Pep AI · B2C · peptide and GLP-1 tracker
Skip creators with no real comments or few niche videos to avoid bought views
Early signings with bought views brought zero signups
What they did
What happened
In their words
Cedric Roberge - I speedran an ai app to $100k in 70 days.
… the call. Yeah. Marketing managers or myself, you know, depends who it is. If it's someone bigger, I'm hopping on that call. If it's anyone else, you know, one of the two marketing guys can hop on the call. Interesting. Wow. What's the range of like engagement that you're willing to pay for? Views and engagement. I look a lot at comments and views. There's been some people that we've signed where I didn't really pay close attention enough
to like comments and stuff. Come to find out they just like paid for views and it's like we got no signups. And I'm thinking, how the hell did this person get 120,000 views in an hour and no signups and no comments? So like I'm really picky and like have to like look into all these things because there's some people that do that. But yeah, I would say the biggest thing is looking for real engagement, especially comments. Are you doing like a view bonuses? There's nothing like specifically says they'll get a view bonus. But if they do perform really well, we make sure to take care of them. Having good relationships with these guys is really, really important to me.
You know, I will call them, see how they're doing, constantly text them. We text every single one of our creators almost every day. We're always talking to them, whether if it's about the app or just checking up on them, letting them know how they're doing for signups. We just try to have really, really good relationships with them because they at the end of the day, like they're the backbone to our success. That's a lot of thought and attention …
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More from this episode
- Sign nearly every creator in your niche before running paid ads$30K then $50K revenue in months 1-2; ~$100K in 70 days
- Pay new creators ~$200 for a trial month; sign the winners for 3 monthsCore of the creator program behind most revenue
- Pay creators a one-time 20% of each sale on top of their feeCreators post more than agreed and put in more effort
- Give every creator a tracked link and discount codeShows who to keep and whose rates to cut
- Make creators keep your app link in their bio for the whole deal'A ton of downloads' in two weeks with no posts
- Send creators past winning videos as ideas, then let them make anythingFounder says creators love working with them; content performs
- Post educational slideshows that end with the app as the tracking toolBeat talking-head videos, per the guest; no numbers
- Run top creator videos as Meta ads and raise the budget every week~$2.50 per download; profitable by the guest's math
- Give creators scripts copied from competitors' ads and run them as adsLost money; replaced by organic winners
- Test a cluttered AI-made image ad listing ~8 featuresBest ad at under $2 per download, beating video
- Run peptide creator videos as TikTok adsTikTok kept rejecting them as medical advice; moved to Meta
- Give under-25s a short onboarding and older users a longer oneLonger flow works well for 25+, per founder; no numbers
- Show 'try it free' slides before a paywall with $40/year and $10/month plans
- Build the most-requested features, like a dose calculator, after legal reviewCalculator 'drove a ton of traffic'
- Remove or simplify features nobody uses
- Collect feedback everywhere, including creator calls, and ship 2-3 updates a week
- Tell creators about each new feature as a reason to postCreators all want to post about new features
- DM 1,000+ creators a week with one message, then get them on a callSigns many creators every week; delegating made it scale
- Review each new creator's first video before it goes liveA few redos; most videos were fine
- Give creators lifetime access and text them almost daily instead of view bonusesCreators do more than the contract, including TikTok Lives
- Repost as many creator videos as possible on the brand account
- Raise a small angel check for marketing; pay developers in equityFunded the creator program from launch
- Enter a trending niche where existing apps do no marketingFounder claims the app helped start the peptide-tracker trend
Tags: tiktok, instagram, creator-vetting, view-fraud, engagement