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Go viral yourself before hiring UGC creators

Why founders should find repeatable viral formats themselves before paying UGC creators, how Nicole Cheung researches a niche before posting, and the limits of organic views as a download channel.

Updated 2026-10-23·3 sources·user-acquisitionugcorganic-socialinfluencer-marketingfounder-led

Go viral yourself before hiring UGC creators

TL;DR

  • Finding formats is the founder’s job — hours/days of research; hiring creators is ~5% of it.12
  • Nicole (or her co-founders) made the first viral content herself; scale with creators only once it’s repeatable.3
  • Don’t expect $10–20K on “the best” creators to make you go viral on its own.1
  • Before posting, spend day 1 researching the niche, market and competitors; day 2 design the “viral screen” in Figma; then build/distribute.45
  • Views ≠ downloads: Steve has seen 2M views yield ~20 downloads.6

Details

Founder responsibility (Nicole Cheung, Aug 2026). Many founders think “hire UGC, tell them about the app, done.” Nicole calls this the biggest misconception — you must understand your product better than any creator so you can train them on formats you already know work.12 Steve’s takeaway: figure out how to go viral first, then hire UGCs to multiply it.7

Testing ideas without an audience. Don’t test a hundred ideas at once — it’s confusing. Nicole’s sequence:45

  1. Day 1: research the niche, market and competitor apps (she often starts without industry knowledge and learns as “a student”).
  2. Day 2: Figma — sketch the screen meant to go viral on social, in variations; borrow from apps in and outside the niche.
  3. Day 3–4: distribution, or start building.

She learns from founders making far less than her and applies it.8

Brand search spillover. Steve notes that apps leaning on influencer and paid marketing (e.g. Cal AI) show strong brand search scores in ASO tools — social demand converts into App Store searches.910

Disagreements / caveats

  • Steve prefers ASO/Apple Ads as a first channel because organic social is hit-or-miss; Nicole’s results (300–400M monthly views) are top-percentile.6

See also

Footnotes

  1. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 03:31 — Nicole Cheung ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 04:33 — Nicole Cheung ↩ ↩2

  3. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 10:02 — Nicole Cheung ↩

  4. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 10:02 — Nicole Cheung ↩ ↩2

  5. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 11:35 — Nicole Cheung ↩ ↩2

  6. Why Most Apps Are Failing in 2026: 7 Mistakes Killing Your App Success @ 19:11 — Steve P. Young ↩ ↩2

  7. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 13:32 — Steve P. Young ↩

  8. The UGC Marketing Playbook Behind 300M+ Monthly Views @ 12:31 — Nicole Cheung ↩

  9. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 02:23 — Steve P. Young ↩

  10. The Most Important Element of App Store Optimization (ASO Keyword Research) @ 03:55 — Steve P. Young ↩