This 25-year-old makes a six-figure annual income selling bikinis online. And no, he’s not a glamorous, bronzed Instagram model with a sexy bikini body. He’s not even a female. He’s a marketing graduate who wanted to solve a problem for his female customers — swimwear that is both supportive and stylish.

Bikinis weren’t John Moran’s first foray into business. But it’s been his most successful by far. The millennial entrepreneur actually started his one-man business from a college dorm room in 2014, where he set up a website to sell beach-inspired jewelry he had designed.

It wasn’t until he decided to ask his social media followers what they would like him to produce next that he considered swimwear. And thankfully he listened, launching his swimsuit line Vaya Island in 2016.

“I wanted to make really comfortable, soft bikinis,” Moran, who’s from Cape Cod, Mass., told Forbes. Since then, Vaya Island has gone on to become a bikini empire.

In 2017, Moran’s initial batch of bikinis sold out and his business brought in $110,000. In 2018, he raked in an impressive $500,000.

But building his bikini business hasn’t been a walk on the beach. Moran admits that he dived in with no experience designing swimwear, and his operation was self-funded. However, he trusted his customers and wanted to give them what they wanted.

Moran started by turning to Alibaba, a Chinese-based marketplace for manufacturers, to learn how to sketch swimsuits. He ordered over a dozen samples and had his female friends try them on for feedback — learning a lot about the intricacies of what makes a bikini comfortable and supportive.

But he also didn’t want to compromise on style. Eventually, he found the right supplier, hiring a company in Hawaii to design chic prints and using them to begin producing bikinis from his sketches.

And to make sure he continues to keep his finger on the pulse with his customers, he frequently polls his followers on his Instagram stories.

“It’s helped us with choosing the right products our customers want,” he told Forbes. “It gives me more confidence and eliminates risk from my end.”

To promote his brand, the 25-year-old collaborated with Instagram models and influencers and paid them to post about his bikinis on their social media feed. Some of the pricier posts he considered ranged from $1,000 to $9,000 per post, he admitted, before learning that the number of followers doesn’t necessarily convert to sales.

“Someone with 1 million followers might not get as much engagement as someone with 400,000 followers,” he said.

But tapping into influencer marketing isn’t the only way he has propelled his brand. Moran has also leveraged other opportunities on social media, investing in Facebook ads and offering coupon codes for customers.

“If I spend $1,000 on an ad set, I can see how much I made by the end of the week,” he said. “I can see an upward tilt in traffic on my website.”

Eventually, he got up to 80 to 100 orders a day and has since gone on to outsource his orders to a fulfillment center, which stores and ships his products from a warehouse.

“It’s freed me up to focus on driving more sales and negotiating deals with influencers,” Moran said.

But even with his company’s growth, he still plans to keep his business running as a one-man operation.

“We really control our own fate in a lot of respects,” he said.