Cal AI · B2C · photo calorie tracking app
Have 25 hired assistants each email 100 creators a day
~220K creators contacted, 2-3K signed; roughly 1 signed per 1,000 emailed
Workedcreator-opsinfluenceroutbound-sales
What they did
Started with ~5 marketing assistants, grew to ~25, each pushed to contact 100 influencers a day (~2,000/day; real output 40-70 on bad days). Assistants hired through an outside staffing company. Outreach is by email, not DMs (DMs are rate-limited and work mainly with a big personal brand). Creators in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain; not picky as long as the creator could fit the app into their video at a decent CPM. Assistants send a Calendly link for a manager call; managers close. Signing goals of 50+, later 100 creators a month. Funnel: ~10% reply, a few book a call, ~1 in 1,000 signs. Outreach tracked in an internal system.
What happened
About 220,000 influencers contacted and 2-3K onboarded or signed; 200+ creators posting at once.
- Stage
- Scale (0 to $60M/year)
“now, we have about 25 marketing assistants doing outreach for us each day, and they we push them to try and reach out to 100 influencers a day each.”
“I I think the numbers are like we reached out to about 220,000 influencers.”
“Yeah, most of our outreach is actually email. DMs do work, but not really as well, I don't think.”
“compared to most brands, we were, you know, less picky with who we worked with. As long as they could kind of get the app into their video and it and it be like a a decent CPM, we usually said yes.”
Related topics
Get tactics like this every Monday
New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Cal AI
All 84 Cal AI tactics- Pay $350-450 for four posts plus view bonuses that stop at 1M viewsKeeps the upside of viral hits; founder gives no numbers
- Price a creator on the average of their 5 worst of 20 recent videosMost deal videos land nearer the mean, so the rest is profit
- Ask creators to cross-post on both platforms as a casual, no-big-deal extraCreators accept most of the time; founder's claim, no numbers
- Pay creators a base rate plus view bonuses, capped at about 1M viewsViews past the cap come free; founder's reasoning, no numbers
- Match download spikes to each creator post early on to learn what convertsEach early video showed as a spike (e.g. 100 to 200 downloads an hour)
- Run a short ad with a one-line hook, the app in use, then the store linkAd has run about four months, which the host reads as a winner
More from this episode
- Cal AI: Agree with a creator's view boast, then guarantee 700-800K views when they claim 1MGuaranteed a profitable CPM on every deal; creators couldn't back down
- Cal AI: Let AI answer creators' email replies and hand warm ones to a managerAssistants' job ends at the first email; no results reported
- Cal AI: Pitch 'keep making your normal videos, just sneak us in', then ask for a callCalls ~10x the chance of signing; the pitch often lowered creators' prices
- Cal AI: Have creators show the photo-scan naturally in the first 15 seconds, with no scriptCalled one of the biggest rules; no numbers
- Cal AI: Pay big lifestyle creators to scan their breakfast in day-in-the-life vlogs, 4 times a monthMost profitable content; one video drove hundreds to thousands of promo code uses
- Cal AI: Schedule a reality-TV star's posts just before and after her new season airsVery low CPM for a famous creator; no exact figure
- Cal AI: Buy only very cheap views at first, then pay more per deal once people know youDeals got more profitable over time, not less
- Cal AI: Test creators beyond fitness: moms, comedy, and fitness sub-nichesMixed: some moms profitable at $10 CPM; comedy got views but low intent
- Cal AI: Pay recipe, cooking and mukbang creators to promote a calorie trackerDidn't convert; cut early. Healthy-meal videos only okay
- Cal AI: Pay a Love Island contestant for day-in-the-life videosStarted well but underperformed; viewers mostly came for his partner
- Cal AI: Pay creators $100-200 when a friend they refer signs a dealReally helped; got direct numbers and deals around talent agents
- Cal AI: Give outreach assistants monthly prizes for most creators contacted or signedKept assistants motivated; no numbers
- Cal AI: Befriend creators' managers, then ask to add the creator to the group chatLanded deals with a TV star; guest calls relationships the key
- Cal AI: Sign a second creator in the same niche as your best oneDidn't work at all; the first creator made $100K profit in a month
- Cal AI: Have a UGC creator post on the brand's own page, and restart as influencers get pricierPaused while influencer CPMs were cheap; now restarting for cheaper views