Pinned Tweet
In 2 years, every company will have a creator program.
Here's how to build one with no big budget, step by step, from picking your first creators to scaling what works.
The hardest part of a creator or affiliate program isn’t getting people to join.
It’s getting them to post again in week 6.
Most programs give them one reason to show up: a commission that never changes. So after the first post, there’s nothing new to chase.
What works is giving them something for this week. A clear goal, a short deadline, a reward when they hit it.
“3 videos before friday” or “10 sales this month” get creators moving. “grow with us this year” doesn’t.
If your program feels quiet, the problem usually isn’t your creators. it’s what you’re asking them to do.
Run quests for your affiliates and creators.
Set a goal, a time window and a reward: a cash bonus or a higher commission. Fuul tracks everyone's progress and pays out when they hit it.
This is great for:
✦ getting new creators to their first referral
✦ short pushes around a launch (10 referrals this week)
✦ rewarding consistency with streaks, not just big weeks
Learn more → fuul.xyz
ALT Fuul quests: a stack of quest cards (At least a 7-day streak, live, 3 of 8 completed, reward 2x commission) above a list of affiliates' progress on that quest, three completed and one at 6 of 7 days.
Paying a creator in 60 days means they financed your campaign.
A creator posts on Oct 1. The sales come in that week. The brand pays on Nov 30.
For two months they did the work, and you kept the money and the customers.
Net 60 is a loan. From the creator to the brand.
Brands would never accept those terms from a supplier with leverage. They accept them from creators because creators have none.
The fix isn't being generous. Pay on a clear trigger (the sale is confirmed, the refund window closes) and pay fast after it.
The creators who get paid in days are the ones who post for you again next month.
2 years ago, some brands still weren't running Meta ads.
Now everyone is. And it's saturated and expensive.
Creator programs are next.
In this video i break down how to build one that actually works:
- the 3 ways to work with creators (and when each one breaks)
- how to get creators without a big budget
- the hybrid deal i use: commission + minimum guarantee
- why launching the program is the easy part
The full playbook 👇
chapters:
0:00 intro
1:15 why now
3:14 3 ways to work with creators
6:18 usage rights
7:18 it's not all about money
9:40 who joins your program
11:13 the creator map
14:19 how to pick creators
16:22 after week one
20:04 tiers
20:45 measure every creator
22:22 scale it
23:40 wrap-up
Every creator program has the same week 2: huge interest at launch, then it quietly dies off
Commission alone doesn’t fix it. Creators need a reason to post again this week, and a ranking that resets every monday is one of the easiest to give them
Run leaderboards for your affiliates and creators.
Rank them by referred users, volume or revenue, and set a reward for every position.
This is great for:
✦ weekly or monthly competitions that keep creators posting
✦ rewarding your top 3, 5 or 10, not just #1
✦ seasons with a bigger reward at the end
Learn more → fuul.xyz/?utm_source=x&utm_m…
ALT Fuul leaderboards: a stack of leaderboard cards (Weekly ranking, by volume referred, rewards top 5, $4,000 total rewards) above a live ranking of four creators with points and the reward for each position.
creator sales rarely come with a click
someone hears "use my code" on tiktok or youtube, buys two days later on desktop, types the code at checkout
then every monday:
> export sales
> match codes to creators in a sheet
> find out a code leaked to a coupon site weeks ago
that's the part we fixed first. every code has one owner, a cap or end date, and syncs to stripe as a promo code
the founders who aren't ready yet are the only ones still taking notes
best reply this got: "the unfinished ones still listen. once they have case studies, nobody wants advice anymore"
before the first customer, every call changes the product. after, it only changes the pitch
This week I did something I've never done.
I only said yes to meetings with companies that aren't ready. On purpose.
Tiny teams. SaaS products about to go to market, still unfinished. AI apps in the exact same spot.
No traction. No case studies. Half of them apologized before sharing their screen.
Every call sounded the same.
A two-person SaaS team that had been "launching next month" for a while.
An AI app built in days, with a waitlist made up mostly of friends.
Different products. Same question, almost word for word:
"How do we get our first customers?"
And right under it, quieter:
"How do we know if this is actually any good?"
Friends say it's great. Friends always say it's great.
Ads burn money before you even know what to say.
A launch gives you one loud day and then a very quiet week.
So they keep building.
Because building is the only part that feels like progress.
Then, on one of the last calls, a founder said something I can't stop thinking about:
"I'm not afraid of hearing that it's bad.
I'm afraid of hearing nothing."
That's the real fear.
Not rejection. Silence.
And when you're scared of silence, you do the worst possible thing:
You wait.
One more feature. One more redesign. Then I'll show people.
The founders who get out of that loop do the opposite.
They don't go looking for customers.
They go looking for ten people.
Ten people with the exact problem.
Who get the product unfinished.
Free or cheap, in exchange for brutal honesty and a weekly call.
So I told them what I've seen from the inside.
Every program I've watched take off didn't start with a big launch.
It started with a few people using something unfinished.
People who complained, sent screenshots, asked for features at midnight.
And then, without being asked, told a friend.
That's what nobody tells you about the first ten:
They're not your first customers.
They're your feedback loop.
And if you treat them right, they become your first distribution channel.
The next ten won't come from an ad.
They'll come from one of the first ten saying: "you should try this."
I spend my days working on referral and creator programs at Fuul.
Every single one starts the same way:
a handful of people who believe in something enough to bring the next person.
So if you're building something unfinished right now, stop asking "how do I get customers?"
Ask:
"Who are the 10 people who'd be upset if this disappeared tomorrow?"
And:
"What would make them tell a friend?"
Find them before the product is ready.
Not after.
The silence ends the day you stop waiting to be ready.
Founders: who were your first 10, and how did you find them?
gm
spent the weekend inside instead of touching grass
a lot of what we've been building lands in the next few weeks
someone asked who the 7.6% are. creators or existing customers?
in the programs we've seen work, mostly the second: people who already use the product, and creators whose audience already is the buyer
a big audience that doesn't buy your thing is how you end up in the other 92%
the affiliate funnel nobody looks at:
> 7.6% of affiliates ever send a single visitor
> 16.8% of those make a sale
> so fewer than 2 in 100 of your affiliates will ever sell anything
> and only about 1 in 6 programs survives long term
that's from a 2026 report on 2,800+ SaaS affiliate programs. and it matches what we see running programs
the commission isn't what's broken. everything around it is. and it breaks differently in every vertical:
> AI apps: you pay on the signup, the user churns after the free trial
> SaaS: 30-day cookie, 60-day sales cycle. the affiliate did the work and nobody sees it
> e-commerce: your code leaks to coupon sites and you pay commission on people who were buying anyway
> fintech: the conversion that matters (KYC, first deposit) is three steps after the click, and that's exactly where referral fraud lives
what the programs that survive do instead:
1. recruit 20 people who already talk to your buyer, not 2,000 strangers
2. treat week one as onboarding: what to say, content ready to post, a first goal
3. pay on the event that matters, not the click or the signup
4. track past the cookie: the deposit, the renewal, the second purchase
5. pay fast. the first payout is the real onboarding
save this before you launch yours
This week I did something I've never done.
I only said yes to meetings with companies that aren't ready. On purpose.
Tiny teams. SaaS products about to go to market, still unfinished. AI apps in the exact same spot.
No traction. No case studies. Half of them apologized before sharing their screen.
Every call sounded the same.
A two-person SaaS team that had been "launching next month" for a while.
An AI app built in days, with a waitlist made up mostly of friends.
Different products. Same question, almost word for word:
"How do we get our first customers?"
And right under it, quieter:
"How do we know if this is actually any good?"
Friends say it's great. Friends always say it's great.
Ads burn money before you even know what to say.
A launch gives you one loud day and then a very quiet week.
So they keep building.
Because building is the only part that feels like progress.
Then, on one of the last calls, a founder said something I can't stop thinking about:
"I'm not afraid of hearing that it's bad.
I'm afraid of hearing nothing."
That's the real fear.
Not rejection. Silence.
And when you're scared of silence, you do the worst possible thing:
You wait.
One more feature. One more redesign. Then I'll show people.
The founders who get out of that loop do the opposite.
They don't go looking for customers.
They go looking for ten people.
Ten people with the exact problem.
Who get the product unfinished.
Free or cheap, in exchange for brutal honesty and a weekly call.
So I told them what I've seen from the inside.
Every program I've watched take off didn't start with a big launch.
It started with a few people using something unfinished.
People who complained, sent screenshots, asked for features at midnight.
And then, without being asked, told a friend.
That's what nobody tells you about the first ten:
They're not your first customers.
They're your feedback loop.
And if you treat them right, they become your first distribution channel.
The next ten won't come from an ad.
They'll come from one of the first ten saying: "you should try this."
I spend my days working on referral and creator programs at Fuul.
Every single one starts the same way:
a handful of people who believe in something enough to bring the next person.
So if you're building something unfinished right now, stop asking "how do I get customers?"
Ask:
"Who are the 10 people who'd be upset if this disappeared tomorrow?"
And:
"What would make them tell a friend?"
Find them before the product is ready.
Not after.
The silence ends the day you stop waiting to be ready.
Founders: who were your first 10, and how did you find them?
why most brand content with creators flops:
the brand sees a competitor get millions of views with creators. gets excited
then the brief arrives. 30 pages
> logo in the first second
> key messages word for word
> no slang
> only approved captions
every rule is another reason to scroll past
the video ships safe, does 40k views, and the brand decides creators don't work in their category
meanwhile a smaller competitor sends the product with a two-line brief and takes the market on camera
Creators: a one off sponsorship pays you once
a lifetime commission keeps paying every time that customer renews
pick brands that pay you like a partner, not a billboard
crypto will succeed when it becomes invisible, and I think this expanded mandate/branding is to some extent a good sign!
our business itself is also growing outside of crypto, while still leveraging blockchain rails
proud and grateful to be backed by @a16zfrontier
Your best creator and the one who posted once are probably on the same commission
It happens in almost every creator program:
> one creator drives most of your sales
> earns the same 20% as everyone else
> another brand offers them 30% and they're gone
> you find out when their sales drop to zero
Flat rates feel fair. They quietly push your best people out
So we made rates move with what creators actually bring in: 25% for everyone, 35% once they've brought 1,000 users, 40% once they've referred $30K in sales. Creators level up on their own
Live now on @withfuul
what's the best way to build a SaaS website today? do you go with webflow/framer? completely vibe code? anything in between? cc @fedesarquis 🙏
If you design with AI, this is all you need
1. modulify.ai — cheaper than lovable
2. landdding.com — top notch landings
3. motionin.design — 1 prompts 1 website
4. wonderlist.design — 127 full figma designs
5. iconly.design — world best icons
6. fontinlogo.com — fonts behind brands
7. on.design — design community
8. godly.website — award-winning websites
9. 60fps.design — mobile UI animations
10. footer.design — footer inspiration
11. recent.design — next level design
12. backgrounds.supply — backgrounds
save this for later
the affiliate funnel nobody looks at:
> 7.6% of affiliates ever send a single visitor
> 16.8% of those make a sale
> so fewer than 2 in 100 of your affiliates will ever sell anything
> and only about 1 in 6 programs survives long term
that's from a 2026 report on 2,800+ SaaS affiliate programs. and it matches what we see running programs
the commission isn't what's broken. everything around it is. and it breaks differently in every vertical:
> AI apps: you pay on the signup, the user churns after the free trial
> SaaS: 30-day cookie, 60-day sales cycle. the affiliate did the work and nobody sees it
> e-commerce: your code leaks to coupon sites and you pay commission on people who were buying anyway
> fintech: the conversion that matters (KYC, first deposit) is three steps after the click, and that's exactly where referral fraud lives
what the programs that survive do instead:
1. recruit 20 people who already talk to your buyer, not 2,000 strangers
2. treat week one as onboarding: what to say, content ready to post, a first goal
3. pay on the event that matters, not the click or the signup
4. track past the cookie: the deposit, the renewal, the second purchase
5. pay fast. the first payout is the real onboarding
save this before you launch yours
exactly!
these are the numbers a lot of founders or marketers don't really look at when comparing affiliates vs. paid media
people overlook how much of their margin goes to meta
30% commission to an influencer? that’s crazy.
or is it?
30% commission is basically a 3.3x roas in disguise.
if your facebook ads are cruising at 2.5 roas, a 30% cut to an influencer is literally a lower cost than your media spend.
you’re not “handing over margin.”
you’re paying for a cleaner, more efficient acquisition channel.
numbers don’t care about vibes.
paying affiliates per signup is how you end up paying for fake users
signups go up. activation doesn't move. and a chunk of the "referrals" turn out to be the same person with five emails
pay for the action that actually matters to you: the first deposit, the first purchase, the paid plan
fewer referrals. real ones