Jun 4, 2026 · 51 min · 11 segments
Drew Levin has watched over 500 million views roll in across SideShift's top campaigns. As Co-Founder and CTO, he's built the platform that powers UGC for some of the fastest-growing consumer apps on…
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Drew LevinGuest
Joseph ChoiHost
This is, like, a year and a half ago, and I made this doc, and it went viral on Twitter, and it was like, "I tried all the methods for sourcing, hiring creators," and the premise was basically you wanna find scrappy creators instead of influencers, and, like, here's what to look for.
And I didn't have SideShift on this because SideShift, like, didn't really exist yet.
I said specifically that marketplaces kinda suck because, like, none of them care about talent quality, and they just, like, scrape TikTok and then find people, cold email them, and then put them in their marketplace.
But they're all, like, e-commerce creators and, like, gifted campaign, like, beauty and fashion creators.
And then SideShift came around, and this whole doc is basically, like, obsolete now because SideShift is kind of just, like, the only [chuckles] marketplace that is good in my, in my eyes.
You helped found SideShift, so I just wanna, like, dig into your brain 'cause a lot of really interesting, super viral apps are using SideShift to get their creators.
So I think you have a really interesting view into, like, how these campaigns run internally.
Yeah, tell me a little about, about yourself and SideShift and then also just, like, who are the biggest apps running on SideShift right now?
It's been an interesting, like, past year and a half since we really pivoted into this market.
I'm more on the tech side, but I'm-- I do everything in the business as well, from customer support to customer success to, uh, sales as well even from time to time.
What we've seen is that this space has grown so much, so when Joseph put out that article a year ago, it was only, like, the small indie hackers that were doing UGC.
But every week, we see, like, one of the biggest apps or one of the biggest consumer brands in the world switch to doing UGC or at least testing it.
We're still very, very, very early, but over the next four years, I'm certain that, like, almost every big brand in the world will pivot into doing UGC.
And I'll talk about today, like, how I think brands can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to this stuff because the Fortune 500s and the big brands are always, like, two years, a year and a half behind.
This is, like, a year and a half ago, and I made this doc, and it went viral on Twitter, and it was like, "I tried all the methods for sourcing, hiring creators," and the premise was basically you wanna find scrappy creators instead of influencers, and, like, here's what to look for.
And I didn't have SideShift on this because SideShift, like, didn't really exist yet.
I said specifically that marketplaces kinda suck because, like, none of them care about talent quality, and they just, like, scrape TikTok and then find people, cold email them, and then put them in their marketplace.
But they're all, like, e-commerce creators and, like, gifted campaign, like, beauty and fashion creators.
And then SideShift came around, and this whole doc is basically, like, obsolete now because SideShift is kind of just, like, the only [chuckles] marketplace that is good in my, in my eyes.
You helped found SideShift, so I just wanna, like, dig into your brain 'cause a lot of really interesting, super viral apps are using SideShift to get their creators.
So I think you have a really interesting view into, like, how these campaigns run internally.
Yeah, tell me a little about, about yourself and SideShift and then also just, like, who are the biggest apps running on SideShift right now?
It's been an interesting, like, past year and a half since we really pivoted into this market.
I'm more on the tech side, but I'm-- I do everything in the business as well, from customer support to customer success to, uh, sales as well even from time to time.
What we've seen is that this space has grown so much, so when Joseph put out that article a year ago, it was only, like, the small indie hackers that were doing UGC.
But every week, we see, like, one of the biggest apps or one of the biggest consumer brands in the world switch to doing UGC or at least testing it.
We're still very, very, very early, but over the next four years, I'm certain that, like, almost every big brand in the world will pivot into doing UGC.
And I'll talk about today, like, how I think brands can stay ahead of the curve when it comes to this stuff because the Fortune 500s and the big brands are always, like, two years, a year and a half behind.
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