Founder-led marketing tactics

Posts the same video with different hooks as Instagram Trial Reels, which show only to non-followers. Lets them run a few hours, then promotes the best-performing version to the main feed, and keeps the losing version up in trial reels because it keeps reaching non-followers. Hook drives watch-through. Winning hook opened a question ('Raise VC money. You can make $50 million and still be broke') while the loser answered it ('I teach people how to fundraise, but I wouldn't raise a single dollar today').

Brands paying a creator effectively fund format experiments. Gelato (print-on-demand) booked ~5 videos; the best got ~1M organic views (24K likes). A week later Casper reused the exact hook and structure for Payout, changing only the number: 'Watch me make up to $900 in just 30 seconds. First I go to Google and search class action... or an easier way could be using an app where you select a bunch of companies you've used... Here's up to $500 from T-Mobile, 250 from Mitsubishi, and 147 from Cash App... Just comment claim and I'll send you the app.'

When the pure how-to format dried up, Casper made a skit: 'Hey Temu, is it true that I can make $1,000 from your lawsuit?' / 'Yeah, and some people can make up to $5,000.' / 'How can I apply?' / 'Fine, but you didn't hear this from me.' The 'company' character then walks through the steps: 'First, you go to this app, find the Temu lawsuit... click claim... fill out a simple form... Just comment claim and I'll send you the app.' Skit is the first ~30-40%, the rest is how-to. Swap in any sued company.

End Instagram videos with 'Just comment claim and I'll send you the app.' ManyChat auto-DMs the App Store link to everyone who comments; the unread DM notification pushes them to open it. On the how-to video ~13,000 people requested the link.

On YouTube Shorts and TikTok (no ManyChat), cut the video shorter with no CTA and pin a comment: 'There's many apps you can use to do this, but the one I use in the video is called Payout.' Viewers search it on the App Store. Tried 'click my profile / link in bio' on YouTube and people didn't do it. CTAs reduce retention on these platforms.

Self-promo gets filtered or banned elsewhere on Reddit, but r/selfhosted wants open-source posts, including every new version. Post monthly with each release listing the new features; be humble and down to earth, write like building in public, say 'I' not 'we', and ask for a star. Cross-post to r/webdev and r/programming, and for AI projects r/LocalLLaMA, r/agent or r/langchain.

Posts are first-person stories from daily life as a SaaS marketer, with screenshots as proof, e.g. 'I paid 5 influencers on LinkedIn to promote my SaaS, here's what $1,250 got me' and a post about being rejected at the Y Combinator interview. Never put the SaaS directly in the post; trigger curiosity by highlighting it and let readers find it (SaaS linked in the profile bio). Change the angle every post; can redirect to a YouTube video or X post. Drafting: tells the story to ChatGPT by voice, then has it translate and correct it (non-native English), which captures more detail. Pre-launch founders can post about the problem they're solving and how it's going.

No creators: the founder made all the content himself, sometimes with clips of friends and family. His first real TikTok (after five meme posts) was him talking into his phone, adapting an existing format: 'Made a website called I have an essay due at midnight and ChatGPT won't stop giving me fake citations .com...' He named the pain, explained the tool (upload ChatGPT citations, see which are fake, get real replacements, helps with AI detectors like Turnitin) and said 'I'll put a shorter link in the comments.' Advice: early on, don't invent formats; imitate and adapt. Filming yourself beats carousels, and it teaches you what to tell creators later.

1) Start a brand-new Instagram account and connect it to a ManyChat subscription ($15/month). 2) Spend a full day scrolling competitors' accounts to find their viral formats, UGC campaigns and creators. 3) Copy the winning format to the letter with your own face: same editing tools, same audio, same transitions, same hook length (3 or 4 seconds), same demo and CTA length, changed only for your product. 4) Keep following those brands and copying whatever new format they find; tech UGC accounts all ride the same trend until it saturates.

Stealth launch: sent the game to a few family members and friends and watched whether they shared it. Once they did, posted it to his social stories and a couple of X posts. The one that took off was a reply under his own unrelated NBA post: 'Hey, by the way, I made this game... I'd really appreciate if you guys all checked it out.' The game was 5 days old and retention wasn't ready.

Affirmation video: she recites affirmations ('My mind is worth millions... I get paid to exist'), a second person asks 'How can I remember all these?', and she answers 'You can actually get custom affirmations on your lock screen every single day using my app, Stella.' Core approach: find the most viral content in your niche, study the psychology, and 'recreate it to infinity' once a video hits; she has remade the same viral content for years and it still converts.

Built a Claude scriptwriter: she word-vomits an idea to Claude, Claude interviews her to sharpen the script and pull out the salient points, scripts go into Notion, and she films about five videos in one session, then edits them herself with minimal edits (no editor).