How a New Dad Went From $17 an Hour to a Six-Figure UGC Business | Dakota Crane E9

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, and each week I sit down with the people shaping this industry, from creators landing brand deals to the founders and agencies behind them. Let's get into it. On this episode, we have Dakota Crane. So Dakota went from making six figures as a UPS supervisor at the age of 20 to having to move back into his in-laws' basement to now building a six-figure UGC business and founding UGC revenue room all by the age of 24. So, Dakota, you've made a lot of money a lot of different ways. Why was UGC the thing that you decided to go all in on?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

It was one of those things where working for like the Postal Service, it sucked. You know, you might be making really good money, but the amount of stress that goes with it is just not worth it, especially as a young person. It's like, okay, if I can make more money making these videos, promoting companies, actively building a skill in marketing on social media that not a lot of people have the nerve to actually do. To me, it's just a no-brainer. Plus, I don't have to like clock in. I can work for myself. Sometimes that does mean, you know, probably working more than I would at a real job. It's so much more fun. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 1:11

I can totally relate. Being on your own clock, not having a boss telling you what to do, being able to work your own hours is so great, especially since you have a family too. In terms of the make money online side hustles, was UGC the first thing you tried, or how did you start working outside of your regular job?

SPEAKER_01 1:27

What had happened was I had left my USPS role to work for the Kansas Attorney General's office as the youth suicide prevention coordinator. Terrible. Worst three months of my life. So ended up having to move back to Wichita. My wife's pregnant. I get a job with my buddy's dad's company, making $17 an hour. So it was like, heck yeah, thanks for helping me get back to Wichita. But also, like, you go from making really good money as like a 20-year-old to that, and you're just like, wow, I'm this is awful. I'm a loser, right? So you it doesn't feel good. I knew at that time with my wife being pregnant, I gotta figure something out. We're back at square one. So I started clipping because I had a buddy who was doing that, he was making some good money with it. It's one of those things where, like, just like UGC, you're an overnight success, but nobody sees all the hard work you put in. Same with clipping. Had like 10 accounts, they didn't do anything. And then this was before the 2024 election. So my wife is like, hey, why don't you do some like political content? And I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. So long story short, created an account. It was like more conservative content, and you just got people arguing in the comment sections, and it ended up making me like a little bit over four grand. And then because of that, a buddy of mine was like, I know someone who does this thing called UGC. They say that you can make $10 to $20,000 doing that. Ah, yeah. Didn't even know what it was, dude. I was just like, oh, cool, whatever. Then connect me. Let's let's get it rolling. So that's kind of how I got into it. Didn't know what UGC was, but I was like, clearly, this internet money thing is like a very real thing. I don't want to do drop shipping. Let's do it, right? So that's kind of how I got into it.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

That's very interesting. So you actually built a personal brand before you got into UGC because a lot of people who get into UGC haven't done social media at all, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:09

And dude, it's a little bit weird because my personal brand started a little bit backwards in the sense of I wasn't posting really a lot about my personal life. I mean, I was on a failed personal brand account, but I went really viral telling these stupid stories, right? I have a video that's at like 8.2 million views of where I'm talking about how I, long story short, someone was stealing my food at work. I put something in there that made them crap their pants, and I would just rip these stupid stories that either say it's something that happened to me in real life, maybe it's something I found on Reddit, maybe someone else made a video kind of copying like we do in UGC, that kind of stuff, right? So it blew up pretty nicely. And at that point, I was probably like seven or eight months into things, and I had stopped doing UGC because I had actually worked with a company. It's funny because I think they're probably one of the biggest like UGC Canvas companies or whatever. They have like one of the biggest programs. There was a bit of an error with the coach. They forgot to send me the payment form. And so two months of being like, dude, where how do how do I get paid? Oh, let me check with the team. Three months later, it's like, oh, I just forgot to send you the form. So it turns out UGC is not a scam, just a little bit of a mistake. But because of that, I had pivoted to TikTok shop. But eventually, TikTok shop got banned for too many strikes because I didn't know what I was doing. And I was like, okay, I have the followers to make money off the TikTok rewards program. Did the crazy stories, went viral, made a ton of money, and then said, Hey, brands want people who can yap. I have proof of concept here. Boom, started just mass applying, and then it was like zero dollars in UGC income to like 5,000 contracted in like two weeks, right? Contracted, not cash collected. But it was like okay, this is real, right?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

So things went from zero to hero very quick. That is how it goes when you know what you're doing. And so this was 2024, you said, right?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

It all started end of 2024. This would have been in November. By the time I actually had the success in the viral videos, that would have been like May of 2025. So it really was not that long ago.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Correct. That is still fairly early in the evolution of UGC and especially Canvas UGC. I'm curious when you got presented with this opportunity, what were you what were you thinking?

SPEAKER_01 5:25

Dude, I'm just like, but you can make money with this, great. Like at the beginning, there was no thought behind like, I guess I'm learning a skill in marketing, but it was just like, oh heck yeah, I can make some money with this. I need money. This isn't OnlyFans. This isn't something that like my grandma can't see. Cool, let's do it, right? So for me, it was just kind of a no-brainer. I'm like, I don't care about posting myself on social media. I've been doing this for a while because 2022, the gym cell era, I was trying to participate in that. Like, had been trying to do maybe a bit of a personal brand. So I'm like, I'm already comfortable embarrassing myself online. Let's just run it.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

What was Canvas UGC like back over a year ago now?

SPEAKER_01 6:06

So much different. And it's changing for the better, I think, in a lot of ways. As a creator, dude, you could just milk it. And that's not necessarily what I would do, but I just wasn't as skilled as I am now. So, in a lot of ways, I look back and I'm like, dude, the brand should not have been paying me what they're paying me because there were no view minimums, meaning I can post this video, it can get 13 views, and I'm still getting paid, let's say, 30 bucks a video. There would still have the view incentives and stuff like that, but there were no approvals. It was just like, hey, we want you, make the video, boom. And so obviously, if you're a brand, that is a terrible idea. You're just getting absolutely screwed by creators who are putting absolutely no effort into the videos. And I think it's pretty common knowledge here, but a lot of UGC creators are extremely lazy, dude. It's something you've talked about on your page, I've talked about on mine. Like, if you think about how lazy some of the creators are right now, oh my gosh, think about how bad it was when there's like no approvals.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

There's this kind of day of reckoning coming where even when I started six months ago, there was basically no view minimums. And you could just go into these campaigns and basically take their money. And some people are gonna look at that and say, Oh, now there's view minimums. I have to hit a thousand views in order to get paid. But it's getting harder. I say it's actually getting better because there is so much more money pouring into this space. Now you have campaigns paying creators $50 a post and you can post up to five times a day. So you can make seven to eight grand on one campaign now that these VC backed companies are coming into this space. The thing is, you actually have to perform, you have to generate views and revenue for these companies. And at the end of the day, getting a thousand views on a video is is not that hard.

SPEAKER_01 7:51

So especially when you're posting on like three or four platforms, like as long as it's half decent, it's gonna hit on something.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

You have a group with a bunch of UGC creators in it, and I want to talk about that, but I'm curious if you're talking to a creator who is struggling to get over a thousand views, what are you gonna tell them so that they can do that?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

We just have to kind of dissect the content, and a lot of times it's like very simple things. Maybe their lighting's awful, maybe their tone of voice or their tonality sucks, maybe the editing is bad. I mean, a lot of times it's just very minimal things, or they're just putting absolutely no effort into it. But a lot of times just pitting that 1,000 view threshold really isn't terribly hard. You just kind of have to see, okay, why isn't this working in this niche or within this company what has already worked? Am I actually utilizing the concepts they're giving me and kind of pick it apart? It's something that when you're first getting started, it's a lot harder because you're not thinking like this. But when you've been doing it for a long time, you can say, Hey, your tonality sucks here. Your you know, audio needs to be a little bit better, fix the lighting. Okay, that concept, scrap it, run this, this, and this, right?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

So figuring out what they need. Yeah, the cool and the cool thing about Canvas UGC is that you don't have to come in with the creative ideas. Most of the time they're giving you the videos, but just because you remake a video that went viral does not mean that you're gonna go viral too. You have to learn how to speak naturally on camera, and that's a skill that takes a while. It's one of the hardest things for people to learn, and it's so hard to coach. But that's where reps and volume comes in. I'm sure you experience this as well. I'll be talking to a new student and um they're like, I can't go viral. I'm copying the scripts. How many times did you post? 11. It's like, yeah, well, I mean, I think I made over 300 videos before I went viral.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

So, no, literally, I know for me, I went viral pretty quickly, but it wasn't talking, it was like a demo style video where it's like, oh, you just copy frame by frame. It was a company called Inbox Zapper and had a couple videos, like two over seven million. But the thing was, it's like, oh, good lighting. I literally have the text thing that's like, since when can Gmail do this? And I'm like, that's so much easier to copy. But when it got to the talking heads, I was terrible at them, probably for the same thing, probably for like three, four hundred posts. And then it kind of clicks. It's really hard to coach somebody on sounding natural. The kind of generic advice you get on social media from like the personal branding pages and stuff is sound like you're talking to a friend, which is good. Like that's legitimately what you should do. But actually executing on that is very hard because you're like, wait, how do I actually like talk to my friends?

SPEAKER_00 10:30

Exactly. Pretend like you're on FaceTime, but even then it's still very hard when you're beginning. But I remember the first time that I went viral too, and it really made me realize oh wow, this is gonna be a very lucrative thing that I'm doing now. Because now it's not just $10 to $20 a post, it's all these bonuses. What was that like for you the first time you were going viral? How much did you make and how did it feel?

SPEAKER_01 10:52

I don't remember the exact number of how much I made. I think the first video that popped off was around like seven million. So it was just like, whoa. So did you make at least like a thousand bucks from it? Yeah, for sure. Oh wow. I can't remember the exact number though, because this was like probably September or August of 2025. And it was just like, hold up. That video was supposed to pay me $15, right? Because it was $500 a month. It was not very much at all. And then you're like, oh my gosh, like there is something here. And then you kind of chase that. You're like, okay, well, how can I just dial in on what's working and try to make as much money as possible? So that's the other thing, too. It's like as a creator, if you find what works, uh abuse it to an extent. I think it's really important to test out new concepts, try to find other things that work. But I'll be super honest: there's a company I'm working with uh on Canvas, and the brand does not care that I rip the exact same format every single day. And when the posts are hitting anywhere from like 10K to 500k views and I'm getting view bonuses, you I'm not gonna like reinvent the wheel here. I'm just gonna print.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Same thing. So what happens, guys, is that you get on these accounts, and if you can just go viral with one video, the account basically just gets some juice to it, and then nearly all of your following posts are gonna get a lot of views. So it's a huge mindset shift when you go in and you're making $10 a video, especially when you're starting. And it takes a long time to make that $10 video, but then you get faster and faster and faster, and then you hit a video that pays you $250 for one post. And now you're getting paid half of what your base pay was for the entire month. And it's like, oh my gosh, you just gotta find an account where where this happens to you, and it's like an infinite money glitch.

SPEAKER_01 12:45

No, literally, you build this confidence, which just oh my gosh, it changes your mindset completely. When you're first starting, you know, you're not as confident, you're like just trying to do the thing, and then you go viral and you're like, whoa. A great example of this is my buddy Dre. He had under a thousand followers on his personal brand. He's posting every day for like over a hundred days, nothing's working. All of a sudden, he finds a format that works really well for him. I think he gets like over a million views, does it again over like high numbers? He rips it on trial reels, he grows his like personal brand Instagram to over 70k followers in like a couple months. And then that trickled into his UGC so hard. There is not a single account that he's on that isn't going viral because in the back of his head now, he's like, I'm that guy. I can go viral. I know what I'm doing, right? So not only are you actually like building a skill, but you're building it the confidence that you are who you say you are, right? Because you can go and be like, I'm a good UGC creator, I know how to make good content. But when you actually do the thing, it triggers something to where you're like, okay, I'm gonna continue to execute exactly like I'm doing over here and make a ton of money.

SPEAKER_00 13:52

Yeah. And it's so fulfilling to be able to help other people see this too and just open up their world for them. No matter what kind of situation someone's in, they can change it in a matter of months with UGC. And it's so fun to kind of be that unlock for people. What do the people in your real life think about UGC and your profession? That's such a loaded question.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

And I would say most people don't understand it, which I think is kind of the common answer that a lot of people give. Watching like your interview with Sydney, I know she said something kind of similar, but it was like the younger people, I think, understand and they're like, whoa, that's cool. And then they say, hey, put me on. And then you give them the information and they don't do anything. And eventually you realize, wow, I'm just wasting my time trying to help everyone.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

Why do you think that is when when people who find out about this opportunity and they even see someone from their real life like yourself making money, what stops them from being able to move forward and do it themselves?

SPEAKER_01 14:45

So the conclusion that I have came to, and this is not me trying to sell anyone anything. This is just kind of how I've rationalized it. I believe that people do not really take something serious like this unless they paid for it, right? If they pay for the information, then it's like all in, right? When I spent like $5,000 on a mentorship to help me really get some systems dialed in, it was like, okay, you know that I'm going hard because I just spent five grand and I'm not just gonna like throw that in the trash. Now, I've had like two friends out of maybe like the 60 that I've tried to put on. And when I say friends, like acquaintances, people who will contact me, and only two people actually did the thing.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

And then the other thing is a lot of times when people see someone in their real life making money with something, they're not seeking out UGC or they're not seeking out a way to make money online or make side hustle money. They just see somebody else, oh, you're working from home making 10k a month. I want to do that. But they they they didn't really have the direction of like wanting to do it themselves. They just want the end result, but they didn't actually seek out the thing. I'll get a lot of people message me on Instagram, and I usually can can tell the people who are going to be successful very quick because they've already taken some action themselves. They have a why behind what they're doing, and they have some direction and they just need a little bit of guidance versus completely random people. That's so true.

SPEAKER_01 16:09

And it goes into the aspect of anybody can do UGC, but not everybody can do UGC. And the amount of people who number one just aren't comfortable with putting their face on camera and posting it out there and never will be, is such a large percent of like any and everyone who says they want to make money online, which is totally respectable. Yeah, exactly. It's like, no hate to you guys, totally get it. So it's like, dude, most people are never going to take that action because they're just not comfortable with it. I've got family members that are texting me like accounts thinking it's like a hacker or something. I'm like, Mine did the same thing. For real, yeah, it's like, dude, it's an ad account. Don't worry. I'm Jacob Matchett. We're good.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Yeah, my aunt texted my dad, and she was like, and then my dad texted me. He's like, I think someone's stealing your identity. And it was a video, video of me just promoting this headphones like over and over again. I was like, no, that's like my profession. That's what I do now. It's not a phase, dad. Quick interruption here. This video was brought to you by RTech, the all-in-one platform for UGC creators. So, as a 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 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. Come on.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

I feel like the older people, at least in my life, dude, I saw your mom is doing UGC, so it sounds like they kind of get it. But dude, my mom is just like, okay, this kid's crazy enough and he's made it work. Great. I've tried it like all my other family try to talk about it, and then it's just like awkward silence. Like most people just don't understand.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Yeah, they just want to see you happy at the end of the day. My mom did not understand it at first either, but she she's getting into it, and I'm like, guys, if my mom can do it. Why can't you? She's she's she's slow moving, but she's getting there. So that is so awesome. Yeah. My brother does it as well, so he he killed it. Yeah. Yeah, dude. And I I see him in communities and stuff, like I'll see him nice active out there. So, speaking of communities, you have one of the largest Discord communities for UGC creators. I actually got put into your group very early on in my UGC career and got some really good and high-paying deals. How did you start that?

SPEAKER_01 18:37

This would have been in November of last year. So it hasn't been a full year yet. But I just kind of saw, okay, we're in this like kind of weird rocky space with UGC. And I'd say we're kind of in not the same boat right now, but it's progressed maybe a little bit worse in some areas, and I want to say a lot of areas. But there are so many mentorships out here or coaching programs or courses. And from what I'm hearing from the average UGC creator or the consumer, is like they're not very good, right? And given this was a year ago, I think things have changed a lot since then. There are a ton of great programs out there now, a lot of really bad ones too. So we got to make that clear. But at the same time, I was like, okay, how can I create something that is completely free and is kind of like a network for creators to get together, they can meet each other because I kind of understood just from an early age that, you know, it's it's not what you know, it's who you know, it is what you know too. But connections, me, oh my gosh. Without connections, you're cooked, especially in this space. So it was like, how can you kind of connect to other creators with other creators? How can I connect with other creators? How can I create a platform that has like better deals than Sideshift or some of these other platforms, right? Because a lot of times you're searching on some of the networks and you're like, okay, well, this is $10 a video. This is $15 a video, which is great when you're first starting. Take what you can get if it's within your moral compass and it's not like promoting AI only fans models, like do it. Just do whatever you got to do. But it was like, okay, how can I be that one-stop shop for creators to network, for creators to get paid deals, and just kind of provide the value? And originally I started out by just cold DMing a ton of UGC creators. And it turned into one of these things where we just kind of built a name for ourselves over time. And it's honestly on autopilot. Every day we probably have like five Canvas UGC deals being posted in there because people know even if I'm on a platform paying to like manage my campaign through here, I can also go in here and find some more experienced creators rather than being on Sideshift and having 500 candidates who have never posted a video before.

SPEAKER_00 20:50

Yeah, 100%. So it benefits both sides. And it's so true what you said about the connections. I mean, I'm sure you see all these people on TikTok and Instagram, the UGC creators who are like, I just can't find jobs, I don't know how to get deals, I've been going for months and I've made $2,000. And to people like us, it's almost like, how? How do you not? And like obviously, we we want to help as many people as possible. As both of us have grown, it becomes nearly impossible to help everyone in the DMs, obviously. But it's like, man, if you just surround yourself with the right people, you'll really see the potential. I mean, just joining your group, my average deal size doubled. And then it's yeah. So now how do you get in touch of touch with all the brands that are posting in your group?

SPEAKER_01 21:36

Dude, that is a question I get all the time. And the short answer is I don't. I don't contact anyone, I don't do outreach. It's just a reputation thing. People are like, oh, hold up, UGC revenue room, that's where you're sourcing creators from. And then they, you know, send their buddy the invite link and then boom, they start sourcing. Yeah, it's very nice. I and that's the thing. I need to do a little bit better. Of a job on trying to grow the community. But the problem is, like you said, it's nearly impossible to contact everyone back in the DMs. It is impossible. And now that I'm managing campaigns on Launchpoint, I'm running like, I think nine UG, eight or nine UGC deals. I've got the personal brand, I've got the one-on-one students, I've got a family. It's very hard to do, right? So praise God that it's kind of just turned into something that's kind of on autopilot and can still provide a ton of value to creators and brands.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, that's really cool that you're managing campaigns on Launch Point now. So I want to talk about that career progression because a lot of people say, Well, what do you do after being a UGC creator? So can you tell us a little bit about how managing campaigns works?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

So when it comes to managing campaigns, it's a it's a weird thing because as you've seen, there are people in campaign management roles that you're like, dude, how did you get here? Like you're worse than some of the UGC creators I've seen, right? Being a good manager in a campaign, I think it comes from obviously being a good creator, right? You have to have the proof of concept for people to then say, Hey, we want to work with you. Or then you can pitch and say, Hey, you know, I've gotten this many views. I'm ready to take this on. Or you have the connections, right? Funny enough, the campaign management role that I just stepped into, I did not apply for it. I didn't reach out or like try to get on this specific role. I had a guy that I'm buddies with, and he was getting onto the deal, right? And they asked him, Hey, do you have anyone that you would want to do this with that you trust that would be a good fit? And he was like, Oh, dude, the only person I can think of is Dakota. That was someone I managed on a campaign, like in February, right? And we'd maintained a relationship, we're homies, but going back to when you build the connections, stuff like that just happens. But when it comes to actually managing a campaign, in my opinion, the way to manage a campaign properly and have the best results is to create as little friction for creators as possible, right? Because you've seen it, you join a Canvas campaign or organic or tech or whatever, and there's no concepts or things are unorganized, right? Me as a high agency creator, I know that when I come into a deal, I don't want to think. I don't want to do hours of research finding concepts. I want a list of, hey, do this, press this button, and go, right? So it's like that. Have a ton of viral concepts for your creators to recreate. Have like the resources there for them to contact you if they have any questions, comments, concerns, if they need to like book a one-on-one call. Honestly, it's just leadership, right? Think of if I was in this person's shoes and I wanted to be led by someone, what would I want, right? And unfortunately, I think the UGC space lacks a lot of that because the demographics are very odd. It's heavily Gen Z, right? Which I'm Gen Z, I'm 24, but you have a lot of people who have never been in any sort of professional role. So they kind of lack this. I don't know, it's it's weird because it's not necessarily prof I guess it is professionalism, even though we're still really chill and like you joke around with people, it's nothing like real professionalism. But I guess maybe the bar is just very low. And if you can just like do over the bare minimum and go very hard, it is recognized extremely hard by the people above you.

SPEAKER_00 25:06

There's so many opportunities for growth, and you can literally meet the CEOs of companies in a matter of months with UGC.

SPEAKER_01 25:14

Literally, dude, I was I um I've been on a call with quite a bit of founders in the last couple of months, and I mean, even since I started, and I was just like a nobody trying to do UGC. So it's like you never know where these connections are gonna get you. Yeah, and so what do the day-to-day tasks look like for a campaign manager? Right. So I would say on Launchpoint, it is a little bit more in-depth than previous campaigns that I've been on in a good way. And I think it just goes to show that Launchpoint is, in my opinion, the best Canvas UGC company out there. I joined in like June as a creator, and I immediately fell in love with it. The payments were swift, I didn't have to track anyone down, and it's they just hold everyone to a high standard. So they have standard operating procedure that's like, hey, every day you need to go in, you need to check the queue. We should not have creators waiting to hear back. It's like go in, reject people, accept them. We don't want someone to be waiting because if you have a good creator, you don't want them disgruntled of like, oh, am I going to get on this campaign? And even if it's not a creator who's the right fit, you don't want them to waste their time thinking, oh, I might get on this campaign, cut them loose, let them go apply for other jobs, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:21

So you've got that aspect. So are you the one who's approving and denying people to get onto campaigns? Yes.

SPEAKER_01 26:27

Uh-huh. So me and Kius, uh, that's the other campaign manager. So we'll go in every day, a couple of times a day, and just check the queue, see who's applying, and then accept, right? What I'm managing right now, it's called underdog, and there's a trial, right? And so it makes it easy for us because there's not a lot to lose, but there's a lot to gain from the creator. So, for example, like if you're a new creator and you're having a hard time finding opportunities, well, come apply for underdog and we'll accept you in because there's not a lot for us to lose with that, because there is that trial with the $2 CPM per a thousand views. When you hit a 10K view video, you get bumped up to $30 base and then a $3 CPM. And it's 21 posts a week. So you can make pretty good money on it. But it's one of those where, like, dude, there's not a lot for us to lose if you underperform. But if you do perform well, then boom, you have the opportunity to make a lot of money.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

That seems like a really solid model by only paying a CPM until you get a certain amount of views, because then the account is also warmed once it hits that view. It's gonna be more worth it for the company to pay that base. But let's say when you're when you're videos for creators, what's gonna make you reject a video just like that? Quality for sure.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

You can always tell if a video is going to perform at least decent, right? Sometimes virality, it's definitely not random. We know it's a skill, but at the same time, you could have a very good video that doesn't hit a million views, right? So it's one of those things where you're just like the text is like over your face and the lighting is like horrible. Reject, hey, sorry, we can't use this. Or hey, maybe it's just like the text is over my hat, it needs to be up a little bit to be more aesthetically pleasing. Things like that. So it's one of those things where you just have to dissect it and also set a clear expectation for creators in the sense of have concepts that they can copy. Look, the framing on this is perfect. Make sure you're copying this to a T because I hate revisions as a creator. I just want to make good content and go. So a lot of people are like that too. So if you just give them the information and then also if you're continuously rejecting something, kind of setting the expectation of like, hey, this is what we need to fix and do better on, so I can just approve your videos and you can get off to the races instead of having to revise this two times.

SPEAKER_00 28:35

Yep. And the good creators will pick up on that quickly and have the hang of it moving forward. Now I know you you're still creating a lot of UGC yourself. You said you're doing eight to nine campaigns, and I saw you're gunning for a 30k month with Canvas UGC. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01 28:51

That's my goal, dude. So I have right now I have a full-time editor. We don't want to be base collectors just stacking deals and bringing in like the base amount, but it is one of those things where when you get good and you put systems in place, you hire the editor, you batch schedule your content to not have to wake up every day, post a video, and edit the whole thing. When you just put these systems in place and you're a good creator, it's really not that hard to do very well. Now, I'm not going to sit here and be like, oh, it's so easy to make 30K a month. Like you're up at five this morning or you're up at four. I woke up at five, saw your post. It's like, dude, I'm getting up at five, I'm getting some coffee, making a couple of videos, sending them off to the editor, then doing some admin work. And then, like before our call, dude, I made 14 videos and sent them off to the editor. So it's like there is a lot of work. Sometimes I'm working 12 plus hour days. Um, but at the same time, it's like when you get the skill down, sometimes there are days when I'm working like an hour. You know what I mean? So it's one of those things where it's like you can really take this as far as you want. It's just how bad do you want it? How many systems do you have in place to get you there? And like, are you gonna do the thing?

SPEAKER_00 29:59

Yeah, 100%. And shoot, to make 30k a month, a lot of people would work eight to 10 hours a day. You know? No, exactly. That's life-changing money. You do that for a year, you completely change your financial situation and you and your future.

SPEAKER_01 30:14

No, exactly. And and for me, how I look at it is okay, I'm relatively young. I'm 24, I'm married, I have a daughter, I want to have more kids, God willing. And this economy is not great. It's definitely not getting better, regardless of who we vote in. So I have to work as hard as possible to make this happen for my family because although we, I mean, we all have, we both have very aggressive goals. For me, I'm not like the Lambo guy. I don't want a Lambo. That's not necessarily my thing. No hate to people with Lambos or that want them. But for me, I'm like, I want the land. I want to have a bunch of kids, I want to be comfortable, I want to eventually just make money, build stuff, get really into music, enjoy life, right? And I think that's what a lot of people want. And I think with UGC, you have this opportunity to, even if you have a job and you do it on the side, it's like, even if you start doing UGC, you can now pull up to Quick Trip, get gas, and not flip out because gas is like a hundred and five dollars to fill up your tank. You're just like, well, this sucks, but is what it is.

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Thank God for UGC. So true. Money isn't everything, but not having to stress about money makes life so much better. You just said the you know the economy's bad, which if you look at the news, it is everyone I know is doing great. Exactly. You can you can spin up five to ten to fifteen K a month from your home. And for the vast majority of people, that's a very comfortable life. But a lot of people are just gonna want to complain and say, Oh, that couldn't be me. That's not real, they're lying, blah, blah, blah. Instead of just trying it out.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Well, yeah, dude, I had a dude DM me last night, and he's like, You're actually a loser. Get a real job. And I'm just like, cool, hope you feel a little bit better after sending that. People just won't put in the work that it takes to be successful with stuff. It's one of those things where like we've also had some pretty big expenses. We had a water leak and we actually have a guy coming here in a little bit. We had to get like a mold report, and then now we've got to have someone remove that, and that's gonna be like three grand. We don't have the new gutters yet, but they're coming on tomorrow to install the new gutters. That's another three grand. Have like a card with like five grand on it.

SPEAKER_00 32:15

Imagine if you just had a salary, right? I was in sales my my my basically my whole career, so I was always on a commission basis. So I can't even imagine the majority of the US, you're on a salary. If you have something come up, what do you do?

SPEAKER_01 32:29

Dude, exactly. Even when I was making really good money as a supervisor for the postal service, it was like, oh my gosh, if I had like 11 grand in expenses that I'm gonna have to pay in like a short amount of time, I'm gonna be flipping out because it's like, oh my gosh, what do I do? And here it's just like, uh, whatever. I might have to work like an extra hour just to recoup that or two or whatever. But it's just like, whatever, who cares? And it's such a blessing, right? I don't want to just say that in like a light manner or make it seem like it's nothing because it is truly a blessing to be where we are. Um, but it did take a lot of hard work, as obviously it did for you as well. Like anything in life, you reap what you sow. And in my opinion, if you're not doing this, you're sitting on the sidelines, you want to get in, jump in the deep end now because I mean you're just kind of speeding up the process.

SPEAKER_00 33:19

Yeah, and there is a velocity of success that happens with UGC. Like me and you right now, if we needed to, we could turn on an extra several thousand dollars a month. Both of us, we have to actively choose not to make more money because we want to do other things in our life. Like the money is literally limitless. We could work 24 hours a day. But when people are just getting started, it seems so difficult to even get a deal or like to get up to a couple thousand dollars a month because you just you don't see it. You have this blindfold on when you're you know at that stage. But then once you get over the hump, and how you get over the hump is really just performing well on one account. If you can get a hundred thousand views on one singular campaign, you'll have proof to be able to spin up 10k a month in the following month from other campaigns that want you.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

No, literally. And if it's clear that you were posting every day, you were posting consistently, congratulations, dude. The world is yours because the biggest problem with campaigns is you can't get creators to post consistently, right? So if you even if you're a half decent creator and maybe you're not going super viral, but it's like wow, you can post 21 times a week, and the videos maybe only hit 5k, but you posted 21 videos a week for a month. It's like, okay, we'll coach you, we're gonna invest in you. People don't understand that there are so many levels to this game. And really, if you just put in the work and show up and do what most people won't, which in my opinion, at a nine to five, dude, you would be doing so much more than this, I guess. I don't I don't even know how to explain it. But the barrier to entry really isn't that high. Yeah, it does take a lot of work, but like the average UGC creator can't read directions, right? So it's like you can read the brief without asking a million questions that are right in front of my face.

SPEAKER_00 35:08

Dude, you just won. Genuinely, it's so crazy. And and compared to a nine to five where you may have to work an entire year just to get a five to ten percent raise, you can literally spin up on the realistic side a 10k a month income, which is over six figures in less than six months, and that's a very realistic timeline. You're not doing that in a nine to five. You're going to college, getting a trade degree, and then you're getting five to ten percent raises for the rest of your life.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

No, exactly, dude. My uh my buddy Robert, he was one of the first people that I started, you know, coaching. And he's either going to crack his first 10K month this month, he was at like 9.5 like a week ago. So fingers crossed, some things cleared, but I think that was his third or fourth, or no, probably his fourth month. And so it's like, dude, if you just put in the work and like show up, you can make it happen, right? And like you said, where else can you do something like that?

SPEAKER_00 36:03

Yeah, it's unreal. So the UGC space obviously is evolving a lot. You've been in it for a while. Where do you see it going over the next few years?

SPEAKER_01 36:12

Well, I definitely think there are going to be a lot of changes. I definitely don't think it's going to be as bad as some people think in certain ways. I've heard people talking about Canvas UGC is going to be a thing of the past. Well, we know that's not true because you have places like Launchpoint that are actively scaling companies because you have all of these YC back companies that are like, what's this marketing tactic? And then the other thing too, it's like you can then run paid ads on the winner. I don't think Canvas is going away. Traditional is the one that, like, dude, the the trad creators are gonna flame us for this, but it's like they really are, they get so angry. Oh, on oh my god. Do you do you use Twitter or X at all? Uh I try not to because of them. Yeah, they just complain. They're just like not all of them, but any the majority of time when I see a traditional creator, they're complaining about something. And it's like, dude, this is why you're only making four grand a month.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

Just so everyone understands what we're talking about. Traditional UGC is a style of UGC where you get a one-off flat rate payment for a video anywhere from $100 when you're a beginner to $500 to $1,000 or even more when you're more experienced. But you just make one video and that's it. There's no performance bonuses. It's very rare that you're working with companies again. Like you can definitely get returned work, but it's not consistent monthly retainers like it is with organic UGC. And I love traditional UGC.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

I don't want to make this as if I'm like a hater of it. No, it's nice to do every now and then. Oh, it is. And that's the thing. If you have like a good base, in my opinion, probably the best route is like a little bit of organic, a little bit of tribe, a little bit of traditional. But here's my thing: when I look at the changes, it's like, okay, well, earlier this month, I did a traditional UGC video for a company and they gave me 500 bucks for it. And it was a good video, spent a lot of time on it, but you can't guarantee everyone's going to put that much effort into it. And even then, like you don't know how the ad spend is going to perform. So why not transition to something like Tribe, which is like the commission-based UGC, and maybe put a creator on a smart retainer so they keep making videos, but then they're getting like a percentage of the sales, right? So it's like, in my opinion, I think we're probably going to see a lot less of the traditional UGC. Canvas is definitely going nowhere, but I definitely think the Tride creators should watch out a little bit and start diversifying. And you know, I was kind of crapping on them a little bit as a kind of as a joke, but no, I think it's one of those things where no matter what you're doing in UGC, have an open mind. Like as long as you're not, like I said earlier, promoting the company that makes like AI only fans models, telling you you're gonna make like a hundred thousand dollars or making this like garbage side hustle content with a product that isn't actually going to make someone money, but you know, you just can't, I don't know, market it in an ethical way.

SPEAKER_00 39:00

Ultimately, it comes down to learning skills that make companies money. No matter where anything goes, if you can make other companies money by getting them views and downloads and or sales, you have a skill that's built forever. So getting into UGC is more than just getting into UGC. It's learning how to generate companies through sales and marketing. Except you don't have to take sales calls, you just get to make videos.

SPEAKER_01 39:23

Exactly, right? I mean, and why would the company pay you any money if you're not making them money, right? So yeah. I think things are gonna change a lot in that aspect of things, but I'm very bullish. We've all seen, or a lot of us have seen the numbers of where the creator economy is projected to grow. So it's one of those things where we're still very early. If someone's watching this and they're like, oh, it's too late, no, dude. We ain't you ain't seen nothing yet. So get in, start learning.

SPEAKER_00 39:48

Go ask someone in your real life if they know what UGC is. They'll say no. I mean, we see it. There's more brands trying to get into this space that need creators than there are quality creators. So the proportions are in the creator's favor, where you're you're needed vastly more than the reverse. So to all the people out there who are curious about getting into UGC, or maybe they're doing it a little bit and they're curious about going all into it, what do you have to say to them? What's your message?

SPEAKER_01 40:17

I would just say to them, like, realistically, what do you have to lose and what do you have to gain? You really don't have much to lose. I really don't think anything. People might look at you a little bit different or think, oh, you're cringe, but you're only cringe until it starts working, right? A lot of people want to change their lives or they just want to be more comfortable, or whatever the case is, like you really have nothing to lose and everything to gain. And with things growing so rapidly, as you had talked about, with you know, there's not enough creators to meet the brand's needs. Why not come in, take a piece of that pie, do really well, and put yourself in a better position. I don't know a single industry that you can come in, work really hard, and within a couple months put yourself in a position to literally make $10,000 a month. Like that's very unheard of. So get into it, start learning, start failing, right? Start doing the hard stuff, start falling on your face because you only lose if you quit. So why not just start now?

SPEAKER_00 41:10

Yeah, and the only thing you're losing is your time and potentially some embarrassment if that's what you're worried about. But think of all these other businesses that are out there where you have to spend money to do it, like real estate or drop shipping, these other side hustles, yada, yada, yada. You gotta constantly spend money. UGC is almost a hundred percent profit business. It can be a hundred percent profit if you want. The upside so far outweighs the potential risks or downsides, which is is very rare to see these days.

SPEAKER_01 41:42

So dude, 100%. And dude, even if you put, say you hire an editor, right? Like, yeah, that's gonna cost money, but a lot of times you're making more money because you have that editor there, right? Because then you upped your workload and you're able to push more videos out because you're not editing. Very profitable business model for really not having to invest much.

SPEAKER_00 42:01

Yep. So, all right. So tell us about UGC revenue room and where the people can find you at.

SPEAKER_01 42:08

So you can find me on Instagram or YouTube primarily Dakota underscore underscore crane. The easiest way to do this is if you comment on any of my posts, something like Learn or UGC, you're gonna get a message that gives you like a whole document. You can ignore the message, but just go to the bottom of that document and then boom, UGC Revenue Room is right there. It may be in my Instagram bio as well. I post a lot of information on my page, and I'm definitely gonna be ramping up YouTube as well.

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Awesome. So, yeah, UGC Revenue Room is Dakota's Discord. I would highly recommend going and joining it. It's a it's a great place to learn and get deals. It's been super fun having you on. We met very early on in my UGC journey, so it's been fun to watch you progress alongside myself as well. So I'll be seeing you on the interwebs and to everyone else. Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the UGC Industry Podcast. See you next time.