We followed what other successful companies were doing with micro-influencers and it worked better than expected.
So we 5x'd our revenue in a month by working with TikTokers that literally nobody has heard of, and honestly it worked way better than we expected.
Quick context for anyone new here: I run a company called Auralyze.ai - we're an AI-powered interview prep platform that helps people practice for job interviews. Six months ago, if you'd told me we'd be paying people with 2K followers to make skits about interview prep, I would have been skeptical. But after seeing what other companies were doing and testing it ourselves, it's become our main growth strategy.
Why we started working with creators
Look, I'm not going to pretend this was some 4D chess move. We were struggling with making our own content and needed to try something different.
I'd been seeing David Park and Roy Lee posting about working with micro-influencers, and companies like TurboLearn were clearly onto something. Meanwhile, we were over here with a ring light from Amazon thinking we could just figure out how to make viral TikToks in our spare time. Spoiler alert: we could not.
It was also a timing thing - we needed to scale our content but didn't have the bandwidth to produce everything ourselves. My co-founder Faris eventually said what we were both thinking: "Maybe we should just pay people who are actually good at this?"
Groundbreaking insight, truly.
Our very sophisticated discovery process (doomscrolling)
Okay, so our "strategy" for finding people is basically just scrolling TikTok for hours and making notes. Very professional, I know.
The whole process:
- Scroll TikTok until my eyes hurt
- Find creators with 2K followers or less who've had at least one video blow up (50-100K+ views)
- Send them a message with our offer and a cal.com link
- Have a 20-minute chat to make sure they're not completely unhinged
- Either send a contract or pretend that conversation never happened
That's literally it. No fancy tools, no targeting algorithms, no growth consultants charging us thousands to tell us what we already figured out by accident. Just me and Aryaan spending way too much time on TikTok and calling it "research."
The weird thing is, it actually works. If someone responds to our initial message, there's like a 90%+ chance they'll sign up. The catch is that most people just ignore us completely, which is fair enough but also mildly soul-crushing.
What we actually pay them (and why it works)
We pay between £20-30 base rate per video, plus a VERY CHUNKY performance bonus if they hit 1 million views. They set up a separate Auralyze account and post a minimum of 4 times a week.
The separate account thing is key - it means they're not spamming their main audience with brand content, and they can focus purely on Auralyze content without worrying about mixing it with their personal stuff.
I know that sounds low, but think about it from their perspective. These are creators with 2K followers or less who've maybe had one or two videos blow up. Most of them have never been paid to create content before. We're offering them guaranteed money to do what they're already doing, plus the chance to earn significantly more if they nail it.
Compare that to trying to work with someone with 100K+ followers who's already getting brand deals and has specific rate expectations. The math just doesn't work for a startup building an interview prep tool.
The content that actually converts
This is where it gets properly interesting. Our top performer, Aahil, basically pioneered this skit style where creators give absolutely unhinged answers to questions on our platform and then get roasted by the AI for their hilariously terrible responses.
Our best performing creator - 2 videos over 1 million views and gained 2K followers in less than a month
It sounds completely ridiculous when I describe it like this, but it absolutely slaps. The format is engaging, it shows the product in action, and it's genuinely funny enough that people share it because they want to, not because they feel obligated to. Revolutionary concept in 2025, apparently.
We've got 7 creators signed now (had to get rid of some - more on that later), and collectively they've done over 3 million views in a month. The Pareto principle is very real here: 80% of our results come from about 20% of our influencers.
Some of our other creators' accounts
The expensive lessons we learned
Our bonus structure was definitely too high initially. We were so buzzing about the potential that we basically threw money at the problem like we were VCs in 2021. But honestly? It was worth it to prove the concept and not be stingy when testing something new.
The bigger learning was about viral vs conversion, which properly did my head in for a while. Some of our best-performing videos in terms of views barely converted at all. I was genuinely panicking that we'd built this whole strategy on vanity metrics until I read this article by Roy Lee from Cluely that explained exactly this phenomenon.
Turns out viral content and converting content aren't the same thing. Shocking, I know.
The key is making sure your viral bets have a chance to convert eventually, even if they don't immediately. Some of our meme-heavy videos that got millions of views generated almost zero subscriptions initially, but they're building brand awareness that might pay off later.
Why micro-influencers actually make sense
Micro-influencers are just hungrier. They're not jaded by brand partnerships or overly concerned with maintaining some perfect aesthetic. They're willing to experiment, they respond quickly, and they actually care about making good content because this might be their shot.
Plus, their audiences trust them more. When someone with 2K followers recommends something, it feels genuine. When someone with 500K followers does it, it obviously feels like a paid partnership (because it is).
The other thing is scale. For the cost of one macro-influencer, we can work with 10-15 micro-influencers. Even if only 20% of them perform well, we're still ahead.
What we're doing next
We're doubling down this month to see if we can scale this even further. The finance niche targeting interns and graduates has been working really well for us (turns out people preparing for finance interviews love our platform), so we're going deeper there while also testing adjacent niches.
The goal is to build a proper system around this instead of just doomscrolling and hoping for the best. Though honestly, the doomscrolling has been working pretty well so far.
The bigger picture
I think what we stumbled into is something that a lot of startups could benefit from. Everyone's so focused on getting the biggest names or the most followers that they're missing this massive opportunity with creators who are actually excited to work with you.
It's not just about the money - though the economics definitely work better. It's about finding people who are genuinely interested in what you're building and want to be part of something that's growing.
Our micro-influencers feel like they're part of the team in a way that a big creator never would. They give us feedback on the product, they come up with content ideas, and they actually care about our success because it's tied to theirs.
The honest truth
Look, I'm not saying this is some revolutionary marketing strategy that's going to change everything. But it worked for us, it's working for other companies in our space, and it might work for you too.
You don't need a massive budget to test it. Start with one or two creators, see what happens, and scale from there. Just don't expect it to work immediately - like most things that are actually worth doing, it takes time to figure out what works and what doesn't.
But when it does work? It really works.
If you want to see some of our creators in action, search "Auralyze" on TikTok. Or check out our platform at auralyze.ai. Fair warning: you might end up watching interview skits for longer than you planned.