🎉 TOTEM TUESDAY 🎉
Heading to Decadence Arizona or Eternal NYE? 👀
This is our weekly progress report to all our favorite people.
Welcome to a special edition of the Totem Tuesday 3-2-1:
3 things we accomplished
⬇️
1) Unicorn Growth
The Totem Tribe has grown a lot this year.
We started 2025 with just over 2,000 Totems shipped, finally wrapped up preorders, stocked inventory in May, and then spent 2025 steadily picking up speed.
Now, we’re sitting at 44,500+ Totem users across 85+ countries, which is pretty wild considering this all started less than two years ago. World domination in 2026? We’re pacing ourselves… but also not really 😉
We've witnessed this real-world viral spread firsthand, with THOUSANDS of Totems on-site at EDC Las Vegas, Lost Lands, EDC Orlando and more.
A lot more Totem Tuesday readers care about the numbers than we expected, so let’s peel back the onion skin a bit. In 2025, we:
- Generated $1.7M in revenue from Totem and accessories
- Drove a 243% revenue increase in Q3/Q4 compared to 2024
- Hit our highest sales week ever in November at $120K
- Consistently achieved 5X+ return on ad spend by retargeting our massive viral audience
- Started running ads to parents, and they're popping off as well
- Are projecting $6–10M in revenue for 2026, with profitability as early as the end of Q1
Despite all this incredible growth, the community dedication that makes us Totem has been unwavering.
We still respond to every single one of the thousands of comments we get every week and pride ourselves on having the most stellar customer service anyone could ask for.
We don't plan on stopping any time soon, either.
It's all gas, no brakes over here, baby! 😎
2) Design With You, Not For You
Totem is committed to never-ending continuous improvement. If that phrase "never-ending continuous improvement" wasn't such a mouthful, I might even claim that it as our middle name. 😉
Over the course of t2025 alone, we shipped 15+ software updates for the Totem Compass—roughly one every three weeks. We're chasing that consistent 10/10 experience, and we're getting CLOSE! 🤌
The difference between the Totem Compass now and the beginning of 2025 is vast... Both in terms of performance and feature set.
Accuracy is tighter than ever. Satellite acquisition time is shorter. Range is further. The Unity Mesh Network is more powerful. And every bug from the first part of the year has been thoroughly SQUASHED 🥾🐜
Many users say that it's like using a whole new product, and we often get told that the "new generation" Totems are much better, when in fact they are the same generation 😆
On top of this, we've got brand-new features as well: the absolutely game-changing Smart Groups, Navigable Venue Maps, Calibration Confirmation, SOS Mute, festival activations, and there's more to come in the pipeline!
A huge part of this evolution has also been the Totem Compass App, which only exists at all because of feedback from users like YOU!
What started as an optional companion quickly became a powerful extension of the product itself that is prettttttyyyyy hard to say no to 😉
From faster satellite connection times and limitless cloud-powered range, to quality-of-life upgrades like effortless software updates, the Bond Map, festival Map Layers and deeper customization, the app has unlocked a whole new layer of control and confidence for Totem users.
And while the software has been growing, so has the ecosystem.
We entered 2025 with one product: the Totem Compass. We’re ending the year with SEVEN, including the premium Blackout and Luxe Necklaces, the TotemLoop Tether, Tribe Charger, Skins, and the Power Pal.
Listening, iterating, and building with intention... that's what we're all about. Proud of how far we've come this year!
3) History-Making Virality
This year has proven that without a shadow of a doubt, the original viral Totem explosion wasn’t just a fluke or one-time thing. It was the foundation of something truly special.
In fact, Totem didn’t just repeat our success on social media... it accelerated beyond what any of us dared to imagine 🤯
The Totem Compass has spread like absolute wildfire organically across platforms, reinforcing what we explored in our recent blog: it's a solid contender for the most viral product in history.
This year alone, many of Totem’s most viral posts of all time were published, including three viral videos with over 50M views each.
Across the year, we've reached nearly 400 million unique accounts, meaning around 1 in 20 people worldwide know about Totem!
That sustained virality is what caught the attention of Inc. Magazine, who invited our CEO Carter to talk about the Totem playbook for engineering a repeatable social phenomenon again and again.
And now, for the first time, we’re beginning to layer some advertising and parent-focused marketing on top of that organic engine, and the results have been incredible.
If anything, it feels like we’re just getting started 🥳
2 things we learned ⬇️
1) New Product Rollouts are Full of Surprises
A major realization that we've had this year: releasing a piece of all-new tech hardware isn't as simple as you may think!
The last time that most Totem users had to learn an all-new piece of technology without an app to guide them through it was probably when they first picked up a graphing calculator, and even that's not an exact parallel.
In 2025, just about every piece of tech or app or service humans interact with is almost entirely learned and set up with hands held.
And there's nothing wrong with that—user experience (UX) overall in tech is leaps and bounds better than it used to be. "High" technology is simply not so high anymore, thanks to so much brilliant design out there.
Totem's definitely a special case. Learning a screen-free piece of tech is already unusual for people these days, but the majority of our users are doing it while at a music festival (or other wildly different environments), and oftentimes under the influence.
This made diagnosing early issues a wee bit tricky, to say the least. 😛 Most of our feedback used to start with "it didn't work" or "the lights weren't right" and ended there. 🫠
This was, by far, our biggest challenge with rolling out the Totem Compass.
That’s why our biggest focus lately has been making the Totem Compass setup smoother, clearer, and a lot harder to mess up!
We’re leaning hard into video walkthroughs that show the entire process end-to-end, plus rolling out UX improvements and app features that guide you step by step.
Because once people get through that initial onboarding, the lightbulb moment hits and you realize how SIMPLE it really is! 💪
We see it over and over, especially on our reviews on Reddit and social media. Take Robby from EDCO for example, who has witnessed all of our community meetups and feedback-driven improvements, and now calls it one of the greatest pieces of technology he's ever touched. 📣
"The kind of support you get from this company is just otherworldly."
Gosh, we've learned so much over this past year. But those moments right there? That’s what we live for, and what keeps our cups filled to the brim these days 🫶
2) The Importance of Showing TF Up
One thing we’ll never stop investing in? friends!
Every comment, DM and email we receive gets real human attention, because the more we invest in our users, the more the real-world network effects flourish.
But throughout 2025, we've learned that it's a lot more than just that...
From greatly expanding our Totem Support team, adding live chat and after-hours agents, to hosting on-site support meetups at events... we've seen absolutely incredible benefits to investing in our Tribe, even if the solutions aren't 100% scalable.
From the beginning of this year to the end, we've made a bunch of strategic pivots to prioritize amazing customer service, and we plan on increasing this even more with hired help at events in 2026 💪
Nowadays, if an event has high Totem adoption, we'll spend most of our time running around hunting down all of the Totem users there making sure everyone is having an excellent time!
If you find us at a festival, you might even go home with an exclusive prize 👀
We’re playing the long game here. Real relationships over quick wins, every time. 🔐
1 thing to look forward to ⬇️
1) MORE TOTEMS! Many, many more...
Okay, it would be pretty easy to just talk about our growth as a company, hitting profitability, the exciting partnerships we have coming… 👀
But when it comes to all of the Things to Look Forward To, there is one thing that shines above ALL the rest for the Totem Tribe (and it's not close!)
...more Totem products!
First off, we've got the Totem Beacon: the more compact Totem sidecar product that can be tracked by up to 20 (!!!) Totem Compasses, but just not do the tracking itself.
With a smaller footprint, much longer battery life and more powerful transmitter, it is the perfect thing for your campsite at a festival, your physical totem pole, your car, your pet, your child... the possibilities are endless.
On top of that, they'll serve as relays for the Unity Mesh Network, making all of the other Totem tech in the area work all the better.
And the best part? Because it shucks the tracking functionality and user interface, it's going to release with a very affordable price tag.
Additionally, we've got plans for multiple variations of the Totem Compass. Think smaller, a more powerful "pro" version, and alternative designs for other use cases like families, hiking/camping, outdoor sports, cruises, professional events, and more.
You can also expect a number of additional customizable accessories, such as dynamically customizable design-your-own skins.
Ultimately, Totem is a tech company at the end of the day. And the things we're cooking up for 2026 will absolutely blow your mind.
And in case you were wondering... all of the existing Totem infrastructure already out there will remain current in 2026, just expect it to be complemented by a lot of additional cool and useful hardware AND software! 😎
We won’t stop until everyone in the world has a simple, affordable solution to keep their closest people close, no matter what.
That much you can count on. ✌️ out, 2025. And we 🩷 you, friend!
- Naval Ravikant
Same time next year, fam? 😘
✌️ + 🩷,
The Totem Team
Totem Compass International Shipping Rates Decreased
Totem Compass Version 4.1 Available NOW—Most Impactful Software Update To Date!