In marketing the courses, Samuel Wennberg not only uses former participants and luxury cars – screenshots from previous Breakit articles are also frequently used. [https://cdn.breakit.se/assets/media/images/c22761bfbd9cb3dd3d19ab14afea0a71.png] In the interview regarding the We Are Ecom bankruptcy, he said something else that made us pause. When asked what he would do next, Samuel Wennberg replied that he had become involved in several other e-commerce companies and that he could buy into them through an option arrangement. But strangely enough, he didn't want to say which companies they were. And he wanted to continue flying under the radar. "We have chosen that I should not be on the board, so that it doesn't become public – since I've become a bit more public. It so easily becomes negative," he said. Why does Samuel Wennberg, with tens of thousands of followers on social media and with a model that he claims is extremely successful, want to hide? THE END OF NATUREXPERTEN Revenue continues to rise for Naturexperten. On Samuel Wennberg's social media, the founders are highlighted as new star students. Everything points upwards. Everything related to sales and advertising expenses, that is. Because in reality, the founders work almost around the clock, according to Richie Hunjan. They pack parcels and answer "angry emails." Because now customers are starting to contact them. Not infrequently, their ordered goods are out of stock with the supplier, and they want their money back. This is something that recurs in the stories Breakit has heard from several former course participants. Suppliers also want to be paid for the products that have actually been shipped. But much of the liquidity has gone to Google ads, not least before Black Week, and to other incidental expenses. Naturexperten's debts skyrocket, and finally, the entrepreneurs' well-being can no longer be hidden from their relatives. "After Black Friday, our parents started to notice how mentally drained we were – and how much influence Samuel had over us," says Richie Hunjan. Richie Hunjan's father, who is an economist and has run companies himself, begins to examine Naturexperten's figures in depth. A crisis meeting is held, and then two of the three founders cut ties with Samuel Wennberg, who at this point had deviated from his own policy and joined the board. Shortly thereafter, it's over. When the bankruptcy becomes a fact at the beginning of March this year, there are, according to Richie Hunjan, debts of over 1 million SEK in the company. It could have been much worse if they hadn't pulled the emergency brake. A few hundred thousand of that sum refers to debts to customers, an amount for which the company representatives are personally liable due to an agreement with the supplier Svea Bank. "It felt like we had been fraudsters – something we absolutely did not want to be," says Richie Hunjan, who still has a debt to pay off. OTHER TESTIMONIES Breakit has received a number of testimonies and sequences of events that are reminiscent of Naturexperten's story. We have also spoken with other people who have had insight into Samuel Wennberg's way of doing business. Many things recur: minimal start-up capital, the strategy of lower prices than competitors, delivery problems – and above all, the unilateral focus on advertising and turnover. Of course, in some cases, rapid sales growth can be excellent. That it becomes a kind of base to build on – and that you may eventually achieve profitability. Then it helps if you have capital and satisfied customers. In the companies linked to Samuel Wennberg, both components are missing in several cases. In both Kids One Store and in course participants' companies, there are swarms of customers raging against undelivered products and missing refunds. "Samuel doesn't say anything about returns, and he never says anything about refunds," summarizes another young entrepreneur who took a course with X-Commerce after discovering Samuel Wennberg on TikTok and who later had to sell personal assets to cover the debts that arose. Another entrepreneur, Pontus Johansson, describes how his e-commerce store for rehabilitation products was launched in the autumn of 2024. When the figures are summarized after four months of ad purchases and a steep increase in sales, the bottom line shows minus 150,000 SEK. To cover the deficit, this course participant had to take funds from another company. "It hurt. I had put an enormous amount of work and effort into building up the other company, and to see everything go up in smoke because of a model that I perceived as promising but that didn't hold up. It was tough," says Pontus Johansson. [https://cdn.breakit.se/assets/media/images/b42551135b4a9b065091549bb95fd5da.png] Yet another course participant Breakit spoke with also discovered Samuel Wennberg on TikTok and became curious about the secret. That adventure also ended in bankruptcy. Revenue initially increased, and then came the problems with products being out of stock with the supplier and customers wanting their money back. "Samuel sells this by saying that the model can be run with minimal capital. But that's a lie. It's not possible. As soon as turnover starts to increase, you need money in the company to be able to keep it running," says this person. A fifth source, who also wishes to remain anonymous because they fear reprisals if they were to be named, also ended up in bankruptcy after starting an e-commerce company based on the X-Commerce concept. That story also follows the same pattern. INVESTIGATION INTO THREATS Richie Hunjan says that after the bankruptcy, he tried to warn others in Samuel Wennberg's community. But the criticism expressed in the course company's Discord channel, which students have access to, was dismissed or deleted. Then something happens that turns his life upside down. In a shaky surveillance video, two masked men are seen slowly walking up to a villa where Richie Hunjan lives. They attach something to the patio railing just outside the front door. A note. "One more chance to back off from what you're doing. Next time it will be a thermos or a grenade," it says. The unknown perpetrators leave a similar note on the car parked in the driveway. [https://cdn.breakit.se/assets/media/images/627d50e033cab12a457ed73a064270d6.png] The incident has been reported to the police, and an investigation is ongoing. There is a suspect of a lower degree, says preliminary investigation leader Jim Thorsson to Breakit. "We have some technical evidence, and we are awaiting a response from there," he also says. The police do not want to comment on who the suspect is, or what the threat is believed to be linked to. At this stage, it has not been established that the threats are related to Richie Hunjan's entrepreneurship. But Richie Hunjan firmly dismisses that the threats could be linked to anything else in his life than the criticism of X-Commerce. Samuel Wennberg has nothing to do with the matter, he states. "I have no knowledge of what is behind that incident, and there is, as far as known, no connection whatsoever to me or my company," Samuel Wennberg writes to Breakit. CULTURE OF SILENCE It has now been almost two months since the masked men placed the notes saying what would happen if Richie Hunjan didn't back down. But now he still wants to tell his story – to warn other young people who dream of becoming successful entrepreneurs and who are considering taking a course with Samuel Wennberg's company. Today, Richie Hunjan likens X-Commerce to a cult, and he describes Samuel Wennberg as a very skilled communicator. "We were, quite frankly, brainwashed, and it was thanks to our parents that we got out of this." Other course participants also describe being silenced. One person, who wishes to remain anonymous, tells Breakit that they have received threats of legal action from lawyers hired by Samuel Wennberg. This was after expressing criticism of the course and the model in the shared Discord channel. The email from the law firm En & Son, which Breakit has seen, mentions police reports and lawsuits as possible actions if the course participant did not "immediately" cease what was described in the message as potential defamation. Another also spontaneously uses the word "cult" when he looks back on his time in the community. You are ostracized if you disagree with X-Commerce course material. He returns to this bubble when Breakit asks about his own responsibility for the bankruptcy and the undelivered goods to customers. "You're not allowed to talk about the course material with anyone else, meaning anyone who hasn't bought the course. I couldn't bounce ideas off anyone outside X-Commerce. Then they would sue me or whatever it says in the agreement," a participant says. WHAT HE SAYS HIMSELF When Breakit reaches Samuel Wennberg, he declines a verbal interview and instead wants the questions in writing. He begins his reply letter by stating that he has been in contact with his lawyer regarding the questions and that he will continue to seek legal assistance "to respond to/handle what you may write." How do you view the bankruptcy of Naturexperten, where you were on the board and held options? "I was briefly on the board during the build-up. I have not been operational in the company. The bankruptcy is, of course, sad, but it happens in entrepreneurship – everyone who builds companies knows that sometimes it doesn't go all the way," he replies. Thereafter, Samuel Wennberg's version of events surrounding Naturexperten is completely different from what Richie Hunjan has told. Samuel Wennberg writes, among other things, that he himself "was subjected to all sorts of things" before he distanced himself, and this is said to involve Richie Hunjan's father, Kamalpal Hunjan, asking for a private loan. When Samuel Wennberg declined, the relationship worsened. The criticism of X-Commerce is, according to Samuel Wennberg's version, primarily motivated by revenge for the denied loan. "It is an organized smear attack from individuals with a clear malicious intent," Samuel Wennberg writes. Kamalpal Hunjan confirms to Breakit that he asked Samuel Wennberg about a loan, but refutes the other claims. There are many testimonies that many who have taken the X-Commerce course experience problems in their companies at a later stage, especially with deliveries and liquidity. How do you view this? "We are always clear that building e-commerce is tough. Some will encounter obstacles – especially regarding growth, inventory management, and cash flow. I would also say that this is generally the case with company building in these times. Our responsibility is to provide tools and education within our field, but the practical operation is always the student's," Samuel Wennberg replies. This article began with a small taste of how Samuel Wennberg markets himself and the courses on social media. He himself believes that he is clear that e-commerce is not easy and that hard work is required to succeed. He gives no guarantees, he emphasizes. The purpose of showcasing "success" in marketing is to lower the threshold for others considering starting an entrepreneurial journey. "I show cars, watches, lifestyle – to inspire. I speak to a hungry target group looking for life change. I have never claimed that anyone will get rich by buying my course. I motivate and inspire people to dare to take the step," he also writes. Several of the former course students I have spoken with describe X-Commerce as a cult where no criticism of you or the model is allowed. How do you view this? "That's a strange description. We have an active Discord community where people constantly question, give feedback, and discuss openly. There is full transparency. I believe this type of accusation rather reflects a few who are disappointed and seeking confirmation for their failure." COURSES GENERATE PROFIT – FOR SAMUEL WENNBERG Despite the bankruptcies in the wake of X-Commerce, business is booming for Samuel Wennberg himself. His company, WLE AB, had a turnover of just over 7 million SEK and made a profit of 4 million in 2024. This is the company behind the courses. It is difficult to know with certainty which other companies Samuel Wennberg is personally connected to through his option arrangement, as he does not sit on their boards. This is, as previously mentioned, a highly deliberate strategy. However, two companies that appear multiple times – for example, in conversations with sources and in the course marketing – when we investigate Samuel Wennberg are Zoofabriken and Kockensredskap (formally Quadvision AB). Both companies share the same address that Samuel Wennberg's bankrupt company We Are Ecom had in Båstad, which is also Samuel Wennberg's hometown. Another common trait is that they disappoint many customers. Zoofabriken is run by two young guys. They are highlighted as star students on the X-Commerce website. But on review sites, the tone is familiar. There are swarms of people who have bought but not received any products from Zoofabriken. The frustration is particularly great among customers who cannot get in contact with the company. It looks similar for Kockensredskap. We checked with the Swedish Consumer Agency about how many complaints they have received regarding Zoofabriken, Kockensredskap, and Kids One Store since the beginning of 2024. The answer is 173, almost half of which concern Zoofabriken, and in most cases, it's about products that have not been delivered. Several people have also turned to the Swedish Enforcement Authority in an attempt to get their refunds from Zoofabriken. Samuel Wennberg says that he is not operational in Zoofabriken or Kockensredskap but that he "has been involved in the initial setup." Samuel Wennberg replies "no comment" to the question of whether he owns options in these two companies. At the same time, he regrets that there are customers who have had negative experiences when buying products from these two e-commerce retailers. "It's never something you wish for. At the same time, it's not uncommon for young companies to experience growth problems, especially when they grow rapidly. I am not responsible for the operational management but have conveyed my view to the companies that they must take these issues very seriously," Samuel Wennberg writes in his replies. It is impossible to answer what proportion of course participants who started companies according to the X-Commerce model later went bankrupt and became disappointed. Samuel Wennberg does not want to say how many people have bought the course, but according to the course company's website, it has had over 250 "helped customers." Of course, there may also be course participants who have had more lasting success with the model. When we ask for examples of companies started by former course students that have made a profit for an entire fiscal year, Samuel Wennberg replies that he does not feel free to highlight other people's companies. "It would be disloyal of me in relation to them. Especially not in an article of this type that you seem to be considering producing," he continues. He also states that the companies that have been mentioned in the dialogue with Breakit are currently generating profit. In addition, he highlights two companies, Travelandbags and Kockensval, as examples of two student companies that have positive reviews on Trustpilot. He is equally scarce with information regarding his own track record as an e-commerce entrepreneur. Samuel Wennberg's first company, the sold padel equipment company Tengo, grew in a short time to generate a turnover of 67 million SEK in 2021. But the company did not make a profit then, nor the year after. His second company, We Are Ecom, went bankrupt without having shown a profit in any annual report. Are you, or have you been, personally involved in any company that has shown a profit for an entire fiscal year, apart from WLE AB (the course company)? "Yes, of course, I will not bring up these company names in a public exposé on Breakit, however. And you also have to consider that most of the companies I have been involved in have been strong growth companies during their first or second year, where the bottom-line result is often not the highest priority." "ASK A LOT" Richie Hunjan says he is doing okay today. He and the other sources Breakit has spoken with state that there are many more course participants who are struggling. Richie Hunjan also feels a sense of personal responsibility for how things turned out. So does his father, Kamalpal Hunjan, who says he tried to save the company before the bankruptcy. Kamalpal Hunjan says that he was skeptical of the model the "boys" wanted to use from the beginning and therefore demanded to handle Naturexperten's accounting. "I have followed the journey from scratch. But we let the boys do what they wanted to do," he says. He describes his son and his friends as blinded by Samuel Wennberg's alleged successes, something that was reinforced when they were invited to dinners, trips, and sports car rides. But it can't all be blamed on Samuel. You were on the board and handled the accounting. Some of the responsibility must fall on you? "Absolutely. But the problem was that we couldn't get our kids on board. I could have just let it go and said you'll have to take care of this yourselves. I tried a few times, and then they called me negative. When I asked difficult questions, they wanted to remove me from the company and the accounting. But I stayed and tried to solve it," replies Kamalpal Hunjan. One of the anonymous entrepreneurs says that despite everything, he has learned things. How to take care of customers and have good contact with suppliers, for example. And: "You shouldn't trust people who sell courses too much. Be critical and ask others. And ask a lot. Don't buy what someone is selling you right away." Do you know more? Email the reporter martin@breakit.se
