Introducing Julip - A Creator's Answer to Website Chaos

All right, everyone. Class is about to start. Take your seats. Welcome to UGC 101. The podcast about all things user generated content. All right, welcome to the UGC 101 podcast. I'm your host Nate Flake and today we have an awesome episode for you guys. We're going to talk about something that is going to save you a lot of time and heartily. So today we have Jamie from my Julep Jamie. I want to kind of dive in. Hey, I guess let's introduce you. So about yourself. Hi, I'm Jamie based in New York City and I am a solo per new. I mean, I do have designers and developers, but the business is mainly run by me. I'm sure a lot of UGC creators can appreciate that solo per new or life, the hustle of most UGC creators I meet are usually doing not just one thing, but like two to three things. Yeah. Yeah. And Julep is really designed for creators and freelancers and solo per new because I'm sure you can appreciate building a whole website nightmare and expensive and time consuming. And then the other side of the coin are using band aid solutions like the link trees, the stands, the canvas of the world and there was really nothing in the middle. So that's why Julep was born. To help you create your website and bio in 20 minutes and have people know more about you and your about page. And then you can also be on a 150 characters on Instagram and enough to tell your story, your services. So it's clear how brands can work with you. Your affiliate shop if you decide to do that. It's a visual versus link tree. We're just one, one, one, one. And then of course your portfolio, right? And I know a lot of people use canva, which is great. I love canva, but I'm sure you've seen a ton of portfolios. It can look great on desktop. And then really smushed and crunched up on mobile. Perfect. We'll always stay pristine on both desktop and mobile, which was really important for us and customize ability, get your color. So it's really great tool and people have been loving it. Love it. Can't wait to ask some questions about it. So I want to ask like, first of all, when we when we started chatting like was this. Did you initially design Julep and I guess to get people caught up. Julep's essentially going to be like your alternative to trying to use four other tools, right? And we'll kind of get into that. I want to talk about like how did you. Did you initially build this for the intent of UGC or was it like freelancers or was it like actors or what is it before right? Like I want to hear that backstory. How did you fall into Julep? Let me tell you this idea. I've been working on for over a year and a half. And the first business I ever had the biggest mistake I made and this is for anyone. Talk to your customers. So the initial idea that I haven't even told the story to anyone. The initial idea that I actually had was making because my past businesses are in the pet space. I'm a crazy dog mom. Was actually to make a pet LTK because actually LTK doesn't do partnerships with pet brands. It's beauty fashion and things like that. So then I started talking to a lot of pet creators nine out of 10 times. They're like, I'm just using it to document my dog. And I was like, would you pay for something like this? They're like, no, I'm just like a hobby. It's fun. And I was like, okay, the pet creators. They have to be super serious about it to invest in a tool where to LTK's point like it's beauty and fashion will invest that time and energy. So then I started talking to those people. I started talking to freelancers and solar printers because that's what I was doing. And I was like, this is a great tool. Yeah. And then I spoke to you GC creators and every single one of them was like, can I have this now? Can I have this now? Can I have this now? Which is and also like, I don't care how much it costs. They were just so jazzed. So I really honed in on you GC. And then again, as an entrepreneur, you're just talking to customers all day long. And I actually discovered it's really great for you GC creators. Like it's like Chef's kiss. But as we just said, you GC creators are doing so many different things. So it's also great for freelancers. If you're an interior designer or a social media manager, a consultant, you can house everything in one. Actually, someone recently signed up and they put used it for their personal brand because she does wellness. She has a granola company. She also does you GC and I was like, granola company wellness. You see like so many hats. So it's really a great place to host everything. And it's just so easy to set up and it's really beautiful. So that's awesome. That's the story. So when you started doing it, like you started building, I guess before that, what were you doing before that? Like were you in? Did you or you or you GC creator yourself or how did you even fall into like? Like, like, like, so my first business was it's called dog spotted and I like I mentioned in New York and it was to help pet parents connect with that Nareans and get actual real advice versus the scary Googles. And a lot of pet businesses were coming to me about marketing. And that's how my second business was born, which is based on which is teaching pet businesses how to market specifically on Instagram and the biggest complaints I heard website so expensive and annoying. And then the by product clients were like, I need to get people to promote my product. And that's kind of how I learned about you GC was through my pet clients. And then taking that website problem and the UGC and learning more about the community kind of put it together and I was like, oh, this could be an all in one solution because you really only have two options, right as a UGC creator or freelancer you either can have the link trees, the canvas, the calories, the all these different tools or a fold one website. There's nothing in the middle and that's what tulips sets. Yeah, a lot of people don't I mean, I'm one of them where I haven't put in the time or the money to like get a legit website built, you know, like it's just it's just like another thing that's that's on my to do list that you know with all, especially with how busy a lot of us, you see creators get like we never really take time to work on the business. We're just in the business all the time. So that's really cool. So when I want to know where did you get the name Julep and I've asked you that. So the story is the least sexy story and everyone's like you need to make the story better, but I think the thing. Yeah, but the truth is real and it's very busy. So I mentioned my first business was dog spotted my second one was be spotted. So I was actually going to call Julep spotted like you've been spotted. But because this is a tech business and it could become very scalable. I was like I'm going to hire a trademark lawyer and solidify the name. Let me tell you what so tech. It's really hard and when I said spotted she was like no. So I was just scrolling and trying to get in spell. The biggest thing for me was I didn't want it to be gendered like if you think about it like for example, stand store stand is like a man's name. Yeah. So I wanted it short easy to spell and not gender gendered and I came across actually have you ever heard of the drink, men Julep's like from the Derby. Yeah, I was literally going to ask if you got it from Disneyland's. That's my jam. Yeah, they're so good. But what's interesting is I thought Julep was spouted in JULIP but it's actually EP. So I was like great. It's not even a real word. And then I said trademark lawyer and she was like yep. So that's the story. I could you not not sexy but real. Yeah, I'm glad I'm glad I linked back to the men Julep. That's sweet. Yeah. So tell me about like as you're building at you talking about I love how you're talking about talking to your customers. Right. I talked we talked to creator to ask a couple of weeks ago. They're very, very involved in like development of like in there like UDC project management tools and things like that. I love that and I've already heard good feedback from my own community about like how they operate and I love that kind of customer fork is like at the end of the day UDC customers are you DC creators are your customers. So like go through kind of some of the problems that you found as you were starting to do some of these discovery conversations. I know you and I had one a few months ago as well. Yeah, absolutely. So I think the biggest mistake just for other people that want to do market research is actually a really great book if anyone's a nerd burger like me it's called the mom test. And it's all about having questions that aren't leading to get the answer that you want but also asking strangers the whole premise is like your mom's going to say what you want to hear. If they're a good mom. But in terms of what I learned right is UDC is still a very new thing right so I think a lot of people are very overwhelmed like where to start. And again they're using these band aid tools from link tree and canva and all these different things. So a question I kept hearing about canva was you know it looks great on desktop but then on mobile it looks really smushed and unprofessional. But I don't want to build a website which this is just a side note that I can't stop talking about because I think it's really interesting. Have you ever heard of the term zero clicks. So in terms of websites I think websites are going to start going down because people look fine websites on Google right. Now you know when you're googling you get that AI summary at the top of the time. Yeah so annoying. But if you think about you have the AI summary then you have the sponsored content then you have the organic content so people are literally getting zero clicks on their website now because Google's whole mission is we're going to get to the answer as fast as possible so they just go to the AI summary and then click your website anymore. Yeah yeah so you're not in that if you're not in the AI summary your. your script. Right. But the Positive is people are looking for creators now on Google. They're looking on social. On social. Yeah. So it doesn't even matter. So to build a whole blown website for your social makes zero sense and that's where drill up really fits. So one people are like, I was thinking of doing a square space or a wicks, but it was so hard. It was so tedious. It's so expensive. And then the other thing I kept hearing was, I'm not a designer. Like, I don't know how to make it pretty right. So with ours, we already have pre-done templates. And you literally can't mess it up. Like we've set limitations. So it doesn't look too long or too smushed. And people also love that it's all in one because you don't want to send them to 10 different places. And that's the problem with the link trees of the world. If you think about it, if you have link tree, you still need something else because link trees just to send people places. Yeah, just a middle man. And then one other thing I kept hearing from people was about affiliate marketing is with link tree again. It's just link, link, link, link, link. And obviously you do see is not necessarily about your followers and getting clicks. But that doesn't mean you can't make some extra dollars and a lot of you GC creators get affiliate links. So on Julep, there's two really neat things you can do. One is you can organize the actual product versus sending them, for example, tonight key.com. You send them right to the shoe, because less clicks, maze more conversions. Yeah. But in addition to that, we have a pin section where you can have up to five products. So let's say Nike approached you and they said, hey, we want you to create a real for Nike, but also here's an affiliate. You could say, hey, my fans, my followers love sneakers. You can sell that pinned product real estate as ad real estate and make recurring revenue on top, even if you don't have a big following. And that includes like digital products too, right? Correct. You could do that. We're actually this is a secret, but I want to share with your fans. So we launched not too long ago. But before the end of the year, we're going to be launching three new features. We're going to be launching the ability to collect emails via freebie. Two sell digital products directly from Julep, as well as book a call with gets brands to book calls with you or sell your time as well. But that'll be at the end of the year. That's sweet. That's awesome. Yeah. So the other thing that a lot of you DC creators that I'm talk to, I talk to like a lot of them came from either Amazon influencer or TikTok shops. That's probably another good use case right or like, hey, you can link your. What do they call it? Amazon storefront. Yes. So they could they could do two things. One, they could just link the entire storefront. But I find if you think about it, if I posted this blue top on my stories and said it's in my Amazon storefront, you then have to click to go to my bio. Then you have to click the Amazon. Then you have to find within the Amazon categories, the products. So what we've done is you can link the individual product and organize it so it's easy to find. You're getting the clicks in half, which will lead to more purchases. Yeah. And if you limit it to five, it's like you really got a hone in on like what you're actually wanting to sell. Right. You know, like just have this laundry list of stuff. Total. And that's just the pin section below that you can organize as many categories as you'd like and as many products there. So it's really unlimited. It's just the pin section. You can only have five. Got it. Okay. Cool. How did you guys come up with like going through and at the end of this episode, I'm going to link. Obviously like the Julia like sign up page and a couple examples, including my own my my Julia page. How did you come up with like the color, scheming and all that stuff? Like did you just go like, hey, we're going to start small and kind of expand out from there. When you say, like my brands are like how how I can go in and customize the colors. You have a bunch of. Oh, yes. That's where I as a non designer person, I was super appreciative of. Yeah. Tell the girl through that story. How to do like even begin that process. I love that. So I don't know if you've noticed, because I think you're also using Stan. A lot of people are using Stan, which is really expensive. They charge 29 a month and then their next one is 99 and right now during our founders pricing, it works out to 999 so 10 bucks a month if you pick annual or monthly is 1499 so we're more than half of Stan. And Stan, you actually can't pick your exact colors. They have their preset colors. So what we did is one for the people that are like design. I don't know. I use the ones I hire to design or to pick complimentary colors. You're more than welcome to use that. But in addition, and most platforms don't offer this is like links you don't think offers it or begins or Stan. Do you know what a hex code is and I can explain it for the listeners. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, explain it. A lot of people here like new new UGC creators. Yeah. So for example, pink, there's hot pink. There's light pink. There is dark pink. Right. There's so many shades of pink and greens and blues. So a hex code is the exact identifier. It's a mix of letters and numbers to get your exact shade of pink, blue or green. And there's a really great website. We could link it. But also it is called coolers and it's a pallets totally free where it shows complimentary colors and you'll see the hex code there and you can just copy and paste it. So if you have a really specific aesthetic and color story. Immediately in two clicks put it into Juleb versus having to just get stuck with what link tree or stands for offers you can truly make a customizable to you and have it stand out. That's awesome. I love it. Yeah, love how easy it was to set up to. Let's talk about. So like as we I'm kind of going to go back to our first discovery, go ask me like some of the problems that I was having is like trying to get a portfolio up and running and things like that. As you were designing this was the thought like the simpler the better right like like let's make it stupid simple for people to set up. And then I like go through that process right like kind of give kind of give some background on that and like why why you pick that and then and then how it's helping because I know you guys have a bunch of people already using Juleb and it's been great for them and how it's helping conversions. Absolutely. So I'll be honest I've been as I mentioned my very first website was actually WordPress, which is not for the faint of heart. I did not build it. I did not set up I paid a developer and then they were like, oh, and you can add blogs on the backend. And I was like this looks like it was made in 1933. I do not know what I'm doing. And then anyone that's using beacons on the backend is actually quite overwhelming like there is easily like three options on the left side to choose from and it's like I don't know what any of this is. So less is always more. So when we designed it I am I'm tech savvy to a point. But I wanted it that if my mother saw it is in her 70s she could easily set it up. So I just think less is more and that's why we started with the features we have now which is super comprehensive as a website and bio and then we're not even adding too much in terms of like buttons. I guess if you will to add those new features I mentioned it's going to be smoothly integrated and it'll be really, really easy. And also who's time I was literally on the phone with someone earlier when I asked, oh, I noticed you don't have a website. She's using canva and she's like, yeah, I don't like my canva. But the website is really hard. I actually spent a week physically going to like a school to learn how to build a website. And I'm like, that's insane. So you're losing time. Like not getting business because you're going to website school and then I was like, or you could just use Julep and set it up in 20 minutes and to the end. This is for you GC creators as well because again, I think a lot of you GC creators are brand consultants, social media managers. Here's a really neat idea as another way to make revenue. As I said, Julep is so easy to build genuinely 20 minutes. You can offer to build your clients there. Julep and charge them and say, I'll build you a website in a day. Charge of three $500 and for them, it'll be easy peasy to edit. So it's another way to monetize. Yeah, and then they can get in and they know that's like the biggest problem about websites too is. And which is like the biggest reason I haven't had mine, custom made or anything by a contractor or something because I don't want to be like completely handcuffed to that contractor for the rest of my life. Right. Because anytime you have to make a change, it's not like, hey, you can go in there and fix it now. You go in there and you're like, oh, I this, this is Spanish, you know. Literally. And then your charge, they're like, well, even if it's a 10 minute fix, where you have to charge you minimum an hour and then you're spending $300 to get like a word changed. Yeah, that's wild. That's wild. Talk about the tab. So I like how I like how Jule up and then again, for listeners, you're some of this is going to be lost until you actually go and see what these look like until you go to the show notes and see these links. Okay. So go to those, go to the show notes at the end of this and all kind of go through that later. But Julep is is organized by tab. My favorite thing is how you can custom like most, most softwares or most web apps. It's like, hey, these things are set in stone. You got to work within this framework. Totally. I like how you guys have made everything drag and drop and I like how you have made all the tabs customisable. So if you want to start with your portfolio and you want to lead with that because you're a UDC creator. And the affiliate stuff is whatever you don't care. You can start with your portfolio. I'm a you, I hate this term. I'm like a coach right the UDC coach my about a community. And so like I'm leading with a section that I've named learn, right. And it's like my fiber pro course is in there first because that's like my that's I'm trying to lean more into the coaching and less than the UDC now. Although still I still do like 95% of my revenue through UDC, but it's nice how you can customize the tabs and then you can drag and drop the tabs how you want as well. Yeah, 100% and again, it's super mobile and desktop. friendly. It's been really, really cool to your point to see how different people are customizing their jewel lips and how different they are. There's two really interesting examples that I've seen. So one woman is more for her personal brand. She's a professor and New York Times bestselling author and she didn't have products like affiliate links that she wanted to promote. So she actually, and I can link her jewel lips so people could see it. She's actually using the Shop tab to promote her podcast episodes. It's really interesting. And then another girl, and you don't have to, there's so for everyone that checks out your lip, there's four tabs that you can use, but you could use three. You could use two. You could use one. It's complete. You can just hide the page. And then the other girl, she's a travel creator and she's actually selling a retreat. And before she was using a link tree type tool and all she could put was the name of the trip and link to her stripe. So people didn't know what the trip included. What was it going to be like? No, no description or anything. Nothing. Because it was a little more pictures too. Nothing. It was actually crazy if you're going crazy. And it was nice. For her, in this country, you'd like to look out the pictures if you want. Literally, and it's not cheap. She's charging like 1100 euros or pounds or something. Anyway, now within Julep, her whole services page says group trip. The first thing is the retreat with a picture or short description. A button that says join us when you click that. It's a full description of the trip. A link to the itinerary. Oh, that's really cool. Connects to stripe and then below it, she has testimonials from the trip and FAQs about the trip. So it's just so cool to see the different use cases of Julep. It's so customizable. Yeah. Yeah. Like that. Well, as you're saying that, I'm like, it's not even, you didn't build this for UGC creators originally. And it seems like it's going to be more than just UGC creators using this, right? Like any free lancer, web design person or any type of digital service you offer you could use this too. 100 if you are doing business online, especially if you're a service provider of any kind, this is a great tool for you. It's funny. And I don't know what your thoughts are. I've looked at some brands and they're using Linktree. There's this company I found because I love Shark Tank and there's this guy, this company called Barbell and they make jeans for men that like work out and have like insane thighs like Treeton thighs. And I went to their Instagram and they have like 100 or 200,000 followers and their Linktree's horrendous. It is so bad. And I'm like, you're a product. You want to see the pants, you know? And I was like, brands could even use it because the shop is so visual and they could tell their story of like, we were, you know, these big gym men and now we need jeans that fit our thighs. And so it's just, I think the importance thing to is we're all visual. So I see when it comes to shopping too and portfolios and you know, all that good stuff. Yeah, that's awesome. I want to change gears a little but an ask you about where you think some like obviously you're in the middle of building this. You've already gotten customers on this thing as live. This isn't like a MVP or a concept or anything like that. Where do you, you're already obviously building in features that are coming at the end of the year. Yeah. For lead magnets and things like that. Where do you see this space going in five years? I love to ask that question. Especially like right? You wouldn't, you wouldn't have invested all your time and sweat and tears and money into invest in building this. If you didn't think there was some longevity there. So I want to get your thoughts. Gonna put you on the hot seat a little bit. I love it. So two things. One, I think our world is only going to get more online. I don't think we're not going to not be online. Yeah. So I'm investing in that. There's only going to be more creators that are going to be added to the economy. And from the service perspective, I hear from so many people being like, I want passive income. I want to work from home, right? And that's why those new features come into play to help them have it all in one place. In five years, I think honestly creator economy is going to be taking a lot more seriously as a real profession. And people maybe they'll be creating. I mean, you offer a course. There's creator school, right? And that's such an important skill because, oh man, I'm sure you've seen it. Some creative GC creators are like, woof, this is rough. And it's hard to, I mean, there's a lot of, there's a lot of us, right? Which is like, I'm part of that problem. I'm bringing a lot of it. I mean, it's not a problem. But I'm bringing a lot of people in to like, Hey, this is something anybody can do. And for some people, it's going to be, this is a three to five hundred dollar a month extra on top of my income. And I'm like, okay, doing a few videos. But then some people it's like going to be their full time gig, right? So and I want to go back, not to cut you off on this, but something you said is interesting. So going back to your pet, let's go back to the pet stuff. Sure. When you were talking to brands and this is, this is going to link back to the five year thing. Okay. So when you're talking to brands and trying to tell them how to market their pet products. Yeah. And you're having to educate them on what you GC even is. Right. How many like give or take percentage? How many of them had any idea what you just he was. And this was a like a year ago, a year and a half ago. Yeah. No, I was still doing it. Um, I would say the new, they like knew what you GC was, but they didn't know the name of it. Like they would say, oh, I sent free, I'm making it up treats to 10 dog creators. Yeah. Yeah. They would probably say influencers, even if they were micro. Yeah. Um, but I don't think they understood the new once right of if the video was on the brands page only versus it being on the influencers page, right? Because that's the big. That's not an awful. Yeah. That's not you GC. If you're sending product for someone to post, that's, that's influencer or micro influencer or whatever they call them, you know, right. Exactly. I think I'm sure everyone here knows what you GC is, but for the newbies, right? People pay a lot of money to influencers because they want to leverage their audience where you you see is taking the content, putting it on the brands page because I always explain and like, think about back in the day, he's brands would have to hire a studio models, videographer, photographer, props. It is so much better and more affordable to do. You see, and you get more diversity. It's just, I love you GC. I think it's for congruent. Yeah. And then you get it in mass too for the same budget. And like, even those people like you're sending gifted, we call those gifted collabs, right? We're not getting paid. I told you know, if you're a brand new to you GC creator, that's just good reps for you like getting, getting some practice. Um, no shame in taking gifted collabs when you first start out, but it's funny because like you look at like it, as I might kind of imagine it, like if I was a micro influencer and I had 30,000 followers doing a gifted collab, like that's wild, right? Yeah. And like I won't even, I won't even do that as a GC creator now. And so that's interesting to see. And that's part of that was like, okay, there's so many, because a lot of people say this space is too saturated. Like, oh, there's so many. But I think it's the people that are just like when you're in UGC, that's all you're getting served up on your algorithm is you GC creators. But then you take us, like go grab your spouse's phone or your friend's phone, scrolling their TikTok, you're not going to sing a single thing about UGC. So I think it's still so new. And a lot of people don't get that. Like, yes, there's a lot of creators in your little world because that's all you see on your socials because that's who you are. But like as a whole, it's still kind of in its infancy, I would say, like there's so many brands that have no idea what it is. One million percent. And I think the one thing that UGC creators is a way to get more deals from brands is be really, really clear on where you are in your life. So for example, on Julep in your about page, I would share it. And I've spoken to brands who have shared this with me. I wish I knew when people were getting engaged, for example. So if there's any like wedding brands or engagement or bachelor at or bachelor party, right? Like, if you put a near about page like, I just got engaged, we're getting married in May 26, like wedding brands and confined you and know you're in that stage of life, right? So making it easy and clear, like, do you focus mostly on vegan makeup? Do you do tech? Like the more in the issue of versus saying, I do everything, it'll be much easier for brands that, oh, I want to work with this guy. Yeah. No, I agree. Putting a little like location, things like that, like the muge about yourself, people know brands know the more they can leverage that about you. And then that's one thing. So I've recently joined Reddit because I've heard that's where to be especially for you GC. Do you know wild? Do you know how many times I see brands complaining and like, where is your email? So again, in Julep, you can highlight your email in the very top and there's multiple points because if you make it difficult to reach out and just contact you, they're going to move on to the next guy. Yeah. Yeah. Don't bury your email at the very, very bottom of a portfolio link, right? And here that's like right. I'm looking at my example on the other screen right now. It's like right. The huge male or what do they call them? Envelope. Yes. What are those things? From the center. Physical male. Yeah. Yeah. There's a big email icon right there, which is perfect. Yeah. And you can put your location, talk about location. I have a pen right there that says you talk like right. Because you get the bet like people don't understand like, why do I put my location? And a lot of people are like, especially the older creators, like they're worried about like giving their address out and stuff like. They want to come to your house and rob your house. Right. But also don't put your address. Put Utah for example. Yeah. Put Utah. But then like, yeah, it's okay if brands get your address at some point. But the reason I put Utah is so then people know that I have access to the mountains and things like that. And I talked about this on other podcasts. I a lot of brand, a lot of creators don't realize that them being them A is like just you you being you and looking how you are in your age and color pair or your lack of hair, that's going to get you 90% of the way there anyways because people are going to reach out based on that. And then the other 10% is just making sure you create good content, right? Location goes into that 90% too. And so you may be, and I can't do any paddleboarding in Florida videos because I don't live in Florida. I don't have access to that beach, but if you're in Florida, like, "Hey, you've already there for a lot of brands." And so I think people don't get that. But yeah, I got a message today, right? Before we hop down this podcast actually from somebody that's like, "Hey, there's companies looking for a bulk greater and I don't own any bulk people, so I sent them to you." Oh my god, sweet. Amazing. Do you know what's interesting? And do you know what's an interesting hack too? Travel brands don't want to pay creators to travel to places. So for example, if a travel business was like, "We really want to feature this cafe in Utah." Yeah. You could just bring you there. Why schlep some other creator to Utah when you're already there. So I bet a lot of travel companies are like, "Oh, I want to find a creator that's in Utah." And so they're having to pay to fly them to host them in a hotel where I can send you. Yep, 100%. Yeah, that's a great point. So talking about, so we're talking about the tabs. We've talked about the portfolio stuff. I want to talk about another tab on there that is interesting too. So you have your products, which you can list your products out. And then the Portfolio tab. So this is where I think this is going to be, this is the thing that kind of sold me on Jewel-Up, right? It's like, okay, my portfolio sucks. It's not good. I haven't updated it in a year. I need to update it. Like how easy is it to just throw videos into this portfolio? Like how do, like can you section them off? Go into that a little bit. Absolutely. So two things that I think really differentiates us from Canva is, I'm sure you've seen this. You know when Canva, when you have your videos, one, you have to upload the video onto Canva and then format it. But also with Canva, you're just scrolling for days to find the video you want. Like I think people are going to get carpal tunnel with all the scrolling for Canva. A lot of people put a lot of videos. I have also. But it's some of the bad thing that you have so many videos. It's just the formatting requires the brand to scroll for days. So what we've done is two things. One, the way you can upload the video is you can either, as long as the link is public, you can go to your Instagram or the brands Instagram copy, the URL of the, of the reel or the TikTok or whatever. You literally just copy and paste it and it'll label like fitness content or whatever you want. And it'll go right there. Then as you see on Canva, right, they'll have beauty, tech, fashion. So you have the cat, you can add the categories. So there's this girl. I can send you hers so people can see Alana who did a really great job of this. So I think she has like seven categories and they're horizontal. So all the brand has to do is just click like once or twice to see it. And then when they click that category, then the videos are there. And then there's just a click below the video. So you could have 10 videos under a category for example. And if for example, a lot of UGC creators are using their videos for ads, right? So maybe it's not so easy to just copy and paste a link from your Instagram or the brands. As long as and most people for my understanding with UGC, your videos are either hosted on Google Drive or Dropbox. Yeah. If the link is public, you can just copy and paste it and it's right there. So it literally takes seconds. Yeah, that's what I did because a lot of people don't, I mean, some like I'll post like UGC examples for my community, but I don't ever it's pretty rare that a brand like wants me to post an on my own account. I don't know if that's gonna be better. So I don't have a lot of UGC examples on my own account, but like to your point. And I think I actually asked you about this a couple weeks ago and I was building mine. Yeah. Like I have all mine on Google Drive, like right? Portfolio. Before I had a portfolio, I only had a Google Drive folder called Portfolio. And like hopefully they're all still there, right? And so I just link them. The only thing I'll say is if you as you're building this, if you're listening again, I know there's not there's a lot of people on here that aren't tech savvy and that's okay. Just make sure you go into Google Drive and change the share settings to anyone can anyone with the link can view, right? Because otherwise it'll just give you a so an error. And there's actually Instagram. It's quite annoying. They just added a new feature that because it's a website, you need to make sure that it's the website embed is turned on. So anyone listening and I can add this to the show notes, but if you go to Instagram, you go to settings and then it's a share and reuse. If you scroll to the bottom, it says web and badge. Just make sure that's turned on turned on. Okay. Are you ever going to add this came up in my community a couple days ago? Sure. There's someone in our community that shares YouTube links to YouTube shorts, but she has them just she has them listed, but not publicly faced if that makes sense. So you can publicly get to it if you have the link, but they don't come up on her page. Are you ever going to add YouTube to that YouTube YouTube is added. It's and it plays right inside the example of Sandollana. She's using YouTube shorts, but I don't believe it needs to be public. Okay. Got it. Got it. You're also fine. Like if you have your examples on YouTube, but exactly and you can add photos. So for example, like carousels, you can add that as well. Oh, cool. That's sweet. Yeah. Because a lot of people on their on that you'd you see photography is huge or they wanted to show pictures of what they look like and think a lot like obviously right or if they have like there's something that are you to see credit or suppose they do some modeling on the side or something. Yeah. I was just talking to someone else about this. This woman that recently signed up. She is amazing. She has she does wellness. She has a granola brand. Yeah. And she's a UGC creator and she said to me she signed up and she reached on. She's like, this is so amazing because I do so many different things and I didn't know where to put it. And now she was able to put it on one place. So anyone could know what she's all about and all the amazing. So she just tabs them out depending on like ones. UGC ones like my store. No, she put it all in one. Got like in the in the tabs though or how does she separate. Yeah. So she focused the her services. I think on UGC her about page has all the information and then shop. She put her granola. So it was really clever. I'll link else on that one to you. That's cool. That's cool. Yeah. I'll link all these examples on the note. You can see them. Awesome. Well, I wanted to ask you a couple more questions as you're building out this product. Yeah. What was one thing that you rent like a snack you rent into or something like a problem that you that you found that was hard to solve. I love asking that from just from like a project management inside. Are you talking like a technical problem that happened or like a problem like building it like a problem that like UGC creditors were having that you were like, okay, initially you didn't build that you're like, oh crap, I need to add that like something you didn't think of. Oh. You're like, there's a lot. Yeah, literally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the hardest thing I think would definitely be the portfolio because it's the most dynamic because adding the videos and adding the text. So honestly, I cannot tell you how like I'm not exaggerating. I think I've had over 500 conversations. Um, and I would show them. Jewel up and I'd be like, what do you think? Like, give me your honest advice. Like you will not hurt my feelings. Yeah. And a big thing was like, oh, I wish it had this. Oh, I wish it had that. There are some people that, um, you know, take a grain of salt, but actually I know she was on your podcast at a trend. Um, I spoke with her about it. And one thing that she said that was really interesting when you're sharing it something for so long, you don't even notice. Um, when we, the way we had the shop and the services set up like the flow of adding it to be honest was a little backwards. Yeah. Um, and trend was like, you know, if you flip it, it's actually less steps. And I was like, oh my god. So it's again, I think the biggest problem founders have and I've had friends. This has happened to where they get so stuck in their ways and they don't leave their ego about the door. I'm creating a product for you, the UGC creators, the freelancers. So yeah, hearing this advice is so helpful. So I guess just making sure it's efficient and right, but I'm so lucky that I have people like you, Nate and Tran and others to give me honest feedback so that I can build the best product. Yeah. No, I love it. The community is super awesome. And like, I think that even that's like great advice, even if you're not building a tech product right? No, yeah. Like your own, like I, that was just at Tran's Amsterdam event a few weeks ago. And like I feel like I have a pretty good handle on like making videos at this point. I've been over a thousand videos. They're so good. And, but now I like, but then you get someone to try and who's like next level, right? And you're like, okay, can you look as like you said, once you're in something for so long, you start to get blinders, you start to get lazy, you start to like get complacent. And then you have someone that's like, you always want to surround yourself with people that are way cool. That's the only reason I have this podcast to be honest. Like I want to learn from people that are way cooler and better than me. And so it's, it's good to like get a second third fourth set of eyeballs on stuff, which is why I'm like a huge believer in communities as well as like, dude, get feedback, right? Like I think my videos are cool. But then, you know, you talk to someone else like, no, they're not that good. You got to do this and this and this. You're like, okay, cool. Like now humble a little bit like let's get back to work. So I love that, that whole mentality of like getting other people to look at your stuff. And so if you're, you're like, hopefully if you're not a UGC grader listening to this, you're confused on your listing. But if you're a UGC grader, like that's great advice. Okay, even if you're not in the community, if you don't want to pay for a course, totally cool. I talk about that all the time. Like I don't you do see coaches they don't care if you pay for communities, they want you to just start UDC. 'Cause it's great, right? And so if you don't have a community, at least surround yourself with other UDC creators that you can get to know that you can start having them bounce feedback off of your videos. 'Cause you're gonna keep making the same trash videos thinking they're great and they're never gonna, you're gonna never improve, right? - Yeah. - And so that's awesome advice. - Thank you, yeah. I think we all, people typically create solutions because they have the problem. So they're like, oh well, I know how to build this. But there's so many other problems that you might not even know about. And then your product can stand out because you actually talked to your customers. - Yeah, yeah, love that. And then that's a good UDC. Less than two is like learning what, like if you're doing an ad or you're doing like a retainer for a brand too, right? Like it's good to see who your customers are to know, like, hey, this is not gonna hook them if they don't care about this thing or this is not gonna be a good call to action or knowing who your audience is too. So that's great lesson all around. - 100% high agree. I love it. - Well, wrap it up, I super appreciate you, Jamie. Do you have any last words with advice to any UDC creators? You've talked to hundreds of them, any words of advice from somebody who came from like, kind of the more the marketing side outside the UDC world? - I think, and I say this about UDC creators or anyone that's starting, at the end of the day, being a UDC creator, you're a business owner, right? If you don't work, you're not getting paid, right? That's the life of being an entrepreneur versus that nine to five where if you do a good job, you'll get paid every two weeks. This is my advice and I think you'll only fail if you stop. - Yeah. - Consist, and I was so cliche to say consistency. And I'm not even just saying obviously be consistent and continually post content, but just consistently shop for your business and network. And honestly, the UDC, I've been in a lot of different industries, the UDC space, everyone is so nice. - Yeah, it's actually crazy. It's like a cult, honestly, it's like little scary. I'm way over someone nice. - Like the nice cult. - You don't want to sign up for something. Yeah, yeah, like this is weird, but I love it. Yeah, I'm just way over the other shoe to drop. I'm like, something's up with these people, but everyone's insanely nice. - Lovely. So I'd say usually reach out a really, I actually went to a networking event the other day and they gave the best advice. 'Cause I was like, I want to talk to more people, both in UDC and in freelancing, but so many people get these spam messages. Here's the tip. What is the number one thing people like to talk about? - I'm self. - Exactly. So keeping a short and sweet, whether it's a DM on Instagram or TikTok or LinkedIn. So for example, let's say I was called DM a uni, a great message could be, "Hi, Nate, I love what you're doing with your UDC 101 podcast. "It's so cool." I'd love to learn more about you and your journey and how you got started. Let me know if you can be down for a virtual coffee chat. Most people are like, "Oh, I want to talk about me." - Yeah. - Sure. - Yeah, exactly. - And doing this, you could do the same with brands. Being like, "Oh my God, you started this really cool, "fizzy drink company. "How'd you get started? "How'd you come up with that great fruit lemon flavor?" Like, people love talking about themselves and just making it about them and listening. And the best part is once you get them talking, they'll usually talk about, you know, I've also had this problem and then you can insert yourself as the solution. - Yeah, love that. That's great advice. That's awesome. Well, I appreciate it, Jamie. I mentioned this earlier. I'm going to link not only the sign up for Julep, but also a couple of those example profiles so you can kind of see including my own guys. Be nice, be nice. - It's gorgeous, guys. It's gorgeous. - I went back and I had a lot of analysis processes on my journey this color. But so it's gonna be in the show notes. So if you go no matter where you are watching this or I guess listening to this podcast, go into the notes, you'll see the links there. Jamie, it's been a pleasure. I super appreciate you. And then hopefully we'll have another chat. Like maybe like, you know, a few years down the road, see how crazy this space is. - Hi. - That's awesome. - I would love that a little before and after. And thank you again for having me. This was so much fun. And you've built such an amazing community. So I'm so happy to be a part of it. - No, I appreciate you. All right, have a great day. And we will catch you guys on the next episode. Appreciate it. (upbeat music)