🤳 $$Million dollar UGC playbook for consumer founders

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🎁 I convinced (aka blackmailed) my buddy Kyle at Notion to give us special access to the Notion for Startups program. He is hooking up with insane perks, including up to 6 months free of unlimited Notion AI, community access, and other software discounts (worth $6000+ total).

Go thank Kyle later. For now, grab the goods below (select Consumer Startups & STARTUP4110P75814) before someone at Notion realizes how generous he was lol.

A bunch of you messaged me after the recent Praktika post asking for a deeper dive into UGC strategy.

Here it is, just like I promised ;)

Quick context: I used to be a product manager at TikTok, and over the past few months, I’ve interviewed 10+ consumer founders who’ve scaled their growth engines with UGC at the core.

For this special post, I’ve teamed up with my friend Joseph Choi—a UGC expert and founder of the Viral App Founders Club, a community for top consumer app builders.

The playbook we’re sharing today is geared primarily towards consumer app founders, but honestly, it’s useful for anyone looking to tap UGC for growth and distribution.

Tldr for those busy founders:

UGC vs. Influencer Marketing: What's the Difference?

Before diving in, let's define some terms:

Influencer Marketing: Paying someone with an existing audience to promote your product to their followers. You're essentially renting their audience and the trust they've built.

UGC (User Generated Content): Content created by creators that doesn't depend on an existing audience. Instead of leveraging trust, UGC plays to platform algorithms to generate views organically. Essentially, you hire UGC creators to create organic content on your brand account.

Why does this distinction matter? UGC can be dramatically more cost-effective because you're paying for creative talent, not audience access. This works because short-form platforms like TikTok and YouTube Shorts reward quality content regardless of follower count.

Many creators with <50K followers often perform way better than accounts with 1M+ followers. Plenty of $$$alpha in this UGC land.

Why You Should Care About UGC Now

Both of us are super excited about UGC because we believe it’s still the most underpriced distribution channel for many consumer startups today.

While e-commerce brands have been exploiting this channel for a few years, most non-ecomm consumer founders are still sleeping on UGC's potential.

Consumer startups that have capitalized on this have realized massive gains recently:

• Jenni AI: Scaled to $10M ARR by mastering UGC when competitors weren't even in the game. Their "POV: You have an essay due" videos generated 300M+ views and $500K+ in revenue from a single format.

• Praktika: This language learning app found one viral format that generated tens of millions of views and 10x'd their revenue in just 4 months, reaching $12M ARR.

• Cal AI: Applied UGC to the fitness/diet niche that competitors like MyFitnessPal weren't using. They created viral videos showing their calorie scanner feature, scaling to $10M+ ARR.

*Join Viral App Founders Club to meet and learn from these founders!

The Complete UGC Playbook for Consumer Founders

I'll walk you through this entire framework using a language learning app as our example. Let's call it "LinguaLeap"—a language learning app that helps you speak English better.

Step 1: Content Research

What you need to do:

1. Scroll through content in your niche as a normal user.

2. Look for outlier videos with tons of views and engagement.

3. Find viral video formats that talk about a solution to a problem (a viral format where you could naturally integrate your product).

4. The winning content formula often has three key elements:

   1. Emotion (relatable, funny)

   2. Product showcase (central to the video)

   3. Repeatability (easy to reproduce with different creators)

Real example: Quizard AI's lecture hall sleeping format

1. Emotion: Lazy student in lecture

2. Product showcase: App is central to the video (recording lecture with AI)

3. Repeatability: No creator's face shown, easy to reproduce with different students (downside is that many competitors could easily replicate this format as well).

LinguaLeap example: 

For our language learning app, we’d search TikTok for high-performing language learning content. We’d identify outlier videos with millions of views where creators share techniques or methods without promoting specific apps.

For instance, this video explains “multi-modal immersion techniques for language learning.” The creator, Rhea, discusses a potential solution without plugging a product. It received 16K+ likes and thousands of saves, making it a strong candidate for a viral format we could adapt for LinguaLeap.

One potential challenge with this format is repeatability. The video features Rhea speaking directly to the camera, and she brings credibility as a Stanford linguistics student. Other creators may struggle to replicate the same level of virality.

Tips:

• Find existing viral formats where you can seamlessly integrate your product.

• You could research competitor video formats, but the upside might be limited due to potential saturation.

• Pay attention to comments expressing frustration with existing solutions.

• Look specifically for videos presenting solutions (techniques, methods) that could be replaced with your app.

Common mistakes:

• Focusing only on high-follower creators

• Giving up early if you can't find an exact match for your product (consider adding a "viral feature" like Cal AI did with their calorie scanner).

Step 2: Find Creators for Video Production

What you need to do:

1. Target micro-influencers with under 50K followers but consistently getting at least 50K views just a rule of thumb—it varies based on the industry.

2. Look for under-monetized creators who aren't currently promoting many products.

3. Reach out to creators with a personalized message on all channels and be persistent.

LinguaLeap example:

Our target segment for LinguaLeap is English learners based in LATAM, so we'd first search for all the LATAM-based language learning creators on TikTok.

Our criteria:

• Micro: 1K–50K followers

• High performance: average 50K views in the past 2 months

• Under-monetized: not currently promoting other products at scale

It’s also helpful to look at the accounts those creators follow to get more leads.

After creating the shortlist, we’d reach out to them on TikTok and via email, explaining why we love their videos and asking if they'd be interested in creating content featuring our app's conversation practice feature.

Another approach is posting LinkedIn job posts recruiting content creators in LATAM.

Because they're under-monetized and in LATAM, it’s possible we could get them to create content for <$50 per video.

Tips:

• Don’t give up early. Response rates vary from 20–60%, so reach out to plenty of creators.

• If you are on a budget, testing it yourself is fine, but be mindful that you might be the wrong creator for your target audience.

• Ensure the creator’s target audience location matches the countries you are targeting.

• Joseph compiled a great list of scrappy ways to source creators. Check it out here. More of these resources can be found at Viral App Founders Club.

Common mistakes:

• Paying based on follower count instead of engagement quality.

• Not reaching out to enough creators (it's a numbers game).

• Not being mindful of the creator’s geo-focus.

Step 3: Systematically Finding the Winning Formula

What you need to do:

The goal is to find a winning video format that works for your product by systematically experimenting with different variables, one at a time.

Variables include:

1. Hook (first 3 seconds)

2. Creators or people on camera

3. Filming and editing style

4. Call-to-action presentation

5. Overall video concept

When you're first starting with a new brand account, it’s important to warm it up for a week before posting a large volume of content to avoid shadow bans.

LinguaLeap example:

In the research phase, we spotted a couple of strong concepts worth testing. The next step is finding a winning formula with a structured testing plan.

For the first experiment, we’d spin up a fresh TikTok account just for this UGC push. Week one is all about warming up the account—watching videos, leaving comments, following creators—basically acting like a real person.

Come week two, we’d start posting UGC videos from our influencer partners. Every TikTok would also get cross-posted to IG Reels and YouTube Shorts to squeeze out max reach.

We’d shoot for 1–3 videos a day in the first month. 

Goal: land that first viral hit and build from there.

Tips:

• Don't give up too quickly—it might take 30+ attempts to find a winner.

• Views don’t always translate directly to conversions; prioritize content that drives actual signups.

• Warm up your new brand account to minimize shadow ban risks.

Common mistakes:

• Changing multiple variables at once.

• Giving up too quickly on promising formats.

• Poor video fundamentals (e.g. blocked text placement, poor lighting, or audio quality).

Step 4: Replicate and Scale

What you need to do:

1. Once you’ve got a winning format, triple down (post 3x a day on that account).

2. Spin up new accounts for different audience segments or content styles.

3. Build a plug-and-play system so creators can crank out content on their own.

4. Keep tracking performance and tweak your playbook as you go.

LinguaLeap example:

After discovering that our "Duolingo frustration to conversation success" format works well, we'd create multiple variations: one for Spanish learners, one for business travelers, and one for students.

We'd set up separate accounts for different language focuses and post consistently on each. We'd also create a simple template for creators to follow, allowing them to produce variations efficiently.

Tips:

• TikTok algorithm works better when an account targets a consistent audience.

• Limit to three posts per day per account to avoid shadow banning.

• Don’t create multiple accounts on one device (limit to 5 per phone).

• Scale budget toward winning formats, but always keep testing new ideas.

Common mistakes:

• Abandoning experimentation once finding one winning format.

• Not creating systems that allow for consistent content production.

• Letting quality slip as you scale.

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If you are looking to learn more about UGC, I highly recommend joining Joseph’s Viral App Founders Club where you will get more in-depth courses, community support on this specific topic. 

See you next week 🫡,

Leo

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