i want to share something about one of our students because i think it needs to be said out loud in this community... a few months ago @Stacy Parks was a stay at home mom of three in northern arizona, homeschooling her kids, supporting her husband, and quietly carrying the weight of feeling like she needed to do something more. she had spent a full year in digital marketing through network marketing and made absolutely nothing. and when you pour that much of yourself into something and see zero return it does something to your belief system. it makes you start to wonder if maybe you are just not cut out for this kind of thing.... she almost let that stop her. but she stayed open. and that is the only reason i am writing this post right now. she found UGC. she found this community. and she just did it. she started in april's UGC Games with no expectations. just a willingness to figure it out one week at a time around her kids, around her family schedule, around everything she was already carrying. and in June she made just under $5,000 from one brand!!! her husband watched the earnings go up on the platform every single day. he would look at the screen and just say... wow. because they both knew what it took to get here and they both knew what it meant for their family! the UGC games were a massive part of this. going through that challenge pushed her to show up in a way she would not have pushed herself to do alone. the competition, the accountability, the community energy. it cracked something open in her and she came out the other side knowing she could actually do this for real, which is EXACTLY why we host it. she joined the UGC games, put her absolute all in, and won. and she deserved every bit of that recognition. so if you are a mom sitting here right now wondering if this is for you. if you have tried other things and failed and you are starting to believe the story that you are just not the type of person who gets to win at something like this...

I've heard ugc creators being rejected because they don't have a media kit or a big enough following count or number, but then ugc is said to be accessible for people who have 0 following. How is everyone finding this when it comes to pitching? Do you thinking building a social following is important?

heyooo fellow creators, davee here! I just downloaded tiktok again for the first time in 6 months and sawwww an unbeleivable amount of negativity in the creator space, a bunch of creators fearmongering over how AI will take over the industry, how its too saturated, a bunch of limiting beliefs that gen xers can't do it. . . blah blah blah. wanted to just come into here and say this past month in July, I was able to book over $20k in brand gigs and an $10k for next month already secured for august, whilst working half the day , surfing with my son pretty much daily . i landed a 5 figure brand partnership with carnival crusie line, where i pretty much get paid to do ugc on their crusie, and ON TOP of that, me and my family get a free cruise around Mexico. my son (16), just got back from a regional soccer tournament and this july, he hit $5k with ugc, and now aiming to do a $10k month before his senior year of HS! i say this because in my approach, there's really never been a better time to start as a creator, whether ur 52 lke me, or a teenager like my son reading this post right now. ive always had that approach since i started ugc 4 years ago, and i have that approach 4 years later, and stil serves me to do this day. heck, i had this attitude still even after losing my entire life savings, and going $50,000 in debt, after the 2008 real estate crash. and no it wasn't always sunshine and rainbows either, i've been decently "well-off", and made a good fortune, then lost it all BIG TIME, and got completely humbled by the 2008 real estate crash , losing all of my life savings + putting me into $50,000 in debt ( that i worked to repay for 10+ years) I was the "guy" who went from "having it all" to couldn't even being able to afford for my sons field trips and being that "father" i promised i never would become. the lowest of the low was when I literally was not able to sleep at nights because of how much guilt i felt that my wife was doing hundreds of job applications daily, just so we could keep us with the mortgage, and i was missing family events like my sons just because of how badly i needed the money.

I'll close the month with the smallest big moment I have. it was thirty seconds long. a scroll. a video of a girl my age, in a bedroom that looked like mine, saying she'd made real money that month on her phone. I'd seen a hundred videos like it. I'd felt the flicker of "must be nice" and scrolled past a hundred times, and filed the feeling under things other people get to do. this time a different sentence showed up. three words. why not me. that's the whole story. there's no dramatic scene after it. I didn't cry or make a vision board. I sat there and, for the first time, instead of "must be nice," I thought "why not me," and I couldn't un-think it. I stayed up that night figuring out how the thing worked. I sent pitches the next morning, badly. everything I have came from that swap. not from talent, not a lucky break, not some resource other people don't have. from trading two words. "must be nice" became "why not me," and the whole trajectory bent. I'm telling you this small because it IS small. that's the point I want you to leave the month with. the decision that changes your life is almost never big or cinematic. it's a quiet swap in a sentence you tell yourself, on an ordinary night, that nobody witnesses. you've felt the flicker reading these all month. the "must be nice." you know the one. so. why not you. actually answer it.

Quick question for Tech UGC folks 🎈 When a brand wants a fresh account and posts, how do you handle creating the emails? New one per campaign? Multiple phone numbers for verification too? Genuinely curious how others manage this at scale