Breaking through the $10K/Month Ceiling: An Agency Owner’s Playbook for UGC Creators | Andrew Shin E4

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the UGC Industry Podcast, the show that brings creators, brands, and everyone building the UGC space into one conversation. I'm Brandon Heen, your host, and every week I sit down with the people building this industry, from creators landing brand deals to the founders and agencies behind them. Let's get into it. On this episode, we have Andrew Shin, one of the very first UGC creators and mentors. He's done deals with companies like Nike's and Adidas, and now he runs his own agency, which is very successful. He works with some of the biggest brands and has some of the best results in the space. So, Andrew, what has made your agency so successful and differentiates you from the other agencies out there?

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Thanks for having me on. For more context, I run a mentorship called the Creator Blueprint, and it's bled into having an agency called Good Marketing. It's a UGC agency. We source, train, and then manage talent on behalf of brands. If a brand wants to go live with UGC as a channel, we're the go-to for that. We found a lot of success because a lot of our creators are mentored through the Creator Blueprint and then they've transitioned over into good marketing. So that's how we found a lot of just quick growth. We're working with very notable brands that you probably heard of.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

When running your mentorship, how can you tell when someone is going to come in and just be a killer versus someone who you're not too bullish on?

SPEAKER_01 1:18

What it comes down to isn't as much quantitative as it is a gut feeling. For the most part, we're right. Obviously, there's some people that don't have a hot start, but the average creator that is gonna come in and find success, they're hungry and they're responsive. I love how raw you are on your Instagram, bro. The bar is so low. So it's like when it comes to an application, can you fill out your full name correctly? Can you link your Instagram versus just typing it out? It's small things like that. And you have to understand you're not working with a brand, you're working with a person on the other side of the screen. How can you make it as easy as possible for them, right? It's not hard to be a solid creator.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

A lot of it comes down to very basic professionalism answering emails, being responsive. Of course, yeah. And then when it comes to tactics, what separates a UGC creator who starts getting a bunch of views versus someone who really struggles to get views out there?

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Right. So there's a term out there called base collecting. You do not want to be a base collector. Base collecting means you're just trying to hit the base amount of views. Tactically speaking, you want to avoid this because brands are catching on, agencies are well aware of it too. If you're just doing the bare minimum, we're gonna cut you for someone that wants to actually go viral and learn the skill of virality. When you're starting any account, the goal isn't necessarily going viral, it's data collection. How many different pieces of data can you get out there as soon as possible? So if a brand's allowing you to post more than one time a day, you should be posting three to five times a day to collect the data and then see what winning formats you have, because not every single format's gonna work for myself versus Brandon, vice versa. That's when the goal is how do I go viral from those winning pieces, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

So the kind of UGC that his agency specializes in is organic UGC, which is where you're you're posting every day for a brand, you get a base pay, but then you can also get huge bonuses if you if you get a lot of views.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Crazy. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

This is a newer kind of UGC though, but you've been in this space for a long time. What was UGC like when you started?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

I was making the joke that I was like, oh, back in my day, but really things have accelerated so quickly that back in my day was like for retainer, UGC retainers, it was like a year ago. Well, what about your very first UGC deals? To summarize it to something that's, I guess, newer to UGC, there's two types of deals from a bird's eye view: one-off deals and then retainers. One-offs are kind of what they sound like. They could be multiple videos, these are usually a couple hundred dollars each. And then there's retainers. Retainers are a higher frequency of posting, but the ceiling is much higher. If a video goes viral, you're gonna get paid tens of thousands of dollars versus a one-off. Typically, I would say 250 to 500 bucks per video. I never really was a retainer creator. I was mainly a one-off creator. That's why I work with brands like Adidas, Nike, Puma, Champ Sports. Did they reach out to you? Or could you did you have a social media following before you started doing UGC? So I'm trying to think back to the days when I had like less because I'm sure a lot of people know this, but I always tell people a personal brand means if Nike were searching for you, would your would your name come top of mind, right? That's what a personal brand is. Is it it is not okay, how many followers does this person have? Because I've helped creators personally that have millions of followers and they can't afford rent. Like they're literally living from brand deal to brand deal. And it's it's absurd, right? So what you see isn't always the truth. Um, but to answer your question, these brands reached out to me. A lot of these were inbound, but a fair share were also through applying on platforms like Kohly. Yeah. Um man, it's easy to get deals. Um, here's a quick tip. I coin it as the three bullet point method. When you're applying for any opportunity on platforms, is just share three bullet points, right? People want to write a whole essay, talk about why they love a product so much. If you're applying for a brand deal, it's implied that you like that product. Just make it easy for the person again on the other side of the screen. So relevant stats, viral videos, what brands you work with before, and then a link to your portfolio. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 5:11

What if someone's brand new and they don't have any of that?

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yeah. So that's the thing. A lot of people will have this victim mentality. That's like a whole separate podcast, but new podcast launching.

SPEAKER_00 5:19

No, literally, literally.

SPEAKER_01 5:21

If someone's completely new, the reason I was saying victim mindset is because the average person might say, Oh, I don't have any experience, I'm not cut out for this. Well, you have to remind yourself user-generated content, UGC, is just simply relatable people talking about relatable products, right? That's all it is. So you might not have experience as a UGC creator, but let me just give an example. So, like a lawyer, right? As a lawyer, you're well spoken. You, let's say, have a degree, I don't know, as someone in in marketing, right? Or maybe you were the president of your fraternity. All these things still correlate to UGC because there's no degree for UGC. Even when I was starting with with no with no deals, of course, I had to land something at some point. I just spoke on why I would be a good fit, right? The best metrics, in my opinion, are quantitative, meaning like numbers. You can't argue numbers. Qualitative is, you know, more subjective a lot of times. But when I was getting my first deal for Hollister back in high school, yeah. Nice. That was your first deal? Yeah, no experience. But I what I said was that I do videography, right? Mm-hmm. And I do photography. This was not professional, this was just for fun, right? Yeah. That already puts me ahead of the rest versus someone else that just says empty words like, oh, I love Hollister's clothing and I love the new sweatshirt. And it's like, that might be true, don't get me wrong. And like I love those things too, but realistically, what value add is that for the brand, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:40

So while most people are getting jobs like working at the front desk at Hollister, you started doing UGC for Hollister. Yeah. Why did you want to get into UGC in the first place? Because when you were doing it, there probably wasn't people online talking about it. It wasn't called UGC, it was called social media brand investor.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

That's why I said I started doing UGC before UGC. Now everyone in their mom is like a mentor, which is funny because it's like they have no credibility to show for it. I say that because I I've worked both sides. I've worked on the one-off deals, I've seen the retainers. All I can say now, and you can attest to it too, the number of creators are just so spoiled, it's crazy. I was just talking to my creators before. I said, Why are we begging you to make money? Yeah. Why am I the one begging you to make money, right? In any other setting, just because we're not in a formal office setting, you're not taking it as serious.

SPEAKER_00 7:24

Where do you think that mentality comes from? From these UGC creators or wannabe UGC creators who come in and have all this opportunity in front of them and just don't go all in on that. I don't think like that. So it's like asking, you know, why does a liar lie?

SPEAKER_01 7:37

Like that's just not ingrained with you and I, right? I really think it's uh the fact that you're not going into a formal location. It's a younger space. So naturally you attract people that are just quite immature and really don't value this opportunity. If we're paying someone $50 for a video that only gets a thousand views, that's double, even triple in some states what they make minimum wage. But why do they not treat it the same? My focus hasn't been trying to understand why those people don't rise to the occasion. It's actually helping the ones that do even more. That's been my mental shift because I've given up on trying to beg people to make money.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

Exactly. Same here. I thought it was funny how you say that's minimum wage. So one of my first jobs when I was in high school, I would work at a dollar store making $7.25 an hour. Seven. $7.25 an hour. North Carolina. Shoot, okay. So a four-hour shift is $25 gross. So eight hours. Oh my goodness. Isn't that so crazy? I can't even fathom that. That's that's like and like that wasn't bad. Like I was a I was a good kid, too.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

Like, minimum wage, so it's like the standard, yeah. For anyone else watching this video, it's just like you have such a golden opportunity on your hands right now. I wouldn't even say we've we've come into the golden era of UGC. Like brands are still testing the waters. No one wants to be the first brand. But once there are more top-tier brands that come into the space, everyone's gonna want to venture into it. Quick marketing lesson. Let's just say three marketing channels. Obviously, there I'm sure there's a lot more, like billboards and whatnot, but print ads, but for the sake of the conversation, influencer ads, meta like Facebook and um UGC. Typically, if it's run correctly, UGC is always gonna be the most cost efficient. From the brand's perspective, so there's still a lot of opportunity out there.

SPEAKER_00 9:24

Absolutely. And so you guys work with some really top brands in this space. I'm curious from the agency perspective, how do you get in touch with these brands?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

So I have a friend who started another agency and he's doing really well. And when he was first starting out, he was saying we just solely get inbounds. And I was like, But what did you do to like get those inbounds? And he said, We just had one great case study. And word travels fast, right? Because it's in the UGC space, it's like you can't really hide your work. Like if anyone wanted to figure out what I was doing, I mean, we're publicly posting most different. So it's not it's not like we're trying to gatekeep anything here. Once a brand finds like a great subset of creators, they could easily just go back to trace who the agency is, right? Or just ask the creator themselves. Are you working with the agency? So that's how a lot of brands find us. It's typically like a lot of creators. If you do right by your creators, then uh there's millions of dollars to be made on the back end where other brands approach you. So we're all we're all inbounds now. And how did you make the transition from creator to agency? I went creator to mentor to agency co-founder. Shout out my co-founder, Richard Lynn. He did really well with Whisperflow. My difference is just my mentality. A lot of creators treat UGC like a side hustle, right? I'm a business owner. I really feel that any entity that can make you $10,000 a month is a business and should be treated like such, right? So you and I, we both have this wonderful blessing of coming from corporate. Yeah. I really believe it's a blessing because we know how to carry ourselves, you know how to be punctual. There's some people like yourself that I don't have to worry about, like, because you worked as a creator on our campaign. I don't have to, I don't have to second guess like, is this guy trying? Versus other creators that we're begging them to post. We're having to say, hey, why why are you not just hitting the minimums? A lot of creators in this space or even agency owners, they've had zero corporate experience and it's giving the industry a bad rep. It's just like if you want to get ahead, it's not difficult. Be professional.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

So you so you mentioned an opportunity where you can make $10,000 a month, even if you're in college and you have no experience. Yeah. When someone enters your agency, how do you take them from never doing UGC before to making $10,000 a month?

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah, and that's a good point because a lot of people think if they're completely new to the space, they have no chance. But a lot of creators that we go for actually have zero experience because they have no bad habits formed. There's others' mentors out there telling you guys as creators, just collect the base amount of views. If you ever do that in my agency, we'll cut you so fast. If someone wants to go from zero to $10,000, a lot of it is mental reframing. A lot of the words I tell someone starting out at that phase, it's not even like change that hook or change that text. It's getting them to believe they can hit that 10k. Yep. So I always say, like, I'm kind of an unpaid therapist in that sense, right? Yeah. Um, zero to ten is limiting beliefs, ten to twenty is his systems, and then twenty K plus his time in the game.

SPEAKER_00 12:07

One thing that I really love about coaching people too is helping people through that mindset of believing that they can actually start to make money online. Yeah, yeah. It's really nice. And it it's funny you said some people they they tell them to go just collect the base. I I've had an evolution myself as a UTC creator. To be honest, when I first got into this space, it's so funny because I just got so many deals so quickly, I was just stacking as many base retainers as I could because you can get up to five to 10k a month literally with no skills. Just obviously just pure effort. Yeah. But the thing is, is that you're gonna kind of cap out in that five to 10k a month range, even if you have no skills, just collecting base pay, working from morning to night. But if you really want to get to 10 or 20k plus, you have to take on performance-based deals and get huge bonuses where you can get thousands of dollars per video. I know you guys are really well known for the coaching you give creators within your agency. How do you coach someone on how to break through that barrier of 10 to 15k a month so that they can get viral videos and lots of view bonuses?

SPEAKER_01 13:09

Yeah, if we're sp or if we're talking about 10 to 15k, that's assuming that they've already got rid of those limiting beliefs. 10 to 15 is is actually doing less in terms of taking on less retainers. I tell creators at this at this stage, because we're in the space now where someone's getting paid 40 to 70 dollars base, right? So I say take on two, maybe three retainers max and really study your craft. There's no reason that you should you shouldn't be putting out three videos a day per brand. I would say two to three is like very, very fair to ask, right? Um, because again, let's say you're just doing UGC, you can make way more money working part-time versus as a full-time employee.

SPEAKER_00 13:45

Absolutely. Posting three videos a day for one company is much easier than posting one video a day for three companies. 100%. Because when I started within a couple weeks, I was on 12 different deals posting one video a day for 12 different companies who were paying me an average of $400 a month. So I was at like $5K a month in retainers, but I was making 10 to 12 videos a day. Right.

SPEAKER_01 14:09

No, this is where the the the out-of-pocket brand will come out. Because like the thing is this there's more brands out there than there are top quality creators, right? I remember you posted something on your story one time, someone was just coping maxing, right? They were just like, hey, like I can't find a deal. And it's like, dude, if if you got out, like if you got out your phone right now, got someone in my DMs telling me that right now. Literally, literally. So like I tell them exactly what to do. Let's get to the real part about this. This is where things actually change for the for people watching this, right? There's no reason that you couldn't get a deal within 24 hours. Yeah. I helped someone, and I'll say the exact deal. Her name's Emma. I helped her get three deals within the first 24 hours on Launchpoint. Yeah. Her first deal ever for UGC was with Uber. Uber Eats. Wow. Three deals, right? They asked you to do three videos for $300 each. That's $900, right? The victim mindset will instantly start coping. Oh, it's because she knew Andrew. It's because she had some crazy connection. No, I told her, get out your phone, go to Launch Point, and click this deal. If you can't do that, like I don't I don't want to ever be that guy, but it's cooked for you. It's it's yeah, it's done. Literally. And I never thought I'd be that guy saying, like, it's cooked because I'm like, oh, that's so mean to say that. But it is true. Like, if you can't take out your phone and apply to a deal, I mean, I don't know what do you want me to create the video for you too?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

It's like, I don't know, I don't know. It it almost gets to a point as people who coach other UGC creators, we we become jaded against other creators because you try to help these people and you show them the exact thing to do, uh-huh, and they just won't take the instructions. What I think is because the thing is in UGC, nobody's gonna tell you you have to do anything. No, like when you when you have a job, you have a boss who's telling you you have to do something. But here's the thing you go to school, you graduate college, you get out and you get a good job, quote unquote, 70k a year. Yeah. That's like 6K a month. You work for an entire year just to get a 5% promotion. And that's the thing people don't understand.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

It's like, because I worked corporate. My goal working corporate was to make $100,000. I made $100,579. For anyone out there, it's like, oh, that's great, right? What you're not understanding is that you don't have the luxury of being a business owner. You can't write things off now. $100,000 corporate is not $100,000 as a business owner.

SPEAKER_02 16:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

So that's what people don't understand. Um, but again, going back to the optimistic side, and I I love how you said that we become quite jaded because I'm like, I'm not, I'm not like this. In any other field, I'm just I'm a chill, just like easygoing guy. But we become aggravated because there's just it's just like I don't b I can't even believe that's what someone thought, right? But uh to go back to my my point about corporate versus entrepreneurship as a business owner, right? No one is gonna come save you because we can just find another creator. Exactly. If you're not if you're not to par. And and the top agencies, the top brands are hyper aware that if they have a good pay structure, the creators will come. Question for you though. So when you were starting, you had a lot of deals out there. What was the final trigger that got you just like away from base collecting?

SPEAKER_00 17:06

Actually, it was on one of your guys' deals, right? I hit my first million view video. That was with us. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you were cooking with that one.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

That that that format. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:16

Yeah. I opened up my phone one morning and all of a sudden it was over like 200,000 views. And I'd had a hundred thousand view video before. In my first month, I got one, but it was in a skit format. Uh-huh. So it was different. This was me just straight up talking to the camera. I got paid a thousand dollars for that video. Was it geared towards older men, that one? It was deep geared towards people who were balding over the age of 30. So that brings up one point. As you're looking at the products you you want to work on, look for products that really have a strong angle or a strong hook that you can sell. Like, for example, this was uh, you know, a product preventing balding. Yeah. So that you know, that's a deep insecurity for a lot of people. So it provides you a lot of good angles to hook people in and make them watch. My other deal that I do the best on is like a dating slash cheating thing, which also is a huge insecurity. It's a huge insecurity for people. So it's so it's a very good like angle slash hook. Once I got that million view video on the account, all of the subsequent videos started getting a lot of views too. And and a lot of a lot of people get stuck in UGC because they post 10, 15, 20 times and they don't go viral. But what I try to tell people is that once you hit a viral video, it's kind of like warmed up and all the subsequent videos do well. So then I was hitting quarter million, quarter million. And that's you got me thinking about so much.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

Yeah. So that's when you start going from, oh, I made a thousand dollar base to holy crap, I made two thousand dollars this week.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

Right. You you need to shift your thinking in in that manner. And I appreciate you saying that because um going back to what I was saying before, there's something called a 10K prison. Creators will put this number on a pedestal, right? I bet if I asked a hundred people randomly on the street that want to get into online money, what's that golden number for you per month? They're gonna say ten thousand dollars a month, right? So if we know that's the golden number, right? Once someone hits that, they taper off, right? And again, like maybe you're at zero dollars right now. I'm trying to tell you that ten thousand dollars is not a crazy number. What if in an alternate reality we said twenty-three point five thousand dollars was the golden number? I guarantee you more people will be on that way, right? Yep. And again, this isn't meant to hurt any feelings, this is meant to actually encourage you. $10,000 a month is a number that just shows you're trying.

SPEAKER_00 19:33

And that's why it's so important to get around other people who are doing it because it shows you it's possible. Like you would not believe how many people think that that number is so impossible. Just today, on my Instagram story, or I made a post where I was talking about how I'm about to hit 20K in a month. Yeah, and someone's like, No, you're lying, you're lying. I'm like, I'm like, guys, that's not even a crazy number. And it's like it's not like I'm saying I'm making a million dollars a month.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Like, if you can't even argue with that, though. You can't you can't argue with someone like that, right? It's uh it's logic versus emotions. Here's a good analogy. When I was in high school, people around me were saying, Why'd Andrew post that? I remember walking into class one day where I had a Hollister brand deal, and my friends were like, yo, did you see what Andrew posted? The conversations I'm having now are, Andrew, why aren't you posting enough? Yeah. So it went from why aren't you why are you posting to why aren't you posting enough, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

What was that reflective of? It was reflective of the change I had in my friend group, right? So if you're around people that are making money, you'll naturally follow suit. And for anyone that's joining my mentorship, I always tell them how many people do you have in person making $10,000 a month right now from UGC? Pretty much always zero. Yeah. Um, okay. Since you don't have that in person, what's the next next logical step? Finding a virtual or digital community, right? Where we have a plethora of people making $10,000, $20,000, $30,000, $40,000 a month. So that's that's the beauty of it. I've purchased a mentorship before, and I can't really tell you a single module or concept I remember, other than the fact that I saw other people making X amount of money. Yep. And that hurt my ego because I was like, dude, they have the same resources. They're in fact, maybe I think one was younger than me, yeah, making infinitely more money. Why can't I do that? And I swear that was the big difference, not a module.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Exactly. The the difference in the thinking is there's some people who will look at other people making a lot of money and they'll get mad and angry and either call them a liar or say they got lucky versus the person I get excited when I see people doing better than me in my own space because I'm like, oh, that means there's more potential.

SPEAKER_01 21:30

I was thinking about that today, bro.

SPEAKER_00 21:31

Yeah, like I'll see, you know, I'll see. I know I do a lot of UGC on Tribe, and I'll see someone hit like a 30k month on Tribe. And I'm like, oh, that's dope because I haven't done that yet. And like now, now I can do that. Where there's other people who will be like getting mad about it.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

That that's life, right? Some people will get offended, some people will take inspiration from it. And you know, I'm seeing all these mentors pop up now. And at first I was like, I don't know what I think about that because I swear some of them were just copying the same exact form. Matt, same exact um, I guess, frameworks as myself. Like literally not even changed to the bio, but um That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

I want to pop in. Do you know how many people I've seen pop up with Instagram accounts? You know how my name is Brandoncollabs.ugc. Now it's like something collabs. Something collabs.ug. You're gonna see this everywhere now.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

I love it though. It's validity to the space, right? Yes. The entire total addressable market's now going up, right? I would still get like that that piece of the pie that I have is now infinitely bigger because more people are coming to space, right? So we wanted validity. We wanted more people to know and care about UGC. It's happening, right? But um, yeah, Zoe Collabs UGC or or branding collabs UGC or Ryan Collab UGC. That's uh I love it. It's a new way of quick interruption here.

SPEAKER_00 22:44

This video was brought to you by RTech, the all-in-one platform for UGC creators. So, as a U UGC creator, there are really three things you need. One is a suite of tools to make you more efficient from editing, tracking your deals, tracking your finances so that you're not hopping around from a million different apps. Two, the knowledge and coaching and training from people who've already been there and done that. And then three, access to deals. RTEC provides you all three of those and and was built by some of the OGs from the UGC space who understand everything that UGC creators know what they need to be successful. You can go hop on and try it now for free. Just click the link below. Something you said before really intrigued me that I want to go back to where you said you were in high school making videos and people were kind of talking behind your back. Yeah. A lot of people are afraid to get into UGC and make this life-changing money because they care about what their friends are gonna think of them. And me, look, I got into UGC as a 30-year-old. So I was out of this whole like peer pressure world. What was it like when you started making videos back then? And and and how did you get the courage to actually do it?

SPEAKER_01 23:52

I'm willing to admit that I care what people think about me, right? Whenever I hear someone say I don't care, I'm just like, that's a dangerous thing to say because it's like, I feel like then you're just moving in extremes, you know? I I care what people think about me. I want to be able to see. So it hurt definitely when I was growing up because coming from Seattle, a lot of people are just passive aggressive. There's something called a Northwest Freeze. A lot of people weren't championing me. They were very critical. I have been out of that mental space for so long, so I'm trying to think back to it. But ultimately, high school's a bubble, university's a bubble. Nothing really, really starts until after that, right? Yeah. And people go left, some people go right. The best advice I ever heard from my high school teacher, shout out Ms. Newman, in English, she said, you know, life is just a series of two choices every single time. It's just two choices, left or right. And she she said, you know, you can literally design your life to a T. So I was just like, wow, you know, um, okay. I can't wait to the point that I get my own freedom to to think that. Because I guess I ultimately always had the freedom, but I didn't have the right mental framework at the time. Um, but it's funny now that I'm sitting on the other side of the screen because you always hear people growing up like, don't care what people, you know, think about what you post. But it's really hard to do that unless you've actually been in it.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 25:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

You you you gotta rip the band-aid off. It's like with posting content even on a personal brand. It's super nerve-wracking to start doing it. Yeah. But eventually it doesn't feel like anything anymore.

SPEAKER_01 25:15

You start to realize no one really cares if it flops, or actually, no one really cares if it just goes make it viral. Like at first, you'll be like, yo, bro, that was a sick video, right? Yeah. And I you'll actually hear more of that than like, yo, that sucks. No one that's doing better than you will ever shit on you. It's the people that are naysayers that have these terrible mentalities that will have something to say about you. And it's always some like crusty looking profile photo. Yeah. I don't know. Well, whatever it is, it's just like, what do you really actually care about these people at the end of the day? Yeah. Um, and what I can assure you, and I'm sure that you can you've seen this play out too, is like as you've gotten older, you just you just care less and less, right? Exactly. And I always say for UGC, it's like we're just making videos, we're just doing marketing. Like, you're telling me I can change the entire layout of my of my life just doing that, and I'm not hurting anyone, I'm taking that. And if the trade-off is a couple comments here and there.

SPEAKER_00 26:05

I'm curious on that. So I have a lot more of an aggressive Instagram account. So obviously, I get haters on my posts for sure. I mean, I'm polarizing, yeah. Yeah. You get people to care. Yeah. What about your account?

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Like, did you do people come and hate on your account? Or no, I'm quite I'm to be honest, like, I my friends say like I'm I'm a bot. So it's like because I I'm very brand friendly, right? I'm very brand friendly. Like, brands prefer someone like myself that's not super outspoken about certain topics. That's when people meet me in person, they're like, oh, I thought you'd be more like AI, AI bot. But it's like, it's just different online. But uh, yeah, I mean, like, I posted a video of my apartment that went super viral, and it's just an apartment. Like, I didn't even say anything. Oh, I think I said like just something like, oh, this view's incredible, right? And people got like ticked off by that. It is a reflection, and there's a rapper named Nav that said. Dirty capitalist. Yeah, literally, literally. There's a rapper named Nav that said this, like, out of all people, it's it's funny that he said it. But he was like, You're still underground if you're not getting hate, which is true, right? If you if you're gonna go viral, you have to expect people to hate on it. It could literally be a video of you giving a hundred thousand dollars to your mom. Yeah. And the comments would be like, that's it, or like, bro, like, you don't know how to invest your money, right? And it's like, dude, it's like none of those people I would ever want to even associate with.

SPEAKER_00 27:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:18

So it's like, you know, it's whatever.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

It's so funny how how social media is, because I feel like I'm on the opposite end of the spectrum where people see me in real life and they're like, oh, you're actually way more chill.

SPEAKER_01 27:27

Like, I don't really I don't really spaces right now.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

I thought I thought it takes it be like crazy, but it's like Yeah, yeah. I don't really yell at people in real life like I do on Instagram. And and the surprising thing is I was excited for that, bro. I was like, oh, we're gonna about to go in. We can go in. We can go in. Social media is so fun. What is a big misconception that that UGC creators have about the space?

SPEAKER_01 27:47

I love this question. So let me break it down for you. At the end of the day, UGC is just a fancy name for marketing. So a big misconception is that UGC is some foreign or like esoteric thing. It's literally just a channel for marketing, right? This conversation has played out thousands of times, I'm sure. You're talking to your mom or dad, yeah, I started something called UGC. Are you sure about that, son? I don't know. That sounds fishy, you know? Versus if you just said, hey, I've been doing content creation, social media marketing for this brand, and they're paying me a set retainer per month, that's more digestible, right? People don't like things that are foreign because they seem scary, right? It's uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

Yeah, and I want to ask, especially in in Asian households, it's more traditional, more traditional paths. It's supposed to be doctor.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Yeah. Mr. Doctor, not Mr. UGC, bro. Yeah, and you you work with uh Asians are really good at UGC.

SPEAKER_00 28:39

It's probably like the top niche. So it's it's the best. So what did you think? Yeah, yeah. So what did your parents say when you were getting into this?

SPEAKER_01 28:46

I'll tell a quick story, but it this really changed my life. So I I've been doing content since I would say senior year of high school for Hollister. So my mom was aware that I was making money online, but um my mom and dad were both aware, but I don't think they saw it as like a viable career option, right? When I was working at ATT, this was over in Houston, Texas, I was a top seller in February 2024. And then exactly a year later, I was fired. So it's it's quite poetic how that happened. But um, I say that because, you know, I just lost passion. I lost passion for it. And I was looking at my check, and again, this is all relative. This is all relative, but I saw that my check was for $11,000 that month. Before someone gets triggered, you have to understand how much work I was putting in to make $11,000, right? And so I saw that and I'm like, my quota was literally you come from a sales background, my quota was literally 472%. The next person was like 200% because I was on a multiplier.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

And you only got 11K?

SPEAKER_01 29:38

11K.

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Don't ever make a video on Instagram saying 10K isn't a lot of money because you'll get hordes of hate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Coming from experience, right? But so so I was fired from that role in February 2025 and to tie it up into a nice little boat. My my mom is obviously Asian, so the person that I was so scared to call, but the person that also wanted to call first was my mom. Yeah. And she was dealing with breast cancer at the time. That was, you know, that was a while ago. She's she's all she's all good now. I was so scared to call her because I was essentially gonna say, like, hey, I want to go all into UGC. Because I never had that opportunity before I was doing school or corporate. She essentially told me to go for it. I believe it's gonna work out. So that was like a rare instance where I feel like a lot of other Asian people like don't encounter that. And I think it's because she shoots in with cancer, she realized how fragile life was. So, you know, I really say like for those that are of the faith, like, God made that decision for me. Thank God it happened the way it did. Um and yeah, that that's my story. But I I can really I know what a lot of Asian creators are going through because they want to keep this secret until it actually shows results. And for Asian parents, and any Asian creators actually, I would say, you're not gonna convince your parents that this works because of your words. You're gonna only convince them that this is a reasonable path to take on through numbers, through quantitative results. That that's literally the only way. Checks. Through checks, right? Your parents are gonna be like, you know, I I thought about it, and you just spoke so highly of UGC. So um, you don't have to be a doctor anymore. They're never gonna say that, right? Yeah. They're gonna say, Oh, and here's the best you're gonna get out of an Asian parent. Yeah. Oh, oh wow, that's a lot of money. And that's how you know, okay, I'm good now. I've heard that story told so many times over, but essentially, like, Asian parents don't believe until they physically see it in front of them. Um, well, actually, a lot of foreign parents too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 31:25

Yeah, what about your parents?

SPEAKER_00 31:26

Yeah, so I'd been trying to get out of corporate and make money online for a long time. Started tech sales for seven years. Six of those were at Cisco, and the last four, I was averaging 270k a year while I while I was in my 20s. I thought you were crazy because you left your job, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:41

Yeah. Yeah, so but like I'll let you finish. But I thought Brandon was crazy because I was like, dude, $270,000 a year. Yeah. And then you're gonna only like in in theory, you should keep climbing to get you know better management roles. I'm like, dude, this guy's he's done for leaving.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Yeah, and this was this started in 2020. So that was not only was it a lot more money then because inflation didn't start hitting hard, but also you weren't looking online. Instagram reels were just starting to come out when I started to make that money. So you weren't going on.

SPEAKER_01 32:09

I wasn't even sure if it was gonna pop off. I was uh like this seems like too new. But again, everything that is foreign is a bit scary, you know. Yeah, people don't want to be the first one, right? They don't, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

So you were you weren't even seeing people make money online. I was 25, so over 200K was unheard of. 25? Yeah. Dang, that was really good. Yeah. That's really good. Okay, okay. Yeah, 25 through 29 is when I did that whole run. Um was your base? My base floated between 990 and 115. I had commissions. I I blew my quote out every year. Yeah, I got onto a really great team in a hot market with a good manager. Okay, okay. But but the whole time basically, I was doing different side hustles. Yeah. So I'd been talking about trying to quit my job for a long time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And in in 2023, I was convinced that I was gonna become a travel YouTuber. And I remember traveling. But yeah, go back. So I remember I went home that year and I was having lunch with my mom, and I was like, mom, I'm gonna quit my job and I'm gonna go to Bali and I'm gonna travel the world for a year and be a travel YouTuber. Yeah. She literally started crying.

SPEAKER_01 33:12

Really? Yeah, dude. Oh my, that's so weird. I had this out-of-body experience during COVID where I was like, I'm gonna quit everything and become a YouTuber. Yeah, I still have less than a thousand subscribers, so I don't know what's talking about. It's literally just your inner child being like, dude, if I don't take this chance right now, what is it gonna be like when I'm 40 or 40? Exactly. And it's the scariest thing. I can't even fathom reality where someone just doesn't take that chance. Yeah. I'm like, I I that would suck. That would suck. I never saw myself working for Corpor forever. I was the same. I just didn't think it would happen all this quick. I was like, I know someday it's gonna happen, right? But was I actually working towards making that happen every single day? Nah.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

And and sometimes the darkest times can lead to some of the best moments. Like you said that you getting fired was a catalyst for doing AGC. For me, I had quit my job at Cisco to work for another startup, which was a dream opportunity, and that company fell apart, and I was left only making 4K a month, and I just started scrolling TikTok trying to figure out how to make money online in January of this year. Oh shoot, that was oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

So I quit my job at Cisco, the sales job at the end of 2024. Okay. I became the head of marketing for a real estate investment company that owned hostels in Hawaii. So I basically was nomadic for a year and a half. That company was not able to expand, and I wasn't making any money anymore. There was no future with it. So, like a lot of you guys, I pulled out my phone, I started looking up ways to make money online, and I'd heard of UGC, but I thought it was just influencers getting Airbnb stays because I would hire travel influencers for the hostel to come do content for us. So that's what I thought of as UGC.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

I used to like promote, I used to be like, well, you can you can say, I mean, it's true, you can say anywhere you want with like UGC, but I wasn't really getting paid for that. I was just getting like change.

SPEAKER_00 34:58

So this is what I always say. I was in the travel content niche for a while, and people always they had this fantasy of making travel vlogs and doing travel niche and getting these hotel says. No, we wouldn't even pay the influencers. What I what I would say is do UGC and actually make money doing tech UGC and then just go pay for the hotels.

SPEAKER_01 35:16

Yeah, for yeah, do Airbnb for fun, you know, do it for fun. Buy the Airbnb. Yeah, buy the Airbnb and go hop on one of his deals, hit a 10K video. But yeah, like I was gonna say, like, people only act off of pain, right? When something's bad enough, right? The thing I'm recognizing is I can get so much further ahead if I don't wait for a painful moment. Yes. I'll give you a micro example, but it's still true. A lot of times when we're cutting a crater because they haven't posted consistently every single day, or at least seven times a week, they'll be like, Oh, I didn't know you guys were serious about that. I'm gonna start trying now. No, no, no. Why are you trying now when the contract like it's very clear what we expect of you, right? Don't wait for pain because then stress accumulates. All these the weight of the world's on you. Don't wait for pain. Take advantage of something we call first mover's advantage and just do the simple things consistently, and you'll get so much further ahead.

SPEAKER_00 36:07

On top of the first mover's advantage, there's something I call the velocity of success, which is true for all of life, but also for UGC. At the beginning, it's so difficult to get started, like a rocket ship taking off. So much gas is required to take off a rocket ship. Uh-huh. But once you start having success, once you get a viral video, you will have unlimited opportunities and you will never go back to that struggle period again. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, right? Once you have a little bit of success, then you get opportunities to better deals. And then because you're on those better deals, you get better results. Yeah. And then you just keep climbing up and you keep climbing up so fast. And there's so many growth opportunities in the UGC space. So, how do you see the career progression looking for UGC creators that are doing well? What are their options for what to do next? So you can you can go the creator manager route.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

You can even get a formal marketing role. I had someone, shout out Nick Tarmo. You know Nick Tarmo? He's he's he's really, really, really solid. He he got an internship at San Francisco. Now he's working at Stan. Um, this is all because his videos popped off. But I want to go to a really cool concept you just said. So the velocity of success, right? I think it's a funny, funny story. But whenever I saw internet money like gurus online, they would always say, like, think abundantly, right? Think abundant. Bro, I'm fucking broke. How do I think abundantly with dollars, right? So that's that's a different thing, right? But as you start to accrue more money, right? And let's say, you know, you can make $100 doing something. In theory, the proof of concept is there now. You can make a thousand, you can make $10,000, right? Um, and the velocity of success that you were talking about, where it's super hard to start, it's a lot easier to once you're past that, like, I guess, like um building phase, is also something I like to say, like the law of attachment comes in, detachment comes in, right? Um, you just know things are gonna work out. I would say for the first year of being my own business owner, I had this looming anxiety, right? I'm sure you face you you felt it too. Was this month kind of just I don't say a fluke, but was this month just abnormally lucky? Was it abnormally just like high paying because of something out of my control? Um, we want control, we want security. Nothing in life is really guaranteed because even when I work was working corporate. Yeah. And when you work in corporate, like it's not like you were there forever. So, like to stay ahead of it, just like you have to build the right systems and yeah, don't base collect.

SPEAKER_00 38:20

You had it, you had a good point where you said you were having success and you were wondering if it's gonna last. In business, you're gonna go through these cycles where you have big successes and then you have challenging times. The more challenging times you overcome, the more comfortable and confident you have in your own ability to succeed. And and there's really no way to skip past this. I can think of at least five times in my career, 10 years now, where I thought my life was over. And every time I bounced back even harder and got a bigger opportunity every time. And now I I have conviction as deep as I possibly can in my soul that I will always be able to figure something out. But it's like when I was 22 and the startup I was working at was ending, I thought my life was over. I thought I ruined my career. I don't think I'll ever have that feeling again. Never.

SPEAKER_01 39:08

And you know the reason you feel that is because you kept your own promises to yourself. Yeah. If you cannot keep your own promises, then you don't even really believe in you. That that's that's the thing. I remember very vividly when I was living in Houston, Texas, I was looking at the computer screen and I was trying to hit a record month. And I remember saying to myself, if I can make this happen, yeah, I could do anything for the rest of my life. And kid you not, from like 7 to like 2 a.m. for the next half of the month, I would say like 10, 10, 7 to 10 days, was just locked in and I hit a record month.

SPEAKER_00 39:37

But here's the crazy thing. Even if you had missed that record month, but you had given 100% every day and you knew you were giving 100%, yeah, I don't think you would have been disappointed in yourself.

SPEAKER_01 39:48

You still would have to do that. It's never gonna happen, though. I I I know, I know with so much conviction, if there's something I want, yeah, it will be mine. Maybe, maybe not on the exact timing, but it always always fine. We're in New York, and right, and like we're imagine your goal is to make $100,000 in a year, right? There's cars that cost 10 times as much as that. There's chairs that cost $5,000, like a Herman Miller or whatever, how much it is, right? So it's like, you know, there there's Birkins, there's bags that cost $25,000. Are you not bigger than a bag? Are you not bigger than a watch or like you know, a chair or a car, right? So I'm just always thinking bigger. Shout out Jeremy Haynes for this kind of mindset. Um, haven't had the chance to speak to him in person, but he essentially says, um, feel small, think big, right? Which sounds so cliche, but until you're actually in it, you you recognize it. Like, wait, am I not bigger than a palm tree that costs $50,000? Yep. Right. So um I'm glad we both had those moments, and I'm really grateful for corporate, really grateful for me because it taught me so many valuable lessons. And it just showed me that a lot of people are are built to just be system players. You know, they're not actually meant to be business owners, which is okay. That's not even a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 40:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

But it just means that, you know, the people that are meant to be business owners, like the the the ceiling is like through the roof. So, where do you see the UGC space going from here in the next couple years? Everyone asked me this question, and I again I I really I feel like I have a good pulse on it because I started before there was even UGC, really. Going back to my my first my first thesis, like UGC is just marketing. Every brand in the world needs marketing. I really feel that for UGC to just like delete itself, there would have been so much that goes wrong. And I think that would be like social media would just cease to exist, right? So it's like the chances of that happening. If you're betting on UGC, you're just betting on social media to to keep continue existing. Or marketing in general.

SPEAKER_00 41:36

Marketing in general getting people to buy. If we got EMP'd and the internet went down, you'd still be having to market your storefront. Right. Again, UGC, like it's just a fancy name.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

Like people have been doing UGC for for years on end, right? It's like, it's like someone sending out um in a Facebook mom's group chat like a probiotic and the mom posted, that's technically UGC. Yeah. Maybe you're not getting like paid for it, but it's like, you know, it's technically UGC. So um when people ask me about the future of UGC, even if I told you this, let's say the earnings window, because everything life has technically an earnings window. Let's say the earning window was five years, right? Shoot, if I know that I can make $50,000 a month with this, $100,000 a month, I'm gonna take that advantage right now while I have the earning window, right? 100%. Why not? Why not? So when the earning window is high, you have to, you have to strike, right? Um that's now. That's right now. Like we're literally in it.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

Yeah. What's so awesome about UGC right now is that it's it's still early. This is the the time when the people who get in are gonna make the most money, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

The the general public takes about three to five years to simple things, right? So you're still so early. If we went on the street right now in New York, I would be shocked if even more than three people out of ten knew what UGC was. Exactly. They'd be like, oh, I I have that stock. Yeah. It's like, no, it's like it's uh it's not even a stock. But so like all that to say, it's like you're still so early. If you're hearing our words right now, you are still very early. The way I see it is like the worst thing you can do is try it and it doesn't work out for you. In order for it to not work out, you legitimately have to not try at all. You're gonna you're gonna piss some people off saying that. It's it's so true, though. It's so true. It's so true, bro. Like, again, it is harder to not succeed now.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Yeah, actually, so I made an Instagram video. It was it was a reaction video to some guy saying UGC didn't work. He was on a deal within an agency and he was saying it didn't work, and turns out he had never actually posted a single video. Again, I can't even like yeah, I don't know where to start with that one.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

Assuming that a majority of people don't think that way. Here's like kind of the the drawback of UGC, like being an agency or sometimes, like it makes you think that the average person is just so far behind. And it's like, I don't want to think this way, but it's just like you you gotta you kind of gotta cater to someone if that's just the average person isn't so far behind.

SPEAKER_00 43:43

I think it's that the people who are drawn to UGC are just scrolling and and want to be able to make money quick and effortlessly. Whereas whereas other high achieving people, they're already in good jobs. That's actually a really good point. But see, those people, they may already have these corporate jobs and and and their skills. But they don't have the, they may not have the think different mindset to go out and be an entrepreneur. You can be a great employee and very talented, but not have the mindset of being an entrepreneur. Whereas the people, there's people who have the mindset of being entrepreneur and are also skilled and talented because they have that that courage, Gene, to actually go in, go all in on themselves. And that's why UGC is such a good opportunity because the competition is so low. No, that's actually that's perfectly said.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

It's perfectly said. I I think of some of my students when you when you say that. So like shout out Will Wilson, Zachary, Jazz, Carolyn. I mean, there's just so many creators that have gone on to this, gone on to do special things and they think like business owners. So yeah. Um that's perfectly said because I've been trying to like think like, okay, is it that the average person is just a lot slower? But it's actually the type of people we attract. Exactly. Because when you find out about UGC, a lot of times it's coincidental. You're just scrolling and you don't even realize it's UGC. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:52

And you may see a video where someone's saying make 10K a month and one or two hours a day. There's nuance to that. Yes, at this point, a lot of us could make 10K a month in one or two hours a day, but that's not how it is in the beginning. Right. But it's hard to explain that in the 60-second reel.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's again like it's I don't even blame that person. It's like they're trying to get the hook, right? Yeah. So it's like, imagine if I said, like, okay, you have to put in 20 to 30 hour work weeks in order to achieve $10,000 a month. That's what I tell people. But we're when I talk to them in person. That's why you get less views that are actually way stronger.

SPEAKER_02 45:26

True.

SPEAKER_01 45:27

Because you're not trying to go viral. You're not trying to rage bait people. That's true. I do try to rage bait people. You're not trying to try to just go viral to like spenders. But I would say the person that the people that are following you, like, they're so well informed now. Yes. Um, so definitely like tap in with Brandon's content because I think he's giving the most broad perspective right now. Even filming these sorts of videos. Maybe I I guess one last question for you. Yeah. Where do you think the future of UGC is going?

SPEAKER_00 45:51

Yeah, so I think the future of UGC is going to be a lot more performance-based. When I started six months ago, there was no such thing as a view minimum. You could get 10 views on a post and still get paid out. Where where now most ac most campaigns have a thousand view minimum, and I've changed my thought process on this. I've I've been given new information and I've had experiences. Interesting. Because I used to say I would never do a deal with a view minimum, and I would even tell my students not to take deals with view minimums. But now that more and more companies require that, if you really want to make the big bucks, you have to learn the skills of marketing. If you learn the skills of marketing, you're you're never gonna have to worry about making money again. Bro, bro, I I one last point on that part, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:35

You're not just a UGC creator.

SPEAKER_00 46:36

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 46:37

If you learn how to go viral, you have essentially mastered the skill of marketing.

SPEAKER_00 46:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 46:42

If you master the skill of marketing, brands will pay you millions. Yep. Never be broke again.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Exactly. Just like in sales, the person who is closest to the money is the one who is going to be the most secure. The top performing salesperson never gets fired. Yeah. The person in accounting does.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Yeah, that's a good point. That is a really good point. So again, like based on everything we said, master UGC because it's not just putting out brain block content. It's truly the the art of marketing. And if you can do that, there's so many opportunities beyond just your phone. We're both here in New York, right? Yeah. It's just because no jobs. No jobs, unemployment. We have our own business. Our own business. And don't have tunnel vision. There, there's a world of opportunities past that.

SPEAKER_00 47:28

Yeah. Lock in, guys. Well, awesome. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the UGC Industry Podcast. Andrew, where can the people find you?

SPEAKER_01 47:36

Yeah, for sure. So my Instagram is my most active platform. It's Andrew, the letter C, as in Charles, Shin S H I N, Andrew C Shin. Um posting more on YouTube coming up. But um yeah, if you wanna if you want to learn from me directly, my mentorship is the Creator Blueprint. Our agency is good marketing. We work with world class brands. At very least, send me a message where you came from and uh we'll chat.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Awesome. I'll drop his links down below so you can find him. Thanks for tuning in to another episode and stay tuned because we got a lot more coming. Talk to you later.