How Tibo Lou Lucas Says He Would Seed 50 Small Creators Rather Than Buy One Big Sponsorship
He describes paying about $200 upfront and $500 if a post passes 50,000 views, then putting ad money behind the winners.
This Week in Startups · Jason turned $11 and one tweet into 1.1M views | E2311Tibo Lou Lucas, a founder who makes tools for posting on social media, says he would avoid paying about $10,000 for one sponsorship and hoping it works.
Instead, he says he would seed his product to 50 to hundreds of much smaller creators. He would pay each a small amount for making the video, plus a much larger success fee tied to how the post performs.
The reason, he says, is that follower counts no longer guarantee reach. Social feeds now pick what appears in recommendations, so anyone can go viral if the algorithm picks up the video.
To find candidates, he says he has researchers, who he calls agents, look on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube for accounts averaging about 1,000 views over their last 20 posts. He says he would offer those creators a base fee of about $200 to talk about his product.
If a post about his product passes about 50,000 views, he says he would pay a bonus of about $500. Then he would run ads behind the most successful posts and keep working with those creators.
Questions people ask
Why does he think a small account can outperform a big star now?
Feeds used to show posts to most of a creator's followers. Now TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X rank posts for each viewer, so a small account with a strong video can outrun a big account with a weak one.
What kind of accounts do his researchers look for?
He looks for regular posters averaging about 1,000 views across their last 20 posts. His researchers find them on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, and reach out to many of them at once.
What does he do after some posts take off?
He watches which product posts take off. Then he puts paid promotion behind those winners and continues working with the creators behind them.