I want to give credit to a competitor.

Trybe has changed the way a lot of brands and creators think about UGC.

For the past few years, the standard model has been pretty simple.

A brand pays a creator $200, $300, $500 or more to make a video. The creator delivers it. The brand takes it from there.

Maybe the video dies after $100 in ad spend.

Maybe the brand puts $100,000 behind it.

The creator usually never knows.

Their pay stays the same either way.

Trybe challenged that.

They took a model creators already understood from TikTok Shop and applied it to paid advertising.

Make content. Let brands test it. See how it performs. Earn more when it works.

That's a major change.

And I think they deserve credit for pushing the creator industry in that direction.

What Trybe Got Right

Creators have historically had almost no visibility into what happens after their content gets delivered.

That makes it hard to improve.

It also creates a strange compensation system.

One creator can make an ad that gets almost no spend.

Another creator can make an ad that a brand scales for months.

Both might get paid exactly $300.

Performance-based compensation changes that.

If your creative keeps producing value for the brand, your earnings can continue growing with it.

It also changes the incentives for brands.

Instead of spending tens of thousands of dollars buying content before knowing what works, brands can test more creators, more hooks, more concepts and more angles.

Then they put money behind the winners.

Creators who figure out what works keep making more.

That creates a loop.

Create.

Test.

Learn.

Improve.

Scale.

Repeat.

That is where we believe a large part of UGC is headed.

But We Don't Think Fixed Fees Are Disappearing

Vidovo has historically been a fixed-fee creator platform.

We're proud of that.

Creators deserve guaranteed compensation for their time and work, and there are plenty of campaigns where a fixed fee still makes the most sense.

We're not replacing that.

We're expanding it.

We're introducing percentage-of-ad-spend opportunities, CPM payouts, performance bonuses and hybrid deals alongside traditional fixed-fee work.

A creator might want $500 guaranteed.

Another creator might want to take a chance on a performance deal.

Another might want $250 guaranteed plus additional upside when their ad scales.

Those creators should all have options.

Performance Pay Also Has Problems We Need to Solve

Performance-based compensation sounds amazing when you hear about the creator making $20,000 or $50,000 from a winning ad.

That isn't every creator.

Sometimes a creator makes content and the brand never spends meaningful money behind it.

Sometimes the creative simply doesn't work.

Sometimes the product doesn't convert.

Sometimes the brand isn't very good at paid media.

Performance compensation transfers some risk from the brand to the creator.

We shouldn't pretend otherwise.

If this model is going to become a major part of the creator economy, creators need transparency.

What percentage am I earning?

What counts toward my payout?

How much has the brand spent?

Is there a payout cap?

When do I get paid?

How long can the content run?

How much does this brand normally spend testing new creative?

Does this brand actually launch the content creators submit?

Creators should be able to answer those questions before putting serious time into an opportunity.

The Next Phase Is Bigger Than Performance Payouts

The part we're most excited about isn't simply changing a $300 payment into a 10% commission.

It's what happens when creators finally have access to the data brands have been looking at for years.

You made ten ads.

Two got almost no spend.

Three did okay.

One took off.

Why?

What was the hook?

How long did people watch?

Which audience bought?

What angle worked?

What did the comments say?

What happened when you made another version?

Now the creator can learn.

The next video becomes better.

Then the next one becomes better again.

Eventually, the creator isn't just somebody who knows how to film good content.

They know how to make ads that sell.

That creator becomes incredibly valuable.

We Think The Creator Economy Is Moving From Transactions To Partnerships

The old model was:

"Make us three videos."

The new model looks much closer to:

"Come work with our brand. Learn our customer. Make content. Look at what happens. Keep testing. If we grow together, you earn more."

That is a healthier long-term relationship when it's built correctly.

Brands get creators who actually understand their product.

Creators get repeat work, better data and potentially much greater upside.

Great creators stop being interchangeable.

Great brands stop treating creators as disposable content suppliers.

That's where we want Vidovo to go.

Trybe deserves a lot of credit for proving there is demand for this model.

They showed creators will embrace performance when they can see the upside.

They showed brands want creator programs that behave more like growth channels than one-off campaigns.

They helped move the conversation forward.

Now the industry has to make the model better.

More transparent.

More creator-friendly.

Higher quality.

Better education.

More flexibility between fixed fees and performance.

And better systems for identifying the creators and brands that are actually worth investing in.

We think there is a lot more to build.

And we're excited to build our version of it.