Cal AI · B2C · AI calorie tracking app
Send creators surprise bonuses when they crush it, even without a bonus clause
Founder says creators referred their friends; no numbers
Workedcreator-opsinfluencer
What they did
Build personal relationships with creators, especially early when there are few. Pay discretionary bonuses ('you crushed it this month, here you go') even when the deal had no bonus. Handle creators you can't afford with kindness. Good treatment leads creators to refer other creators.
What happened
Creators referred friends, including ones Cal AI couldn't afford pointing to a better-fit friend.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How Cal AI turned creators into a growth machine — Jake Castillo, Cal AI“And sometimes even the creator didn't have a bonus. Like I said, you want to have good relationships with your creators. If we're winning, we want everyone to win because we couldn't have done it without you.”
“And if you're miserable to work with, they're not going to refer other creators to you, but if you're the best brand they've ever worked with, they're going to be shouting it from their rooftops.”
Related topics
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New tactics from the week's founder interviews, each linked to where it was said.
More from Cal AI
All 80 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
- 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
- Have 25 hired assistants each email 100 creators a day~220K creators contacted, 2-3K signed; roughly 1 signed per 1,000 emailed
- Pay creators $100-200 when a friend they refer signs a dealReally helped; got direct numbers and deals around talent agents
- 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: Ask fitness creators to scan their food with your app in their what-I-eat videosConverted very well and scaled across creators; founder gives no numbers
- Cal AI: Test many video angles with one willing creator, then copy the winner everywhereFound the format that worked, which was then copied across fitness creators
- Cal AI: Give creators an app version that shows your name and logo on screenFounder says it made the message clearer; no numbers
- Cal AI: Keep popups out of creator videos so the core demo plays uninterruptedKept the scan-analyze-result sequence clean; founder says it worked really well
- Cal AI: Add a 'tracked with' caption only when the app appears subtly in the videoCaptions helped subtle videos; left off obvious ones because they cut views
- Cal AI: Sponsor UFC fighters who count every calorie to promote a calorie trackerNo download spike after thousands of dollars; viewers don't want to track
- Cal AI: Have mukbang creators scan their giant meals with a calorie trackerDidn't work; viewers treat it as a cheat-day treat and avoid calorie info
- Cal AI: Pick creators whose comments thank them for help, not ones full of fire emojis
- Cal AI: Sign funny, charismatic creators on cheap deals before their views take offOne creator went from ~10K views to a 7M-view video, then never under 500K
- Cal AI: Pay creators a flat rate set to break even on their average viewsViral hits become pure profit; founder says that's where the real money is
- Cal AI: Never pay creators more per 1,000 views than you earn per 1,000 viewsMeans turning down many creators; no outcome numbers
- Cal AI: Decide which creators to renew with a score built from many metricsHelped untangle attribution with 50-70 creators posting a day; no numbers
- Cal AI: Meet a creator's asking price but ask for more videos in return
- Cal AI: Manage hundreds of creators from one automated Google Sheets systemFounder calls it instrumental; avoided a bandwidth bottleneck
- Cal AI: Message creators every day, by the thousands, for a year and a halfLow hit rate, but it built the creator machine; no exact rates given
- Cal AI: Start paid ads by running your influencer videos as adsSome results, but well behind dedicated ad creative
- Cal AI: Make separate hard-sell videos for ads instead of reusing subtle organic onesPerformed far better than recycled influencer videos
- Cal AI: Get ad videos from creators paid a share of the ad spend behind themBiggest win since the acquisition; faster sourcing, great ad quality
- Cal AI: Repeat the pain points from your ads in onboarding, then show the price
- Cal AI: Share your growth wins and failures publicly on X, even if it invites clonesClones and 'Cal AI clone' threads drove traffic back; founder claim
- Cal AI: Charge about $30 a year so your app is the easiest to buyFounder credits it with mass popularity; price tests run but no numbers
- Cal AI: Let anyone sign up in the app to earn $10 per paid signup