Practitioner pattern · Canyon Pergande (Co-founder of SideShift, the UGC creator marketplace the case-study apps hire through)
Pay creators a base retainer, $15-20 per video, and big view bonuses
Common rate across SideShift; bonuses get creators working the comments
What they did
In their words
Canyon Pergande - The Secret Behind Weirdly Viral Apps
Canyon Pergande… you know, like SideShift, MigrateMate, we're both kind of job boards in that regard. So there's a lot of similarities that you can transfer over. I think putting together hook ideas is like, you know, good, but not necessary all the time. Um, I think sometimes having a few can be a good starting point, but I I think sometimes the challenge people run into is they just overwhelm their creators, and they just throw like this 50-page brief at them.
Canyon PergandeAnd it's like, a, like nobody wants to read that. Like they're just going to open it up and see how overwhelming it is, and just instead of hitting, you know, the the few key points that are actually important to learn, they'll just skip it all together because they're like, "I don't want to sift through this." And so, it's like how can we condense the most important information, and just like give that to, you know, our creators? Um, pay as well. This is usually something you'll talk about with the creators, as well. We kind of recommend like
Canyon Pergandea hybrid model, so $15 to $20 per video with a base retainer is is pretty common. And then we like to throw pretty generous performance bonuses, as well. I think it really aligns incentives, and, you know, can drive a ton of just engagement. It'll It'll, you know, incentivize them to engage with comments after they just post the video. Um, and so I think there's, you know, a lot of good that comes from this kind of hybrid model in terms of attracting quality people with that retainer, and then just aligning incentives with those bonuses.
Canyon PergandeUm, rules, guidelines, whatever this be, a lot is like, "Hey, mention our company. Don't mention other companies. Don't do XYZ." Um, some people like to have ownership and usage rights, and so they'll have people upload, you know, videos to a Google Drive. But I would say, from a high level, like keep the creator brief short and sweet, but like try and, you know, add some valuable information that, you know, people can just act on right away.
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from this episode
- Have 5 creators post twice a day on new TikTok accounts; copy the first hit10K to 150K+ users in 3-4 months on ~$10K; 16-20M views in one campaign
- Post about the tough job market and slip the app in at the endWinning format; videos at 84K to a few hundred thousand views
- Have creators reply to comments and name the app when people askGuest says comment plugs convert to real users; no numbers
- Visit 25 college campuses in person to sign up the first usersFirst 10-20K users; strong word of mouth among college students
- Tell student creators the gig can grow into a strategist or growth roleGuest says it drives stronger results for brands; no numbers
- Give creators a short brief with a Loom, target persona and proven videosSeen across SideShift customers; long briefs get skipped
- Warm up each new TikTok account for 3-5 days, acting like your target user
- Test an app idea with a few creators for 2 weeks before doubling downSeen across studios; two weak 2-week rounds mean rethink the product
- Hire one creator who already went viral on her own TikTok35M views on 46 posts; weekly downloads up 10x
- Let the creator decide what to post instead of sending her ideasFounder's ideas performed terribly; hers drove 35M views
- Post the AI's funniest mistakes, like a photo with a third legDrove heavy engagement; part of a 35M-view run
- Turn the organic TikToks that already worked into paid adsBoth apps in and out of their category's top five for weeks
Tags: creator-comp, retainer, performance-bonus