86 minutes of paid-growth alpha | Hector Serrano

Lenny's Podcast · · 1 hr 28 min

Hector Serrano, WhisperFlow's head of content who joined at 19, walks Lenny Rachitsky through the paid UGC, hiring and founder-led content playbook behind the 30x revenue growth Lenny cites for the past year.

Watch the episode 1 hr 28 min · YouTube

The gist

  1. Serrano says WhisperFlow runs paid UGC through Tribe, paying its 50 creators a percent of ad spend, with some earning about $13,000 a month.
  2. A smart retainer guarantees newer creators a floor, such as $1,500 for 25 videos, topped up only when commissions fall short.

What they recommend · 4 picks

Tribe Software & apps

"When I saw it, I was like, this is a no-brainer. It's like the TikTok Shop method, but for Meta ads. And since SaaS companies aren't able to use TikTok Shop, now they've unlocke..."

"Naval Ravikant's Almanack... Media is like one of the best forms of leverage because you don't have to ask for permission, it's permissionless leverage... It's a book I continue..."

Miso AI tools

"Ever since I downloaded it, it's now been like 3 months. I can't stop using it and recommending it to friends... I missed my flight to SF from PR. I texted Miso, 'Hey, I missed ..."

Also mentioned

10:27 Polymarket · "Tobin did this a lot better at Polymarket. He cracked the code with organic UGC, not just doing very top of..."
10:35 Organic UGC · "Organic UGC does work. We just didn't see that much success or the success we wanted at Whisper."
11:35 Squid Haus · "Before that he actually started Squid Haus, which is a clothing brand, and he grew it really fast through..."
11:39 TikTok Shop · "Before that he actually started Squid Haus, which is a clothing brand, and he grew it really fast through..."
14:25 Smart retainer · "It's called a smart retainer. Let's say we're going to do 25 videos and we're going to pay you $1,500 as..."
18:50 Discord · "It's so easy for me to just drop it in the Discord and be like, "Hey guys, let's make a video on this.""

Ads in this episode

DX, WorkOS. They're paid, so we keep them out of the picks above.

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