From $0-$13k in 3 Months: How He Started UGC (Step-by-Step)

0:00Noah, welcome to the pod. Let's start with what is your what is your career? What do you do for a living? I am a full-time content and UGC creator. Incredible. So, what does that mean? I basically make videos for brands. Uh make a bunch of Yeah. Just videos of products that are around my house. Companies will sell me products and I'll make I'll make videos that sell for them online through social

0:24media. Insane. So, how much do you make doing this and how long have you been doing this? I have been doing it consistently, I should clarify, for the past three months and I think July was biggest month so far. We did a little bit over five figures and August is going to top that for sure here in the next week. So, what do you think like 15K in

0:46Augustish? Probably around 13. So, not 15 yet, but we're we're getting there. Well, good to hear. So, you're doing 13K a month. How many followers do you have or do you have to be an influencer? like how does that look? I have a little bit under 600 followers. So, you're doing you're doing 13K a month um as a creator with less than 600

1:06followers. So, how is that possible? Like, where are you finding these brands that want to work with you? Yeah. So, it's a good question. I use apps like Sideshift that I'm sure you're aware of. Uh apps like Tribe to make videos for brands. And you don't need a following, right? Because we're using the brand's pages. We're making new pages for these brands that we're working with to make the videos to post on brand new accounts. So, no brand within the UGC space necessarily needs a big following, right? Because we're all using different accounts to post on it anyway. So, this is one of the spaces that I love it because the follower

1:39count really doesn't matter. Whereas, if I was an influencer trying to get deals with less than 600 followers, I mean, it it just wouldn't work at all. So, you started a few months ago and you started getting deals right away. How did you get deals without, you know, a case study? Like, how did you get your

1:56first deal? Yeah. So, I got off a call with you after I joined your program back in April or late March and made a portfolio that same day, sent it over to you for some feedback, and then got started right away. Signed up for a Sideshift account, got their pro plan, and literally just applied to like 500 different campaigns on there. After a few days of waiting, zero responses, applied to some more brands, got like three retainers right off the bat,

2:27they went okay to be honest with you. They weren't they weren't nothing phenomenal. Um, after that kind of took a pause. I got married. You really put the UGC thing on the back burner. I was like, I can't focus on this. Like, I have to provide for my wife now at this point. Flash forward a month and a half later, I got fired from my full-time job 5 days before my wedding. In hindsight, I was going to quit in June anyway. It

2:50was not the greatest position for me. But then got back from the honeymoon, went full in on UGC, applied to probably another 3,000 jobs, made another couple hundred videos, and it's only been momentum building from there. Incredible, dude. I love to hear that. I can't believe you got fired five days before your wedding. That's insane. Yeah, I think he knew it, too. So, it kind of stung a little bit, but put me in a better spot. So, it did. I mean, if you don't mind me asking, like what were you making from

3:21that job versus UGC? Yeah, I was commissionbased. I think my highest month was maybe $4,500 pre-tax, which kind of sucks because as a 1099 contractor, you had to pay your own taxes. So, not a lot. That's actually crazy because, you know, you you've like tripled that in a couple months time from that point.

3:44It's not bad. Not bad at all. Did you think UGC would be something that you could, you know, provide for your wife with? You know what I mean? I knew it was possible. I don't think I wanted to take the leap of quitting a full-time job because I wasn't going to give it half effort, right? Because I've heard stories of people trying UGC, giving it half effort, and it's just not working, right? So, if you want to do it, it's something obviously you have to

4:09go all in on. And I think I was just scared to make that leap, which is why I'm so grateful that I did end up kind of getting fired from that because it just it did the leap for me. Right. Right. Exactly. There there's nothing like if you stayed in that position, you probably wouldn't have had the success that you had for UGC. There's something there's a concept called region beta paradox and it's this concept where um you know let's say you you need to go somewhere and if that place is less than a mile away then you'll walk and this will could take you 15 minutes but if

4:39it's over a mile away you'll drive and you'll get there much quicker. So sometimes if it's like more pain or harder you'll do things differently that actually get you the results that you want quicker basically. And that sounds exactly like what you had. you had a bad situation happen which gave you opportunity to go and attack it fully which is incredible to see. So I want to know how you scaled your career because a lot of creators get stuck 5 to 10k per month range. So what are some systems that you set up or you know how you kind of manage your UGC career in order to

5:10push past 10K a month? Yeah, the biggest ROI off the bat is just outsourcing as much as possible. The biggest thing obviously all creators think of is hiring an editor off rip. That it it 10xes your output overnight because you're not worried about having to edit all these videos on the back end late at night, right? So having that in place, getting an editor quickly is definitely one of the most important aspects to it because then you can have the flexibility to do more volume, get on more campaigns, make more videos for tribe, um, and really scale that way. I think Canvas UGC is really good to get

5:49started as we hear a lot of people say is you can get that 5K a month within 10 days, right, of contracted revenue. But with that, if you really want to start scaling, you either need view bonuses within Canvas or you need a like a ton of campaigns, right? But as you start to get those your kind of necessities paid for with Canvas, start to transition into the paid ads aspect of it through Fiverr or Tribe, like other apps like that. And from there, build up your commissionbased revenue on the back end

6:21of your set income through Canvas. Makes sense. So, this paid ad UC is better. You can make more money for less work. Um, how did you kind of get involved in your first deals doing that style of UGC? Mhm. Yeah. Same type of deal on Sideshift. I probably applied to too many brands because now my portfolio is kind of a little bit wacky on Tribe because it says I've worked with so many partners and I truthfully I haven't. Um, with that you pick a few brands that you want to work with. Make I think I've made over 400 videos alone in August already for brands on Tribe. So really

6:59just input is everything there. And it's a Tribe is ultimately a volume game. So find a few brands you like working with, apply to a lot of them, get accepted into few, then just make a ton of videos. So are you focused on quality or quantity when you're making those videos on Tribe? Definitely quality. It's a tricky balance though because there's you need the volume, right? And it's hard to have both aspects of it while you want to 10x your output on Tribe and still still have the quality, right? Because I can't make 20 videos for a brand in a day and then they're not all going to be

7:39bangers, right? So, it's definitely something. Yeah. still working on. But but the but the editor definitely helps kind of mitigate that. Or do you do you edit most of your own tribe videos? You use the editor for like canvas or organic YouTube at this point. He edits everything. I don't think I've edited a video in

7:57probably like 3 weeks. So what do you pay him? About $1,100 a month. Okay. So 1,100 a month. You're going to make 13. So you're profiting 12K a month. Um pretty fire. Sounds like a decent deal. So, how much are you actually working than just making the content each week? I probably work about 4 hours a day actually filming and then maybe an hour and a half on admin. And if you know I got a long road trip coming up, like my wife and I just did a weekend trip to New Jersey for a little family vacation, so I had to batch film, you know, Monday through Thursday

8:33because we're going to be on the road all day Friday. We have the flexibility to do that, right? and I can just film for eight hours a day, send him off the editor on Friday, and he can he can knock him out. Yeah. Well, good to hear. Good to hear. So, what's next for you now? Now that you're kind of at this place where UDC is doing

8:51well for you? Yeah. From here, it's just continuing to scale, implementing more systems, probably going to get another editor here shortly. Just have more output, more videos on Tribe. Definitely trying to scale on that. lean out of the canvas UGC because truthfully I don't I don't like the aspect of having to run a new another account for a brand. So Tribe is definitely where it's going to be at for me long term, but the paid ads aspect of it is just super enticing for that exact reason, right? I don't have to make an account for a new brand. Um

9:23interesting. Interesting. Well, makes a ton of sense. Um cool. In terms of doing other related skills in content, how do you feel about maybe doing some creator management or, you know, content strategy or any of those different skill sets because a lot of UGC creators go that path instead of just doing the content forever as well. Yeah, it's something I've definitely tapped into a little bit. Uh, actually onboarding for a creator manager role here later this week. So, it'll be interesting to get a taste of that and see how that goes because it's a new avenue that I'm not entirely sure what it'll look like yet, right? Because it's

10:02just a new new expert area of expertise. So, I'm excited to see how it looks. I could definitely see myself doing that long term, especially as you know, family grows and stuff like that. But 100%. And then you're working on your personal brand. Do you get any deals from your personal brand right now? 100%. believe it or not, with less than 600 followers. Trying to get that number up here shortly. But yeah, inbounds at least one a day for Canvas UGC, a few for tribe here and there. But yeah, I mean, if you just post about your your UGC experience, the

10:40there's no competition for UGC creators. There's a what the statistic is less than 20 30% of UGC creators actually finish a campaign that they're on. Something ridiculous. So, you don't even have to be good at this to make money for you to be favored by a brand as long as you're consistent and actually doing

10:59what you told them you were going to do. Uh yeah, they'll hit you up all day, left and right. Yeah, that's very much been the experience I've seen is, you know, there's a huge discrepancy in the average UGC creator versus a great UGC creator. And there's just not that many great creators. So, the great creators make all the money more or less because brands know they're going to get a good return on what they're paying those creators. Um, you know, you joined our program late March, early April. How do you feel like that program has helped

11:29you in your in your journey? I wish I took advantage of it sooner. I remember on our onboarding call. I was a CSM before full-time UGC. So, I was literally managing clients all day long. And I was like, I hate clients that don't communicate. Like, I don't like working with them. They're horrible. They just ghost you after a day. And I was like, Owen, I'm not going to be that guy. I think it was like two weeks. And

11:54I fell off the planet. Horrible student. And then yeah, I decided to pick it up here back in June. So definitely glad I still made that decision to join back in March. But honestly, I wish I just started sooner because if I had started six months ago rather than three months ago, the momentum would be double the the outcome we're at now. So I'm excited to see how the the rest of the year

12:19plays out for sure. Yeah, me too. Now that you're in it, um you know, God's timing is kind of a funny thing. like you it's better that you got fired and this is the route and that's just how God works, you know. Um, so you you did what you could, you took the risk and now it's paying off. Maybe the path was just slightly different than you would thought, but I'm curious what your favorite part of content

12:41economy has been for you as a creator. Is it just like access to the deals or coaching or what do you like about it? The deals are good. The coaching is good. It definitely makes it easier on all the creators ends because we don't have to work as hard to find all this stuff and we can learn exponentially quicker. I think the osmosis and the network we get of creators is the most important thing though because everyone in this group is like there's not a bad creator in this group because yes it may be a higher entry point for some people maybe more than what they'd

13:13like but because of that every creator that joins is going to be actually diligent in putting in the reps whether it takes them three months to to actually get started with it. Yeah. I just found out the other day that it is the most expensive UGC program. Um, you know, is what it is. I I think I think it's just what naturally happened because we have so many quality creators. We had to raise the price because if we let you know, a lot of creators in then, you know, people are fighting over deals and stuff instead of us just putting in a deal and you guys

13:48get it, that's kind of better, I think. Um, and in terms of coaching and all that, we I think we have six coaches right now that and we do like two to three calls every single day of the week. So, creators basically have office hours all the time. Um, so yeah, I mean it just depends where people are. That's why we built Rtech by the way. And there are creator platforms if you know people don't want coaching, they can they can just go try to do it themselves. Um, but Rtech is supposed to be a scalable train creator system so that a creator can go on that app, uh, learn from the top

14:20creators, go to calls, like all that stuff, and then also get access to deals when they're ready. Um, and then we had to build out a web platform that can actually allow brands to manage, hire creators, and actually more. Like I haven't really talked about this much u but our tech is kind of going to be the place where you hire talent in the content economy. So in our job posting section as you know we'll people will post jobs for hiring creator managers content strategists videographers editors uh UGC Tik Tok shop like the whole thing and so we're like our tech should probably be that too and it so

14:58it's a much different kind of thing than just doing the traditional like UGC management platform because there's so much more and a lot of you guys go off and do these different paths and so we just wanted to give you guys different opportunities in whichever a way that feels natural to you. Like some people

15:14don't want to do UGC forever, you know? So, I I think that's important as well. Yeah. Yeah. And to touch on that, they people can 100% do it without a coaching program like Yeah. using apps like Rtech or just watching YouTube videos, but the osmosis you get from being in the room and being on calls with successful high quality creators is it's going to help you scale so much faster and your skill

15:40set is going to grow. exponentially faster just because you're in the room with people that are high leverage. I totally agree. Um people always say, you know, connections and network is everything. And I fully agree. Um you know, fortunately, I've been doing this for a few years, but I have, you know, I'm friends with all of the founders of all the different platforms, all the brands. I mean, obviously there's people I don't know, but it's been really enjoyable where someone's like, "Yo, I I would love to work with this brand." I'm like, "Oh, shoot me your number. I'll just connect you." And I just connect people with the founder and stuff like

16:14that. Um, so that's that's probably the best part about it for me. It's like making those connections and stuff. And it's weird because it's grown much more beyond what I initially thought. Like I thought it would just be like, you know, smaller group coaching creators and stuff like that. Now it's like literally like a content economy mini thing, you know, and we're about to go nuclear with

16:34Rekch. So we're kind of combining that. So Rtech will be the content economy app. So, I'm very excited for all of that to to mature. But no, in terms of, you know, closing thoughts, you know, anything like that, do you have any advice for new creators out there? Um, or anything that you would tell them to

16:49do? Yeah, take the leap sooner than you think you should. Um, whether you're, you know, going to get fired from your job or you just have to quit yourself, it's uh it's a good leap. It's scary, but I think the biggest thing with this is just consistency. And if you are consistent and you stick to your word and actually post on the accounts that you tell brands you're going to post on, you're of the top 1% of UGC creators and brands will pay you exponentially more amounts of money because you actually follow through on your work. So

17:19follow through. Yeah, I love it. It's good. Where can people find your your socials, follow you and stay connected? Yeah, you can follow me on UGC Moose on Instagram and then yeah, building that personal brand out. We're going to get past that 600 follower mark here soon. 100%. Why do you call yourself UGC

17:39Moose? I was called Moose as a baby because I was really fat as a child and then I guess I didn't want it tied to my full name and you know Instagram usernames are so competitive. I was like this works. It's good. So, I love it, bro. I love it. I think it's unique and it's a good name. Um, it's funny because when it does grow, let's say you're at 10K, 20K followers or something. Uh, people are going to go up to you in public and be like, "Yo, you're Moose, right?" It's going to be really funny. People People have done that to me because on some socials, my

18:14name is like Don, like Dom, just my initials. And uh, you know, it's it's really it's really funny. People are like, "Oh, Don, what's up?" I'm like, nah, I've looked into buying the more unique usernames just like flat out Noah as a username or Montgomery or something, but people are no longer on Instagram, so there's no way to contact them, which

18:36sucks, but it is what it is. Yeah, there are ways to get usernames. Um, I have some connections. Um, so if you could talk about that, just if you're listening, I don't know what you're talking about. Anyways, Noah, thank you for hopping on and uh yeah, man, continue to crush. I'm excited to see what you do.

18:54Yeah, you as well.