The UGC Switch That Took Him to $12K/Month in 60 Days

0:00Ty Murphy, welcome to the Content Economy podcast. First off, how does it feel to leave your job to do content full-time? Feels amazing. It's crazy cuz like 6 months ago I was watching these podcasts and now I'm actually on it. Living the dream right now, so it's unreal. Did you know it was going to happen for

0:16you or were you like, "I don't know. We'll see." or you know, tell me about it. Dude, signing up I would say the first feeling it it was getting into Content Economy just seeing everyone in such a great community. It was like, "Yeah, like I'm definitely going to be on there." So it wasn't a matter of if, it

0:30was just a matter of when. Chad. [laughter] Absolute Chad. No, I love to hear it, bro. Um I also knew. I mean, you already had built a good personal brand relatively quickly that it just made sense. If you're able to build a personal brand, I think you can pretty much do anything. Um you know, and you know, tell us your plans now that you're running a little bit of an agency or how does that How does that look for your

0:52future? Yeah, absolutely. So it was I would say I started out, you know, doing organic UGC, tech UGC, canvas, whatever you call it. Had an agency doing that and kind of didn't did good with it, wasn't in love with it, and then uh I heard of like Tribe and it was more like CPG and actual physical products. So I got into that about 2 months ago and scaled from 0 to 12K a month in 60

1:18days. Then planning to hit a 20K month as a creator in October. And now start already had agency experience with organic, so I was like, "Why not transfer it over to Tribe?" And we got a pretty pretty huge client and I'll be working with a a bunch of e-com brands now in the future. Today I'm

1:34launching three different brands. And yeah, just trying to scale this to the absolute moon. Insane. So you started as a creator doing organic UGC, canvas UGC. There's so many names for it, bro. It's crazy. Um but you started doing that which was making new accounts, posting to uh different platforms. A lot of grunt

1:53work, basically. Mhm. Um and then you moved over into paid ads, Tribe Style, you know, performance on companies that are spending money on your ads. So, tell me about that process. When did you know it was time to kind of switch over? Um, and which one do you like better? Yeah, absolutely. So, like you mentioned, there's a lot of grunt work with with Tech UGC, and it's like I had like eight different accounts running at

2:15once. And just the whole idea of having to go in every single day and like scroll the For You page or warming up an account, make sure you're posting every single day. It was kind of burning me out, and it was like I was hitting a ceiling around like $20,000. And it was like, of course you could scale past it, but it's like that's definitely going to need some luck. Then I was looking over at creators who are doing TikTok Shop, and Tribe popped up, and I'm seeing 100K months, and they don't even have to post to a page. So, just like naturally out of curiosity, it

2:43led me to that. Then I realized like I like making videos better with physical products. And you don't have to post to your own page. These companies are taking your videos, putting money behind it, and then what So, it's already getting views. You don't have to worry about an algorithm. And then you get commissions off of that. And so, it's definitely a a lot more of a grind at first, but once you get your brands, it's it's so much it's so much easier. It's you're you're working with the same three to five brands every single day. You don't have to be worrying about posting. You just upload your videos, and you you let

3:16them run. And I think the best part about it is that one video I made back in July, August is still making me money today. That's insane. What what would be your advice to new creators coming into the space? Do you think they should go to Tribe right away? Should you do Side Shift or Launch Point? Like, what do you

3:31see there? I would say if you're looking to make a quick dollar fast, Side Shift, Launch Point, Tech UGC, just cuz it's so it's so beginner-friendly. It doesn't take the the best creator in the world. Anyone with two hands and a brain could could, you know, absolutely hit a 10K month with Tech UGC. But if you want to scale past that, then I would start looking at Tribe once you start understanding content a bit more cuz a lot of people give up on Tribe just simply because they're not seeing any money from it cuz it is performance

4:00based. And so, they blame it on the platform when it's a matter of skill. So, I would first develop those skills first and then hop into Tribe. Organic first, get deals, get reps, practice, get to see, get advice from different people, communities, groups, all of that. Speaking of communities, uh how did you enjoy your time in Content Economy? Obviously, you're still a member, but you know, talk talk about

4:22that a little bit as well. Yeah, absolutely. So, I kind of hit this this wall with with Tech UGC where I was like I thought I was doing amazing with it. I was like 8K a month. I was like, how how do we scale past this? And it it kind of led me to this YouTube channel and in general just like how how can I start an agency, but

4:42also how can I get better paying deals? And then I like kept watching more videos and kind of Content Economy was the number one answer where it was like not only is it going to give you amazing deals, but people have done it before. It's not just one or two. It's thousands of of of people were in my spot and they they scaled past that. So, it's like kind of a no-brainer. If I if I've already made this money and I know it

5:04works, why not reinvest it in myself? Yeah. So, yeah. And then got in there, met up with with with Owen for the first few months and he taught me all his knowledge, absolute ball, game-changer right here. And then yeah, absolutely started ripping with with Tech, my agency, like I said, hitting those 20K months. And then switched over to it, but also there's other people who did the exact same like uh there's some other creators like Brandon. He's hitting 20K months on

5:31on Tribe. He's he's killing it as well. So, it's like as you grow, people grow with you, too. 100% and it's really good to hear that you had a good experience. Um it's not for everyone. I feel like the most important thing with content is you don't have to be very smart, but you do have to work hard. And if you're not willing to put in the reps and put the time in, it's just probably not going to work out for you unless you're just one of those rare people who can pick

5:58something up and do do great right away. Mhm. But from my experience it's been a lot of work and reps. So talk about kind of the work that you've done because I know right now you're in a position where you just left your job. You went all in on [clears throat] all of this. You probably have friends and family that are unaware of how much time and effort you've put into all of this. I know because I've had conversations with you. I personally went through that journey. I know it's a lot. So tell me a little bit about the work that you've

6:21had to do. Yeah, absolutely. So like I said, I started this So actually I've said it before, but the journey of me quitting my job is that like I graduated college and people were just like try corporate. So I was like, I'm going to give it eight weeks. And during those eight weeks, I think within the first two weeks I knew I was like I I hate this. Like I'm I'm spending I remember I think you texted me or something and you were like, "Yo, this

6:44is not going to work." Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I was like, "This is not it." And it's so funny cuz it was like I I remember watching your story. You're you're an SDR for a little bit. Bryce was an SDR for a little bit. You know, just like I was like, "I just got to give it a shot." So within two weeks

6:58you know cuz it's so crazy with the UGC. It's like the amount of effort you put into it, you get back versus a job you have a ceiling. So it's like just having that uncap ceiling is kind of what drives you. But even during like a 9:00 to 5:00, it was like I was exhausted at the end of the day, but I made sure out of schedule where it was after my 9:00 to 5:00 I was working solely on UGC till the moment I slept. I'd wake up, go to the gym, job,

7:21UGC. And it was within the first month you you don't see a huge return, you know? It was like I was making I think I made like $3,000 my first month of Tribe. Like that isn't enough to quit the job. So and but it was the second month. It was all the work you put in the first month, you're going to see in the second

7:38month really. 100%. that's where I saw that 12K month. then all my work in the second month I'm I'm going to see crazy in in Q4 and you just keep building. So, if you don't have the patience to at least wait 30 days of just all out effort, then it just not going to not going to work out for you. 100% Yeah, the first month is really rough because even if you, you know, have success and you sign deals right away, usually companies aren't going to pay out till, you know, a month of you doing work or whatever it

8:06is. Um that's really sick to hear your story and how much work you had to go through. What are your plans with the agency and like where do you think you can kind of take this entire thing? Yeah, absolutely. So, plans for the agency is right now just started with it. We have three brands on boarding,

8:22but we have a a ton more going. And then I'm plans for it is to actually blow it up, be one of the top go-to agencies on Tribe. And then after that, I think I'll have enough experience where it's a it's kind of natural path where I can start launching my own product and and

8:39building my own brand. Incredible. Do you want to do physical or do you want to go app? Right now it's like a it's like a 50/50. I I started in the app space. I still love it. I know exactly how it works. But then I recently got into physical and it was just like a little bit mind-changing as well where I'm like you can make a ton of money here as well and it's almost almost the same way the same fundamentals of UGC just switched a little bit. So, it's it's really going to come down to like what products I want to create and

9:10what gap in the industries I find. Yeah. Yeah, there's this concept of specific knowledge. Um Naval talks about it in his his book. And basically, when you are working really hard, diligently, and learning in a space and like kind of getting to the frontier, you're going to see gaps in the market easier and you can make bets on that. Um usually those these will just be ideas. Most people won't put any thought toward towards the ideas or won't think they're that great,

9:38but you'll be like, I think it can work. And so you give it a shot. Um, which is really sick. But cool, good to hear. App space, by the way, it's great, obviously, because it's relatively easy to get going. It's easy to market. I think the hard part with apps is how competitive the space is now because so many people can build. And really in the last two or three months, it it's just like I think since Astra has dropped and now, you know, Opus 5.5, it just does everything. Like it truly does everything. I I mean, this video, I'm not going to edit it. It's going to

10:14edit all my videos, find the best performing thumbnails. Like literally everything is done now. And I never thought we'd get to that point. So, if you're going to build in the app space, you have to have really good technical talent and they got to be on all the time finding new things and optimizing. Um, but physical products, if Here's Here's my thought process. If you're like a bro, like a bro marketer, like us, I think physical products are better for you. Um,

10:40that's just been my personal experience. But I I can't wait to see what you do. Yeah, dude, I'm I'm super excited. There's There's a ton in the future waiting for me. But like with that being said, going back to the apps, kn- knowing what you know now, if you had to start from absolutely square one and speed run to app success,

10:59wh- what would that game plan look like? I would download WhisperFlow. The shoutout to [laughter] the little app for WhisperFlow, but I first of all do not really type anymore. I just use WhisperFlow for everything. Um, and I would open Codex or Claude, whatever you want to use, and uh put on the best model, and I would just WhisperFlow everything for possible context about me. At the same time, I would think about what products I use in my day-to-day life already, um, and see how to make them better. So, Keoni, founder of Cut AI, um, kind of like a competitor to us because it's a

11:32creator tool, but like also not really. We don't really We're like pretty good friends, actually. It's kind of funny. Um, and we just tell each other what we're doing. It's like a very weird thing. But, Keoni, um, his I asked him, I was like, "How'd you come up with Cut AI?" He's like, "I literally just asked I opened ChatGPT and said, 'Give me like five app ideas that I can do with AI and for TikTok Shop creators.'" And uh, that was like the one It was like the second one. It was, you know, editing with AI to make it easier and save time. And uh, he just built it and, you know, brought

12:06on a developer, Isaac, to build it. And uh, yeah, it's doing 400k a month or something first month. Um, the other thing I would pay attention to, I I think what Cut AI capitalized on is the ICP being TikTok Shop creators. They make a lot of money, right? So, you can sell a higher ticket

12:25product to them. That's what Cut AI is. And then number two, they're extremely cultish and clique-ish. So, if you're selling to TikTok Shop creators and it works, they're sharing it because they all have personal brands too that they're trying to share and grow. So, you know, marketing to a group of people that actually have personal brands and can share or evangelize for your product is incredible as well. So,

12:46that's what I would do. Um, but yeah, in terms of in terms of all [snorts] of that, I think it makes most sense to just go to the App Store, look in your, um, you know, in your space at what's working and see if, you know, if you can get any any ideas there. Again, that specific knowledge comes into play. For CJ and I, when we launched Artext, we were already running, um, our communities and agencies for like 2 plus years. So, at this point we knew creators really wanted help getting feedback on their videos. So, the first version of Artext was video analyzing tool, which is still in the

13:21[clears throat] app. It's just like one of the 17 hero features, basically. Um, so, when we had launched that, that was our specific knowledge is creators wanted help, they wanted coaching, but they couldn't pay for like one-on-one coaching. So, let's make something more scalable where they can upload videos and have AI analyze it. Kind of the same thing. But, I think you could do any of

13:40those different things, to be honest. But, tell me about um you know, kind of the different brands that you've worked with and maybe some experience or things that you've learned from working with different types of brands. Yeah, absolutely. I'll I'll break this into like kind of two segments of the or like the tech organic canvas UGC versus the tribe performance UGC. So, the first off was like the tech perform I mean the the tech night canvas UGC. All brought

14:07all brands runs very similar. It's it's normally one of two things. You get a base pay and then a CPM. So, for example, for 30 videos, they'll pay you 20 bucks a video and for every 1,000 views, they'll pay you a dollar. Or it's some brands like to go only on the performance side like $3 per 1,000

14:25views, no base pay. And you stack a couple of these deals up and you know it works like a well-oiled machine once you get into it. You're going to warm up you're going to warm up a a brand new account on normally Facebook normally TikTok, YouTube, Instagram. You post across all three and you try to get as many views as possible for each brand. Then once you get into it, you'll realize the same formats of content crush no matter what and becoming a really good creator is knowing how to plug one brand's message into another format and do that with all

14:58your brands. And I think that's a really easy way that I had a good experience with with tech UGC was making sure that I could make it a replicable like a the process repeatable. And I think the only thing the only downside with the process of working with that is that it was so manual of having to to upload to to go from TikTok to Instagram to YouTube and then warm up three accounts, and having to switch between each one, and having to post eight times a day times three, so it's just like

15:29Absolutely brutal. Absolutely [snorts] brutal at the end of the day. And then that's what led me to like joining Content Economy, becoming a campaign manager. That's the next step. Is you start doing really good on these campaigns, you get to start managing like a set of five to 10 creators. And then I got some experience with that with like two or three brands I was really crushing with, and I started my

15:49own own agency. And then people kind of you can outreach people people come to you to be like, "Hey, this UGC stuff I see it's working." And then you can fully manage it end to end. Getting the creators, coaching them, having them post for you, and you can make a a lot of money doing that. I know that's how you originally

16:04had success. Yeah. it's exactly what I did. Um Mhm. I I was pretty much done with posting on social media cuz I got canceled, which is the next thing I want to ask you about. Uh And yeah, we'll see how you're going you're kind of going through that journey right now, but I I basically went to my account and I was like, "Listen, I'm done, bro. Like I I'm not cut out for this negativity. Like to be honest, now I'm immune to it. Now I'm great at it. Now it's it doesn't even bother me at all. But at the time it was the first time I got canceled, I was

16:35like, this sucks. Um but yeah, talk a little bit about, you know, your your experience being canceled ish. Kind of not really canceled at all, but like negativity, you know? Yeah, absolutely. So like on the internet, of course, it's like like what I wanted to say I started with a personal brand, and then like that's how I got into content, and I still post on there. And it was like a a controversial post, whatever. People people were either on side A or side B, but side B really did not like this. And so just like And it it wasn't just like negative comments. Like they're they're like

17:08reaching out to like family members. It's like, "Oh my gosh." Just go to Yeah, just going over the top. They're like messaging you on on Instagram. Like they found my LinkedIn. It it funny cuz they're trying to like message my job, but I was like, "Already quit. Too late." [laughter] Yeah, I'm like, "Go for it."

17:24Yeah. Yeah, so I mean, it's it's just like with And it's so low paying at the end of day. Like, nobody's really paying influencers anymore unless you have an insane amount of followers with an insane amount of pull. Really really good engagement. Yeah, that's what they Yeah, but yeah, insane in engagement. Well, with UGC, you don't need to have a single follower, and you'll be making more than these people who have a million

17:47followers. And you don't have to worry about hate and negativity cuz it's just like, at the end of day, you're making money. That's exactly what it is, bro. It's exactly what it is. Yeah, it's been it's been good to watch you continue posting through that. Um it's really not a big deal, but when

18:03it's happening to you, it's a huge deal. Um but you honestly have to like get more humility and just, you know, understand that it's not about you, like the creator. It's really about these people and their own lives and their own projections and all these different things going on. And your your video is literally just another video on

18:22the timeline. Just another, you know? So, people might have extreme aggression towards you, but if you get 2 million views on a video, it's actually asinine to think that there wouldn't be 20 people or 100 people that go leave negative comments, right? Or even make videos about you because out of that percentage, that's totally

18:39reasonable. Um So, it's good to see that you've you've been strong, you know, and continue Um it it is actually a huge net positive for your personal brand to be associated with things, believe it or not. Um so, good job there. And then back back towards the agency and that entire path. Um a lot of creators what I tell them is there's organic UGC, there's paid ads, there's brand deals, there's running being a campaign manager, there's, you know, running your

19:08own agency, there's doing coaching. There's so many different avenues, there's so many different types of brands to work with." What would you give someone as a piece of advice to find like their specific niche in this entire content space? I would first say it has to start with being a creator. I would say like the the best agency owners have been a creator before. They started out that way, like they know the game, and you you wanted to be doing something you actually like love. And it's like if if you were just a creator for it, you'd be happy. Because it was like when I was getting towards the the end

19:39of my agency journey with with just Tech and Organic, it was kind of getting getting annoying cuz it was so tedious. And I was chasing people around, and it That's That's not what I liked. So, I would say you have to figure out what's the the perfect balance of what you're really good at and and what you really

19:57like. I was really good at organic UGC. I still am. I'm still on a couple of deals just for like a sweet base pay and and and easy views. But it's like I'm not going to be putting my my focus into it cuz I cuz I don't love it. Versus like the the paid ads and physical product, I love that a lot more, and I'm not good at it, but like I'm getting a lot better at it. I guess I'm good at it

20:17now, but I started out awful. So, to be You're going to be very very good at it, too. Um you know, if you're making videos every single day and genuinely trying, it's going to absolutely cook for you. By the way, I wanted to go back to what you just talked about in terms of how manual

20:32the process is for organic UGC creators. Mhm. So, we built Our Tech for content economy creators. Basically, like top creators in the space, they have deals on Side Shift, Launch Point, Tribe, all these different platforms. So, that's a huge issue. How do you manage them? Um so, Our Tech is a CRM for creators to manage their content careers, but it's also a complete tool set. So, if if a brand gives you a video, and they want to have you remake that video, you can take the link, put it in Our Tech into the scripting tool, it'll build you your script, and then you record right there

21:05with the teleprompter in Our Tech, and go through and just make your video. And then you just hit AI edit and it edits it for you in the fashion that you want as well. So, you can add B-roll and it'll go pull B-roll from your own drive in Our Tech. This is actually technically new. Like, people don't know

21:20we have this yet. Um so, it'll edit everything for you and then you can save it right now or very soon you'll be able to cross-post to whatever accounts you want as well. So, all you have to do if you get a good video is just hit, you know, use as inspiration. You just film it and then it edits and posts to all your accounts for you as well. And then that tracks off your your

21:40daily tracker for what you have to do. Um so, it should make this entire process much easier. Um and we're The other thing that's really cool is we have deal alerts. So, because we're partnered with all these platforms and we have all their deals there, you can basically say, I only want to work with this type of brand. Let's say it's a CPG like sleep sleep pills or whatever. Anytime there's a new deal posted on any of those

22:04platforms, you'll you'll get notified. So, you know exactly right away uh what brands what deals are available for what brands from any any of these platforms, which is crazy. Uh but yeah, so that's why we built it is mostly for content economy creators like yourself or even, you know, if you're a manager and you're like, "Hey guys, you know, we want you to remake this exact video. Just like take it, put it in Our Tech and just like let it edit it in that style for you." And it will,

22:30which is sick. Yeah, and like to to go off that, I feel like a lot of people think being a creator is just creating content, but that's actually the easy part of it. I think the hard part is like all like the little nuances and like how to navigate the whole entire business correctly cuz we have great creators, but they just

22:45don't know the business aspect of it. But having like a CRM where it can give you like deal alerts and then just like make everything so easy when it comes to like editing and then like scripting, adding B-roll for you. It just like everything just comes together so nicely. Exactly. Exactly. And it's only going to

23:02get better, too. Um, but if you're a professional creator, it's the way to go, for sure. Well, cool. Um, any, you know, final thoughts? You know, this is your your first content economy view, just absolutely crushing, um, leaving your job, going full in on it. Mhm. You were just in college, you went through this whole experience. I bet there's a bunch of people that are like you or want to be like you. Um, what

23:29would you tell them? Yeah, definitely. I think we all share the common idea of just like you have a dream and you know a 9-to-5 is not going to get you there. And I think a lot of people realize that like the last year of college like I did or even like a year into post-grad, you're working a job, you don't like it. And the biggest piece of advice I would have

23:49to give them is like take the leap. You know, it I I'm not the first who's done it, I won't be the last. It's like it's it's right there for it's for you to take it. All you have to do is just take that leap. Yeah. One of my favorite quotes, uh, I read this in Rockefeller's 38 letters to his son. They're private letters. No one was supposed to read them, but it's an

24:10audio it's a book and an audio book now. You can go listen to it on Spotify. I I have this new app called, uh, Promethe. It's basically like Aura, the running app, but for work. So, we have like a a group of guys that are in the app space and we can see how long people are working every day, like all that type of stuff. So, it's kind of like a

24:32competitive work. I like that, yeah. Kind of a bad addiction, I think, um, for me. But, anyways, Rockefeller said to his son, he goes, "Find your own way and God will help you." And it's really that simple. Like if you genuinely try and step and take a leap of faith, it'll work out more often than not. You know, you do have to work and you might have a lot of pain in the short term,

24:56but it is worth it. Anyways, Ty, where can people find you? And thank you for hopping on. People can find me on Instagram and TikTok at UGC with Ty. I drop all my tips over there. Dropping a lot more stuff with Tribe. As well, I'll be dropping a lot of brand deals if you

25:12want to hop on. Incredible. Guys, go work with Ty if you're a creator. He's got a lot of opportunity coming for you guys. And if you guys want our tech, uh DM me on IG. It's in test flight right now. So, we can send it to you, but you have to be You have to be a good creator, you know.

25:25Thing is absolutely killing. It is killing. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you, Ty. Have a great one. We'll talk soon. All right. See you, Alan.